Sunday Herald 16/12/12
I don't know about
Tantric sex, but the Prime Minister is certainly a teaser. Last week
he informed hungry hacks at a Westminster press lunch that he had
delayed yet again his long forecast speech on a referendum on
European membership. He said that like Tantric sex, it would be
worth the wait, though I'm not quite sure for whom. Perhaps he is
suggesting that the opposition, or the EU, will be shafted. Or could
it be Scotland?
Scottish debate on
Europe has been depressingly parochial. For weeks, commentators and
unionist politicians have been blasting the SNP for not being able to
guarantee that Scotland would gain automatic entry to the European
Union after independence. What the myopic chatterati have failed to
grasp is that the UK is moving rapidly away from the EU and, under
the present constitutional arrangements, is likely to take Scotland
with it – at least if the majority of Tory MPs in Westminster get
their way.
Conservative opinion on
Europe has changed out of all recognition in the past 20 years, since
the Tory Prime Minister, John Major, faced down his rebels and
ratified the Maastricht Treaty creating the European Union. That was
when it was still possible for a Tory PM to say that they wanted
Britain to be “at the heart of Europe”. Not any more they don't.
They are all eurosceptics now. It is extremely rare to hear anyone
in the Conservative Party having a good word for Brussels, which is
now universally condemned as a parasitical bureaucracy presiding over
a basket case currency that will shortly collapse.
David Cameron is a
pragmatist, and doesn't want to cut economic ties with Europe, but he
is under increasing pressure and not just from his parliamentary
party. The UK Independence Party is snapping at Tory heels in
southern constituencies, and the UK press, led by the Daily Mail and
the Sun, with their five million readers, are increasingly
europhobic. According to YouGov, a clear majority of English voters
say they either want to leave the EU or renegotiate the terms of
British entry. The Labour leader Ed Miliband has turned trappist on
Europe, because he doesn't want to be on the wrong side of public
opinion, and is likely to back a referendum on Europe after the next
general election. The Liberal Democrats have also called for a
referendum on British membership.
Cameron, when he
finally gets over his coitus interruptus, is expected to say this:
Britain will make a series of proposals for renegotiation to Brussels
along the lines of “back to the Common Market”. In other words,
Britain would explicitly be opting out of the European Union, and
rejecting its right to legislate on UK internal affairs. This will
be a momentous step. It will almost certainly be rejected by the
European Union because there is actually no Common Market left to
join. Britain would have to opt out of the EU altogether and seek
status such as Norway, which is part of he European Economic Area.
