This autumn, Europe could become the most important issue in British politics again

Europe will be one of the political issues of the autumn. The government expects another round of sovereign debt crises in the autumn and these will add urgency to the Merkel Sarkozy plan for ever closer fiscal union between the eurozone members.

Nearly every Tory MP and minister I have spoken to is instinctively sceptical of the Franco-German strategy. But Cameron, Osborne and Hague believe that because the Eurozone members won’t accept the break-up of the currency union, Britain has to back further fiscal integration in the hope that it will make the euro work. (Cynically, one might add that their position also makes life easier within the coalition given the Lib Dem’s Europhile leanings.) They hope to make the Tory party go along with this strategy by promising to use the moment to repatriate powers.

This is where things get tricky.