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By Andrew Marr, BBC political editor
What are the dangers of delay in joining the euro?
When it comes to the euro, it is far easier to list the reasons for putting a referendum off, than the reasons for pressing ahead.
Assuming the decision is ‘no, not yet’, then it won't only be because Gordon Brown is blocking the prime minister. It's also because Tony Blair knows a crazy bet when he sees one.
To shift public opinion in the longer term may be entirely possible. Though British voters are against the euro, they also think we will eventually join it. This suggests a deep-down fatalism; people expect to be pushed into accepting the single currency, even against their own first instincts.
But not now. The major continental economies are in visible trouble and Britain continues, relatively speaking, to flourish. Both Blair and Brown call regularly for economic reform throughout the EU and claim to see signs that it is starting. But there are still obvious gaps between the continental capitalisms and the British system.
Aftertaste of war
The chancellor gives the impression not that Britain is unready to join the euro block, but that they are not quite ready or fit to join us.
The prime minister may have hoped that a successful war against Iraq, with his critics seen off and a liberated people praising him, would have helped give him the authority at home to push harder for the euro. But the sour aftertaste of this war, with the questions about its real motivation and even legality, have not put him in the commanding position he would need to lead us into the euro.
He is advised that holding a referendum now, with so many popular papers so bitterly opposed and with the economies out of sync, his chancellor still not ready and with his own credibility being questioned, would be political suicide.
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