The Tories are taking a terrible pounding over their decision to leave the centre-right grouping in the European parliament and there is evidence that the criticism has rattled the leadership. In interviews, Hague and Cameron have appeared at turns defensive, anxious and unsure of the line. Sensing blood, Labour’s attack machine has pounced. Though determined to paint the Tories as isolated and without influence on Europe and busy linking them with all manner of crackpots, loons and fringe elements, the argument is not really about Europe at all. Confident that it plays to their ‘Same Old Tories’ and ‘nasty party’ memes, Labour strategists have seized on the issue as part of their wider attempt to deconstruct Cameron’s modernising agenda and re-contaminate the Tory brand.
Worried that the Labour attack will resonate, fearful that it plays into all the old stereotypes, the Tories are keen to close down the argument. But need they be? I am not so sure. Guardian readers are no doubt appalled. In their minds, this confirms all their worst prejudices. But this is exactly what is wrong with the strategy. Like Brown’s ‘Tory cuts!’ jibe and the ‘Mr. 10%’ riff, this is small tent stuff. Shoring up the Euro-fanatic vote with scare stories about Ukrainian SS members, holocaust deniers and homophobes is not political outreach. While this stuff plays well in The Guardian and The Independent, outside the echo chamber of the liberal press I am not so sure. Though we have no way of gauging the impact on the opinion polls, just as the country is in the mood for spending reductions, it is in the mood for a more critical approach to European policy, and so the Tories should not be afraid of the argument. Brown’s last attempt at this sort of transparent political positioning backfired spectacularly, leaving the Labour leader looking slippery and dishonest. So the Tories might yet turn this to their advantage.
They will only turn this to their advantage, though, if they are prepared to confront the issue head on. That means making this move part of a wider reform argument. The Tories can do this in the knowledge that they are on the right side of that argument. The whole trend in today's politics is towards increased accountability and transparency. Arguments around localism, democratic renewal and reform resonate deeply with a public desirous of change. Of course, any argument that challenges the establishment view on Europe will meet with a robust response and that is just what we are seeing. The combined assault on the Tory position from Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the big liberal blogs and the BBC is evidence of just how widespread and ingrained the consensus on Europe has become. Just yesterday, Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, accused the Tories of throwing away influence on Europe in favour of “ideological isolationism”.
Davey’s use of the term ‘ideological’ is a simple yet effective rhetorical device, conjuring images of wide-eyed, frothing-at-the-mouth types. Notice how, by using the term pejoratively, he seeks to draw the ideological sting from the establishment view and present the federalist argument as a matter of simple common sense. These rhetorical sleights of hand are everywhere used instead of argument. The pro-European argument never gets beyond vague noises about the need to combat climate change and warnings that jobs and trade will suffer. Quite how and why all of this requires a bloated federal superstructure is never fully explained. It operates rather as something of a null hypothesis - a default position - assumed to be true as a matter of simple common sense and thereby rendered ideologically neutral. This insidious framing shapes discourse across the media. The assumptions underlying the conventional or establishment view are everywhere presented as unthreatening, non-ideological, safe. This is a subtle and insidious form of indoctrination. The establishment view is no less ‘ideological’ than the Tory position and it needs to be confronted - and confronted with conviction. The Tories have to stop being so defensive on the issue. Despite the force of the attack on the Tory position, there are signs that the argument is moving their way. Just last week Nick Clegg moderated his tone on Europe greatly, sounding much less slavish than usual, and the more thoughtful Liberal Democrats are aware that they need to develop a much more critical pro-Europeanism than they have yet shown us. So it would be a great irony and a very great betrayal if, at the very moment the stifling consensus on Europe begins to fracture, the Tories failed to put themselves at the centre of the argument for fear of upsetting the pro-European press.