The Czechs have told the EU today that they intend to ratify the Lisbon Treaty by the end of the year. A collective sigh must be doing the rounds in Brussels that the interim Czech government and its sovereignty-loving President, Vaclav Klaus will ratify the Treaty before Gordon Brown is kicked out of office and replaced by the Lisbon-loathing David Cameron.
Brussels should not be so cocky. Although David Cameron looks unlikely to hold a post-ratification referendum on Lisbon, he has already said that “matters can not rest there”. He is now promising that a future Conservative Government will repatriate a series of powers from Brussels to Westminster.
However, this is precisely why it is essential that David Cameron holds a post-Lisbon referendum. The Conservative’s promise of a referendum on Lisbon was always about something far broader than the Treaty itself; it sought a mandate to go to Brussels to renegotiate the terms of our membership of the EU commensurate with British interests and public attitudes. Rejecting the Lisbon Treaty in a referendum is the political earthquake which Cameron needs to undertake this mammoth task.
Conservatives do not really want a relationship with the EU based what we have now. If Cameron’s tactic is to renegotiate our relationship with the EU by repatriating key powers – defense, justice, home affairs and employment legislation for a start – then he will need to head-off Brussels’ inevitable pushback with his own ‘game-changer’.
The new intake of Conservative MP’s projected for the next election, as profiled by Conservative Home, are more like Dan Hannan than Ken Clarke. The Shadow Cabinet also has more than its fair share of vocal EU-skeptics. Lisbon has been the key EU talking point since 2007, and prior to that the EU Constitution. Cameron cannot walk back from that now. A post-ratification referendum on Lisbon remains Cameron’s best catalyst for starting a conversation he cannot ignore: how he will formulate a relationship between Britain and the EU that his party and the public will rally behind.
