The Guardian view on the Queen’s speech: it all comes back to Europe
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Version 0 of 1. A monotone monarch worked her way through a long list that had been handed to her, with the aim of convincing a country that its new government is pulsating with energy and purpose. The Queen’s speech didn’t succeed on that count: it wasn’t coherent enough. There was the odd good idea, as on childcare, and other moves, on devolution, which could work well if they get the details right. There was nasty party stuff on benefits and home affairs. And then there were laws – most notably a bill not to increase taxation – for which there is simply no practical need. The Institute for Government seethed with quiet fury at squandering time – which could be spent on getting useful laws right, or making real things happen – on creating “virtue by statute”. David Cameron’s blue-blooded talk of blue collar Conservatism could not impose convincing order on this rag-bag programme. Sense can be made of it, however, through a story in three parts. The first, and most fateful, chapter began in January 2013, when – unable to resist backbench pressure any longer – a mid-term prime minister who hadn’t won a majority conceded a referendum on whether Britain should get out of Europe. Mr Cameron is well aware that the Queen’s single line “early legislation will be introduced to provide for an in/out referendum” was the only onetoday that may merit a mention in the history books 100 years from now. He knows, too, that all hopes of making a success of the rest of his premiership now turns upon his handling of the renegotiation of terms with Europe, and the subsequent campaign to persuade his party and country that the haggling has achieved enough. Every other consideration is now subordinate to this task. One potentially useful ploy in managing the impossible expectations and “island nation” fantasies of the Conservative right and the Tory press was to open up a second front in the war to reclaim sovereignty, taking the fight from Brussels to the human rights court in Strasbourg. This is also the second chapter in the story of today’s speech. The European convention system is entirely distinct from the European Union, but therein lay the political attraction. If it is looking too tricky to get Berlin to increase the British rebate, or to wring privileged fishing rights from Madrid, then you can still be seen as battling bravely on the continent if you beat up on “unelected European judges”. Repealing the Human Rights Act or even quitting the convention it codifies seemed a cunning distraction from the messy compromises to come with the EU. Until, that is, the briefest thought is given to what ripping up the human rights framework would actually involve. Conservative lawyers had long warned of perverse consequences: restricting the freedom of British courts; and then – if we’re still in the convention – provoking a new rush of cases to Strasbourg; or – if we leave – setting an abominable example to the likes of Russia. It appears that Michael Gove, who is not without intelligence, glanced at the half-cocked, half-proposals that he inherited at the Ministry of Justice, and wisely decided he had better start with a blank sheet and consult. Her Majesty thus merely muttered that her government “bring forward” a new plan for rights down the line. With the immediate opportunity to shelter behind human rights confusion passed, we come to the Queen’s speech’s third and final chapter. As with Harold Wilson in 1974/75, ahead of his own in/out referendum, Mr Cameron is for the moment obsessed with managing his more Eurosceptic troops. Most, if not all, of these also happen to be rightwingers. So, with the easy avenue for Euro-bashing closed off, he has sought to give the same people things they would like in many other fields. There are gratuitous new restrictions on an already heavily curtailed right to strike, plans to rob the earnings of migrants who may work hard but lack the proper paperwork, and such a sweeping ban on legal highs that government lawyers could soon be fretting about accidentally criminalising sweets that give a sugar rush. It was then, from one point of view, a programme for government that is just about everything. But look again, and you can sport a programme that is about a European referendum, and nothing else at all. |