Comment: Cameron’s great leap in the dark
Cameron can't keep the Lib Dems and his own backbenchers happy over the EU crisis deal. How long can he and Nick Clegg paper over the differences?
By Dr Matthew Ashton
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was either a courageous act of political bravery by Cameron to defend Britain's national interest, or a huge misstep motivated by a craven desire to appease his increasingly militant backbenchers. Looking at today's papers no-one seems to be able to quite make up their minds. Half the press are trying to present him as the second coming of Churchill while the other half are portraying him as a rabid 'little Englander'.
The truth is that in the long term it's almost impossible to gauge the full political and economic impact of Cameron's veto. The only thing that can be said with any certainty is that his actions haven't actually prevented the 26 other members of the European Union from doing what they want to do. They'll just find some way of doing roughly the same thing in a slightly different way, but without Britain.
What's more interesting is the impact Cameron's veto will have on domestic politics, in particular the coalition. Nick Clegg has decided this is actually a bad deal for Britain. He confirmed this himself on the Andrew Marr Show by stating that he was 'bitterly disappointed' by the outcome of the summit. This marks a significant shift in his tone since Friday when he was claiming that the coalition was united behind this policy. As it turns out now he wasn't even consulted on it.
It's no secret that the Liberal Democrats are significantly more pro-European than their Conservative colleagues. Of course they'll try and put a brave face on the decision, but they do have the problem that the Conservative Party is increasingly becoming more Eurosceptic. When Cameron appears in the Commons next week to explain himself his backbenchers will give him the warmest of warm welcomes. They'll also urge him to go further in standing up to the EU. If Britain's relationship with our partner states is now as strained as we've been led to believe then we’ve probably got some big disagreements up ahead which could lead to further schisms. The Liberal Democrat grassroots are broadly pro-EU and Britain's new isolationist stance will be a bitter pill to swallow. It also makes it much harder for the Liberals and the Conservatives to run on a broadly similar platform in 2015.
Even ignoring the problem of the Liberal Democrats, Cameron is still in a difficult position. Conservative leaders since the late 1990s have been frantically trying to bury the issue of Europe as much as possible. It helped tear apart John Major's government and prevented William Hague's leadership from mounting an effective challenge to Blair for several years. When he took over Cameron faced two great challenges. One was to rebrand the Conservatives from being the 'nasty' party of British politics, and the other was to unite his party on Europe. In retrospect he didn't so much unite them as put a big sticky plaster over the issue and hoped that it didn't come up. It now has and the Tory eurosceptic right won't be happy until they get a referendum, which judging from today's polls they'd certainly win. Cameron wants to avoid this option at all costs. The trouble is that he has to keep them on-side in order to avoid a full scale rebellion. John Major at least could intimidate his backbenchers with the threat of an early election. This would be pretty hollow coming from Cameron as many in his party would welcome an election as a way to rid themselves of their coalition partners. Cameron can't keep both the Liberal Democrats and his own backbenchers happy forever. The big question now is how long he and Nick Clegg can paper over the differences.
Dr Matthew Ashton is a politics lecturer at Nottingham Trent University. Visit his blog.
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