Let’s not kid ourselves. What David Cameron is supposed to be asking for as he travels round other European capitals is for a package of reforms to make the European Union more open and efficient. But what many in his government and party want is a fundamental renegotiation: leading either to the position of Norway, of association with the free trade area but exit from the EU, or that of Switzerland, an international finance centre with a fractious but dependent relationship with the EU. The Eurosceptics who want the Prime Minister’s negotiations to fail are driven by myths of English exceptionalism, by a tea-party Republican vision of a shrunken state and a deregulated market, and a refusal to recognise the disastrous impact of exit from the EU on the future of the United Kingdom and its place in the world.
Britain belongs in Europe. NATO and the EU are the twin pillars of our foreign and security policy. We share political and social values most closely with our European neighbours: on human rights, on what the Germans have labelled the ‘social market’ economy, on civil societies and national communities in which all citizens have a stake. It’s also the framework through which our economic interests are best promoted: a continent-wide market into which British products and services are closely integrated, a trading bloc which enables us to bargain with the US and China on equal terms.
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