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Conservatives and Europe

Posted by euromove on 16/05/13

by Ben Patterson, former MEP and current chairman of the Conservative Party in Kent.

What on earth is going on inside the Conservative Party? Are the last years of the Major Government repeating themselves, with “Europe” once again tearing the Party to pieces and driving it to electoral suicide?

Certainly there are still some − once described by Hugo Young[1] as “a confederacy of zealots and lurchers” − for whom the Eurosceptic cause is more important than winning elections. Most of those proclaiming Euroscepticism, however, clearly see the issue as an election winner. They believe that their views reflect public opinion; and the promise of an in-out referendum in 2017 clearly puts Labour and the Lib-Dems in an awkward spot.

But why, after a few years of calm when “banging on about Europe” was strongly discouraged, has the old, destructive debate once more broken out? The obvious trigger has been the financial crisis, and its effects within the Euro Area. There is, indeed, a close parallel with the events of late 1992 when Sterling was ejected from the Exchange Rate Mechanism. The ERM débacle seared itself into the political soul of the Conservative Party; and the troubles of the Euro Area have revived all the distrust of the EU which “Black (or for some White) Wednesday” inspired.

The Prime Minister’s speech on 23 January this year outlined that developments in the Euro Area are likely to bring about major changes in EU “governance”, making it possible to revise the current division of competences between the EU and its Member. The best possible outcome of negotiations, from Mr Cameron’s perspective, would be one that will allow a Conservative Government to hold the referendum, recommending that Britain remains within the EU, and win. In practice this will almost certainly mean reaching some agreement with Britain’s EU partners, including the German Government after the Federal elections, on various economic measures – allowing the Euro Area “ins” to integrate more closely while ensuring that the “outs” still have full rights in the EU as a whole; “cutting red tape” on businesses, in particular SMEs (including, of course, the German “Mittelstand”); opening up the single market in services and energy; clear progress on US/EU free trade; further CFP and CAP reform; selective UK opts-in to various judicial measures. All of which are reforms already taking place through the normal legislative procedure, rendering Mr Cameron’s “ultimatum” unnecessary, but the outcome of his strategy achievable. Mr Cameron’s intention is to present the above as clear steps not only towards greater flexibility, but towards greater competitiveness for all, hence explicitly arguing that it was he that reformed the EU.

But the game plan has been thrown off course by a number of developments. The first, and most obvious, has been the rise of UKIP. Analysis of voting patterns has shown that Europe has not been the only reason, or even the main reason, for voters to support UKIP. Yet finishing behind a party which openly advocates EU withdrawal in successive by-elections, and losing seats to it in many county councils, has come as a shock. The polls indicate that about half the UKIP vote has been at the expense of the Conservative Party; and it does not take much calculating to realise that, if the same thing happens at the general election in 2015, there will be a Labour (or possibly Lib-Lab) government. The paradox that UKIP voters will end up with the opposite of what they want is unlikely to make much difference.

One possible Conservative response to this danger is to scupper UKIP by adopting its policies: on immigration, and as far as possible on Europe. UKIP is seen as having responded to voters’ real concerns, unlike the “political élite”; and if UKIP’s policies prove impossible to carry out in practice, this can be blamed on the LibDem coalition partners.

There are two problems with this answer. The first, to repeat the much quoted this past few days Rudyard Kipling, is that “once you have paid him the Dane-geld, You never get rid of the Dane”. The second is that moving ever-further onto UKIP ground risks reversing the successful detoxification of the Conservative brand carried out in the first years of the Cameron leadership. That leadership seems, so far, to have adopted a more sensible response: withdrawing earlier derogatory remarks about UKIP, but holding its nerve. There are, moreover, distinct signs that Conservative moderates, particularly those in marginal seats, are prepared to take a stand against their more turbulent colleagues; and that the Party in the constituencies , even the most Eurosceptic, see the dangers in rocking the boat.

The second development has been a further result of the financial and Euro Area crises. In an attempt to prevent similar crises arising in the future as a result of excessive leverage and risk taking, and excessive complexity in financial products, the EU has embarked on a programme to regulate financial markets. The most important financial centre in the EU, however, is London; and the proposals of the Commission have therefore been perceived by some as an attack on the City, a major UK interest. It is perhaps no coincidence that recent declarations by Conservative elder statesmen that the UK should leave the EU have included those by two ex-Chancellors of the Exchequer and (less directly) the Mayor of London. To these have recently been added statements by certain ministers that, if a referendum were held now, they would vote “no”.

Are these declarations helpful or damaging? The positive view – and it is possible that this has been behind at least some of the declarations − is that they strengthen the Government’s hand in the negotiations; and it can, indeed, be argued that emphasising the real possibility of a UK withdrawal will make other Member States more ready to reach an accommodation. The negative view, of course, is that it will have the opposite effect − that they will come to believe that Britain is heading to the exit door anyway, so there is no need to accommodate its demands.

The promise to hold a referendum on membership after the next election can also be viewed in a positive or a negative light. On the positive side, if all goes according to plan, the UK’s membership of the EU will be settled at least for another generation, allowing the country to concentrate on more constructive matters. For the Party there is also the pressure it puts on Labour, which must either tag along with a referendum pledge of its own, or find itself accused of “not trusting the people”. (Having a referendum before the next election, as some extremists are suggesting, would of course throw this advantage away).

But not holding a referendum until 2017 also has its drawbacks. It creates uncertainty at a time when economic circumstances require, above all, a return of confidence in, among other things, that Britain will remain part of the biggest common market of the world. There is also some public cynicism as to whether any referendum will actually happen, which the proposal for legislation in the present Parliament is designed to meet. This might have declaratory value; but can have none constitutionally. Those who have demanded that it be added to the Queen’s Speech appear to overlook the fact that no Parliament can bind its successor. We have no entrenched clauses.

Given this, there is also a second paradox, of which the ūber-Eurosceptic Conservative MPs also seem unaware. The historical record tells us that being seen as split – of being more concerned with internal disputes than defeating the opposition − is an electoral kiss of death. Labour learned this in the early 1980s, and the Conservative Party should have learnt it in the late 1990s. So by openly challenging the Government, they make election victory less likely; and therefore make it less likely that any referendum will actually take place!

[1] In This Blessed Plot: Britain and Europe from Churchill to Blair (Macmillan, 1998)

Britain and the EU, UKIP
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A never-ending story of obsession

Posted by euromove on 16/05/13

Events over the last few days should not come as a surprise. Mr Cameron has for a while now been unable to impose his authority upon his party on the issue of EU membership. Even though he has expressed the wish to keep Britain in the EU (albeit the reduced, one-dimensional and irrelevant EU he envisions) his lack of conviction has allowed the extreme right and Europhobic part of his party to pull him further and further away towards their agenda on EU membership.

Of course his predicament is to a large extent of his own making. Like a figure in an ancient Greek tragedy, he is the author of his own fate. He has placated the Europhobic members of his party every step of the way. First by pooling out of the influential centre-right European People’s right, then by ineffectual veto of the Fiscal Treaty, employed just to please their 19^th century-like appetite for ‘victories in Europe’, and of course by promising to renegotiate Britain’s Treaty commitments and offering them a referendum on EU membership.

But that was not enough, and it was never going to be enough. Because the Europhobe wing of the Conservative party is guided by a dogma-like obsession to remove Britain from the EU, one way or the other and at all cost. In pursuit of their holy grail they show complete disregard for the interest of their party (and the country at large). The very week that the Prime Minister, and leader of their party, went to the US, in an effort to showcase Britain’s global credentials and to promote the need for and benefits of a US-EU (surprise-surprise) trade deal, his Europhobic backbenchers, branding their isolationist credentials, are sparing no time or effort to engineer ways that, according to them, will end the UK’s participation in the EU (which President Obama called the “expression of the UK’s influence and role in the world”).

The one thing that the past few days have made clear is that those Europhobes’ appetite for a referendum does not stem from their wish to give the British people a say. After all, many of them have resisted referenda on other issues. The real reason behind their wish to hold a referendum is that they (mistakenly) view such a vote on the EU as the only way to remove Britain from the EU and they believe (mistakenly again) that the sooner that referendum takes place the more chances they have to achieve their objectives.

So, expect pressure on the PM, and further concessions from him, to continue. Because what they are currently getting will not, once again, be enough, something blamed this time on their coalition partners. But someone needs to remind them that the Conservative party did not win the election in 2010, to a large extent because it has people like them in its ranks.

There is one aspect of all this that offers Mr Cameron some reprieve. This whole debate is a welcome distraction from the real issues Britain is facing. The ballooning debt and deficit, high unemployment, rising inflation and low interest rates, evaporating people’s savings and putting the British economy on red alert. Going on about “Europe”, often blaming Britain’s economic and social ailments to our EU membership, might be nothing more than a fig leaf, but it is a fig leaf that Mr Cameron is desperate enough to use in an effort to disguise the fact he has not been able to solve the country’s real problems.

Petros Fassoulas, European Movement

Britain and the EU, David Cameron
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Britain must resume a positive role at the head of the EU table and be clear that we are in to stay

Posted by euromove on 13/05/13

by Robert Buckland MP

Joint Secretary of the 1922 Committee of Conservative Backbenchers and Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on the EU.

Margaret Thatcher was not a political leader who was much inclined to looking back, but her death last month has allowed us a little time to reflect upon her leadership and legacy. Much has already been written about her impact on Britain and a fair amount too on the wider world, but the true extent of her legacy to Europe and Germany bears a closer look.

If you were to ask the average voter whether Lady Thatcher was pro or anti European, then I suspect many of those questioned would respond in the latter. The vivid image of Lady Thatcher swinging her proverbial handbag in the general direction of Eurocrats such as Jacques Delors seems to sum up, for some, her approach towards Europe. However, as was the case with many of her policies, this image does not do justice to the nuances of her position towards Europe over the years.

In 1975, as the newly-elected Leader of the Opposition, Mrs. Thatcher was busy playing a significant role in campaigning for the United Kingdom to remain part of the then European Community. An abiding memory of that campaign is a jumper she wore, made up of the flags of the then member states of the EEC. Moving forward thirteen years to her Bruges speech in September 1988, Lady Thatcher may have sallied forth about the dangers of a supposed European super-state but she also robustly made the case for Britain’s future within Europe. Notably, she said that “The European Community is a practical means by which Europe can ensure the future prosperity and security of its people in a world in which there are many other powerful nations and groups of nations.”

European affairs during the first four or five years of her premiership were dominated by the question of the British rebate, which was finally resolved at the Fontainebleau European Summit of 1984. The Lady’s handbag and the repeated cry of “we want our money” back are now remembered by many as the first stirrings of a latent euroscepticism, but the reality was somewhat different. In truth, her position was more akin to that of De Gaulle’s at the time of the Luxembourg Compromise in the mid 1960’s; in other words, a strong leader who was asserting a national interest whilst maintaining a belief in membership of the developing institutions of Europe.

Moving forward only a couple of years, we come to her greatest European legacy: the creation of the Single Market. This concept, which largely unites the modern Conservative Party, is the jewel in the crown of our EU membership. Without her typically robust support for the Single Market and the signing of the Single European Act, we would not have seen its creation. At the heart of Lady Thatcher’s straightforward views was a belief in free trade and open markets; her support for the Single Market did more to make this a reality than any other decision.

However, if I were to identify her most troubled legacy on the global stage then I would look no further than her hostility to German reunification. Looking back from today’s perspective, such opposition seems strangely quixotic. Today’s UK/German relationship is extremely positive. The Prime Minister’s recent family visit to the German Chancellor’s personal residence at Meseberg is a reflection of the growing strength of his relationship with the German Government and our shared agenda of free trade and open markets. At varying levels, British Conservatives are busy forging new relationships with our German colleagues. However, there was a time where our Prime Minister was privately committed to stopping the reunification of Germany and personally identified her own greatest policy failing as having not achieved this.

The long shadows cast by the Second World War had a huge effect upon Mrs Thatcher’s generation, which allows us to have a greater understanding of her concerns. The Cold War had helped drive the cause of unity in Western Europe as a bulwark against Soviet power. Within only a few months in 1989, all this changed, creating a new political landscape. She and other politicians can be forgiven for not having been able to forge a new policy in such a short space of time. As is so often the case in international politics, her poor relations with the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, proved to be a further obstacle to Anglo-German relations.

I believe that Britain’s initial reluctance to embrace the opportunities created by German reunification was a mistake. As we have seen over the last two decades, Germany’s decision to reunite was a resounding success. The Federal Republic is the driving force of a peaceful EU and its powerful economy has played a key role in spreading prosperity across Europe. Germany plays a positive role on the global stage and is one of our most important trading partners. It is increasingly willing to play a role with other Western nations to deal with conflicts in the Sahel, for example. Without a strong Germany at its heart, Europe would not be the world power that it is.

What of Franco-German relations? For much of the past sixty years, the strength of the Franco-German alliance has been seen to be driving force behind greater European integration. Although we should not underestimate the institutional and political will that drives this partnership, the situation is undeniably evolving. France’s Socialist administration is making decisions that are causing real concern in Germany, and which are creating new opportunities for different coalitions of interest to be created within the EU. The Anglo-German agenda on free trade and open markets are examples of this fresh approach.

More than twenty years have passed since German reunification, but it took far too long for Britain to come to terms with the changed politics of Europe. Pinning this failure upon the shoulders of one leader, however great and notable, may be somewhat unfair, but the events of 1990 were seminal and she, to adopt a later John Major slogan about Europe, was at the heart of things.

My hope is that if we are to take anything from Lady Thatcher’s legacy with regards to Europe, we should look at the earlier part of her rule when she was more inclined to support, not obstruct; to lead, not to follow; and, to cooperate, not quarrel. Lady Thatcher was not simply a Eurosceptic, even if her dislike of the EU and its institutions, feigned or real, did grow in later years. She saw the virtue in the “family of nations” of Europe and so should we. The EU is in need of great reform and change, but achieving that will only come about if we resume our positive role at the head of the table and are clear that we are in the EU to stay.

EU Priorities and Opinion, Margaret Thatcher, Uncategorized
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History for Hobbits?

Posted by euromove on 08/05/13

by Tom Spencer – former Conservative Member of the European Parliament.

I believe that there will be an In/Out Referendum in 2017. I further believe that it cannot be won as a debate about the defects of the European Union as selectively chosen by the Eurosceptics. Rather we must re-engage in the debate which we abandoned in the summer of 1975 about the infinitely less desirable alternatives for Britain if we were not to be a member of the European Union.

I am delighted that we are having the start of this debate a good four years before any likely referendum. We will need every moment of that time in order to counter the misleading assertions of the Eurosceptics. We need to be preparing arguments about the cost of non-Europe for the UK that relate the issue directly to the employment and living standards of every British citizen, on an industry by industry basis.

I was Assistant to Sir Con O’Neil, the Director of the Britain in Europe campaign in 1975, which the European Movement played such a crucial role in. Sir Con, in addition to teaching me how to write minutes, would regularly reiterate that the key principal of British foreign policy was “that no Continental super-power should be allowed to dominate the mouth of the River Scheldt on the Belgian coast”. We are in grave danger of bringing about such a situation by our self-exclusion from European power. I do not believe that it will be possible to solve this latest “British problem” by a yet more complicated series of opt-outs and special arrangements. If we are to have a second referendum on our membership, it should be one which faces up to the reality of Britain’s choices in a dangerous world. We should embrace a referendum as an opportunity for Britain to catch up with the rest of the EU by promising to end the opt-outs within an agreed period, including joining the Euro if need be.

In persuading the British people to re-commit to full British membership, rather than watered down associate status, we will have to cross an abyss. The Poles have a saying that “An abyss cannot be crossed in two steps”. I believe that we are at the beginning of a national debate that calls for such audacity. I am aware that by even discussing such matters I am being profoundly un-English. We are after all a nation of hobbits, suspicious of great ideas and fearful of journeys that might threaten our “second breakfasts”.

No one can predict the outcome of David Cameron’s “Great Gamble” speech. At a minimum he needs to understand that there is absolutely nothing short of total surrender that will buy off the Eurosceptics. This is the ancient principle of Danegeld. It is reported that 20% of the Tory Party are in favour of leaving the European Union under any circumstances. This is hardly news. Only 1% of the British public are now members of the three main political parties. According to the latest report “Membership of UK Political Parties published on 3^rd December, the Conservatives had between 130,000 and 150.000 members in 2010.” While there are Eurosceptic voters in roughly similar proportions of the three political parties, only in the Conservative Party is there the cuckoo-like behaviour of Association Officers who openly declare their willingness to vote for and work with the United Kingdom Independence Party. This must rank as the most sustained act of treason in 250 years of Conservative Party history. Just occasionally comedy programmes hit on brilliant comparisons. The Now Show on Radio 4 presents Nigel Farage, the talented leader of UKIP, as Gollom from the Hobbit. He is clever but obsessive, muttering on endlessly about his “lovely Referendum”.

What then of the phalange of Conservative Eurosceptics in the House of Commons? There is a hardcore of Conservative Euroscepticism which puts the departure from Europe ahead of any electoral victory for the Conservative Party. As such they would be comfortable with the defeat of David Cameron in the 2015 UK General Election, his replacement by a fully Eurosceptic Conservative Party Leader and the adoption of a cast iron guarantee to leave the EU the next time there was a Conservative Government. Political developments in the next three years will have a winnowing effect on Conservative Euroscepticism as events shake out ‘tactical’ Eurosceptics, ‘casual’ Eurosceptics and all those who recognise that departure would be a disaster for the UK.

Let me offer three thoughts to fellow pro-Europeans in the European Movement and beyond.

First, do not trust the assertions of the Westminster bubble as to what issues about Europe really matter to the British public. Their views, set in stone many years ago, now bear little relationship to reality.

Second, do everything you can to build on the European Movement’s long tradition of cross-party co-operation on the pro-European side. Any referendum is going to hugely stress both inter and intra party links. It would not have been possible to win the 1975 Referendum without the cross-party co-operation fostered by the European Movement during the campaign leading up to British entry in 1973.

Third, do not ignore the fact that it is forty years since these issues were last put before the British people. There are therefore two undeclared generations who have never been asked to focus on whether we should leave the European Union. Edwina Currie, whose views history will come to regard with greater interest than is currently fashionable, maintained after she left Parliament and moved into the world of broadcasting that for people under forty Europe was about the freedom to travel to pop concerts in Ibiza and Amsterdam without let or hindrance. Such generations will be appalled by any loss of the European freedoms to which they have become accustomed.

Rather we should speak out on the real geo-political reasons why Britain should remain a full member of the European Union. Pursuing second rate options, with second rate tactics, does not befit one of Europe’s great states.

Britain and the EU
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Three scenarios for the UK’s EU future

Posted by euromove on 07/05/13

by Peter Kellner – President, YouGov

Will the United Kingdom still be a member of the European Union in 2020? Let us examine three scenarios.

1. The Conservatives win the 2015 and David Cameron is able to redeem his promise to renegotiate Britain’s membership terms and hold a referendum in 2017.

If current public hostility to the EU remains, it might look as if withdrawal is likely. Most of the time, the voters who want to leave the EU comfortably outnumber those who want to stay in. YouGov latest poll, conducted on April 21-22, puts the margin at 43-35%. This eight point gap is actually lower than normal: in recent years the margin has normally been 15-20 points. And the bad news for those who want the UK to remain in the EU is that the gap currently seems to be widening again.

Now for the better news. First, whenever Cameron has made the EU a high-profile issue – such as after the December 2011 EU Council meeting when he was in a minority of one on the Eurozone controversy; or when he made his major speech on EU policy earlier this year – the gap tends to close. In one poll in mid-January YouGov found more people wishing to stay in the EU than leave it.

Second, YouGov has started asking a second question:

Imagine the British government under David Cameron renegotiated our relationship with Europe and said that Britain’s interests were now protected, and David Cameron recommended that Britain remain a member of the European Union on the new terms. How would you then vote in a referendum on the issue?

Every time we have asked this question we have found that those saying “stay in” clearly outnumber those who say “get out”. Our most recent poll finds a three-to-two majority for remaining in the EU. The big switch occurs among Tory voters. At present they favour withdrawal; but, given a clear lead from the top of their party, most say they would vote to remain in the club.

I would expect this to happen in a real referendum. Cameron certainly wants to keep the UK in the EU. His “renegotiation” may yield very little in the form of transferring powers back from Brussels to Westminster, but he will claim to have protected Britain’s vital interests.

So: in a Conservative-inspired referendum in 2017, the leaders of all three main parties would advocate a vote for remaining in the EU. And they, and much of the business community, would issue dire warnings of how bleak life would be on the outside. The unspoken “mood” question would shift from today’s “Do you like the EU?” (majority answer: no), to “Is it better for British jobs and prosperity for the UK to remain in the club than risk the hazards of life on the outside?” (probable majority answer in 2017, as it was in 1975: yes). As in so many referendums round the world, when there is no settled national consensus, the status quo will prevail.

2. Labour wins the 2015 election and Ed Miliband sticks to his current position of opposing a referendum.

Here the consequences are simple. Britain would remain in the EU, at least until after the 2020 general election.

Miliband might well make a different referendum pledge: to call a vote if there is any proposal to transfer more powers from national parliaments to the EU. I would expect the status quo to prevail once again. Indeed, I find it hard to imagine any major EU treaty revisions for some years to come, because some country somewhere is likely to hold a referendum, and the experience of the French and Dutch referendums in 2005 on the proposed EU constitution shows that giving Brussels more power is unpopular even in pro-EU countries.

3. Labour wins the 2015 general election with Ed Miliband having changed his stance and promising a referendum on British membership of the EU.

This is much harder to call. The one thing we can confidently predict is that an outright Labour victory would lead to Cameron’s resignation, or ejection, as Conservative Party leader. There is a strong likelihood that his successor would be strongly Eurosceptic.

In these circumstances, a referendum in 2017 would encounter two hazards for supporters of EU membership: first, that the Labour government would be suffering mid-terms blues (for example because it has to take some tough spending decisions or raise taxes in order to tackle continuing economic problems); second that the main opposition party might well be advocating a vote for withdrawal.

The referendum would then be a contest between two propositions: “keep Britain in because life would be tougher on the outside”, versus “say boo to both Miliband and Brussels and vote for Britain to get out”. At this stage, I can’t be sure which argument would be more persuasive; but the possibility of the UK voting to leave the EU would be very real.

One other option – let’s call it 3a – is that Labour promises a very early referendum, say in September 2015. The precedent would be the Scottish devolution referendum in September 1997, four months after Tony Blair became Prime minister. The enabling legislation was passed within weeks of the election and the referendum held straight after the summer holidays.

I would expect that to yield a vote to stay in the EU. A Miliband-led Labour government would probably still be enjoying a honeymoon with the public. Voters would be unlikely to want to punish it so early. And the Tories would be divided on the issue – either they will not yet have a new leader, or the dust will not have settled following the contest to choose one.

All in all, if the parties stick to their current plans, then I see little chance of Britain leaving the EU – unless, of course some existential crisis causes the Union to disintegrate for reasons that have little to do with domestic British politics. BUT – if Ed Miliband decides to match David Cameron’s promise of a mid-term referendum in 2017, then a striking paradox emerges. In those circumstances, anyone whose over-riding passion is for Britain to stay in the EU should vote Conservative – while anyone desperate to maximise the chances of quitting the club should vote Labour.

Britain and the EU
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