Global Europe

These days there is only one EU question in Britain: what kind of European policy will David Cameron pursue if the Conservatives, as widely expected, win power in the forthcoming general elections? The Tory leader will likely follow the policy he laid out in his last EU speech, i.e. throw anti-EU bones to his party, ask for some "repatriation" of power from the EU, but otherwise follow a skeptical-but-pragmatic line.

So it may be worth asking another question: what would such a policy do for Britain's EU debate long-term? Will the issue emerge as a dividing line after the election, with Labour and the Liberal Democrats making their pro-EU position an election issue? Or would a Conservative term in office change the nature of Britain’s EU debate more fundamentally, making greater skepticism the norm across the three main parties?  

Lasting victories belong to those who not only succeed in promoting their policies, but who shift political paradigms. Think of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Politics was never quite the same after their elections. Monetarism was in, Keynesianism out. The same can be said of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, whose triangulation strategy pushed the left towards free-market capitalism and hard-nosed security policy. David Cameron is hoping to pull off a similar feat, not only domestically -- where his focus is on giving away state power --, but also when it comes to EU affairs -- where he will want to repatriate state power.  

Though David Cameron is often accused, by friends and foes alike, of being bereft of true beliefs, it’s in his push for localism and a ‘post-bureaucratic' polity, where more power is taken away from Westminster and Brussels and handed to citizens and local bodies, where he comes closest to having an ideology. He will want to entrench this worldview.

Is he likely to succeed? The key is how the vote ends up. If the Conservatives win an outright majority, then it will come down to two other issues.  

First, how a Prime Minister Cameron deals with his EU counterparts on issues such as the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty and Europe’s economy –- where the Conservatives are out of synch with most continental parties -– as well as how inclined towards the new British leader the likes of Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel will be. Too anti-EU a line could mean Britain getting blocked on a number of key issues and a Conservative government looking incompetent abroad.

The second issue will be who a vanquished Labour party chooses its next leader. For British Conservatives, there are no two ways about it: Labour is blindly pro-European. But the truth is more complex. Though Neil Kinnock was instinctively pro-EU and Tony Blair, pragmatic in all matters, saw the utility of a pro-EU stance, Gordon Brown is only a recent convert. The party itself is divided with many backbench MPs and rank-and-file skeptical.

Should he become leader, current Foreign secretary David Miliband is likely to want to make the EU an issue of division between an opposition Labour party and a Conservative government. But Miliband is not particularly popular among the party faithful or the Labour parliamentary party.  

Assuming that Gordon Brown steps down after having lost the election, any candidate needs to secure the backing of 12.5 percent of Labour MPs before they can put themselves forward. Then the decision lies with an electoral college split equally three ways between the Labour MPs and the Labour MEPs, all party members and members of affiliated trade unions who have not opted out of paying a political levy.  

Many analysts believe the foreign secretary would have a tough time getting over these hurdles. His brother, Ed Miliband, is thought to have a better chance. In either case, Labour is likely to remain pro-EU and use this difference with the Tories actively. But the remaining contenders -- Alan Johnson, Jon Cruddas, Andy Burnham, and James Purnell –- are with the exception of latter, not known for particularly pro-European views. Under any of these, a Labour party may become less focused on EU issues.  

This scenario, however, assumes the Tories would win an outright majority. But the bookmakers have already cut their odds on a hung Parliament from 5/2 to 9/4. As a result, both Gordon Brown and David Cameron have made overtures to the Liberal Democrats.

In the event of a hung parliament, Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, would have to decide whether to support a Tory minority government that has many ideological differences with his party, or to prop up a Labour administration that has squandered a handsome majority. Though the party rank-and-file would struggle with a Con-Lib coalition, propping up a government that has lost an election is probably even more unlikely.  

Whatever the outcome, the Lib Dem leader is likely to want key concessions on the economy, constitutional reform and –- as the most pro-EU of the main parties –- on EU affairs. In the case of a Con-Lib pact, whether as a formal coalition or with the smaller party supporting a Conservative minority government in Parliament, it is likely that the Conservatives will have to tone down their anti-EU stance, however painful for the party’s anti-EU right-wingers and therefore difficult for David Cameron.  

As things stand, the Conservatives are likely to win the next election. But even if they do -- how this will affect the state of Britain’s EU debate, and therefore its long-term policy, is far from certain.