The first day of the “faux debate” over the EU treaty revealed Gordon Brown’s plan to turn a “crucial debate over the course of the country into a party political nit-picking session”, said The Times. After the “Lisbon stitch-up” at the end of last week, even dedicated objectors will wonder if it’s worth carrying on protesting. That’s what he wants, said Matthew D’Ancona in The Sunday Telegraph. Brown’s hope is that the “spectacular complexity” of the treaty and the tedium of parliamentary ratification (due to last into next spring) will force the media and electorate to lose interest.
Brown’s behaviour isn’t surprising, said Charles Moore in The Daily Telegraph. Any leader who resists the European process will have the official and diplomatic class of 26 countries against him. Opposition would require “exceptional courage and tenacity”. Brown “will not bother”. That doesn’t make the treaty any less worrying, said Roger Bootle in the same paper. For Brown to pretend his ‘red lines’ protect us is disingenuous. Anyone observing the EU process will notice that “constitutional and legal niceties are observed at first, but are then over-ridden in pursuit of the ultimate goal, which is the creation of a European state”.
The treaty is another major step along the road to surrendering national sovereignty; and that would have major economic consequences. The UK has thrived over the past 20 years: most European member states, characterised by poorly functioning labour markets, huge public debts and aggressive trade unions, are a “massive failure”. Out of this “mishmash of incompetence”, are we to expect an enlightened economic government of all Europe? All the signs are that the EU elite has not the slightest concept of how wealth is generated, and is motivated largely by self-interest.
Let’s not be alarmist, said The Independent. The main aim of this treaty is not to concentrate new powers in Brussels but to establish basic mechanisms that allow a community of 27 countries to “live and work together in a reasonably harmonious fashion”. When it comes to the great challenges ahead (terrorism, the environment and globalisation), it is “surely obvious” that we can only hope to address them jointly. But Brown has handled it badly: by boasting about red lines and opt-outs, he is inadvertently feeding suspicions that the government has “caved in to an intrinsically undesirable political deal”. He would do better to start “trumpeting the Lisbon deal as the long-awaited fresh start that almost the whole of the rest of Europe believes it to be”. He has promised to articulate a ‘vision’ of the world; this is a good place to start.
The Tories could also capitalise on the issue, said The Times. Cameron may shy from full-blooded political confrontation for fear of igniting old divisions in Conservative ranks, but he shouldn’t. The issue could be used to highlight his party’s competence and fair-mindedness. The Tories should back administrative changes to cope with an expanded EU and champion pan-European free trade, while insisting an expansion of EU responsibilities and power would need a referendum. If they manage to be reasonable while also being angry, “they will be doing the right thing for the UK, the right thing for the European Union and the right thing for themselves”.