"We have business to do in Europe and we must therefore play a powerful part in determining how business is to be done in Europe". These words were a central part of Mr Kenneth Clarke's excellent speech to the Conservative Party conference in Bournemouth yesterday, for which he received a well deserved standing ovation. It is good to have the question of Britain's fundamental interest in economic and monetary union put right in the foreground, of the Conservative debate on Europe, from which it has been so often displaced in recent months by the raucous Euroscepticism or Europhobia that has seemed to overwhelm the party.
Mr Clarke was able to attract a surprising level of support for the agreed cabinet line on EMU. It stops well short of endorsing the project, being based rather on a pragmatic approach which argues that the evidence necessary to make a judgement on whether Britain's interests are best served by participation is not yet available. Although the time for decision is getting perilously short, Britain's negotiated opt out option is the line of least resistance for the cabinet in the midst of the extraordinary cut and thrust of debate within the party on the currency union. The conference's positive response to Mr Clarke and Mr Rifkind - who might have been regarded as the most unlikely stars of the conference at the beginning of the week - is a very good augury for the party leader, Mr Major, who makes his keynote speech today.
It is all a reminder that the Conservative Party remains a formidable campaigning organisation, despite the deep wounds of division that have been so publicly displayed. The unmistakable signs of its ranks closing have been on view this week, exemplified by Mr Michael Portillo's speech about unity yesterday and by the tight lipped endorsement of the need to defeat Labour from even the most hardened senior opponents of the cabinet line on EMU. One can see the themes of the election campaign emerging, among them that the Tories should be trusted with another term because of - rather than despite - their 17 year spell in power. Mr Major's own personality is also being skillfully projected, with every opportunity being made to use him to distance the party from the latest round of sleaze and scandal associated with the Hamilton affair.
The last couple of years have been extraordinary for the defensiveness with which the case put so confidently yesterday by Mr Clarke has been presented by his wing of the Conservative Party. In recent weeks such figures as Mr Douglas Hurd and Sir Geoffrey Howe have joined the chorus of big business leaders expressing alarm that Britain will be marginalised unless a more forceful approach is taken towards the potential benefits for its economy of participating in a currency union - and of being fully involved in designing the framework within which it must operate.
Those most directly concerned in these negotiations, including Irish ministers and officials, emphasise that their British counterparts are in fact so involved but there remains the large and valid concern over whether they can bring their party and the British electorate with them with such a half hearted public approach. Since it is very much in Ireland's interest that Britain should be part of the EMU project, Mr Clarke's intervention is welcome evidence that the tide of Conservative opposition to it may be turning.