Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

There is only one question that frightens Brussels

So David Cameron will let it rest there after all.  And in fairness to him, he can do nothing else. Thanks to the Blair/Brown stitch up, Britain has no options left. It never did. Cameron knows that and today’s speech was just a longwinded way of saying it. He is right not to promise what he calls a “made-up referendum”, that would accomplish nothing other then vent rage. But nor should he kid us all that he is going to renegotiate some powers back from Brussels. That would need the unanimous approval of all other member states, and it would never be granted. If Britain were to repatriate powers, then who would ask next? Where would it stop? The post-Lisbon EU is more powerful, bullying (as we saw with Ireland and Czechs) and it will refuse any request Cameron makes.
 
Not that he will make it very loudly.  The package he laid out today will scare precisely no one in Brussels. William Hague’s ‘European Policy Committee’ sounds like the sound of an issue being kicked into the long grass. I like the idea of ‘British guarantees’ that would be attached to the Croatian accession treaty – but, in reality, Britain is not going to play hardball and veto the Croats. We’re in favour of EU enlargement and Cameron would not keep the Croats out, unless he made a truly meaningless set of demands.
 
Cameron has promised a ‘never again’ guarantee that Britain will — like Ireland — have a referendum on any other major shift of powers to the EU, such as the adoption of a single currency. But the whole point of Lisbon is that it is a self-amending treaty: it will allow the EU to take on more powers without such referenda. There is, alas, no need for a ‘referendum lock’, much as I applaud the sentiment.



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