eurealist.co.uk

The Guardian runs a story about the leaked memo from MacShane;

Tony Blair was warned last month in a memo drawn up by his then Europe minister, Denis MacShane.

The document, which was circulated to key ministers including the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and the industry secretary, Patricia Hewitt, was leaked yesterday at a sensitive moment in the French referendum campaign.

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Its publication will embarrass Downing Street, which has been anxious not to appear to intervene in the close-fought French battle.

The memo, dated April 8 and also sent to the prime minister’s European adviser, Kim Darroch, accused the French political class of a “lack of leadership in explaining, defending, promoting the EU … not as extension of France and French interests”.

“Bashing a commission president is now a French as much as it was a British pastime,” it claimed.

Mr MacShane, a knowledgeable pro-European, lambasted the French yes campaign for “the incoherence of its campaign with its mixed messages and lack of enthusiasm or positive argument for the treaty.”

He also claimed that French ministers were undertaking a belated bid to turn the position around by “making crude UK-bashing arguments”.

In his note Mr MacShane, who lost his job as Europe minister in the reshuffle - after the memo was written - went on to urge the prime minister to change the tone of British relations with Europe.

“[Britain's] EU presidency in 1998 was when the new Labour government walked on water,” he said. “That is no longer the case … John Bull and Whitehall-speak needs to be parked for the six months of the presidency.

“Britain’s Europe policy will need a step change to move away from the defensive-boastful language of red line, vetoes, [and claiming] Britain is way ahead of the rest of Europe,” he wrote.

“If the UK is to rise to the responsibility of helping to lead Europe out of crisis we will have to find more of Churchill’s magnanimity and worry less about the Rothermere-Telegraph shadows in the cave”.

If France did vote yes, Mr MacShane added, Britain would have to run a distinctive pro-Euro campaign in which the comedian Eddie Izzard, Sir Digby Jones, director general of the CBI, and Brendan Barber, general secretary of the TUC, would be more important than any cabinet minister”.

The last paragraph seems to have been picked up by BBC