David Cameron said yesterday that he would campaign “heart and soul” for Britain to remain in the EU. Yet Edward Heath and Geoffrey Howe, two departed Conservative Party grandees, are probably still turning in their graves.
As if they didn’t have to fight hard enough to keep Britain in the EU the last time it held a referendum over whether to remain in some 40 years ago, the country will now be going down that road again.
For Mr Heath, the prime minister who led the UK into Europe, this would have been a particularly painful experience. Not only was he passionate about the European ideal, and completely at odds with how his party became so anti once his nemesis Margaret Thatcher deposed him as Conservative Party leader, but he would have been acutely aware that there is a very real risk this time round of being on the losing end.
For Mr Howe, the former foreign secretary, a sense of irony would have been riddled with sadness. He resigned from Mrs Thatcher’s government just days after she made her infamous “no, no, no” speech in reaction to Jacques Delors’ proposals envisaging closer union; and, after making a devastating speech that tore her to shreds in the House of Commons, effectively ended her reign as party leader and prime minister.
The Conservative Party has been odds over Europe ever since, and was excluded from the corridors of power for 13 long years as it indulged in fractious infighting over the issue while the British people enjoyed the benefits of membership. Such was the public’s lack of confidence in the party, that even when Mr Cameron became prime minister for the first time in 2010, it was as part of a coalition.
Undoubtedly the situation has changed. The eurozone, buoyant until the financial crash of 2008, nosedived as Europe failed to react quickly enough to the crisis. In the meantime, the economies of the UK and the US showed quicker signs of recovery, allowing Eurosceptics to crow about the benefits of staying out.
But a more pressing reality has come to the fore: which is that the natural majority in the UK in favour of the EU is in danger of turning. This is largely due to migration. A Europe-wide problem it may be, but whereas the continent has had to face an influx from African countries and Syria, in Britain it is the free-moving Eastern Europeans, now members of the EU (partly thanks to the UK’s support), that have become the major issue.
Mr Cameron is not among the most Eurosceptic in his party, but he has been sitting on a political time bomb: do nothing, and risk being washed away by an anti-EU tidal wave generated by rabid Tories, UKIP and influential sections of the (misinforming) press; or run the gauntlet and hope everything will be all right on the night.
Securing a deal at the summit was crucial. The EU without Britain is unthinkable; but equally, Britain without the EU is likely to be something of an isolated mess. Businesses in particular, large and small, could suffer dire consequences if they are not able to access the huge 500-million-person market currently at their disposal.
Mrs Thatcher huffed and puffed at Europe. But, even if it’s because she ran out of time, she never blew the house down. The problem for Mr Cameron is that if he gets into a situation where the British people do that, there will be no Heath or Howe to put it back up again. It is likely to remain in tatters.