Cameron’s
deafening EU silence
By John Blundell
16 April 2006
SOCRATES observed that a man’s silences can say as much about him as those
topics upon which he is loud.
David Cameron says nothing about the European Commission (EC). His shadow
cabinet is silent too. Oliver Letwin, his genial and clever lieutenant, explains
this baffling elusiveness as “concentrating on mainline issues”.
The whips warn backbenchers that to discuss the topic is “unhelpful”. But the
imperious ambitions of the European Union (EU) could not be more “mainline”.
Cameron is making a mistake. He is missing a huge opportunity.
Apart from dismissing UKIP as “a bunch of fruitcakes, loonies and closet
racists” Cameron fails to address EU themes at all. He seems to turn a blind eye
to them. UKIP wants to renounce the UK’s subordination to the Commission. It
wants powers shunted to Brussels restored to the Commons. It should be argued
about, not dismissed as Cameron does as merely “loony”.
The Tory Party could tear itself apart over these matters. Does it favour
Parliamentary democracy or faceless bureaucracy? Does it favour free trade or
rigged markets? I see direct parallels with the Conservative collapse over
defending the Corn Laws. What is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) but the
Corn Laws with knobs on?
Superficially, Cameron may be wise. Europe is a bore as a topic. It is marinated
in its alien juice of jargon. Nobody understands it fully. Cameron’s focus
groups tell him schools and health themes are what the public thinks it wants
talked about.
In the Yes, Minister episode that has Jim Hacker emerging as prime minister he
leaps over his rivals because of his valiant defiance of the new Euro directive
banning the British banger, the sausage being redefined as “the emulsified offal
tube”. I think Anthony Jay’s comedy will prove prescient. I predict that some
essentially small but provocative EU innovation will prove a future “tipping
point”. Our patience with EU nonsense will finally snap at some point. Cameron
is not exploiting this.
The Conservative Party purports to be an anti-federalist Party. Yet it does and
says nothing. Today the UK has no trade policies of its own. We are entirely
directed on trade matters by the Commission. The fact that Peter Mandelson is
the Commissioner may give the impression that Britain gives a lead, but
Mandelson simply jumps when EU technocrats issue orders – hence this month’s new
barrier to cheaper Vietnamese shoes.
Just keeping quiet about the the EC is understandable stylistically. If riding
bicycles, not wearing ties, promoting women and ethnic minorities and youth is
what excites most people, then talk of the CAP must seem both wearisome and so
very unfashionable.
But UKIP may be well ahead of Cameron. Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader, says he
wants free trade with all of the planet, not just with our Continental
neighbours. UKIP can be mocked for wearing blazers or nylon ties but they seem
to have a more enlightened policy towards trade and the EU than Cameron’s chic
but silent Notting Hill Tories.
There is not a business in the country that is untouched by the EU’s propensity
to impose ever more regulation. nobody will get exemptions from the Commission’s
desire to impose a uniform VAT rate of 20%.
I see a public critique of the EU as an excellent vote-seeking practice. The
settled and preponderant view of the opinion polls is hostile to the EU and
Cameron’s political antennae should tell him this. The problem is our political
elites will not discuss it. The gravy train metaphor has also become reality.
The cascades of cash buy silence. This subtle corruption cannot endure.
Many topics derived from Brussels seem British. For example, the Conservatives’
intuitive view is opposed to compulsory identity cards yet these are a Euro
obligation. We are citizens of the EU, not the UK.
We should
remember that a formative experience for the young Cameron was when working with
Chancellor Norman Lamont in 1992 when the fiasco of fixing the exchange rate
exploded. It’s perhaps this that explains why Cameron’s silence on European
matters is tempting.
The European Constitution has not gone away. Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and even
Turkey may soon join the EU. Do the Tories have a view on all this? If so, why
are we not told of it?
To make progress, the Conservative Party has to be true to itself. Silence will
only get Cameron so far. A collective shrug is not good enough.
Socrates also said: “Public men should not be silent when they see evil.” Is
David Cameron blind as well as mute?
John Blundell is Director General
of the Institute of Economic Affairs