Cameron was in no peril from the Euro-fanatics once Labour pledged to vote for the truth – being in Europe is our destiny
'The sight of William Hague and David Cameron imploring their rebellious party to support the EU would be an uproarious serves-you-right moment if it weren't so serious.' Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images
The neighbours' house is on fire and a high wind is blowing the flames our way. Do we rush for our hoses and offer to help? No we lean over the fence, shout orders and pelt stones at the firemen, worrying more about our own water meter than the fire hazard. No wonder the French fireman shouts over his shoulder: "You have lost a good opportunity to shut up. We are sick of you criticising us and telling us what to do."
Extraordinarily, that richly deserved riposte has been rare from European leaders. Maybe a bit more rudeness, accompanied by fist-shaking threats, would have knocked more sense into us over the years. Their patience with our obnoxiously arrogant, selfish and disruptive behaviour is truly remarkable. We want everything, give little, complain ceaselessly and tell monstrous lies about the club we all run together. Yet usually they sigh politely at the EU's spoilt child as we indulge in one tantrum after another.
So by the light of that conflagration, MPs debated whether we should stay in, get out or choose the fantasy option – "renegotiate" however each voter chooses to imagine. The Tory rebellion tells us nothing we didn't know: even among those voting with Cameron, fanaticism over Europe runs through the party like a stick of rock. Mouth-foaming eye-swivellers abounded in today's debate. Cameron was never in peril once Ed Miliband saved his bacon with the honourable pledge to vote for what most Labour MPs know to be true: being in Europe is our destiny.
But the British have not heard that truth declared much in the last two decades. Instead leaders ducked and dived, kowtowing to Murdoch and the rest of the Europhobic press. The sight of William Hague and David Cameron imploring their rebellious party to support the EU would be an uproarious serves-you-right moment if it weren't so serious. As Denis MacShane, Labour's former Europe minister said: "What you sow, you reap". Tory leaders always curried favour by promising referendums. Michael Howard did it. Cameron did it. Hague told the Telegraph in 2009 that he planned to spend the first few months in office renegotiating Britain's relationship with Europe. Tory MPs are selected for their Europhobia.
Tony Blair made no great pro-Europe rallying speeches at home. No powerful figures made the case since the days when Michael Heseltine and Kenneth Clarke stood bravely – and in vain – against the virus poisoning their party. The noise has all been sceptic, backed by 80% of the press, its journalists hired to churn out Euromyths by the bucket-load. The EU bans church bells, charity shops, corgis and smoky bacon crisps. Brussels dictates our laws, though only 7% of primary legislation comes from the EU. Myth says we pay the EU £6bn – but never counts the sums returned. Myth says we can be Norway, outside the EU but inside the European Economic Area – yes, but like Norway we would still obey the rules with no say in drawing them up. The new myth promises an a la carte renegotiation: but why wouldn't all the other 26 want one too?
Support for the union has waned across Europe, but Britain has been exceptionally allergic for decades. Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform puts it down to history and geography: we alone in Europe had a good war, and our island made us wider traders than other countries, but even so half our trade is with the EU. We turned more sceptical in the boom decade, when our economy grew faster, the pound rode high, with our unemployment lower, and Brownian hubris exceptional. Now, due to our extreme austerity, we grow least while unemployment and inflation rise fastest.
A new Guardian/ICM poll shows 70% want a referendum: if asked, people usually do. How would a referendum go? Badly, if the AV referendum is any guide. A well-funded campaign and most of the press telling phenomenal untruths swung a majority that started out in favour of reform. Ipsos Mori's Ben Page says people usually vote for the status quo in referendums (except in Wales and Scotland). Attlee and Thatcher had it right when they called them "the device of dictators and demagogues". One hundred thousand people clicking on an e-petition is no sane basis for triggering one. But if we have them, let the state fund both sides fairly, with no private money tainting the campaign.
Some say let's settle this once and for all, but a referendum is never final. As MacShane pointed out, despite the two-thirds pro-EU vote in 1975, Labour opted for quitting in its 1983 manifesto. Who really thinks the Tory party would quietly bury its favourite bone if the vote went against it?
After all, nothing stands still – and they were right about the euro. As Adair Turner admits, he and the rest of us who supported joining the eurozone were wrong. Only countries with matching economies can share currencies: tying Greece to Germany was like a giant and a dwarf running a three-legged race. The great idea may yet survive or it may be in its death throes: if only the growing together had been gradual.
The other genuine problem with the EU was the premature and unplanned free movement of labour before countries grew more equal in wealth and opportunity. Too many people were hit hard by an influx of poorer east Europeans with better vocational skills, exposing the well-known weakness in UK vocational training. Their arrival enriched employers but it left a great swath of the semi-skilled angry, as our poll suggests. Wobbly Labour politicians failed to say loud enough how much British employees gained in strength and rights from the EU.
But the "in or out" debate was never just a dry calculation of national interest. The two sides stand for profoundly different visions of the good society. A few Labour mavericks straddle the divide, but most anti-Europeans are from the far right for good reason. To them EU red tape, health and safety, human rights and labour regulations throttle British business.
Their vision is of a Britain thriving by undercutting basic protection of the workforce – working hours, maternity rights, holidays, sickness, security at work, equal treatment of agency workers. Read the sceptics' outpourings to see their vision of our island as a low-tax, maybe flat-tax haven for the super-rich, free to treat employees as "flexibly" as they like. This is a fine distraction from the real cause of our worsening economic crisis – this government's extreme austerity choking demand.
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