Steve Richards: For the first time in four decades 'Europe' is no longer poisonous

Europe nearly killed Labour in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the 1990s it tore apart the Conservatives

I can hardly believe I am about to write the following sentence. Europe has ceased to be a toxic issue in British politics and the detoxification will last. Europe will continue to cause bouts of angry dissent, parts of the media will stir, but for the first time since Britain became a member the issue is no longer deadly. A historic moment is reached.

The purging of the lethal poison became vividly clear for the first time this week, when David Cameron delivered his statement in the Commons on the recent summit in which he conceded an increase in the budget, having demanded a freeze. Behind him the Tory benches were packed. There are more Euro-sceptic Tories in the Commons now than there were in the 1990s, when the party fell apart over the issue. Cameron is a Euro-sceptic and some of his Cabinet colleagues are much more so. As he joked in response to one Labour MP: "If you think I'm Euro-sceptic, spend a bit of quality time with the Defence Secretary (Liam Fox)."

But although some Tory MPs huffed and puffed, there was no great eruption of anger, one that signalled trouble to come. Instead the most extreme interventions came from Labour MPs, with Kate Hoey calling for Britain to pull out of the EU and Graham Stringer demanding a much more sweeping cut in the Government's contribution to the budget.

Their contributions were a reminder that irrational hostility exists on both sides, but elsewhere there has been a coming together. Although Euro-sceptic, Cameron's pragmatism is more evident in foreign policy than in domestic matters. He is fortunate that Germany and France are led by figures who are less driven by federalist ambition compared with some of their predecessors. Cameron likes Angela Merkel, who appears to have forgiven him for pulling out of the main centre-right grouping in the European Parliament. This week he hailed a new joint defence initiative with President Sarkozy.

As Liam Fox pointed out, the arrangement is far removed from a common European defence policy, but John Major would have been in no position to sign such an agreement in the mid-1990s without bringing his government down. I doubt if Gordon Brown would have done so either: "Help – What would The Sun and The Times do to me if I signed this?"

There is also a change of some significance on the Labour side since its theoretical embrace of Europe. In the mid-1990s Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson and some others were romantic pro-Europeans. Lacking an ideology in other policy areas, an attachment to "Europe" became a substitute. Blair regarded his historic mission as reconciling Britain to Europe, most specifically by joining the single currency. Ed Balls stiffened the resolve of Brown in resisting this particular move, and Ed Miliband watched with interest from his perspective in the Treasury. He also formed a view that while Labour should be committed fully to Europe, there was a tendency among some Blairites to elevate it into a cause because they had no other.

The two front benches are closer together now, as expedient supporters of Britain's membership, compared with recent Parliaments, when Tory opposition leaders were fanatical opponents and parts of the Labour leadership regarded the Euro as their ultimate, career-defining goal.

The current mood was captured after Cameron's statement this week, when two of the most forensically robust pro-European MPs, Labour's Denis MacShane and the Lib Dems' Charles Kennedy, both declared their support for the Prime Ministerial position. They were being partly mischievous, but not entirely so.

The consensus that Britain will not be, and should not be, joining the Euro is one factor that brings about the detoxification of Europe as an issue. There was a revealing moment at The Independent's fringe meeting during the Liberal Democrats' conference, when I chaired a session with Danny Alexander. The current Treasury Chief Secretary was a leading member of the pro-Euro campaign in the late 1990s. He was asked by one of the equivalents in the "No" campaign, The Independent's columnist Mary Ann Sieghart, whether he accepted she was right and he had been wrong. With characteristic, candid modesty, Alexander agreed that he had indeed made the wrong call. Here was a meeting of minds inconceivable a decade ago.

Other factors play their part. The calamity of the war in Iraq reduces the pressure on British leaders to follow the US President in every conflict. If President Bush had invaded the moon he would have had the support of Tony Blair, because the first Labour Prime Minister in 18 years had resolved with timid resolution never to appear anti-American or soft on defence.

The fallout from Iraq makes it at least possible that Britain could sometimes find common ground with the other big powers in Europe, as Jack Straw attempted to do when he was Foreign Secretary over the threat posed by Iran. Straw was no Euro enthusiast.

In the near future there are no great overwhelming themes relating to Britain's membership of the EU on the scale of the single currency, and arguably the attempt to write a constitution that became the Lisbon Treaty. In many ways the Euro-sceptics in Britain have won.

During the mid-1990s they were demanding that Britain kept out of the single currency and pushed instead for a wider membership of the EU. Both demands are met. Pro-Europeans have had to do more adapting and in doing so move closer to those on the other side of what was a defining divide.

The significance of the new broad consensus cannot be overestimated. Europe nearly killed Labour in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The issue was one of the reasons for the formation of the SDP at a point when Labour was committed to pulling out. In the 1990s it tore apart the Conservatives, destroying the leadership of both Margaret Thatcher and John Major. The Euro was the cause of the most explosive row between Blair, Brown and their associates. After one exchange towards the end of the second term, Blair never directly spoke to Ed Balls again.

I had thought Europe would wreak fatal havoc once more, perhaps on the Coalition, where the issue is one of the few that separates Nick Clegg from Cameron. It will not do so. The phase when Europe destroyed parties has passed.

s.richards@independent.co.uk