What Cameron can do next

What now? That’s the question. This morning it looks not like 17 versus 10, but like 1 versus 26, which is a cold and lonely place for Britain to be. But it is also the right place to be. David Cameron asked for a little and got less. He had to act as he did and will reap the benefit electorally and among his MPs. Labour’s position is not just politically weak, but also unrealistic: it has been clear for weeks it was not possible to run a ‘periphery strategy’ as the 10 states outside the Euro have different incentives to Britain and different long-term aims. And the idea that the last Labour government had better links to the continent is laughable.

As I argued yesterday, Britain could have been less of a nuisance, George Osborne could have guarded his tongue, and the pull-out from the EPP cost the Tory leader more in the eyes of Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy than he realised at the time (though he was warned by many an ex-diplomat).