That email in the Daily Mail and the EU Referendum - 1st October 2011

I deal with correspondence in two entirely different ways: letters get a formal reply; where most emails get a short informal and sometimes blunt answer. Every email does however, contain the following disclaimer:

‘This e-mail is confidential to the intended recipient. If you have received it in error, please notify the sender and delete it from your system. Any unauthorised use, disclosure, or copying is not permitted’.

So I was surprised to read one of my own emails published prominently in a national newspaper last week, and even more surprised that the paper didn’t contact me for a comment beforehand. The first I knew of it was when friends began to comment on the ‘churchillian’ picture that had accompanied the newspaper article.  Frankly, the story amounted to very little: a fellow had emailed me asking about the prospects of withdrawing from the EU, and I told him candidly that those who believed that this coalition government would expedite our escape from the EU were living in a world of complete illusion.

This was not intended as an insult, nor was it intended to indicate a policy preference on my own part. It was merely a statement of what I consider to be self evident fact. Irrespective of my own euro-scepticism (I campaigned, and voted to withdraw from the Common Market in 1975), and the increasingly euro-scepticism of the Tory Party, it is not Conservative policy to withdraw from the EU but rather to reform it and repatriate powers we previously gave away, and even if our policy were to withdraw, there would still be no parliamentary majority for it. As I said to my correspondent, the other party in this coalition government -the Lib/Dems- are the most euro-enthusiastic of all our political parties. Whether we like it or not, therefore, the notion of this coalition government withdrawing the UK from the EU is ‘for the birds’.

Whilst there are things I support and approve of, there is so much that I dislike about the EU it is hard to know quite where to begin. Do I still believe it is right to withdraw? The very question strikes me as absurd given that there is currently no political possibility of doing so. In any event, I do not believe this is the issue of the moment. Given the economic and financial difficulties that we face, I think it would be a huge distraction to invest the enormous effort, resources, and political will that would be required to successfully accomplish a satisfactory and advantageous withdrawal.

Should we have offered a referendum? I do not believe so. I recall losing the last one in 1975 despite starting the campaign with a two to one lead in the opinion polls for withdrawal. Were we to re-run it, I suspect the result would be the same again, irrespective of what the polls may now be saying. Where I believe our prosperity is threatened by developments in the EU, so many people still believe that our jobs would be at risk were we to withdraw -that would be the most powerful motivator in a referendum campaign.

People still email me to say that the PM, while Leader of the Opposition, gave a cast iron guarantee of a referendum on the EU constitution (the Lisbon Treaty). He did, but with the important condition that it was still un-ratified when - and if - a Conservative government was elected. Unfortunately that possibility was closed off months before the election when the Poles and Czechs, who had been holding out, finally ratified the Treaty. Of course, we could have simply said “stuff you! we’re going to hold our own referendum anyway” but, however tempting,  I believe we would have been daft to have done so. In effect, it would have become an ‘in’ or ‘out’ referendum, and the proposal to hold it would have dominated the general election campaign. People would have justifiably thought to themselves that we had collectively taken leave of our senses, that at a time of such economic difficulty, our main effort was to hold a referendum on the EU, as if that was the principal problem facing the Kingdom.