Criticism of Tory right is 'baloney'

The Conservative Party today has problems not because our analysis has been wrong or our principles faulty. Our difficulties are due to the fact that, in certain limited but important respects, our policies and performance have not lived up to our analysis and principles.

That is why the current idea, put around by some malcontents, that the Conservative Party is in trouble because it has moved to the Right, and that this is what needs to be remedied, is baloney - and Denis might be able to suggest a still more telling description. The test is simple. Just ask yourself: is it because the Government has not spent, borrowed and taxed enough that people are discontented? Or is it that we have gone too far towards increasing government spending, borrowing and taxation? The answer is obvious.

We are unpopular, above all, because the middle classes - and all those who aspire to join the middle classes - feel that they no longer have the incentives and opportunities they expect from a Conservative Government.

I am not sure what is meant by those who say that the Party should return to something called "One Nation Conservatism". As far as I can tell by their views on European federalism, such people's creed would be better described as "No Nation Conservatism". And certainly anyone who believes that salvation is to be found further away from the basic Conservative principles which prevailed in the 1980s - small government, a property- owning democracy, tax cuts, deregulation and national sovereignty - is profoundly mistaken.

That mistake, in most cases, has its origins in the acceptance of the picture of the 1980s which has been painted by the critics. That decade changed the direction of Britain to such an extent that it is unlikely that even a Labour government would altogether reverse it - try as they might.

The message from all this is not that everything in the 1980s was perfect or that everything that has followed it in the 1990s has been bad. Every Prime Minister has his - and her - regrets.

The important message, rather, is that in Britain we have seen from the 1980s what works - just as we saw in the 1970s what did not. And what works here, as elsewhere, is free enterprise, not big government.

So it would make no economic sense at all for us to move closer to the policies of our opponents. Rather, the economic challenge is to cut back the burden of state spending, borrowing and taxation still further.

And trying to move towards the centre ground makes no political sense either. It is not the centre ground but the common ground - the shared instincts and traditions of the British people - on which we should pitch our tents. That ground is solid - whereas the centre ground is as slippery as the spin doctors who have colonised it.

The limitation of government is the great issue of British politics - and indeed to a remarkable degree of global politics.

The threat to limited government did not end with the collapse of communism and the discrediting of socialism. It remains an issue in Western - particularly European - democracies.

It is no secret that between John Major and me there have been differences . . . on occasion. But these have always been differences about how to achieve objectives, rather than what those objectives should be. What is required now is to ensure that those objectives are clearly explained, so that a re-elected Conservative Government can go further towards fulfilling them. The attractions of Opposition are greatly exaggerated by those who have not experienced it.

Judging from the opinion polls, opposition is where the electorate is at present inclined to send us. For a variety of reasons, which I shall describe shortly, I believe that this would be ill-judged on their part. The Conservative Party still has much to offer. And from Mr Blair's New - or not so new - Labour Party there is much to fear. But we must not ignore the present discontent.

Some of it is more or less inevitable. A constant struggle is required to ensure that long-serving governments don't run out of steam. I always regarded it as necessary to combine my role as Prime Minister with that of Chief Stoker so as to keep up the pressure.

Today the new challenge to limited government comes not from within these shores at all, but rather beyond them - from the European Union.

There is, of course, also a challenge to self-government - and the two are closely connected. The activity of the European Court, which can only ultimately be checked by amending the European Communities Act itself, is increasingly undermining our judicial system and the sovereignty of our parliament.

Proposals are being made for common European defence - proposals which Michael Portillo has roundly and rightly attacked. They too are a threat to national independence. But most important, of course, is the proposed single European currency which, as John Redwood has argued, "Would be a major step on the way to a single European nation".

The Prime Minister will have the support of all of us who wish to see these dangerous and damaging proposals resisted, and the present trends reversed, as he argues Britain's case at the forthcoming Inter-Governmental Conference. And we look forward to a successful outcome.

The European Union not only wishes to take away our powers; it wishes to increase its own - it wants to regulate our industries and labour markets, pontificate over our tastes, in short to determine our lives. The Maastricht Treaty, which established a common European citizenship and greatly expanded the remit of the European Commission, shows the outlines of the bureaucratic superstate which is envisaged.

And Maastricht is the beginning, not the end of that process. Self-government, limited government, our laws, our Parliament, our freedom. These things were not easily won, And if we Conservatives explain that they are now in peril, they will not be lightly surrendered.