Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Iraq, Bob Woodward, the Euro and European Constitution.
Iraq
Asked if the Prime Minister was concerned about the impending and threatened withdrawal of Coalition troops from Iraq, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) pointed out that over thirty countries still had troops in Iraq. He also noted that, as serious as the violence was, particularly in the light of this morning’s attacks, it was not universal in Iraq. The majority of the country remained calm and peaceful. On the whole, Iraqi political opinion supported the transition that was taking place. We had been warning for some time that there would be those who would step up their terrorist activities in the run-up to the 30 June deadline to try to prevent the transition. We would not allow them to succeed, as the Prime Minister had underlined to the House today.
Bob Woodward
Asked for a reaction to the claim in Bob Woodward’s book that the US authorities had passed on to the British authorities the concerns of the CIA Director that the 45-minute claim in the dossier was ‘rubbish’, the PMOS said that we never commented on intelligence matters. We had also resisted the temptation to add to the publicity of other books in the past and would do so with Mr Woodward’s book as well. Put to him that the 45-minute claim had been mentioned four times in a public dossier and had been mentioned twice by the Prime Minister and that it was therefore not an insignificant point, the PMOS said that he was being asked about conversations between intelligence agencies, as well as matters which were being considered by the Butler Inquiry. It would therefore be wrong on both points to comment.
Put to him that it would appear that Mr Woodward had been given access to excellent British sources for his book, the PMOS said that he was not responsible for Mr Woodward’s book. Asked to deny categorically that the Prime Minister, Sally Morgan or Jonathan Powell had spoken to Mr Woodward, the PMOS said that he had absolutely no intention of getting drawn into a discussion about who had spoken to whom and when. He was not aware of any conversations. Equally, he was not going comment on every single contact between journalists and members of the Government.
Euro
Asked if the Government remained committed to a referendum on the Euro, the PMOS said that Patricia Hewitt had dealt with this issue in her Today Programme interview this morning. As the Prime Minister had made clear repeatedly, it would depend on the economics being right. We had no intention of producing weekly scorecards with a rating of 1-10. There would be a proper assessment and a proper decision would be made.
European Constitution
Asked if the Prime Minister would follow the example of the Irish Government in its referendum on the Nice Treaty by holding a second referendum if the first one produced a negative result, the PMOS said it was important for people to understand that the Government would only sign up to the Constitution if it protected our red lines. Parliament would then have an opportunity to scrutinise the document in detail, after which the public would be able to make their own judgement in a referendum. Clearly, the signing of the Constitution in the first place would present a positive case for it in any referendum campaign. It would also make a positive case for engagement in Europe. That was why the Government was not focussing its attention on what might happen if it lost the vote. It was going into the referendum intending to win it. Put to him that people were entitled to know what the Prime Minister would do if there was a no vote in the light of the fact that the Prime Minister, himself, had asked the Opposition Leader this question in PMQs today, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had not ducked the issue in PMQs. He had dealt with it and had made the analogy with Ireland, as was entirely appropriate: we would sit down and discuss the way forward with our European partners. The PMOS said that he hadn’t ducked the issue either over the last couple of days, having told journalists repeatedly that a no vote would put the UK in a difficult situation because we would have to persuade the other twenty-four member states to agree to any amendments we might make. However, as he had underlined consistently, the Government’s position was that we would not enter a referendum campaign with the intention of losing it. We would focus our attention on winning it, not on what happened afterwards.
Asked if he was really suggesting that a no vote would result in the renegotiation of the existing Treaty, the PMOS said that the Government would agree to the EU Constitution if it believed it met our red lines. We would therefore go into the referendum in a positive frame of mind. Were there to be a no vote, however, the Government would still want to remain part of Europe and play a central role. That was a perfectly logical approach to take. However, no one should underestimate the difficulty of trying to persuade the other twenty-four members of the EU to agree to any of our amendments, given our position at that time. Put to him that it wouldn’t be up to the UK to persuade its twenty-four partners to agree to any amendments, but that the twenty-four would need to persuade the UK to sign up to the Treaty, the PMOS pointed out that if all members had agreed to the Constitution, they would obviously want to go ahead with it. This was clearly a multi-stage process. But was the rest of Europe going to be held up by the actions of one country? Asked if the final stage of that process would be a second referendum after the renegotiation of the Treaty with our European partners, the PMOS said that there was an obvious logic to what the Prime Minister had said in the House today about this matter. However, we were not going to be drawn into endless discussions about hypothetical scenarios, as we believed it would be a fruitless exercise.
Put to him that the Prime Minister’s analogy with Ireland, or even Denmark, was not quite accurate because the UK was much larger than both and a no vote in Britain would have more of an impact in Europe, the PMOS agreed that there were a huge number of variables to be considered. However, no one should underestimate the difficult situation in which this country would find itself if the rest of Europe were able to sign up the Constitution while we were not. Asked to clarify the analogy with Ireland in the light of the fact that the only reason why the referendum on the Nice treaty had been lost was because of a backlash against the Irish Government and a poor referendum campaign, the PMOS said that he did not entirely agree with the analysis that had been put forward. In any event, it wasn’t his job to act as a political commentator.
Put to him that the Prime Minister’s description of the issue yesterday as a ‘once and for all’ opportunity would appear to rule out the possibility of holding a second referendum, the PMOS said that if we wanted to be at the heart of Europe, we would need to ask ourselves whether we wanted to run the risk of being put in a position where the whole of Europe was in agreement on the Constitution, but we were not. It went without saying that this would put us in a very difficult situation.
Asked to spell out the serious consequences for Britain following a no vote, in the light of the fact that both Prime Minister and Jack Straw had said after the European Council last December that the EU could cope perfectly well without a new Treaty, the PMOS reminded journalists that the Prime Minister had always made it clear that while the EU could cope in the short term, in the medium to long term he believed it was in the interests of both the UK and Europe to agree a Constitution precisely because of the difficulty of having to operate in a Europe at twenty-five with a set of arrangements which had been designed for a smaller membership. The PMOS also pointed out that the post-December position, where an agreement had not been reached, would be completely and qualitatively different to the position in which we would find ourselves were twenty-four EU members to agree a Constitution, leaving the UK standing on the sidelines. That would obviously affect our relationship with the rest of Europe.
Asked for a reaction to reports that the Vice President of the European Parliament had accused the Prime Minister of domestic political expediency at the expense of the wider interests of Europe, the PMOS said that as he understood it, the Vice President had written a short sharp rebuttal to the newspaper which had reported his supposed comments.
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