Referendum welcome but Cameron's EU strategy risks embarrassment of failure

The national debate on Britain's future relationship with the European Union must step up a gear following David Cameron's speech this morning.

While doubts remain over whether the Prime Minister will both be in office and able to deliver renegotiation and a referendum after the next election, the proposition that there will be a definitive test of public opinion on EU membership within the next few years cannot be dismissed.

Pro-democracy campaigners must now step up their efforts to rebut the disingenuous arguments being made by groups such as Business for New Europe, the Centre for British Influence in Europe, the European Movement and others, particularly in relation to trade, jobs and foreign inward investment.

One example is the scaremongering by the pro-Brussels lobby that, if the UK were to decouple from political centralisation, we would be locked out of the EU Single Market, have to pay high trade tariffs and, as a consequence, three million jobs would be put at risk.

In reality, especially given the trade surplus the EU enjoys with the UK, it's absurd to imagine that Britain could not negotiate free access to the Single Market in the same way as Switzerland, Norway and many other non-EU countries. 

Responding to the Prime Minister's speech, Democracy Movement director Stuart Coster commented:

"David Cameron's commitment today to an in/out EU referendum in 2017 is a welcome step forward.

"However, securing significant powers back from the EU via negotiation from within simply isn't feasible because it would require the agreement of 26 other member governments who show no signs of subscribing to David Cameron's vision of the EU's future.

"The true choice is whether to be in today's EU lock, stock and barrel, or to seek the new, more flexible, more democratic relationship David Cameron rhetorically supports by employing Article 50 of the EU treaty and notifying Brussels that we plan to exit the EU's structures.

"Holding out the prospect of something other than a 'status-quo-or-go' EU referendum risks the Prime Minister having to admit embarrassing failure."

"The most indefensible referendum position is sadly the one Labour leader Ed Miliband is adopting: that people shouldn't even be permitted to vote on Britain's relationship with the EU in case we vote to leave. The words of someone who has neither faith in his case for EU membership nor respect for democracy."

DM responds to Lord Owen's 'European Community' plan

The Democracy Movement has a letter in today's Times about Lord (David) Owen's widely-publicised proposal for a referendum on Britain's participation in a restructured "European Community".

The former Labour foreign secretary yesterday set out his vision of Britain's membership of a separate organisation from an increasingly integrated EU, which would encompass a new, wider single market plus co-operation on foreign, environment and security policies.

Such a Community, he says in a new book Europe Restructured, could also include other non-EU countries like Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and the Balkans.

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The Times, Friday 8 June 2012

Dear Sir,

Lord Owen's support for an EU referendum and for fundamentally altering Britain's relationship with the EU is welcome, but his mechanism for achieving his plan is flawed.

A core eurozone appears increasingly likely, but none among the 26 other EU member countries shows any sign of wanting to restructure the EU to establish a wider and looser "European Community", handing wide-ranging powers back to national parliaments.

A referendum on Britain's participation in such a Community would ask voters to endorse a concept that is not on offer and so change nothing.

Lord Owen's plan is an important contribution to a growing debate about Britain's future relationship with the EU. But any prospect of engagement with EU structures on his, or any fundamentally different, terms can only be achieved through first holding an in/out vote and voting for Britain to approach the EU afresh.

Yours etc.

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Alongside, a letter from Roland Rudd, chairman of the think tank Business for New Europe (and a former board member of the failed pro-euro campaign Britain in Europe) criticises calls for an EU referendum on the grounds that they increase business uncertainty.

If Mr Rudd favours business certainty above all else, perhaps he could tell us whether he supports Greece, together with other financially unstable countries, leaving the euro as soon as possible?

Rather than the perpetual EU indecision and the uncertainty about whether resources can be found to continue the bailouts that has characterised the euro crisis so far, surely business will at least know where they stand?

In reality, successful companies are always changing and looking for opportunities in change - better deals, expanded markets and lower costs - and they no doubt understand that successful countries must do the same.

Along with his colleague, BNE director Phillip Souta - also a former Britain in Europe campaigner and co-founder of Young Federal Union - it appears that Mr Rudd and Business for New Europe are too ideologically encumbered with support for the EU project to take such a pragmatic and truly outward-looking business view.