BOOKWORM WHO TOOK ON BIG BEASTS OF EUROPE
Sunday December 5,2010
By Kirsty Buchanan
HE LISTS his hobbies in Who’s Who as “fighting Eurocrats and chopping firewood”, but until six years ago Toby Blackwell scarcely spared Brussels a thought. It was only in 2004, when the head of the Blackwell bookshop chain was given some holiday reading, that he changed his mind on the European Union for good.
The book was called A Cost Too Far and, at the age of 75, it set Mr Blackwell on a new crusade.
Written by Ian Milne and published by the highly respected think tank Civitas, it catalogues the eye-watering cost of Britain’s membership of the European Union and argues that there would be no net loss of jobs or trade if we were to leave.
“This book started it. This was my road to Damascus,” says Mr Blackwell, now 81. “My wife was going out to the temples and markets and I just stayed behind to read it.
“I was lucky enough to go to Winchester, where some long suffering don taught me maths. I have the power of logic and the power to think for myself.
“I am a simple guy. I think that you face a problem, collect the facts, analyse the facts make objective decisions from the facts and then try and do something about it.
“This is not politically driven. It is 100 per cent logic. I have read everything you can possibly think of on this and what it comes down to is this: if we get out of Europe, it will save us £100billion a year. That is not opinion, it is fact.”
Now Mr Blackwell is putting his money into the EU Referendum Campaign, which will put pressure on ministers to give voters the democratic vote they so clearly want.
It is designed to be a grassroots, cross-party campaign and it could not have come at a more appropriate time.
A multi-billion euro begging bowl is being scooped dry, as a queue of humiliated, debt-lashed eurozone nations hold their hands out, asking for help.
Meanwhile, Britain has suffered a severe setback in dealing with its own debts after handing £7billion over to crisis-hit Ireland. It is the same amount of money we have shaved off public spending in 2010.
Yet while Britons are denied a referendum on Europe, the nation is being given a £12million vote on an electoral reform so dreary that not even the Liberal Democrats can get excited about it.
“On one hand we have this Government trying to find £83billion worth of cuts, yet this would save £100billion a year,” says Mr Blackwell.
“It would take a couple of years to come through but if we did this then we don’t have to put up VAT, we don’t have to have any cuts, we don’t have to get rid of the Harriers, we can sort out higher education.”
The campaign was launched just three months ago, but already tens of thousands of voters have registered their demand for a referendum on whether Britain should remain in the EU on its website.
The campaign has commissioned polls which suggest a vote would be decisively in favour of British withdrawal from the EU. The campaign is also targeting MPs and asking them to sign up to The Pledge, backing calls for an EU referendum.
A ny MP or prospective parliamentary candidate who refuses will find themselves targeted with leaflet drops and petitions. MPs in marginal seats could find the number of voters who sign up to The Pledge is greater than the size of their majority at the last election.
“The political elite of all parties have consistently ignored our right to vote on the most important of all issues,” states The Pledge.
“The intention of our campaign is to amass and place on public record the names of all of you who demand the right to be consulted in a legally binding referendum.” The campaign deliberately echoes the Tea Party in the US, though the EU Referendum Campaign is not aligned with any political party.
That suits Mr Blackwell just fine because, by and large, he has a fairly low opinion of politicians. Has he ever thought of going into politics?
“Good God no,” he says, “I don’t do politics. The politicians just want this issue to go away, they are enjoying being in power and they don’t want anything to upset it.
“If we are going to win, we have got to win with the people.”
Mr Blackwell’s only foray into the world of politics was a rather ill- fated and short-lived stint on the now defunct Training and Enterprise Council. It was enough to keep him off the red benches for life. What he calls a “Sir Humphrey type” told Mr Blackwell he had been officially classed as a NOGOBE, “Never going to be an OBE”.
However, the idea of a grassroots movement clearly appeals to Mr Blackwell, who exudes an energy which belies his years.
A former Parachute regiment reservist, he likes nothing better on a Saturday lunchtime than to sneak off to the local for a pint with his mates.
He has given away his ownership shares to Blackwell staff in a John Lewis-style partnership to secure the bookstore’s future as a private company. He thinks it will ensure all of the employees take responsibility as well as sharing in the rewards. “Everyone matters,” says Mr Blackwell.
The company was founded by Benjamin Harris Blackwell in 1879 and today employs 949 people. It has a total of 77 shops, including 37 bookshops and 40 stores on college and university campuses.
Now life president of Blackwell and the last member of his family to be involved with the business, Mr Blackwell has described his 55 years at the firm as “Hell on Earth”.
However, the decades of hard work have allowed him to support his private interests (he recently handed over a £5million grant to the Bodleian Library in Oxford) and given him the financial power to play the politicians at their own game.
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