Parties must wake up to EU policy opportunities, and threats

When will our political leaders realise that the action they take when dealing with the European Union will have a direct and significant effect on their success at the polls?

Looking at lists of the issues people prioritise when it comes to voting in general elections, concern about Britain's relationship with the EU tends to linger some way behind the economy, schools, hospitals and crime.

But politicians make a huge mistake if they believe this means that people don't care about the issue.

The most recent evidence that EU policy can have a critical impact on a party's level of support is the bounce in the polls that the Conservatives appear to have enjoyed since David Cameron last month vetoed EU plans for a 'fiscal union' treaty.

Veto boost

An ICM survey for the Sunday Telegraph has given the Tories their highest rating since last year's general election and a six-point lead over Labour, up from two points before the pre-Christmas summit.

The poll puts the Tories up two points since the start of December on 40%, with Labour support sliding by two points to 34%, opening up the widest margin between the two parties in 18 months.

Other polls have confirmed the trend, with a post-summit BBC report highlighting polls by Ipsos Mori and YouGov that also put the Conservatives ahead of Labour for the first time this year.

Questioning people about the EU summit's outcome exposes the overwhelming public support for the Prime Minister's actions that underpins this poll shift. A Populus survey for The Times showed 57% felt Mr Cameron was right to use the veto while only 14% disagreed and another, for the Mail on Sunday, showed that 62% supported David Cameron's actions, while only 19% said he was wrong to use the veto.

Ed Miliband's response in the immediate aftermath of the summit, accusing the Prime Minister of being "out of touch", couldn't have been more ill-judged.

Poll threats

But this latest shift is far from the first time time polls have reacted sharply to how politicians act on the EU.

When, back in October 2007, Gordon Brown confirmed his support for the Lisbon Treaty and it became clear that he would not extend his party's previous promise of a referendum on the EU Constitution to the revised document, the result was an abrupt end to his honeymoon as the new Labour leader.

Brown actually increased his party's support through the September 2007 eruption of the Northern Rock crisis, when polls showed a three-point Labour lead mid-month widened to nearly eight points by the end of September. Even the events of early October that year, when the Conservatives unveiled a new inheritance tax policy and Brown was accused of having 'bottled' an early general election, resulted in him conceding only a slight lead to the Conservatives.

So far, not so bad for Mr Brown. Until, that is, later in October 2007, when he agreed to the final text of the Lisbon Treaty and made a statement to Parliament on the 22nd of that month. By the end of that week, Conservative support was growing again and Labour's ratings started a precipitous fall, ending the year at a punishing ten point deficit on the Conservatives as Gordon Brown turned up (late) in Brussels to sign the treaty.

The fact that this poll gap then remained broadly the same until late April 2008 shows that Labour's hair-raising fall in public support over a few short weeks between the end of October and mid December must have been due to some very particular event after both the peak of the Northern Rock bank run and the fallout from the party conferences.

It's impossible to dismiss that this was the period during which the deceit of the process of re-naming the EU Constitution as the Lisbon Treaty became crystal clear and Gordon Brown confirmed that he would not grant us the EU referendum we had been promised.

But Brown has been far from alone in suffering at the polls as a result of his EU actions. Later, in November 2009, David Cameron suffered a similar fate when he also dropped his "cast iron guarantee" of a vote on "on any EU treaty" emerging from the negotiations that came up with the Lisbon Treaty.

The Conservative leader also suffered an immediate drop in public support that, as we speculated at the time might turn out to be the case, did indeed re-balance the polls in a way that resulted in Mr Cameron's failure to secure a clear majority at the general election, forcing him to form accede to coalition government.

Arguably, the Liberal Democrats have suffered the worst of all from this trend in public opinion. Languishing in the polls and seemingly looking down the barrel of an electoral gun, the party's leaders still don't seem to realise where they have been going so wrong.

Referendum opportunity

This clear and growing pattern in how EU policy moves public support to an extent that affects electoral fortunes should provide much food for thought for any party aiming to improve its chances of obtaining a clear majority at the next general election.

Obvious focus should be placed on where party policy is at stark odds with public opinion and where better does such an opportunity lie than over whether there should be a referendum on Britain's EU membership?

The Sunday Telegraph's ICM poll also confirms that people do not back Mr Cameron's decision to rule out a public vote on whether Britain should stay in or leave the European Union. A majority of 59% to 25% (pdf, Table 5) say that there should be a proper in-out vote and most (51%) wish to see one in this Parliament.

If one veto, to unknown effect, can deliver a four-point boost in the polls, it's not hard to imagine the electoral rewards awaiting the party that grants that EU referendum.

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?

EU fumbles for grounds to justify second Irish vote

Update (13:46): Open Europe blogs that the Commission has only given the results of this poll out to selected journalists and have not published full details of questions asked. So the integrity of the poll can't be scrutinised.

As OE concludes, "It's a reminder that the European Commission is not just a civil service, but a campaign group".

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The Daily Telegraph's Bruno Waterfield reveals on his blog that the EU is already moving to determine exactly what it will take to buy off a sufficient proportion of 'No' voters to win a second Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

Such a move would completely contradict everything key figures in Ireland have said about the prospect of a second vote. But politicians saying one thing and doing another on the EU treaty issue wouldn't exactly be a shocking development to us here in Britain.

The EU's poll reportedly finds that 75% of 'No' voters "believe the Irish government can renegotiate exceptions", but this is hardly surprising. After all, that's exactly what happened the last time the Irish people said 'No' to an EU treaty, back in 2001.

The key question for the EU is whether any possible exceptions would be enough to gain public approval for Lisbon in a referendum re-run.

Key concerns

Questions around the treaty's influence on family law (abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia) and military neutrality may be easy to deal with through straightforward 'clarifications', in particular about the influence of the European Court of Justice in conjunction with the EU's so-called Charter of Fundamental Rights.

But those who hold concerns on these fronts may not be concerned about the EU's influence over these issues alone, so 'clarifying' these may not necessarily bring everyone who rates these issues into the 'Yes' camp.

Questions around taxation may prove trickier to divert, as France is obviously keen to push forward with 'harmonised' business taxes during its forthcoming 6-month EU presidency - a particular issue for Ireland, with its advantageous low rate of corporation tax.

The French are unlikely to want to give one of the key targets of such legislation a clear exclusion.

Harder still will be evidently strong concerns about the effect on Irish influence of changes to the EU's chief decision-making institutions, such as the loss of an Irish Commissioner and a cut in voting strength in the Council of Ministers.

These were institutional deals reached only after tortuous and complex negotiations, and special treatment for Ireland would be very difficult to secure.

So the EU is unlikely to want to reopen such negotiations. Yet, as we reported on Saturday, and this new poll confirms, questions of power and identity loom large in the reasons people voted 'No'.

Young oppose treaty

A cause of particular alarm for the EU in the poll's findings was obviously that there were many more 'No' voters than 'Yes' voters among young people aged 15-29.

More future-thinking than any age group, it's surely no surprise that few see it as sensible to cling to out-dated centralisation ideas of a century past. "Factor 2 to 1. Very Serious!”, the poll report says.

And of course we get the usual EU focus on those ("40%") who said they 'didn't understand' or 'weren't familiar' with the treaty. As if the massed ranks of Ireland's political, business, media and cultural establishment plus a massive financial advantage for the 'Yes' campaigners wasn't enough to 'inform' people of the treaty's alleged benefits.

Nevertheless, we're used to such findings being trumpeted by the EU simply to justify splashing even more public cash on more pro-EU propaganda.

A second 'No' vote would be utterly devastating for the EU as we know it today, and this poll appears to provide little comfort for the EU that this would not be the outcome of forcing the Irish people to vote again.