Cameron faces EU membership dilemma

If the Conservative Party wins the next general election, in May 2015, or leads another coalition government as it does now, Prime Minister David Cameron will hold a plebiscite to decide whether Britain should remain part of the European Union.

Consumed by the pace of economic recovery and the cost of living – in particular, soaring energy prices – most voters are paying little attention to Britain’s role in Europe. Not so the Conservative Party, which is fixated on the issue, and undergoing a divisive spasm on the floor of the House of Commons.

How did Mr. Cameron, a self-declared pragmatist, end up in the role of geopolitical radical, promising a referendum on the European Union that could alter fundamentally Britain’s strategic, diplomatic and economic status?

To answer, one needs both magnifying glass and telescope, for the pressures on this prime minister range from the pettiest emotions of Westminster to daunting questions about Britain’s destiny.

To start with the small stuff: Every Friday, the Commons considers private member’s bills – legislative proposals that are not sponsored by the government or opposition, but have found favor among other M.P.’s. The chances of such bills making it to the statute book are slim. But the European Union referendum bill put forward by James Wharton, a 29-year-old Conservative from northeast England, is a special case.

His bill would give legal force to Mr. Cameron’s promise, made in January, of a referendum on the European Union before the end of 2017. The prime minister is doing all he can to help Mr. Wharton, formally instructing Conservative M.P.’s to vote for it. But he cannot give the bill the government’s official blessing, because his coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats, are strong pro-Europeans who do not want to risk Britain’s exit from the union.

Mr. Cameron’s backing for the Wharton bill is important, if only symbolically, because of his history with his party’s most passionate “Euroskeptics” – the label applied by the press to those who opposed centralization of power in Brussels in general and the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 in particular.

They felt duped by his decision in 2009 not to hold a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon – a far-reaching agreement that amended the Maastricht Treaty – as he had promised. It is hard to exaggerate the mistrust spawned by this breach of what Mr. Cameron had called a “cast-iron guarantee.”

It helps to explain why so many former Tory voters have defected – for now, at least – to the U.K. Independence Party. UKIP is a traditionalist movement that still has moments of reactionary farce, but it has become an effective campaigning force, with some polls suggesting it could win more than 15 percent of seats if a vote were held today.

The breakdown of trust also explains why Adam Afriyie, a Conservative backbencher representing a district west of London, who entertains (frankly ludicrous) ambitions as a future leader, is complicating matters further by drafting an amendment to the Wharton bill. If carried, the Afriyie clause would compel the coalition government to hold a referendum on European Union membership before October 2014 – in other words, ahead of the next general election.

The Afriyie amendment has little prospect of succeeding. Its only certain effect will be to raise Mr. Afriyie’s profile – though not in the way he hopes – and to compound the impression that the Conservative Party is fatally divided over Europe: hundreds of bald men in suits arguing over a comb.

It is against this background of tribal neurosis that Mr. Cameron made his referendum promise. But the promise is much more than an exercise in party management.

Mr. Cameron, 47, and his generation were shaped by Euroskepticism. He was a special adviser to Norman Lamont, chancellor of the Exchequer, on “Black Wednesday”: Sept. 16, 1992, the day the pound was driven out of the European exchange rate mechanism, the euro’s precursor. Mr. Cameron has always opposed adoption of the European single currency. His cohort in the Conservative Party approaches the European project not as a means of preventing continental war, but as an economic, political and legal alliance, membership of which entails costs as well as benefits.

On balance, Mr. Cameron believes that Britain should remain a member of the European Union, not least because it can ill afford to lose access to the 500 million inhabitants of the European single market. But he does not support membership at any price. Mr. Cameron’s hope is that Britain’s membership might be reformed to reduce the power of Brussels over the British workplace and the nation’s borders. If he achieves this renegotiation – a big if – he proposes to recommend a yes vote in the putative referendum of 2017.

Mr. Cameron also believes that such a vote cannot be postponed any longer. The British have not been specifically consulted on European Union membership since 1975, when they voted by two-to-one to stay in what was then called the Common Market, although they have often been promised referendums on one European issue or another.

As a practical politician, Mr. Cameron has concluded that Britain’s performance in what he calls the “global race” depends on a new relationship with the European Union, one that is specifically endorsed by the British. But he also knows that this promise is by far the greatest gamble of his career. Life outside the European Union, which accounts for about 52 percent of Britain’s total trade in goods and services, could be bleak indeed. Would the so-called “special relationship” between America and Britain survive if Britain opted to leave the European club?

Referendums are notoriously unpredictable – vulnerable to popular caprice, spiteful impulse and negative campaigning. Only four years from now, Britain may find that, after sleep-walking toward a dream of independence, it has woken up on the loneliest fringe of the planet.