It is not enough to sit back and say that we are in opposition now, so Labour will make all the important decisions for us and then we can govern again as if nothing has happened. We have to get back into government first, and fighting the next election against a single currency will not help. The first rays of change and a constructive approach over the acceptance of the referenda results and House of Lords reform are welcome, but we have an awful long way to go.In a very real sense the constitutional issues, which must include Europe, provide a striking example of what has happened to the party I joined. Under Edward Heath in the early Seventies, the Conservative Party and government was the party of Europe, internationalist rather than nationalist; and, most importantly, it was beginning the voyage towardsmuch-needed constitutional reform. After Heath's Perth speech, we were, as a party, in favour of Scottish devolution. Lord Home of the Hirsel was asked to chair a committee and produce a report on the reform of the House of Lords, which eventually came out under the new leadership in 1977 and was well and truly shelved. All this was 20 to 25 years ago!In 1975, under Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative approach on Scottish devolution was changed, and formally recorded in a Commons vote, to be against such devolution in anticipation of Labour's legislation on the subject.
A number of us abstained in protest, including several distinguished future servants of the party. In the years that followed, the party's attitude on constitutional issues represented the same nationalist or English Unionist mentality as increasingly became visible over Europe. It is very sad that the Major years compounded the problem, greatly weakening the capacity of the party's leaders to face up to these issues. It has left us in a policy vacuum that the present leadership has got to get out of if we are ever again to be a government.Obviously we cannot just change everything overnight, or eat our own words other than in digestible doses.
But a start must be made and a sense of direction established. We must begin with the fundamental point that the main constitutional issues are related to each other, hence the "constitutional agenda" One leads on to the other. In the face of all this our Conservative position is sad and could be disastrous for the party's future At the centre of it all is the constitutional agenda. But, after the sterility of the Thatcher years and the completely negative attitude of John Major's administration, we hardly know where we stand on anything. The temptation will be to go to the right, to create a difference, to establish "clear blue water". Should we elect to do this, we should realise that Labour is now occupying the political centre in the best One Nation Conservative tradition.