18/10/2014
There is a certain amount of excitement about the resurrection of the Referendum Bill, which successfully completed its second reading yesterday. However, if one recalls the first attempt, we are reminded that the Bill is Mr Cameron's attempt to by-pass the collalition block, and add legislative clothes to his referendum promise.
One is wearied by these games, but at least this attempt has the merit of prompting a "hostile speech" from our now foreign secreaty, Philip Hammond, leading the
Guardian to suggest it was "one of the most hostile speeches by a British cabinet minister about the EU".
The Conservative party is "lighting a fire" under the European Union by pledging to hold an in/out referendum on British membership by the end of 2017, Hammond says, trying to tell us that it was a "very powerful weapon in our armoury" as the prime minister, David Cameron sought to renegotiate the UK's membership terms.
This appears to put the Conservative strategy in perspective â Cameon wants the referendum threat as "leverage" to get a better (or any) deal out of the "colleagues". This he needs to save face, and put up some sort of show which stands him up as a euro-basher.
It is all so predicatable that it becomes boring. We need to cut to the chase, getting the election out of the way and a referendum on the stocks â or not. Then Mr Cameron can go through his little charade of a pretend negotiation, and we can get on with it.
Meanwhile, we are told that Downing Street is not denying that Michael Gove, the chief whip, has suggested to Tory MPs that the government might be willing to set aside the European arrest warrant. Britain is due to opt out of 133 EU justice and home affairs issues before immediately opting back into 35 of the measures, including the European arrest warrant, by 1 December.
A vote is due to be held to approve the changes. But Gove has been told by his back bench that Mr Cameron will face a rebellion if his MPs are asked to approve continued British participation in the European Arrest Warrant (EAW).
These are more games. If we don't have the EAW then we go without a procedure and have to adopt another, which means the government has to pull a rabbit out of the hat in order to get wanted criminals back here.
All of this, of course, is tied in with the opt-ins that we had a look at
a little while ago - another piece of theatre that we have to put up, because our government can't get to grips with the issues.
Hammond, though, doesn't cut it. He told the Commons that "radical change" would have to be introduced to persuade him to support continued EU membership. "No change is not an option", he says. "The
status quo in Europe is not in Britain's interests, or in the interests of anyone in Europe".
Thus we get the dreary litany. "What most of us want to see is a radically reformed Europe", he says. This is:
⦠a Europe where powers flow from Brussels back to the nations, not the other way round; a Europe of cooperating nations, not a European superstate; a Europe of open markets and free trade arrangements with the world beyond; a Europe that can out-compete the best in the world, without red tape and regulation weighing it down. But most of all we want to see a Europe on which the British people have had their say.
I can't even be bothered to make the usual joke about pigs lining up on the runway at Heathrow. This was not a "hostile speech" â it was the usual masquerade, dressed up to look as if the Conservatives are going somewhere. I wish they'd stop the pretence and get on with it. The games are convincing no one.
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