The results of May’s European Parliament elections have shown that parties opposed to European integration or the eurozone scored impressive successes at the expense of the established parties.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, whose party suffered considerable losses to Ukip, the main anti-European Union party in Britain, was quick to take advantage of the situation by declaring that he will oppose the choice of Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission on the grounds that he is an old-style federalist.

Cameron stated that the electorate all over Europe has clearly shown that it wants less EU interference in national affairs, less bureaucracy and less integration. According to Cameron, Juncker fails the test on the basis of his past history as one who has worked for closer EU integration throughout his long years in the EU.

With less than a year to go before general elections in Britain, Cameron is clearly looking over his shoulders and trying to assume a position of strength at home by talking tough on Europe, thereby hoping to steal Ukip’s clothes and raising his chances of re-election by consolidating and extending his electorate base. It could, of course, seriously backfire, especially as he has antagonised fellow EU leaders by his intransigent stance, especially the strongest of them all – German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who favours Juncker.

Juncker is the choice by the European People’s Party, which won the largest share of votes in the European Parliament elections and is, therefore, entitled as per prior agreement by the main representative parties in the European Parliament, to claim first preference for the presidency of the European Commission. Cameron is clearly going against the grain and therefore alienating potential allies while hardening adversaries.

Cameron’s campaign against Juncker is extremely risky and rests on a desperate personal political situation at home

The UK, moreover, has a referendum in Scotland in September to decide whether the Scots want to remain part of the United Kingdom or go their separate way. Polls indicate that the ‘No’ vote is stronger than the ‘Yes’ vote with a comfortable margin, but the gap is narrowing, and in three months anything might happen. If the ‘Yes’ vote were to triumph the UK will probably see its standing in the world greatly reduced, and worse still, it will have to embark on an uncharted path of instability as it would try to adjust its foreign policy, its economy and its markets in line with its diminished status.

To complicate the situation further, Cameron is also promising an in/out referendum on the country’s EU membership by 2017 (he has even promised to hasten the process if Juncker is elected president of the Commission). When one considers that more than 70 per cent of the UK economy is linked to or dependent on the EU, one wonders how such rash decisions are taken by the political leaders of a once-great country. In the circumstances, one is entitled to ask: Are the short-term, personal and party’s electoral implications more important than the long-term implications on the country itself?

There is a strong chance (as the latest European parliamentary elections have shown in an unmistakable way) that UK voters, frustrated as they are by the persistent eurozone crisis, large migration from the EU poorer countries, entangled bureaucracy and other dominant issues, which strike a negative chord in the popular feeling, might be tempted to vote ‘out’.

This would surely further destabilise the country as it would start seeking over a period of long years to find new markets and investment to replace those lost by its quick exit from the EU. Most of all, would London, as one of the great financial centres of the world, survive such a cataclysmic change in so short a time? No doubt, Ukip leader Nigel Farage would, in the meantime, continue with his wide-grinning and beer drinking while the ship of state founders its way through its stormy path in turbulent seas.

Cameron’s campaign against Juncker is extremely risky and rests on a desperate personal political situation at home. If he succeeds, which is unlikely given the support Juncker already has from most national EU leaders of different political orientation as well as by the majority of the European Parliament, he will be praised by the eurosceptics at home and by a powerful section of the right-wing of the Conservative Party (the so-called ‘Little Englanders’), but will at the same time gain the permanent hostility of the EU leaders he needs most on his side to enable him to successfully present a reforming agenda for the EU based on his concept of lesser structures and decentralisation with a return of powers to member states.

If he fails to stop Juncker, as seems to be the case, he risks political oblivion. He would have made unnecessary enemies out of strong possible allies and would be depicted by his foes at home and abroad as a political lightweight while damaging the chances of Britain ever obtaining tangible reforms in the near and distant future.

It would be a long time before Britain could again win attention to its genuine complaints and find friends in Europe willing to give it support.