Boris Johnson's high wire act on Europe and other quick points

I mentioned a few posts ago that the issue of whether to leave the European Union or remain a member would split the Conservative party between its business backers, who would want to stay in, and its more emotional (or, to use a nicer term, idealistic) members and activists who would instinctively want to leave.


Two things in the last week or so have illustrated this quite nicely.


The first is that Boris Johnson had originally called for a referendum on EU membership some time ago but recently seemed to hedge his bets by talking up the virtues of the Single Market and appeared to back away from the referendum idea. He has since tried to merge these positions together by calling for the UK to remain a member of the "single market council" while stripping away most other elements of EU membership.

Boris is essentially trapped between two opposing constituencies on this issue. As Mayor of London, a city which relies extensively on being an international harbour for capital and services, he must do whatever he can to prevent anything which might harm the prosperity of the city (and the City). This means reassuring the business community that the increasingly eurosceptic tone of the Conservative party doesn't portend anything which would hamper their ability to make money, much less the massive instability and economic chaos caused by a "Brexit".

However, as a potential candidate to succeed David Cameron as Tory leader, he must pass the Conservative party's eurosceptic litmus test whereby even mentioning the benefits that EU membership brings the UK is heresy.

Boris has in the past been more than happy to take unpopular stands on behalf of business (witness his regular condemnation of banker bashing) but in those cases his stands were more popular among the Conservative party than the general public whereas on Europe the situation is reversed.
To solve this dilemma he has adopted the line favoured by most Tories who aren't in favour of total withdrawal: taking the good bit (membership of the Single Market and the benefits for British business that it brings) and trying to separate it from the bad bit (everything else about EU membership). The problem for Boris, and David Cameron, is that getting the good without the bad isn't really an option.

This brings us to the second thing which was the Economist, in a leader article and an extensive feature, making the business case for remaining in the EU. The article calls withdrawal a "reckless gamble" and says that "Britons would suffer far more than they currently realise" if that route were taken.

But aside from listing the potential downsides of leaving the EU the real service that the Economist provides is explaining why the holy grail of a renegotiated relationship, involving Britain keeping all the benefits of the Single Market but being bound by fewer obligations and rules, is a pipe dream.

This matters because "renegotiated" membership is the most popular choice among voters as well. When presented with a straight choice between "in" and "out", voters choose "out" by some margin. However, if a middle option of a renegotiated, looser relationship were on offer then the YouGov poll cited shows that 46% would choose it while only 26% would withdraw.

However, any renegotiation of Britain's position in the EU would require the consent of the other member states (that's what "negotiation" means) and not only would demanding all of the benefits but none of the obligations of EU membership be difficult at the best of times but the other states are becoming increasingly annoyed at Britain's posturing and refusal to help resolve the euro crisis. The Swiss and Norwegian positions that eurosceptics so often cite are less attractive than they appear but also completely unrealistic for a country the size of Britain, particularly given that the EU already regrets the arrangement that was granted to Switzerland.

Some push back against the possibly looming Brexit appeared a few weeks ago mainly in the form of articles in the Guardian and Observer but now we're starting to see other publications come at the topic from the right. It will be interesting to see which approach proves most convincing in the event of a referendum.