Was Cameron’s veto in 2011 the beginning of the end for British membership of the EU?

Andrew Grice on the biggest story he’s covered in 37 years as a political journalist

David Cameron cuts an isolated figure at the Brussels summit in 2011 (Rex)

In an ominous sign of what was to come, I had a breakfast time row with David Cameron in Brussels in December 2011. At 2.30am, he had vetoed an EU treaty to salvage the single currency. “It is the beginning of the end for Britain’s membership,” I reported one EU source as saying, prophetically.

I couldn’t see the point of Cameron’s veto. Having covered EU summits since 1987, when Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister, I reckoned the other 27 EU members would find a way to go ahead without the UK. Soon, they did. “How can it be in the national interest for the UK to be so isolated?” I asked the prime minister. He insisted: “I am doing what is right, to safeguard our country’s interests, and the City of London.”

I suspected Cameron was acting in the Tory party’s interest. He had no desire to push through parliament a treaty that would split his party, forcing him to rely on Liberal Democrat and Labour votes.

It was a foretaste of what happened just over a year later. Spooked by the threat to his party from Nigel Farage’s Ukip and under pressure from Tory Eurosceptics, Cameron announced an in-out EU referendum. He insists today that the boil had to be lanced. But he could have stood up to the hardline Brexiteers, instead of tossing them a bone; their appetite is never satisfied.

When he won a surprise overall majority at the 2015 election, Cameron had to go ahead with his referendum. His Liberal Democrat coalition partners were no longer around to block it.

I wish he had delayed the public vote until 2017, as his legislation allowed. By then, British voters would have seen Donald Trump at the White House, and might just have decided the national interest lies with our closest neighbours.

Cameron’s natural self-confidence, boosted by the 2014 Scottish independence referendum and 2015 election, told him he could persuade the British public to remain in the EU. “I am a winner,” he told his fellow EU leaders. They didn’t do him any favours when he renegotiated the UK’s membership terms. Perhaps if he had cultivated them (and not used his veto in 2011), he might have got a better “new deal”.

I was one of the few Westminster journalists who thought the Remain camp would lose the referendum

I was one of the few Westminster journalists who thought the Remain camp would lose the referendum. In private chats, Labour MPs with seats in the north told me their voters were splitting 2-1 for Leave. I regret Jeremy Corbyn’s half-hearted efforts for Remain. The campaign would clear its day-to-day media grid for a Labour initiative, only for nothing to happen, and a day to be wasted.

Looking back, the vote to leave should not have been seen as a surprise. Almost 30 years of hostile coverage in the British press, and the refusal of politicians in all parties to make the case for EU membership, left the EU exposed. It was a convenient whipping boy for people who felt “left behind” by globalisation and the 2008 crash; voting for Brexit was a free hit without risking a change of government.

For me, the referendum result was tinged with sadness. Some journalists who spent a lot of time in Brussels, including Boris Johnson, saw the EU was a wicked plot against the UK. I was not among them. I was no starry-eyed believer in a united states of Europe. Rather, I thought that close co-operation with the UK’s closest trading partner made economic, political and common sense, giving us more clout in a world of power blocs. I saw that the real power lay with elected national leaders, not the “Brussels bureaucrats” demonised by much of the British press.

In my view, the government’s handling of Brexit has been woeful. Theresa May’s strategy, if she had one, was full of contradictions and unforced errors. Anxious to reassure Brexiteers because she had backed Remain, she prematurely ruled out staying in the single market and customs union. When she later realised the importance of frictionless trade, the Eurosceptics would not let her row back.

May’s acquiescence to hardline Brexiteers like members of the European Research Group proved disastrous (PA)

May triggered the two-year Article 50 process before she had a plan; time then became a powerful weapon for the EU. She said “no deal is better than a bad deal” but belatedly recognised that a no-deal exit would be disastrous.

Her motto was “trust no one”. Key decisions were restricted to her tight inner circle. Civil servants with expertise, the Treasury and the Foreign Office were sidelined. Ministers like David Davis and Johnson were kept out of the loop; they joined a long list of resignations.

A 2017 general election designed to create a Commons majority for May’s Brexit deal saw her lose her overall majority, and her authority. She never really recovered. After three crushing Commons defeats for her agreement, she was finally forced out by her own MPs.

May could have done it differently. She prolonged the deep divisions opened by the referendum by writing the 48 per cent out of the script. A different leader would have brought the country together by interpreting the 52-48 split as a vote for a soft Brexit – leaving the EU’s political institutions, while maintaining close economic ties inside the single market and a customs union.

By the time Johnson succeeded May, the UK was on a one-way street towards a harder Brexit. Like Cameron and May, Johnson had curried favour with the Eurosceptic tail which became the Tory dog. When it seemed the UK was heading for a damaging no-deal exit, Johnson struck a last-minute deal with the EU. His agreement was not blocked by parliament as he claimed; that merely provided his excuse for the pre-Brexit election he wanted and secured. He won big; the Remainers were finally outmanoeuvred.

In my view, MPs in the last parliament were doing their job by defining the form of Brexit, a question not resolved by the referendum. They declined to approve an unprecedented act of economic self-harm. The new Commons will have no such qualms, and the UK will leave on 31 January.

My biggest regret is that a majority of MPs did not support The Independent’s campaign for a Final Say referendum, so the public could make an informed choice, based on the new facts to emerge since 2016. We came close; small differences between like-minded MPs stopped us getting over the line.

Cameron’s natural self-confidence told him he could persuade the British public to remain in the EU

Brexit is the biggest story I have covered in 37 years as a Westminster journalist. Bigger than the fall of Margaret Thatcher, the rise of Tony Blair, Black Wednesday, the financial crisis, the Iraq war. The most important thing to happen to the UK since the Second World War, as it will affect our economy, our politics, our influence in the world and our cultural links.

I have a feeling the history books will show Brexit was a big step on the road to a united Ireland. If Ireland’s economy does much better than Northern Ireland, the pull will be very strong. Although the risk of Scotland leaving the union is lower, an economic hit from Brexit would fuel the SNP’s campaign for independence. There could yet be an ironic postscript to a decade in which Cameron hoped to keep Britain in the EU and Scotland in the UK.

I hope the UK can forge a productive relationship with the EU, and will eventually find its place in an outer core of independent European nations co-operating closely, while an inner core opts for ever-closer union. I doubt the UK will rejoin one day, as some pro-Europeans hope; the British way will probably be to make the best of its decision.

Far from draining the poison from the EU debate as Cameron hoped, his referendum led to our politics becoming more toxic, and the country deeply divided. I suspect the economic pain caused by Brexit will cause many people to regret the fateful vote in 2016. For once, I hope I am wrong.

The EU leaves Britain

Andrew Grice, 10 December 2011

Britain was left on the margins of the European Union last night after the biggest split in its 54-year history. “It is the beginning of the end for Britain’s membership,” one EU source predicted.

The European leaders’ summit ended in acrimony after David Cameron vetoed a new treaty to rescue the ailing euro and all other 26 EU members looked set to go ahead without him, leaving the UK in a minority of one.

The prime minister forced the 17 nations in the single currency to create a “treaty outside the EU treaty” to enforce budgetary discipline and prevent a repeat of the eurozone debt crisis. The other nine nations who are outside the euro deserted Britain and expressed their desire to join the “euro-plus” group.

Mr Cameron’s veto, the first time a British prime minister has deployed one to block an EU treaty, came after he failed to win safeguards for the City of London. His unexpectedly tough stance delighted Conservative Eurosceptics but worried his Liberal Democrat coalition partners, the most pro-European of Britain’s main parties. Tory MPs called for a “new relationship” with the EU. A referendum on the UK’s relationship with Europe is, however, unlikely before the next general election, as the Liberal Democrats could block it. But Mr Cameron will now come under immense pressure to include one in the Tory manifesto.

The prime minister insisted last night that Britain’s membership of the EU is “good for us” and that – unlike some hardline sceptics – he did not want the UK to end up like Norway, part of the single market but with no say over its rules. “Of course this does represent a change,” Mr Cameron said. “But the core of the relationship – the single market, the trade and the investment, the growth, the jobs – that remains as it was.”

He insisted Britain’s influence in the EU would be maintained and denied his actions had paved the way for British withdrawal.

Other European leaders claimed Mr Cameron’s tactics had backfired. “This is going to cost the UK dearly,” said one EU official. “It has antagonised everyone.” Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said: “I really don’t believe David Cameron was ever with us at the table. We’re very pleased with the result. Yesterday was no weak compromise for the euro.”

However, there are fears in the British government that the euro stabilisation measures agreed at the summit will get the thumbs-down when the financial markets open on Monday. That would mean the crisis is not over – and that a disorderly break-up of the euro could yet plunge Britain into a prolonged recession.

Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, defended Mr Cameron’s stance but later acknowledged the disquiet in his own party by saying: “I think any Eurosceptic who might be rubbing their hands in glee about the outcome of the summit should be careful what they wish for, because there is an increased risk of a two-speed Europe in which Britain’s position becomes more marginalised, and that would be bad for growth and jobs.”

The summit was a clear victory for Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, who had wanted a new treaty based on the 17-member eurozone. Six of the “outs” joined the intergovernmental agreement immediately and three others – Sweden, Hungary and the Czech Republic – look likely to follow suit.

A prolonged legal wrangle is in prospect over whether the “euro-plus” bloc can use EU institutions such as the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. Mr Cameron is adamant that they cannot, but his line was seen as untenable.

Mr Cameron insisted he had followed a “combined position” agreed by Tories and Liberal Democrats.

Guy Verhofstadt, former Belgian PM, said: “It was not wise of Cameron. He’s putting himself outside of the club and this club is his main trade partner.”