As the Jubilee celebrations draw to a close, attention once more returns to events in Europe. There’s a distinct sense among politicians, and especially coalition ministers, that what is happening there will change British politics in a huge way. As one senior MP said to me over the weekend, if a country leaves the Euro then the economic crisis that follows will reset the rules of the politics.
Measures that would have been deemed impossible six months ago will suddenly be on the cards. We’ve already seen a flash of this with Theresa May’s suggestion that the freedom of movement across the European Union could be suspended in the wake of a Eurozone break-up.
To my mind, the most important question in politics right now is whether David Cameron is ready for this moment. If it comes, will he be prepared to seize it to change the terms of political debate in this country? I suspect that it is on this, rather than on anything we have seen so far, that the fate of his premiership will turn.
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