Referendum: Cameron's cynical gamesmanship
Richard North, 1 July 2012
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It is a terrible sign of intellectual poverty that Cameron and his advisers continue to talk in terms of "changing Britain's relationship with Europe". Therein lie two of the most fundamental errors in our approach to alien form of government with which we are so unhappily involved.
Firstly, of course, it is not "Europe" but the European Union that exercises our minds. The former is a continent and the latter is a supranational government. But no matter how many times this is pointed out, the faulty labelling persists, becoming thus a symbol of the inability of the Conservative Party – and especially its hierarchy – to deal with reality.
Secondly, we cannot have a "relationship" with an organisation of which we are an integral part. The UK is an active member of the EU – when we address the EU, we address ourselves. EU laws are made with the approval of our government, which takes part in making them, and our membership of the Union continues only because Parliament permits it.
Would that they realise it, these lovers of "Europe" will find this acknowledged in the very treaties they support. Article 8 of the TEU, for instance, talks of the Union shall developing "a special relationship" with neighbouring countries, aiming to establish "an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness".
The treaty also talks of "a special relationship with the Republic of Iceland and the Kingdom of Norway" and, in Article 50, on withdrawal from the EU, the Union is obliged to negotiate with the state that has declared its intention to leave, "setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union".
It takes little intelligence to deduce from this that the only way the UK can develop a relationship with the EU is to leave it. One thus ventures to suggests that it is not lack of intelligence that prevents Cameron and his minions from acknowledging the obvious.
Of the many barriers to its acknowledgement, one is undoubtedly the same that prevents the EU being given its proper label – the inability to deal with reality. But there is also a strong element of dishonesty. To concede the point is to admit that the current (and past) claims to renegotiate with the EU are simply fraudulent.
So it is again that we have to suffer the tedious circumlocutions of Cameron as he tells us that he will consider a referendum on Britain's future relationship with Europe, but only when the time is right.
As the statement lacks intellectual credibility, the natural tendency is to switch off – to go no further. If the man wants to reach out to a new audience and to draw eurosceptics into the fold, he is going to have to change his rhetoric – learn a new set of words.
But the man is also going to have to learn to stop treating us as fools. He tells us that, "the single market is at the heart of the case for staying in the EU", yet those with knowledge of this issue know full well that membership of the single market can be achieved though membership of the EEA, without being members of the EU. Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein are members of the single market.
Should the single market be the only issue, therefore, Cameron has just made the case for leaving the EU. But he adds that, "it also makes sense to co-operate with our neighbours to maximise our influence in the world and project our values of freedom and democracy".
Were we a member of a buoyant, self-confident and outwardly successful Union, that assertion might make some sense. Embroiled in its deepening economic crisis, however, the EU is the antithesis of success and, in failing to deal with the issues at last week's European Council, the "colleagues" wrote the text of their own suicide pact. The EU is no longer a platform for maximising our influence - if it ever was.
In any case, for Cameron now to be talking of referendums in the terms that he does, is too late. The EU is going to collapse anyway. If he leaves it too late, his problem will be one of finding someone left with whom to negotiate.
What we are actually seeing, therefore, is not some new resolution on the part of Cameron. For the real explanation of his behaviour, we must draw on history, there being certain parallels with the Russian Revolution. On this, Orlando Figes writes:
How are we to explain the dynasty's collapse? Collapse is certainly t5he right word to use. For the Romanov regime fell under the weight of its own internal contradictions. It was not overthrown. As in all modern revolutions, the first cracks appeared at the top.
So it is with the European Union, led by weak, frightened – and irresolute – men. Cameron, a man with a reputation as a bully, would have a fine nose to scent the antiestéticar and, only days after the suicide note, has made his move. As the centre fractures, the periphery seeks to fill the power vacuum.
It would be a mistake, therefore, to take Cameron as a born-again democrat. This is a bully sensing weakness, a man exploiting it for political gain. And a message about referendums, without actually offering one to his people, hits a nerve in the couloirs of Brussels and the chancelleries of Europe.
With us, the people, Cameron is simply playing games. We, like the wannabe Europeans, are a resource to be exploited for a greater game – whatever that may be. But the promises of a referendum are not honestly meant. They are not genuine. They are part of the game play.
When it comes down to it though, any such referendum is an irrelevance. If Cameron ever does approach the "colleagues" with a demand that they negotiate a new relationship with the UK, they will call his bluff and wearily point to Article 50.
Cameron could, right now, invoke that article, without needing a referendum, then putting the negotiated settlement to the people. When he does, we will know that he is genuine. Until then, it is all cynical gamesmanship, of no value to us whatsoever.
