In charge of the Cabinet Office, so the story goes (and apparently finally made into the media in yesterday's News of the World, which is why I am bringing it up now).
Could Clarke sign up to the Tories EU policy? Of course. His views are in fact the Tories' EU policy, and always have been, even under Iain Duncan Smith. They are not the editorial position of the Mail and Telegraph newspapers, but that is not the same thing at all. Clarke voted against The Referendum That Was Never Going To Happen Anyway, but that was only ever a distraction, with Cameron never saying that he would campaign for a No vote.
Clarke and fellow referendum "rebel" John Gummer were the only two people to hold Ministerial office continuously from 1979 to 1997. Neither has ever run the slightest risk of deselection, not even now that they are both really quite old by the standards of today's politicians.
Indeed, the only Tory MP ever to be deselected because of his views on the EU was Sir George Gardiner, removed on account of his Euroscepticism. So not only is the Tory high command not even vaguely Eurosceptical (quite the reverse, in fact), but the same appears to be case of, such as there still is, the rank and file.
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Have you ever actually met a Tory?
ReplyDeleteIDS was quite clear that Britain should re-negotiate or pull out... or, in English, try to re-negotiate and then pull out for the simple reason that re-negotation is never going to happen.
Have the Tories ever met a Tory MP?
ReplyDeleteThey've only ever deselected one on the EU issue. George Gardiner, for opposing Maastricht.
They cheered Heseltine, Clarke, Gummer and Dorrell through the Nineties. If Cameron wins, then they'd better be used to cheer them all again.
And they will be. Indeed, they already are. Where is there the slightest concrete evidence against this?
Actually the Major Government's position on Maastricht led to the biggest split in the Tory Party (and contributed to its biggest General Election defeat) in over a century. "Cheered" is not quite the right word. (How many Socialists out there are "cheering" Gordon Brown's deceit over the European Constitution? I think the parallel is a worthy one.)
ReplyDeleteBy the time Blair was in the position that Cameron is in now he'd been completely converted to the European cause (probably thanks to the British American Project, of which Mandelson was also a member), having previously campaigned on a platform of unilateral withdrawal. Cameron has so far visited his MEPs in Brussells/Strasbourg once only, and on paper at any rate he's still committed to withdrawing them from the EPP (in defiance of John McCain, as it happens, though perhaps not of McCain's prospective Secretary of State John Bolton). OK, it's not much. But the Tory Party has consistently elected the most Euro-sceptic leader available every time it's been allowed to vote on the matter.
Ironically of course once the Constitution is in place "Europe" will to a certain extent no longer be a domestic political issue - for the simple reason that our domestic politicians will no longer have any real say over anything that goes on in this country.
"But the Tory Party has consistently elected the most Euro-sceptic leader available every time it's been allowed to vote on the matter."
ReplyDeleteNot last time, it didn't. Cameron is a creature of Michael Heseltine, a fully paid-up next generation member of the same upper-class Europhile mafia that got rid of Margaret Thatcher when she finally woke up and smelled the coffee.
(She, of course, owed her second and third terms to the direct intervention of the European Commission in the British electoral process, when it dispatched its very President to split the Labour Party and guarantee victory to the woman who signed the single biggest act of integration that there has ever been, or thereafter ever could be.)
The Tories have consistently selected and reselected diehard Europhile MPs (never mind MEPs). They gave Heseltine and Clarke rapturous standing ovations during the Major years, and they are now led by Heseltine's Vicar on Earth, who wants to put Clarke in his Cabinet.
Cameron won the last Tory leadership election partly on the back of his commitment to pulling his MEPs out of the EPP. It was the same Euro-sceptic policy as Iain Duncan Smith had when he was leader, and as such promptly ditched by Howard and frustrated by Hague (who had had no time for such a rightwing policy when he'd been leader).
ReplyDeleteI think you underestimate quite how little ideology Cameron and his people have if you think they're Euro-philes. In truth, if you think back to Cameron's leadership campaign you might recall that there were repeated smears
about him coming out of the Treasury. The Establishment just doesn't trust him not to rock the boat - or the Euro-gravy train.
David Davis on the other hand was and is a purely functional machine politician. He was John Major's Chief Whip during Maastricht and he's hated Iain Duncan Smith in particular and the Euro-sceptics in general ever since.
Certainly the perception of ordinary Tories (at least those that live in my house) was that on Europe and moral issues David Cameron was significantly to the right of his opponent. Even given the disappointments of his leadership so far I think that is unarguable.