How the Tories can still win in Europe

A week after David Cameron ruled out a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, hardly a squeak of protest has been heard from Eurosceptics in his party. It’s not because they have accepted defeat, says Fraser Nelson, but because they are deadly serious about victory

Anyone who believed last week’s talk of the death of Tory Euroscepticism should have booked a table at Bellamy’s restaurant in Mayfair on Monday. There, the No Turning Back group of Tories had gathered to discuss tactics, and how to continue the fight after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. They had also come to discuss what to make of David Cameron’s new European agenda. Was it sincere, or a decoy? Should they press for a referendum? And at what stage should they start rocking the boat of the Tory leadership?

The dinner table was divided. Half suspected that Mr Cameron’s new European policy had such a long deadline — negotiate opt-outs in five years’ time — that it intended to bury the agenda altogether. But the other half of the table scented victory. Mr Cameron had given considerable concessions, they said, and had promised a referendum if the EU took another step towards federalism — as well it might. Surely they could look forward to the most robustly Eurosceptic manifesto in the Conservatives’ history? Surely this was a night for champagne?

By the end of dinner, it had been agreed that it was time to rethink Euroscepticism and switch tactics. The methods of the last few years — pressing for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty — had failed. To have a referendum anyway would be like throwing pebbles against the advancing battleship of European federalism. The real aim must be to repel the vessel — or sink it outright. And one needs torpedoes, rather than stones, to do that.