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| The Guardian view on David Cameron’s speech on Europe: time to end the phoney war | The Guardian view on David Cameron’s speech on Europe: time to end the phoney war |
| (about 20 hours later) | |
| For too long, David Cameron’s European strategy has been a crabwise gamble by a leader who sees the big global picture but who struggles to manage his own party. On the one hand this disjunction is expressed in the prime minister’s overarching belief, about which he was explicit in his Chatham House speech on Tuesday, that Britain’s EU membership “is about our national security as well as our economic security” – a weighty claim by any standards. But it has to be set against Mr Cameron’s simultaneous willingness to put all that security at risk to meet the alleged anxieties of British voters – and in particular a large number of his backbenchers and press backers – by throwing the UK’s future membership up in the air in the referendum to which his government has now committed us. | For too long, David Cameron’s European strategy has been a crabwise gamble by a leader who sees the big global picture but who struggles to manage his own party. On the one hand this disjunction is expressed in the prime minister’s overarching belief, about which he was explicit in his Chatham House speech on Tuesday, that Britain’s EU membership “is about our national security as well as our economic security” – a weighty claim by any standards. But it has to be set against Mr Cameron’s simultaneous willingness to put all that security at risk to meet the alleged anxieties of British voters – and in particular a large number of his backbenchers and press backers – by throwing the UK’s future membership up in the air in the referendum to which his government has now committed us. |
| That gambler’s strategy moved another step forward on Tuesday with the publication of Mr Cameron’s letter to the European council setting out his negotiating demands in the run-up to the referendum. Those demands, about which the prime minister spoke at length at Chatham House, come down to four main issues. These are: first, the wish to formalise the EU as a multi-currency union; second, to make the EU more economically competitive internally and in global markets; third, an explicit opt-out for the UK from the EU’s increasingly symbolic commitment to “ever-closer union”; and, finally, a requirement for new EU migrants to wait four years before drawing benefits, with the aim of slowing the volume of free movement within the EU. | |
| Heroic these demands are not. But they have been well signalled over recent months, and neither the letter to the council nor Mr Cameron’s speech sprang any great surprises. The prime minister told the council that his concerns boil down to one word – flexibility – and it also became clear on Tuesday from the Europe minister that this approach extends to being flexible about how some of these core demands, including those about welfare, could be achieved. But the large point is that Mr Cameron has made clear that he sees this as an agenda that will enable Britain to remain in the EU. He will campaign for it, as he put it, heart and soul. | |
| Those in Britain who simply want to leave the EU by any means will dismiss Tuesday’s letter and speech as trivialising and inadequate. However, for those who, like this newspaper, want Britain to remain, these latest moves help to sharpen the overwhelming case for constructive engagement. In an ideal world, with a less prejudiced anti-European press, Mr Cameron’s approach would not have been necessary, because EU membership is better than Brexit, and the prime minister should have been brave enough to say so more clearly. But public opinion in Britain and elsewhere in the EU has become frustrated with the EU’s failings. So the argument has to be joined in a serious way. The prime minister has begun to do that. Hopefully this will not just be good for Britain but for the whole EU. | Those in Britain who simply want to leave the EU by any means will dismiss Tuesday’s letter and speech as trivialising and inadequate. However, for those who, like this newspaper, want Britain to remain, these latest moves help to sharpen the overwhelming case for constructive engagement. In an ideal world, with a less prejudiced anti-European press, Mr Cameron’s approach would not have been necessary, because EU membership is better than Brexit, and the prime minister should have been brave enough to say so more clearly. But public opinion in Britain and elsewhere in the EU has become frustrated with the EU’s failings. So the argument has to be joined in a serious way. The prime minister has begun to do that. Hopefully this will not just be good for Britain but for the whole EU. |
| Mr Cameron’s speech and letter are not beyond criticism, even on their own cautious terms. As ever, he should have made a more committed case for Britain in Europe, going beyond the important security arguments. He should have tried to carry middle-ground opinion with him by stressing the important social dimension, though the fact that he has not denounced it this time is perhaps a kind of improvement on his previous approach. And he is relying on some very uncertain statistics in making the case for a new welfare deal for EU migrants. | Mr Cameron’s speech and letter are not beyond criticism, even on their own cautious terms. As ever, he should have made a more committed case for Britain in Europe, going beyond the important security arguments. He should have tried to carry middle-ground opinion with him by stressing the important social dimension, though the fact that he has not denounced it this time is perhaps a kind of improvement on his previous approach. And he is relying on some very uncertain statistics in making the case for a new welfare deal for EU migrants. |
| However frustrating Mr Cameron’s handling of the European issue has been and continues to be, there is no doubt where the national interest now lies. It lies with a focused and determined negotiation with the majority of EU partners who want Britain to stay in, followed by a focused and determined national effort to win the referendum vote to remain in the EU. | However frustrating Mr Cameron’s handling of the European issue has been and continues to be, there is no doubt where the national interest now lies. It lies with a focused and determined negotiation with the majority of EU partners who want Britain to stay in, followed by a focused and determined national effort to win the referendum vote to remain in the EU. |
| Mr Cameron has tried to spin out the phoney war on Europe for as long as possible, hoping not to provoke his backbenchers unnecessarily and trying to persuade the more reasonable ones to accept his approach. But he has to accept that the phoney war will end soon. An explosion of pent-up anti-Europeanism in the rightwing press and in the irreconcilable wing of the Tory party is going to happen at some point. When it comes, it will be messy and destabilising. But Mr Cameron has to tough that out. He has to remember the big picture, secure a deal he can sell to the voters, and then sell it hard and with conviction. If not now, when? | Mr Cameron has tried to spin out the phoney war on Europe for as long as possible, hoping not to provoke his backbenchers unnecessarily and trying to persuade the more reasonable ones to accept his approach. But he has to accept that the phoney war will end soon. An explosion of pent-up anti-Europeanism in the rightwing press and in the irreconcilable wing of the Tory party is going to happen at some point. When it comes, it will be messy and destabilising. But Mr Cameron has to tough that out. He has to remember the big picture, secure a deal he can sell to the voters, and then sell it hard and with conviction. If not now, when? |
| • This article was amended on 11 November 2015. David Cameron’s letter that laid out his EU negotiating demands in the run-up to the referendum was to the European council, not the European commission as an earlier version said. |