Seeing What Would Be Left

Ah, the "left-wing", "anti-business" EU, which is therefore so beloved of the CBI, a body that receives considerably less EU funding than Nigel Farage personally, never mind UKIP.

That is why candidates for the European Parliament in favour of withdrawal have been funded by the much-maligned RMT and endorsed by the Morning Star, whereas pro-EU campaigns are funded up to the hilt by BAE Systems, WPP, the London Stock Exchange, BT, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Europe, Bank of America, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas.

If any EU renegotiation were acceptable to David Cameron, then its terms would be disastrous for British workers and for the users of British public services, and would be unacceptable to Labour, to the Liberal Democrats at least if they were led by Tim Farron, to the SDLP, to Plaid Cymru, to Sylvia Hermon and to Caroline Lucas. How could that not be the case?

The DUP would be as opposed to those terms as it is to the EU in any event. The Conservatives would have no reason to assume the support of the UUP. Douglas Carswell speaks for himself. Even the SNP, Britain's nearest thing to a Continental-style party of the mainstream Right, would not support any deal that left the Common Fisheries Policy in place, as any deal agreed by several other EU member-states certainly would.

While the numbers have varied depending on which party has had more MPs at the given time, the proportions among Labour and Conservative MPs have not varied in a good 20 years. In each party, 10 per cent of MPs would prioritise immediate withdrawal from the EU, 10 per cent is scarcely less hostile than that, 20 per cent is also profoundly wary, 10 per cent would die for the EU, 10 per cent is scarcely less enthusiastic than that, 20 per cent is at least broadly supportive, and 20 per cent is indifferent or agnostic, sometimes on this issue, sometimes in relation to politics generally.

One in three Liberal Democrat activists has always had considerable reservations about the EU, even before the British terms of membership had been rewritten to suit Cameron. But he clearly assumes that his erstwhile Coalition partners will vote with him against his enemies in his own party, and that they will do so alongside Labour, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the SDLP, Lady Hermon, Dr Lucas, and possibly also the two Ulster Unionists.

That assumption is baseless. All the candidates for the Labour Leadership, for the Labour Deputy Leadership and for the Liberal Democrat Leadership need to state that fact frankly and forthwith, as should everyone else concerned.