The vote on Britain’s place in Europe finally moves a step closer tomorrow, as MPs debate the second reading of the government’s EU referendum bill. In its more high-minded-sounding moments, the government likes to claim that the process is about allowing Britain at last to make a rational choice about its place in the 21st-century world. Yet often it simply seems another chapter in the destructive Conservative psychodrama over Europe. Once again, the past 48 hours suggest the latter, not the former, is what matters. Careful examination of the referendum bill has been swept aside in favour of a resumed internecine argument about the Tory party.
It is only a month since Conservative MPs were elected with a very clear three-part manifesto promise on Europe. Part one was to legislate for a referendum to be held before the end of 2017. Part two was to negotiate reforms to Britain’s position in the EU. Part three was to put the package to the vote. Part one has not yet been debated. On part two, David Cameron has barely had preliminary conversations with other EU leaders. Part three still lies some way in the distance.
None of this conceit really matters to a large section of the Conservative party and to the Europe-hating parts of the press. These obsessives aren’t interested in the manifesto, the bill or the negotiation. Their only interest is getting out of the EU by whatever means. That’s the campaign they want, and that’s the campaign they are determined to have. That’s why about 50 Tory backbenchers have already formed an embryonic EU-out campaign. And it is also why there was such a row today over Mr Cameron’s wish to keep his ministers in line through the referendum.
Not for the first time, Mr Cameron was forced to backtrack on Europe. Party unity went out of the window on Sunday. Today, prime ministerial leadership quickly followed. Mr Cameron spent his post-G7 press conference arguing with the media about what he had or had not meant to say about collective responsibility at the weekend. But the bottom line is that anti-EU Tories, ministers included, believe they have now won the right to campaign for a no in the referendum. They think they have got Mr Cameron where they want him. They may be right. A month into the new parliament, it may be John Major all over again.
Tomorrow’s debate ought to be about practical referendum stuff – whether 16- and 17-year-olds should get the vote on Europe, whether an issue of this importance ought to require a 60% majority to change our membership, whether there ought to be a majority in each of the nations of the UK, and whether Gibraltarians should have a vote (as proposed in the bill). There are big questions too, which also arose in Scotland last year, about whether official yes and no campaigns are the healthiest or best ways to ensure a genuine debate. In an ideal world, Britain would tomorrow be embarking on a balanced debate about where the nation is heading, with the balance of advantage properly weighed and judged. But this is real politics, not Plato’s Republic, and real politics takes few prisoners. Pro-Europeans need to grasp, and grasp now, that for the antis this is already war to the knife.
