Lord Lawson’s announcement that he intends to vote for Britain to leave the European Union has been interpreted by some as reinforcing demands that David Cameron holds his referendum this year or next, rather than 2017. But it does no such thing. Follow Lawson’s arguments and the logical conclusion is that the best chance of securing a British exit from the EU is for a vote to be held as planned, in four years’ time.
As the Prime Minister has said in a letter to MPs, he is powerless to bring in a vote while in coalition because the Liberal Democrats are so vehemently against it. Nick Clegg’s commitment to the Euro project is such that he would not allow it to be threatened by giving the public a say. But the Prime Minister’s strategy is a sound one anyway, and not only because he will need all the reasons he can muster to encourage people to vote Tory in 2015.
Even if it were politically possible to bring forward the date of the referendum, the fag-end of the current parliament would be a rotten time to hold it, giving little time to enact the legislation which would fulfil the demands of a public mandate to leave the EU. This momentous event ought not to be rushed. And the public’s mood is fairly settled: for some time now the European Commission’s own opinion polling has found the British the most reluctant members of the union. Just one in six of us have favourable impressions towards the EU; even the Greeks like it better.
There is a limit to the time any democracy can be kept in a union against the will of its people. David Cameron is simply trying to renegotiate membership terms to a position that the British public find acceptable.
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