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Big beasts is what British Conservatives call patrician and powerful Tories, often retired. Lord Lawson, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, best known for his aggessive tax-cutting during the Thatcher era, is a large beast and today he penned his dissent with the Prime Minister, David Cameron's strategy of renegotiating the U.K.'s relationship with Europe. Writing in The Times newspaper (subscription only), he admits that he has changed his mind, arguing that Britain would be better off leaving the European Union, and that he intends to vote in favour of quitting in the promised referendum in 2017.
Lord Lawson's conversion (he was supportive of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, a prelude to the Euro when he was in Thatcher's cabinet) comes hard on the heels of large-scale Tory voter defections in last week's local elections to UKIP, the upstart anti-EU party. It is bad news for Mr. Cameron, who needs to avoid the disastrous wrangling over Europe that wrecked the post-Thatcher Tory party and opened the door to a Labour victory under Tony Blair.
Oddly, Lord Lawson says little new in his manifesto for quitting the EU, blaming it for excessive regulation and bureaucracy and undemocratic institutions as well as arguing that it is hamstrung by its commitment to the euro. The former Tory chancellor barely addresses the issue of trade – half of the U.K.'s export of goods goes to the EU. In a cavalier fashion, he suggests British industry needs to widen its vision to Asia – as if it were a mere oversight. His brutal prediction is that David Cameron will fail in his negotiation strategy, just as previous British governments failed in their attempts to renegotiate Britain's membership.
With so many Tory MPs now looking nervously at UKIP and the 2015 general election, this could be devastating for the prime minister. However, Lord Lawson is most certainly right in his prediction. The odds in favour of Mr. Cameron succeeding in redesigning the EU to benefit Britain are slender. There is nothing that Britain can offer Germany and France in return for fundamental changes in the EU constitution; for Germany to agree would open the door to demands from every EU state from Ireland to Greece seeking a more favourable deal.
Britain's problem is that unlike Lord Lawson, the U.K. is not a big beast. In political terms, Britain's clout in Europe has been diminishing every year. Remaning outside of the single currency, Britain has no political weight in the biggest issue facing the union. Oddly, the weakened economic status of France – traditionally Britain's opponent in Brussels and which once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Germany as joint masters of the union – has not helped the U.K.. Instead, French decline has simply propelled German ascendance. Meanwhile, Britain still remains at the margin of EU political debate.
For politicians like Lord Lawson, this is the real problem with the EU, not the bureaucracy nor the lack of political accountability. The big beasts of British politics cannot abide the notion that Britain could be subsumed in a political entity it cannot hope to lead or at least enjoy special status. It matters little that in so many areas of policy Germany is in agreement with Britain. What matters is that Germany is now dominant; that is still unacceptable to the U.K. political class.
Carl Mortished is a contributor to ROB Insight, the business commentary service available to Globe Unlimited subscribers. Click here for more of his Insights.
Carl Mortished