Mr Blair should use his cabinet allies to push for a euro referendum

Peter Mandelson is formally just a backbench MP. But he also holds a special position in Britain's flexible constitution, that of Friend to the Prime Minister. So when he says that Tony Blair wants the whole Cabinet to be consulted over the wording of the Chancellor's statement postponing Britain's adoption of the euro, we can be fairly sure that this is what the Prime Minister wants.

It is an open secret that Gordon Brown's famous assessment of the five economic tests has been completed and has concluded that the time is not yet right for Britain to join the euro. But how that conclusion is phrased, for how long it is said to hold true and the extent to which it might be possible to reach a different conclusion before the next election are all matters of grave national importance.

At least Mr Blair has learnt something from the way this issue was mishandled in his first term. Then, the question of how to say "Not yet" was left to a newspaper interview with Mr Brown conducted by fax and interpreted on a mobile phone from the pub across the road from the Treasury by the Chancellor's press secretary.

Thus, when Mr Brown stood up in the Commons a few days later in October 1997, everyone understood that the issue had been put off until after a general election. Mr Blair managed to secure the tiniest clause of wriggle room in the Chancellor's statement, which said that joining in that Parliament was not realistic, "barring some fundamental or unforeseen change in economic circumstances". But it was not much, and Mr Blair clearly wants to keep the option of joining more open for the rest of this Parliament.

He should be lent every strength in this enterprise. And if that means a belated conversion on the Prime Minister's part to the merits of collective cabinet government, then so much the better. Mr Blair has come late to the realisation that, on a few of the most important issues, the headcount around the cabinet table does matter; without allies, he cannot prise open the Chancellor's iron grip on the five economic tests, except by the counter-productive threat to sack him. Yet, on this issue, Mr Blair can count on a majority of his Cabinet to back him.

It may be objected that the mere form of words of an essentially negative statement will hardly help to overcome the real obstacle to Britain's adoption of the euro, which is the scepticism – in the proper sense of the word – of the British electorate, who will have the final say in a referendum.

The Independent has advocated Britain's membership of the single currency from the start and has believed that, simply by joining at any time since its launch in 1999, the alleged problems of convergence would have resolved themselves more quickly than by staying out. However, we accept that public opinion is being asked to vote for change – unlike in the 1975 referendum which was an endorsement of the status quo – and that there seems no pressing economic benefit to joining. British interest rates may be higher than in the eurozone, but we are used to that, and inflation has been low for nearly a decade.

But the economic outlook is more uncertain than it has been for some time, and sentiment could change quickly. This time next year, the euro countries could look like a zone of stability providing some hope of security amid global economic turbulence.

For that reason if no other, Mr Blair must win his fight to keep open the option of a referendum before the next election.