Both Brown and Cameron face separate backbench mutinies as the revived EU Constitution — now called the Lisbon Treaty — comes before the Commons, says Fraser Nelson. Which of them will end up looking like John Major in the ghastly Maastricht era?
Only one thought has consoled Gordon Brown throughout the horrors of the European Union Reform Treaty. He had always expected a mauling for agreeing it, and had no choice but to sign the wretched document in Lisbon. He could not hold a referendum he was certain to lose. So the Prime Minister knew he would have to put his head in a pillory and wait for Fleet Street’s rotten vegetables to fly. But it would end, he’d wipe his face clean and then have something worthwhile in his hands: a weapon with which to split the Conservative party.
Battle is joined once again next Monday when the European Union (Amendment) Bill has its second reading. Mr Brown has arranged that next month’s parliamentary timetable invites instant comparison with the mutinous Maastricht debates that almost sank John Major at the time and certainly did much to ensure his eventual electoral destruction. You might think such comparisons would terrify Mr Brown, who hates being seen as New Labour’s Major. But the opposite is true. Mr Brown plans at least four weeks debating what is now the Lisbon Treaty, the document which is (according to the Commons European Scrutiny Committee) ‘substantially equivalent’ to the constitution on which a referendum was promised. The Tories are not faking their contempt for it. But once it’s ratified, what then? David Cameron will not say what he would do. Mr Brown hopes Tory Eurosceptics will demand an answer from their own leader.
The Prime Minister’s aim is nothing less than to turn the tables during the Lisbon Treaty debate, hoping that the press will start sniffing out Tory splits. His goal is not entirely fanciful. ‘As soon as that Treaty is signed it will be a massive problem for us,’ one shadow cabinet member tells me. ‘It will put our relationship with Europe on a basis which I and many others consider unacceptable. It will have to be resolved.’
But how? The way the European Union accretes power is by refusing to let any member state backtrack unless they want to leave the union altogether. And while Mr Brown knows he is on the wrong side of British public opinion over his broken promise to hold a referendum, he is itching to move on to the terrain of ‘in or out of Europe’ where he is far more comfortable and the Tories are divided. All he has to do is outmanoeuvre Mr Cameron in the parliamentary battles of the next few weeks.
For months, whips in all three parties have been devising tactics. The Tories aim to avoid the landmines Mr Brown is planting by bringing every subject back to their demands for a referendum — and the inadequacy of the government’s ‘red lines’. Labour aims to hold the inevitable Commons vote on whether there should be a referendum early, so as to resolve the matter as quickly as possible. Then ministers want to go on the offensive and start inviting Mr Cameron to choose between the Treaty or leaving the EU. The Liberal Democrats will seek a referendum on this very question — and not, bizarrely, the Treaty itself.
For most involved, it is a parliamentary game of three-dimensional chess. But for the Tory Eurosceptics, this is an issue of nationhood and sovereignty. And they constitute more than just an old guard of Maastricht veterans. If anything, it is the pro-European Tories who are dying out and being replaced with younger, hardened Eurosceptics who see this as a simple issue of democracy and accountability. One Tory MP told me, ‘Winning our country back will be the battle of the next decade.’
By the time the Bill to agree the Lisbon Treaty is voted on it may well feel like a decade. Labour strategists privately admit that boredom will be a key weapon in the debate, as they seek to bury all embarrassing points in the jargon which has for years been used by Brussels as camouflage. Yet at the same time David Miliband, who got off to a shaky start as Foreign Secretary, will try to recover by winning over Labour rebels. His aim is to portray the Treaty as enforcing Labour priorities (children’s care, international aid and the environment). His authority, too, is on the line.
Yet a decent rebellion is expected from those Labour MPs who say they intend to be true to the manifesto they were elected on and to vote for a referendum. ‘Some of us have marginal seats to win back,’ says one. ‘We have to be able to look our constituents in the eye.’ This has been encouraged by some trade unions, concerned that a reformed European Union may force the NHS into a single healthcare market or usher in more cheap Latvian labour to building sites.
Estimates of the number of Labour rebels vary from 20 to 60, depending on the optimism of the Tory making the assessment. With a majority of 67, Mr Brown can take nothing for granted. ‘This could be very close, and that’s why we need the Liberal Democrats to come off the fence,’ says Mark Francois, the shadow Europe Minister. Yet the Westminster consensus is that the Labour rebellion will not top 30. And crucially, the Lib Dems are not — in fact — on the fence at all.
Nick Clegg, the party’s new leader, has already resolved to side with the government. This is his first major parliamentary battle and as a former MEP (and speechwriter for Leon Brittan in Brussels) he is on familiar territory. Still, he has stuck with the rather absurd position inherited from Sir Menzies Campbell — to campaign for a referendum not on the Treaty before the House but on whether Britain should be in or out of the EU altogether.
This fudge was cooked up by Sir Menzies, who knew his party was deeply divided on the case for the referendum (it was for them, as for Labour, a manifesto commitment). Powerful figures like Vince Cable were in favour. So the ‘in or out’ question (rather than a straight referendum on the Treaty) was intended as a compromise and a distraction, to save Ming from confronting his growing number of ill-wishers. Mr Clegg has adopted the same stance, perhaps reluctant to begin his leadership by destabilising a carefully arranged apple cart.
It is a fair bet that Mr Clegg’s rebel control strategy has involved less alcohol consumption than its Conservative counterpart. The Tory strategy for ‘keeping the lid on the cauldron’ (as one puts it) is to buy drinks for any Eurosceptic likely to sound off during the debate and to plead with them. This ‘champagne offensive’ has been going on for some months. William Hague is also deployed now and again to have a quiet word with usual suspects. ‘He says, “I made my mistakes in 2001 and learnt from them: so can you,”’ according to one target of Mr Hague’s blandishments. ‘It’s a fairly convincing case.’
Potential Tory rebels are reminded that the marathon Lisbon Treaty debate is a massive elephant trap set by the PM. ‘Brown is making such a fuss about Tory splits that it’s perversely having a unifying effect,’ says one hardened Eurosceptic. ‘There is a huge sense that we should not give him the satisfaction. And of course the opinion poll lead helps.’ Patrick McLoughlin, the Tory chief whip, is now confident about keeping any mutiny against the Tory leadership’s line below a dozen MPs.
The price Mr Cameron has had to pay is telling his party he has an open mind — and is prepared to renegotiate Britain’s EU membership. He told the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that a Conservative government which inherited the Lisbon Treaty would hold a referendum if it had not been ratified by all member states. If it had completed EU-wide ratification, he went on, there would be no referendum. But, he added enigmatically, he ‘will not be content to rest at that point.’ At Mr Cameron’s press conference on Monday I asked him to expand — is there a secret plan? He did not elaborate. The key to keeping rebels quiet is to leave the answer deliberately vague.
Yet, on a practical basis, Mr Cameron is understood not to have any detailed plans. He has had enough trouble withdrawing his own party from the European People’s Party bloc in the European Parliament — an unambiguous pledge from his 2005 leadership campaign which is still unfulfilled. Mr Cameron can only imagine the trouble he’d have renegotiating the membership status of an entire nation. All this adds up to very good reasons for saying nothing about his Plan B during the debate.
Those around Cameron have one main desire for Europe: for it to go away and never return as a key issue. It would be lunacy to commit to a referendum even if the Treaty has been ratified throughout the EU, they say, because by the time the Tories entered government — say, May 2010 — the Lisbon agreement would be a distant memory. There will be better, more topical fights to pick with Europe by then. And, strangely enough, this is a point on which many Tory Eurosceptics agree.
The stars are aligning for a greater, fundamental debate about Britain’s place in Europe in a few years. The gap between ministerial enthusiasm for the EU and public hostility to it is becoming large enough to swallow a government. The European Commission’s own research shows just a third of Brits believing the country has benefited from EU membership and just a quarter saying they trust the EU. This public resentment will hardly be assuaged by Mr Brown’s breach of Labour’s manifesto commitment to hold a referendum, and the whipping of the forthcoming ratification vote in the Commons. Add to this the feeling of impotence over immigration (the number one concern of the British public) and the calamitous unintended consequences of the European Convention on Human Rights and we see a context emerging in which, Eurosceptics are confident, there will be a clear public demand for a fundamental change in the way we do business with the EU.
Mr Brown is very aware of this public resentment, and will be quick to strike a Eurosceptic pose again once the Lisbon Treaty is behind him. He took no pleasure in any of this, regarding it as Tony Blair’s noxious unfinished business. The Prime Minister’s discomfiture was obvious from the way he was seen on camera skulking around the champagne reception in Lisbon, refusing to join the festivities. And as soon as the Queen’s ink is dry on the Bill to ratify the Treaty, he will be looking for an opportunity to revert to sceptic type, as the man who kept us out of the euro.
There is another option allowing the Prime Minister to dust down his Eurosceptic credentials, which I understand he is seriously considering. He is planning a raft of constitutional reform this year — and may include in this an order for English courts to regard English common law as paramount, and superior to Strasbourg law. It could be, to adapt one of his recent phrases, English laws for English judges. Ideally, this jurisprudential missile would be best launched six months before an election — long enough for him to take credit, but not long enough to be tested in the courts.
In this way Mr Brown could steal a march on the Tories, whose proposed Bill of Rights would be subordinate to the writ of the European Court of Justice and — as a consequence — pointless. Mr Brown may also start to adopt a more aggressive ‘see you in court’ attitude towards the European Union (commonplace in France and Italy). Such a muscular approach is even more likely should the new European President turn out to be one Anthony Charles Lynton Blair.
The Prime Minister might well calculate that the field will ultimately be his, because the Tories are too split on Europe (or terrified of it) to try anything. Yet he may soon encounter a flaw in his plan. Mr Cameron may have no endgame policy for Britain’s constitutional relationship with Europe, but this does not mean his backbenchers will necessarily fall into Gordon’s trap and embarrass the Tory leader. What has changed since the John Major era is a hunger for power, which feeds a desire to stay united. The Eurosceptics may be resigned to losing the vote on the Lisbon Treaty, but feel they may yet win the wider argument on Europe.