hms iron duke

hms iron duke

Wednesday 18 July 2012

Blair and Brown: Jobs for the Boys

Alphen, the Netherlands, 18 July.  There is nothing that proves the essential corruption of modern political life than the sinecures handed out to failed ȕber-elite politicians who did their country grave harm.   The carefully-timed summer announcements that two former failed British prime ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, are back is but the latest example of high political contempt for public virtue. Multi-millionaire Tony Blair has been appointed by Labour leader Ed Milliband as an advisor on “Olympic legacy”; for that read political advisor to Milliband in the run up to the 2015 general election.  Meanwhile, Gordon Brown has been appointed as UN Special Envoy for Universal Education, which could only have happened with London’s (and Labour’s) formal blessing.

These two men together conspired to do more damage to my country than any prior political partnership.  They quite simply misled the British people about their aims and their intentions to disastrous effect and like many millions I believed them.  Indeed, until the mid-naughties I had been a life-long Labour Party supporter.  Thanks to these two I will never again trust Labour with my country.
Their failure might best be summed up as the four ‘I’s; Iraq, ‘investment’, Scottish indepdence and immigration. All are testament to political hubris.  Evidence suggests Blair misled the British people over the Iraq War.  The false dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction led to hundreds of British troops being killed in a war fought on the most tenuous of legal grounds, and many tens of thousands of Iraqis.  This week, in a letter to David Cameron, Sir John Chilcott, who heads the Iraq Inquiry talked of a number of “unresolved disputes” triggered by Blair’s testimony, “…including the treatment of discussions in the cabinet and cabinet committees and the UK position in discussions between the prime minister and heads of state or government of other nations”.
Brown disastrously destroyed the public finances of the country, over-spending massively in the name of ‘investment’ and then tried to blame the mess on the world around him.  Had Brown maintained a commitment to sound finance Britain would be one of the strongest economies in Europe rather than being dragged through the deep morass of debt which was Brown’s legacy to Britain. 
With a referendum due in 2014 Blair’s flawed devolution policy has even opened the door to Scottish secessionists and could see the break-up of the United Kingdom. 

However, it was hyper-immigration which was the signature policy of both Blair and Brown and which has been a disaster for the country. This week the Office for National Statistics released the latest census. Since 2001 the population of England and Wales (excluding Scotland) went up a massive 3.7 million, much higher than thought to 56.1 million, and increase of 7%.  This was a deliberate policy choice that ran totally against the wishes of the massive majority of British people with the aim of ramming “diversity down the throats of the right” as one Blair aide put it and gerrymandering the vote.  Such has been the impact of hyper-immigration that English society in particular is still in a state of shock with Westminster having to resort to draconian race laws to suppress dissent and thus prevent an explosion in the powder keg that is contemporary England.  The England I once knew has been destroyed.  England today is a broken place where life is fair neither on Britons nor the many decent immigrants who make a contribution to British life.  A black friend of mine works on the front-line of the social and racial tensions caused by Blair-Brown.  He calls it a war.

What is strange is why the Labour Party is rewarding Blair and Brown whilst trying to pretend to the rest of us they have moved on.  It implies that nothing has in fact changed.  That come the general election in 2015 the same political con-trick will be employed to dupe millions of Britons like me sympathetic to social democracy and social progress.  What I fear is that again behind the no doubt slick social democratic façade will be a hard left agenda that will again lead the country to the very precipice of disaster.
Until the political class in Britain learn there is a real price to pay for failure at the top they will continue to play an all-too-cosy game in which backs are quietly and lucratively scratched and failure rewarded with directorships and fancy EU and UN appointments.  For that to happen there has to be real sanction for failure. However, as all the many faux inquiries have demonstrated into the many disasters these past fifteen years there is little appetite in the British Establishment for proper accounting.  There are endless inquiries into seemingly endless crises but no-one at the top is ever actually responsible let along sanctioned.  No wonder the British people despise politicians, particularly the cosy elite at the very top.
What one-time American President Andrew Jackson once said of a young Washington applies equally to modern day London, “I weep for the liberty of my country when I see…that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office”. 

Blair and Brown: jobs for the boys.
Julian Lindley-French

Monday 16 July 2012

Leviathan: The Great European Divide

 Alphen, the Netherlands. 16 July.  In 1651 English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote “Leviathan” in which he said prophetically, “The only way to erect…a common power, as may be able to defend [men] from the invasion of foreigners, and the inquiries of one another... is to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or upon one assembly of men...Leviathan”.  Hunkered down behind the Eurozone crisis is Europe’s key existential question; can the future prosperity, stability and, indeed, democracy of Europeans be afforded by one single super-Leviathan?

The current crisis has painfully exposed what is the great European divide; those who believe in a greater ‘Europe’ and those suspicious of grand constructs that not only threaten hard won freedoms but also seek to replace the nation-state.  Sadly, friendships have been torn asunder over this issue; I too have lost a couple. 
Many continental Europeans are used to so-called ‘dirigisme’, diktat by fiat from above.  As an Englishman grounded in a political culture in which fundamental individual freedoms are sacrosanct the very idea of a European Leviathan is dangerous political folly.  It would require trust in a European political caste over which I have no writ. 
Later this year I will have the honour of addressing a meeting of senior French politicians and officials.  ‘L’Europe’ is very much a concept that France has championed.  Whilst it is a perfectly honourable creed it, ‘Europe’, begs the ultimate political and economic question; what is the ‘finalité’? 
First, there would need to be a European head of state, a real European president supported by a real European government led by a cabinet replete with European ministers, covering all the many competences of a modern state; a single system of justice and policing, sound economic governance and all aspects of ‘Home’ Affairs. Second, Europe’s five hundred million or so very disparate peoples with their myriad of cultures, traditions, beliefs and languages would need representation via a single European parliament credibly charged with powers of political oversight and made up of Europe-wide political parties.  Third, there would need to be a real executive supported by a European ‘civil service’ charged with implementing European policy and held to account by a functioning parliament.  Fourth, there would need to be a European Finance Ministry supported by a real European Central Bank that would act as a bank of last resort, much like the US Federal Reserve.  Finally, and critically, any such ‘state’ would send European citizens to their deaths in war in the service of a real European Army, Navy and Air Force.   
To make that work France would need to be scrapped, the French Government in Paris reduced to being little more than an English county council or more aptly a French departement.  Parliamentary democracy in France would be diluted some tenfold as by ratio of population to representation the size of European parliamentary constituencies increased in size some tenfold.  French national control over all main tax-raising powers and indeed all other aspects of sound money would be handed over to the European finance ministry.  The French would also need to abandon their armed forces, its military traditions, history and glory and subordinate it to a European Army.
Of course, money is the root of all evil.  The Europe on offer today is one of mutual impoverishment, which makes it different to the 'Europe' of yore.  For the first time European integration pre-supposes little or no economic growth.  In the past ‘Europe’ has been built on the transfer of surpluses from the taxpayers of the formerly rich north and west Europe to those of the poor south and east Europe.  How long can Western European politicians impose such transfers on their newly impoverished taxpayers in the name of Europe before they revolt? 
For me ‘Europe’ can only ever work as a tight alliance of nation-states in which the political centre of gravity remains national sovereignty under national parliamentary control ‘harmonised’ into a tool for strategic influence, both within Europe and beyond.  To that end the place of Brussels is to serve the European state, not replace it.  I will never compromise on this point. 
Shortly before his death Hobbes said, “I am about to take my last voyage. A great leap in the dark.”  He could well have been speaking of the giant leap into the political dark that is now taking place in Europe.  Ultimately, a European Leviathan would be an insult to the tradition of English and Scottish political thought that made parliamentary democracy possible – Hume, Locke, Mill, Smith et al.  And, if friendships are lost because I will not compromise on this fundamental political principle, then so be it. 
A European Leviathan; be careful what you wish for.
Julian Lindley-French

Friday 13 July 2012

Will Someone Please Save Europe from Belgium?

Alphen, just over the Dutch border from Belgium.  Friday, the 13th.  Will someone please save Europe from Belgium?  The influence of this chocolate superpower is growing by the day.  Now, my own country, Her Imperial Britannic Majesty’s Dis-United Kingdom, has made the odd mistake over the years.  We are good at mistakes. Indeed, London is currently working through Britain’s new foreign policy manual; “101 Mistakes To Make Before You Collapse”.  Perhaps Britain’s greatest mistake came at the very height of Empire – we made Belgium!  Yes, I know, it is a terrible admission to make and hardly a testament to sound British judgement.  Sorry.

The 1839 Treaty of London was a British-led deal between the Great Powers, the Dutch and the “Kingdom of Belgium” to create a buffer between the French and the Dutch.  Belgium was to be perpetually neutral and Britain was to guarantee Belgium.  Now, having led Western Europe’s only failed state to the heights of its ‘glory’ it is Belgians leading the way towards something all the more ambitious - a failed European super-state. 

Eveywhere I turn there are wild-eyed and ever so slightly dishevelled Belgians leading calls for the Super-Onion.  Be it Onion supremo ‘President’ Herman van Rompuy, or Chief Euro-Parliamentary Onionista Guy Verhofstadt.  Everywhere I turn Belgians are telling me I have no alternative but to bow to the ‘power’ of Belgium, sorry Brussels, and scrap my country so that Belgium can be made to work.  Did I miss something?

The latest piece from the chocolate superpower goes under the characteristically misleading title of “The European Council and the Community Method” (no, it is not some form of bizarre group sex but one does need a good smoke after reading it).  Written by one of those consummate Onion insiders Philippe de Schoutheete, former Belgian Ambassador to the Onion, it is a true horror story.

Like all good horror stories the paper starts by presenting the very essence of normality.  Europe was made up of a series of cozy hobbit-like shires nestling in the green and pleasant vale that was 1950s ‘Europe’.  Because the Hobbits had no issues that divided them they all agreed to come together to grow a European Onion.  However, because they were all as lazy as hell and did not really trust each other one little bit they also agreed to create something called the European Omission, whereby they all pretended to ignore their many disagreements and let some bloke called Manuel, a Portu-Belgian, decide things for them.  Of course, the Belgians maintained ultimate control by making their own lad Herman, King of the Belgians and President of Europe at one and the same time.  After a particularly damp period the Onion went mouldy and the only way to save it was to make the Omission responsible for ‘growth’, overseen of course by Herman.

And then the descent into horror quickens.  The good Ambassador cites the secret Treaty of Lisbon which the Belgians, sorry Brussels, had imposed after French and Dutch Hobbits had rather objected to their country being taken away simply to save Belgium.  The Belgians having given this democracy thing a try demonstrated that it did not work but avoiding a Belgian government for many years and decided this would also be good for Europe.  Thus, the only solution was to recast the Onion in the image of Belgium and overseen by the sprouts in Brussels.

At the end there is nowhere to run.  There is no life after debt.  Sooner or later the Onion crushes all before it and Europe is finally turned into Belgium; a happy but broke place where the people live happily ever after, love each other deeply but have no say over anything. At least the beer is good.

To be fair, the Ambassador is right about the essential challenge of our Euro-time; “One may ask whether the true debate today is not between the Community method and intergovernmental decision-making, but rather between governance and government”.  For those of you not-versed in Onion-speak the meaning is simple; is there any way we Hobbits will ever again trust the Muppets who have created this mess?  Moreover, is there any way that we can be convinced to give Belgium, sorry Brussels, even more power but ask less questions.  For that is what at the end the good Belgian Ambassador is offering.

He concludes with a warning.  “No political system can survive without giving hope to its citizens. Europe has been a great channel of hope for several generations, including mine. And today? It is not hope that encourages integration, it is market fears. Is this enough? What we see around us, rather, is hopelessness. Many Europeans do not see a light at the end of the tunnel. Who will bear a message of hope, if our leaders and institutions do not?"  Hope springs infernal - there is no life after debt but the Onion.   

British Prime Minister William Pitt once described Belgium as a “pistol pointed at the heart of England”.  It is about to be fired, if they can find the bullet.  Belgium - coming soon to a town near you. 

Julian Lindley-French

Wednesday 11 July 2012

Can the Franco-British Strategic Defence Relationship Survive?

Alphen, the Netherlands.  11 July.  Can the Franco-British strategic defence relationship survive? Yesterday, at the close of a modest lunch in Downing Street, British Prime Minister David Cameron said he had, “found much common ground” with French President Francois Hollande.  Following discussions ranging from the Eurozone debt crisis to Syria and Iran Cameron talked of a “strong relationship” and that both agreed the planned increase of the EU’s budget to €14 billion ($25 bn) by 2020 was “unacceptable”.  Clearly, the many issues of contention, such as France’s call for a financial services transaction tax, were either avoided or kept secret.  Cameron only hinted at the fundamental issue dividing the two countries; “We are clearly better off within the European Union…but I don’t think Britain is happy with the current relationship”. 

The Franco-British strategic defence relationship matters. First, it is a key European-European state relationship beyond EU competence.  Second, it is perhaps the only European relationship willing to think big about military matters in a very big military world.  Founded on two landmark defence agreements the relationship has long been a strategic cornerstone.  The 1998 St Malo Declaration seemed for a time to have resolved tension between NATO and the EU’s defence ambitions and paved the way for the now moribund Common Security and Defence Policy. 
On 2 November, 2010 the Franco-British Defence and Security Treaty was signed and heralded a new dawn in the two countries’ strategic defence relationship.  The treaty called for “mutual interdependence” and the sharing and pooling of defence materials and equipment, the building of joint facilities and “mutual access” to each other’s defence industries.  In addition there were agreements over nuclear stockpile stewardship, a new framework agreement for exchanges on operational matters and a proposal for a Combined Joint Expeditionary Force.  At the time there was also agreement that Britain and France should work together on the next generation of aircraft carriers.  However, the British decision to revert to the use solely of carrier-based short and vertical take-off aircraft effectively scrapped that line of co-operation.
Two other developments have undermined the relationship. First, the Eurozone crisis has pitched Anglo-French relations into uncharted waters inevitably affecting the strategic defence relationship. France is not only at the heart of the crisis whilst Britain is fast becoming a full-paying third-class member of the EU, Paris has always seen such agreements as a step on the road to a full-blown European defence construct to which Britain is implacably opposed.  Economic union will in time make that more likely not less.  Second, the 2010 treaty came at a time when Cameron was still early in his premiership and was hoping to ‘rebalance’ Britain’s relationship between Europe and the US.  However, such a rebalancing pre-supposed a Britain that would not be forced to choose between its economic relationship with Europe and its strategic defence relationship with the US.  The January 2012 shift in US defence posture towards East Asia will indeed over time force Britain to choose. And, given the Great European Defence Depression the British are rightly going with the Americans, even though that will have its own problems.   
Given those pressures it will be a miracle if the Franco-British strategic relationship survives…but survive it must for the good of all.  In the short-term some sensitivity will be needed.  The British must not under-estimate the attachment of the French to the Euro as a symbol of the French view of Europe.  The French must stop lecturing the British about said view of ‘Europe’, and stop attempting to subordinate Britain to French ambitions and the bill that goes along with them.
Sadly, the toxic chemistry between the two countries makes trust a rare commodity.  Sometime ago I had a chat with a French four-star general whom I like and respect.  The conversation was not easy.  He told me a story of a recent deployment by the French aircraft-carrier Charles de Gaulle, which had been escorted by a British frigate.  He claimed that Paris learnt later that the frigate only had orders to protect itself.  He even called the British “perfidious”.  I checked.  Not only was mon general wrong, but London found working with the French proved difficult because agreed operational schedules were never maintained.  What is clear is that Paris does feel let down by London at times and has a point.  Britain and France need to rise above this kind of thing.
The road ahead will be rocky.  Cameron’s contradictory argument that more European integration is needed, but that non-integrating Britain is better off in the European Union is patent nonsense.  Something is going to have to give and unless the two countries can demonstrate a genius for statecraft both have lacked for many years then it is hard to see the Franco-British strategic defence relationship surviving.  That would be a shame given the world in which these two middling powers are moving.
Julian Lindley-French

Monday 9 July 2012

All at Sea

Alphen, the Netherlands, 09 July. Admiral, the Lord Nelson, one-time senior naval super-person, once said that, “Desperate affairs require desperate measures”.  Had he attended the Royal United Services Institute Future Maritime Operations Conference 2012 in London he might have amended that to read, “Desperate affairs require desperate measures…and some new, radical, but above all strategic thinking”.  I came away from two days of debate with senior naval persons from many lands with a profound sense of ‘gap’ between the big, strategic role navies will and must play in the twenty-first century and the small, tactical thinking of those charged with making the case for future navies, particularly the British. 

Most telling for me was a breakfast meeting I attended to consider ‘sea-basing’.  I had prepared a major report for the head of the Royal Netherlands Navy to develop creative thinking in this area.  My intervention to that effect was met with the resounding thump of a good idea hitting the deck and being ignored.  It left me with a profound sense of senior military officers being simply unable or unwilling to think radically, unable to make a compelling case for expensive navies, and only really willing to listen to each other.  The rest of us were…tolerated.
This big futures twenty-first century will place Western navies right at the heart of strategy; influence, deterrence, dissuasion and defence.  However, we talked about almost everything but that – peacekeeping, supporting civil-military relations, counter-piracy, counter-drugs, supporting Afghanistan from the sea etc.  They are all important but they are not core business and we really must look beyond Afghanistan.  We only just touched on AirSea Battle and the access denial/area denial debate.

At times I thought I was attending a kind of floating politically-correct hell.  One academic offered a ridiculous, cartoon vision of modern Britain.  However, being of an ethnic minority Whitehall political correctness demanded all and sundry celebrate such nonsense.  It explained a lot.

Without a clear strategic ‘narrative’, and a means to sell it, strategically-inept politicians faced with ever more strident demands from the pressure groups and single-issue lobbyists who now infect democracy will cut navies to the point of strategic irrelevance.  In that event the world-wide strategic brand that is still the United States Navy, and to some extent the Royal Navy will be finally laid to rest and with them a key tool of strategic influence will be lost.  As I was speaking the British Defence Minister, Phillip Hammond was on his feet in the House of Commons announcing the Army 2020 plan by which the British Army will be cut from 102,000 to 82,000 over five years.

The conference at least offered a glimpse of the future.  This was the Anglosphere at sea.  In addition to the UK, senior naval speakers came from Australia, Canada, Ghana, New Zealand and the US.  There were no French, German, or Dutch speakers, although an impressive Italian Rear Admiral spoke.  Having been in Rome the previous week it is clear the Italians do not wish a) to be left alone in the European Onion without the British; or b) let go of the coat-tails of the Anglosphere.

Tellingly, I was upbraided for my suggestion that all was not well either between the three British services nor inside NATO.   That response demonstrated to me the kind of ‘steady as you go’ thinking that bears no relation to the mess in which we all find ourselves.

What is needed is a new concept of naval power which combines global reach with a shared warfighting ethos that in turn reflects a new balance between manpower and technology.  This concept requires in turn all the serious navies represented at that conference to learn far more effectively from each other and that means first and foremost learning how to learn.  That was not at all apparent and yet, ironically, that can be found in Army 2020.

Gentlemen, the bottom-line is this; the economic depression in which we are mired will likely get worse before it gets better.  Countries such as Britain will not be afforded the chance simply to get off the world for a bit to fix it.  Therefore, if the future navy that will be needed is to be afforded in sufficient numbers over a sufficiently reasonable timeframe at a cost that I can bear then you will need to build a much more coherent case with the Army and Air Force to forge the kind of organic jointness implicit in the Army 2020 plan, and across government. 

Given that reality my sense is that the leadership of Western navies (especially European navies) are being nothing like radical enough neither in their thinking about ways, ends or means nor in the building of all-important partnerships – both civil and military.
 
If we can get politicians thinking about navies they might just begin to think strategically. It is time to think radically about OUR navies otherwise they really will be all at sea.
Julian Lindley-French  

Thursday 5 July 2012

Bomber Boys

London, Bomber Command Memorial, 5 July. It is sixty-seven years too late.  The Bomber Boys gaze over me looking exhaustedly and exhaustively for comrades who will never return.  Seven RAF Bomber Command aircrew cast in bronze probably just off a Lancaster that has somehow miraculously survived a World War Two ‘trip’ over Nazi Germany.  Etched into the sombre Portland stone of London’s beautiful new monument to the men of Bomber Command are Churchill’s famous words of September 1940, “The fighters are our salvation, but the bombers alone provide the means of our victory”.

RAF Bomber Command flew 364,514 sorties during ‘the war’.  Of the 125,000 who clambered almost daily into Wellingtons, Halifaxes, Stirlings and, of course, the iconic Lancaster, 55,573 lost their lives.  Only the German U-Boat crews suffered greater losses of any service in any force anywhere.  Men had a 30% chance of surviving their first tour. As for the rest life was a lottery and they knew it.
Two weeks ago I had the honour to take breakfast in the mess at RAF Leeming sitting at a table where many young Britons and Canadians had eaten their final meal before being consumed by a fiery death over Germany.  Last week Her Majesty the Queen unveiled this simple memorial to very brave men in front of thinning ranks of veterans from many nations as a lone Lancaster dropped a field of poppies over London’s Green Park.
For five years with growing accuracy and intensity RAF heavy bombers pulverised German cities and killed large numbers of German civilians night after terrifying night.  One has only to visit a German city or read Max Hasting’s harrowing account of 5 Group’s 1944 attack on Darmstadt to get some understanding of the suffering that Bomber Command inflicted. 
However, whilst I regret the suffering I have long-learned not to judge a past age by the values of the current age.  This was total war that had to be fought and won totally against a regime that was seeking to subjugate Europe with its appalling mix of nationalism, racism and militarism. This was a regime that was sending millions to the gas chamber.  In 1940-1941 Luftwaffe attacks on British cities such as Coventry, London, my own Sheffield and many others led to tragic loss of civilian life.  Air Chief Marshal Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris made Britain’s position terrifyingly simple; “The Germans have sown the wind.  They will now reap the whirlwind”.  In August 1943 that whirlwind hit Hamburg which over two nights was virtually obliterated by the RAF.  The damage was so great that Goebbels told Hitler that a few more raids like that and the war would be lost. Cologne, Kassel, Berlin and of course Dresden suffered raids of up to one thousand aircraft, as did much of the Ruhr industrial basin.
The debate over the strategic value and morality of the bomber offensive will continue on for many years to come, as will the debate over the value of Britain putting so much of its wartime industrial effort into producing large bombers.  However, I will always recall the words of my Dutch wife’s great aunt who died two years ago at the age of 102.  She told me that in the four years before D-Day the sound of the ever-increasing bomber streams passing overhead night after night to strike the Nazis hard gave real hope to the Dutch people that so long as Britain was fighting hard deliverance would one day come from brutal occupation as indeed it did.
Perhaps the greatest tribute we can offer these young men is not just this stunning memorial but the fact that Coventry and Dresden are today twinned in reconciliation.  That atop the rebuilt Frauenkirche in Dresden sits a golden orb from Coventry.  It also places today’s contentions in stark perspective.  Whatever the tensions and irritations of the latest European crisis this is not a war; far from it.  Britain and democratic Germany are today friends and it must always be thus.  Indeed, even if Britain is forced to leave the EU, as I believe in time it will, we will leave as friends.  L.P. Hartley’s famous reminder that the past is another country is nowhere as eloquent as Europe. 
At the base of the memorial I found a note left by a relative.  It commemorates New Zealand brothers John and George Mee who perished on sorties a few months apart.  “As with their comrades they did not seek glory, they asked for no collateral for their lives, they demanded no privileges, no power or influence as they flew steadily into the valley of death”. 
Strike hard, strike sure, Gentlemen.
Julian Lindley-French

Monday 2 July 2012

Stop Playing Games over Europe, Mr Cameron

Alphen, the Netherlands. 2 July.  In an article yesterday in London's Sunday Telegraph, British Prime Minister David Cameron hinted at a possible in/out referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU.  “Let us start to spell out in more detail the parts of our European engagement we want and those we want to end”, Cameron urged.  Sadly, this is PR Meister Cameron at his smoke and mirrors worst.  Cameron has no intention of putting the question that in recent opinion polls up to 90% of the British people want to answer; should Britain leave the EU?

There was a time when EU membership made strategic sense for Britain.  Not any more; the Eurozone crisis is a tipping point.  EU membership costs Britain £55 million per day ($86m) or £20 billion per year ($31bn), which is over half the UK defence budget, making Britain the second net contributor after Germany for far, far less benefit.  Those politicians who want to lock Britain into an unfavourable relationship with a debt-crushed, economically-sclerotic, growth-free Eurozone (the only EU that matters) claim that should Britain leave the EU the country would lose some 40-50% of its global output.  This is scaremongering.  Britain has an enormous trade deficit with the Eurozone and some 50-60% of Britain’s trade is with the wider more dynamic world.  One only has to visit the UK to see there are few of those beguiling EU signs that one finds all over France and elsewhere celebrating ‘Brussels-funded’ projects; the British are paying for them.
Like much of Britain’s political class David Cameron’s strength is that he is a master political tactician at home, but a hopeless strategist abroad.  Indeed, PR-Meister Cameron’s performance at recent EU summits has been utterly lamentable.  The Sunday Express article reflects this.  It is negotiating madness to say one is going to wait until the Eurozone has decided its future before Britain re-negotiates its membership or indeed its exit.  At the very least Cameron needs to re-negotiate the cost of Britain’s EU membership now.  This is something former Defence Minister Liam Fox has today rightly pointed out. 

There are now only two likely outcomes for this crisis.  There will be either a German-French dominated EU that will use some elements of political union to lock the current balance of power into European law, which is not in Britain's favour.  Or, a move towards genuine political union will take place via fiscal and banking union of the sort favoured by the EU President, Herman van Rompuy.  Both options are utterly irreconcilable with Britain’s political culture. 
In his efforts to dance on the head of a political pin Cameron tries to make the distinction between the Euro-EU and the single-market EU.  That distinction simply does not exist.  Last week’s Van Rompuy plan for banking union shot Cameron’s one remaining fox.  In effect, a two-tier single market in banking is being created; one for the Eurozone and the other for the non-Eurozone.  For Britain a true single market in banking and financial services has been the holy grail for many years.  However, even before the current crisis Germany did everything to block such a market because Berlin and Frankfurt feared the power of the City of London.  Under current plans London would be shut out in favour of Frankfurt, not least because it is the Germans who are going to write the rules of banking union. 
 
One can only hope that behind the scenes there is some method in Cameron's madness.  By calling on the British people to “show tactical and strategic patience” he is maybe hoping to make the case for exit irresistible or at the very least creating negotiating space.  He claims after all to be a “pragmatic euro-sceptic”.  He may also be right.  Indeed, as power shifts away from most (not all) EU member-states to Brussels, and the European people become ever more subject to distant, technocratic unelected fiat, the dangers of political union will become obvious.   
 
Sadly, my bet is that Cameron is mortaging Britain’s strategic future for his own political neck.  By calling for “patience” Cameron’s real concern is to stop votes leaking from his political base to the UK Independence Party and to kick this particular can down the road until after the next election when he hopes that will not have to co-habit with Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, the European Commission’s point man in London.  And, by then the referendum over Scottish independence will have been settled. 

There may be a way for sensible people in London, Berlin and Paris to find a way to make EU membership work again for Britain but it is now very hard to see.  Today the British people pay far too much for far too little in an unbalanced relationship.  That relationship will become set in European political concrete unless Prime Minister Cameron ups his game and begins to exert demonstrable influence over a Brussels run by people who are not natural supporters of the British view of Europe.

Stop playing games over Europe, Mr Cameron.  It is far too serious and your position indefensible.
Julian Lindley-French