James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron’s European moment has come – a year late

David Cameron should have given his big Europe speech a year ago. Having just threatened to veto a new EU treaty, he had proved that he was prepared to aggressively defend Britain’s interests, and he had reassured those in his party who worried he wasn’t really serious about Euroscepticism. An address delivered at that point, which was clear about his vision for Britain’s role in Europe but vague about how he intended to achieve it, would have received a fair wind. But there was no follow-up. The veto was left to stand on its own, unconnected to a broader European policy.

There were several reasons for this. The first is that Cameron has always been slow to take advantage of his successes; he has failed to grasp that no currency depreciates faster than political capital. His two greatest successes as Prime Minister, in purely political terms, have been his victory in the AV referendum and the veto threat. But in neither case did he use his success to advance his broader agenda.

When those close to Cameron urged him to use the veto moment to set out his European strategy more fully, he demurred. He argued that it had put such a stress on coalition relations — Nick Clegg went on television to denounce it and refused to attend the Commons statement on it — that the subject was best left alone. And Cameron was right to think that discussing Britain’s relationship with Europe was going to create tensions between the two coalition parties. But, as is clear today, such tension was always inevitable. The other explanation the Prime Minister gave for his reticence was that the rest of Europe wasn’t ready. He argued that following the veto with a referendum pledge would have simply infuriated the other European leaders and led them to rule out any kind of British renegotiation.

But perhaps the more significant reason was that no one in Downing Street was expecting the veto.

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