07/10/2012
In his column
this week, Booker addresses the changing political environment in the EU, and assesses how this might affect David Cameron and the Conservative's referendum calculations.
Booker opens his comments by recalling one of the wisest things ever said about Britain's vexed relations with the European Union came in a speech in 1999 by that great Europhile, Roy Jenkins. "There are", he said, "only two coherent British attitudes to Europe".
One was to participate fully, and to endeavour to exercise as much influence and gain as much benefit as possible from the inside. The other was to recognise that Britain's history, national psychology and political culture may be such that we can never be anything but a foot-dragging and constantly complaining member, and that it would be better, and would certainly produce less friction, to accept this and to move towards an orderly, and if possible, reasonably amicable separation.
Would that Cameron could take this analysis as his cue for action, it would solve a lot of his otherwise intractable problems and make the referendum issue that much easier to resolve.
What is bringing this to a head, says Booker, is the decision of the "colleagues" to go all out for a new treaty, which will most likely not get to the ratification stage until well beyond Britain's next general election.
This would suit Mr Cameron because he hopes that, by promising us a referendum without saying what the question might be, he may be able to placate his own Eurosceptics and spike the guns of UKIP.
He is also under pressure to demand the repatriation of powers from Brussels to Britain, which would also have to be included in a new treaty. He could then go to the country, he imagines, promising a referendum on a treaty that will offer his Eurosceptics at least some of what they want.
As we have pointed out endlessly on this blog, though. Cameron's hopes could be dashed if the "colleagues" insist on a treaty applicable only to the eurozone, and refuse to consider renegotiating existing treaty provisons.
In theory, Cameron could chuck his toys out of ther pram, threatening a veto, but in fact this is not an option. As we have also pointed out, the "colleagues" are in no mood for tantrums, and will find a way to circumvent any blockge Mr Cameron might devise.
Thus we face the prospect of a treaty that involved only a further surrender of powers by the countries within the eurozone, that gave Mr Cameron nothing of what he is asking for, excluded Britain from the EUâs integrated core and placed us even more obviously in its outer ring. Would the British people then vote to ratify a treaty so clearly demoting us to second-class members of the club?
The last thing Mr Cameron would then wants would be to incur the wrath of the "colleagues" a chance to vote "no" to this treaty. This could be seen as an attempt to veto a treaty that did not directly concern us.
On the other, if EU leaders are clever â and care enough whether the UK remains in the EU - they might agree to enough token demands to allow Cameron to claim he had got something out of the negotiations that might change Britain's relationship with the EU in the direction the Eurosceptics are calling for. But it wouldn't amount to much.
Nevertheless, the Eurosceptics would still be mad to seek a straight in-out referendum, and the only way we could demand negotiations which could genuinely deliver a relationship with the EU is to invoke Article 50 of the TFEU. But this can only be triggered by us saying that it wishes to leave the EU, it is something Mr Cameron would find very hard to do.
He may manage to avoid "Europe" becoming an issue at this week's party conference by promising to make a major speech on the subject later this year. But he is still boxed in.
Eventually, he may be forced to give us a referendum on a treaty which, in effect, condemns us to stay in the EU as a second-class member, and to exercise even less influence in its affairs than we do now. But, Booker asks, how would we all vote then?
