Blair to wage war on 'myths of EU constitution'

Tony Blair today warned of a “battle between reality and myth” over the EU constitution.

The British Prime Minister conceded he faced a tough fight to sell the constitution to a sceptical British public in a referendum.

But he insisted voters would be won round once they were told the truth about the deal.

However, the Tories branded the constitution, thrashed out in Brussels on Friday night as “a gateway to a country called Europe”.

And talk-show host-turned-UK Independence Party Euro MP Robert Kilroy-Silk likened Mr Blair to Neville Chamberlain – Britain’s Prime Minister at the start of the Second World War – and his appeasement of Hitler.

Mr Blair took to the television after flying back from Brussels with a deal he said was a success for Britain and Europe.

The 300-page document still needs to be approved by all 25 national parliaments, and by referenda in at least six member states, including Britain.

Mr Blair is facing one of the toughest tasks of his premiership in attempting to win the referendum.

Opponents have challenged him to call the poll immediately. He refused to do that today. But signalled MPs could vote on the constitution before the next General Election.

He stressed he had secured all his “red lines” in Brussels over the key areas that made Britain a nation state.

And he dismissed Tory plans to renegotiate EU treaties as “the door next to the exit door”.

Mr Blair accepted opinion polls indicated opposition to the constitution but that was because the public had not been told the truth about it.

“This is going to be a fascinating political battle because it will be a battle between reality and myth,” he said.

“If you actually have a debate about the reality then people will say ‘well what’s wrong with that? Why aren’t we being part of that’?”

He said the Tories and UKIP wanted the referendum now because they feared that the longer the debate went on the more their myths would be exposed.

The constitution does not have to be ratified until the end of 2006. Mr Blair said there would be a parliamentary debate before a referendum. The treaty would not even be drawn up in its proper form before the end of the year.

Asked on BBC1’s Breakfast with Frost if MPs would vote on the deal ahead of the next General Election, Mr Blair replied: “Yes. I would have thought we would begin the process of debating it in the House of Commons before the next election.”

Mr Blair said he had secured a good deal for Britain which meant keeping control over tax, immigration, defence and foreign policy.

“In all those key areas that go to make up Britain as a nation state if you like… there is no doubt about it,” he said.

“We have won every single thing we wanted to secure.

“This treaty gives us the chance to play a vital part in decision-making at the heart of the EU whilst it protects completely our right to set our taxes, run our foreign policy and defence and do the things that people want us to do.”

He said qualified majority voting was “perfectly sensible” as without it reform was impossible. The previous Tory government had properly introduced QMV in 30 to 40 different areas.

Mr Blair said he had not signed up to the constitution because he wanted “yet another issue for people to kick me around on”.

“The reason I have done this is that I believe it to be in the interest of Britain and I think the job of Prime Minister – even when it may be unpopular and you get attacked for doing things – you have got to do what you think is right.”

To get out now or marginalise Britain would be an “extraordinary act of foolishness”.

The premier said the EU was now changing and the new members shared Britain’s view on its future direction. They saw the EU as a union of nation states and not a federal superstate.

He said Britain did not have to choose between its membership of the EU and its relationship with the US.

Mr Blair said the Tory position of renegotiating the EU treaties was “impossible”.

“That is not on offer. If you start trying to renegotiate Britain’s terms of membership of the EU, that is the door next to the exit door.”

Labour backbenchers have already spoken out against the constitution. Mr Blair said there had always been a traditional Labour left-wing position against the EU but it did not represent the “centre of gravity” in the party.

Shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram called the constitution “a gateway to a country called Europe”.

“It’s going to be a constitution which has supremacy over our constitution, over our laws, and this is something which we believe is highly damaging to the interests of this country so we’d oppose it for that reason,” he said.

Mr Ancram told the programme Mr Blair had shown he had not listened to the British people by going to Brussels to negotiate the treaty three days after the European elections in which voters had clearly demonstrated their opposition to it.

Mr Ancram also said the Tories would “certainly” not enter into a pact with UKIP. He said that while the No campaign would be “broad-based” there would be no electoral link.

Mr Kilroy-Silk also dismissed talk of a pact. He said the Prime Minister was in “panic mode” over the referendum. But his reference to Chamberlain will particularly anger Downing Street.

He told the BBC: “Chamberlain came back waving a piece of paper saying ‘it’s OK, we are not going to have war, they are not going to invade us’.

“There’s Tony. He’s waving a piece of paper saying ‘it’s OK, I’ve only given a little bit away of our sovereignty’, when in fact this is the beginning of the end of Britain as a nation state governing itself.”

The Government wheeled out a number of ministers to defend the constitution. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said it closed the door on the possibility of the EU becoming a federal superstate.

Mr Blair also won support from the europhile former Tory deputy Prime Minister Lord Heseltine. He said any Conservative Prime Minister since Harold Macmillan would have signed the constitution.