On Europe, the Tories have put party ahead of country
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Version 0 of 1. The prime minister's attempt to block Jean-Claude Juncker as European commission president was botched and mishandled, but it leaves the strategic landscape largely unchanged. Britain's European policy will continue to be inward looking and mainly concerned with the internal party management of the Conservatives. Since the Tories stand a modest chance of winning an overall majority next year, the risks of having an in-out referendum in 2017 are also modest if Nick Clegg holds his nerve. Start with the cock-up, a familiar theme to students of British policy on Europe. The prime minister made several tactical errors over Juncker. No single appointment is so crucial that it was worth dying in the ditch quite so humiliatingly alongside a Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, chiefly known for his willingness to suborn his country's fledgling democracy. Cameron also assumed that his best chance of blocking the Luxemburger would be to enlist the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. That was high risk, precisely because Juncker comes from Merkel's political family – the European People's party of centre-right Christian Democrats and Conservatives. This was the very grouping from which Cameron had pulled out his own Tories as part of a Faustian leadership pact with his party's Europhobes. Cameron's courtship of Merkel was even less likely to succeed when she had a strong domestic reason for supporting Juncker. The Axel Springer group is the largest newspaper publisher in Europe. Its feisty tabloid Bild was backing Juncker because of his support for the group's attempt to clip the wings of the over-mighty Google. Springer is a prime mover in Europe's open internet project. The alternative tactic for Cameron? You are allowed to shift alliances in Europe issue by issue, and Cameron's most obvious allies against Juncker were in the socialist group, particularly those leaders such as France's François Hollande who have mistrusted Juncker's sanctimonious Europeanism when all the time he was gradually destroying the tax base of fellow EU member states. Juncker is the face of what the French call "fiscal paradises". He was the Luxembourg prime minister, from 1995 to 2013, who defended banking secrecy, refused cooperation on tax information, and tailored tax laws to corporate requests. The EU operations of Amazon, Apple, eBay and Skype are all based in the little duchy. Luxembourg was even examined last year by the OECD for its lack of willingness to exchange tax information, along with Cyprus, Seychelles and the British Virgin Islands. Its new liberal-socialist-green coalition is trying to make amends. The Juncker defeat does not, though, mean that Cameron's strategy of renegotiation prior to a 2017 referendum is doomed. Cameron was already wise enough to ask for largely cosmetic changes that can be delivered without treaty change, just as the Labour prime minister Harold Wilson did when he pioneered the same "renegotiation" strategy ahead of the 1975 referendum on British membership, and for exactly the same reasons of party management. It is ignoble, risky and undignified, but many democratic leaders have experience of putting their own and their party interests ahead of their nation's. Moreover, the Tories may not be in a position to deliver on their promises. The betting money says they stand little better than a one-in-four chance of an overall majority next year, and therefore the chances of an in-out referendum in 2017 are small if Labour and the Liberal Democrats continue to oppose it. Clegg is coming under pressure to yield but will face fierce party criticism if he does. If the Tories are in a position to hold that referendum, the chances of Cameron losing are also small. Sunday's YouGov poll – in the wake of a lot of bad Euro-news – still put the two sides neck and neck. Faced with a government claiming, however disingenuously, that it has won fundamental concessions from Brussels, the answer will be pretty clear for the status quo. Add the CBI, TUC and every major foreign investor: Nissan, Tata, Siemens, Ford. Add the White House and other allies. The risk that Britain could leave the European Union is nevertheless real. Even a risk of one in 20 is unacceptably high for a course of action that would be cataclysmic for our national interest. The risk is so high that Labour is right to say that it will damage – is already damaging – investment and growth. Moreover, this is not the first time. The famous veto of the fiscal treaty in December 2011 merely weakened Britain's standing; the treaty went ahead without us. A referendum would arrange leading Conservatives on both sides, just as the 1975 referendum split the Wilson cabinet, with some campaigning for (Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey, Shirley Williams) and some against (Tony Benn, Peter Shore, Michael Foot). A large number of Tory backbenchers will vote to get out, hoping to appease activists. But despite all these problems, the result is likely to settle matters. If the Europhobes lose, they will not leave the Tory party, because they have nowhere else to go. The issue will be put to bed for another 40 years, and perhaps for ever. If the Europhobes win, the country will be so fearfully different that all bets are off. Little England would be alone with its shadows, and Juncker will be the least of Cameron's problems. |