Clubs, rules, and expulsions

Tweet I’m sure that the idea put forward by almost 100 Tory MPs, that the UK Parliament should have the right to refuse to apply any EU rules which it doesn’t like, will prove to be popular in the current anti-foreigner climate which seems to be taking hold in the UK; and the fact that it’s completely unrealistic will only make it more so.  I’m equally sure that the MPs involved (well, most of them anyway!) possess sufficient nous to know that what they’re proposing is a complete non-starter.

Telling the other members of a club that you will unilaterally decide which club rules to follow and which to disregard is a recipe for expulsion from the club – and perhaps that’s their real aim.  The separatists of the Conservative Party (and I rather suspect that there are more of them in parliament than the near 100 who’ve signed this latest little letter) are determined to remove the UK from the EU; their letter probably has more to do with establishing a casus belli than with setting out a realistic way forward.

In essence, however, what they’re asking for is not actually that much different from the formal policy of the UK Government.  Cameron has made it clear many times that he wants to change the rules to allow more decisions to be made at state level rather than at EU level.  The key difference between his position and that of around half of his back-bench “supporters” is that he wants to negotiate such a change, whilst his troops want to just do it unilaterally.

Perhaps Cameron is actually the real target here.  For all the bluster, the likeliest outcome of any “renegotiation” (assuming for a moment that the Tories are elected in 2015 with a sufficient majority to even open such a negotiation – no small assumption in itself) is a rerun of 1975, with a set of minimal changes, presented as more than they really are, which will allow Cameron to claim a great victory and recommend a ‘yes’ vote in the referendum to which he has managed to get himself committed. 

His “supporters” can see that coming, and fear that it would be a huge defeat for their separatist position.  They’re not confident of achieving their objective by that route, so they’re looking for another.  Whether Cameron would get the referendum result he wants is another question entirely. It’s just possible that he’ll be unable to put the genie back in the bottle by then, but the separatists are unwilling to run that risk. 

Pandering to the separatist elements in his party – who are running scared of the even more separatist elements in UKIP - might have bought Cameron some breathing space in the short term, but yielding ground to them is only compounding his problems in the longer term.  With around half his backbenchers taking an impossible position on the EU issue (and who knows how many of those ‘on the payroll’ take a similar view?), it may well not be Cameron’s problem after 2015, even if his party wins.

Being overtaken by events?

Tweet The Conservatives seem to be busy digging their European hole even deeper and wider as fast as they possibly can.  There is clearly within that party a deep-seated dislike of all things European.

It’s not often that I find myself agreeing with Norman Lamont, but on this occasion his assertion, although not quite in so many words, that ‘renegotiation’ was nothing more than a fig leaf to enable David Cameron to buy off his party in the short term and keep the UK within the European Union in the long term has a certain ring of truth to it. 

Whether the “renegotiation” ploy will work remains to be seen.  It clearly worked for Harold Wilson in 1975 but I’m not so sure that Cameron has as strong a grip on his party as Wilson had on his.  And Wilson’s Labour Party was badly enough split on the issue.

It’s difficult at times to work out exactly what it is about Europe that so many in the Conservative party have taken such a dislike to.  Lord Lawson attempted to spell out part of his objection at least.  He is quite clear that the European Union is attempting to obstruct the inalienable right of London based international capitalists to rip off the rest of the world and to destroy any country’s economy whenever they so choose.  Those weren’t quite the words he used, but it seemed to me what he was, in effect, saying.

Others have talked about freeing the UK from European bureaucracy in order to be able to compete more effectively.  Somehow it seems to me that the rest of the European Union’s members are unlikely to allow the UK to simply exempt itself from the rules which control them and then be allowed to gain economically through an unfair competitive advantage.  And the idea that the UK can compete (in the foreseeable future at least) with low-wage economies such as India and China, as has been suggested by at least one Conservative, seems to me equally fanciful.  Until such time as wages and living standards in those countries catch up with the West, it seems to me unlikely that competition is a realistic prospect.

It’s difficult to escape the conclusion that the real issue is more to do with the perceived electoral threat from UKIP; but that is itself a euphemism for an attempt to appeal to a certain group of voters who traditionally vote for the Conservative party.  There is a section of the electorate which is deeply hostile to Europe, Europeans, and indeed 'foreigners' in general (and I rather suspect, to those of a darker hue in particular) and the line being trodden by those attempting to pander to that section of the electorate without appearing to become openly xenophobic, or even racist, themselves is a fine one.

Attempted populism always carries a danger that events starts to overtake those who think they are in control of them; quite apart from the other dangers which arise from any attempt to appease that particular section of the electorate.  Cameron’s weakness is in danger of leading him into a position where, although I suspect this is contrary to his own instincts, he ends up leading the UK out of the European Union.  And even if he's unlikely to win the election which is such an important precondition, it seems that there are those in the Labour opposition who are being tempted to follow the same line.

The idea that the UK can return to some sort of imperial age independence may appeal to a particular section of voters, but it’s unlikely that most of us would benefit from it.  But, for all their talk of maintaining a rather different union closer to home, it looks as if the separatists are gaining the upper hand within the Conservative Party - and gaining ground in the Labour Party as well.