Europe

Why David Cameron can’t copy Harold Wilson on EU renegotiation

It’s at times like this I’m glad I’m not a Europhile. I imagine that Lord Lawson’s article in today’s Times is causing Brussels-lovers up and down the land a number of headaches this afternoon, not least because it is incredibly detailed and hard to find fault with: The EU’s desire for ‘ever-closer union’ is undiminished? Accurate. British businesses are being hindered by the EU’s daft regulations? Very true. We need to start looking beyond Europe for growth opportunities? Another tick. From a purely economic perspective, Lord Lawson’s argument is spot on. However, there is a political problem with Lawson’s article which I can’t seem to get my head around –

Isabel Hardman

European debate returns to Tory MP vs Tory MP

One of the inevitable consequences of Lord Lawson’s announcement that he’d vote ‘No’ in an EU referendum is that the ideological divides over Europe in the Tory party are starting to open up again. This lunchtime, two Conservative MPs debated one another on the issue, which must be confusing for the electorate, and also shows that it will be very difficult for any Tory leader to unite the party on the issue, even once the referendum has taken place. Margot James, a member of the new Number 10 policy board who also speaks for the pro-European Mainstream Conservatives on trade and investment, sparred with Bernard Jenkin, who isn’t just a

The Tory party holds its nerve – for now

The dust is settling from the County Council elections and, crucially, the Tory party seems to have stayed steady. Yes, David Davis has had a pop at the number of Old Etonians surrounding the PM and 20 MPs have called for a mandate referendum. But there is no sense of mass panic or revolt. Partly this is because David Cameron had already started doing the things he was going to be told to do after this result. As one Downing Street source remarks, ‘the shift is already well under way.’ He points to the tougher measures on immigration and welfare coming up in the Queen’s Speech and Number 10’s new

Brendan Simms: A strong, united Europe is in Britain’s interest

Since the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, European history has been dominated by two themes: the centrality of Germany and the primacy of foreign policy. This is the argument of Brendan Simms’ new book, Europe: the struggle for supremacy 1453 to the present. Simms is a professor of the History of International Relations at Cambridge University and his decidedly European focus has allowed him to craft a detailed yet expansive account in the style of Paul Kennedy’s Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. One afternoon we sat down at Penguin’s offices on the Strand to discuss these issues, as well as their relevance to the current European Union debate.

Don’t believe the hype: the French still live better than Americans

In recent months I’ve read at least ten articles about French malaise — all of it apparently due to some mysterious Gallic trait that makes the world’s luckiest people unable to make the best of things. Granted, unemployment is over 10 per cent, the Germans are again running Europe, and François Hollande’s ‘socialist’ government is coming apart at its hypocritical seams. But I don’t buy the thesis that the French are generally ‘miserable’, as Paris School of Economics professor Claudia Senik argued last month in the Financial Times. Indeed, I felt almost defiant as my wife and I boarded the Eurostar in London two weeks ago and headed off to

America, like Europe, is dishonest about Islamic extremism

I have been in the US over recent weeks, during the period of the Boston bombings and the hunt for the perpetrators. It may surprise some British readers to know that although American public debate is undoubtedly wider and more robust than in Britain, even America displays denial and deflection when it turns out that the culprits are radical Islamists. I think of this as ‘Toulouse syndrome.’ Much of the reaction to Boston is very reminiscent of what we saw last year after the shooting of seven people in France. From the first attacks on French soldiers until after the third shootings at a Jewish school, both national and international

Grant Shapps on the Tories and Thatcher

It is one of the paradoxes of modern British politics that in the post-war era the power and hold of political parties have declined and our system has become more presidential. But the two most electorally successful leaders of this era have both been deposed by their respective parties. This has created problems for both parties, as today’s Sunday Politics with Andrew Neil demonstrated. After John Reid had been on to discuss Tony Blair’s comments on Ed Miliband, Grant Shapps was up to be questioned on Margaret Thatcher’s legacy for the Tories. Shapps was reluctant to declare that the Tories are a Thatcherite party. Trying to suggest that it is

What Margaret Thatcher did for Eastern Europe

When Václav Havel first visited the United Kingdom as Czechoslovak President in March 1990, Margaret Thatcher hosted a dinner in his honour at 10 Downing Street. By then, Havel’s team, populated partly by chain-smoking dissidents, had been in active politics for only a couple of months. The Prime Minister did not hesitate to use the opportunity to coach the group of unlikely Czechoslovak leaders. ‘She was very direct in giving us advice about economic transition, about what we should and should not be doing,’ remembers Havel’s former press secretary, Michael Žantovský, who is currently serving as the Czech Ambassador in London. As last week’s street parties in Glasgow, Liverpool and

Mrs Thatcher goes to Brussels

‘Délégation Royaume Uni. Salle 4’ announces a scruffy piece of paper projected onto the black and white television screens of the Centre Charlemagne. The journalists hurry upstairs for the latest from Mr Bernard Ingham, Mrs Thatcher’s press secretary. Mr Ingham is not conspicuously communautaire. He tells us who spoke in the session — Mr Lubbers, Herr Kohl, Mrs Thatcher and ‘Mr Papandreou — I always call him Mr Papadopoulos’. A nodding acquaintance with recent Greek history would have made Mr Ingham realise that such a slip, though easier on the tongue, is as politically uncomfortable as calling M. Mitterrand ‘Marshal Pétain’. But then Mr Ingham is not paid to spread

Is Andrew Mitchell the right man for Britain in Europe?

It now looks almost certain that Andrew Mitchell will be our next EU Commissioner in 2014. The job was not advertised and the backroom selection process remains a mystery. In the wake of the Plebgate row, though, we can make an educated guess as to why, according to the FT, Downing Street has asked Mitchell ‘to consider’ the offer. This would be no ordinary consolation prize for Mitchell. Downing Street has big hopes for Mitchell in the role. Senior Whitehall sources indicate that Britain will be pushing hard for a big economic portfolio when the new commission is appointed next year. The aim is to make the case for financial

Should the United Kingdom become an independent country?

Last week, Alex Salmond announced the date for the referendum in Scotland, 18 September 2014. The question is phrased to his advantage. ‘Should Scotland become an independent country?’ it asks. This invites a romantic Yes. In sober, practical terms, the question really is ‘Should Scotland leave the United Kingdom?’ But perhaps we should welcome the wording for other reasons. If we ever get our promised referendum on the EU, the question should be ‘Should the United Kingdom become an independent country?’ This is extracted from Charles Moore’s ‘Notes’, in the forthcoming Spectator. The rest will be published tomorrow here, with the rest of his columns.

Angela Merkel’s domestic imperative

The Cyprus situation has demonstrated that until the elections in the autumn, Angela Merkel’s primary focus is on a domestic audience. She clearly wanted to show that Germany is now prepared to take a far tougher line. As Open Europe notes the need for this is fast becoming the consensus view in Germany. So, the question now for the Eurozone is will we see any more crunch moments this side of the German election? If we do, then I think we could see the end of the Euro. The Cypriot parliament’s rejection of the initial bailout deal, at the insistence of the voters, shows that there is a limit to

Tories who say that Cameron is making ‘no difference’ underline the coalition’s communications failure

You should take note when Benedict Brogan, an influential and widely sourced journalist who has been very close to the Cameron and Osborne operation over the years, writes of the fire-sale of Cameron shares. He says in today’s Telegraph that Cameron’s party view him as a ‘lame duck’ who makes ‘no difference’. This is an extraordinary claim for disaffected Tories to make. True: the economy is mired and the government has tied itself to only one course of action. There have also been disasters at the department of health; and energy policy ought to be giving Number 10 an enormous headache. But Cameron’s coalition is changing the landscape of education and

The European Empire

The EU’s decision to ignore its own rules and steal money directly from the pockets of the citizens of Cyprus is an important development in the history of an institution that long ago gave up any pretence of being a ‘Union’. It may as well rename itself the European Empire and be done with it. The impetus behind the EU was the prevention of war. So with the Athenian empire. After the Persian Wars (490-479 BC), the Greek city-states decided to form a defensive alliance to end for ever any renewed threat from that part of the world. Each Greek state therefore agreed to donate ships or cash to provide

Rod Liddle

So the Cypriots cop it for having fallen for the honeyed promises of the EU

I had forgotten about Cyprus. I suppose it was lodged somewhere near the back of my mind as a cheap British Mediterranean satrapy usefully divided into two: a southern bit, where our chavs went on holiday, and a northern bit where our criminals hide out from the filth. I was dimly aware that we had allowed them, some time ago, to go their own merry way and that since had followed a predictable descent into barbarism, yet another Ottoman invasion and some sort of coup effected by the useless Greeks. And that’s it, really. I know too that over the years Cyprus has been owned by almost everybody, from the

Martin Vander Weyer

In Cyprus as in Britain, the prudent must pay for others’ folly – but not like this

The Cypriots are the authors of their own misfortune, having turned their banking system into a rackety offshore haven for Russian loot and lent most of the proceeds to Greece. But it was madness on the part of bailout negotiators to shake confidence in banks across the eurozone by trying to impose a levy on deposits held by even the smallest Cypriot savers, in what was presumably an attempt to cream off a layer of ill-gotten foreign cash. And even if the proposal has been radically watered down by the end of the week, we now know the European powers-that-be are prepared to pull this device out of their toolbox

Isn’t Germany’s attitude towards Romania a little at odds with the EU project?

‘Can you imagine anything worse,’ a Hungarian once said to me, ‘than a Slav who thinks he’s Latin?’ He was referring to the Romanians, of course. There is a certain degree of tension in Romania between the ethnic Romanians, who run the place, and the ethnic Hungarians, who feel that they have been press-ganged into a chaotic and useless country and, worse, forced to learn a stupid language. The Hungarians hole up in the beautiful wilderness of Transylvania, yearning for the old empire and metaphorically spitting upon their political masters. But the enmity dissolves entirely when a third racial group is brought into the equation: the gypsies. There are many

Martin Vander Weyer

Europe’s cap on bankers’ pay is merely a harbinger of the Great Persecution to come

‘Possibly the most deluded measure to come from Europe since Diocletian tried to fix the price of groceries across the Roman Empire,’ was Boris Johnson’s assessment of the proposal to cap bankers’ bonuses at 100 per cent of base salary, or 200 per cent with shareholders’ approval. This blunt exercise in market interference was tabled by a committee of MEPs led by a British Lib Dem, Sharon Bowles (perhaps in revenge for the fact that she didn’t win the Bank of England governorship, for which she applied) as a condition of agreeing a new set of bank capital reforms. With the support of all member states other than the one

The Spectator’s Notes | 28 February 2013

On the BBC television news on Monday night, the first three items concerned alleged misbehaviour by the famous — Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Lord Rennard and Vicky Pryce, the ex-wife of the ex-Cabinet minister, Chris Huhne. I begin to wonder if an accidental revolution is in progress. There is no revolutionary political doctrine, just a wish to believe that anyone in any position of power or fame is corrupt and should be exposed. Sexual misbehaviour is probably the most fun way of doing this, but stuff about money or lying works too. In theory, we should welcome this. The accusations often turn out to be true. Power corrupts. But actually there

Why I love Beppe Grillo

‘Crazy Italians!’ you might think.  Offered the choice between Bunga Bunga Berlusconi, an ex-Communist and a Brussels stooge, one in four of them went and voted for a stand up comedian. Ever since Beppe Grillo’s shock success in the Italian elections, serious pundits in the mainstream media have been inviting us to disapprove. We are supposed to roll our eyes at the idea that Italians seem unwilling to accept austerity.  We are meant to tut tut at the failure of their democracy to produce a stable administration willing to take instruction from the Eurosystem. This only goes to show, imply the poobahs and the pundits, that Italian democracy is in crisis.