David Cameron's great leap into the dark on Europe may prove fatal for him

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/27/david-camerons-disastrous-europe-speech

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At the Labour conference of 1962, Hugh Gaitskell made a supposedly definitive speech declaring that if Britain joined Europe it would mean the "end of a thousand years of history". Basking in the applause, he delightedly remarked to his wife: "Look how many people are clapping." To which she deflatingly replied: "Yes, dear. But it's the wrong people who are clapping."

There has been much applause for David Cameron from his party and its newspapers in the wake of his speech on Europe. In some quarters, the reception has been so adulatory that you could have been fooled into thinking that he had won himself a place alongside Abraham Lincoln in the pantheon of great orators and the Gettysburg Address now had a rival in the Bloomberg Speech. In the Commons, his MPs gave him a hero's welcome. But I wonder if the prime minister noted that the most jubilant people on the benches behind him were his enemies. Those most delighted by his promise of an in-out referendum are the visceral Euro-haters for whom he has just fired the starting gun on a five-year campaign to leave Europe whatever he comes back with from any renegotiation. If Mr Cameron is serious when he says his "heart and soul" wants Britain to remain a member of the EU, then, from his point of view, the wrong people were clapping.

This was a speech made at the wrong time for the wrong reasons, proclaiming a policy he never originally intended, with a pledge he had previously resisted on an issue that excites his party but not that many of the public. At the superficial level of short-term party management, it has been a success. The Conservative party has looked united and pleased with its leader, sights so rare these days as to be worth remarking upon. Ukip's Nigel Farage has not been his usual bouncy self. I am not sure his fox has been as shot and stuffed as Tory strategists are hoping, but it was certainly limping badly in the immediate aftermath of the speech. Labour and the Lib Dems have squirmed a bit explaining why they are against having a vote on EU membership. "I won't consult the people" is never a terribly good look for a politician, even when the position comes with sensible arguments. Mr Cameron's poll numbers may enjoy a bouncette.

But on any time horizon further away than a few weeks, the speech will prove to be a terrible mistake, quite possibly the fatal error of his premiership. David Cameron has taken a great leap into the dark, which would not be so serious if he were not making his country jump with him.

Here are a few of the important things that he doesn't know and neither does anyone else. He can't yet be sure whether he can persuade other member states to get around the table to discuss his plan to reform the European Union and repatriate some as yet unspecified powers. He can't even know with whom he might be negotiating since there are a lot of elections between now and 2017, including a crucial one in Germany this autumn. Other European leaders agree that deeper integration within the eurozone will require a new settlement at some point, including rules to govern the relationship between those who are in the single currency and those who aren't. But yet another thing that Mr Cameron can't know is whether his timetable – renegotiation in the first half of the next parliament, followed by a referendum some time around 2017 – will be a fit with events and the interests of other players.

One thing he might be expected to know is what he would like the negotiation to be about. Yet only one example was given in his speech and that was the working time directive. If all he demands is the right for Britain's junior doctors to be allowed to treat patients when they are half asleep at the end of a 100-hour week, the rest of Europe may not be too resistant to granting us that dubious privilege. Presumably the prime minister has more ambitious goals than that. The party that was cheering him will skin him alive if he hasn't. But he dare not say what they are, so he is currently hiding behind the Foreign Office's protracted consultation about what the EU does and how this has an impact on Britain, a review that is designed to be published in slow instalments.

At some point, Mr Cameron will have to specify his demands. If they are on the maximalist end of the spectrum, other European leaders will respond that he is asking for the impossible. If he produces a shopping list that might be more realistic as a basis for negotiation, he will be denounced from within his party for seeking too little. His fundamental problem is the unbridgeable gap between what the rest of Europe might be prepared to swallow to prevent Britain from sliding out of the EU and the price for staying in demanded by a large section of the Tory party. The gap is as wide as it ever was and David Cameron is still wobbling on a tightrope strung across the chasm, but now without the benefit of any safety net.

To his circle, he has expressed a hope that the Conservative party will now shut up about Europe and talk about other things that are far more important to most voters, such as jobs and living standards. If he is fortunate, the referendum pledge may cool down his party for a time, but I doubt it will be for a terribly long time. Men such as Douglas Carswell, Bill Cash and Mark Reckless have devoted entire careers to talking about Europe. They are not going to fall silent on the subject for the next two and a half years and suddenly develop an interest in botany or some other harmless hobby. As one of Mr Cameron's most loyal ministers puts it: "The great danger is that David has aroused an appetite that he will never be able to satisfy."

For the most hardcore Europhobes, the renegotiation-then-referendum pledge does not resolve the debate. It is just the beginning of an argument they want to conclude with Britain out of the EU. This guarantees that Mr Cameron's party will go into the next election even more divided on Europe. Some Tory candidates will proudly issue personal manifestos pledging themselves to vote no in a referendum. Others will come under enormous pressure to follow suit to avoid a Ukip challenge. I expect Nigel Farage will soon get his wind back. To Eurosceptic voters, he can say that referendum pledges have been betrayed before and the only way to be sure it is delivered is to keep Mr Cameron's feet to the fire by voting Ukip at all possible opportunities.

The referendum pledge may anyway turn out to be a phantom since it is entirely contingent on Mr Cameron still being in Downing Street after 2015. As I've pointed out before, no Conservative prime minister has improved his party's share of the vote since Anthony Eden in rather special circumstances in 1955. If the next parliament is also hung, and the Lib Dems again hold the keys to Number 10, Mr Cameron has said acceptance of his plan will be a deal-breaker. Yet the Lib Dems have already repudiated it as a betrayal of the national interest and could not put him back into Number 10 if there were any risk he would lead a campaign to exit the EU. While proclaiming the virtues of flexibility in Europe, he has glued himself into a position that reduces his chances of remaining as prime minister.

Then imagine a scenario in which Mr Cameron is in a position to pursue a renegotiation in the next parliament. Another thing he cannot say is what he would regard as a success. Would getting 80% of what he asked for be sufficient for him to recommend a Yes vote? 60%? Would he settle for 50%? He himself can't know yet. But this we can be sure about. He could come back with everything that he had demanded and a significant element of his party would still not be satisfied. They are not interested in securing a "better deal". For them, the point of a referendum is to get out. For going on 20 years, the Conservative party has been regularly convulsed by its destructive passions about Europe, but it has just about stayed together. A referendum campaign would turn those divisions into a bitter and formal split between Yes and No Tories. One of the prime minister's motives was to try to forestall his party from eviscerating itself as it did over the Corn Laws in the 19th century and free trade in the early part of the 20th century. Yet what he has done makes such a split more possible.

In a way, it is a breathtaking achievement. With one speech that he never wanted to make, Mr Cameron has unleashed several years of uncertainty about whether Britain will remain a member of the world's most powerful political and trading bloc, made it less likely that he will remain as prime minister after the next election, and more likely that his party will ultimately come apart altogether over Europe. That's a high price to pay for one day of cheers on a wintry Wednesday. With the wrong people clapping.