Credible? Yes. Deliverable? Maybe. Necessary? Definitely

The politics of David Cameron’s statement on Europe are straightforward. He wanted to produce a policy that was credible, not fantastical. So he has gone for what he can achieve with a mix of unilateral actions at home coupled with some ideas for renegotiating bits of EU law, and with a marker to tell us he will return to the matter at the election after next if Brussels fails to give satisfaction. So at the political level it is grown-up, balanced and the kind of thing you would want to see from a Government in waiting. “Enough of the Duke of York bollocks,” was how one MP put it to me: too much Tory policy in the past has been governed by unrealistic positions designed to placate the Right or the Sun; the party marched up the hill only to have to run back down again when the shellfire became too intense.

On the detail, there are things to pick at, of course. A commitment in law to put any future treaties to a referendum is fine, but there’s a bit of the horse/barn door problem here. The dirty work has been done; the next treaty is at least a decade away (beyond the Cameron premiership horizon) and the dastardly point about Lisbon is that it makes future treaties unnecessary because it allows further euro-creep without consulting member states. The stuff about seeking British guarantees in Brussels is full of merit, and Britain does have levers to use – budget negotiations, accession treaties – but I’m told lawyers advising Mr Cameron have told him not to get his hopes up. He promises ‘patient and respectful negotiation’ but we should be realisitic about whether it will work. Then there’s the promise of a threat of a referendum in the Parliament after next if he makes no headway in Brussels: great, except that if a referendum was incredible now, it will be so then as well. But that’s for another day.

One more point worth noting: the sceptics who have popped up in the past few days to suggest gently that a referendum remains a good idea have, when pressed, said they want one on the nature of Britain’s future relationship with Europe. I hope they heard what Mr Cameron said about wanting to put Britain’s “roleĀ  in the EU on a more positive and more permanent footing”. Did you hear that? Permanent? This was a eurosceptic’s statement, but there is no comfort here for those who think one day Dave might let them pull stumps and walk away from this game.