Events, Mr Cameron, Events

The government’s EU Bill is a radical attempt to constitutionalise the UK’s traditional “red-lines-approach” – and a significant strategic mistake

Up to now, many have argued that the government’s approach to the European Union has been quite sensible, or at least sufficiently pragmatic. They contend that the Coalition’s lukewarm engagement is intuitive for at least three reasons. First, the EU has somewhat lost appeal as a result of its failure so far to make itself “fit for purpose” in the global age with the consequence of seeming marginalisation and irrelevance. Second, concerns about the EU’s legitimacy deficit have become much more widespread, now even permeating continental strongholds of pro-Europeanism. Third, there seems to be a desire among large parts of our populations to cling onto well-known and more accessible institutions, as well as identities, in a world of rapid change. Now, theConservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition is attempting to cement the status quo of European integration. In its eyes, if not so far so good, then just about acceptable; but, if backwards is not an option, then no further steps forwards.

The government’s EU Bill is a radical attempt to constitutionalise the UK’s traditional “red-lines-approach” – and a significant strategic mistake. Why? Because in the post-crisis world Britain’s national interest is more entwined than ever with the future of Europe. Even the US – often somehow presented as the alternative to EU integration – has now become a vocal advocate of this fundamental insight. Talking recently to a group of British MEPs, US ambassador to the UK, Louis Susman, could not have been blunter: “The US does not want to see Britain’s role in the EU diminished in any way. … The message I want to convey today is that we want to see a stronger EU, but also a stronger British participation within the EU. … This is crucial if, together, we are going to meet all the global challenges facing us, including climate change and security. But let’s be clear: all key issues must run through Europe.”

To a small-s sceptic like David Cameron, the logic of the ‘Global Europe’ argument is not enormously reassuring.This is because cooperative action on global issues – economic policy coordination, banking regulation, energy and climate change, international development, and immigration and security – intrudes on sensitive matters of national sovereignty, far more so than EU regulations of a bygone age which led Douglas Hurd to rail against Europe reaching into ‘the nooks and crannies’ of ordinary daily life. Hence, the alleged imperative for the EU Bill’s “referendum lock”.

The danger of David Cameron’s position is that it is a static pre-crisis conception, which risks becoming perverse. This view was forged for internal party reasons to head off Eurosceptic criticism of Cameron’s decision not to go ahead with a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Of course, the prime minister may also believe the EU to be largely irrelevant to both domestic politics and people’s everyday lives.

Yet, he should be reminded of Macmillan’s dictum, “events, dear boy, events”. In the post-crisis world, these ‘events’ could undermine the Coalition’s European policy and Britain’s national interests because the EU will be forced to think far more creatively about how to re-secure the Euro area in light of the ongoing debt crisis. This is essential not only to spur growth through Single Market reform but also to take forward the UK’s policies on energy and climate change, as well as ensure that Europe’s might as a trading bloc can be exercised more assertively to compete with emerging markets in Asia and South America.

In the pre-crisis world, integration was largely a product of choice and not necessity; post-crisis, this could well be the other way around. Nowhere is this more apparent than in reforming the Single Market, where leading scholars and policymakers like former Commissioner Mario Monti have shown that much deeper integration in a limited number of areas could propel the EU’s economies back towards a course of sustainable growth. The UK government may well have to be more flexible in its approach to EU measures on social dumping and unhealthy tax competition in an age of budget constraints if a political consensus for a more dynamic Single Market is to be built.

So what should the Coalition do? Ordinarily, a business-as-usual policy agenda of conditional Europeanism would have given it at least sufficient scope to participate in and influence the direction of future economic integration, while also making sharp, probing remarks domestically about their notorious “red lines”. This, after all, would have represented a continuation of the agenda which best characterises government policy under New Labour from 1997-2010 – regarded as more than amply pro-European by Britain’s European companions.

But this scenario is jeopardised by the static European policy of which the “referendum lock” is a core product. History has shown that the hallmark of great leaders is to be able to reconcile the contemporary socio-political zeitgeist with a clear strategy for securing the national interest – and the ability to proactively respond to ‘events’. Cameron and his Coalition would do well to bear this in mind.