EU Vetoes to Come ? - Kevin Hannon

“Progress is the mother of problems.” --G. K. Chesterton

Prime Minister Cameron got a lot of criticism from pro-Europeans and much praise from anti-Europeans for exercising a veto over any future full EU treaty designed to improve the functioning of the Euro-zone. Much ink and hot air has been used to discuss whether he was right to do what he did. Whatever the yea or the nay of that specific veto the key question is could he realistically have done anything else? Indeed, could any British PM have done anything else given the confluence and power of anti-EU forces in British media, politics and public opinion?

No, is of course the answer to both questions. Mr Cameron had not a snowball’s chance in hell of getting any EU treaty ratified through the House of Commons without his own Tory party splitting on the issue and perhaps launching a mass rebellion that might bring down the coalition government. Quite apart from the immense pressure he would come under outside of Parliament, from Euro-sceptics and from almost all the newspapers, to hold a referendum on any new treaty, if not referendum on staying in the EU itself. And a referendum on any EU treaty will give immense influence and power to the most vitriolic anti-EU press in the world. A situation Parliament brought on itself this July when the 2011 European Union Act became law. Only a kamikaze Cameron would have been willing to get an EU treaty ratified in the UK against the almost total hostility of his own party; against the all-pervasive Euro-sceptics constantly interviewed on TV and radio; against almost all the press; and against the most anti-EU public opinion in the EU. Therefore, he killed off the treaty as fast as he could to get praise at home and to ensure he would never have to bring an EU treaty before Parliament.

Would it have made any difference who the Prime Minister was, or what the treaty was about? The massed anti-EU forces in UK politics, media and public opinion would be just as great and just as vehemently against. The Cameron veto at Brussels on 9th December raises a question that goes to the heart of future UK-EU relations, and to the heart of future EU development. Would it be possible in the foreseeable future, under any UK Prime Minister, for an EU treaty to be presented and ratified in the UK? If the answer is no then we must expect more vetoes at some stage in EU treaty negotiations, either from Mr Cameron or future Prime Ministers. And such will remain a foreseeable outcome until such time as either the powerful anti-EU propagandists and polemicists change their minds, or their control over UK foreign policy leads to an economic catastrophe that changes the mind of the UK public.

All EU governments have now to consider the long-term consequences of having a major power inside the EU within which anti-EU politics and propaganda are so virulent and powerful as to make any treaty ratification impossible in the foreseeable future. Does the constellation of political and media forces in the UK render it impossible for the EU to advance by its normal mechanism of unanimous treaty ratification? EU heads of government have to ask themselves if the Cameron veto is a one-off, a special case, or is it the shape of things to come? Whilst Euro-sceptics have such a grip on UK politics and press propaganda must all future EU treaties be EU -1 treaties? Will that ever change given that Britain has had almost 40 years to come to terms with EEC and EU?

If UK intransigence and obstruent vetoes are repeated in the future, then other questions must follow. How long before the rest of the EU decides that General de Gaulle was right to keep Britain out of the EEC back in the 1960s? (He believed Britain would be loyal to the USA not to other Europeans, and that Britain would break up the EEC. Prime Minister Blair proved De Gaulle right on the first point and Prime Minister Cameron is proving him right on the second. What irony.) How long will it be before many EU governments come to the same conclusion as UKIP that the UK should leave the EU to go its separate way?

Presently the questions I have set out above are distant in time. But when the Euro-zone crisis has settled down and EU fiscal consolidation has been implemented and more countries have joined the Euro-zone then the isolation of the UK will be very evident. We cannot assume that the EU will come to a dead stop and accept permanent stagnation. We must expect further treaties. And when they come if Euro-sceptics remain in control of UK foreign policy and press propaganda then there will be more future vetoes. Then all the above questions will have to be answered.

Kevin Hannon, Chairman West Midlands European Movement. (19.12.2011)