Cameron postponed a landmark speech on Europe, due to have been delivered in Amsterdam last Friday, because of a hostage crisis in Algeria, but he had already disclosed the thrust of his plan to try to change London's relationship with the EU.
Extracts from the undelivered speech released by his office show he planned to say Britain would "drift towards the exit" unless the EU reformed itself. That sounded reminiscent of a 1930s British newspaper headline: "Fog in the Channel, the continent cut off".
The excerpts did not mention a referendum, which Cameron has indicated he would hold later in the decade after negotiating a "new settlement" with Europe.
His strategy is bound to open a prolonged period of uncertainty in which events could put his preferred option -- a looser version of full British membership -- out of reach.
Britain has renegotiated its terms twice since it joined the European Economic Community in 1973, yet it remains a reluctant, semi-detached and often obstructive member.
Another serious risk is that public expectations of change in Britain's EU membership terms grow unrealistically high and the deal that Cameron is able to negotiate is dismissed by Eurosceptical politicians and media as a sham or a joke.
Even if none of these landmines is detonated, there remains the strong possibility that voters given the first choice in a generation to vote "no" to the European Union choose to do so.
Experience with referendums in France, the Netherlands and Ireland shows voters may cast a protest vote against an unpopular government, or simply express a general dislike of Europe, regardless of the question they are asked.
Read more: Analysis: Cameron leading Britain into minefield on EU | Reuters
No comments:
Post a Comment