What’s All this Fuss About Europe?

Friday 19th February

The Media love it of course; negotiations going down to the wire, the possibility of failure and even Brexit…but the reality is a bit different.  The changes which Cameron wants (ever so ‘umble, as they might be) have already been agreed, it is just the wording that they are arguing about, the fine details and especially whether these changes can be accommodated without a full treaty revision (which would cause problems).  Civil servants have been working on this for months and there would be no meeting this weekend without an outline agreement.  And Cameron will come out on Saturday or maybe Sunday morning waving a bit of paper and claiming “Victory”.

But that will mean nothing.  He will in all probability (but you never know) win the referendum, but that will not seal the matter.  As we learned from Scotland, if the result is close and I suspect it will be something like a 54 – 46 split, then the problem will not go away.  The Tory party, just as nearly two hundred years ago with the Corn Laws, is split down the middle.  As soon as the weekend is over Cabinet Ministers will be able to campaign for or against staying in Europe, and though the majority will decide ‘Yes’ and only a handful ‘No’, the majority of Tory M.P.s and members and I suspect most lifelong Tory voters will hate Cameron for this.  We may even see a resurgence of UKIP, as disgruntled Tories will feel betrayed and will have nowhere else to go.  Boris is sitting on the fence, but I suspect may come down as a hesitant ‘No’, positioning himself for a leadership challenge, which could be quite vicious.

Labour have to be very careful too not to be seen to be supporting Cameron in any way, no sharing of platforms with the Tories, and must come up with a plausible voice on why we should stay in a very imperfect Europe.  As for the LibDems, well they are still down and out and irrelevant in this debate.  But I suspect that even if we stay then our relationship with Europe will still be fractured.  There are already voices calling for referenda in several European countries and sooner or later one will succeed and the whole EU project will have to be re-thought.  Hopefully as a truly democratic organization instead of back-room deals cooked up by unelected officials.  And just as in the pantomime that this whole thing is, the real problem remains un-adressed despite cries from the audience of “It’s behind you”.  The Migration Crisis, the breakdown of Schengen and the disparity behind the Eurozone members economies – these are the real problems, not Britain’s referendum.