If you wanted proof that Cameron has softened his stance towards Europe since the hard chill of December, then just look to the Lib Dems. Nick Clegg, unlike then, was sat next to the Prime Minister as he gave his statement to the Commons this afternoon. And the questions that followed from the likes of Menzies Campbell and Simon Hughes were generally warm and approving. Campbell started by, in his words, ‘praising the pragmatism of the PM’. Hughes celebrated a ‘more successful and satisfactory summit than the one in December’.
That praise, while friendly enough, creates obvious problems for Cameron — and it was those problems that Ed Miliband sought to exploit in his questions to the PM. The Labour leader’s basic inquiry was ‘what exactly have you vetoed?’ And he made it with more force and panache than he can normally muster. The Labour benches laughed as Miliband quoted Cameron’s past assertions about the use of EU institutions for the fiscal compact, and then laughed some more as he listed how those assertions have now been overturned. Ed Balls kept braying in the background, ‘what a joke’.
Cameron looked rattled, but he recovered some ground. His lifeline was Miliband’s own vacillation over Europe. Would the Labour leader have signed Britain up to this fiscal union? Or would he have put his eurosceptic-sounding rhetoric into action, and not? ‘He’s had 53 days to make up his mind,’ said Cameron, but the answer’s still not clear. Miliband did suggest that Britain’s interest would be better served by somehow, maybe, possibly, being more involved with the new treaty than we are. But it’s a much less clear position than Cameron’s own ‘We are not signing it, we are not part of it, we are not ratifying it, it doesn’t place any obligations on Britain…’ even after the softening exercises of the past few days.
Cameron was also helped, more or less, by his own backbenchers. There were a few awkward questions, of course, but they were from unsurprising quarters and were less fierce than they might have been. Bill Cash, for instance, didn’t attack the PM directly, but only asked whether we’re on a ‘slippery slope’ to a ‘more federal, more coercive’ Europe. Similarly, Bernard Jenkin chose to warn Cameron about the new fiscal union subverting the EU institutions against Britain’s interests. They’re not exactly happy, but they didn’t unleash their full anger this afternoon.
In sum, the political gains that Cameron made in December have probably been eroded by today’s theatre. But one sparkier performance from Ed Miliband is no substitute for clear policy. No amount of sparky performances ever will be.
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