The curtain finally came down on eighteen years of 'Tory rule' with such force that even the victors gasped in amazement. Only the pollsters preened themselves as Peter Snow's swingometer pointed ever further left through the long night of May Ist. Labour's traditional day bore a bumper harvest indeed for Tony Blair, his merrie men and his record breaking women MPs.
Labour ended up with 418 MPs and an overall majority (179) larger than the whole of the Conservative parliamentary party (164). doubled their numbers in the Commons with 46 seats.
In the event it turned into one of the most one-sided general elections since 1832 even though Labour achieved their landslide with two million less votes than the Conservatives in 1992 who won then with only a majority of 23. It is not difficult to see why Labour won so convincingly.
The Conservatives, bidding for a fifth term, were not only bedevilled by 'sleaze', incidents of which erupted like suppurating sores on a pox-ridden body too often to be ignored. 'They were and still are hopelessly split over Europe - John Major as Prime Minister was caught between a rock in the portly shape of Ken Clarke, his Europhile Chancellor whom he feared to cross, let alone sack and a hard place; the Euro-sceptic wing of the Party which grew in strength and influence as the campaign progressed.
So instead of taking a tough line for example by ruling out entry to a single currency, for which there appears to be no conceivable benefit for most participants now or in the future, Mr. Major adopted a 'wait and see' approach. Like the early member of the Prune family who wore a pink rose during the Wars of the Roses, John Ma.jor was assailed by both sides. For in common with the hapless Mr, Bossom in Churchill's view, he was 'neither one thing nor the other'.
The electorate had heard enough of the Conservatives 'tough' stance on Europe. People knew that our fishing industry has been decimated and our fish stocks depleted, in some cases such as North Sea cod, to the verge of extinction. They knew that foreign fishermen, profiting from British contributions under the Common Fishing Policy, now fish our waters in ever increasing numbers. It is common knowledge that 50% of catches have to be thrown back dead, usually because they are too rare to land!
With the beef ban still in place for the foreseeable future while hundreds of thousands of healthy cattle have been slaughtered for political reasons at a cost of over £3. 5 billion, no one would have bet on Mr, Hogg, then Agriculture Minister, fighting his way out of a paper bag.
After all it was a so-called Conservative Prime Minister, Ted Heath, who with sleight of hand in the Commons, took Britain into the Common Market in 1973. Heath swore blind that there would be 'no erosion of national sovereignty' even though he had been warned to the contrary by his Lord Chancellor. Was he blind or did he deliberately deceive Parliament and nation? Why have successive governments persisted with this illusion?
Margaret Thatcher was persuaded, against her better judgment to sign the Single European Act in 1986 and John Ma.ior resorted to a Vote of Confidence to force his unwilling Euro-sceptics back into line to approve his signature to parts I and II of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993.
It was thus the Conservatives who surrendered British supremacy of law in our own land and the right to run our economy for the benefit of our people. It is largely the Conservatives who have allowed a constant deluge of directives and diktats from Brussels to swamp our small businesses and lap at the very portals of our institutions. Nearly 23,000 have been issued since 1973, most of which are upheld with misplaced zeal by our growing army of petty officials.
Yet only eight days before the election, John Major went on bended knee, with misty eye and tremulous voice appealing to the electorate on every TV channel "Trust me on Europe ,,,. I am the only person who can protect Britain's interests in Amsterdam." A week earlier he had claimed;
"We are now the Referendum Party! If only he had done so pre-Maastricht,
Up and down the country his faithful henchmen took their cue. More than 250 'born again Sceptics' wrote their own election addresses along similar lines; "I want a Referendum on Europe ….. Sovereignty is not a commodity to be signed away. It is our inheritance." Unfortunately for them their voting record in the House and Hansard told a very different story.
Against this weary, sleaze stained and divided army, once invincible as Thatcher's crusaders, now trailing her banners in the dust, were ranged the bright young cohorts of New Labour. Labour had failed to storm the innermost bastions of Tory fiefdom in 1992. But then they were still shackled by the stigma of leftwing unelectability. More to the point they also carried the weight of a 'shadow' budget published by the late John Smith just before polling day which heralded substantial tax rises. The 'Sun' newspaper seized on Mr, Smith's honesty and warned the last person leaving Britain to 'turn off the light'!
Voters ran scared back to the Conservatives and John Major, perched on his soap box, came through on the rails to snatch an improbable victory. No such luck this time! Mr. Blair had battened down the hatches on dissent with a vengeance. Democracy is a forgotten word in New Labour. Even the 50 or so Labour Euro-sceptics dutifully bit their tongues for the sake of party unity, Labour swept to power on the crest of an electoral wave called 'Time for Change', notwithstanding that nearly everything Mr, Major said, Tony Blair would repeat rather more convincingly a day or so later!
Even such a dramatic U turn could not save the party which had led or allowed its country to slide so deep into the morass of European integration that the process is now very nearly irreversible. What is worse no attempt has ever been made to inform or consult the electorate or seek a proper mandate for this wholesale surrender of national sovereignty. The national. referendum of 1975 was designed in such a way that we were led to believe we were joining a beneficial trading block without political restriction or loss of our sovereignty. We fell for that trick - the biggest 'scam' in history, by a large majority and are now learning, perhaps too late, to regret our naivety.
The Conservatives were on a hiding to nothing even before the campaign started. The electorate, seeing little to choose between the main parties on policy and longing for change, took the plunge. It is said that a country gets the politicians it deserves. 'The opening salvoes of the campaign looked like a battle of garden gnomes. 'Europe' was scarcely mentioned during the first two weeks. 'Sleaze' dominated every issue.
Suddenly the lid blew off the pressure cooker. The Referendum Party having galloped onto the battlefield with 54'7 candidates pitted against all who had hitherto failed to prove their desire for a referendum on the whole issue of Europe, had finally cracked the wall of silence.
Our founder, Sir James Goldsmith, pledged £20 million to the campaign. To him who was prepared to stake such a sum and to most, of us, candidates and supporters alike who carried the torch of freedom to the furthest corners of these islands with our 'Mayday!' message warning the people of the dire consequences of European union and demanding that they be allowed to decide their fate, our endeavours were beyond price.
We were prepared to put our country before our traditional parties and suffer the slings and arrows of outraged friends to whom party comes 'uber alles' - as will Chancellor Kohl if he achieves his goal, by fair means or foul! "The future will belong to the Germans when we have built the house of Europe," as he once said.
I was amazed by the positive response which I personally met on doorsteps, in shops and pubs, in markets and streets throughout West Derbyshire where I was standing as the Referendum Party candidate. An average 70-90% of the people I spoke to were concerned about Europe. They wanted to know more and they wanted the right to decide in a proper referendum whether to continue towards full integration or recover our sovereignty and trade with the world. The vast majority wished to trade with Europe but on no account wanted to be controlled by Brussels.
Quite a number thought erroneously that promises of a referendum on the single currency would rescue the country. A few Tories were both paranoic and myopic. The candidate's wife was convinced that my sole aim was to put her husband out of a job - the most important issue for her! A fearsome female in royal blue stormed across the road in Ashford-in-the-Water to accuse me of being a traitor and that I should be ashamed!
I politely reminded her that it was the Tories - her party and mine - who had sold the pass on Europe. Anyway it's difficult to betray the betrayers of our country! Another Conservative lady while agreeing entirely with me on Europe, then asked, "Surely a referendum would mean asking the people! I wouldn't want to do that!" I know how you must feel now, madam. The election results have proved you right!
However, these were exceptions and for the most part people were supportive, enthusiastic and grateful that we were forcing this issue to the top of the political agenda where it should have been from the beginning. Drivers would flash their lights and give thumbs up signs, pedestrians would cross roads to ask for leaflets when our 'battle bus' drove by.
This was an old army landrover with huge signs 'BRUSSELS OR WESTMINSTER?' 'VOTE GOURIET' 'THE ONLY VOTE 'THAT COUNTS' emblazoned on and above it. The poignant Welsh lilt of Lord Tonypandy - "To remain silent now would be an act of cowardice!" - and Sir James's battle cry echoing Herr Kohl's words "Indeed it will be a hard fight, but a fight worth winning!" were heard daily in the housing estates and high streets, in ancient villages and quiet backwaters of Dove and Derwent, in Matlock Bath and Parsley Hay. If nothing else we improved local cultural appreciation with the 'Last Night of the Proms'. Many a sheep, cow and horse gazed upon our passing or galloped to the strains of 'Pomp and Circumstance' and 'Rule Britannia'. In all I travelled over 3000 miles, visited eleven towns and nearly 160 villages and hamlets. The battle bus became quite a tourist attraction, whereas we saw and heard little of the opposition.
The Editor of 'London Miscellany' and I even ran Ken Clarke to ground in the battle bus outside the 'Derby Evening Telegraph' offices in Derby. "What on earth are you doing with that lot?" asked the Chancellor, to which I replied "Fighting for my country, what are you doing?" "Telling them when you are putting VAT on their newspapers?" asked the editor. His assistance on the trail lent undoubted gravitas to our cause as he bent the ears of bemused f'olk on numerous doorsteps with lucid explanations of the minutiae of Maastricht and Euro-speak ... Or maybe he was really just quaffing copious cups of tea of which he is inordinately fond!
As May 1st dawned bright and sunny we felt we had reason to be cautiously optimistic, The Conservative majority of 18,000 seemed as durable as a snowflake in the new cattle crematorium in Flagg. Our posters adorned every highway and byway dwarfing the opposition, In a final effort I was driven round the constituency by James Kaberry in his shiny new 4x4 Trooper, urging everyone to 'PUT COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY!'
It was all to no avail! Only 2500 answered the call and the Tory clung on, his majority slashed to 4000 mainly by the Labour swing. This pattern of actual votes for the Referendum Party was repeated all over the country - higher in East Anglia and the West Country, very much lower in Scotland and London, but still a respectable 511,000 votes.
Nevertheless, we have put Europe firmly at the top of the agenda and from now on politicians of all parties are on notice!