It is becoming clear that the general election was not the only vote on Michael Howard's mind when he committed the Tories to introduce quotas on asylum. The party is hoping to save face rather than form the next government, but its immigration policies could help it defeat Tony Blair in the European constitution referendum. Coverage in the rightwing Eurosceptic press is now leading on the fallout from the European Commission's announcement that the policy would put Britain in breach of EU-wide agreements on asylum. Daniel Hannan, a Tory MEP writing in the Telegraph (registration required), reckons Mr Howard probably planned it that way: it gives him ammunition for his argument that Britain needs to pull out of some EU policies.
He must have known that the EU would react as it did to his proposals: indeed, I suspect he was banking on it. He has said before that he wants to take powers back from Brussels but, until now, the issue on which he was planning to go into battle - the recovery of our fishing grounds - seemed rather marginal to most inland voters. Now he has found a casus belli where the country will be behind him.
The Tory aim is a "renegotiation" of Britain's EU membership treaties, but since no member state has ever tried that no one is certain what it would mean. A piece by Jacek Rostowski, an economics professor at the Central Europe University in Budapest, in today's Financial Times warns of the repurcussions for Britain and Europe of withdrawal.
