This is a balanced view of the Tories and their attitude to the EU [Apart from a dreadful misquoting of the polls!)
The overriding priority must be to deal with the mounting economic crisis which could still bring the whole House of Cards toppling down. That said there is bound to come a moment in the next two or three years when the whole question of the EU will boil up again. Cameron will find that the nature of his party has changed on this issue as a new generation of MPs takes its bow.
If the country has survived that long it will be “interesting times” indeed.
Christina
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FINANCIAL TIMES 17.11.09
Europe is still a looming crisis for Cameron
By Max Hastings
Gordon Brown on Monday contrasted his party’s commitment to Europe with Tory Euroscepticism, and it is hard to say he was unjust. Opposition leader David Cameron displayed considerable courage in his response to the EU Lisbon Treaty ratification, rejecting a referendum if he takes office next year. Reaction from the Tory right was muted. Its standard-bearers recognise the priority of an election victory, which would be imperilled by disunity.
Thereafter, however, Europe will become a serious issue for a future Cameron government. There will be relentless pressure from the Tory grassroots to loosen, if not break, bonds linking Britain to the EU.
The new Tory MPs will create the most Eurosceptic parliament since Britain’s 1972 entry into the Common Market. Public sentiment is at best tepid, and among a minority, pathologically hostile, in a way that transcends party and class boundaries.
Many look upon Europe as an obstacle to their security and prosperity. Arguments that, for all its flaws, the Union should be perceived as a historic success story make little impact. It is blamed for all manner of domestic social and economic difficulties, and perceived as a drain on British pockets.
President Charles de Gaulle of France insisted the British are irredeemably anti-continental, and there are grounds for thinking he was right.
Some recent polls suggest more than 60 per cent of voters believe Britain should seek change in the EU relationship, especially to challenge the supremacy of the European Court. Around 15 per cent favour withdrawal. A September YouGov survey showed that, given a choice between accepting the Lisbon treaty and leaving the EU, only 23 per cent supported endorsement, 31 per cent were unsure and 43 per cent favoured quitting.
Human rights law is perhaps the most contentious issue. It is held accountable for unwanted immigration, welfare benefit abuses by foreigners and constraints upon the police and judiciary. In reality, most court judgments reflecting alleged excessive regard for human rights derive from Britain’s adherence to the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, which predated EU membership, and is unrelated to it. But new social and employment provisions in the Lisbon treaty will prompt further unpopular judicial decisions, directly attributable to the EU.
Support for rightwing fringe groups the UK Independence party and British National party, currently around 15 per cent, [DO PLEASE get it right. The gighest figure for UKIP anywhere has been 5% and the BNP 3% with the most common at 3% and 2%. The figure Hastings uses in cludes the Nationalist pafrties and the Greens. Don’t the papers employ editorsd any more ? -cs] is likely to fall at a general election. But both could split the rightwing vote in marginal constituencies and conceivably deny Mr Cameron a parliamentary majority.
Even if such fears are confounded, many Tory MPs predict Eurosceptics will press a Cameron government to fulfil his promise to repatriate some undefined British sovereign powers. “Our right to determine for ourselves who enters this country is fundamental,” argues a rightwing Tory MP, and most voters agree with him.
Every British government is obliged to make policy recognising the strength of such sentiment, supported by much of the press.
On the credit side, many people hostile to some EU policies nonetheless see no future for Britain outside the Union. In tempering my own periodic fits of Euroscepticism, I have never forgotten a 1993 remark of Raymond Seitz, probably the ablest modern American ambassador in London: “Always remember that the US is interested in Britain only insofar as Britain is a player in Europe.”
Even if there is more cynicism about Europe in today’s Washington, there remains no evidence that any bilateral relationship with the US is available which offers Britain a credible alternative to EU membership. Yet a populist Eurosceptic view persists, that Britain would flourish alone because the EU would need it as a trading partner.
Pro-Europeans take comfort from the fact that, in power, British governments have fumed and chafed, yet even Margaret Thatcher never seriously contemplated withdrawal. Polls show, however much the EU is disliked, as a political issue it ranks low on voters’ agenda.
But there is a real prospect that, if Mr Cameron becomes prime minister, his MPs will reassert the old arguments and risk dividing their party. If such a scenario unfolds, it will be a grievous distraction from Britain’s economic problems.
Mr Cameron might assuage domestic unease by contriving an initiative to free Britain from the perceived excesses and abuses of social and human rights legislation. The technical impediments are very great, perhaps insuperable. But the more a Tory cabinet pleads constitutional difficulties about “repatriating powers”, the greater is likely to be grassroots anger and impatience for a referendum, allegedly to strengthen Britain’s negotiating position with Brussels.
“Europe is a running sore, and will not be healed until Cameron addresses it,” says a Eurosceptic Tory MP. No prudent British politician can ignore such sentiment, a formidable limitation upon foreign policy-making. It is almost unthinkable that Britain could join the euro, even if it was economically attractive, because political resistance is implacable.
It is unlikely Britain will leave the EU, but highly plausible that Mr Cameron will sooner or later feel obliged to force a crisis on specific issues of sovereignty and jurisdiction, of which the outcome is anybody’s guess.
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The writer is an FT contributing editor
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