25/08/2015
The referendum scenario on which we are currently working has been with us for a little while. It rests with Mr Cameron coming back from Brussels having renegotiated a new relationship with the EU Member States, parading it as a triumph which will enable the nation to vote "yes" at the polls.
In reality, this will be little more than a rebranding exercise. The "core states" in the eurozone will take the next major step forward in integration, with a new treaty that defines only them as full members. The rest of the members, with perhaps a few small concessions to their new status, become defined as "associate members", partaking in only the current EU policies.
For this to work, though, it is absolutely vital that Mr Cameron is able to present this new relationship as all his own work â rather than
something pre-ordained as a means of defusing the so-called "British question". And now, it would seem, that process has begun with an authored piece in the
Telegraph by Tory placeman Matthew Sinclair, formerly of the Taxpayers' Alliance, written with arch Europhile Andrew Lilico.
Carefully tuning in to the general cynicism over any result that the Prime Minister may bring back, the Sinclair duo prime their pump by telling us that Mr Cameron might yet surprise us. The "renegotiation" is still likely to produce "an important result".
At this point, the scribes could simply reveal the goods, telling us that the outcome is already done and dusted, but this is not the game. Instead of admitting that this is "associate membership", it is disguised as "a permanent place for EU members with no interest in joining the euro". And it will have been created by David Cameron.
Given that is the end game, one has to smile at the elaborate camouflage which Sinclair plasters over this bare hulk, yet how transparent it remains.
Further disguising the hulk depends on us buying Sinclair's line that it is becoming increasingly awkward to be in the EU but not the common currency. The eurozone economies, he and Lilico say, are emerging from a deep crisis and the politicians who really matter believe avoiding another crisis will require much greater control over financial markets (which affect us as they are concentrated in London, by far Europe's largest financial centre) and much deeper integration.
In other words, there is going to be a new treaty. That's what "greater control over financial markets ... and much deeper integration" really means.
But if you can call the camouflage applied so far the base coat, the next layer comes with Sinclair telling us that the UK has responded in a different way to the financial crisis, preferring to empower market forces and strengthen oversight instead of extending the scope of regulatory control. This, of course, is moonshine â the UK has been every bit as involved in the regulation game as the rest of the EU Member States, but the image outlines have to be blurred.
That serves the purpose in creating the foundation for the next key step: "We also have little interest in greater integration designed to bolster the eurozone", say the Sinclair duo, who then quickly move to paint a dismal picture of a "shrinking non-eurozone minority", where "we will be overruled".
Their bottom line is that we can't become full members in the new treaty, and the
status quo is not acceptable. But to get to this point, we have to wade through an amount of padding. Soon enough, though, we get to the payoff. "If David Cameronâs renegotiation is going to have bite", we are told, "he needs to ensure there is a permanent bloc of non-eurozone member states".
This bloc will be comprised of the "associate members". Somewhat disingenuously, Sinclair and Lilico tell us that creating this "may just be possible". Not for nothing did we call the European Union "The Great Deception" â it "may just be possible". Yeah, right! It has to be couched in these terms of course. This cannot be a walk-over for Mr Cameron. He has to work for his "victory" - if it was a slam-dunk, his people might smell a rat.
The key, says Sinclair, "is to get the EU to drop its insistence that the euro is its official currency". He adds:
New members wouldn't then have to commit to joining the eurozone and all of the current non-eurozone member states could be offered permanent non-eurozone status pending a specific application to join. If they want to join in the future, that is their prerogative, but there should be no requirement for them to do so. That way the non-eurozone population might stabilise at a third to a half of the EU population, enough that it could hold its own against all but the most determined eurozone bloc vote under qualified majority voting.
That this is something that is already written into the Bertelsmann/Spinelli scenario is not something that Sinclair would have us know. For all we know, he hasn't been told it's in the script â not that it matters. What's important is that great British public aren't told - that they don't realise they're being taken to the cleaners.
However, the cat's already out of the bag, even if that doesn't stop Sinclair dressing it up further. This he does with the message that this is a "looser relationship" â and so much better if Poland, Denmark and Sweden join us. Another plus, says Sinclair, might be if Norway also decided that the new non-eurozone member state status would be better than its current half-in, half-out engagement with the EU. There goes the EEA, just as we predicted
So there it is, all laid out - associate membership by any other name. Describing is as a "looser relationship" is all part of the camouflage - the narrative of deception that is necessary to prepare the ground for Mr Cameron's forthcoming victory.
It's good that we see the briefing starting so early â confirming that the real battlefield is going to be about "relationships". This, after all, is what Mr Cameron promised us in his
Bloomberg speech way back in January 2013. "I want the European Union to be a success. And I want a relationship between Britain and the EU that keeps us in it", he told us. The Bertelsmann "associate membership" is it.
Matthew Sinclair and Andrew Lilico now wants to repackage this and sell it to us disguised as "a sustainable and acceptable form of non-euro EU membership". Cameron "just needs to deliver it", he says. The truth, though, is that it has already has been delivered. They're simply working on the gift wrapping. That's what they are doing, and there'll be many more like him, plastering on the camouflage in the form of pretty packaging and blue ribbon.
That leaves us clear about our job: to tell it like it is.
