The Guardian view on David Cameron and Europe: too many concessions
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Version 0 of 1. David Cameron’s re-election gave him fresh political capital. But his handling of Europe is a fumbling display that may undermine that new authority. His EU referendum bill, billed as the government’s top priority, appears hurriedly drafted. Partly for that reason, Mr Cameron has been making concessions to Conservative anti-Europeans and, lurking behind them, to Ukip and the Eurosceptic press. This is clumsy and dangerous. It is threatening the support for Britain in Europe that used to exist across the spectrum. The weakness was again evident today at Westminster, where the bill began its committee stage, and in Luxembourg, where EU interior ministers met to discuss the humanitarian crisis of refugees and migrants crossing to southern Europe from Africa. In both these different contexts, the government stance was to do what the anti-Europeans demanded and to avoid provoking the anti-European press. In both cases, the government put Tory party unity ahead of national and European interests. In the Commons the government offered two concessions. In some respects, these were innocent enough. Not holding the referendum on 5 May 2016 rules out a vote on the same day as next year’s elections to the Scottish and other devolved institutions. This is a sensible proposal, and there was cross-party support, as well as backing from the Electoral Commission, for avoiding such a clash. But it is a sign of weakness because it is a week since Mr Cameron said the public was capable of taking two decisions on one day. And the anti-Europeans think that holding the vote on a separate day will benefit their cause, not least by reducing turnout in Scotland. It is also possible to take a relaxed view of the government’s willingness to reinstate so-called purdah rules on government departments during the runup to the referendum. On the face of it, this also seems sensible and fair. But it means that departments must be super-cautious about what they say on European matters during the campaign, while no such constraint operates elsewhere in the political arena, especially in the press. This will be particularly difficult to sustain if parliament is sitting during the runup to the vote; it could even trigger legal actions to silence the government. The consequences are more serious than ministers admit or MPs acknowledge. This explains why the government fought hard today to keep the purdah issue open until the report stage, in spite of the revolt. If ministers can say nothing officially about Europe, the agenda may be set in the anti-European press, not by the official campaigns. Efforts to rebut press lies with official facts will be more difficult too. Purdah is a fair principle. But it does not create the mythical level playing field. It may help the anti-Europeans – which is presumably why they pressed for it. Meanwhile in Luxembourg, Britain remained uncooperative towards European commission efforts to organise a quota system to share the migration burden in the Mediterranean. Like Mr Cameron, Theresa May takes a hard line, insisting rescued migrants should be returned to countries of origin, refusing to acknowledge them as asylum seekers and threatening an end to UK involvement in maritime rescue efforts. This implacability has several strands. One, however, is the refusal to cooperate with commission efforts to treat the migration crisis as an EU matter. In reality, it is obvious that the migration problem requires EU cooperation. But Mrs May always has more than one eye on politics back home. That is because any EU success in getting the UK to accept a quota would become a sovereignty issue that would infuriate anti-Europeans in parliament and the press, and threaten the government’s EU renegotiation strategy. Ministers must grasp the danger. Moves to the right on Europe make it harder for those on the centre-left to stay in line over the EU. Today the TUC warned that social and employment rights must not be rolled back to appease Tory sceptics. That is a real concern. Its root cause is the modern Tory party’s refusal to see any point in the EU beyond the single market, which also manifests itself in the indifference towards a Greek crisis which in reality is a far more pressing issue than the UK’s endless grievances. Mr Cameron says Europe matters for Britain. But too many of his actions point in the other direction. |