Mr John Major never ceases to surprise in his capacity to pull a political rabbit out the hat. This is one of his prime strengths as a politician and a good reason not to underestimate his capacity to survive.
The Conservative cabinet's compromise on the question of holding a referendum on whether the United Kingdom should join a European monetary union is a case in point. In deciding to include a commitment to a referendum in their party's election manifesto, after a Conservative government had seen legislation through parliament, Mr Major has trumped a strong Eurosceptic lobby, headed off the damage that Mr James Goldsmith's Referendum Party might have done to marginal Conservative seats, stolen a march on the Labour Party, and still managed to avoid provoking his Europhile Chancellor, Mr Kenneth Clarke, into resigning over the issue of parliamentary sovereignty.
The decision comes after several other gestures towards the party's Eurosceptic wing, notably the publication of a White Paper on the Inter Governmental Conference inaugurated recently in Turin. It takes a decidedly minimalist approach towards the agenda, without, however, conceding too much to Mr Major's right wing critics or giving them hostages to fortune. Mr Major's parliamentary arithmetic remains a real constraint on his freedom of manoeuvre in the negotiations, but the referendum decision may help to restore some of the credibility he needs to avoid a humiliating isolation as the IGC talks get properly under way. So will the outcome of the beef crisis.
Mr Major was able to return from Turin with the solidarity of the other heads of state and government ringing in his ears. This created more political space for him against those who rallied to the banner headlines trumpeting "Europe bans British beef". The financial realities of compensating for the huge cattle cull, which threatened to torpedo the Conservative taxation plans for the election, dictated otherwise, despite the profound issues of identity involved, and the return of the Agriculture Minister, Mr Douglas Hogg, empty handed this week in his demand that the world wide ban on the export of British cattle be lifted. Likewise, the issues of deregulation under Mrs Thatcher in the early 1980s that led to the BSE epidemic could prove lethal for the Conservative record in office.
From the Irish perspective the referendum issue can seem like a puzzling disagreement. Referendums are such an accepted feature of the Irish political landscape that it is difficult to think oneself into the mind set which would reject their use in the name of parliamentary sovereignty on an issue as important as the single currency. Britain may have something to learn from Irish constitutional practice in this respect, now that the Conservative leadership has accepted the legitimacy of the referendum device.
On the substantive issue of whether Britain will join a monetary union, this State has an important interest. The decision to hold a referendum contains few clues on this matter the policy mantra is that it is not yet clear whether it would suit Britain to join. But many informed observers continue to believe it is only a matter of time before the presumed belief of its major interest groups that Britain should join, Is matched by a political willingness to do so.