Great Britain: Not Without Tears

Derby Day usually empties the House of Commons as Cabinet ministers, backbenchers, and the Opposition, uniformed in cutaways and grey toppers, flock to Epsom Downs. But last week, politics kept all but a handful of M.P.s from witnessing a spectacular seven-horse collision at the 182nd running of the Derby. In London, the Commons was jammed as the Tory government opened a two-day debate on the Common Market. In the constituencies of West Derbyshire and Middlesbrough West, the Tories were desperately trying to end their string of by-election defeats.

As it turned out. the Tories were running well if cautiously in the Common Market race, but in domestic politics they were in serious trouble, with the Opposition moving up fast.

The Market. The Commons debate began in the rosy afterglow of the weekend meeting between Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and French President Charles de Gaulle. No longer was Whitehall convinced that De Gaulle was determined to keep Britain out of the Market. Though the official communique was noncommittal, one British official summed it up: "Macmillan's weekend inclines us now to believe that De Gaulle will let us into the club—after socking us with the heaviest possible dues." No dues are high enough for some of the opponents to Britain's entry. The opposition includes some strange bedfellows.

At the COMECON meeting in Moscow, Nikita Khrushchev let loose another tirade against the Market, while in Britain, in full-page advertisements paid for by Tory Imperialist Lord Beaverbrook, Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein blared: "I say we must not join Europe.'' Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah denounced Britain's plans to enter the Market and found himself in tune with Australia's Prime Minister Robert Menzies, usually no friend of the Commonwealth's black members.

In the Commons itself, restraint was the keyword. Stating the government's case was the Tories' chief Market negotiator. Lord Privy Seal Edward Heath. In a factual, detailed 10-minute speech, Ted Heath argued cogently that Britain had no intention of joining the Market at any price, but explained why he was willing to pay a fairly high price. The British people, said Heath, are living "in a period of intense change, both politically and economically. Are we to be excluded from these developments? There are some who say that if we take part in them, we shall not be able to influence them. How much the less one can influence them from the outside. Will the U.S. or the Commonwealth look on us as better or more valuable partners if we remain outside the main stream of European growth?"

In reply, Labor Leader Hugh Gaitskell was skeptical rather than critical. "It is extremely foolish," he said, "to give the impression that we can carry through the whole of this operation without tears, and that there will be no difficulties whatever." But to keep the tears limited, Gaitskell wants the government to be guided by the wishes of the Commonwealth, a view not shared by Macmillan, who has consistently declared that the decision belongs to Britain alone.