The Tories and Europe. Still spooked

Date: 10/06/06

David Cameron's European problem has not gone away

THE Tories have what a psychoanalyst might term a destructive relationship with Euroscepticism. Hostility to the European Union (EU) is still a powerful passion for many of them. But once let loose, it tends to damage the party. So most Conservatives have been happy to ignore Europe as David Cameron has set about making the party electable again. There is little pressure from voters for the party to come up with new ideas about Europe either. And yet the Tories are in the midst of trying to implement a new policy that, if successful, would irritate their allies among other centre-right parties in Europe and also split their own members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, reiterated the plan in a speech on June 7th. He had some rather unTory praise for the European Commission's efforts to support the single market, and for the EU's foreign-policy success in expanding to take in its eastern neighbours. Admittedly, he also attacked those who think that integration is the answer to Europe's woes; he insisted that the EU constitution was dead; and he proposed a transatlantic free-trade area, which sounds rather too pro-American for some Europeans. But he ruled out even considering withdrawal from the union. And, in the bit that most Tory insiders paid heed to, he insisted yet again on the case for forming a new group in the European Parliament.

This insistence reflects one of the few clear promises Mr Cameron made when running for the party leadership: to quit the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), an alliance that forms the biggest block in the European Parliament. Mr Cameron made this pledge in a bid to win over Eurosceptics at a time when he was trailing David Davis in the leadership race. But his view seems to be deeply held: students of his past say he was a dissenter when the Tories joined the EPP in 1992, and that his period working in the Treasury at the time when the pound was ejected from Europe's exchange-rate mechanism instilled a hearty suspicion of all pan-European schemes. But the pledge to quit the EPP has since become a burden.

Mr Cameron has clarity on his side. The EPP favours closer European integration, which the Tories certainly do not. Mr Cameron thinks the party should not say one thing in Westminster and another in Brussels, so leaving the block is the logical option. Yet there are compelling reasons not to take it. Membership of the EPP has won Tory MEPs a vice-chairmanship of the alliance, more speaking time in debates and several influential posts on parliamentary committees. Nor has it constrained them in any way from campaigning against the EU constitution. Leaving could result in Tory MEPs sitting with some peculiar xenophobic oddballs from the Czech Republic or Poland. Of the 26-strong group of Tory MEPs, a majority want to stay. Some may even be ready to risk losing the party whip to remain. As if that were not enough, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has written to Mr Cameron urging him to stay in the EPP. Even John McCain, an American senator whom many Tories admire, has counselled against leaving.

Mr Hague is still trying to negotiate a new alliance with some central European MEPs. But it is proving a lot harder than expected--which may be why he barely referred to the subject in his speech this week. Few other mainstream centre-right parties are ready to leave the EPP solely to save Mr Cameron's blushes.