British election has international strategic implications

SOME elections are more important than others in the history of the major European nation states - not only for their own citizens but for those of their neighbours and international partners as well.

On this scale, it would be difficult to think of a more strategically important election than the forthcoming one in Britain. It assembles together many of the most significant choices facing that state and its citizens in respect of domestic and foreign policy, as well as in crucial matters of constitutional arrangement and national identity.

It remains to be seen whether this broad and complex agenda for decision is capable of being resolved by one or even several elections if there is not the will and determination among the British political class to do so. From the Irish point of view this is a matter of central importance:

. Would a Labour government be more or less likely to devote full attention to a Northern Ireland settlement, for example, if it became preoccupied with, a comprehensive programme of constitutional change in Britain? The election has crystallised divisions between the SDLP and Sinn Fein and may well coincide with a renewed campaign of violence.

. Would a re elected Tory government be driven by continuing party division over Britain's place in Europe to distance itself even further from plans for closer EU integration, most notably in respect of membership of a single currency? The renewed strength of sterling this week, based on speculation about interest rate increases, has underlined once again the Irish pound's vulnerability to sterling volatility.

Either way, we may see a process of major realignment in British politics. It would be inspired alternatively by a Labour deal with the Liberal Democrats on constitutional change, including crucially, abandoning the first past the post election system, and/or by a Tory split on Europe in or out of office.

This week most of the elements that flow into the election campaign and the strategic choices involved have come clearly into view. The party leaders began their daily press conferences on the back of lavish advertising and publicity campaigns.

Within the Conservative Party, campaign tactics have become inextricably involved with positioning for a leadership contest in the event of it losing the election. The speech last week by Stephen Dorrell, the Health Secretary, in, which he called for a renegotiation, of Britain's relationship with Europe, is particularly significant.

Yesterday's opinion poll in the Daily Telegraph reported 42 per cent of voters in favour of staying in the EU and 38 per cent against, with 20 per cent don't knows or not voting. Only 25 per cent favour British participation in a single currency.

The most important development for the opposition parties concerned the negotiations between Labour and the Liberal Democrats over constitutional change, including Scottish and Welsh devolution, abolition of hereditary peerages in the House of Lords and electoral reform.

The agenda does not include abolition of the monarchy, the subject of another opinion poll this week, which found a sharp increase in republican, sentiment to some 30 per cent of the electorate.

The big question is whether the Liberal Democrats will bargain electoral reform against co operation on the other elements of this agenda, notably on whether Tony Blair would commit himself to a referendum on the subject by making clear his own preference for change.

The jury is still out on this subject, which many observers see as the fundamental factor making for a long term political realignment that could help to resolve the other elements of what is described in a recent book* as Britain's crisis of identity. It is quadruple in character, involving Britain's transatlantic, European, Irish and constitutional dimensions.

The word crisis derives from the Greek word krinein, to decide, implying a moment or period of crucial decision in the face of accute difficulty, abnormality or danger. It is not difficult to discern these elements in the fevered psychology of Britain's election rhetoric about the future relations between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and its position in Europe and the world.

Identity includes territorial boundedness, geopolitical positioning, shared myths of origin, and common culture, legal rights and duties.

This year will also see the formal end of the imperial history that has been the determining feature of British identity. Whoever becomes prime minister will preside over the transfer of Hong Kong to China at the end of June, just days after participating in the end game of the Inter Governmental Conference in Amsterdam.

In Chinese the word crisis is represented by two characters one depicting danger, the other opportunity. The dualism is important as a symbol of the choices facing Britain. According to the political writer David Marquand, a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, "imperial Britain was Britain ... Deprived of empire and plunged into Europe, Britain had no meaning."

Both Labour and the Conservatives dispute this conclusion, even as they argue that devolution would save or destroy the United Kingdom. There is just as much opportunity as danger in the political choices faced by its leaders, they concur. They might with profit study another etymological curiosity. The word federalism, which so divides the British, is derived from the Latin foedus, meaning covenant. This has deeper historical roots, relating back to the Hebrew word for covenant: brit!

A covenant is more than a contract in this tradition, implying a mutual obligation to partnership, as leading scholar Daniel Elazar points out. British leaders are only now coming to terms with the political and legal implications of this fact, which although it was spelled out in the European treaties was never properly explained, to the British electorate.