March 6, 2008...2:56 pm
The triumph of the Tory Eurosceptics.
Earlier today, Iain Dale felt able to call a former Tory Chancellor a “rascal” and encourage his party to take disciplinary action against him for breaking his parties whip on the Lisbon treaty.
There’s nothing particularly remarkable about the assault (if it can be so termed) itself, nor do I imagine that Mr Clarke is in any way concerned by the dislike his views have engendered - after all his beliefs have cost him the leadership of the Conservative party three times already, so a poke from a blogger is unlikely to even cause him to bat an eye.
Yet it is indicative of something more significant, and as shown by the Lisbon referendum vote it is now clear that the long Tory wars over Europe are over, that the Eurosceptics have won and that they are in no mood to offer their old foes anything more than an honourable retirement in exile.
I thought perhaps an opponents perspective might be interesting and spark some debate, especially with Conservative readers.*
This much we know. Only ten years ago, the battle for the European soul of the Conservative party was still being fought. The one great achievement of the Major government was the passing of the Maastricht treaty, and that required the votes of men like David Davis and Derek Conway. The leadership of the Conservative party was split, certainly, but it was a split of some equality. Howard, Portillo, Lilley, Hague, Redwood opposed Clarke, Hurd, Dorell, Rifkind and Heseltine. The government may have been Euro realist, but it was certainly not Euro-sceptic.
In opposition, however, it soon became clear that the Conservative party had eaten enough of Europe for a lifetime and had turned away decisively. First EuroMPs faced the brunt of their wrath, many being deselected and the new Leadership, elected principally by Eurosceptic votes and sustained by a eurosceptic membership did nothing to protect them. A few Tory pro-Europeans fled to join the pro-European Conservatives and thence went to the Liberal Democrats or oblivion, which seems much the same thing. They were replaced by the likes of Dan Hannan, a founder of the moderate and centrist “Campaign for an Independent Britain”.
The ever threatening possibility of Britain’s entry into the Euro did nothing to help matters. While Tory grandees joined groups like BritaininEurope, their presence infuriated the Tory grassroots. It became clear that deprived of office, the old Tory leadership no longer had the auctoritas to keep their troops in line.
In 2001 the Conservatives launched their first ever robustly anti-Europe election campaign. Although it did nothing for them in the election, it confirmed to the party that it was no officially an anti-European party. Parliamentary selection helped move them further in this direction, with a generation of ambitious young Conservatives proclaiming either from belief or calculation that Europe was their deadly enemy. David Cameron and George Osborne, both elected in 2001 both embraced this change.
Yet as long as Ken Clarke remained a credible candidate for leader, the issue was not settled. Some Euro-sceptics, like John redwood in 1997, believed that it would be acceptable to operate under the leadership of a pro-European. The vast majority of the Conservative party disagreed however, and this is, as much as anything, the reason for the leaderships of Iain Duncan Smith and William Hague.
By the time of the last Conservative election however, it was clear that Ken Clarke was a spent force, in Leadership terms. The younger generation of Conservative politicians were opposed to him on Europe and not tied to him through the shared endeavour of Government. They overwhelming backed Davis and Cameron. Although there he had four years to build support, there 30 more tory MPs and one less candidate, Clarke only increased his 2001 vote by two.
As soon as Clarke was eliminated from the Leadership race the last rope linking the Conservative party to pro-European-ism snapped. The internal debate became not one of whether to be opposed to the European project of integration, co-operation and shared policies, but how, and to what extent. Peace broke out not because an agreement had been reached, but because the enemy had been utterly vanquished and the new regime had not been tested in it’s loyalties.
For the first time since Mrs Thatcher first said the words, “No, No, No” became the uncontested position of the Conservative party on Europe.
Which leaves us with the question, what next?
Let us imagine that David Cameron, not Tony Blair, had attended the Lisbon treaty negotiations. It strikes me that he would have had two options. The first would be to stick to his guns. He would have faced immense pressure from fellow leaders. He would have been briefed against, attacked and been, in the end, been a lone hold out. Would he have been able to got what he wanted? Possibly. The cost would have been Britain’s place in Europe. After an experience like that, his fellow leaders would have second thoughts about wanting to invite him to dinner again.
His second alternative would have been to make concessions, on the basis that the direction of travel of the treaty was the right one. This was fundamentally the Blair approach, though of course, Blair was in favour of the direction of travel in the first place. Depending on the extent of those compromises, doing this would fracture horribly the Tory unity on Europe. When you fight for ten years and emerge victorious, you don’t expect to lose your victory at the very first chance.
Such a fracture might not be fatal for a Conservative government. As far as I Can make out, there are three main euro-sceptic groupings inside the Conservatives. The first, those who are fundamentally opposed to the EU and are relatively open about wanting to leave and their allies make up a relatively small proportion of the Conservative party. Their absolute maximum extent can probably be described by those backbenchers who voted for Bill Cash’s amendment to the European Treaty. There are perhaps 15-20 MPs who hold the hardest line, and then a penumbra who broadly support them but don’t wish to be associated with them on all things. This latter group would leave the EU more in sorrow than in anger. So 40, at most.
Then there are the more pragmatic Euro-sceptics. These seem to make up the bulk of the Conservative Party in parliament.If the were MPs from 1992-97 they were prepared to support Maastricht, but swore to go no further. If they were not, they have built their political careers on a basis of scepticism and do not wish to renounce it. A conservative leader who wished to do any sort of deal with Europe would have to keep this entire group on board. The current fundamental position of this group is “No Mas”. They do not want to leave the EU as it stands, but they cannot endorse further integration.
The final group are the Euro-careerists. Their extent will only be revealed when a conservative government takes office. This group have happily gone along with what other pragmatic Euro-sceptics have said over the last decade, but it is not fundamentally a major for them. If a conservative government were to make them content in other areas, they would unlikely to be of too much concern to the whips. How many of them are there? It’s a very interesting question.
So any Conservative leader with serious hopes of office is going to have to decide very quickly what his room for manoeuvre is. Can he make any concessions at all in any European negotiation? How many of his Euro-sceptic MPs can he persuade that this time it’s worth it?
How much pressure is he prepared to put relations with key partners under? How will he respond to the 20 or so MPs who will inevitably cry betrayal at the first sniff of compromise?
None of these questions are re-assuring. The Conservative party has decided its internal debates by numerical superiority and attrition. That unity has been purchased at the price of accepting unrealistic suppositions about the real world. Like it or not, this is a question the Conservative Leadership is going to have to answer in much more detail.
* Obviously I’m no great expert on the Conservative party, so I especially welcome any correction on the nature of the internal euro-debates with the Tory party.
22 Comments
March 6, 2008 at 4:48 pm
That’s interesting and something I have vaguely noticed myself although with less specific reference to MP s and Westminster. I `m a bit pushed for time but you have to understand that the Conservatives have not moved as much as appears . The symbolic place of the EU has also moved and in part the fact of the EU. Not only the Conservative Party but the country have been stiller than your post might suggest
If you start at the so called Common Market pro Europeans even gorgeously youthful ones like me in some inchoate way, like me saw it like this
1 Free Trade
2 Modern
3 Pro Business
4 Anti Organised Labour
5Also…anti Monarchy , anti nationalistic …anti tradition and so on and therefore Liberating vaguely
The future
Now it looks as much like the future as Eurovision looks like the future of pop music
1 Protectionist
2 Stale Bureaucratic cumbersome and expensive
3 Anti Business
4 Socialist
5 Anti monarchy, anti nationhood anti culture anti democratic and therefore imprisoning and in a very real way authoritarian .
The Past
The post war distrust of ethnic nations has receded and the value of coherence reasserted itself in a variety of ways . The world has got a lot bigger and the EU become a bit of an old ladies arm pit . Lovely buildings, lovely culture ,all achieved a long time before the centre left EU turned it to grey expensive homogenous mush.
The political class have been remarkable slow to catch on and the new “right” has immediately been able to call on the majority who were never consulted and would never dream of saying yes to the basic question “ Do you want to be ruled by foreigners “
I saw Fink saying the Conservative Party can afford to be a lot braver than they think if we assume honest dealing . Nick Clegg was taken aback to find his Party split and take my word for it it is becoming Euro sceptic at grass roots . This is because the Liberal activist whilst theoretically “Universally “Liberal is in practice localist and communitarian. These two ideologies have begun to collide as they discover their local protest must be addressed to Brussels ..ie no-one .Such a thing happened in my neck of the woods over a proposed incinerator. Liberals find themselves supporting an unaccountable corrupt dictatorship .
You are still in a mental world where being anti EU is a vote loser. That , I `m afraid is no longer true and nothing looks so tawrdy s yesterday’s future .Iain dale , Dizzy and …little me , have all only recently started to think about the route map out and the lies and squalor of Labour’s behaviour on Lisbon is the end of the beginning of the end of the EU dream.
Feed this back into the EU at Westminster and the Conservatives need to represent a range of opinion from ….’no more’ , through ‘step back’ to ‘get out’ .The arguments for staying in are economic and stem from caution , the threat if isolation and loss of markets. Thin arguments and slimming like a super model ans the word explodes around us .The truth is that the EU , to work had to become part of our identity . It has not it will not and it is almost universally loathed outside the oddly backward world of Westminster.
Ken Clarke is like one of those buffers still going on about the Empire in the 60s …he`ll be left to bluster himself out.
March 6, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Hopi and Newmania you sum up the present Conservative MPs very well.
As to the future, the country is getting more eurosceptic.
March 6, 2008 at 5:57 pm
I think that’s a fair summary Hopi Sen. I think the genuine eurosceptics are more numerous than the careerist ones, people like Nick Palmer think the reverse, but neither of us can know till we see the Conservatives in government.
If I’m right, and the genuine eurosceptics are the dominant group, then, if David Cameron becomes Prime Minister, a choice between offending other head of government, on the one hand, and splitting his own party, on the other, isn’t much of a choice.
March 6, 2008 at 6:15 pm
One of the fascinating things about being a candidate for the Conservatives for the European elections in 2009 is that you get to listen to all sorts from all parties - I have listened to people from all main parties who want out of the EU and to others who want in with all the consequent sharing of sovereignty - but the majority of those interested in this topic (and I have to say that it exercises some more than others) seem to be adopting an increasing sceptical line - sceptical of the direction, the regulation, and the law making.
From my own perspective, the ‘need’ for the Lisbon treaty has never been made out and I have explained in detail why I think that the Lisbon Treaty has substantially the same effect as the Constitution (or TB’s Constitutional Treaty) on my blog - http://www.evanprice.blogspot.com.
The real difficulty with getting too hot on this topic is that most people in the UK are not very concerned about ‘government’ or about ‘Europe’ - they just get on with their own lives, making waves and having effect where it matters to them. They don’t always realise the significance of certain events or the consequence of policies and politics. They are rather suspicious of people getting too hot about something that they don’t care too much about things - and I wonder whether it was that, as much as anything else that has kept many voters away for so long.
As to the direction, I suspect that it will be difficult - frustrating - irritating - exasperating - but ‘ever-closer union’ was the proposed answer to a question asked in the 1940’s - it doesn’t seem to me to be the answer to the difficulties facing us nearly 70 years’ later.
March 6, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Thanks Newmania, Sean, Evan and HF for very useful comments. I’m going to edit the piece for sense, (so many typos…
and then try and respond in a bit more depth..
March 6, 2008 at 8:56 pm
To cut this comment as short as possible, if you want to smoke out a Conservative on their opinion on Europe, these days all you have to do is drop “EPP-ED” into the conversation… Hint: To find out what level of hype has permeated their views, ask them what the letters stand for.
March 6, 2008 at 10:27 pm
I don`t think many Conservatives accept there is any validity to any European party any more . To have a political party there must be a government to which you are elected , and for there to be government there must be a country. There is not and in fact as this Parliament does not propose policy it is no more than fatuous pageant played out for the “ignorant masses” as the manageriaslists see them.
March 7, 2008 at 12:20 am
Very interesting and basically correct analysis Hopisen, thanks for that.
One or possibly two, although they are connected, correction/clarifications however; the Eurosceptics didn’t win yet, the Europhiles are quietly biding their time hoping that coming into Government will have the same effect upon Cameron’s pre power promises as it did on Blair’s and Brown’s.There are still a very few of them holding considerable and disproportionate sway in the upper reaches of the Party. However the victory that the sceptics have achieved has not been, as you suggest, due simply to weight of numbers, rather it occured when it became apparent to all that the Europhiles were completely incapable of providing a single solid persuasive reason for succumbing to “ever closer union” and that what passed for argument from them was a thin layer of vaguely articulated fear and nothing more.
Europe still has the capacity to split the Tories apart very badly, especially if Cameron fails to deliver on his promises so far on it, but then it could end up doing the same to the LibDems and Labour too.
March 7, 2008 at 10:24 am
I think the real problem is that Europe has always badly divided all main parties (except single issue pressure groups like UKIP or the Greens) - let’s not forget the trouble Michael Foot and David Steele had over the issue in the 1980s (especially Foot). This is why anyone with a gramme of sense would have allowed a free vote across Parliament on the issue of this particular treaty. Sadly none of the three party leaders seem to possess the requisite minimum - and the net result is that all parties had substantial numbers of rebels and all the leaders have ended up looking silly.
I think the Tory eurosceptics have won in the party largely because the pro-European Tories sat for seats in areas that have been lost to them - the very safe rural south has disliked Europe at least since Thatcher’s time! Whether they can win the long term, important arguments when they get back to power, as you say, is another question. I guess they’ll find it difficult if only for purely economic reasons (Brown on Wednesday - 60% of trade with EU, which is an exaggeration but only by 5%) which might cause red faces and some fancy footwork on points of principle…
March 7, 2008 at 11:00 am
Brown on Wednesday - 60% of trade with EU, which is an exaggeration but only by 5%
80% of trade is internal in the UK so it is 55% ( still an exaggeration) of 20% which is actually about 10% all of which would continue utterly undisturbed ..unless the Germans want to stop selling us BMW `S which I somehow doubt .3,000,00 jobs are not , therefore at risk and thats before you start handing back the £7000 per househols it costs just to pay for all the rubbish
More Brown lies , does he ever ever say anyting true. The Spectator are running a list of his lies at the moment ; he is becoming a joke.
March 7, 2008 at 11:21 am
Coming out of the EU probably would make a difference to the volume of trade between this country and EU member states, but I doubt if it would be substantial.
Half-Blood Welshman - the point about europhile Conservatives sitting for less safe seats isn’t correct. The 1997 defeat certainly swept away europhiles like Hugh Dykes, Edwina Currie, Tim Rathbone, and Tim Eggar, but it also swept away eurosceptics like Rhodes Boyson, Tony Marlow, Michael Cartiss, and Walter Sweeney.
March 7, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Hmm I think the Tories here are wrong. Europe causes split becauses it hits major faultlines (reformers vs revolutionaries in old Labour). And in the Tories it is the oldest split of all (as Lord Hurd said) , like the corn laws it is the Party of the Nation vs the Party of Business.
Now all above are happy that when (and it really should be if) Cameron gets in then all will be sweetness and light. I really don’t think so.
Any future Conservative Government will be pragmatic, all Governments have to be because otherwise they fall apart. And being pragmatic will mean engaging with Europe over thousands of different issues, and yes sometimes pooling sovereignty.
Either there will be enough ‘euro-careerists’ to isolate the hardliners (about 40 presently?) or the Cameron Government will start hitting such huge problems that it will not be sustainable.
So yes, unless or until Cameron takes on the euro-sceptics like Kinnock took on the hard-left the party will be in a pretty impossible place when faced with the realities of power.
And I’m pretty sure Steve Hilton knows it.
March 7, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I agree with much of this article. It’s obvious when one reads the comments on a website like “Conservative Home” that there is near unanimity in the contempt directed towards “traitors” and “Quislings” [sic], “selling the country down the river” and being “disloyal” (this however does not apply to Iain Duncan Smith) and causing disunity.
This is pretty much a canard - the vote on Wednesday night showed that almost all pro-European sentiment has been extinguished from a party that Mrs Thatcher 30 years ago called the European party in Britain. This stems from the obsession against Europe in the grassroots membership leading to the selection, almost without exception, of anti-European MPs (this is easily achieved; almost every Conservative selection starts with a question on the lines of “Where do you stand on something-to-do-with-Europe?”).
It is almost as if the anti-European Conservatives are psychologically programmed to internal strife and fighting. Their comments (such as those of Mr Angry above) make it clear that they are focussed on ruthlessly fighting the “enemy within”, even when it is clear that that enemy has long since retired from the fray to go to other parties, or to retire from politics.
The irony is that if they ever realised their unity on European matters and instead focussed on fighting other parties on other issues, they would probably win an election. Perhaps then it is best that they don’t realise this, and that instead they can get on with the next internecine battle, which will be the “In Europe but not run by Europe” faction vs. “Better Off Out-ers” with that Tory pressure group, UKIP, as allies.
March 7, 2008 at 3:22 pm
There is no longer a conflict between being the Party of business and the Party of the Nation. That is the key point to understanding what has really happened . Where that leaves the party against the nation and against business as well … god knows
March 7, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Note Newmania that I didn’t say Party of Capitalism, I said Party of Business: I know the anarcho-capitalists, libertarians or however they identify themselves are anti-euro, for whatever reason.
However the vast majority of pragmatic businessmen are not. A lot of them cuddle up to the Labour Party now, but they will cuddle up to Cameron just as much when the time comes. What they will be saying to a Cameron Government on Europe is no different to what they are advising now to the Brown Government. Either the result wil be the same; or there will be trouble.
March 7, 2008 at 5:34 pm
The number of pro-euro businessmen, who were close to the government is diminishing, and, importantly, a future Conservative government doesn’t owe them anything.
Businesses that have no significant trade with EU member states are probably as eurosceptic as the general population.
So, I can’t really see the sort of tension developing between party grassroots, and the Conservatives’ business backers, that you anticipate.
March 7, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Probably unsurprisingly I agree with anonymous and pregethwr. While the tension that do exist withing the Conservatives are manageable while out of office (the BOO’s will be content to bide thewir time, believing that the internal contradictions of the EU will be exposed when a Tory gov’t stands up to them), in office it will be a very different story.
This could be very dangerous for Cameron. He’s never made any attempt to put down the Eurosceptic ultras (as many of them generally agree with him on the importance of modernising in other areas) but i don’t think they’d show the same tolerance to him as PM. If he doesn’t have clear lines drawn they will make his life hell., I think he’s putting this fight off, but that’s a major failure of leadership imo.
March 7, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Perhaps he agrees with them - or perhaps he believes he would lose such a fight.
March 7, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Hopi - Cameron has not, and will not, try to attack his Eurosceptics because - for all his being an “old school” Eton and Oxford type, and for all the nouveau riche grammar schoolboys’ portrayal of him as some sort of Macmillanite wet - he is one of them really.
Look at his slavering sycophantic remarks in Central Office the other week at the unveiling of the Thatcher bust - even the great she-elephant (pace St John-Stevas) herself had to tell him to wipe the drool off his chin and remember it wasn’t 1988 and he was no longer a CRD courtier. He worships Thatcher as much as any Gerald Howarth or Bill Cash and is as equally infused with petit bourgeois enrichez-vous selfishness as any of them.
This is no Ted Heath-incarnate, whatever the Tory right say. The man simply has no sense of noblesse oblige.
Though Cameron may be PR-savvy enough to realise that going on about Europe won’t win him an election, it doesn’t mean he isn’t in accord with those sections of his Party. So the Europhobes will not make a Cameron Premiership hell; he will give in to them because it won’t be “giving in” - he agrees with them.
What, however, the consequences will be for Britain in Europe or the body politic, I shudder to think.
March 8, 2008 at 1:25 pm
The last anon is right and the Hopi-lites are wrong . Cameron is noticeably more Eueo sceptic than the rest of his position would require .
Pregetyhwyr- You are entirely mistaken. If you mean the CBI its surveys of its remembers are unrepresentative shams as revealed by Chritopher Booker and part of the EU propaganda usually financed by us via parasites abroad. Asserted other Soviet style “Representatives” of business are not involved and be whether they represent the Lollypop guild of the Tractor makers they have no real influence .
Business always prefers things as they are because they have established positions as things are . Irrelevant . My job , for example , having been removed by the EU ..(redundant …) now exploits certain features s of the EU. This effect is why it is always after the event that we are given a choice . That is the trick.
Hopi , as you said you are not an expert in Conservative Politics and you are a long long way behind .Remember Westminster is itself far behind the country , Last anon is right . Cameron is at heart a Thatchrite and values the nation. You are talking yesterdays language as , I noticed Brown was and as Clegg continues to do . I suspect Clegg because of the relative openness the Liberals is getting the message a lot quicker than incestuous Labour will
This is a good thing .
PS ..On Business I bet I`m the only one here who actually has to win clients to makeas living anyway. How many labour MP`s have ever had such experience …2 ..or 3 I think. Explains a lot
March 8, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Newmania - I wasn’t praising him for this rather childish hero-worship.
Hopi - this may be of interest to confirm my point. It is from that mad Candidates’ List that debilitated Tory selection panels through the 1997 Parliament, and has left the Tories with much of the dross that has come into Parliament since 2001.
http://www.candidlist.demon.co.uk/thelist/camerond.htm
March 8, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Newmania - I wasn’t praising him for this rather childish hero-worship.
Err yu …did get that just slightly .
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