Political notes

Twenty years on from the fall of the Berlin wall, and the Europe that emerged from the rubble still brings trials for the two main political parties. This month, David Cameron discovered that navigating the politics of EU treaties involves more tricky corners than even the most serpentine of Conservative leaders can deftly navigate. Yet how he will deal with the practicalities of a post-Lisbon EU remains unclear, hence his carefully phrased “enough is enough” response: the tone hostile, the commitments vague.

A genuine sceptic, the Tory leader thinks Lisbon is just more EU integration pushed by hook, crook and re-run referenda. Here he is in line with pubic opinion. That is why the only real challenge to his position came from Tory hardliners, and their Eurosceptic offspring in Ukip. Cameron thinks he can manage this balance as long as he is winning on other fronts. “Better to have dissatisfied Eurosceptics now than promises we’re not in a position to keep later,” says one senior Cameron strategist.

True, Cameron will be pushed to be more hostile by his own side. He will also need to compensate for the dropped referendum pledge if he is to lure back the pile of voters who deserted him for Ukip in the European elections in June. Yet he is not a leader in the Thatcher mould, who relishes what one long-suffering pro-European Tory wearily calls the “Sinn Fein approach—ourselves alone.” So some kind of positive policy will be needed.



EU treaties work by enshrining norms, which then become harder to resist. No sooner have opt-outs been won than European partners are huffing about those who use them. Witness the impatience all too obvious in the demotic response of Pierre Lellouche, France’s Europe minister, to Cameron’s modest declaration of resistance. Lellouche’s outburst says colourfully what more restrained senior Europeans think privately. The question is how much the Tory leader intends to care. Will he define himself by talking tough but ultimately bend towards the EU, or by determinedly keeping his distance from the spirit of the treaty?

Social policy and criminal justice are the two areas of possible conflict. Cameron is already playing down expectations on the first, because it remains unclear how much of an opt-out on employment rights and other workplace edicts of the old social chapter he can actually secure in practice.

Furthermore, home secretary-in-waiting Chris Grayling says he will judge issues on criminal justice “on their merits”—for instance, whether to sign up to fast-track EU extraditions. This sounds handy for catching terrorists, but tensions could arise, either if Cameron wants to emphasise his commitment to civil liberties, or if extradition claims to the US arouse ire.

Quietly, the new Tories want to delay any battles on Europe. Even William Hague, who pro-Europeans regard as an ultra-sceptic, wants to balance fiery rhetoric with tactics: “It is not a subject that should be allowed to dominate our first year,” he told the shadow cabinet recently. “It shouldn’t block out the light.” So Cameron will seek to improve his relations with other EU leaders, and save the resistance for when he is established in office, and less vulnerable to what his shock-troops think. The problem is how to keep them happy and voting for him until then.

As for Labour, Europe is often where parts of the party goes when it has lost the will to live at home. So Tony Blair would rather be president of Europe than a major figure in the Lords, while his protégé David Miliband casts a flirtatious eye at the newly minted role of European high representative—even if Gordon Brown has made it clear that Miliband was not a runner. Nothing new under the Brussels sun here. Neil Kinnock channelled disappointment over his 1992 defeat into a fervent embrace of Delors’s “social Europe,” and supported the euro as a commissioner. “We’ll scrap the bloody pound,” he told me when I visited him in the early Blair years. Still waiting, Neil.

That malcontent Charles Clarke may distract from his disappointments by returning to his pro-European roots. These days Blairite Labour tends to turn to Europe more readily than the Brownite or leftist fiefdoms. Other leadership hopefuls—Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Jon Cruddas and Harriet Harman—are domestic figures, with little interest in the EU beyond bolstering domestic or green concerns. This makes Cameron’s job easier. With the exception of David Miliband and the sidelined James Purnell, there are few remaining significant Labour pro-Europeans ready to make trouble for a Tory government.

So the legacy of Lisbon is already emerging. New Labour has a European cause to cling to in its likely exile from power, while the Tories will struggle to square the practicalities of governing with a reluctance about institutional Europe. If you think we’ve been here before, it’s because we have.