In a week in which his party will sustain heavy defeats in not one, not two, but three by-elections, Europe has reminded us of David Cameron’s greatest strength: that he is already prime minister.
That might seem counterintuitive: after all, if you wanted a single policy area to serve as an object lesson in Cameron’s failures, you would pick Europe, where his only guiding principle has been bad faith. That was much in evidence this week, too: only a rush of blood to the head on the part of Herman van Rompuy prevented Cameron leaving Europe embarrassed and empty-handed, like an Etonian Roberto Mancini. As it is, he simply left empty-handed. But, thanks to van Rompuy, he secured a defeat with honour, and with it, all the status of a prime minister standing up to Europe, however briefly.
This is still Cameron’s greatest asset: in an electoral contest that, at times, neither side has seemed overly concerned with winning, he has both the status and the advantages of the incumbent. In terms of Europe, Cameron and Ed Miliband were equally productive: they both talked about it a fair old whack, and neither accomplished anything. But when an opposition leader speaks, they very rarely grab the news cycle: that’s Cameron’s advantage. It appears, at times, however, to be an advantage he doesn’t quite know how to deploy: when the afterglow has faded, he’ll be in exactly the same position he was after the illusory veto: alone, unaccomplished, and unwilling to fight the Neanderthals in his own party.
Still, he’s successfully made Labour feel uncomfortable. The best policy does not always feel like the best politics, something which Labour – a pro-European party in a Eurosceptic country – is all too aware of at the moment. Poor policy – voting for an unachievable cut alongside Tory backwoodsmen – made for great politics, while good policy – a sober speech to the CBI – feels as if it has placed Labour on the wrong side of the argument.
But Labour should screw its courage to the sticking place. Euroscepticism is a superficially attractive but self-defeating route for a political party: not since 1974 has a party won a majority offering a more Eurosceptic platform than its opponent. That’s not because British people are secret Europhiles, but because you can’t construct a credible foreign, economic or environmental policy without being an active and engaged member of the European Union. Nominally Eurosceptic party leaders – all of them would flock to a Yes campaign if the event should occur, let’s not forget that Cameron and Osborne are cowards, not true Eurosceptics – have to umm and ahh their way through the tough questions.
What should Labour’s path forward on Europe be? It was a strategic and moral mistake not to hold and win a referendum on EU membership during the last Labour government. A referendum would still be won, and won heavily, but holding one during the next parliament would be an equally large mistake.
The eurozone is still in crisis; a lasting deal to return to equilibrium and prosperity is still needed. The Franco-German duumvirate alone has been unable to secure that deal; what’s required is an engaged Britain acting as an honest broker. That can’t happen if the United Kingdom is engaging in a prolonged bout of the hokey-cokey. Labour should commit to finding a lasting solution to the eurozone crisis; and then, once that’s in hand, it should fight and win a referendum on European membership.
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Stephen Bush writes a weekly column for Progress, the Tuesday review, and tweets @stephenkb
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