Britain and Europe - Debate will strengthen EU project

It would be foolish to imagine that a coalition of 27 nations, with a population of something over 500m people, each with different priorities, national characteristics, cultural, religious and political instincts, contrasting histories of domination or subjugation, could, for decades, seamlessly work together building an ever more unified entity without disagreement or even an occasional refusal to take the next step.

Disagreement is inevitable and in his well-flagged speech yesterday British prime minister David Cameron revealed the depth of his — and especially his party’s — ambition to review the terms of Britain’s membership of the EU. He called for the UK to be exempted from the community’s founding and consistent principle: Evolution towards an ever-closer union. He confirmed plans, should his party be re-elected, to offer Britain an in/out choice but said he would campaign with all his “heart and soul” for Britain to remain a full EU member if terms were renegotiated to allay Britain’s fears about ceding ever more power to Brussels.

As statements of intent go it’s a pretty dramatic, high-wire position-cum-ultimatum but as even a preliminary set of proposals remain absolutely remote it is difficult to deal with it in anything but the vaguest and most conditional terms. All of which are predicated on the reality that the incorrigibly euro-sceptic Tories, even at the height of their Regency self-assurance, are unlikely to convince the British people to ignore virtually every trade union, virtually every business organisation, the Labour Party, and a considerable rump of their own party and reject Europe.