The scars of Black Wednesday run deep with most Conservatives but the experience is particularly potent for Cameron who was at Norman Lamont’s side on that fateful day, witnessing at close hand the humiliating exit of the pound from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.
Four years ago, the spectre returned once more during his leadership bid. In order to secure support from the right of his party, he judged it necessary to make a commitment to withdraw Tory MEPs from the European People’s Party.
This week, Europe’s ghost is back again at Cameron’s side. In the wake of the Irish ‘yes’ vote on the Lisbon Treaty, yesterday the Tory leader promised a referendum if the treaty was not ratified at the time of the general election. Yet he refused to set out his
position on a post-ratification treaty on the basis that he did not want to prejudice the result in Poland and the Czech Republic (the only remaining non-ratifiers).
Boris Johnson then threw a spanner in the works by suggesting that the appointment of Tony Blair as the new EU president underlined the need for a referendum. You can always trust Boris Johnson to say what he thinks. Apparently he believed that he was towing the party line. The intentional ambiguity of the Cameron fudge that ’we will not let matters rest there‘ had clearly been lost on him. So today, senior Tory figures are suggesting that Cameron will rule out a post-ratification referendum but this internal wrangling and vacillation is the last thing he wanted this week.
In fact, the Tory leader is so desperate to draw a line under the current discussion about a possible referendum on the Lisbon Treaty that he tried to pre-empt the fallout from the Irish vote this weekend. Even before the ‘yes’ vote was officially announced, in an email to his party members he emphatically stressed that he wanted to ’make one thing clear: there will be no change in our policy on Europe and no new announcements at Conference‘.
Despite his best efforts, Cameron’s reluctance to discuss the issue any further is matched in equal measure by the enthusiasm and zeal of his party faithful to commit to a referendum. According to ConservativeHome more than eight in ten Tories want a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty regardless of whether it has been ratified by the time of the general election. A YouGov poll for Compass also estimates that 75% of Tory voters want a referendum.
Rabid Europhobes are not a new phenomenon in the Conservative party. During the Maastricht Treaty debates of the early 1990s, John Major famously said that he could hear the flapping of the ’men in white coats‘. However, Major’s rebels were on the fringes of the party but they now make up the mainstream. In another poll by Conservative Home, 39% of Tories want to leave the EU altogether.
Moreover, the anti-Europeans in his party have some vociferous frontmen. In 2005, the new Tory intake were characterised by their Europhobia with many of them signed up to the ’better off out‘ campaign. Tory MEP Daniel Hannan makes no bones about his desire to withdraw from the EU and he has even suggested that Cameron is actively working behind the scenes to secure a referendum. What’s more, Hannan undermined Cameron’s approach to the NHS this summer by calling our health care system ’a relic‘ which he ’wouldn’t wish on anyone‘.
The European issue exacted further embarrassment for Cameron last week as Foreign Secretary David Miliband stated that the homophobic and anti-semitic parties in the Conservatives’ new European group ’made him sick‘. The public row which ensued with the Tory Chairman, Eric Pickles, has served to highlight the issue yet further and many column inches have since been dedicated to it.
Party politics aside, the prospect of a post-ratification referendum should the Conservatives win the next general election is extremely worrying. Let’s be honest about the consequences even if Cameron will not. If a Tory government in its first term in office holds a referendum and then actively campaigns for a ‘no’ vote and succeeds, the UK’s position as a member of the European Union would be untenable. Can we trust Cameron not to cave in to the pressure from his party’s hardline eurosceptics?
Regardless of what happens next, Cameron’s relations with the UK’s key European partners, German Chancellor Merkel and French President Sarkozy have been severely strained. The damage has already been done. He is at odds with Merkel and Sarkozy on his withdrawal from the European People’s Party, his position on the Lisbon Treaty and his opposition to Blair’s appointment.
This year has been dominated by key international negotiations – the G20 in London and then Pittsburgh, and the upcoming Copenhagen summit on climate change. Should he be elected prime minister next year, Cameron’s isolation in the world would put at risk the success of these global agreements and the UK’s role in forging them.
Little Englander attitudes in a globalised world are absurd. Isolation jeopardises our international standing as well as our economic prosperity given that some 60% of our exports go to other European countries. The Irish voters this weekend understood this argument loud and clear.
Yet another good reason to get back out on the doorstep. May the fight back continue. Our future in Europe and our economy depend upon it.
