Europe

The morning after the government’s defeat on the EU budget, Nick Clegg has offered his own advice on the British negotiating position. The Deputy Prime Minister gave a speech to Chatham House in which he said that pushing for a real-terms cut in the budget – which is what 307 MPs including 53 Conservative rebels voted for last night – is ‘unrealistic’. Clegg framed his attack on this negotiating position by focusing on Labour rather than Tory MPs. He said: ‘Yet it was Labour who agreed to the last long-term EU budget settlement, which saw a major jump in EU spending and lost part of the UK’s rebate in exchange

When in 1996 the US Congress threw out Bill Clinton’s Federal budget they precipitated a partial shutdown of the US Government. However, anyone looking at the growing prospect of a UK EU budget veto and cheerfully imagining Eurocrats being shut out of their offices on 31 December 2013 will be disappointed. Because when it comes to EU budgets, a veto is not quite a veto – the EU will continue one way or another to claim its dues. Nethertheless, a UK veto is not meaningless. Not least because, as we have set out here, the scenarios that could play out after a UK veto may not be that much worse for

In The Spectator this week, Charles Moore argued that David Cameron — despite his oft-stated desire to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership — doesn’t actually have a European policy. Charles’ criticisms have clearly stung. For in his Telegraph column, he outlines what post-2015, the Conservatives would seek in any renegotiation: “In essence, the scheme is to turn the EU into two concentric rings. The inner ring shares the euro and undergoes political union. The outer ring avoids both these things and has a looser, trading membership grounded in national parliamentary sovereignty. You could say that this split already exists, in fact if not in theory, but the difference

Charles Moore’s biography of Margaret Thatcher promises to be the most important British political book in decades. Tonight, we got a preview of it when Charles delivered the Centre for Policy Studies’ second Margaret Thatcher lecture. The subject was Thatcher and Europe. I won’t say too much about it because we’re running a version of it in the coming issue of The Spectator. But one thing that Charles demonstrated was that even when Thatcher was campaigning for British membership of the European Community, as then was, she was never in favour of the European project. One of the other thing that Charles’s lecture brought out was the shift in the

Dr Liam Fox is no dummie so I’m not sure quite what he means when, as reported by Isabel, he told Tories gathered at a Carlton Club fringe event: What I want is to see us keeping faith with the British people and I want to see us having a slogan at the next election which says ‘Back to a Common Market’, back to an economic and trading relationship with Europe that parks all the political interference in the running of our economy, our workplace, our legal system and all the other things that we don’t like.’ How, pray, is this going to work? Dr Fox surely knows that much

Should UKIP do some sort of electoral deal with the Conservative Party? This is being talked about at the moment: Cameron pledges himself to a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, Nigel Farage agrees not to field candidates against a bunch of Tory MPs somehow characterised as Eurosceptic. I can see how this would appeal to the Prime Minister, languishing fifteen points behind Labour in the opinion polls. But what good will it do Farage? UKIP has spent a considerable amount of time and energy attempting to convince people that it is not a single issue party, but rather a sort of revamped Monday Club led by nicer people.

One of the areas Conservatives and Lib Dems are more than happy to distinguish themselves on is Europe, although the issue always gets far less attention at Lib Dem conference than it does at Conservative gatherings. A Conservative might find this odd: surely a party so wholeheartedly in favour of Britain remaining within the European Union would want to make the case for why Europe is so wonderful. Instead, senior figures today attacked Conservatives who want Britain to leave the European Union as ‘potty’. In a fringe this lunchtime, Lord Oakeshott told the audience that a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU was not necessary as the electorate could

As previewed on Coffee House last week, John Baron today launched his all-party group calling for an EU referendum. He has so far managed to bring more than 50 MPs on board, along with a good number of Labour MPs. DUP MPs will also attend. The first meeting will be on 16 October. Yesterday José Manuel Barroso gave momentum to the group’s calls for a vote on Britain’s membership of the EU by pushing for greater political union. He said: A deep and genuine economic and monetary union, a political union, with a coherent foreign and defence policy, means ultimately that the present European Union must evolve. Let’s not be

It’s an open secret in Eurosceptic circles that Nigel Farage has asked James Delingpole to consider standing for UKIP at the 2014 European elections. The prospect of Delingpole sitting on EU environmental committees is enough to chill the spine of even the most devoted pen pusher in Brussels. However, could we see his foray into politics begin even sooner? I was most amused when asked to sign the “Draft Delingpole” petition today. With the departure of Louise Mensch from the seat of Corby, Northants, an internet campaign has been launched to persuade the Spectator’s very own ranter to stand in the November by-election. Mr Steerpike isn’t going to hold his breath, but Delingpole looks

When you are not a part of the Tory tribe there are certain subjects you worry about mentioning as journalist, whether it’s at a Conservative Party conference, or indeed, on a blog for the Spectator. One is Europe, another is immigration and a third is multiculturalism. These three interlocking bogies drive the Tory grassroots and emerge, from time to time, to trouble the party leadership. The views of constituency activists on these issues (and people who like to comment on the Spectator site) can be fruity, but I have been talking to Tories for long enough to know that they can be genuinely passionate about this stuff. It was once

Leafing through a pile of Economists I’ve just caught up on a Bagehot column from last month which inadvertently demonstrates exactly where UKIP’s opponents go wrong. The very final lines of the piece explain: ‘Mr Farage’s real dream is to reshape Britain, by pulling the Conservatives to the right and bouncing Mr Cameron into a referendum on EU membership. If he pulls that off, his insurgency will be no laughing matter.’ It is what is assumed here, rather than what is said, that is most revealing. Why should the prospect of a consultation of the British people on their membership of the EU be so fearful? Surely it could only

It’s Euro-mania in SW1. Always reliable for hard hitting analysis, Tory foghorn Louise Mensch summed up what she saw as her party’s position on the EU: ‘We want a Diet Coke version. A skinny latte. An EasyJet ticket. An IKEA flat-pack. Pain, vin, Boursin. You know. Just the basics.’ And who said a referendum would dumb down a complicated issue? Those paid to walk the line are less happy though. One Tory spinner whispers to me: This ding-dong is almost as interesting as the tennis. Less civilised though…