Agenda: Strange death of Cameron's Euroskepticism
iain martin
David Cameron was leader of the opposition it was the widely accepted wisdom that he would, if he became Britain's prime minister, have the most terrible difficulties with the European Union.
His party, it was said, would be almost unmanageable on the issue. Remember that he encountered all manner of problems when he helped to establish a new center-right grouping in the European Parliament, breaking away from the far-right EPP. Surely that was just a taster before the main course in government?
Relations with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France were likely be fraught, as the Conservatives forced their leader to block initiatives coming from Brussels. Britain led by Mr. Cameron would be on a collision course with its neighbors. The resulting impact might destroy Mr. Cameron's carefully calibrated attempts to present himself as centrist, moderate and reasonable.
Absolutely none of this has happened. Why?
Almost unnoticed, his MPs have voted for a list of measures that would a few years ago have triggered full-scale Tory war. There was the expansion of justice and home-affairs powers, involving the extension of the so-called European arrest warrant. The European External Action Service—or EU diplomatic service—was nodded through. New regulations for the City of London require the establishment of three pan-European supervisory bodies. This was accepted by the Treasury and if there were protests from the Conservative benches they didn't make much noise. A higher budget for the EU has also been approved.
Ask senior Conservatives about all this and they point to the coalition with the Liberal Democrats, enthusiasts for integration. It necessitates compromise.
But that is the myth designed to make Lib Dem leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg feel good. Mr. Cameron had decided long before he failed to win an overall majority at the general election that he was not going to die in a ditch over Europe. He prepared accordingly, removing his commitment to a referendum on the Lisbon treaty on the grounds that it was too late and would look ridiculous.
Mr. Cameron also put in a lot of effort into wooing Ms. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy ahead of the election, reassuring them that he would be a good member of the European leaders' club. This work has continued since he took office.
He is aided by having William Hague at the Foreign Office. One of the most enduring myths of public life in Britain is that of Mr. Hague as Euroskeptic. He was once so minded, when he lost the 2001 election heavily pledging to "Save the Pound." Since then he has kept the reputation while moving steadily onto mainstream establishment territory. As a fellow Conservative puts it: "William has a couple of years ahead of him doing an agreeable job, and then a lifetime of book signings and profitable speech-making afterwards. He's not going to do anything confrontational that puts all that at risk."
The prime minister is a relentlessly pragmatic sort and not particularly Euroskeptic. He liked to say in opposition: "Isn't it great that the Tory party hasn't had a row about Europe for ages?" Now he doesn't want any trouble that might destabilize his government and distract from its priority of eliminating the deficit by the next election.
Britons, more concerned post-crisis about the economy than Europe, don't seem particularly fussed either. They will tell pollsters that they are notionally skeptical of the EU and many of its works, yet recoil from leaders and parties that bang on about it. A campaign for a referendum on withdrawal began recently, but I wouldn't rate highly the chances of Mr. Cameron signing up.
What a tranquil scene. A subject on which Conservatives fought a civil war has faded into the background. If it is not the death of U.K. Tory Euroskepticism, it looks a lot like it.
Jam tomorrow
To the Liberal Democrat party conference in Liverpool on Monday. The third party is in government for the first time since World War II and isn't really sure how it feels about the experience. The conference was held in Liverpool, birthplace of the Beatles and a city that has suffered as steep a postindustrial decline as any in Britain. But the impressive latest stages of the regeneration of the city's old docklands area suggest that it might, at last, be starting to find its feet again. The redevelopment is the familiar mix of conference center, hotels, museums, retail, restaurants, stylish bars and apartments. As a friend noted dryly, all that is lacking is "any visible means of support."
The problem for Liverpool, as with many other old cities in Europe and the U.S. battling to reinvent themselves, is that once the shiny new development has been built you are still left with the crumbling old city center a stone's throw away.
Five minutes walk from the gleaming steel and glass, and burnished Georgian brick, is the other Liverpool. Beautiful historic buildings surrounded by down-market shops and boarded up buildings. What can one do with it all? It cannot be demolished.
This is known as the jam and the doughnut problem. The redeveloped area is the economic sweet spot, but it comes encased in an unappetizing dough. The theory is that the regeneration of one area will pull up neighboring parts of the city, rescuing them from decay and decline. Given time, and a spurt of sustained growth, perhaps that will be Liverpool's experience. I hope so. It all hinges on growth.
To that end, there will be those who say it and cities like it depend on public-sector employment and should be spared cuts. That misses the point. What Liverpool desperately needs if its redevelopment is to be sustained is much more private-sector activity, which requires—among other things—confidence. I hope Nick Clegg had time for a walk about the city, and grasped that there should be more to life than cuts. A little hope and optimism about future economic prospects wouldn't go amiss. Places such as Liverpool could do with hearing what lies beyond austerity.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal Europe, page 2
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