9:00PM BST 04 Jun 2011 When David Cameron was elected as Conservative leader, it seemed as if the party's 20-year civil war over Europe had been resolved. Cameron's own Eurosceptic credentials were irreproachable, while his most important allies – Oliver Letwin, George Osborne, Francis Maude and Michael Gove – were all powerful critics of the European Union. Meanwhile, the pro-Europeans had given up the ghost. One or two resigned; Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine bowed to the inevitable. They did not make much of a fuss when Cameron brought back William Hague, famously Eurosceptic as Tory leader, as shadow foreign secretary. They were practically silent when he broke the party's link with the federalist European People's Party, a piece of radical surgery that not even Michael Howard or Iain Duncan Smith had dared to attempt. Today, the received view of David Cameron is in urgent need of reassessment. Far from pursuing a rigorous policy of Euroscepticism, the Prime Minister has consistently conducted himself as a pro-European. Indeed, he has been a far more steadfast supporter of the EU than Tony Blair, who is conventionally held up as the most Brussels-friendly premier in recent decades. While Blair's rhetoric was consistently warm about Europe, he routinely failed to deliver. Although Cameron still articulates the language of Euroscepticism, he is in practice the most pro-European prime minister since Sir Edward Heath. Even before the election, the first signs had appeared, when Cameron broke his pledge to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. To be fair, he was within his rights to do so, because the Treaty had already been approved by every national parliament. Nevertheless, his failure to keep to his pledge gave a strong impression of poor faith. Then came the Coalition negotiations. Three significant things took place during this momentous five-day period. First, the Tory leader and his negotiating team placed a very low value on European issues (something which surprised the Liberal Democrats). Second, Cameron ruthlessly ditched Mark Francois, his sceptical European spokesman, and replaced him with the more emollient David Lidington, who had been a special adviser to Douglas Hurd when he was foreign secretary in the 1990s. But the third decision was the most important. While the negotiations were going on, the eurozone was plunged into its first sovereign debt crisis with the Greek bail-out. In an act of almost insane recklessness, the outgoing chancellor, Alistair Darling, committed Britain to joining the £95 billion "stabilisation mechanism". George Osborne did object – rather feebly – in a phone conservation with Darling. But as the prospective chancellor, he was in a position to halt British involvement altogether. As a result, we are on the hook for £6.5 billion – a sum the newly elected Conservative MP Jo Johnson dismissed as a "rounding error", displaying the combination of cavalier economics and Europhilia that one would expect from a former Financial Times journalist. Newly elected ministers have a choice of two methods when they deal with Brussels: they either fight in a bloody-minded way for British interests, as Margaret Thatcher or Nicholas Ridley did, or they join the club. Osborne's decision set the tone: without exception, Cameron's ministers have joined the club. Warm words of praise for their sympathetic attitude, and for the "maturity" of this approach, gushed across the Channel. Tory MPs were whipped to vote for the new European diplomatic corps (making William Hague's recent complaints about its muscling in on Foreign Office terrain sheer hypocrisy). Defence co-operation with Europe, discussed in a hand-wringing way under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, became a reality. On European plans for financial regulation – which nakedly targeted the City of London – the Coalition simply surrendered. Theresa May was congratulated by pro-Europeans for going even further than Labour had been prepared to and giving way on an extension of the European arrest warrant. One of the officials behind Darling's catastrophic decision to pile British taxpayers' money into the eurozone bail-outs – into which billions more have since been poured – was a Treasury official named Sir Jon Cunliffe. He was soon rewarded with promotion to the British ambassadorship to the EU, one of the best jobs in Brussels – which casts doubt on the sincerity of Cameron's and Osborne's claims that they were seriously displeased with the deal. Sir Jon is doubtless an honourable man and a well-trained official. But there is no hope that a chap who helped chuck away billion of taxpayers' money in an afternoon will stand up for Britain in tough, detailed negotiations. It must be acknowledged that it is easy for a columnist, or a Tory backbencher with time on his hands, to take the purist and principled line. Government is always about compromise, forging alliances, getting business done. I believe that Cameron, Hague and Osborne remain Eurosceptic in their hearts. They have simply made the pragmatic decision that, at a time of financial crisis, other things matter more than Europe. Take that fateful bail-out decision in May 2010. George Osborne would have calculated that it would send the wrong message to begin his job as Chancellor with a massive European row. He would also have reflected that doing so would alienate his Coalition partners at a desperately sensitive time. Above all, Mr Osborne would have calculated that a public argument with Europe would distract from the ultimate priority: saving the national finances. But compromises like these are heavy with consequence. This week, Greece is to be bailed out a second time, which, like the other bail-outs, is completely illegal under European Union rules. Britain could have tried to stop them, had we wanted – indeed, it is not too late for us to challenge the latest EU treaty change, hastily constructed to legalise financial transfers between member states. It is by no means clear, after all, whether this is in the British national interest: bearing in mind the sacrifices being forced on the Greeks, Irish and Portuguese, there is even a case that these latest bail-outs are not just illegal, but immoral. The treaty change is likely to be formalised at a summit later this month, and will be quietly approved by national parliaments in the autumn. Much more than the Lisbon Treaty, it will enable the realisation of the great European vision: a continental superstate. David Cameron has, for pragmatic reasons, chosen to collaborate with this process. Whether his party will support him remains to be seen.Is David Cameron the most Europhile prime minister since Edward Heath?
Cameron, Hague and Osborne remain Eurosceptic in their hearts - but their actions reveal a conviction that other things matter more, says Peter Oborne.
Sunday, 5 June 2011
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