Is Cameron watering down his EU renegotiation pledge?

by Marc Glendening  

Before his hurried return to London following the death of Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron undertook a much-publicised tour of other European countries to promote his campaign to see the EU 'reformed'.

Leaving aside the question of how realistic it is to actually bring about a fundamental change in the terms of our membership of the EU, there is an interesting change in tone coming from the prime minister.

In his long-awaited speech on Europe back in January, the prime minister committed himself to try to renegotiate with the EU the balance of law-making powers between Brussels and Westminster.

The implication was that, should Mr Cameron win the next general election (clearly a big 'if'), he would seek to persuade the other 26 political heads of state to sign a new treaty by 2017 returning a range of significant competences to Britain.

Ed Miliband, in his response, attacked the idea that this was desirable or possible and instead said that Labour would seek a vaguely-defined 'reform' of the EU which would not require treaty change.

In his recent truncated tour, Mr Cameron too spoke of 'reform' and talked in terms of trying to get all member countries to agree to certain, again unspecified, changes. So does this mean that he has given up on the idea of a special deal for Britain?

If so, it is a recognition, though not an honestly conceded one, that a thorough-going renegotiation is indeed impossible. This follows the boycott by the French, German and other EU governments of the 'balance of competences' review that William Hague invited them to participate in. This was conclusive proof, were it needed, that Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande have no intention of allowing the UK to re-write the current EU treaty.

It is not clear where all this leaves Mr Cameron's apparent promise to hold an in-out referendum in 2017. The government has refused to answer what it refers to as hypothetical questions about what would happen if it failed to bring about a successful renegotiation within two years of being re-elected. Would it still honour the referendum pledge?

When the 'balances of competences review', being overseen by Europe minister David Lidington, is completed David Cameron will come under pressure to list specific measures that he will want to see implemented by the EU, whether as a consequence of a renegotiation or collectively agreed reform resulting in a generalised decentralisation.

The Conservatives will then need to define what is the bottom line for them; what would qualify as a success and a failure. At present David Cameron is saying that he wants Britain to remain in the EU, but at any price? Even if he does not succeed in getting back any major powers whatsoever? 

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written by Marc Glendening - Campaign director, Democracy Movement  

For the latest campaign news and EU developments, follow us on Twitter: @DemocracyMovemt
 

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."

How credible will David Cameron's EU speech be?

In advance of the Prime Minister's long-awaited EU speech tomorrow morning, the DM has an article today on Public Service Europe looking at the credibility of his EU policy. 

The article as published is reproduced below:

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This Wednesday, David Cameron is to finally deliver his much-anticipated speech setting out his position on the renegotiation of some of the European Union's powers, bringing them back to Westminster and on holding a referendum. The prospect of the British prime minister making a statement about the United Kingdom's relationship with the EU has sparked a flurry of comment about whether or not Britain should renegotiate its membership of the union and, if so, which powers the country should seek back.

Cameron's every word is likely to be pored over by pressure groups on both sides of the debate and, not least, by a large number of his own backbenchers. They are looking for a clear indication that the Conservative Party leader shares their concerns about the EU's powers and will give them a popular referendum pledge with which to fight the next election. But there is one question it seems certain that the speech will not answer and, unfortunately, it is the question on which the entire credibility of Cameron's EU policy and the prospect of a referendum depend.

Beyond the desirability of renegotiation, which has so far been the main focus of debate, how feasible is it that Cameron will secure the necessary agreement of other member states to a renegotiation and a return of European powers from Brussels to Westminster? If the prime minister intends to make a referendum pledge dependent on his view of a positive outcome from such discussions, few will take seriously the idea that they will get the chance to give 'fresh consent' to Britain's links with Brussels - unless the process by which negotiations will take place is made clear.

There are only three methods by which treaty amendment discussions can be launched and Cameron's difficulty is that two of them require the cooperation of the 26 fellow member states. The prospects of this happening are looking increasingly bleak. In recent weeks, prominent figures including Ireland's Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti have lined up to denounce the idea that any single country should be permitted to revise its membership of the EU.

French President Francois Hollande's comments after December's meeting of the European Council summed up the mood. "I think the treaties are there to be abided by," he said. "Europe isn't a Europe where competences could be withdrawn." Where, in this, does Cameron believe lies the support he needs to negotiate, never mind secure agreement to, a return of powers to Westminster?

The method the prime minister and his supporters tend to cite is that forthcoming negotiations over moves towards EU 'fiscal union' should be used to try to broaden discussions - to giving the UK opt-outs from other areas of the treaty. The EU, they say, "is changing" and Britain should take its chance to put its own changes on the table.

While there will undoubtedly soon be discussions, mainly centred on the eurozone, about passing further budgetary sovereignty to Brussels - since other EU members could dismiss his proposals as irrelevant, this strategy would involve Cameron having to play extreme hardball with the EU. He would have to refuse to approve changes purportedly designed to ensure the euro's survival, until UK opt-outs were granted.

As well as being politically very dramatic and therefore unlikely, this would leave the UK open to charges of both blackmail and hypocrisy; since the British government has said that it supports greater fiscal union for the eurozone countries in order to reduce the effects of euro instability on the UK economy. The second method is for the government to invoke Article 48 of the EU treaty. This opens a convoluted process to revise the treaty involving a succession of conventions and conferences at the end of which other European governments and institutions are likely, also, to collectively reject any repatriation proposal.

That leaves the third method, which is the only way to guarantee that discussions about the EU's powers cannot simply be dismissed by other European leaders and, therefore, is the only way that Britain can underpin the credibility of Cameron's EU strategy. If he hopes on Wednesday to dodge the accusation that he is seeking merely to introduce more delay and distraction into the EU debate, rather than respond to clear public concerns about the union's powers, he must make clear that he plans to employ Article 50 of the EU treaty.

Only by giving notification that the UK intends to decouple itself from the EU's growing political centralisation can the PM convince his peers that he is serious about achieving change. And only then can the country focus on a necessary debate about how best to shape future relations with our European neighbours - such that they meet the needs of business, retain the benefits of cultural exchange but also, crucially, respect democracy and national diversity.

EU renegotiation is not feasible from within

This Friday, the Prime Minister is expected to make a speech setting out his position on returning some decisions from Brussels to Westminster and on holding a referendum on the outcome.

Much of the recent debate that has been provoked by the prospect of this speech has been about whether or not Britain should renegotiate its membership of the EU and, if so, which powers we should seek back.

No attention whatsoever has been paid by mainstream commentators to the methods by which any renegotiation could occur.

Essentially, a phony debate has been conducted, no doubt encouraged by Number 10, about the desirability of renegotiation and not its feasibility. But the PM's evident interest in 'substance' over 'process' in fact highlights the vulnerability of his EU policy.

Because all the potential methods of initiating a discussion with the EU about the balance of powers between Westminster and Brussels - short of informing the EU that the UK is leaving - are highly unlikely to deliver a formal negotiation, nevermind agreement.

The credibility of David Cameron's forthcoming speech, and the likelihood of any referendum, depend entirely on the Prime Minister setting out a feasible method of securing a renegotiation.

Three methods

There are only three methods by which David Cameron can attempt to initiate discussion about a return of powers from the EU to Britain.

1. Use forthcoming negotiations over the proposed EU 'fiscal union' treaty to try to secure UK opt-outs from other areas of the treaty. This is the method David Cameron and other supporters of renegotiation tend to cite. But there are many problems with this strategy.

First, because other member states could easily dismiss any attempt to broaden the negotiations beyond proposed treaty changes, it would involve playing extreme hardball with the EU by refusing the approve changes designed to secure the future of the euro until UK opt-outs were granted. As well as being politically dramatic - a potential tactic that has already been described as 'blackmail' by the German government - this would leave David Cameron open to charges of hypocrisy, since the government has said that it supports greater fiscal union for the eurozone countries in order to reduce the effects of its instability on the UK economy.

It is not credible relative to his position on the eurozone, politically likely nor desirable for Britain's relations with other European countries, for the Prime Minister to threaten to withhold his consent from the new treaty unless agreement is reached on a return of powers to Britain.

2. Invoke Article 48 of the EU treaty, which opens a convoluted process to revise the treaty on a proposal from a member government, the Commission or the European Parliament. But there are many hurdles in this process that the government is unlikely to overcome. Such a proposal must first achieve majority support within the European Council. Then, the proposed amendments must be approved by a Convention drawn from representatives of all the member states governments and their national parliaments, the European Parliament and the Commission. The EU official chairing this body will be responsible for determining the "consensus" opinion of the Convention on the proposed amendments. Formal votes will not be taken. Once this has concluded its deliberations, a conference of representatives of the member countries will decide finally what amendments should be made to the EU treaty.

3. If this fails, the only other option is for a government to invoke
Article 50 of the treaty. This covers the arrangements for arriving at a new relationship between a member country wishing to leave the EU and the European Council, the body on which the other political heads of state are represented. Given that David Cameron says he does not support Britain leaving the EU this is clearly not an option he would consider viable. But it is the only method by which a significant renegotiation can be guaranteed.

Who will agree?

Prominent figures across Europe have already denounced the idea that Britain should be permitted to renegotiate its membership of the EU.

Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Eamon Gilmore, has said that there cannot be "different forms of membership… There cannot be flexibility on the core conditions. You cannot have a European Union if you end up with 27 different forms of membership."

The Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, has already gone on record as saying to David Cameron: "Please don't expect us to help you wreck or paralyse the EU."

Speaking after December's meeting of the European Council, French President Francois Hollande indicated his opposition to repatriating EU powers, saying: "When a country makes a commitment, generally, it’s for life. So I think the treaties are there to be abided by. And so far I haven’t heard Mr Cameron at a European Council asking to opt out of certain competences ... Europe isn’t a Europe where competences could be withdrawn."

The Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said that, rather than renegotiate, Britain must be asked the fundamental question: "Do you want to remain in the European Union?"

And President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, said: "If every member state were able to cherry-pick those parts of existing policies that they most like, and opt out of those they least like, the union in general, and the single market in particular, would soon unravel."

Delay, distraction?

Where, in this, does David Cameron believe lies the support he needs to secure agreement to British opt-outs?

The unfeasibility of renegotiation makes the PM's strategy look far more like delay and distraction than a response to public concerns about the EU's powers.

This Friday, the mainstream media must focus on exposing the feeble foundations of his EU policy. If David Cameron is serious about renegotiation, he must first notify the EU that Britain will leave. 

Our politicians can't stop the EU budget rising

Amid the entertaining political theatre of yesterday's EU budget vote lies a far more fundamental debate than whether the amount Britain's pays into the EU budget should be frozen or cut. 

A debate that will soon come much more to the fore.

Much of the Westminster Village reaction to the government's defeat in Parliament last night by 13 votes is inevitably rotating around whether David Cameron is in control of his party; whether he will wield his veto to block a rise in the EU budget; whether Labour will support that veto and what will happen if the Prime Minister tries to secure MPs' approval for a deal that does not involve a budget cut.

Throw in some simplistic comparisons to John Major's Maastricht woes in the early 1990s and a mixture of the above is what the political commentariat are serving up for today's consumption.

But all that is a side show. Sure, a bit of discomfort for David Cameron and the fate of a few billion pounds rests on one option or another and the Democracy Movement, more than most, wants to see Britain's payments to the EU cut - in fact, far more dramatically than anything currently being considered.

Back in 2005, when the EU's last 2007-2014 Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF) was being debated, the DM launched its Stop the Cheques campaign, contrasting the cost of the EU with various cuts being made then to public services (see campaign postcards pictured above). A theme that is today, thanks partly I'm sure to our efforts making the case to MPs over the years since - but no doubt mostly due to the subsequent financial and debt crisis - a very strong aspect of debate on the subject among MPs across the party divide.

Impossible freeze  

No, the real punch to today's events will be delivered when the EU meets to hammer out a deal on the EU budget on 22-23 November.

For David Cameron to deliver his policy he must very likely veto an EU deal, but even then the EU budget will continue to rise with inflation anyway. It is certainly beyond his power to deliver Parliament's view that there should be real-terms cuts, as demonstrated by yesterday's vote. 

Then, or soon after, all the current chatter about EU budget vetoes, freezes and cuts will be shown to have been pointless. The various positions over which our Goverment (freeze or veto), Labour opposition (cut but no veto) and Parliament (real terms cut) have so publicly clashed this week will be revealed as a total waste of time due to the nature of the brave, new, post-democratic EU in which we are currently embroiled.

Pointless veto 

The domestic democratic agony we have just witnessed will have served only make more glaring the reality: It is actually impossible to freeze, and certainly to cut, the EU budget. There is nothing our Government or Parliament can do - even if working in unison - to stop the amount we hand over to the EU rising without completely re-writing our treaty links.

Seventeen of the EU's twenty seven member countries are net recipients from the EU budget, changes to which must be agreed unanimously. If no agreement is reached, the budget reverts to a cut-and-paste, year-by-year agreement with an in-built increase in line with inflation.

It is blatantly in the interest of the vast majority of net recipient countries to block any attempt to freeze the EU budget and certainly to cut it since, if unanimous agreement is not reached, the budget rises anyway.

The system is loaded in favour of the budget recipients and a perpetual increase. Both our Government and Parliament will be shown to be completely impotent, their views on the changes that should be made to the budget over-ruled and self-serving EU treaty clauses enacted to keep public cash flowing to Brussels at an ever-increasing level.

Real question

Our financial exposure to the EU will be demonstrably out of control, regardless of the cuts being suffered by public services. Our democratic institutions powerless to secure change. So what then? What does this say about democracy in today's EU-dominated Europe and is that powerlessness a future we wish to pursue?

Thanks to the brilliant work yesterday by MP Mark Reckless and supporters of his amendment, this is the far more fundamental question that will shortly hit home about Britain's relationship with the EU than would have hit the headlines through any fleeting debate about whether we should hand over a bit more, or a bit less, cash.

The soon-to-be-apparent real achievement of yesterday's events will be to have highlighted to a fuller extent the nature of the increasingly post-democratic state in which EU member countries are currently confined. 

So bring on the EU summit later this month and the start of the real debate - about how to secure a more democratic future for Britain and hopefully Europe too.

Cameron is only talking about an 'in-in' EU referendum

by Marc Glendening

David Cameron might not exactly be in the Derren Brown class when it comes to pulling off extraordinary illusions. But he did pour some cut price, '70s magic act dry-ice over the issue of an EU referendum during the week of the Tory conference. 

He wanted to kick the EU referendum into the long-grass and so he gave the impression that, were he to win the next general election, he would re-negotiate a new relationship with Brussels and then put this to a popular vote at some unspecified point in the lifetime of the next parliament.

The impression the prime minister was trying to create in the minds of the 70% plus of voters who want a referendum was that we would eventually have the chance to either accept the deal he had struck, or, if we rejected it, we would then leave the EU. He tried to sound unequivocal, and therefore sincere, when he said that an EU referendum would be the "cleanest, neatest and simplest way" to decide the issue. 

However, when questioned by Labour MP and People's Pledge supporter, Natascha Engel, at PM's questions (Wednesday October 16) on how Cameron would vote in a referendum on EU membership, he said: "I don't want an in/out referendum because I'm not happy with us leaving the European Union, but I'm not happy with the status quo either. I think what the vast majority of this country wants is a new settlement with Europe and then that settlement being put to fresh consent. That's what will be going in our manifesto." 

Putting to one side the disconcertingly undemocratic implication that referendums should not enable people to vote for outcomes the prime minister does not personally share, his response confirms that in the referendum he is suggesting might one day take place, we will be presented with two options: either we accept the deal that emerges from the re-negotiated deal the government can strike with Brussels, or, if we reject it, whatever the status quo will be at the time will persist. So, this will only constitute, in reality, if it ever happens, an in/in referendum.    

The trouble facing David Cameron is now several fold: First, everyone who cares about the EU referendum issue no longer buys the Cameron act. Remember, in 2007 he gave "a cast iron guarantee" that he would hold a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. When challenged as to whether this promise would hold if the treaty had already been ratified, Cameron refused to confirm that he couldn't in that context give the British people a retrospective referendum, which a straight-talking politician would have done.

Second, he has just come to an agreement with Alex Salmond on a straight in/out referendum on Scotland's relationship with Westminster. The Scottish vote will not only result in increasing numbers of people asking why the whole of the UK cannot have a similarly existential poll regarding where ultimate political over their lives resides, but it will also inevitably result in speculation north of the border that there might be a need for a second, EU referendum. This is because in the context of a vote for independence, the European Commission has recently confirmed that Scotland would have to apply for membership and sign up for the euro.  

Third, there is the outside possibility that Labour, under the astute policy guidance of Jon Cruddas, might decide to promise us a real in/out referendum. This would cause the Tory leadership the kind of acute problem Harold Wilson's Common Market referendum gambit  posed for Edward Heath in the two 1974 elections.

Fourth, and most importantly, events will probably overtake David Cameron and the re-negotionatist faction. Within the next three years, two new EU treaties establishing banking, fiscal and political union might well have been ratified. These will have major implications for Britain, Denmark, Sweden and the other countries outside the single currency. The eurozone members will be able to caucus and vote as a block and so impose a whole range of measures on the non-euro governments. Ultimately, it will be up to the European Court of Justice to interpret whatever treaty will emerge and what the supposed opt-outs David Cameron has negotiated actually mean.

By being as disingenuous as he has been, the prime minister's various statements on the referendum question have served only to encourage a deconstruction of his magic act. More end of the Westminster pier than Penn and Teller in Las Vegas.  

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written by Marc Glendening
This article was first published on the ConservativeHome blog

David Cameron's mood music on an EU referendum

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by Marc Glendening


David Cameron's vague statement last week that the government might hold an EU referendum at some unspecified point in the future, but not involving the option of us actually quitting membership, has been roundly ridiculed.

Deservedly so. This was the prime minister doing a traditional political 'taking you for a fool' act, reminiscent of his predecessors Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

With so many mainstream politicians in this post-rational, post-modern era, political declarations are more about making mood music, creating vague impressions, conveying a sense of aesthetic well-being, rather than about actual, hard content.

However, those of us who really do want a in/out referendum should take some heart from the fact that DC felt the need to come out with the disingenuous statement he did.

Given that even a few weeks back the official No 10 line was that very few of us wanted the chance to vote on the EU and that the campaign for a referendum could be airily brushed aside, it is clear that Cameron, being the arch opportunist that he is, now appreciates the degree of momentum behind our democratic movement.

In part this is because of the number of Labour politicians now calling for a referendum or saying that one is inevitable: Peter Mandelson, Peter Hain, Alan Johnson, Natasha Engel, Keith Vaz among many others including, most significantly of all perhaps, Jon Cruddas, the MP now in charge of Labour's policy review and a signed up supporter of the People's Pledge EU referendum campaign.

This issue places the prime minister in a particularly difficult position as someone who says there is no alternative to being in the EU, but simultaneously tries to maintain his EU-sceptical credentials by claiming that he wants to see various powers re-negotiated back to Westminster from Brussels.

The reason he continues to rule out an in/out referendum is that he neither wants to be forced to campaign to stay in an unreformed EU (given that the EU cannot be fundamentally changed through negotiation), so blowing his EU-sceptical credentials for all time - but nor does he want, self-evidently, to associate himself with the out of the EU movement.

Within the next two to three years the EU will move towards a further centralisation of power - fiscal union - in order to save the euro from collapse. This will have huge implications for countries like Britain, Denmark and Sweden that are in the EU but outside the single currency.

Semi-detachment from the Pan-Europeanist project will simply not be an option. We will be confronted with an all or nothing scenario. The 'third way', re-negotiationist position rhetorically championed by Cameron and others will be finally exposed as impossibilist nonsense.

That moment has not yet arrived, but it soon will do.

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by Marc Glendening, DM campaign director

Cameron to support creation of Euro-State without democratic consent

by Marc Glendening

The British government in March gained the initial approval of Parliament to give the EU at a later date new powers over economic decision-making, through a redefining of Article 136 of the Lisbon treaty.

As was confirmed yesterday (August 16) at the Sarkozy-Merkel mini summit, Brussels intends establishing central economic governance under the leadership of the EU president Herman van Rompuy. Ostensibly, this will only apply to the Eurozone countries.

As People’s Pledge advisory council member Douglas Carswell MP, among others, has warned, giving the green light for the creation of such a powerful centralised authority carries huge risks for Britain, together with other non-euro countries Denmark and Sweden.

A unified Eurozone voting bloc will be able to force through whatever measures it wants to, aided by the European Court of Justice which has the final say in any dispute regarding interpretations of the treaty.

Remember, back in May 2010 it was decided by the eurozone majority that Britain and the other non-euro countries must contribute to the bailouts under Article 122 of the treaty. Our government believed, in its naivety, that this article was only about helping countries that were experiencing ‘natural disasters’.

Whatever opt-outs David Cameron believes he has secured will ultimately mean nothing so long as the EU enjoys legal supremacy over us. Once he has given his consent to a new Article 136, the gates of the eurozone Gothic castle will clamp shut for all EU member states.

No consent

There is also a moral dilemma relating to this issue, but not one that concerns the current UK government, sadly: Should Britain really be enabling the EU to further extend its undemocratic control over the lives of German, Greek, Irish, French, Italian and other eurozone peoples when they will have no chance to give or withhold their democratic consent to what is being planned for them?

Remember, not one European electorate voted explicitly for the single currency project in a referendum. Opinion polls showed at the time the euro came into existence that a clear majority of the German people wanted to keep their national currency.

The legal instrument through which the new powers will be transferred from the member countries to the EU is Article 136 of the Lisbon treaty. When the time comes, the political heads of all the member countries, including David Cameron, will vote to change the wording of this article.

Blank cheque

As opponents of Lisbon have always warned, the treaty contains within it the means for the political elite to add new policy making controls to the EU portfolio without having to go through the lengthy and often politically messy process of ratifying new treaties through national parliaments or, heaven forbid, referendums.

This they are now in the process of doing. The Irish government is particularly keen to restrict the right of its voters to have a say. This will no doubt be tested in the courts by citizens demanding a referendum on what will clearly be an issue of constitutional significance.

It may still be that some of the measures the French and German governments want to force through will also require a new short treaty. For example, Angela Merkel has the problem to contend with of legal challenges before the German supreme court that claim that the bail-outs of Greece, Portugal and Ireland are unconstitutional as they violate Article 125 of the treaty which forbids paying off the debts of other eurozone countries.

While nothing has been decided yet, it might be that in order to overcome the objections of many German citizens, together with some politicians, Merkel will require an explicit re-writing of the treaty.

Miliband's opportunity

Even if this proves to be the case, our government has stated it will do whatever is required to facilitate a politically unified eurozone. Cameron will attempt to whip through Parliament, enthusiastically supported by the Lib Dems, naturally, any new treaty in addition to the beefed up Article 136.

It will be interesting to see how Ed Miliband plays all this. If he’s smart, Labour will oppose this Cameroonian chicanery and make common cause with the numerous Tory MPs who can be expected to defy their leadership on this. If this were to happen, it is not inconceivable that the government could be defeated and the Labour leader would be able to position himself as a champion of the rights of the British and other European peoples against the furtive, secretive political class.

If he doesn’t, he will confirm that he is just another dreary and untrustworthy political insider.

The good thing about all of this is that at least the fog is now clearing from the battlefield and a growing number of people appreciate what is at stake and that the stark reality is that Britain now needs to decide whether it is governed principally from Brussels or by those who are accountable to us through the ballot box, as in Switzerland and Norway.

It’s that simple. And this is where the People’s Pledge referendum campaign comes in.

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written by Marc Glendening

Will Cameron yet freeze the EU budget?

David Cameron's strategy to secure a freeze in the EU budget may be becoming clearer.

It was, of course, never in prospect that all the EU's member governments and institutions would agree to a zero percent increase in the EU's spending during 2011.

Nevermind the cut in funding that is truly justified by the drastic austerity measures being implemented in the EU's member countries and the EU's perpetual failure to safeguard from waste and fraud the public money it is given.

Nevertheless, has Mr Cameron gambled that protracted disagreement over the level of increase may deliver exactly what he wants?

Institutional stand-off

By securing the backing of ten other EU member countries for the position that the rise must not exceed 2.9%, David Cameron has set up a stand-off between the European Council on the one hand and the European 'Parliament' and Commission on the other.

The procedure for agreeing the EU's annual budget is set out in Article 314 of the EU treaty, as usefully highlighted over on the Your Freedom and Ours blog. Skip to paragraph 5 to find the current state of play.

During the forthcoming potential 21 days of 'conciliation', the likely response from the 'Parliament' and Commission to what has occured over the last two will be to propose a figure somewhere between the 5.9% increase they currently want and the 2.9% backed by a blocking minority on the Council.

If no agreement is reached during conciliation, paragraph 8 confirms that the procedure goes right back to the start, with the Commission required to submit a new draft budget.

Freezing stalemate

That there may be no agreement during conciliation seems a real possibility. The EU 'Parliament' in particular is easily pompous enough about its position and role to believe its duty is to 'take on' national governments. And need we really say more about Commission president Jose 'dimension of empire' Barroso?

By demanding billions extra from cash-strapped European countries that will no doubt have to be additionally borrowed before being handed over, these two EU institutions have at least usefully demonstrated the emptiness of their rhetoric about seeking to help Europe recover economically.

The bigger question during conciliation is whether Mr Cameron's group of supportive countries on the European Council will stand firm.

Should this roundabout of negotiations not be resolved in time for the new budget to start in 2011, Article 315 of the treaty confirms that "not more than one twelfth of the budget appropriations for the preceding financial year may be spent each month ..."

In other words - in the absence of a specific concession by the Council that more than one twelfth per month may be spent, which would be unlikely given they will be attempting to pressure the 'Parliament' and Commission into swift acquiescence to their 2.9% deal - the 2010 EU budget continues into next year.

Bingo! That freeze.

Futile games

So is David Cameron gaming the 'Parliament' and Commission with their own procedures in order to achieve what he wants? Time, and the reaction of those institutions, will tell. Ultimately, it matters little.

For all the reasons and more that were well argued by Harry Phibbs in the Daily Mail, even a freeze isn't nearly strong enough action against the EU's financial incompetence and abject waste and the best case scenario of all this is still most likely to be a 2.9% increase.

That would leave Britain still having to stump up an extra £430 million for the EU next year, on top of the £8.3bn (net) we're already committed to handing over, while making big cuts to essential public services at home.

Justify that, Prime Minister.

Leaders' stale old debate on the EU

The part of last night's second TV debate between the party leaders devoted to discussing the European Union proved mostly a stale rehash of the same old inaccurate lines - particularly from Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown.

As ever, they moved to shut down any focussed debate about the realities of the EU with a combination of smearing David Cameron's choice of political allies and of asserting that legitimate questions about the extent of the EU's powers indicated a wish not even to work with other European countries at all.

As if the only possible form of co-operation between countries is an EU-style transfer of political decisions to unaccountable, central institutions.

It's a low grade tactic that's deployed time and again by the EU lobby to subvert an honest debate about the true goals of the EU and the nature of Britain's relationship with it.

Everyone agrees with the need for co-operation between countries on the issues that affect us all. But the EU is entirely about political integration and the real debate is about how far it has gone, whether centralised decisions in EU institutions is a practical or democratic way to govern a group of very diverse countries, and what should be done about this problem.

But neither Clegg nor Brown want to engage in that debate because they know their unswerving ideological support for giving the EU ever more powers at the expense of our democratic national institutions is both unjustifiable and completely out of step with public opinion.

Why else would the pair of them have expended so much political energy wriggling out of promises made at the last election to give people a referendum on the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty if not to prevent the public blocking their plans? They knew we would, given the chance.

From their point of view, any debate about the EU must be quickly diverted and frustrated by the setting up of false dichotomies, distractions and plain old name-calling.

Brown's 'Big Lie'

Typifying this approach, Gordon Brown resorted to his favourite Big Lie on the issue, asserting that 3 million jobs depend on Britain's 'membership of the EU'.

In reality, the 3 million jobs figure comes from a National Institute for Economic and Social Research study into the impact of UK-EU trade.

But given that trade with European countries isn't dependent solely on EU membership, and trade would clearly not halt if we changed our relationship with the EU, it is not honest to suggest as Brown did that 3 million jobs would be at risk.

Clegg chimed in with the idea that you can only change the rules of clubs you're a member of by 'getting stuck in'.

But the truth is neither he nor Brown intend to 'get stuck in' at all, as their behaviour over the Lisbon Treaty showed. If Brown truly tried to change the EU's rules or goals during the negotiations that resulted in the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty, you wouldn't notice it from the long list of extra EU powers to which he agreed.

Lib Dem dishonesty

Clegg also tried to distract from how he broke his promise made at the last election to support a referendum on the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty, by saying he would give people a say on the 'real question' - whether we should be 'in or out' of the EU.

However a glance at the Lib Dem manifesto confirms that the pledge is only for an in or out referendum "the next time the British government signs up for fundamental change in the relationship between Britain and the EU".

Lib Dem 'small print' that provokes several further questions about the pledge's value.

First, what is a "fundamental change" if the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty wasn't and, given how the Lib Dems wriggled out of their last EU referendum promise on the grounds that even the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty did not present such a change, what's the betting they will wriggle out of this new referendum pledge by claiming exactly the same about the next EU treaty?

Second, why is it necessary to wait until the next treaty change is proposed before holding this 'in or out' referendum? In practice, we could terminate our EU relationship at any time we choose. So might this stipulation be there because, having battled for eight years against French, Dutch and Irish public opposition to get the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty ratified, there's little prospect of another EU treaty for many years to come. And, consequently, such a stipulation means little prospect of the Lib Dems having to deliver such a referendum?

Far from Clegg's glib TV comments, reading the small print of the new Lib Dem referendum promise reveals all. They won't pledge to hold that 'in / out' referendum immediately, because they clearly still want to avoid giving people any say on the EU at all.

Cameron's contribution

The responses of both Clegg and Brown to questions on the EU issue during the TV debate can each respectively be described in one word: dishonest and distraction.

In contrast, David Cameron's recognition that powers should not be transferred to the EU without people being asked directly, and his proposals to get powers back from the EU, have merit as a start to securing the change we need.

But he clearly wasn't able to resist a bit of stale mantra-reciting of his own.

A disappointment from among his own comments was the re-emergence of the lame old Tory 'In Europe, not run by Europe' line. It's a ridiculous idea because, as anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the way the EU works will know, you can't be in the EU but not run by the EU.

Steadily taking over the running its member states, in the place of national governments, is the EU's fundamental mission and goal.

Prize, however, for most ridiculous line of the night must still go to Nick Clegg, who probably thought he was being clever in defending the EU by saying that "the weather doesn't stop at the cliffs of Dover".

In fact, it rebounded on him quite badly by sounding so narrow-minded. Of course, the weather doesn't stop at the Polish border or Mediterranean coast either.

Final judgement

What was clear overall was that only one leader on the TV stage - David Cameron - was criticising the extent of the EU's powers and proposing to seek some reversal of that situation.

Whereas both Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown were defending the undemocratic status quo and showed no indication they wouldn't sign even more powers over to the EU given the chance in office.

But the most fundamental problem with the TV event was the short amount of time devoted to debating an organisation that membership of which will next year alone cost Britain £7.6 billion (net), that even so hasn't been able to get its accounts fully approved by auditors for 14 years in a row, and which according to German government estimates may now be behind as many as 80% of our new laws.

Is that all the high profile time that such an important issue gets during this election campaign, and how can its many and full implications possibly be explored in such a short period of discussion?

In fact, the EU problem deserves a 90 minute leaders' debate all of its own.

No EU referendum? No majority.

UPDATE - 1 December 2009: A new poll in today's Independent further confirms the trend in public opinion against the Tories, since David Cameron's statement confirming he will not hold an EU referendum.

As the trend is enough to bring about a hung parliament, it's time for Mr Cameron to decide whether or not he wants to govern - and correct the EU referendum mistake that has triggered this downward spiral in public support.

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A new poll published in yesterday's Observer has further stoked speculation that a recent reverse in public support for the Conservatives may bring about a hung parliament at the next general election.

Whereas last month's Ipsos-Mori poll saw a 7% jump in the Conservative rating, this month's results - following the announcement of David Cameron's new EU policy - shows a stark reverse.

The poll shows Tory support down by 6% and Labour up 5%.

A failure of either of the two main parties to win a working majority would put the EU-fanatical Liberal Democrats into a position of power to dictate policy in return for helping one or another govern.

Any deal with the Conservatives would very likely involve the chopping of EU-confrontational ideas like a UK Sovereignty Bill and the return of certain powers from the EU that David Cameron recently outlined.

Trust test failed

The Conservative party and its supporters would be foolish if they failed to notice how renewed predictions of a hung Parliament have started after David Cameron not only ditched a very public "cast iron guarantee" of a vote on the Lisbon Treaty, but contradicted his own stated principles by failing to pledge any replacement EU referendum at all.

Whatever technical arguments can be made in justification of his updated stance following the removal of the final hurdles blocking the Lisbon Treaty's ratification, Cameron's new policy totally fails the trust test.

Somehow, the Westminster Village consistently fails to recognise that this is the most damaging test of all to fail.

A large proportion of people wanted a say on the scale of the EU's powers and now the Tories have become just like the other parties in preventing us having one.

That's the supremely damaging message that will have resonated most strongly from Cameron's recent statement.

In a bizarre move for a party that at best can hope to win a small majority at the next general election, the significant support that comes with an EU referendum was just thrown away and no striking attempt was made to hold onto it.

New referendum

The impact is now being seen in the polls. Predictably, the Conservatives are falling back into the low levels of trust and public support the other two parties have experienced since their own EU promise-breaking episodes.

But this emerging danger for Conservative prospects at the next general election can still be nipped in the bud - by a new EU referendum pledge.

But it had better come quickly, before momentum builds further in the wrong direction and it becomes impossible for Cameron to prevent near-triumph turning into tragedy.

Tories take poll hit after dropping EU referendum

The first evidence that David Cameron's abandonment of his pledge to hold an EU referendum will hit the Tories electorally is provided by the latest Populus opinion poll, published in The Times today.

The poll, taken over the weekend, shows the Conservatives have registered a fall in their support, dropping to 39% - reportedly "at the lower end of their recent range".

Meanwhile UKIP have seen a striking gain, going up from 2.3 to 4.2%. According to the paper, excluding the two months around the recent EU parliament elections, this is "the highest level since 2005."

In another bad sign for David Cameron, figures for likelihood to vote among Tory voters also fell.

This reinforces recent reports and evidence on Tory grass-roots sites like ConservativeHome that the lack of a referendum pledge in David Cameron's recent EU statement is causing hassle for candidates, demoralising the party's activists and driving away potential voters.

Early referendum

When questioned specifically on the referendum issue, the poll shows that 46% said they thought that there "should be a referendum early in the next Parliament on the general issue of Britain's relations with the EU".

A figure of 48% are inaccurately reported as "backing the Cameron line", holding the view that "it would be pointless to have a referendum on Europe unless specific further changes in Britain’s relations with the EU were being proposed."

However, David Cameron is proposing "specific further changes" in Britain's relationship with the EU, yet is not offering a referendum. So, contrary to the report, these people are not backing David Cameron's position but should be taken as also supporting a vote.

In a worrying sign for the party of re-emerging splits on the EU issue, 59% of Tory voters said they still wanted an "early" EU referendum of some kind.

Hung parliament

Peter Riddell comments that if the Conservatives were to win approximately a 10% greater share of the vote than Labour - as shown by current poll ratings - it is uncertain that the Tories would win an absolute majority in the next House of Commons.

Because of the scale of the past three Tory defeats, the party still has a mountain to climb in terms of the seats they will need to win any kind of absolute majority in the next Parliament.

It simply can't afford to throw away support that could make a win-or-lose difference in countless constituencies.

Second thoughts

While it doesn't in itself represent a wholescale shift in opinion, this poll should nevertheless set off alarm bells within the Conservative Party as to whether dropping any kind of EU referendum pledge was a big mistake.

It would be no surprise to us if many thousands of voters are now be thinking: if David Cameron won't trust us enough to let us decide where ultimate governing power should lie, why should we trust him enough to make him our Prime Minister?

While the lack of a referendum commitment may not spark a downward spiral in the polls for the Conservatives, in diminishing trust among a small but statistically significant number of voters in each constituency, it is likely to have installed a glass ceiling of support through which David Cameron will now find it impossible to break.

Could David Cameron's refusal to replace his Lisbon referendum pledge with a commitment to giving people a say on his new EU policy have just cost him a majority government?

No referendum, no trust

Those hoping for a sign that David Cameron is serious about changing Britain's relationship with the EU will be disappointed by today's statement.

Perhaps not so much over its proposals for a confrontational 'Sovereignty Bill' or plans to take back control over some policy areas from the EU.

But certainly over his unwillingness to consult people in a new referendum, and the worrying signals that sends out about the strength of his commitment to securing those changes.

New guarantees

In a speech this afternoon, the Conservative leader set out a new set of policies on the EU, after the final barriers were removed from the path of the Lisbon Treaty into law. These include:

- amending the European Communities Act 1972 to install a 'referendum lock', prohibiting any further treaty transferring power to the EU becoming law without approval by referendum.

- a 'Sovereignty Bill' to "make it clear that ultimate authority stays in this country, in our Parliament". Such a move would put UK law in direct contravention of Declaration 17 attached to the Lisbon Treaty, not to mention ECJ case law, which asserts the EU's legal primacy over its member countries.

This is what led recently to concern in Brussels over a similar assertion made by the German Constitutional Court.

- opposition to the 'ratchet clauses' within the Lisbon Treaty allowing further transfers of power to the EU without the need for a new Treaty. Less significantly, Cameron pledged to "change the law so that any use of a ratchet clause by a future government would require approval by Parliament." But since a government by definition commands a majority in Parliament, such approval would hardly be such a struggle to secure.

The more significant point here was Cameron's statement "We do not believe that any of these so-called ratchet clauses should be used to hand over more powers from Britain to the EU."

- opt-outs from parts of EU social and employment legislation, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and restricting the EU's role in criminal justice. Trying to take back any powers from the EU will cause interesting upheaval. The EU is simply not built to transmit power in that direction - rather, to steadily suck all power to the EU centre.

However, Cameron's idea of "limiting the European Court of Justice's jurisdiction over criminal law to its pre-Lisbon level" is hardly a restriction at all. Since, even before Lisbon was dreamt of, the ECJ had imbued the EU with the power to set criminal sanctions - a definitive power of statehood never set out in any EU treaty.

Confining the ECJ's activism to pre-Lisbon levels will not go nearly far enough, even towards Mr Cameron's own limited own objectives.

Referendum contradiction

However the key contradiction in the Tory leader's statement came when he first decried the need for an alternative referendum on his negotiating aims as having "no practical effect". Yet later said he would consider such a vote at the end of a first Conservative term of government if his negotiating aims hadn't been met.

"If those circumstances were to occur," he said - referring to a failure to secure the opt-outs he seeks - "we would not rule out a referendum on a wider package of guarantees."

But what "practical effect" does he think such a referendum would have at that point, but not either in advance of his negotiations to strengthen his hand, or afterwards in approval of the deal he had achieved?

After all, as we highlighted yesterday, is this not the man who in The Sun attacked Gordon Brown for having the "arrogant belief that he - and only he - has the right to decide what's best for Britain's future"?

The man who said "Giving people freedom and control over their lives is one of the things that makes me a Conservative."

And what more fundamental question of freedom and control is there than to decide for ourselves where governing power should lie?

All about trust

Cameron's proposals contain some interesting steps. From our point of view, they can only be first steps. But a journey has to start somewhere, and at least it appears he is facing in the right direction.

Talking today of the Labour and Liberal Democrat failure to deliver a promised referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, Cameron said: "It ranks alongside the expenses scandal as one of the reasons that trust in politics has broken down" - echoing a point the DM was making on this blog back in June.

Yet now he expects us to trust him based only on more words in a party manifesto? It's just not enough, and he cannot possibly expect it to be.

Cameron's moment of truth

With this afternoon's confirmation that the Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, has finally signed the Lisbon Treaty, all questions turn to how David Cameron is going to respond.

Klaus's signature, following a valiant resistance, removes the last remaining hurdle preventing the treaty from becoming law.

David Cameron gave a "cast iron guarantee" of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in an article in The Sun back in September 2007.

In the same article he said of Gordon Brown's refusal to give us a say that "It's the arrogant belief that he - and only he - has the right to decide what's best for Britain's future."

So is Cameron seriously intending to ditch the idea of an EU referendum altogether - and be condemned by his own words in Britain's most widely read newspaper?

Is there any integrity to his broader rhetoric about fixing our 'broken politics'?

Lisbon problem

Cameron's new difficulty with the Lisbon referendum is not hard to see.

Once ratified, the Lisbon Treaty will be merged into the existing EU treaties and become practically impossible to reverse in one go.

Voting weights will change, EU positions and institutions will be created - such as those of the full-time President of the Council of Ministers and High Representative for Foreign Affairs - and the EU's powers will be amended across the broad range of policy areas its institutions now preside over.

The 26 other national governments would have to agree to any changes, and are not likely to agree to reversing all this in one go.

Britain could of course still hold a retrospective referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, even after it's ratified. But at that stage, little practical change could come of the result.

As a symbolic vote, finally putting on public record Britain's opposition to the EU centralisation project, the idea of a Lisbon referendum still has some merit.

But in this 'new situation', shouldn't we be aiming higher than that? Aiming for something that brings about real change?

New treaties

What David Cameron will face, if he wins the next election, will not be the Lisbon Treaty any more. Rather, the newly amended versions of the main EU treaties, incorporating the Lisbon changes across the EU's entire field of operation.

His position, so far, is that in this case "political integration will have gone too far" and "the Treaty would lack democratic legitimacy in this country."

Towards addressing the scale of political integration, he has talked of reclaiming powers for Britain in specific, targetted areas - such as social and employment policies. Areas like justice and fisheries have also been discussed.

In doing so, he could seek to roll back the Lisbon Treaty piecemeal. But such a plan would go further, and reclaim powers conceded in treaties long before Lisbon existed.

More broadly, such a demand would undermine the entire idea and direction of the EU as we know it today.

But we've yet to hear how Mr Cameron proposes to resolve the EU's "lack of democratic legitimacy".

Dangerous path

As the only major party that has, thus far, stuck to its guns in supporting a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, the Conservatives must tread very carefully if they hope to carry over public faith and support to such a new strategy.

Most people don't trust politicians, and many eurosceptics don't trust the Conservatives any more than the other major parties.

What must first be made crystal clear to those within the Westminster Village is that trust will not be forthcoming based alone on fine words in a Conservative manifesto.

We've been there and done that. Labour and the Lib Dems, with their broken manifesto promises, have put paid to trust ever being given again on that basis alone.

Rollback referendum

If David Cameron wants to be seen as a leader - as someone who can be trusted to act - what's needed in tomorrow's policy announcement is a firm pledge to hold an EU referendum of some sort early in the first term of a Conservative government.

If not on the Lisbon treaty, then that referendum should be held on the package of powers that Cameron proposes to repatriate - on Britain's 'new deal' with the EU.

This pledge of a replacement EU vote is the only possible bridge by which supporters of a Lisbon referendum will feel able to transfer from that "cast iron guarantee" to the new policy.

The alternative - a complex renegotiation plan and no referendum pledge - is a path that threatens the Conservatives with internal divisions, agitation by eurosceptics both inside and outside the party, public mistrust and, ultimately, election loss.

Make or break

Cameron's announcement tomorrow might not in itself be enough to win him the next general election.

But if it lacks a replacement EU referendum for the one we were promised on the Lisbon Treaty, it could easily lose it for him.