THE EURO-DELUSIONS OF CHRIS PATTEN 

13th October 1999

Chris Patten feels he must protest about a Tory European policy that "plainly raises questions about the national interest". Why did he not question the Treaty of Rome, the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty in which the "national interest" was effectively abolished?

Patten is amazed at proposed Conservative "blocking tactics" in the European Union to change treaties when he was part of the Thatcher and Major governments that did just that.

Chris Patten was the party Chairman who led the Conservatives in the 1993 general election. Not only did the Patten policies (ERM and Maastricht) lead to the reduction of the Tory majority from 100 to 21 seats at that election, he could not even hold on to his own seat in a Tory heartland.

He claims that certain "standards of civility" were no longer to be found in Tory Party debates. I recall the 1992 conference when a Young Conservative meeting addressed by myself was invaded towards the end by jeering members of the "Tory Reform Group". They remained in rigid fascist style ranks blocking the exit even after the meeting ended. Those events, the expulsion of eurosceptic Tories since 1990 and John Major calling eurosceptics "bastards" and even other EU politicians '"a bunch of shits" hardly testify to the "civility" of Patten's europhile confederates.