Putting purity before power: how many Tories truly want to resist UKIP?

Giles Marshall 11.58am

With Tory cabinet ministers scrambling over each other to assure the party of their Euro-scepticism, one might wonder what the fuss over UKIP is all about. Aside from a matter of timing, it seems most Tories are united on the referendum.  Yet of course, there is more to it.

UKIP is not only a repository for Euro-sceptics. Indeed, Europe is just the hook on which to hang a whole panoply of concerns. UKIP is fundamentally a protest party. For disillusioned Tories in particular, UKIP offers an unrepentant leader in Nigel Farage who contrasts nicely with the more nuanced David Cameron.

Tory members and a significant number of backbench MPs are not happy in coalition, hate the notion of Tory ‘modernisation’ and dislike the thought of compromise. In their black and white - or blue and red - world, there is much virtue in Tory puritanism and Mr Cameron’s great crime is in failing to recognise this.

Mr Cameron, of course, is trying to operate in the real world. His Toryism derives from his upbringing rather than deep political conviction. It was never honed through a party activism that might have brought some deeper, grittier understanding of the party he leads. His Toryism is instinctive, and thus more inclined to accommodate itself to the demands and pressures of the world outside the bubble of the party. That lies behind his chaotic but worthy pursuit of ‘modernisation’ and it still lies behind his desire not to take knee-jerk approaches to such complex issues as EU membership.

Mr Cameron is, at heart, a Tory pragmatist of the type that used to dominate in the twentieth century heyday of the party.

The party he leads no longer resembles that triumphant machine. It is questionable as to how far this change is due to the legacy of the party’s first truly ideological leader - Margaret Thatcher - and how much would have occurred in any case as a result of a growing sense of alienation in the modern world.

Whatever the cause, the Conservative party today is a puritanical beast, railing against the iniquities of the world but struggling to find solutions. Like 16th-century puritans, today’s Tories take comfort in purity and isolation and want nothing to do with the murky waters of compromise politics.

Even before the halfway mark of the Coalition, many Tory backbenchers had been restlessly pushing against its constraints. They have managed to breach some, even to the extent of proposing Bills that challenge their own government.  In such times it is difficult to distinguish backbench Tories from a brand of opposition MP.

Europe - or rather its forced removal - is the great prize. Mr Cameron has tried to feed that appetite but has found its gaping maw remains open no matter how much he tries to satiate it. He is facing the same problem as John Major. Paul Goodman makes the comparison on Conservative Home, and puts the issue down to a failure of leadership on the part of both men.

This is not the whole story. It is not really possible for any outward-facing Tory leader to lead his party. No-one who is not a died-in-the-wool Euro-denier has a hope of gaining the support of Tory backbenchers, and yet when such men are put into leadership they fail to win over the country as a whole.

Europe merely represents the high water mark of the Tory party’s desire to become an unadulterated and unrestrained party of the right. Many members envy UKIP’s easy positions and rather want them for themselves. Many Tories now would prefer purity to power.

David Cameron is no longer simply struggling against the Euro-monster. He is struggling against a much bigger desire to retreat to a position of political comfort, a position that he has tried to force the party to vacate since 2005. It is possible that his failure is due in part to the incoherent nature of ‘modernisation’ itself, which was too Blairite in nature and should have taken stronger account of historic One Nation Toryism.

The big question is if Mr Cameron does indeed fail, whether there is going to be another chance for the Tory party to be a broad-based party of the centre-right, or whether it will simply assume UKIP’s mantle, and stay on the fringe.

Follow Giles on Twitter @gilesmarshall

Human Rights Act: Some questions for Mr Grayling and Mrs May

Craig Prescott 10.51am

Over the weekend, Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, indicated that a Conservative majority government could repeal the Human Rights Act. Meanwhile, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has suggested withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) itself.

These are two very different things, and there is some muddled thinking involved here; but if both were to be pursued the policy could be called ‘Withdrawal and Repeal’.

As Mr Grayling has admitted himself, there needs to be a lot of work put in to the detail (to put it mildly). But as work towards possible 2015 manifesto pledges starts, here are some questions and issues that need to be considered.

1. Why? It can’t be for political advantage. At the last election, 3.1 per cent of people voted for a political party who advocated ‘Withdraw and Repeal’, namely UKIP. By contrast, a combined 52 per cent of the electorate voted for Labour and the Liberal Democrats, who did not. Whatever Mr Grayling and Mrs May may think, the electorate has shown time and time again disinterest in tinkering with constitutional matters. This does not look like a massive vote winner to me, in face of more pressing matters such as living standards and the broader economy.
2. Replacement? A British Bill of Rights has been suggested, but to what end? The content of such a Bill of Rights is likely to be similar, if not identical, to the content with one or two additions (such as a right to a jury trial) to make such a document ‘British’. Take a look at the Articles incorporated into English Law by the HRA, the Right to Life, Prohibition of Torture, Prohibition of Slavery and Forced Labour and the Right to a Fair Trial and so on. Would you like to live in a country that does not provide in law for these  protections? As one of the finest judges of recent times, Lord Bingham stated in his book the Rule of Law, countries that do not make such protection in law tend not to the best of places to live. Belarus or North Korea? Another issue is how are the courts going to interpret any such legislation. Experience before the HRA suggests that on the whole, the courts will take notice of the ECHR, as they do of other international treaties and case-law for interpretative guidance.
3. Leave it to Parliament? If ‘Withdrawal and Repeal’ is pursued, then the position will be more akin to the days before the HRA, but without a route of appeal to Strasbourg. This is a dangerous option, as it risks pitting the courts and Parliament in direct opposition. It is easy to think that human rights began with the HRA, but that neglects the strong - if imperfect - vein in the common law that protected people’s rights before the HRA. One could go back to the 17th century, but during the 1990s the courts began to recognise at common law certain rights as being of ‘fundamental’ status, such as access to justice. This fundamental status means that the courts require strong signals from Parliament before the courts hold that they can be interfered with. This is an open-ended category of right, creating a clear risk of an ongoing conflict between the courts and Parliament, potentially giving more scope to the courts, the exact opposite of what the Lord Chancellor, Mr Grayling, wants. Such an approach would be destined not to end well.

There are other issues to consider. The devolved institutions are required under the devolution framework to comply with the ECHR at all times. Any amendment of this requirement is likely to require their approval, which the Commission on the Bill of Rights indicates will not necessarily be forthcoming as approval of the ECHR is generally seems to be higher outside of England than within it. (This raises concerns that the Conservative Party becoming ever more an English, and not British Party). Further, the EU is engaged in an ongoing process to become a signatory to the ECHR, meaning that even if ‘Withdraw and Repeal’ is pursued, the ECHR will still be a highly relevant to UK law as long as Britain remains a member.

All of the above is not to say that the human rights architecture of the UK and Europe is perfect. Far from it. There are issues over the length of time it takes to hear cases, and the number of appeals possible in human rights litigation are both issues about which courts themselves have voiced concerns. A close look at the process shows that the vast majority of the time, it is these problems which lie at the root of problems with human rights. After all Abu Hamza still got deported to America. Is it really necessary to embark on such a hazardous journey, jeopardising a central tenet of the unwritten constitution that Parliament and the courts respond to each other in a dialogue and understanding, to solve a problem which for the vast majority of the electorate is simply not there?

Ultimately, the problem that Mr Grayling as Lord Chancellor (who has a duty to uphold the rule of law) needs to grapple with is that some human rights are innate in the liberal democracy to which he wishes to belong and to strengthen. Any human rights apparatus constructed does not create rights but merely recognises them.

Craig Prescott is a member of the School of Law at the University of Manchester. Follow him on Twitter @craigprescott

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

If you’re in Eastleigh and you’re reading this, do something worthwhile and VOTE HUTCHINGS today

Craig Barrett 11.02am

Another Thursday, another by-election. Following the resignation in disgrace of Chris Huhne, voters are today going to the polls in a constituency that has been a tightly fought battleground between the Tories and the Lib Dems since the previous by-election, in 1994. A Lib Dem majority of fewer than 4,000 votes belies a seat where the Lib Dems have a very active party machine and hold all of the local council seats.

Needless to say, all parties in contention have thrown everything at it.  UKIP’s sole spokesman, Nigel Farage, declined to stand again in the seat which he fought in 1994, presumably thinking that he couldn’t win and to fail to win once again would be a humiliation too far.

The Labour party has John O’Farrell, former joke-writer for Gordon Brown, who has been roundly criticised for his comments lamenting the fact that the IRA failed to murder Lady Thatcher in Brighton in 1984.

The Lib Dems have selected a local councillor, Mike Thornton, who, in best Liberal Democrat tradition, has voted in favour of housing developments which his leaflets suggests he opposes.

Our candidate, Maria Hutchings, is a working mother with four kids, a genuine local campaigner whose campaign has been masterminded by the energetic, relentless, indomitable Michael Fabricant, whose endless stream of tweeted photographs shows the entire Parliamentary party (and their cousins and their aunts, not to mention their dogs) has visited the constituency to ensure that Maria’s message of being a local campaigner who can be trusted has been strongly made to every voter. I haven’t been down myself but my reading of her message is that she has sound Conservative views and will be a hard-worker for her constituents. The race appears to be too close to call.

My suspicion is that the biggest winner out of all of this will be SouthWest Trains.  Nevertheless, if you’re in Eastleigh and you are reading this, do something worthwhile today: VOTE HUTCHINGS.

Follow Craig on Twitter @mrsteeduk

Cameron’s EU referendum promise lays down the gauntlet to Labour

Nik Darlington 10.33am

“Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.” David Cameron has followed the Bard’s advice to the letter. This has been the most mindful build-up to a prime ministerial speech in living memory. Are his fortunes intact?

First of all, I’m still keen on holding the EU referendum on the same day as the next General Election, something I’ve established on these pages before. Yet that is not going to happen now. By insisting it will be held before 2017 (which in practice means between 2015 and 2017), it does make a Tory victory more plausible.

Yet as Tim Montgomerie writes, it doesn’t “kill off” UKIP entirely. Surprisingly enough perhaps, UKIP’s voters don’t actually rank Europe as their greatest concern: immigration and crime, for instance, are more important. What today’s speech shall do though is present a stark choice to UKIP voters: do you want a referendum or not? If yes, vote Conservative.

Much of that depends on how the Labour party responds. Ed Miliband is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Support a referendum and he looks limp - following Mr Cameron’s lead and betraying Labour’s (admittedly not long held) Europhile principles. Oppose one and he looks undemocratic, betraying the will of the British people. It will be a difficult PMQs for him today, but then again, he’s had plenty of time to prepare for this moment. What is his answer going to be?

Staying with Labour and returning to UKIP, an interesting aspect here is that in certain parts of the country, many UKIP supporters are actually former Labour voters, not Tories. This reinforces how important Mr Miliband’s next step is. Reject a referendum and he possibly loses those voters forever.

There is a risk that the delay, potentially till 2017, creates an uncertain environment for British businesses. If you are an external investor reliant on untrammelled access to European markets, is Britain a safe bet? Mr Cameron’s explicit goal is to win an ‘in’ vote on significantly reconfigured terms - but terms that retain access to the European single market. Is that goal achievable? The tone of this morning’s speech will have reassured and mollified key European allies but there is no guarantee that the negotiation process - or this mooted new treaty - will get us what we want.

The Tory Reform Group has often been branded (from without) as a nest of Europhiles: “unpatriotic” (unfairly so) and “isolated” (these days, admittedly so). There is nothing inherently unpatriotic about wanting Britain to hold a strong hand of cards at the European top table, but as a pragmatist (and I speak for myself here not the TRG) one must recognise the realities of the world we live in.

Times have changed. Many in the TRG would, I wager, still call themselves pro-European; or more accurately, place other causes (such as public services, social policy, the environment, health, justice) far ahead of concerns about the EU.

I would also wager that no TRG member could disagree with the Prime Minister’s essential analysis today: the EU must become more competitive, powers must be held closer to those they affect; the democratic deficit must be closed; and the EU must shed its bureaucratic shackles to become leaner and more flexible.

Mr Cameron recalled the defining, founding ideals of European unity in postwar times. Awarding the EU a Nobel Peace Prize seems ridiculous in this age, but consider its beginnings and that prize is barely recognition enough.

Mr Cameron also recalled what makes the people of this little collection of islands different, and why we have often been seen as the “argumentative” member of the European family.

The past is the past; it can inform us but barely guide us. The European Union’s problem is that for too long it has looked to the future with more than one eye on the past. The world is different. The European Union needs to think differently, behave differently and function differently. That is more readily achievable, I believe, with Britain remaining strongly and critically involved. Not on the outside.

In party political terms, if the Labour party now promises a referendum (as it now surely must), the game is squared. In bigger terms, the best result for Britain would be a significant reforming of our relationship with the EU. And as Tim Montgomerie also writes this morning, perhaps it can allow sections of the Conservative party to let things rest for a while, and concentrate on the policies that voters genuinely do care about, like healthcare, schools, the cost of living and tax.

Things will change, positions will unravel and the realities of European negotiations will hit home hard. Yet for the moment, David Cameron has stolen the stage. Bien fait.

Follow Nik on Twitter @NikDarlington

Who are UKIP?

Andrew Thorpe-Apps 3.57pm

The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) has been suffering from internal tensions for some time. The party is fundamentally divided between those with a socially conservative outlook, and those with a more libertarian perspective.

On top of this, and as can been seen with all political parties, there is an increasing generational split. As an example, roughly 60 per cent of the UK population now supports gay marriage. When under-30s are polled on the issue, support is closer to 80 per cent.

UKIP’s leader, Nigel Farage, has actively encouraged the party’s libertarian label. He has advocated drug decriminalisation, opposed anti-tobacco legislation, and supported the right of local people to decide whether fox hunting should be permitted.

In many policy areas, however, UKIP look far more like right-wing populists. They seek to double the UK prison population, increase the police budget, and spend more on national defence. These policies, though perfectly reasonable in themselves, are hard to reconcile with the commonly understood definition of libertarianism.

UKIP officially supports Civil Partnerships, but not any change in the law that would allow gay marriage. Yet this policy does not sit comfortably with many in UKIP’s youth-wing, Young Independence.

Olly Neville - the recently elected Chairman of Young Independence - was sacked for airing his personal views on both gay marriage and the significance of European Elections. This led to a ‘Twitter storm’, with many lambasting the party leadership’s authoritarian approach.

The so-called #Ollyshambles debacle is all the more ironic since Nigel Farage has stated that he wanted a party of free thinkers: ”I’d rather have a party of eccentrics than bland, ghastly people.”

To a large degree, the sacking of Olly Neville has been given more publicity than it deserves. UKIP is a party with no Westminster seats that relies heavily on the charisma and popularity of its leader.

The Neville affair is important insofar as it brings to the surface the deep divisions within UKIP. For many years, UKIP was a single issue party. Its activists were happy to rant about the excesses of the EU, but when it came to domestic policies, they drew a blank.

More recently, the party has developed a comprehensive manifesto, covering all policy areas. This has made the party more mainstream and more electable. Opinion polls suggest UKIP is headed in the right direction electorally (achieving 16 per cent in recent polls). Yet this has also, necessarily, opened the party up to internal debate and division.

The problem for Mr Farage is that his message about UKIP being an open party that encourages free thinking is being discredited. UKIP cannot maintain its libertarian image when members are sacked for espousing libertarian views.

UKIP is also in danger of alienating its young activists - those expected to be on the ground campaigning and, in years to come, standing for election themselves. A string of Young Independence members have resigned from their elected positions over #Ollyshambles, with more expected to follow suit. This is an extremely unhealthy position for the party to be in, to say nothing of the negative publicity.

If UKIP does not put its house in order quickly, it risks living up to David Cameron’s comments that the party is just a ”bunch of fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists.”

UKIP cannot be both socially conservative and libertarian - serious decisions must be made about which direction the party is to take.

Follow Andrew on Twitter @AG_ThorpeApps

Why would the Tories form a pact with a party that’s largely B-rate, erratic and berserk?

Craig Barrett 3.59pm

This whole hoo-hah over an electoral pact with UKIP is a pile of old nonsense. The Conservative party does not need a pact with them; it needs to tackle them head on and dispose of them (like our other opponents).

First of all, UKIP has zero MPs and thus zero influence.  In order to make any jot of difference to this country’s relationship with the EU, they would need to defeat all three hundred or so of our MPs and cobble together the rest from the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party.  We can conclude safely enough that this is not going to happen. One of David Cameron’s failings is in taking a line to the electorate and sticking to it, but this is one he must be clear on: UKIP is a wasted protest vote that will make no dent on the electoral map.

Secondly, there is no sensible evidence whatsoever that shows UKIP takes more votes from the Tories than it does from other political parties.  I have said it before and I’ll say it again: UKIP is a home for the disaffected.  It is a franchise organisation of people in search of somewhere to go because their views no longer fit in the mainstream. That or they’ve been de-selected.  If their activists didn’t have UKIP, they’d soon find somewhere else from where to campaign.

Thirdly, UKIP is a vanity organisation with merely one recognisable face – when have you seen anyone else represent UKIP on Question Time?  So much for their current claim to be the third party. Its leader and former Tory activist, Nigel Farage, is clever and charismatic but ultimately powerless. Moreover, he is lazy, preferring to make blue-moon grandstanding speeches attacking Herman van Rompuy than turn up to work on a regular basis.  He has one of the worst attendance records of any MEP.

Fourthly, a pact with UKIP would be a golden gift to our opponents because it permits them to paint the Conservative party as irascibly right-wing.  The Liberal Democrats might be utterly wrong about Europe but that shall not stop them representing their Europhilia as “standing up for Britain in Europe”, and our alliance with UKIP as a coalition of the frothing mad.

What’s more, has anyone ever bothered to read UKIP’s policies (or those that exist)? They are ludicrous, with even more fantastical views on fiscal power than the Labour party.

Britain would be better off out of the EU because it is an enormous black hole for our cash, propping up increasingly inefficient foreign countries and a bureaucracy that revels in excess (Chateau Angelus for a summit meeting, anyone?).  Yet we are where we are.  In Europe, for the moment at least.

Elections are won from the centre ground, not on the fringes, but that should not stop Mr Cameron from adopting a sensible yet firm European policy and above all getting the very best deal for Britain. That is largely his goal and was certainly the write up he has received following last week’s EU budget negotiations.  Evidently, the very best hope of a good deal from Europe is to re-elect a Conservative government.  If UKIP were serious about our position in Europe, that is what they would campaign for.

Voting for UKIP, on the other hand, can only ensure the election of pro-EU MPs.  What is allowing UKIP to gain an apparent foothold in the country at large is not their people, performance or policies, which are largely B-rate, erratic and berserk; it is a perception that the Conservative party is drifting without a coherent European policy.

Fix that and there’s no need even to entertain something so abhorrent as an electoral pact with UKIP.

Follow Craig on Twitter @mrsteeduk

The EU, referendums & general elections are a toxic mix

Craig Prescott 11.32 am

It has been argued in this blog and elsewhere that a general election in 2015 should be combined with a referendum on EU membership. This is an incorrect approach both for political and constitutional reasons.

The constitutional reasons first. For the referendum to have legitimacy, it is essential that the terms of the referendum are clear. Are those who are argue for a referendum advocating for the total withdrawal from the EU or do they advocate for the renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the EU? These are enormous questions not to be treated lightly. With movements towards a political union, we may be at risk of chasing a moving target. Further, to suppose that these questions will be resolved in time to allow the primary legislation required (as this may not necessarily be covered by the European Union Act 2011) is a very big assumption indeed. Essentially, we are talking about a settlement of whatever form to be reached by the end of 2014 at the latest. This also assumes that events do not overtake such a timetable, and referendum being needed before then.

The political reasons are easier to explain. The assumption made is that a proposal to withdraw from the EU, be that totally or partially would benefit the most eurosceptic of the main political parties, the Conservatives. There are two problems with this. It assumes a negative referendum, but should the Government re-negotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU between now and 2015, the Conservatives would have little option other than to support this, which maybe at odds with significant sections of both the parliamentary and the wider party. Neither would it satisfy the demands of UKIP voters.

The second difficulty is that the argument assumes that voters for a more eurosceptic position in a referendum (however so defined by its terms) would be more likely to ignore their prevailing political allegiance and vote Conservative in the concurrent referendum. When the British history of referendums is considered this argument lacks any foundation. The electorate consistently show that to a significant degree, they are capable of separating their party preference from how they vote at referendums.

In the general election before the 1979 devolution referendum in Wales (October 1974), Labour won 50% of the vote, but yet only 20% of the same electorate supported the official Labour view in the referendum. But yet these voters returned to Labour in the following  1979 election with 47% of the vote. Even when an election and referendum are held on the same day, voters do not necessarily follow the recommendation of their party. In 2011, the SNP won a historic majority in the Scottish Parliament with 45% of the constituency vote, yet only 36% of the electorate followed the SNP’s recommendation to vote Yes in the AV referendum. The Conservatives have also been here before. Attempts during the 2001 election campaign to turn it into a referendum to “Keep the Pound” where wholly ineffective as the electorate were guaranteed by all main parties of a referendum on Euro membership (which thankfully has never materialised).

It must also be stressed that the Conservative Party do not enjoy a monopoly on Euroscepticism. At times Labour have been more eurospectic than any other main party.   Old habits die hard amongst their MP’s, but more importantly their voters. Ed Milliband, by seemingly considering the issue, is tapping into this vein of thought amongst his party.

Essentially, the issue of Britain and the EU is not an issue about which to make such a nakedly political judgement. The electorate is sophisticated enough to see through that. Britain’s relationship with the EU is a deeply pragmatic one. Whilst it is in Britain’s interest to be a EU member it will remain so. However, when that is no longer the case, Britain will seek to renegotiate the terms of membership and if that proves impossible it will withdraw. To an EU lawyer, it is essentially the proportionality principle writ large.

The political party that communicates this to the electorate in the most effective way will gain politically, but the party that transparently seeks to exploit these issues risks losing everything for little potential gain.

@craigprescott

Teaches Constitutional and Administrative law at Manchester University.