A radical new deal for Britain and Europe: What if this really happened?

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DAVID CAMERON’S DRAFT SPEECH ON

UK/EU RELATIONS

This highly sensitive document was leaked from the Cabinet Office today. It is the final draft of the presentation the Prime Minister is to make to the crisis meeting of EU leaders this weekend, following the disastrous collapse of the Eurozone.

It addresses the German/French proposal to set up forthwith a new three-speed Europe: a self-styled small Vanguard having a new single currency ('Eurozone 1') fully backed by Germany, plus a Rearguard ('Eurozone 2') for a larger group of countries wanting a single currency heavily devalued against Eurozone 1. A group of former Eurozone EU member states unable or unwilling to accept membership of a single currency bloc are reverting to national currencies - they wittily have been termed the 'Blackguard' by the European media

Note:  The Top Secret codewords denote various Whitehall limited distributions and highest security classifications – they reflect a little known constitutional convention that those who choose CabOff codewords must have studied Greats at Oxford University

Emphasis in the original

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TOP SECRET UK EYES A DELTA SIGMA PEGASUS

EU Crisis Meeting – PM’s Draft Speech

Dear colleagues

I have here a plastic but very accurate Chinese alarm-clock which I found in a cupboard at No 10. Some of you saw it back in 2005 when Tony Blair produced it.

Prime Minister puts plastic alarm-clock on table.

We were all elected to solve problems, not to create them. The dramatic events of the past few weeks culminating in the complete collapse of the Eurozone earlier this week have shown us that we have been too clever for our own countries’ good.

The EU structures, practices and policies built up over some 50 years were simply too complicated to survive.

There is no more room for ducking and weaving, for yet more self-serving hypocrisy.

Facts must be faced. Decisions must be taken. But those decisions must be grounded in reality, not lofty doomed pretension.

A central part of our shared European reality is this: the pragmatic ‘Beef and Liberty’ common law legal system which underpins the British constitution is not compatible politically, practically, in some ways morally but above all legally with the more formalistic systems of continental Europe, deriving as they do from Napoleonic dictatorship.

It also is clear beyond doubt that some member states are able to accept the stern economic and cultural disciplines that a shared currency regime perforce involves. And that other member states are not able to do so.

The effort to force such incompatible deep traditions into one huge organisational straitjacket has failed ignominiously. It has failed at a staggering cost to the global economy.

Europe used to export its wars. Now it exports its incompetence.

The time has come to redefine the UK’s relationship with the European Union

The UK government has decided that it will play no part in the forthcoming discussions about the Vanguard/Rearguard options for negotiating comprehensive new EU treaties as tabled so primly by M Van Rompuy.

This is not because the UK is leaving the European Union.

It is because the European Union is leaving the UK.

The European Union in its revamped form, necessarily created by brand new treaties, means radical new arrangements which in one way or the other surrender new lumps of all member states’ national sovereignty - especially over tax revenues - to new structures in Brussels.

This goes far beyond anything which UK public opinion might support. I won’t waste public money calling a referendum on whether we join the Vanguard, Rearguard or the rump – no category is acceptable.

The effect of this is that the UK withdraws with immediate effect, apart from necessary tidying up and transitional planning, from the following European arrangements:

The European Parliament: we no longer will elect MEPs or pay for this phenomenon.

The Common Agriculture Policy: we no longer will subsidise farmers in continental Europe. Instead, we’ll throw open our market to cheap food from anywhere on Earth, as the UK did in 1849 when we repealed the iniquitous Corn Laws. This will do more for African and other developing world farmers than decades of failed aid policies.

Common trade negotiations: henceforth we’ll represent ourselves at the WTO and devise our own trading standards.

Common European Foreign Policies: we no longer will pay for or send diplomats to the European External Action Service, or be bound by any EU foreign policy positions. Of course where we think it in our national interests to do so we’ll be pleased to coordinate closely our UN and other foreign policy positions with European partners, as with our Commonwealth and other partners around the world.

European development policies: the UK’s generous development budget was heavily raided by Brussels as a dirty side-deal to get the Maastricht Treaty through. By repatriating that large sum of money to spend ourselves, we’ll hugely improve the effectiveness of international assistance spending.

European Court of Justice: judgements from the ECJ will no longer have any binding force in UK courts.

All existing EU regulations and requirements will not be binding from the date the new EU treaties come into force. Those which have been incorporated into British law will be urgently reviewed and in many cases urgently repealed.

However, I wish to make you an offer. Here it is:

The UK believes in a prosperous and stable Europe. It is in our interests. And the idea of European peaceful integration and unity for those nations who choose to surrender to Brussels all core attributes of sovereignty is not unworthy.

We are prepared to continue to contribute to sensible common European projects – and contribute generously.

I propose that the UK pays to these common European projects a sum equal in real cash terms to some two-thirds of our contribution to central EU funds over the current Financial Perspective period.

In other words, over the next seven years we’ll pay in the equivalent of approximately €40bn, or some €6bn per year.

This money will be made available in full consultation with European partners and be spent in full partnership with the private sector on worthwhile European investment initiatives.

But we alone finally will decide spending priorities and arrange for these funds to be spent. British companies will get priority when contracts are made. Strong anti-corruption controls will be included, for rooting out corruption among recipients and contractors alike.

The fact that the UK is making this strong and sustained commitment to common European development and other projects in Europe and around the world will give the new institutional arrangements in Europe vital financial stability and market credibility.

After the Eurozone fiasco of the past few months, that is what Europe above all needs.

To be quite clear:

Yes, the UK will lose bargaining weight from not being a full and formal part of central EU decision-making.

But in return for ceding that, we’ll have full flexibility for setting up dynamic new partnerships and trading arrangements with India, China, Brazil, Africa and the Middle East, and the rest of the world.

Yes, the UK will lose influence in shaping European policies.

But in return for ceding that, we’ll regain unqualified responsibility for our own national destiny. And we'll leave those countries who wish to have extensive integration to sort out for themselves what makes sense, without the UK being constantly attacked as a selfish ‘anti-European’ drag on the process.

You say you want untrammelled European integration? Now, please, take it. I wish you well.

The very fact of this regular British contribution will free up a lot of your continental European taxpayers’ money for whatever schemes you all decide make sense for you, even including your own agricultural subsidies for rich and not-so-rich farmers and absurd shuffling by a European Parliament between Brussels and Strasbourg to satisfy French vanity.

Without this British money, the funds directly available for your future integration will be hugely reduced. The whole process will be much more politically risky.

I am confident that if you reject this offer I’ll return to London this evening and win a landslide election victory by calling for no further large-scale UK contributions to any European projects.

You have no idea of the anger of British voters that so much of their money has been poured into wasteful and ultimately doomed EU processes.

However, if you accept this offer I am confident that I can muster a convincing all-party majority in the House of Commons for this generous, realistic and pragmatic pro-European path.

There is no point in extended discussion about this. The offer speaks for itself. You must now decide.

A new, looser but reasonable and realistic relationship between the UK and European Union;

Or full divorce, leaving Europe worse off.

Take it or leave it as such. The rest is detail.

I now will press the timer on this fine Chinese alarm-clock and leave you to discuss the matter. In an hour the shrill and annoying bell will ring, and I’ll return for your answer.

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Prime Minister presses button on alarm clock. Silence. Broken only by loud ticking

Prime Minister gets up to leave the room. As he reaches the door he turns round and says:

“The road is cleared … we are coming back to the world”

Prime Minister raises his hand, and over the desolate meeting he traces in space the sign of the pound sterling

Charles Crawford was British Ambassador in Sarajevo, Belgrade and Warsaw. He is now a private consultant and writer:www.charlescrawford.biz. He tweets @charlescrawford