Europe is worth fighting for - maybe not this Europe, but a better Europe is at least worth a try

Nik Darlington 10.30am

This evening the annual Macmillan Lecture is being delivered in Parliament by Damian Green, police minister and TRG vice-president.

Mr Green will state the unequivocal Conservative case for the EU, rejecting clarion calls for an immediate exit yet insisting that the British people are overdue their say on our membership. Giving the Prime Minister his strongest backing, Mr Green will make the case for allowing negotiations to proceed and for an improved settlement to be put to the British people.

Of course, the British people have every right to reject EU membership even then. Conservatives sympathetic to the EU today are not blindly uncritical. Without democratic consent the EU is but a hollow bureaucratic shell. Indeed, a shell that in this day and age looks increasingly like a fossil.

There is a case to be made for the EU, but it has to be made on Conservative principles of free trade and democracy. It is on precisely those principles that the EU’s biggest critics have assumed to abandon the field. Europe is worth fighting for. Maybe not this Europe as it stands (or falls), but a better Europe is at least worth a stab.

Only by calming down shall EU rebels get what they want, or have any colleagues left to share it

Nik Darlington 9.54am

Yesterday on these pages, Giles questioned whether the Tory party truly wants to resist the UKIP surge, or whether the Tory party in fact embraced it. This morning on ConHome, Paul Goodman questions whether Tory MPs even want to win the next election.

For some “lunatics”, to paraphrase Mr Soames commenting yesterday, this is not wide of the mark. The MP for Ketting, Philip Hollobone (majority 9,094), is insisting on parliamentary time to debate a referendum bill and “if it ends the coalition, so be it”.

That would, in all likelihood, end the Tory party’s tenure in office. It would not, in all likelihood, end Mr Hollobone’s tenure in the House of Commons.

There are however many hard-working, bright colleagues who would be sacrificed at the alter of Mr Hollobone’s (and others’) capricious whim.

To recap, John Baron (Basildon & Billericay: majority 12,398) posited a motion criticising the Queen’s Speech for not including an EU Referendum Bill. Coalition with the Liberal Democrats precludes this, however David Cameron has since announced the independent publication of a draft bill that is presumed will be taken on by the first name out of the hat for private members bills.

Mr Baron and supporters - including Peter Bone (Wellingborough: majority 11,787) and the reinstated Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire: majority 15,152) - have extracted this significant concession. Yet they press on. And on. Today’s Times (£) cartoon puts this best.

Has the Prime Minister handled this badly? Of course he has. Should a doomed stand be made against the muddled, undemocratic ranks of the Labour party, the Lib Dems, Greens and the rest? Yes, it should.

Europe is a salient issue for voters and the British people deserve a say on EU membership, pending the Prime Minister’s negotiations. For what it is worth, looking at the status quo, on balance I would vote to stay in; but it would be a close call.

It would not take much to convince me otherwise. The ‘out’ lobby has a war chest of momentum, funding and evidence. The ‘in’ lobby does not. In fact, I fear supporters of EU membership have at worst largely forgotten why they support it, and at best are relying on out-dated evidence.

Nevertheless, Europe is not the most salient issue for voters. It does not even come close. The crucial consideration in this sordid episode is that the Conservative party is being poisoned by myopia, desperation, and fears the wrong enemy.

Lance the boil. Have the debate about a referendum bill. Expose opposing parties. Be done with it.

Demonstrate to voters what this Conservative-led Government has achieved in the realms of welfare reform, schools and immigration; ram home the paucity of Labour’s alternative; press on with vital reforms to healthcare; and continue the hard but necessary work of rebuilding Britain’s economy.

Only by doing so shall the Conservative party have a hope of winning in 2015. Only be doing so shall there be a chance for an EU referendum. And only by doing so shall those MPs in safe seats who yearn for that referendum, have any colleagues left to ensure it.

Follow Nik on Twitter @NikDarlington

All right-thinking Eurosceptics need to get behind David Cameron’s EU negotiations

James Reekie 9.00am

The European Union’s unresolved constitutional status, and the sticking plaster approach of the Lisbon Treaty means that we need some new thinking in order to resolve our qualms over Europe. The Prime Minister can provide this.

Like most people on the centre-right, I am sceptical of increasing European powers. I don’t believe the UK should be outside of the EU, but I do think that Europe needs to change. That is why I welcomed David Cameron’s pledge to renegotiate our place in Europe and put the results of those negotiations to the British people in a referendum. Mr Cameron is providing important leadership in Europe by examining as part of this exercise those parts of the EU that are fundamentally incompatible with not only British values but also those of other Member States. It means that the European political classes will at least begin the debate by asking ‘What powers and competences need to be returned?’ rather than ’ How much state sovereignty can we take from Member States?’. The former question being the one which the British public have been rightfully asking for years.

The slow creep of European power cannot be simply blamed on the ‘bureaucrats in Brussels’ or on the European institutions, for on every European Treaty we find the tacit endorsement of Prime Ministers, Presidents and Foreign Secretaries in what has become a shameless acquiescence in the diminution of parliamentary sovereignty - if not in a theoretical sense then at least in a practical one.

David Cameron has demonstrated that he is no friend of this approach and finally at last, we have a leader in Europe who is actually willing to provide a robust alternative to the ‘integration will solve it’ mantra of the federalists.

However, simply moaning and groaning about Europe won’t solve the problem for us eurosceptics. We must call for a constitutional settlement that reigns in and defines in clear terms the powers and limitations of the European Union and its institutions. There does exist a reasonable approach to the European Union which satisfies our ambitions for free trade and co-operation that does not rely on full blown integration or withdrawal.

Eurosceptics need to take a much more coherent and holistic approach to the EU constitutional debate.

Firstly, by recognising that from its early conception until now the European Union has in fact developed along a distinctly British constitutional tradition. This type of constitutional evolution has made Britain’s constitution distinctive in its flexibility and contributed to our many successes within a state context but it is no remedy for a supranational entity such as the European Union. Of course in a legal and political order such as the European Union this was always going to lead to a constitutional crisis, especially considering there is the sovereignty of member states constitutional traditions to consider.

Secondly, by recognising that our alternative is the one sought by the vast majority of people. The former treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe contained articles on a European flag, anthem and various other nonsensical provisions in order to attempt to garner some sense of constitutional patriotism from citizens of member states, which was completely out of step with the vast majority of the European public. There is little clamour for a federal Europe. So let’s argue for an abandonment of pie in the sky symbolism and advocate a focus on solid constitutional reform.

We hear far too much nowadays of European human rights legislation or the next nanny-state measure to come through Brussels. This leads us to forget the fundamental reason why the European Union exists.

The common market in principle is good for business and good for trade within Europe and internationally. In fact, it is the principles of this common market that may just save us from the absurdity of minimum pricing for alcohol. The common market is not without its faults but the law makers and political leaders of Europe must appreciate that the fundamental premise of the European Union is a Common Market. It is time we got back to something that looks like one.

Thirdly, we need to recognise the European Union for what it is. It isn’t a state and we don’t want it to become a state. I often hear those across the political spectrum talk of the European democratic deficit. Of course the democratic deficit is still far too large but we must also appreciate that if we do not want Europe to become a state we must stop holding it to standards we expect from nation states. We must see it as a unique order which we are responsible for shaping and not leave the left to determine the future of the European Union.

Therefore, governments must also take some responsibility for constitutional collisions when they arise. Often constitutional compatibility issues can be resolved well beforehand but they often lack the political will or courage by both the EU and national parliaments to be tackled head on.

So what next for our relationship with Europe? Depending on the process followed in determining any future treaty, Mr Cameron must ultimately ensure that he plays his full part in leading and maintaining a coalition of centre-right reformists, but most of all he must also ensure that prominent eurosceptics from across Europe are playing their full part in the debate. There has been some interesting thinking about what the process could look like in order to ensure democratic legitimacy for a European constitution which has been decidedly lacking in any.

So far, David Cameron has led the way admirably. Firstly for promising a referendum and secondly for promising a renegotiated settlement to be put forward in that referendum. It’s time for all right-thinking eurosceptics to get on board and shape a European Union settlement that is democratically and constitutionally legitimate.

James Reekie is the Vice-Chairman of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party

Some lessons from Eastleigh for the Tory party

Giles Marshall 7.37am

That the Liberal Democrats won at all is a minor triumph and let no-one tell you otherwise.

This is a party mired in a truly demeaning scandal, whose media operation looked utterly out of shape and whose leader was subject to the sort of scrutiny usually reserved for pariahs and criminals.

Add to this the fact that Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems enjoy the support of not a single major media outlet, but can count on the active hostility of all of them, and this really does start to look like an extraordinary triumph.

No leader since John Major has received quite such a pasting from the right-wing press, and even then some papers maintained a veneer of regard for the party Major was leading.

No such exceptionalism exists for Nick Clegg. Any triumph he gains, any achievement he chalks up, is and always shall be done in the face of an extraordinary hostility from the media.

So how did the Liberal Democrats win in Eastleigh?  I can offer two reasons.  Number one – their organisation on the ground is excellent.  They have a large number of councillors and activists in Eastleigh and they used feet on the ground to considerable effect.  In the age of big media and social network politics, localism still counts and a motivated ground force can still make the difference.  This is what can rescue the Lib Dems from oblivion in any general election.

Number two – they faced the split opposition of the right, and herein lies a serious problem for the Tories. Eastleigh was a Conservative seat not so very long ago, held by a middle-ground Tory of cautiously pro-European opinions who tragically was subject to personal demons.

In this by-election, conscious of the UKIP threat, the local party fielded Maria Hutchings, who has forthright views on immigration, is a determined Eurosceptic and would have been no Cameron patsy if elected to Parliament. She is the dream candidate for the Tory right.

And she lost. Not marginally. She lost substantially, coming in third behind the party whose image she tried to emulate and whose implicit endorsement she tried to achieve.  

The Tory party will try to garner all sorts of lessons from this defeat and most of them will be wrong. The one thing that should stand out is the reality that the right-wing vote in this country is too small to permit of two competing parties. It is arguably too small to permit of even one successful party.

The Tory party’s split identity is becoming ever more harmful, but that is nothing to the rump it will become if the lesson drawn from Eastleigh is voters desire a more unvarnished brand of Tory rightism.

It seems the party will never be right-wing and Eurosceptic enough to appease UKIP supporters without alienating the crucial centrist vote that all parties need to sustain themselves in government. This is a simple matter of electoral arithmetic.

As for UKIP, they should enjoy their triumph. They didn’t win, but they scored their best by-election result to date.

However, it isn’t quite as great a triumph as Nigel Farage is trumpeting. At a time when both governing parties are massively unpopular, this party of protest failed to wrest a seat from them.

In their heyday, the Social Democratic Party – a party of protest that sought to extract voters from the Labour Party in much the same way as UKIP does from the Tories – managed to pull off extraordinary by-election victories in both Conservative and Labour seats. They did it when the governing Tories were pursuing unpopular economic measures. And they never managed to translate their extraordinary by-election success into general election success, descending into third party misery each time.  

UKIP’s achievement is weaker than the old SDP’s. If Farage’s lot can’t win a seat like Eastleigh in a by-election, with protest votes aplenty, then they shan’t win anything in a general election.

Eastleigh has produced a victor, whatever the gloom that the national pundits may be pronouncing for all parties. That victor, to the dismay of Conservatives, is their coalition partner. It will keep the coalition going, but it offers no hope to the dominant party.

Follow Giles on Twitter @gilesmarshall

Robert Buckland states the reformist case for Britain’s being at the heart of Europe

Nik Darlington 4.20pm

TRG vice-president Robert Buckland had an article on ConservativeHome yesterday, in which he argued forcefully for Britain’s role at the head of the European table.

Robert rattled off a list of British achievements in Europe that really ought to be better known and understood: reform of the CFP, for instance, despite coming up against seemingly implacable entrenched interests.

Moreover, Robert claims, it is largely because Britain is so much more influential in Europe than we oft imagine, that David Cameron’s historic Bloomberg speech was received with such seriousness around the EU.

“Chancellor Merkel…has some sympathy with our reformist aims; without her support, the budget cut would not have been achieved. She realises that the EU must be more efficient and competitive. Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands, shares our desire to see some powers repatriated to the Member States… Alexander Stubb, Foreign Minister of Finland, recognises that there has already been a lot of differentiation within the EU. He understands that an identikit EU is not the be-all and end-all to the European project.”

Underpinning Mr Cameron’s bold statement last month is, I believe, a profound ambition to recast the European Union in its entirety and for the benefit of all its members - including Britain. European leaders have taken notice.

Finally, Robert sets out a case for remaining at the heart of Europe, and a case we shall hear a lot more of as the date of an in-out referendum approaches.

“History has surely taught us that we must stay at the heart of Europe precisely so that we can reform it. Whether we like it or not, our fortunes are intricately linked with those of the continent. Instead of shouting from the sidelines, Britain is taking its place again at the head of the table, helping the EU to face up to its many problems.”

Follow Nik on Twitter @NikDarlington

By attacking David Cameron the EU federalists are shooting themselves in the foot

Miguel Nunes Silva 2.12pm

David Cameron’s much awaited speech on Europe was met with profound disappointment on the side of those who currently push for greater integration in the European Union.

By making a potential referendum on British membership conditional on a Conservative party re-election, Mr Cameron was criticised of pandering to populism.

Allowing structural state policy to be determined by the masses could be said to be populism of the most irresponsible kind. Foreign policy, like defence policy, is a strategic domain of public governance. If no one asks the British people their opinion before Britain goes to war, it would only stand to reason that they are not inquired about UK membership in an international organisation. David Cameron deserves criticism on the referendum conditionality proposed but double the amount on the decision to hold the referendum to begin with.

That said, his continental detractors are a breed of their own.

To call the referendum on European Union membership a foreign policy decision is a mere assumption, because not everyone agrees that EU member-states are/should be sovereign. Most experts on EU politics only agree on one definition of its institutions: that they are a “UPO,” an unidentified political object – euphemism for agreeing to disagree.

Whereas some see the European Union as a mere technical international institution, others believe it to be a supranational entity that will eventually supersede the nation state as the sovereign political representative of the European peoples. One such step was the creation of the European Parliament, whose members are elected by direct suffrage.

Opinions vary according to the nature of the nationhood in question. Germans, Belgians and Italians, due to their short history as independent nations, their traumatic experience with nationalism and them being accustomed to working within a federal system, tend to harbour more federalist feelings. French, Portuguese or Poles, owing to an ancient nationhood, a proud export of such national culture to other peoples and a fundamentally unitary state system, are for the most part more zealous of Gaullist nation state pluralism and sovereignty.

Overall, however, continentals are less eurosceptic than the British and it was no surprise to learn of negative feedback in Europe: the French foreign minister Laurent Fabius called the referendum “dangerous” and criticised the possibility of a European Union “à la carte”. In a poorly chosen allegory, he also mentioned that a football team cannot decide instead to play rugby.

But it was the German socialist Martin Schultz, recently elected president of the European Parliament, who went the farthest in echoing the categorisation of the speech as “dangerous” and painting the announced referendum as the product of a “sorcerer’s apprentice” manipulating forces that he does not understand.

Schultz’s own Austrian parliamentary leader described the speech as “tragicomic”. Belgian Guy Verhofstadt and Franco-German Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leaders of the progressive liberals and Green parties respectively, characterised the speech as dishonest, “ignorant” and the referendum as “hokey-cokey.”

Such attitudes are despicable, disrespectful and unstatesman like. Mr Cameron may be accused of hurting the British national interest but he is at least the legitimate leader of the United Kingdom. The reactions of those who criticize him, on the other hand, are hypocritical and contradictory. These are, after all, those who advocate the European Union as more than a technical international organisation and cannot therefore be perceived as a mere instrument of foreign policy.

If that is so, and what happens in Europe is not “international” but actually “domestic,” why then not allow a referendum? Is that not the very logic behind the creation of a European Parliament, an institution that is already superfluously parallel to the national parliaments, in much the same way that the referendum would be superfluously parallel to a governmental decision to ratify the Lisbon Treaty?

One cannot have it both ways. Either Europe is a proto-state or it is an international organisation. The legitimacy that these politicians might possess to criticise Mr Cameron rests on the very principle involved in the scheduling of the referendum: that European Union member-states are sub-national entities in relation to the union and that any European politician is entitled to criticise a head of government without interfering in sovereign internal affairs, since they do so horizontally.

However, if the referendum is truly a foreign policy matter and a popular vote is purposeless, then not only is it not the place of functionaries of an international institution to interfere in the domestic affairs of a sovereign nation; David Cameron now has the legitimacy to tell them, in turn, how to do their jobs.

The “Europe à la carte” rather seems to be a product of European federalism: the only pick-and-choosing happening at the moment pertains to Europe’s federalists who invoke one logic or another, according to how it suits their own political interests. It was not after all the British footballers who decided to play rugby but rather some of the other players who decided to go cycling instead and self awarded themselves a yellow shirt…

After decades of accusations of democratically deficient integration, if the federalists seriously wish to avoid the image of promoters of a top-down federalisation by stealth, they would do well to not enter into the paradox of calling for a Europe of the peoples without existential referendums and most of all would do well not to call thirty million of their ‘fellow citizens’ “hokey cokey”.

Miguel Nunes Silva is an analyst for the geostrategy consultancy Wikistrat and has been published in a number of foreign policy media. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Lisbon and a Master’s in European Studies from the College of Europe.

Tory Reform Group supports an In/Out EU referendum

The Tory Reform Group supports the Prime Minister’s belief that it is in the national interest for Britain to play a leading role in the European Union. The EU is the largest trading bloc in the world and accounts for 50% of Britain’s trade. It is also apparent that business and our allies in the world, in particular the United States, have all advocated that Britain take the lead in the future of the EU.

The TRG does not believe in federalism or in ever closer integration but rather in being an active participant in the EU alongside our partners and customers. Today’s TRG is composed of ‘Eurorealists’ who are not driven by ideology but on pragmatic assessment of Britain’s interests.

For too long the question of whether we should ‘go it alone’ has been allowed to cause division within the Conservative Party. The TRG therefore welcomes a commitment to hold an in/out referendum which will allow the British people to decide, as they did in 1975, whether Britain should be constructive partners in an open and competitive European Union.

For maximum advantage, combine an EU referendum with the next General Election

Nik Darlington 11.29am

A new poll out today from Channel 4 News suggests that 70 per cent of Tory members would vote to leave the EU, and 80 per cent want the party to pledge an in/out referendum at the next general election.

Those figures are not surprising. However, with Conservative party membership running into the mere tens of thousands, hardly a direct representation of general public opinion.

Nonetheless, sections of the media have crafted the impression that the mood of the country is more eurosceptic than not. Polls typically point in favour of holding a referendum. Even the most dogged europhiles have to accept that.

David Cameron earned some kudos from his own party by vetoing a new European treaty last year, but coalition constraints prevent stronger action, while he and his Chancellor have been putting their weight behind saving the euro and encouraging fiscal integration within the eurozone. (Contrary to what certain shysters will have you believe, the Prime Minister knows a total eurozone collapse is not in Britain’s interests.)

So whatever goodwill Mr Cameron briefly received, ordinary Tory members and MPs remain fractious and demanding of more. Not just about Europe, of course, as the Government’s economic policies are heavily in the spotlight too. And the crisis in the eurozone is, though not of our making, very much tied up with our own economic fortunes.

And I have been convinced for some time now that the fractious minority has a point. At least in terms of wanting a referendum, if not necessarily for its reasoning or goals. Irrespective of a rump poll of Tory voters, general sentiment is strong enough for the British public to deserve a referendum.

The Government - or more to the point the Conservative party - has to move quickly to offer one, because the Opposition, aided now by the shrewd John Cruddas (a Little Englander of the left, so to speak), is threatening to offer its own pledge.

So, in the words of one of that fractious minority, “if not now, when?”

The Conservative party has the advantage of incumbency, so it must not waste it. The typical suggestion is that backed by 8 out of 10 party members, namely to pledge a referendum in the 2015 manifesto. It would please four-fifths of the party (what is that roughly, just over 100,000 people?). Few Tories could decry it, at least publicly.

Yet there is another option, one that would satisfy Tory members, the general voting public, electrify political debate and - potentially rather importantly - render UKIP irrelevant.

Hold the referendum on the same day as the next general election. Here are a few reasons why.

1. If the latest polling is a true demonstration of feeling among Tory troops, it would be a huge motivational boost. It would get canvassers out on to the streets, volunteers into constituency offices and, crucially, otherwise disaffected Tory voters into polling booths. We saw how the AV referendum boosted Tory turnout in the simultaneous local elections. Hold an EU referendum on the same day as a general election and it could have the same effect, only turned up to eleven.
2. With the political weather vane pointing towards an uphill struggle in 2015, that momentum could make the difference between a Tory win or Labour’s return. Moreover, how would the Labour party campaign? At heart, it is not the blue-and-yellow flag-waving den of europhiles it is often made out to be. After all, Balls and Brown kept us out of the euro. And though I find the notion disingenuous, the huge attention given to a referendum could deflect from the economy, which might still be only barely on the mend. You’d be right to shift uneasily, but that’s the cold truth.
3. It would go some way to solving the electoral coalition dilemma. Instead of a situation where former colleagues must separate and alternately trash or laud a shared record, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties could look forward and comfortably fight the next election on more separate, and less shaky, ground. Furthermore, weren’t the Lib Dems the only party to offer an in/out referendum in 2010? Nick Clegg et al could hardly complain.
4. Why vote UKIP? Why indeed.
5. Lastly, there is even something in it for europhiles. Citizens tend to vote more thoughtfully/traditionally/safely/sensibly/conservatively (delete as you will) at general election time. Mid-term ballots, such as local government elections, European elections, or by-elections, can throw up odd (even irrational) results. So if you want to stay in the EU, this should be the best time for you too.

The Prime Minister is apparently consulting senior members of the party about whether or not to offer the referendum. If one must be offered - and increasingly it seems as though it must, or indeed should - then it might as well be offered at a time of maximum advantage. That time, in my opinion, is 7th May 2015.

Follow Nik on Twitter @NikDarlington