David Cameron has offered an olive branch to the EU and to Nick Clegg as well, writes MARK HENNESSY
EUROSCEPTIC CONSERVATIVE MPs, which means most of them these days, last week demanded that David Cameron behave like a British bulldog in the Brussels summit. Yesterday, they cheered their hero home.
If there been “any doubt before there is none today that we are led by a prime minister who will put the country’s interests first”, crowed Conservative MP, Andrew Rosindell – the man first to use the bulldog analogy.
However, Cameron was careful to ensure he did nothing further to heighten their appetite for an immediate repatriation of powers, an EU referendum, or, indeed, the UK’s eventual departure as he repeatedly stressed that EU membership is in the UK’s interests.
On Saturday the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, implied that the EU-26 would not even be able to use EU buildings for talks, let alone the European Commission or the European Court of Justice, but Cameron was conciliatory yesterday, saying that London would “discuss”. In confident mood, buttressed by polls that show he has a finger on the pulse of British opinion, Cameron comfortably batted his way through nearly two hours of questioning from MPs on the outcome of the Brussels summit.
One man who was not there was the Liberal Democrats leader and deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, who, Downing Street said, decided his presence would be “a distraction”. Such things are not done in the House of Commons, which takes its etiquette seriously, leading to charges Clegg was guilty of petulance. Questioned by a Labour MP, Cameron said: “I am not responsible for his whereabouts.”
For now, however, the coalition is not in danger, even if relations are strained. The blunt reality is that the Liberal Democrats could not go to the country on the issue “of standing up to Europe”. That way lies annihilation.
Labour leader Ed Miliband, meanwhile, fed doubts, if held only by a minority for now, that last week’s outcome leaves the UK exposed, especially if the other EU states manage to create a coherent entity among themselves in the talks due to run up to March. Domestically, however, Miliband has a problem. Conservative MPs jeered when one revealed to the chamber that Miliband’s aides were briefing the press to say he too would have vetoed the opening of EU-27 treaty talks if he had been in the same position as Cameron.
Cameron’s people acknowledge he shares the Euroscepticism prevalent within the 2011 Conservatives – if of a mild variety – but they never believed before now that he would stand to the colours. Those doubts led to last week’s Commons hand-bagging of him, with MP Nadine Dorries warning on radio that if he “missed this opportunity to grasp the nettle” then British voters “may eventually make him pay with the one vote they will have”.
Democratic Unionist Party MP Nigel Dodds spoke for many when he urged Cameron to “change the fundamental relationship” with Brussels. “Where do we go from here?” he asked. He is not alone.