Will the Tories offer a euro-referendum?
Despite what the headlines say, William Hague has not promised a retrospective referendum on the Euro-constitution. He opposes ratification, and he wants a referendum now. But he hasn't yet spelt out what he will do if he is too late , if, in other words, the text has already received royal assent before his party takes power. All he has said is that, if the treaty is brought in without the promised referendum, it will have no legitimacy, and that an incoming Conservative administration "would not let matters rest there".
William Hague is in favour of a referendum
Now these sentiments are, you'd have thought, unarguable. All three parties , indeed, as I never tire of reminding you, 638 out of 646 MPs , promised us a vote on the constitution. To point out that reneging on that commitment will deprive the treaty of democratic legitimacy is a statement of the pretty bloody. And to say that an incoming Parliament is not obliged to accept the dispensation left behind by an outgoing one is a confirmation of what Bagehot, Dicey and every other constitutionalist has insisted through the centuries: that no British Parliament can bind its successor.
Why, then, the horrified reaction of the Euro-establishment? Why the ululations of distress from integrationist columnists (the brilliant David Aaronovitch puts their case especially elegantly in theÂ Times? Partly because William Hague is threatening the "occupied field doctrine": that central tenet of Brussels ideology which holds that, once the EU has legislated in a new area, its jurisdiction in that area is guaranteed in perpetuity. True, the Conservatives had already promised to unpick part of the acquis communautaire , the accumulated heap of EU legislation , by opting out of the Social Chapter. But the practical effects of such a derogation would be negligible. Yes, negligible: do you know how many laws have been imposed on Britain under the Social Chapter since Tony Blair abandoned the waiver in 1997? Six.
If, however, the Tories came to office pledged to the wholesale return of powers ceded under the constitution, it would be a different matter. Either the other members would say no, triggering a renegotiation of Britain's membership terms; or they would say yes, and the acquis would start unravelling. For, once Britain had established the principle that powers could pass in both directions, other members would come forward with their own lists of demands. What's that? You can't see what's wrong with such a development? No, that's because you're not a Eurocrat.
What really annoys Euro-enthusiasts is that the Tories might break the unwritten rule that no party is ever Euro-sceptic while in office. I have written before of the phenomenon: all over Europe, opposition politicians campaign as sceptics but govern as 'philes. The rule holds good in the UK, too, which is why neither the DUP nor the SNP will deliver the referendums they had promised: they're in power, you see.
Vince Cable, the acting LibDem leader accuses my party of playing the same game: "in office, supporting European integration, but in opposition, supporting the worst features of anti-European populism". Ouch!
Even so, it is hard to see how an incoming Conservative administration, having made so much of Labour's U-turn on the referendum, could get away with a U-turn of its own on the precisely the same document. The electoral forces that had impelled the Tories to victory would more or less oblige them to do what they had promised. And that is what really bothers the Euro-philes: the dreadful prospect that a Euro-sceptic party might actually keep its word.
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