Malcolm Blair Robinson

Cameron: The Speech At Last

January 24, 2013 By Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Only one thing is for certain about David Cameron’s speech. He would never have made it at this time but for the divisions in his own party. Everything else is unclear. What changes does he actually want? Will the other members agree to real negotiations or just offer a fig leaf to mask Cameron’s difficulties. Will this declaration now help or hinder business, slow or boost the recovery? What is the future shape of Europe likely to be anyway and which parts do we not like? Might this uncertainty push the Scots to vote for independence and their own Euro membership? Will the Tories be given the chance or will they lose power anyway in 2015?

Having poured all that cold water over his effort, this blog acknowledges that it was a courageous speech, well argued and delivered. It was crafted  to appease his rebels, outflank UKIP and appeal to frustrated English nationalism. There was a message for Europe; part reason, part conciliation, part threat; but in the end what is all this about?

Only a fool can doubt the historic success of the European Union. Hundreds of years of wars and bloodshed climaxed in the twentieth century with slaughter on an unimagined scale. The EU is a massive political success and if peace saves lives, but at the price of piffling regulations about trivia, who would argue blood spilling is better? Why is Britain always moaning?

Simply put Britain is an island, not physically a part of the European continent and does not see itself as European, nor has it ever done so. It has historically harboured very little appetite for European conquest beyond the fall-out from the French connection of the Plantagenets. Its ambitions lay in building an empire based on commerce and trade across the rest of the world. It engaged in Europe to support the weakest against the dominant power of the hour, whether France, Germany or Spain, or the political outreach of the Roman Catholic Church. It saw itself as a neighbour who had a right to intervene if stuff happened next door, which it judged to threaten its interests. Europe has for long recognised in Britain a neighbour of whom account must be taken and from whom, in a crisis, aid will be sent forth. No power has won a war in Europe when its enemies included Britain.

Now Britain has no empire, its wealth is much depleted, yet its voice continues to ring shrill in the world narrative of human affairs. The question raised by Cameron’s speech is not so much whether Britain wishes to stay in Europe. It is actually more whether Europe wishes Britain to remain. This question, Europe, convulsed by the trauma of sorting out the euro, cannot at present answer, because it does not yet know what its own federalised shape will be, when and if the currency is secured. When the moment comes to choose, it will see it in a stark and scary terms; accept the counterweight of Britain and her nagging, or accept the reality of German domination  of a Europe without her. On that will depend whether Cameron, if the British electorate give him the chance, negotiates his way to a worthy prize or a doleful fig leaf.

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