The secret of David Cameron’s Europe strategy: he doesn’t have one

Shortly before the Conservative party conference last year, the head of the Fresh Start Group of Eurosceptic Conservative MPs went in to see the Prime Minister in Downing Street. The group had heard that David Cameron might make his big Europe speech at the gathering and its head, Andrea Leadsom, wanted to set out what to ask for in any renegotiation.

When Leadsom returned from the meeting, her colleagues were desperate to know what the PM had said: which powers did he most want returned from the EU? What would be the centrepiece of his great diplomatic effort? All Leadsom could do was repeat what Cameron had told her: ‘I don’t like shopping lists.’

This sums up Cameron’s attitude towards this renegotiation: announcing it is enough for the time being. When he eventually did make his big Europe speech in January, it contained nothing as clear as a shopping list. There was lots of hifalutin’ language but painfully little detail.

As any shopper can tell you, there’s a danger in heading out without writing down your list: you forget crucial items, buy stuff the family doesn’t need. But Cameron has a further problem. It’s not just that he doesn’t like shopping lists, it’s that he hasn’t even really got one.

When I asked his closest advisers what Cameron wants back from Europe, the reply was that it’d be ‘crazy to reveal our hand before we’ve played this game of European poker’. But when I pressed further, I received a franker answer: ‘That’s what we have to figure out.’ The leadership urges patience, saying that the negotiation position will be ‘described in greater detail come the manifesto’. But if Cameron is to stand a chance in this game of poker, he has to know what cards are in his hand and precisely which ones he needs to pick up.