As regular readers of this blog will know, my single biggest worry about the Conservative party taking office in the UK was the prospect of arch-eurosceptic William Hague taking over the Foreign Office (the man who, as leader of the party back in 2001, ran a last-ditch general election campaign on the slogan “7 days to save the pound”).

Hague has repeatedly rattled his sabre in the direction of the EU, making numerous references to “repatriating” powers from “Brussels”, and often seeming to believe numerous Europhobic myths about the way the EU operates.

After 13 years of a supposedly pro-EU government which repeatedly refused to constructively engage with our continental partners, my fear has been that the incoming Conservative government (even with the tempering effect of their more pro-EU Liberal Democrat partners, led by former Commission official and ex-MEP Nick Clegg) would pull the UK even further from Europe’s heart. This, I am certain, would be disastrous – both for Britain and for the EU itself, but mostly for Britain.

Today, Hague is giving his first major speech since becoming Foreign Secretary. So let’s have a quick look at some of the highlights – especially in relation to Britain’s future policy towards the EU. It must be said, there were a few pleasant surprises…

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OK, I was wrong – Prime Minister Cameron it is.

I just hope I’m also wrong in my dread of our new Foreign Secretary, William Hague – the most strongly eurosceptic person ever to hold that position, the mastermind behind the Conservatives’ withdrawal from the EPP in the European Parliament, and a man who, back in 2001, led an explicitly anti-EU general election campaign that revolved around the populist nonsense-slogan “Ten Days to Save the Pound”.

Recent devolopments have not been much more promising, an alleged draft letter from Hague leaked to last weekend’s Observer, promising “to demonstrate to the British people and beyond that the UK’s relationship with Europe has really changed… the British relationship with the EU has changed with our election… we will fight our corner to protect our national interests”.

Of course, there’s a good chance that Hague’s euroscepticism may be countered by former MEP and Commission employee Nick Clegg also attending Cabinet in the apparently-offered role of Deputy Prime Minister, but as of 11pm on Tuesday it remains unclear just what role the Liberal Democrats are going to take in this apparent new coalition.

I hope I’m proved wrong. In Hague’s favour, he’s certainly not stupid. And it’s always far easier to take tough, controversial stands in opposition than it is in government. He may yet temper his rhetoric and the Cameron government may yet start to take a more sensible, pragmatic approach towards the EU. I very much hope so – because I, for one, am convinced that the only loser in a “fight” between Britain and the EU (Hague’s phrase) would be the UK.

Just back from Japan, from where I was closely following the UK election on Twitter (your best place for my day-to-day political commentary these days, though be warned they’re usually more jokey – and sweary – than here…)

After 30 hours offline, and 44 hours after the polling booths closed, the UK still doesn’t have a new government. As such, witness the wonders of my jetlag-inspired political guesswork!

I’d be surprised if this lack of a government lasted beyond Monday morning, largely because the next government will want to look responsible – and we had some serious global financial trouble on Friday for a variety of reasons (NY stock exchange hiccough, Greek crisis, UK election uncertainty, etc.). They’ll want to have a government before the markets open, if they can…)

Here’s what I currently reckon will happen, rejigged from a few comments on Twitter:

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg’s playing this absolutely perfectly so far – he has solid offers to join coalitions from both Labour and the Conservatives, and significant policy differences with both, and has explicitly stated that the Tories – with more seats and more of the vote – should have the right to “seek to form” a government first.

But the Tories can’t get a parliamentary majority without Lib Dem support. At least, not a stable one. Not the sort of majority that they’d need to do, well, just about anything.

But Labour and the Lib Dems combined can’t get a parliamentary majority without other parties’ support either.

Clegg has also repeatedly mentioned “the national interest” and equated this with electoral reform (unsurprising, considering Labour got only 5% more of the vote than the Lib Dems, but 5 times the parliamentary seats).

The Tories are fundamentally opposed to the sort of Proportional Representation-style electoral reform that the Lib Dems want (usually single transferable vote) – which is hardly surprising, as it would almost certainly lead to a permanent Labour/Lib Dem coalition (there being very few other parties on the centre right that are likely to end up big enough to give the Tories the backing they’d need under such a system).

So, Clegg is giving the impression that he’s willing to work with the Tories – and probably is – but his one major condition is a deal-breaker for Cameron and co.

So I’m now fairly convinced that Prime Minister Cameron’s not going to happen. If Cameron rejects PR, as he must to keep his party behind him (there have already been dire warnings from the right wing of the Conservative Party about such a move, in the shape of Thatcher-era relic Lord Tebbit), then a Lib Dem/Labour/Scottish National Party / Plaid Cymru coalition has first dibs (SNP leader Alex Salmond has already openly proposed this).

Constituionally-speaking, Gordon Brown retains first right to try to form a government, as the sitting Prime Minister in a hung parliament. With Lib Dem, SNP and Plaid Cymru support, the coalition would have an outright majority – able to outvote the Tories and their allies on anything. As such, despite his unpopularity (and calls from within his own party to step down), Brown could yet remain as caretaker PM of a coalition expressly set up to bring in electoral reform.

This would actually be a very sensible option, for several reasons:

1) It would be constitutionally unprecedented for Cameron to form a minority government in the current circumstances – he is impotent until he has enough supporters to claim an outright majority. This looks to be impossible.

2) The constitution explicitly states that Gordon Brown remains Prime Minister, so using him as a figurehead for any new coalition is – constitutionally – the least harmful in the short term.

3) Anyone unhappy with Brown remaining as PM simply adds to the case for major constitutional reform with their objections.

4) This would also give both Labour *and* the Conservatives time to sort themselves out, as they are blatantly in a shambles at the moment.

So, what I’d suggest is a short-term multi-party national coalition *explicitly* for electoral *and* parliamentary/constitutional reform, as well as to maintain some form of stability in the midst of an ongoing financial crisis, keeping Gordon Brown as a figurehead Prime Minister for constitutional reasons alone, with an explicit promise that he will step down once the basic reforms are in place to have a fresh election under a new electoral system.

One final note: There’s nothing to say – constitutionally – that the Prime Minister has to be a party leader. Nor even that he has to be an MP… The question is, is there *anyone* who could be seen as a sufficiently impartial lynchpin to take on the task of leading a coalition of (at least) four parties?

If you want to understand Britain’s rather odd relationship with the EU, you could do far worse than read this really rather good overview in this week’s Economist, especially considering its focus on the Conservative party – likely to form the next British government in a little over six weeks’ time.

There are only a couple of flaws (e.g. mentioning a figure of 50% for the number of European laws stemming from the EU, when readers of this blog will be aware that it’s more in the region of 10-30%, depending), and much insightful analysis that tallies 99% with my own views. It also provides one of the best short summaries of the last 40+ years of UK-EU relations I’ve seen.

Below the fold, a few highlights.

Update: It should also be read in conjunction with Charlemagne on eurosceptic think tank Open Europe and the nature of the British press to give the full picture on why the UK is so insistent on remaining utterly ignorant on all matters EU-related.

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A guest post from that rare beast, an openly pro-EU Tory – in this case Thomas Byrne of the blog Byrne Tofferings, who is keen to sound out the thoughts of a more international audience to his suggestion for the first High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the successor to the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (currently Javier Solana):

Chris Patten has signalled his interest in the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy position, something I’m going to give my support to.

If you want to look at important conflicts that Britain has been involved with since the EU’s foundation – Falklands, Kosovo, Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. the EU has actively or passively opposed every one, Chris Patten would be the perfect man for turning EU Foreign Policy into a force to be reckoned with.

Chris Patten was the first Governor who actually cared about trying to bring democracy to Hong Kong. Unlike most of his predecessor(s) who were ‘sinologists,’ which meant they just kowtowed to Peking, he actually stood up for Hong Kong.

Patten’s experience would be useful in the Balkans – Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Moldova – and Turkey, all of which are pushing for EU membership to a greater or lesser extent. Not to mention some of the Caucasian and Central Asian countries that are members of the Council of Europe, and could down the line become candidate countries – or the elephant in the European room that is Belarus, the last dictatorship on the continent.

In Chris Patten’s book (Not Quite The Diplomat) he suggests the Tories have saddled themselves with a Eurosceptic ideology for no good reason, something that I’d agree with, his Europhile sentiment and his experience within the commission make him the perfect man to slide into this role. Firstly ,because of his experience of EU institutions and dealings with each of the member states, but also when the Tories come into government they’ll be dealing with someone they can relate to, lending a plaster to the Eurosceptic position of some MEP’s like Daniel Hannan, and the grassroots and lead the Conservative party into a position within Europe that would silence those that claim the party are on the fringe.

After yesterday’s confusion – with one MEP leaving and another joining, exposing this new British Conservatives-led group as a fairly fragile alliance – now we again have renewed concerns being voiced: This time from among the British Conservatives themselves.

Many Tory MEPs were decidedly unhappy about David Cameron’s pledge to pull out of the EPP – knowing, as they do, that being a sizable part of the largest bloc in the European Parliament (partnered with various sensibly mainstream parties, such as those headed by Sarkozy and Merkel) gave them significantly more influence than being the largest part of a far smaller grouping (partnered with various less than loveable minor parties).

Indeed, just about the only Tory MEP to be vocally supportive of ditching the EPP was the strongly anti-EU Daniel Hannan – the eloquent internet celebrity, whose verbosity and intellect masks an attitude towards the EU that wouldn’t look out of place in UKIP. Why was Hannan so keen to ditch the EPP? Well, they’d already ditched him – he was effectively forced out in February 2008 after (fairly admirably, to be fair – though he certainly milked it) standing up to a point of principle over parliamentary procedure. Plus, of course, the staunchly anti-EU Hannan tends towards the withdrawalist take on the EU, and so even the relatively mild acceptance of European integration shown by the EPP was a bit much for him.

Hannan, however, would seem to have the ear of similarly strongly eurosceptic Shadow Foreign Secretary and deputy Tory leader William Hague – him of the ill-chosen “Ten days to save the pound” campaign back when he was Tory leader in 2001 – and it would seem to be Hague who is the guiding hand behind Tory EU strategy. In the last few weeks, Hannan was even sent off around the various member states to talk to (and campaign for) potential partners for the new group. The other Tory MEPs appear to be almost entirely ignored by the Cameron/Hague leadership.

Had they listened to the concern of the majority of their MEPs at the time rather than just Hannan, however, perhaps the Conservatives wouldn’t now be in such a pickle. Not only has the party already come under attack for the unsavoury nature of some of its new EP allies, but now even its own MEPs are starting to voice their concerns in public:

“Despite what David Cameron has said there are already indications that some of the members have links with extremist groups and I feel very, very uncomfortable with that,” [Conservative MEP Edward McMillan-Scott] said. “I know the party has made inquiries but I will make my own investigations into the background of these people.”

The other Tory MEPs are currently giving every indication of continuing to back the leadership in Westminster, and to be prepared to push ahead and make the best of this new group. But for how much longer? Rumours are already circulating of deep disquiet within the Tory ranks in Brussels – while outside observers continue to look on in amazement, scratching their heads at the reasoning of a major political party from one of the EU’s largest and most influential member states, that’s near certain to be in power domestically within a year, which has decided to make friends with small opposition parties with extremist views and a bunch of random individual MEPs, when it could be hobnobbing in the EPP with the most influential political leaders on the continent.

On a diplomatic level, this Tory strategy still makes no sense to me. What exactly are they hoping to achieve by teaming up with this bunch of suspect no-marks? Or is it as simple as the Tories have given up on the EU, and are prepared to sacrifice influence and friendships on the continent to try and win back the floating eurosceptic voters they need if they are to have any hope of securing a decent majority in a domestic general election? Because although it’s true that they can achieve nothing unless they’re in power, in the current global economic climate they’re also going to have a tough time achieving anything substantive without strong and willing European allies.

Only a couple of days after its formation, and already David Cameron’s new European Parliament political grouping (the brilliantly-named Conservatives and Reformists) have lost a member. Considering that you need MEPs from seven member states to form an EP group, and this new one is relying on no fewer than five individual MEPs from various member states to make up the numbers, I reckon we should set up a sweepstake on how long this lasts.

It is, after all, basically just three parties from three member states (the Conservatives from the UK, Law & Justice from Poland and the Civic Democrats from the Czech Republic), of which the Tories massively dominate (and seem, from what I can tell, to be the most sensible and successful of the lot – both the Poles and the Czechs have some rather odd views, to put it mildly, and seem to be on the wane in their respective countries while the Tories are on the rise).

Relying on a bunch of individual MEPs to make up the requirement for multiple member states was always going to be a risky strategy – but how far are the Conservatives, as by far the dominant force in terms of numbers, going to be prepared to pander to individuals to hold the group together? Today we’ve learned that one member – Hannu Takkula of the Finnish Centre Party – has already decided to jump ship. He may well swiftly have been replaced with Waldemar Tomaszewski from Lithuania (although I’m not sure of the details here as yet), but that’s still taking the new group perilously close to the bare minimum spread of member states for group qualification.

And at the same time, there’s a whole bunch of eurosceptic/anti-EU right(ish)-wing parties knocking around in the large unaligned part of the European Parliament – not just the likes of the UK’s BNP and other far-right nationalists and fascists, but also the leftovers from the recently collapsed Independence/Democracy group (the one headed by UKIP’s Nigel Farage until the elections, when the collapse of support for the group’s Polish contingent spelled its doom).

Farage is a canny operator, and certainly not stupid – I wouldn’t put it past him to be able to paint Cameron’s Conservatives as far too wishy-washy (which is, after all, the entire UKIP strategy in the UK) in an effort to steal away some of those individual MEPs from this new group to an Ind/Dem successor. He may even get somewhere. And with the numbers Cameron’s new group is relying on, this split between the *quite* eurosceptics and the *very* eurosceptics could roll on and on – all the while with the balance of power being determined by a small group of individual, more or less independent MEPs, most of whom will have entirely their own agendas.

I can only see this as turning out badly – either they give individuals (many of whom appear to have rather, shall we say “unusual” views?) various positions of influence to keep them on board and so hold the group together, or they go for their original plans (in Cameron’s case, unknown, and in Farage’s case, an all out anti-EU nationalism – albeit one that’s not quite as extreme as it is often made out), and risk alienating the individuals on which they will both be entirely reliant for the committee places and funding that EP group status affords.

In other words, the two pretenders to the title of official European Parliamentary eurosceptic group have the option of either sacrificing their ideals and handing power over to mavericks or risking obscurity in the nonaligned sidelines.

David Cameron’s Conservatives have done it – just… Splitting from the EPP was always a gamble – but with the near-certain collapse of the Independence/Democracy group (headed up by UKIP leader Nigel Farage) after a poor election showing from some of its constituent parties (Ind/Dem MEPs were wiped out in Poland, for example), Cameron may just have landed on his feet.

The membership of the new group is as follows – with individual MEPs most certainly worth investigating further:

The 55 MEPs at the moment are (according to Conservative Home):

* 26 British Conservative MEPs
* 15 Polish MEPs from the Law and Justice Party
* 9 Czech MEPs from the Civic Democratic Party
* 1 MEP from Belgium’s Lijst Dedecker – Derk Jan Eppink, a Dutchman who is a former senior European Commission official
* 1 MEP from Finland’s Centre Party, Keskusta – Hannu Takkula (who has left the Liberal Group where the rest of his party sits)
* 1 MEP from the Hungarian Democratic Forum – Lajos Bokros, a former finance minister
* 1 MEP from the Latvian National Independence Movement – Roberts Zile, a former finance and transport minister
* 1 MEP from the Dutch Christian Union – Peter van Dalen

Yep – that’s five individual MEPs that the new group has to keep sweet in order to maintain the requirement for all groups to have members from at least seven member states. They can afford to lose one, and that’s it. Any more and their new group is kaput.

More on this, no doubt, to come…

A European elections follow-up from me, over at the Guardian.

Still catching up, but it would be churlish not to mention the 20th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s celebrated (in some circles) Bruges speech, which passed the other day with the usual guff from withdrawalists. The BBC’s Nick Robinson has a fun piece on the anniversary celebrations and the Tories’ Europe problem which is well worth reading, considering the fact that they’re likely to be in power at some point within the next couple of years.

Because the Tories under David Cameron still have no EU policy. I’ve been hunting for one for a while now (March 2008, July 2006), and they still seem no closer to working out what they even think of the thing. (It’s not just the Tories, of course – Labour are just as bad…)

The thing is, Thatcher’s near-infamous Bruges speech remains a great starting point for the Tories to set out their position on Britain’s involvement with the rest of Europe. An odd thing for someone who labels himself loosely pro-EU to say? Not really…

The speech is well worth reading in full – because it’s now become this near-mythical anti-EU manifesto for British withdrawalists (notably anti-EU “think tank” the Bruges Group, named after the speech – a think tank not afraid to associate itself with some of the more hysterical anti-EU crowd).

With such a massive reputation to fight through, it’s very easy to make assumptions about what Thatcher actually said. Listen to the anti-EU lot and you’d think that the speech was a blistering attack on the very idea of a common European future, delivered in the kind of foaming-at-the-mouth style that anyone who’s been knocking around EU-related internet forums has come to associate with British euroscepticism. (Seriously, British anti-EU types – you’re embarrassing me here… I want to feel proud of being British, and you’re making us all look like arseholes – same as those drunken tits on the Costa del Sol. Whatever happened to the old British virtues of decency, restraint and politeness?)

Yet it actually contains much that is positive towards a European Union, and fully supports continued British engagement at the heart of the process. It’s just that it doesn’t support the direction the current EU has been heading for the last 30-odd years towards greater centralisation and uniformity. Pretty much all of Thatcher’s suggestions back then are still being made to this day – and not just by eurosceptics.

Sadly, though, Thatcher’s Bruges speech is more referred to than read – and thanks to its current associations with flag-waving anti-EU nutters it is mostly ignored. Yet its overall vision for Europe remains a sound alternative to the current model, while in the details are identified many of the key problems with the current set-up, none of which have really changed in two decades. It’s got its problems, certainly – I don’t advocate everything that Maggie said by any means – but as a starting point for creating an alternative vision for the European Union, it remains both simple (if occasionally overly simplistic) and compelling. Check out the Wordle-generated word cloud of the speech (with only Europe, Community, European, Britain, British and removed – the five most commonly-used words, and in that order) – there may be a slight tilt towards an economic vision of European co-operation, but she covers a lot of ground:

Most satisfying, though, is that it provides a healthy supply of quotes defending and advocating Britain’s close involvement with the rest of Europe (even to the point of advocating greater use of a European single currency) which can be thrown at any British eurosceptics that happen by…

“We British are as much heirs to the legacy of European culture as any other nation. Our links to the rest of Europe, the continent of Europe, have been the dominant factor in our history…

Too often, the history of Europe is described as a series of interminable wars and quarrels. Yet from our perspective today surely what strikes us most is our common experience… It is the record of nearly two thousand years of British involvement in Europe, cooperation with Europe and contribution to Europe, contribution which today is as valid and as strong as ever…

Britain does not dream of some cosy, isolated existence on the fringes of the European Community. Our destiny is in Europe, as part of the Community.”

What are the chances of David Cameron ever making a speech containing that kind of rhetoric? The old Tory squabbles over the EU that dominated the 1990s may well have subsided, but the party leadership are still worried that they’re bubbling away under the surface. The recent campaign for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty showed how powerful anti-EU populism can be. Though the campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, it did demonstrate one thing – euroscepticism remains a danger to the Conservative party. Perhaps its biggest danger.

These people will be in charge of the EU’s second largest economy – and yet even they don’t know what they are going to do once they come to power.

(On a related note, Richard Corbett may be a decidedly pro-EU Labour MEP writing in the left-wing Guardian, so just about as biased as they come on this topic, but his recent look at current Tory attitudes towards the EU is essential reading.)

Three things that have caught my eye this morning, in ascending order of importance:

1) Following a fun article on the impact a Tory victory in the next UK general election may have on the EU in this week’s Economist, there’s an interesting round-up of Conservative European election posters from the last couple of decades over at the Open Europe blog – a perfect illustration of the fundamental shift in Tory thinking on the EEC/EU that’s taken place over the last 30 years or so.

2) As EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson issues a stark warning about the need for unity over WTO talks, I stumble across EU Trade Policy: Approaching a Crossroads – a handy (mercifully short) briefing paper from Chatham House on the continued lack of a breakthrough in EU trade negotiations as we rumble towards the end of the Cotonou agreement and squabbles with the likes of Russia and China continue. Short version: it doesn’t look promising.

3) Medvedev Criticizes West in Tough Foreign Policy Speech – the usual Russian posturing, or the start of something new? Either way, “The EU and US have been warned”, apparently. Thanks for that, Dmitry! Meanwhile, the Financial Times urges standing up to Russia over Georgia – a much-ignored new Caucasian crisis that’s hardly getting any better, and Europe’s World has an article (promising-looking, but I haven’t had a chance to read in full just yet) on The EU, Russia and the crisis of the post-Cold War European order. From what I’ve seen so far, this looks like essential reading:

“The EU today cannot be described anymore as federalist state in the making – it is something much more complex and undefined. It resembles something closer to post-colonial India, with its mixture of languages, legal regimes, traditions and sensitivities, than it does post-War Germany or France. In the powerful metaphor of Jan Zielonka the post-enlargement EU is not a kind of Westphalia federation; it is more a kind of neo-medieval empire. There is no European demos and there probably never will be – but there is kind of European public. There are no final borders but moving borders and variable geometries. And it was Count Sergei Witte, Prime Minister under Nicholas II, who said there was no such thing as Russia, but only a Russian empire.”

Three thoughts on all the Westminster excitement (for non-UK readers, the short version – the Shadow Home Secretary has resigned his seat as MP to force a by-election, which he has announced that he intends to fight on the single issue of the erosion of civil liberties in Britain, following the contentious and close vote to extend the legal period of detention without trial to 42 days):

1) No one (outside of blogland) really cares about a bunch of muslims being locked up (and no one outside of blogland thinks the risk of anyone other than terrorist suspects being affected is a serious one). Nor do they care much about ID cards and a national ID database, or about there being loads of CCTV cameras invading our privacy every second of the day with no discernible impact on crime rates (the “if you’ve done nothing wrong you’ve got nothing to hide” mentality still being massively dominant) when their house price is plummeting and/or it’s costing more to fill up at the pumps and do the weekly shop. The next election will almost certainly be fought over the economy, with Gordon Brown’s ten years as Chancellor being painted as ten years of luck that set us up for a crash by the Tories, and as ten years of stability showing Gordon Brown to be the best man to weather the economic storm by Labour. Civil Liberties are simply not an election-winning issue.

2) This is aimed at Cameron far more than Labour, and smacks of sour grapes that Davis hasn’t got the influence within the party to make this a central plank of the Tory attack strategy. He’s throwing his toys out of the pram, because two-time leadership loser Davis can’t hack that he’s not the boss. He almost certainly does believe (pretty much) everything he says on the civil liberties front – he’s got a decent enough track record, (though his support of 28 days does raise a few questions and contradictory positions on gay rights do cause some concern) – but it’s hard not to see this as anything more than another internal Tory party spat.

3) It is, however, moderately interesting that one of the most senior opposition frontbenchers sees parliament’s influence as so diminished that it’s easier to spread his message (pretty much literally) from a soapbox. Maybe someone should get the man a blog…

(Far more interesting, of course, is the result of the Irish Lisbon Treaty referendum – expected later today, and expected to be very close indeed. But will there be any irregularities that may allow a legal challenge from the losing side?)

Gordon Brown, 2000: “Some people might think Ken Livingstone is funny, but saddling London with him for four years is no laughing matter”

The same has repeatedly been said about the man Johnson over the last four weeks along with a number of wild allegations based largely on out of context quotation – much the same as the whole “Ken’s an anti-Semite” nonsense.

More worrying have been the unsupported assertions based on little more than the outdated 1980s belief that all Tories are evil – my parents are Tories, and I can assure you that they are not. More to the point, people were voting in the mayoral elections who weren’t even born when Thatcher was in power. Using her as the all-conquering bogeyman simply isn’t a viable electoral strategy any more. (It’s a bit pathetic it ever was, if you think about it – after all, it was the Tories, not Labour, who got rid of her…)

Ken did a halfway decent job over the last eight years , along with a bunch of very impressive achievements. I have little reason to believe that Boris can’t do similarly – and no reason to think he’ll be a disaster. His acceptance speech certainly started on the right bipartisan (even tripartisan) note, and he’s blatantly not a typical Tory no matter the colour of his rosette, educational history and accent. I’m hopeful.

Furthermore, anyone who thinks that Boris and Boris alone will be calling the shots in London simply doesn’t get how politics works. Or how the Mayor’s office works, for that matter – it simply doesn’t have as much power as everyone seems to think. Ken was just very good at giving the impression that all the successes were thanks to him and him alone.

All this hyperbole being spewed about Johnson from normally sensible left-wing sources* – not to mention the dismissal of over a million Londoners who picked him as their first choice as merely “doing it for a laugh” – is doing the British left no good at all.

Boris Johnson is not some monster – by painting him as such when he blatantly is not is going to rub off badly on you, not him. Just as it rubbed off on Labour badly when they tried the same trick with Ken back in 2000. (That certainly helped push me towards voting for the guy…)

If the left/Labour can’t get over the snide remarks, personal attacks and class prejudice that seems to imbue every aspect of their relationship with the Conservative Party – and, ideally, come up with some practical left-wing policies rather than populist and ill-considered appeals to the middle-classes and big business – they are going to continue to slide in the polls to the point of embarrassing defeat.

And serve them right. (Labour promising cuts to corporation tax while the Tories run to the defence of impoverished single mothers? Come on, guys…). The worry is the knock-on effect – not just driving people who care to the extremes of right and left, but meaning that the Tories don’t have to fight for power.

Boris had to fight, and fight hard – because Ken was a formidable and principled oponent. He’s not going to forget that in a hurry; he’s going to be fully aware that a sizable chunk of the capital don’t like him and that a sizable chunk of the country want him to fail. And it’s going to make him work even harder.

But the way the rest of the Labour party is going, the next election is going to be handed to the Tories on a plate. They won’t even need to bother knocking on doors at this rate. And power gained that easily is never going to engender respect – either from politicians or public. Labour have had a free run for most of the last decade or more, and just look what happened to them…

* I won’t link to any specifics as I hope they’ll see how silly they’re being soon, but have a gander at some of the tripe the Guardian’s been spewing over the last few days for an idea of the tone and content

So, today’s the last chance for the referendumites, and all thanks to the Tories (yep, the self-same Tories who would have had several more seats in the Commons right now if it weren’t for the splintering of their vote by the likes of UKIP at the last general election – if the referendum bid fails by 19 votes, I’ll be giggling rather a lot…).

But the real question is, why is Cameron still backing a referendum? It naturally made sense after Labour had foolishly promised one on the old constitution – the Tories could do nothing but offer the same, or risk re-opening old eurosceptic divisions within the party. But once Labour and the Lib Dems backed down after the shift from being a constitution to a reforming treaty with more or less the same effect – likely the only way it could get past the decidedly misinformed British public* – what was Cameron’s thinking in continuing to back a referendum?

Initially, I thought it was obvious – he reckoned there was no chance of a referendum being granted, so it would have been a great bit of anti-Labour propaganda to throw out to the primarily eurosceptic party faithful. But now I’m not so sure it’s that simple.

You see, if Cameron had any sense of international realpolitik, he’d realise that he needs to maintain good relations with as many EU political leaders as he possibly can if he’s going to have any hope of doing deals in Brussels when he becomes Prime Minister. It’s basic diplomacy – act nice towards people, they’re more likely to accommodate your wishes. (And this applies just as much, if not more, if you want to pull out of the EU – if you’re an EU withdrawalist, make the case to the people at home, don’t piss off our European cousins. Because they’re the people you’re going to have to end up making all those lovely bilateral trade agreements with when you get your successful pull-out, and you surely want to ensure you get the best deals for your newly “independent” Britain by not pissing them all off.)

Yet since becoming Tory leader all Cameron’s done, on the rare occasions he’s ventured into the field of EU policy, is indicate he’s all up for antagonism. First he started going on about pulling Tory MEPs out of the huge centre-right EPP group in the European Parliament (meaning, as far as I can tell, that they’d be able to have even less impact on proceedings and lose a number of committee posts), now he seems to have been going all out to get an amendment in today’s vote on the Lisbon Treaty to secure that blasted referendum again.

This all plays great to the eurosceptic crowd at home, no doubt (though not great enough to gain a great many prodigal UKIPers to return to the fold, it would seem), but pisses off everyone on the continent – even those who are sympathetic to Tory doubts over the current direction of the EU. If/when Cameron becomes PM, he’s going to have even fewer friends on the continent than Gordon Brown – who at least our European cousins have a certain amount of respect for, while distrusting him, considering him supremely arrogant, and being annoyed with his lack of participation in EU affairs.

But now, the day of the crunch vote, there is apparently a genuine chance that the sums could just add up and that Cameron could get enough bodies behind him (with Labour and Lim Dem defections and abstentions) to get the referendum amendment passed after all. (For the record: I think this is still unlikely, but with Lib Dems openly rebelling and a number of Labourites likely to vote with the Tories as well, you never know…)

This makes little sense to me. The EU is not a contentious enough issue to get real votes behind it at general elections – if it were, William Hague would have won back in 2001 with his “Seven Days to Save the Pound” scaremongering nonsense. This little fight over a referendum was a great idea for a bit of domestic political propaganda when there was no chance of winning, but Cameron seems to be genuinely trying to get this amendment passed.

If he succeeds, three things will happen:

1) The UK will not be able to pass the Lisbon Treaty, setting the EU back another 2-7 years (it took two years to renegotiate the old constitution into the Lisbon Treaty, and that was in any case the result of five years of negotiations following the failure that was the Treaty of Nice back in 2001, which was meant to sort out all the problems the Lisbon Treaty is only now tackling)

2) The rest of the EU will be mortally pissed off with the UK in general, and Cameron in particular

3) There will still not be any procedure in place for an EU member state to leave the Union

The last of these is the most important in trying to work out what Cameron’s all about. After all, he’s allowed William Hague to spout off about how any future Tory government would hold a referendum on not just the Lisbon Treaty, but any subsequent EU treaty. That, surely, should have been enough?

But, of course, EU referenda are a slippery slope. Have one on a treaty, the next thing you know you’ll be having ones on membership – just as the likes of Jimmy Goldsmith’s old Referendum Party and their longer-lasting rivals UKIP have been pushing towards for over a decade, and as the pro-EU Lib Dems under Nick Clegg are now calling for in the hope a (likely) victory for the pro-membership lobby will shut up the sceptics once and for all.

Cameron’s cranking up of the rhetoric over the EU (not actually saying he’s against the Lisbon Treaty, you’ll note, but not saying anything in its favour in the full knowledge that the entire Tory press is against the thing) has been keeping the referendum campaign the most high-profile it’s been for years. Yet, unlike during the referendum campaigns in France and the Netherlands, there has not been a concurrent increase in public debate about the EU itself, or of public knowledge about the thing the referendum is meant to be about.

It’s all about the referendum itself – the casting of votes. The illusion of participation. It’s populism, plain and simple. The thing the referendum is about doesn’t matter in the slightest.

But wait – what if he succeeds and the referendum is called? The likely result is a big “no” to the Lisbon Treaty, based on brainwashing and/or misinformation by the eurosceptic – and euroignorant – press (see * below again) combined with the public’s lack of real interest in the EU.

And therein lies the cunning plan. Because that would enable Cameron to draw out the whole populist process for years with countless follow-up referenda. It would also provide a handy buffer against the withdrawalists by taking away the Lisbon Treaty’s introduction of procedures by which a member state can quit the EU**, meaning he can safely play around without the threat of having to take the EU-bashing to the logical extreme and giving up membership.

Of course, this would still piss off all the other EU member states no end. Cameron would position himself as the pariah of Europe, pissing everyone off by his obstructionism and stalling EU reform yet further.

But this could, in itself, be a good thing. Back when the Lisbon Treaty was still called (and still was) a constitution, from time to time I would hope that the thing got completely rejected time and again, forcing the EU’s bigwigs to take a step back and start again from scratch – preferably building some kind of multi-speed or multi-tier union in its place.

And although Cameron’s barely said a word about his real thinking on the EU, he did drop a few hints that he was after radical reform a year ago – albeit very vague hints that met with almost no response bar criticism, except from the usual suspects.

Cameron’s approach even at the time struck me as (almost) an advocation of a multi-tier Europe – exactly what I’d like – and his obstructionism over the Lisbon Treaty (and all subsequent EU treaties) could be just what we need to get real reform.

Because for the last decade or more, the debate over EU reform has been dominated by one goal – how to make the existing EU structures work after the expansion to 27 member states? This has always been the wrong question. It shouldn’t have been “how do we get what we’ve got to work?”, but “is what we’ve got the right option?” – and I’ve long been of the opinion that it’s not. I am, after all, pro-EU – but not pro-this EU. The only trouble is, no one with any influence has been advocating such an approach, and everyone with any power has apparently been happy to just go with the EU flow – muddling along and making do.

Of course, this is reading far too much into what Cameron’s been up to. He’s not a chap to make his aims clear, as anyone who’s been trying to keep tabs of mostly nonexistent Tory policy over the last year or so will be more than aware. But sod what’s best for Britain, a British referendum – and a no vote in that referendum – could well be the best thing for the EU…

* Not elitism (for a change) – the old constitution was 250-odd pages of complex legal jargon that was almost impossible to follow; the Lisbon treaty is a similar number of short paragraphs referring to numbered sub-clauses in umpteen previous European treaties in order to amend them, and thus even more difficult to comprehend. Plus, of course, the dishonesty of the eurosceptic press and hyperbole of eurosceptic campaigners is hardly making life easier.

** Despite the eurosceptic attacks on Nick Clegg over his calls for a vote on EU membership, after the Lisbon Treaty is ratified this would give them their first ever chance to get what they want. Their lack of enthusiasm for his plan is, I reckon, largely because they know that they can’t win that battle just yet…