How Bush has perverted Labour's View of Europe

Extract 

In European elections, Labour has made pro-Americanism and zest
for economic liberalism the yardsticks
Martin Kettle

Whom do Labour prefer as the next French President?
Guardian 18 Nov 2006
Next year’s [presidential] election in France will come down to a choice between two menus for change.

On the right, Sarkozy’s neo-Thatcherite cocktail of tax cuts, big-bang institutional upheavals and tough law-and-order, directed at immigrants in particular. On the left, Royal’s neo-Blairite concoction of economic flexibility, cultural liberalism and reducing social exclusion.
Presented with this choice, where do Britain’s major parties stand? The Tories have already openly embraced Sarkozy, who returned the compliment when he addressed their conference last month by video link. But Sarkozy is also very much
Labour’s candidate next year. Neither Tony Blair nor Gordon Brown will say it publicly, but each believes that Sarkozy will win and has persuaded himself that this outcome is in Britain’s interests. Nothing better illustrates how Labour’s failure to understand the Bush administration has perverted its view of Europe and minimised its once hoped for  influence there.
 

 In election after European election, Labour has made pro-Americanism and zest for economic liberalism the sole yardsticks of where British interests lie. They have been for Aznar against Zapatero in Spain, Merkel against Schröder in Germany, Berlusconi rather than Prodi in Italy — and now Sarkozy rather than Royal in France. Sometimes, such choices may indeed be the lesser of two evils, as in the need for change from the failed Schröder. But when the party of the left has begun to embrace modernisation and the right is led by a scoundrel, as has happened in Italy and France, Labour’s moderate social-democratic interests, and Britain’s interests in Europe, should lie decisively on the side of the centre-left party. Let Blair and Brown root for Sarkozy. The rest of us should embrace the most hopeful development in French politics for a generation.
 

martin.kettle@guardian.co.uk