Cameron and the EU Referendum

Cameron’s empty gesture could spark a British rebirth
The EU referendum gives us the chance to re-emerge as a global trading nation

The British have never been given the chance to vote on membership of the EU. In 1975 we voted on a common market Photo: ALAMY
By Peter Oborne
8:19PM BST 24 Jul 2013
445 Comments
When David Cameron announced his conversion to a European referendum last January, the whole thing gave the impression of an unseemly, desperate and above all supremely irrelevant act of statesmanship.

During the darkest hours of the Second World War, Sir Stafford Cripps, in an attempt to appease the mutinous Congress Party, offered India dominion status once victory had been attained. Gandhi took one look and dismissed the offer as a “post-dated cheque on a crashing bank”.

The Prime Minister’s referendum promise felt very much like that. At the time it was made, the possibility that Mr Cameron might survive the 2015 general election seemed remote: any pledges about what he might or might not do afterwards were of academic interest.

Since last January, however, Mr Cameron’s fortunes have done nothing but improve. It now looks plausible that he might re-emerge as prime minister after the election. That referendum pledge, little more than a cunning ploy to buy off Ukip and abate the hostility of Tory backbenchers, no longer feels like a post-dated cheque on a crashing bank. It is now starting to feel rather solid.

This is a development of first-class importance. Remember this: the British people have never been given the chance to vote on membership of the European Union. Back in 1975 we voted on what we were explicitly told was a customs union – a common market.

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It has since become clear that we were deliberately and systematically deceived by the political elite. The resources of the BBC – which played the role of propaganda service for the Common Market throughout proceedings – were put at the service of the Yes campaign. The 1975 referendum was a fair poll in the same sense that the elections due to be held in Zimbabwe next Wednesday will be fair.

The consequences have poisoned British public life for four decades. Throughout this period, our membership of the EU has lacked the popular legitimacy found in countries where the political class levelled with their electorates.

The sense has lingered that we were hustled, against our will, by an anti-democratic elite, into an organisation whose true aims and nature were hidden from us until too late. This legacy has not just harmed our relations with the European Union. It has also tainted our politics because it lies behind the belief that the British political system is not truly democratic.

This state of affairs urgently needs putting right, which is why it will be greatly to Mr Cameron’s credit if he does indeed go down in history as the prime minister who at last created the circumstances for a fair vote on Europe.

But the pro-European establishment is fighting back very effectively, as two recent events show. The first of these was William Hague’s almost unnoticed speech to the Open Europe think tank last week. Mr Hague is an extremely independent-minded man, so I do not think that he has been captured by the Foreign Office. But he has certainly moved – by his own volition – in the direction of the mainstream Foreign Office view.

Mr Hague’s speech marked a sharp change in the Government position. Back in January, Mr Cameron spoke in terms of pursuing British interests in Europe; his Foreign Secretary talked in more collegiate terms of a reformation of the EU’s institutions. His speech lacked depth, calibre and vision. One wonders who wrote it. Could one trust Mr Hague any more to stand up for Britain’s interests in Europe during a robust negotiation? Reading his speech, it is impossible to say for sure. Can he even be seriously regarded as a Eurosceptic any more? Once again, it is difficult to know.

Whitehall is not merely gaining allies among the key ministers, it is also capturing the arguments – as the first instalment of the Government’s review of the balance of powers between London and Brussels, published on Monday, shows. The status quo, concluded these reports, is broadly correct and no substantial changes are needed.

Mr Hague’s speech and the Whitehall review fit into a very troubling pattern. When the renegotiation process gets under way in the next parliament, the British political establishment will readily concede that, while the fundamental relationship between Britain and Europe is working very well, there are a few problems around the edges.

So the Prime Minister will be dispatched to Brussels to sort them out. A bruising row, stretching right up to the wire, will be carefully choreographed. Mr Cameron will then return to Britain, claiming that he has secured a historic victory, reshaped the British relationship with Brussels, on which basis he is happy to lead the Yes campaign in a referendum.

Such a manoeuvre would probably do the trick. Labour and the Lib Dems, backed by most of the organs of mainstream opinion, would support the Yes campaign. Mr Cameron’s renewed coalition would narrowly win the vote. The Conservative Party would then split, probably for good. In such circumstances, the anti-Brussels wing of the party would soon merge with Ukip.

This was roughly the trajectory of events in 1975 and it will be very tempting for Mr Cameron, who is at heart a pragmatic politician of the old school, to engineer something similar over the next few years. I very much hope he does not. Indeed, I believe that events are moving his way and that he can afford to be far more audacious.

What gives Mr Cameron his opportunity is the crisis in the eurozone. Contrary to repeated boasts by European leaders, this continues to get worse. Appalling damage is being inflicted across southern Europe, with the destruction of entire economies and tens of millions of lives wrecked.

At some stage this sadistic economic experiment is certain to at least partially collapse. An inner core, however, can be salvaged. The only mechanism for doing this is for eurozone member countries to merge economically, socially, financially – and irreversibly. They would need a common banking system, a common treasury, common taxes: in fact they would be a single country. Whatever name is given to this new nation, it will in truth be Greater Germany.

This structure, which would mark the realisation of the dreams of the founders of the European Union in the Fifties (and justify the predictions of Nicholas Ridley in 1990) would not necessarily be such a bad thing. It would, however, demand a series of seismic treaty changes within the European Union.

This would surely be Britain’s opportunity. At an inter-government conference we could smile on the emergence of this new European state – while negotiating for ourselves a much looser, trading relationship. This would have the advantage of allowing us to re-emerge as a global trading nation. We would not be alone. Norway and Switzerland might well be part of this broader relationship. So might Turkey. This arrangement would also suit several countries currently being crucified in the eurozone, among them Italy, Spain and Portugal.

Britain’s relations with Europe, so long a matter for internal and external torment, would be solved. Our independence would be restored – a welcome side-effect – and the Conservative Party reborn. Such an outcome would be hated by Whitehall, the Foreign Office and the BBC. It is a cause worth fighting for. We must start working on it now.