For some time there has been a
dearth of fresh ideas about how the
cause of euroscepticism might be
advanced.
Sometimes it seemed that
all that was possible was the repetition
of familiar arguments. The decision of
Lords Pearson and Willoughby de
Broke to leave the Conservative Party
in order to join UKIP - and UKIP’s
assurance that it will not put up
candidates in constituencies where
there are incumbent MPs with proven
track records of euroscepticism - has
opened up welcome new possibilities.
Quite suddenly, the pack-ice which
confined the eurosceptic leadership to
base camp shows signs of crumbling,
making possible new channels of
advance.
Over several years we have urged
UKIP to adopt the course it has now
taken, arguing that this would prove to
be in the party’s own interest as well as
that of the country. Ignoring the view
of party purists who still entertain the
dream of Britain’s salvation being
achieved as a result of a UKIP
majority in the House of Commons, its
new leader has struck a sensible deal
with the two former Tory peers
whereby robust eurosceptic MPs will
not find themselves in competition
with UKIP at the next general election.
It is an arrangement which suggests a
degree of maturity in the party’s
decision-making processes that has not
always been apparent. Providing
ultimate aims and values are not
forgotten, serious politics, even of the
conviction variety, require tactical
compromises.
In stressing the party’s
readiness to work with like-minded
individuals and organisations
regardless of party allegiance, party leader Nigel Farage’s
letter to MPs struck exactly the right tone
and marks a new phase in the party’s
history.
The deal gives UKIP an important
foothold in Westminster; this should
help weaken the impression that it is
run from Brussels, a curious posture
for a party that wishes to entirely
remove the influence of Brussels on
our national politics.
Already the new approach has
yielded important dividends: there are
signs that the principled defection of
the two Tory peers will be followed by
others from the Upper House,
important Tory backers are threatening
to switch financial support to UKIP
and David Cameron has been forced to
adopt a more robust eurosceptic
rhetoric.
Indeed, the Tory leader has
even felt impelled to assure readers of
the Daily Telegraph that despite
appearances to the contrary he is a
‘true Tory’. Still more extraordinary he
has been impelled to use the
‘ sovereignty’ word in public.
Tory
eurosceptics will no doubt want to
press him on how national sovereignty
can be recovered when most of our
laws are made in Brussels and when an
unelected bureaucracy retains the
exclusive right to initiate new
legislation; it is time for them to up the
ante.
Cameron’s assurance that the
Party will “continue to oppose a
constitution that transfers power away
from the nation states” is more likely
to increase eurosceptic anxieties than
to assuage them. It is a formulation that
suggests that Cameron might very well
be willing to go along with a revised
constitutional text; this kind of
linguistic slipperiness only serves to
heighten the present dissatisfaction
with big party politics.
The current pressure being applied to
Tory MPs thinking of signing up to the
Better Off Out Campaign is a further
sign that the Party leadership has
belatedly recognised problems of its
own making.
For the time being there
may be no new signatories from the
ranks of the Tory MPs, but eurosceptic
MPs with small majorities may well
come to the opinion that it is better to
face the fury of the whips than to
contemplate their own political demise
- and consequently opt for the
protection that signing up to the BOO
declaration may bring.
They have until
June to make up their minds; they will
have only themselves to blame if they
lose their seats because they cannot
bring themselves to display the
courage of their convictions.
Presently, the Tory whips are warning
MPs “not to dance to the tune of
another party”; this is disingenuous.
The BOO campaign, which claims one
Labour signatory, has been organised
by the Freedom Association (which
deserves much credit), not UKIP, and
the six Tory signatories gave their
backing for the campaign before Nigel
Farage gave his. UKIP has wisely
chosen to join the dance but it did not
call this particular tune.
The defection of Tim Congdon, who
helped define Thatcherite economic
policy in the seventies and eighties is
in a way a more serious threat to
Cameron since his critique of the
current Tory policy is more
comprehensive than that of Pearson
and Willoughby Broke.
His readiness
to switch to UKIP will make it much
harder for the Tories to dismiss the
party as a bunch of nuts and extremists
- especially if Congdon ends up
playing a major role in writing UKIP’s
economic policy.
It has been extremely
foolish of the Tory leadership to
respond to his criticisms in terms of
personal disparagement. It is not
simply that when it comes to straight
thinking Congdon is more than a match
for the likes of Matthew d’Ancona (see
Sunday Telegraph 14th January), but
that the think-tanks which the
Thatcherite side has drawn on in the
past for ideas and intellectual firepower
are largely staffed by people
who fully share Congdon’s disquiet
about the direction of Tory policy.
At
present only the desire to avoid getting
their organisations involved in party
political wrangles prevents them from
following his example.
The Cameron camp, which prides
itself on its professional approach to
party strategy, also has some serious
strategic thinking to do. If, after the
next election it again finds itself in
opposition - and does so largely as the
result of UKIP intervention, - the stage
will be set for a degree of blood-letting
that will make previous Tory bust-ups
look like love-ins and possibly for a
political re-alignment. In such
circumstances many Tories are likely
to conclude that they were persuaded
to sell their souls for the sake of a rebranding
exercise that was disastrously
misconceived; they are unlikely to
blame themselves for this.
There will be many battles for
eurosceptics to fight in the coming
year. But we conclude that thanks to
the principled political manoeuvring
by Lords Pearson and Willoughby de
Broke and shrewd political leadership
by Nigel Farage, 2007 could prove the
year in which considerable strides are
made towards the political prize that
most of our readers value before all
others: the withdrawal of Britain from
the EU and the beginnings of a
relationship with it that better reflects
our national interests.
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