Douglas Carswell's Blog

Eurosceptic talk is easy. But what will ministers actually do?

It seems that you cannot deliver a localist agenda, and decentralise power in Britain, while we remain part of the top down, technocratic EU project.  That, at least, seems to be the conclusion drawn by whoever in government has been briefing James Forsyth at the Mail on Sunday.

And they are spot on.

Those of us who advocate an in / out referendum on the EU do so not because we wish to return Britain back to 1950-something.  On the contrary, we see leaving the EU as the first step to radical change at home.  We don't wish to bring powers back from Brussels and Strasbourg in order to let them fester with Sir Humphrey-types in Whitehall.  Instead we want a localist revolution at home.

It is good to know that government ministers are starting to see this.  It makes the government's aggressive integrationism of the past nine months seem all the more odd.  Perhaps it has been Sir Humphrey, rather than ministers, who has been driving things?  Maybe frustrated ministers are beginning to realise this? 

Whatever the cause of these press briefings, are they primarily intended to pander to an ever more Eurosceptic electorate, or do they indicate substantial change in the offing?   

Expect lots of talk about the need to head off the worst excesses of the Brussels machine.  But it'll be what happens next within the Whitehall machine that counts.    

The key litmus test for Whitehall-watchers will be who and how the government appoints as next British ambassador to the EU.  

If Jon Cunliffe, Gordon Brown's former main man from the Treasury and current favourite, is anointed ambassador to the EU without a formal confirmation vote of the Commons foreign affairs select committee, expect business as usual. 

If the next ambassador to the EU - Cunliffe or not - only gets the job after MPs have had the opportunity to press them on why the Whitehall machine ensnared us in a system of pan-EU economic government and a Euro debt union, then we know ministers are serious.

UPDATE:  Reading Fraser Nelson at Coffee House, seems there movement behind the idea that there's going to have to be an in / out referendum sooner or later. 

Back to all posts