SENIOR members of the Cabinet, including the Prime Minister, are
engaged in an eleventh-hour offensive in an attempt to persuade wavering
Tory MPs to back the Government in Wednesday night's crucial vote on the
Maastricht Treaty.
The anodyne motion for the debate, published last Friday, appeared to
have secured victory for the Prime Minister, but a number of surveys
published over the weekend indicated that the result still is on a
knife-edge.
The motion makes no mention of Maastricht, calls on the House to
recognise that the UK should play a leading role in the development of
Europe, and urges MPs to invite the Government to proceed with the Bill
so that it can be considered in more detail.
However, the signs yesterday were that this relatively bland wording
may not be enough. A survey by the BBC for its World This Weekend
programme showed that 27 Tory MPs would vote against the Government,
with a further six hardliners unable to be contacted.
Mr James Cran, the Tory MP for Beverly and unofficial whip for the
rebels, claimed that on a telephone round he had 37 MPs willing to defy
the Government, with more to come. While Mr Cran's claims will be
treated with some scepticism in Ministerial circles, they make worrying
reading for the hard-pressed Government Whips.
The mathematics of the situation involve endless permutations about
abstentions and so on. Basically, however, the support of the Liberal
Democrats for Mr Major's motion means that if something like 31 or 32
Tory MPs vote against the Government it will lose.
Mr Major, Mr Heseltine, and other senior Ministers spent part of the
weekend -- and will continue over the next few days -- personally
contacting wavering MPs to try to persuade them round to the Government
line. The Prime Minister is expected to see some of them privately at
Westminster today.
In an article in the News of the World yesterday, he said: ''What a
folly it would be if, having persuaded others to accept our ideas, we
walked away from the treaty that put them into effect. We would not just
be breaking Britain's word, we would be breaking Britain's influence in
Europe for good.''
Sir Norman Fowler, the party chairman, and Mr Douglas Hurd, Foreign
Secretary, also weighed in. Sir Norman said on TV-am he was convinced
the Government would win on Wednesday, and accused Labour of exploiting
the situation.
He went on: ''I do not think that if we had put down a motion which
said we believed in motherhood and sliced bread the Labour Party would
have backed us. It is looking for an issue on which it can defeat the
Government. I have no respect for a party which simply fixes on any
issue and is prepared just to tear up its principles.''
Mr Hurd also thought the Government would win and that many MPs would
make up their minds at the last minute. His argument was that the Prime
Minister's hand would greatly be strengthened at the EC summit in
Edinburgh in December if he was able to go to Britain's European
colleagues and say that the process of Maastricht ratification was under
way.
Meanwhile, Labour and the Liberal Democrats continued their slanging
match following the Liberal Democrats' decision over the weekend to
support the Government motion.
Labour's deputy leader, Mrs Margaret Beckett, said the voters would
not forgive the Liberal Democrats for ''propping-up'' John Major.
Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown hit back, accusing Labour of
''tawdry deceit'' and ''dishonety''.
The chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party, Lord Sanderson, told
the Conservative Women's Scottish Council conference in Perth that those
opposed to the Maastricht Treaty had yet to put forward a credible
alternative.
He said the case of the Euro-sceptics was built on myths and legends,
not a hard, practical assessment of Britain's future prosperity and
influence.
Meanwhile, North Tayside MP Bill Walker renewed his call for a review
of the Maastricht Treaty as it stands, claiming there were dangers to
Scotland if the treaty was implemented.
Mr Walker said: ''I still oppose it in its present form. We should
have a Maastricht Mark II which would restore powers to the EC
parliaments, open up markets and, more importantly, help to reduce
narrow nationalism.''
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