EU Referendum


UK politics: Booker's Law looms


30/09/2014



000a Cameron-029.jpg

On the basis of Lord Ashcroft's " snapshot ", delivered to the Conservative conference yesterday, the number of losses [in Conservative seats] could extend to the point where Labour gains a comfortable working majority at the general election.

At the moment, we're getting very close to Booker's Law cut-off: whoever is ahead six month before the election tends to win it. So far, it doesn't look good, and with recent events, it doesn't look as if the Tories are going to make it. 

As we get closer to the election, Miliband must be feeling more and more secure, so much so that we're not hearing anything from him about a referendum. This has become private Tory grief.

Looking at this pragmatically, the chances of a 2017 referendum are receding. But, if not then, when? The next window of opportunity would seem to be 2022, and even that requires a lot of things to come together.

Failing a referendum, we are looking at what could loosely be called the "UKIP model" – where Farage's party thinks it can get enough people into Westminster to hold the balance of power, and force the party in government (presumably the Tories) into taking us out of the EU.

In the meantime, we suffer five years of Labour, while – one assumes - the Conservatives backbenchers tear themselves apart.

But even if the "UKIP model" had a chance of working, it could not happen in a hurry. We are, thus, no closer to leaving the EU. In fact, the whole idea of withdrawing seems to be receding, almost to vanishing point. There is no satisfactory end game in sight, and no play that brings us closer to an exit.

This morning, David Cameron on Sky News Sunrise articulated the conundrum. "The fundamental point", he said, is this - the next election - is going to be a straight choice. Do you want Labour in power, who haven't learnt the lessons of the past, or do you want the Conservatives to continue with our plan?"

Responding to Mr Reckless's claims that his promised renegotiation of Britain's EU membership would not deliver real reform, Mr Cameron said: "He can say what he likes, but the truth is if you want that 'in-out' referendum on Europe - and I think Mark Reckless does - if you go to UKIP you make it less likely that you will get it, because you will end up with Ed Miliband in Downing Street, Labour in office, and they won't give you a referendum".

That's the perplexing thing. All those who are so quick to discount Mr Cameron's referendum don't seem to have any credible alternative. We are in the land of aspiration, with a timescale stretching to infinity. And that, to me, is not an improvement.

There ought to be a law against it.

FORUM THREAD