This article first appeared in the Liberal Democrat European Group Newsletter in Summer 2001.

It seems laughable now to recall that on 1 May 1997 we were still discussing the possibility of the UK joining the single currency in the first wave. But Tony Blair came to power promising to take a positive approach to Europe, and pro-Europeans could be forgiven for feeling cautiously optimistic.

Four years later not only have we still failed to join, but membership looks further away than it ever did in 1997. While everyone understands that with a wafer-thin Commons majority of just one or two, John Major was heavily constrained in what he could do on European policy, this is a Prime Minister with two of the largest Commons majorities in history.

While it is true that he has only achieved that level of support by obsessively tracking public opinion, as Ken Clarke keeps on reminding us, there is not much point in being in power if you do not actually implement the things you believe in.

And although the possibility of UK entry in the first wave finally died in autumn 1997 over the airwaves of Charlie Whelan’s mobile in the Red Lion, that incident only finally nailed into its coffin the policy which the Prime Minister had killed by vacillating too long over.

Following the Government’s official statement that autumn, and faced with no other choice, pro-Europeans from all parties and of greater and of lesser importance, put their faith in the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister vacillated yet. He finally committed himself to…supporting Britain’s continued membership of the European Union.

If pressed, he pointed to the crucial importance for his overall project of winning a second term. Vote Labour back in on Thursday, and the Euro campaign will being on Friday. Only with a second Labour victory securely behind him could he rediscover his true pro-European instincts – to paraphrase his 1997 NHS slogan “only 48 months to save the pro-Euro campaign”.

The General Election came. The second Labour victory went. And yet pro-Euro campaign came there none.

It is not difficult to see some of the reasons why this is the case. Public opinion remains apparently stubbornly against the notion. Given the consistent and abject failure of pro-European politicians to put the case, this is not something to be marvelled at. If you leave the field of battle is not awfully surprising if the opposition then conquer it. The leading politician who is failing to confront this fact head on is Blair. History will rightly record many good things about our current Prime Minister, but it will never claim that he was insufficiently cautious.

Secondly, the Chancellor is against it. He has essentially no faith in the ability of any other member of the same Government to run their own Department without detailed instructions from the Treasury (in the form of Public Service Agreements), and he most certainly does not have confidence in a lot of garlic-swilling foreigners – some of them Italian for goodness’ sake! – to run the British economy he has so lovingly piloted to prosperity.

The point, Mr Blair, is that you are supposed to be the Prime Minister – you are supposed to be able to look at the bigger picture, even if it – occasionally – means over-ruling your colleagues.

And so we have a Government which has slipped from being generally, if unspectacularly, pro-European, to issuing increasingly ludicrous calls for “a debate about the Euro”. Government Ministers are not supposed to call for debates on major public issues, they are supposed to lead them. Calls for “a debate” about the Euro, however often they are issued, are not sufficient to win the referendum. And now that the General Election can no longer be invoked as their justification for not campaigning, we see the Government casting around for a new alibi to justify their pusillanimity.

There are no alibis, Tony. The failure to take the case to the country for Britain to join the euro is yours and yours alone. There are plenty of (incidentally distinctly frustrated) pro-Europeans, from all parties and none, ready and willing to support the push. Hell, there are even Cabinet Members in the same position. But the only one who can lead it, the cork in the bottleneck, is you.

An Opposition Leader called Tony Blair once famously taunted John Major at the Despatch Box – “I lead my Party – you follow yours”. Oh yes?