Act now and call the anti-Europeans’ bluff – they look absurd and weak

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/12/call-anti-europe-lobby-bluff-absurd-weak

Version 0 of 1.

It makes a good headline, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Downing Street, we were told at the start of this week, is plotting an early vote on Europe in 2016. Cue loud cheering on the Tory right, another leap on to a passing bandwagon by Boris Johnson, and much excitement in the anti-EU press.

Now comes a second wave of headlines. Yesterday Nigel Farage said the promise of an immediate vote on Europe – and 2016 is hardly immediate – was the only thing that would persuade Ukip to support any government after May. But as soon as you think about any of this with any care, the conclusion becomes obvious: this is a fantasy. It ain’t going to happen.

Europe is the Jekyll and Hyde of the 2015 election. To a portion of the electorate, getting Britain out of the EU is a frenzied obsession. Yet for most people Europe is a second-order issue. Fewer than 10% of voters cite Europe as one of the top three issues facing Britain – and only 22% of Ukip voters think it is the number one issue. The outcome of the election will certainly have major implications for relations between Britain and Europe, but none of the three main parties will put Europe at the centre of its campaign.

There is something even more delusional than usual about the increased volume of the calls for an early referendum. The anti-Europeans seem not to have noticed that Europe has some other pretty big priorities to deal with at the moment – and that Britain is most certainly not one of them economic stagnation, the future of Greece, and the threat from Russia in Ukraine and elsewhere. All are urgent problems. To imagine that Britain’s grievance against the EU is more pressing than any of these three is self-absorbed madness.

It is high time that the pro-European parties took up the cudgels on Europe. This country badly needs a reality check

Even supposing that none of these other problems existed – if Europe’s economy was growing, Greece’s debts were rethought and Russia came over all cuddly – the idea that Britain’s place in Europe should then rise instantly to the top of the agenda is far-fetched too. It’s not even in our own national interest. It is high time that the pro-European parties – Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the nationalists – took up the cudgels on Europe more forcefully. This country badly needs a reality check.

There are multiple reasons why an early referendum on Europe is unlikely. The first and most obvious is that May’s election looks unlikely to throw up a parliamentary majority. The only circumstances in which there will be a referendum are if the Tories form the next government and have the Commons votes for a referendum bill. Both things are possible, but neither of them is a certainty. Without both, it won’t happen.

If David Cameron returns as prime minister he would certainly have an incentive to move quickly on Europe. Tabling a bill for a 2016 vote, or even for a vote later this year, would strengthen his leadership position. He might even be able to call the opposition parties’ bluffs to get it through the Commons. But it would not bring the renegotiation process to fruition any more quickly. And it would not mean that the bill would pass in the House of Lords.

The 2017 referendum pledge was not plucked out of thin air. It is predicated on an extended negotiation in Europe and steadfast resistance to the bill in the Lords, and it assumes that French and German elections in 2017 mean the deal must be cut by next year.

And what if Cameron has to form a second coalition to survive? He believes, probably correctly, that the Lib Dems would concede on a referendum for which the Tories had campaigned. But they would still want a price for the concession. As the most pro-European leader in British politics, Nick Clegg does not want his epitaph to be that he let the Tories take Britain out.

Cameron is on the lookout to make concessions to the anti-Europeans in a bid to weaken Ukip

That is why the Lib Dems will demand that the renegotiation with Europe would have to be a government matter. They would want their ministers at the EU table and in the cabinet room to shape the terms of the offer to be put to the voters.

Cameron is thought to be willing to make this concession. A second Con-Lib coalition nevertheless remains a long shot, not least because of Europe. If there is one, however, a government campaign for a yes vote would be much more likely, which could trigger a Tory civil war before and after the referendum. For that reason, as the Labour peer Roger Liddle argues in a new study of a potential British exit, the real question hanging over British EU membership is less the outcome of the referendum, which Liddle rightly thinks can be won, than whether Cameron and George Osborne are willing to pay the party price of bringing it about.

In one sense, the weeks leading up to the election are not a propitious time to make the case for Britain in Europe. Cameron is on the lookout to make concessions to the anti-Europeans in a bid to weaken Ukip. Labour is reluctant to poke the Fleet Street wasps’ nest on the issue, and Ed Miliband seems unwilling to woo pro-EU business leaders too positively. Business leaders, meanwhile, have credibility problems of their own: it would be hard to find a more Europhile business leader than the former HSBC boss Lord Green.

Yet in a different perspective, there has never been a better time for pro-European British politicians to make a coherent and reasoned case to the public. The three great crises of stagnation, Greece and Ukraine are all issues in which Britain has an interest that is best advanced by Europe. A pro-European and pro-growth British government, especially one whose vision of Britain in Europe went further than the single market, could wield considerable influence on all of them. Britain’s anti-Europeans have rarely looked as irrelevant and absurd as they do now. It’s bluff-calling time.

Any government elected in May will still have difficult European issues to deal with. A Tory defeat could make the party even more anti-Europe than ever. Some Labour pro-Europeans therefore fear that a weak Labour or Labour-led government would have to make concessions on EU policy to head off the anticipated onslaught coming from the right. But the simple truth is that there is, as ever, a huge space in British politics for a measured, long-term, progressive and pro-European alternative, and the centre-left parties of Britain need to find the courage to embrace it.