Philip Stephens: Cameron Bids Europe a Churchillian Goodbye
Philip Stephens is an associate editor of the Financial Times.
The wheel is turning full circle. When France and Germany set about building a united Europe from the wreckage of the war, Winston Churchill wished them well. The caveat was that the enterprise would begin at Calais. Imperial Britain had no need of peacetime entanglement with its continental partners.
I suspect David Cameron would be flattered by the notion that his European policy echoes that of his illustrious Tory predecessor. As the eurozone heads, albeit with dangerous hesitation and swerves, towards economic union, the parallel is unavoidable. Yet even as Churchill imagined Britain as a great power, self-chosen isolation defied hard-headed national interest. Now it looks positively reckless.
For the first time since Edward Heath abandoned Churchillian hauteur to take Britain into Europe in 1973, senior figures in Whitehall are contemplating the serious possibility of a permanent rupture in the relationship. To say that Britain may leave the EU – or at the very least retreat to a looser arrangement with its continental partners – has moved from the realm of eurosceptic daydreaming to that of an entirely plausible side effect of the present euro drama...