Steve Richards: The PM goes to Brussels not as his own man but as envoy of his successor

Unlike other recent events, Blair has approached this gathering from a wilfully misjudged perspective

Published: 21 June 2007

Like a character in a television series, I feel I am heading back in time. The BBC hitLife on Mars took its main character back to the 1970s, with the flares, power cuts, erratic cars and David Bowie. I doubt if I have a similar hit on my hands, but I am in the mid-Nineties again.

There is Tony Blair stressing that he is a pro-European, but at the same time resisting Europe with a patriotic flourish. He prepares for this week's summit as a leader at ease with Europe, and yet waving his red lines. How eerily familiar it is to the cool 1990s, when he managed to be in favour of the single currency and to love the pound.

Over on the other side, there is a Tory leader striding away from Europe and calling for a referendum. Is that William Hague, or a chap with more hair? Elsewhere, the newspapers are full of Princess Diana, a decade after her death. On the music scene, Blur's lead singer, Damon Albarn, heads for Glastonbury. Oasis are in the studio again after the success of their greatest hits album.

And what is this? There is speculation that the new Labour leader will form closer ties with the Liberal Democrats. This is so mid-1990s I feel I need to lie in a room listening to Definitely Maybe by Oasis and watch videos of that underestimated football genius David Ginola dancing around hapless defenders when he played for Spurs in the same era.

The echo from the past does not arise by accident. The carefully constructed ambiguities of the mid-1990s are unresolved still, partly because they were not properly addressed then. Nowhere does this apply more than in relation to Europe.

At the height of his popularity, Mr Blair felt compelled to write silly articles about loving the pound. Not surprisingly, when Mr Blair is less popular and on the verge of departure, he cannot win an argument about Europe. In the noisy din, he has no hope of his message getting through. If the argument were to be won, it was then in the Nineties. Instead, we are having the same debates, as if nothing has changed.

The situation in the build-up to this week's summit is made even more complicated for three reasons. There is the bizarre position of Mr Blair, as he heads for the summit days before his departure as Prime Minister. The clichés in recent months about Mr Blair being powerless were wrong. Agree with him or not, he has been implementing policies at the pace of the high-speed trains that travel around the rest of Europe, but not here.

Yet in relation to this extraordinary summit, the cliché applies. Mr Blair attends as the powerless leader. He can play only the humiliating role of Gordon Brown's emissary. The outgoing Prime Minister cannot accept any part of a treaty that does not meet with the approval of Mr Brown. If Mr Blair were to do so, his signature would be worthless. Mr Brown would seek to amend the treaty when he takes over.

Unlike previous summits, Mr Blair cannot calculate alone. How far can I move before a referendum becomes inevitable? Oh, I will not be dealing with calls for a referendum after next week. Is a referendum winnable? Wait a minute, I will be gone next Wednesday, and so will not be leading a campaign.

Unlike some other recent events, the outgoing Prime Minister has approached this gathering from a wilfully misjudged perspective. For years, he had cultivated assiduously, and with characteristic skill, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. What is more, he was deeply involved in the negotiations for the original constitution.

No one knows better his red lines, his opt-ins and opt-outs. But the political context renders meaningless the astute diplomatic relationships and knowledge of subject. Whatever surfaces from the summit will be for Mr Brown to deal with.

As a result, Mr Blair will call for as many red lines as Mr Brown believes to be necessary. Quite possibly, as a final act as Prime Minister, he will have to opt out formally of parts of the treaty, behaving as John Major did at Maastricht but with no similar sense of triumph; no cries of game, set and match.

Probably Mr Blair will not be alone at the summit in raising big objections. The truth of the matter is that Europe is in a mess. It comes to something when Poland seeks greater voting muscle by arguing that the square root of each country's population should be the determining factor. Such convoluted methods of accountability has led Europe to where it is now, an institution reeling from two defeats in referendums.

The vast scale of the negotiations in an enlarged Europe, the near impossibility of getting agreement, highlights the need for new rules. They also show how difficult it will be to get consensus on what form the new rules should take.

The prospect of a referendum in Britain is the third reason why this summit is proving unusually complicated. Mr Brown keeps the option open, but there is no way he will want his first months in power dominated by such an event. Even the former Europe Minister, Denis MacShane, has concluded that any referendum on Europe cannot be won. Mr MacShane is a pro-European who understands better than most the advantages of Britain being engaged. Yet he wrote at the weekend that it would be better for Europe to muddle along than to introduce changes.

If that is what Mr MacShane is thinking, imagine the thoughts of Mr Brown. His plans for the first hundred days did not include rows with the Daily Mail and The Sun over whether Europe should incorporate square roots in new voting procedures.

So Mr Blair makes his final appearance on the international stage weakly threatening to opt out on behalf of his successor. Mr Blair has a better record in relation to Europe than is acknowledged. For all its frustrations as an institution, he has remained fully committed, and Britain has become a bigger player. Other prime ministers began their periods in office seeking to be at the heart of Europe. All of them gave up trying for different reasons. Mr Blair has always tried.

But he once said that his historic objective was to end Britain's ambiguous relationship with Europe. He leaves with the relationship being ambiguous, at best. Often, it is straightforward in its hostility. A pro-European prime minister takes his bow with his red lines and opt-outs, a British bulldog performance from the man who loved the pound.

The mid-1990s is where it all began and where it seems, on several fronts, it is about to begin again. Or, as Oasis might put it in describing Mr Brown's commitment to Europe and, indeed, to closer ties with the Liberal Democrats: Definitely Maybe.

s.richards@ independent.co.uk

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