photo credit: loungerie

Why exactly did the Cameroonian plan tug on the heartstrings of the John Redwoods and William Hagues of this world?  Above all, it’s important to remember that the modern-day British correlation between Left and Right and Europhile and Eurosceptic is an anomaly in international terms as well as historically (Labour’s 1983 manifesto promised, for example, to pull Britain out of the then-EEC).  Your most ardent Superstaters are likely to be found, not in the Socialist bloc, but within Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats or Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP.  The Tories smell a federalist scent wafting around the hemicycle, and it gives them the jitters. For them, there’s nothing worse than the familiar refrain of common security, immigration and foreign policies.    And don’t get the anti-Maastricht veterans started on the Lisbon Treaty (no really, please don’t). 

So, you might be asking, Cameron’s had four years: how’s he got on?  Not well, is the answer.  And with only three months before a new Parliament is elected, Cameron risks, in Prescottian style, getting the political egg on his face.  The problem is that most of the centre-right parties who make up the EPP are quite happy where they are, thank you very much.  As the largest grouping in the Parliament, they elect its President, who gets to do fun things like fawn over Hillary Clinton, and perhaps more importantly, have an evident leg-up in setting the political agenda and controlling committees.  Bubbling below the surface, as I mentioned last week, are also various propositions to expand the role of the parliamentary blocs.  If the Tories do break away, then, they could deprive the EPP of its largest-party status, giving European Socialists a boon (although the EPP still fancies its chances).  The European Parliament doesn’t like splinter groups, especially national ones.  It somewhat defies the point of a multitude of countries coming together to work towards common goals after centuries of division.  That’s why it takes 25 MEPs from seven countries to create a recognised grouping, eligible for EU funding.  To many, this looks like a bit of a long-shot for Cameron’s comrades, assuming he doesn’t want to end up sharing floor space with Jean-Marie Le Pen, Alessandra Mussolini or not-quite-Fascists-but-really-pushing-it parties (I’m looking at you, Law and Justice).

photo credit: edmittance

But internal European Parliament arrangements are probably not what are on Cameron’s mind.  For him, the political dilemma is tricky.  Either he stays true to his word, and succeeds in attracting Czech, Baltic, Swedish and Italian Conservatives as seems to be his best-case scenario (good luck…), thereby winning plaudits from within his Party, or he fails, embittering the Eurosceptics who are already miffed at the return of Ken Clarke.  Either way, in a move which will be one of the first to which foreign leaders pay attention, Cameron risks appearing like an isolationist who has no conception of the necessity of co-operation during this time of recession.  Not a great way to dispel doubts about the existence of a foreign policy vision.  By all accounts, Barack Obama wasn’t impressed by this kind of attitude when he met Cameron last summer.  So does Cameron move out of the EPP, annoying other governments to placate an internal faction of his own party, or does he stay in, and risk re-opening the fissures which destroyed the Conservatives in the Thatcher-Major era?  Either way, Dave,  the clock’s ticking…

Update: the decision looks pretty final.