A Pint of Bitter: Eurotreason and plot!

I celebrated Halloween at one of my local cinemas, the excellent Lexi in Kensal Rise (where they also occasionally broadcast opera live from the New York Met; I had to miss Turandot last Saturday, unfortunately). The film was Dracula – Prince of Darkness, an outstanding piece of vintage schlock horror from the legendary Hammer film studios. An appropriately scary time was had by all, but I didn’t win the outfit competition, unfortunately, and red wine had to do for blood. Notice, though, how the English tourists in this film venture naively into the mitteleuropäisch unknown, only to meet their doom. Less than week later on 5 November, bonfires raged in London and fireworks cracked, to celebrate the torture and execution in 1606 of the traitor Guy Fawkes – an Englishman trained in Europe in the use of explosives, who as everyone knows tried to blow up Parliament. I know of no reason why that treason should ever be forgot. Take that film, and that date, and you begin to understand the horror all things continental can inspire in these islands. Europe, to some, is inherently a plot against Britain: who ventures there is a goner; who returns, a traitor.

The Sutton Arms, Clerkenwell

Which is why David Cameron’s change of policy on Europe, announced on the evening of November 4th, was such a dangerous move, and why he’s ended up, extraordinarily, being compared to the notorious Nazi collaborators Quisling and Marshal Pétain.

Europe has long been a fault-line in British politics, especially in the Conservative Party – John Major’s government was seriously undermined by some of his own backbenchers who thought he’d given too much power to Brussels in the Treaty of Maastricht in 1991. Another Treaty, another Tory leader on the rack. The ill-advised European Constitution aimed to reform EU institutions and create the post of “President of Europe” – a job Tony Blair has been linked with – but was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. But undead, like Dracula it rose from the grave as the Treaty of Lisbon, with much of the same content. Tony Blair had promised the British people a referendum on the Constitution; Gordon Brown decided not to hold one on the Lisbon Treaty, a decision blasted by Conservative leader David Cameron who made a “cast-iron guarantee” that he’d hold one. Finally, after numerous to-ings and fro-ings, in the heart of Europe Czech President Vaclav Klaus was last week the final European leader to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, which will come into force by the end of this year.

On which news, David Cameron has said that, if elected Prime Minister next year, he will not, after all, give voters a referendum:

The Lisbon Treaty has now been ratified by every one of the twenty seven member states of the European Union, and our campaign for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is therefore over.
Why? Because it is no longer a Treaty: it is being incorporated into the law of the European Union.

What Cameron did promise, though, was first, that under him, never again would power be transferred to the EU without a referendum; second, he’d bring in a “National Sovereignty Act” to “make it clear that ultimate authority stays in this country” and thirdly, that he’d negotiate the transfer of power of social and employment policy back from Europe to Britain.

The Churchill Arms - Ian Varley, Creative Commons

This is a key moment in Cameron’s campaign to win power for the Conservatives. The new policy remains a radical one in truth: to secure an opt-out from European social law would be an important retreat by the UK from its engagement with the EU, and a major setback for European integration. It isn’t easy to see how he can successfully negotiate it without seriously undermining the UK’s membership. Yet the fury of his own supporters who wanted to see a referendum come what may shows the potential this issue has to destroy him and his government if he’s in Downing Street next year.

He’s absolutely right: a referendum now would be utterly pointless. The UK has now ratified this Treaty and cannot simply opt out of it now the whole EU will be based on it. That would be to leave the EU, which has never been his policy (though it is, openly or secretly, that of some of his Tory detractors). But that cuts no ice with hard-line Eurosceptics among his own ranks, who want a referendum – any sort of referendum – regardless. Talk of a referendum is just a sort of code, though. What the backlash against Cameron shows is that many of his own supporters are utterly committed to the “Eurosceptic” cause and his premiership, if it happens, will be just as troubled by them as John Major’s was. The slightest failure to “stand up to” the EU will lead to accusations that he’s been bitten by the bloodsucking vampires of Brussels, and calls for him to be hung, drawn and quartered.

The Waterman's Arms, Richmond

Drinking? I was outside the Sutton Arms in Clerkenwell, which is definitely the best part of this decent but overamplified pub. I also drank in the excellent and utterly untraitorlike Churchill Arms, an Irish-run pub in Notting Hill that’s as British as could be, and where the Red Fox autumn ale is outstanding. And finally I was in another good Irish pub, the Waterman’s Arms in Richmond, drinking Youngs Winter Warmer.

Author Info - I'm a former lawyer turned blogger and writer. I live in London. Read more from this author