EU Referendum

Showing posts with label veto. Show all posts

A story which raised a gentle smile of sympathy was the tale of pensioner Dennis Leighton who went missing for two days on a trip to his daughter which should have taken an hour. He was later discovered by police, endlessly orbiting the M25, hopelessly lost.

Demonstrating the exact political equivalent today is Tory MP and former Europe Minister David Davis, who has recently been discovered in the pages of the Failygraph aimlessly circling the political void, completely lost and confused.

Having set out purposefully on a short journey, in which he tells us that the eurosceptics got it right, and that voters liked The Boy's "veto", would that there had been one, he then misses his turning and meanders off into the unknown. The poor dear is trapped by his Tory mantra, interpreting current events as giving the government "permission to negotiate a new relationship that better serves our interests".

In this debilitated state, he fails to see that the one message consistently being screamed out by the eurosceptics that he so applauds is that we should leave the European Union. To that effect we need urgently to work on how to achieve that desirable aim, and then what sort of society we want in a post-EU world.

But with a mind rotted by the miasma of the Westminster micro-bubble, and further constrained by his tribal loyalties, the poor dear misses that turning, getting hopelessly lost, forever orbiting the "renegotiating" meme.

In due course, one hopes, medical science will produce a drug that will cure this debilitating condition, but the best we can hope for is that tender loving care, and the warmth and support of his friends and family will reduce the impact. For the time being, as long as he remains within the Tory fold, there is no cure.

COMMENT THREAD

It can come as no surprise that the Tories get an electoral bounce from The Boy's fantasy veto of a non-existent treaty, with support for the Conservatives rising by seven percentage points to 41 percent, while backing for Labour slipped two points to 39 percent.

An electorate that is prepared to give a 62 percent approval rating to something that never happened can be relied upon to give the Tories a few points in the election stakes, on the back of the same non-event.

But if that much is predictable, what really brings it alive, courtesy of Witterings from Witney, are the fatuous comments of Tim Montgomerie. Says the egregious Tim, "Tories hit 41%. Clear message: Voters like strength, honesty, patriotism (roughly in that order)".

If the veto had been real, that would have been a fair comment. But it was not. One is tempted, therefore, to suggest that no one with more than two brain cells could possibly believe such tosh, except that Montgomerie, clearly, does believe what he says.

One cannot, however, convincingly accuse the lad of being thick, so something else must be involved. And doubtless what we are seeing is the mind-numbing effect of tribal loyalty, to which Peter Hitchens referred. It  downgrades intellect to a par with simians and has turned the once entertaining and informative Tory Boy Blog into a pale shadow of its former self.

Of days past, people have often wondered how it was that Hitler got such a grip on the mind of the German people. Part of the answer is his charismatic personality, and another part is the intense tribal loyalty displayed to the leader, which lasted right to the end.

That is not to suggest that Montgomerie is in any shape, manner or form a Nazi. But one can reflect that there is probably no essential difference between the loyalty he exhibits to his leader, and that the Germans of old gave to theirs. Both have the same mindless quality that defies rationality.

In small doses, and carefully tempered, loyalty is good – especially if buoyed by enlightened self-interest. But the kind of brain-rotting adulation that we see from Montgomerie and his fellow Tories is wholly malign.

In a functioning democracy, there should be no room for it, and any reform of the system is going to have to look hard at political parties, to determine whether the perpetuation and support of organisations which foster this brain-rot can be tolerated. As for the idea of feeding them more public money, that is a sick joke.

COMMENT THREAD

"Conservative leader Cameron said he 'made no apologies' for vetoing a new treaty at a eurozone crisis summit last week, a move which led to the other 26 European Union nations making an agreement without Britain". That is an extract from an AFP report on today's PMQs.

Yet, this is not even close to what he actually said, his verbatim remark retailed further down in the same report. Asked by Ed Miliband whether, in relation to the European Council, the "sensible thing for him (Cameron) to do to re-enter the negotiations and try to get a better deal for Britain", Cameron replied: "I make no apologies for standing up for Britain".

Thus, the veto was not mentioned. In the entire exchange, there was no mention of the veto. Not to be outdone, though, the Failygraph repeated the canard, thus maintaining its reputation for accuracy and objectivity, declaring: "During PMQs earlier today David Cameron insisted he would make no apology for 'standing up for Britain' by deploying veto (sic) to block proposed changes to the EU treaty".

This looks to be a cut and paste job from the Press Association, though, which says a great deal for an event that The Guardian calls "Prime minister's wuestions" (sic). What the politicians don't make up, the media does for them.

COMMENT: "MEDIA CONTRAST"THREAD

"At least one eurosceptic blog claims there was actually nothing to veto (no new treaty was actually on the table) ". So writes Kathy Gyngell, a "research fellow" at the Centre for Policy Studies, in The Daily Mail.

She is exploring the role of the BBC in reporting The Boy's little adventure in Brussels, and it therefore not focused on this particular issue. Nevertheless, she demonstrates that there is a wider awareness of the EU Referendum stance.

This we already knew, as the hit-rate has soared recently and is higher than recently, so people are reading the message. And people like Jack Straw (former foreign secretary, so he will know the score about negotiating treaties), is well aware that there was no treaty to veto.

The slightest knowledge of EU procedures would affirm that that there was no treaty to veto. And now, according to Reuters, we have Lucinda Creighton, the Irish European Affairs Minister, talking about the prospects of a referendum.

"We certainly don't want to commit to be in a position to determine whether we need a referendum or not until we have the final text agreed by all member states," she says, adding: "We won't be making a determination on the basis of an initial draft, we'll be making a determination of what comes out of the whole process".

And that is the line Cameron should have taken – the only line Cameron could have taken, had he wanted to veto the treaty. You can't veto a statement of political objectives – which is what, in effect, he sought to do. You have to wait until there is a definitive treaty draft on the table.

By then, of course, several months would have elapsed. The "colleagues" would have invested much time and political capital in producing a final version of the treaty. They would thus be less inclined to play games.

Cameron would then have had real leverage, because at this stage the "colleagues" would not want to start all over again, with an intergovernmental treaty. He could have negotiated real concessions and come away with real achievements, instead of as now, where the treaty goes ahead anyway, but without UK involvement.

Had the BBC wanted to be really critical of Cameron, it could have pointed this out, and a devastating critique it would have been. But the trouble with the BBC is that its girlie-babies are not up to the job. Kathy Gyngell could have pointed this out, but she is not really up to the job either.

All this, though, begs the question as to why the media choose to ignore the fact that Cameron cast a fantasy veto on a non-existent treaty, when they cannot be unaware of the facts.

The explanation is that the media collective prefers to run with the agreed "line", the narrative dictated by the herd. This is what is known as "constructive ignorance" arising from group self-deception. They believe Cameron vetoed a treaty because that is what they want to believe ... it fits the narrative. And if the media collective believes something, it becomes their reality.

However, there is also the political agenda here, as well, and the MPs – especially the Tory europlastics, most certainly want to believe the myth. And there is nothing more obdurate than a Tory MP in the grip of a tribal belief system. That is impenetrable. Anything that passes for native intelligence goes out the window.

But, it seems, those same Tory tribesmen are planning their own form of mischief. This is according to the paywall Times which is warning of a europlastic ambush in the New Year, when they plan to hijack a vote intended to overhaul the eurozone bailout fund.

This, it would appear, is another attempt to force a referendum vote, the pursuit of an in/out referendum being the only tactic these limited intellects can cope with. Nothing changes in their world. It takes a huge effect to get an idea into the collective, but once it lodges, it is immovable.

As always, though, this is the wrong tactic, the effect of which is uncertain and – even if successful in forcing a referendum (unlikely), would rapidly be overtaken by events. But then, the europlastics are playing this game for electoral advantage. And as we all know, when votes are at stake, longer-term strategic issues are of no relevance to the political collective.

But the reality is that the euro continues under pressure and the chances of its longer-term survival in its present form become more remote by the day.

Thus we have Simon Jenkins asserting that the current preoccupations are irrelevant to the bigger picture. In a few weeks' time, Cameron's little adventure in Brussels will be a distant memory, as we are embroiled in yet another instalment of the existential crisis that will eventually bring the euro down.

One would like to think that some of the europlastics are giving some thought to the shape of the political realities that will then prevail, but that is probably too much to hope for. For the political collective, reality is not their strong suit.

COMMENT THREAD

The contrast between our pathetically inadequate popular media, and the grown-ups could not now be more acute.

On the one hand, we have the British press (buoyed up by the equally loathsome broadcasters) making a meal of the personality-driven soap opera, as it describes in loving detail the interplay between Cameron and his deputy prime minister, over the imagined veto of the non-existent treaty.

The facts are definitely taking second place to the narrative, and the media has long given up any pretence of even doffing their caps to the need for accuracy. Their fictional account of events is perfectly suitable for the drama with which they are obsessed.

On the other hand, we have a real world report, which has leaked into the Financial Times, courtesy of Joshua Chaffin in Brussels, Jan Cienski in Warsaw and Clare MacCarthy in Copenhagen. Accidental its presence might be, but it offers a sanguine dose of reality.

In so doing, it records concern in EU member states, and particularly those in non-eurozone countries, as to whether the new rules being proposed would be binding only to eurozone governments or to all signatories.

What here is so remarkable is Petr Necas, the prime minister of the Czech Republic, who is commenting on the state of play. "Right now", he says, "there is not much more than a blank sheet of paper and even the name of the future treaty might still change". He adds: "I think that it would be politically short-sighted to come out with strong statements that we should sign that piece of paper".

That is a glimpse of the real world. At this stage of a treaty negotiation – especially one that is going to be as complex as the instrument that will be needed to implement the proposed fiscal compact - nothing formal will exist. It will be several months before the lawyers, civil servants and constitutional experts can knock the political objectives into shape and produce a water-tight treaty draft.

In other words, there is no treaty in existence at the moment - "not much more than a blank sheet of paper", as Petr Necas. And it was no different with the putative amendments to the Lisbon treaty.

One should recall that Van Rompuy only defined what changes might be needed to the treaty, setting out the general political objectives. Not only was this very far from being a finished treaty, he was proposing a Council meeting in March to give a mandate for limited treaty change, followed by an intergovernmental conference (IGC) to draft the amendments. Once again, this is clear evidence that a treaty cannot have existed last Thursday/Friday.

Yet The Boy persists with his mantra (Col. 537), that he "was not willing to sign up to a treaty change that passed power from Britain to Brussels", even though it is plainly evident that there was no "treaty change" to sign. In column 525, in response to Miliband, but not in his main statement, he says:

The right hon. Gentleman asks what we gained from the veto. I will tell him: we stopped Britain signing up to a treaty without any safeguards. That is what we gained.

Thus far, the Boy is content to indulge in his Walter Mitty fantasy, but then Jack Straw questions him directly. He says:

There was no draft treaty before the European Council last Thursday and Friday; there was a set of draft conclusions. Will the Prime Minister set out the paragraph numbers that he thinks would have damaged Britain’s interests had we agreed to them?

The Boy answers,

As I said in my statement, the eurozone members wanted to create a new treaty within the EU, which has all sorts of dangers. If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the letter that Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy sent, he will see that they specifically wanted the 17 to look at issues such as financial services and the market within that treaty. Without safeguards, a treaty within a treaty would have been far more dangerous than a treaty outside the EU.

Up against the wall – and given free opportunity to set the record straight – all Cameron can assert is that "eurozone members wanted to create a new treaty within the EU". He adds: "They specifically wanted the 17 to look at issues such as financial services and the market within that treaty".

This was a treaty to come – not one that was in existence that he could sign up to, much less veto. In column 534, we get further prevarication. "There would be a threat if there were a treaty of the 17 in the EU without the proper safeguards", he says. "That is why I vetoed that approach".

Note the precise phrasing: "if there were a treaty of the 17 in the EU", he says, then adding that he vetoed not a treaty but an "approach".

In the entire statement yesterday, running to over 90 minutes, with 101 backbench MPs speaking, the word "veto" or its derivants was used thirteen times. Cameron used it four of those times. This is not a man crowing about his achievement – which is just as well. You can't veto an approach. The veto exists only in his imagination, and the putrid mind of the media collective.

COMMENT THREAD

As events unfold on the great "phantom veto" charade, we're getting to the point where we can collect all the disparate pieces and, with a few more recent additional reports, have a fairly good stab at putting together the whole story. So here goes.

The story starts not last week, but in May 2010 when Cameron commits to refusing to agree "to the transfer of any sovereignty from Westminster to Brussels as part of any future reforms to EU institutions aimed at protecting the single currency area from economic instability".

"Britain would not be agreeing to any agreement or treaty that drew us further into supporting the euro area", he tells a press conference after meeting Merkel in Berlin, shortly after assuming the office of prime minister. He adds: "It goes without saying that any treaty, even one that just applied to the euro area, needs unanimous agreement of all 27 EU states including the UK, which of course has a veto".

Thus we see the ground laid for future action, with Cameron marking the cards of the "colleagues" with his threat of a veto.

Between then and the dying days of this November, we see the euro steadily deteriorating – and the growing conviction of the "colleagues" that economic governance is required to pull the single currency into some sort of order, and to assure its long-term future. This, on the face of it, will need amendments to the Lisbon treaty, putting us exactly in the territory where Cameron has pledged to make his last stand.

The scene is then set on the last day of November, in anticipation of the European Council of 9 December. Olli Rehn, the EU finance commissioner, declares that there are just ten days left to save the euro. "We are now entering a critical period of 10 days to complete and conclude the crisis response of the European Union", he says.

Signals by then are confused. The "colleagues" are making a pitch for a treaty amendment, apparently with the support of the British. But even at this stage, the idea of amendments to the Lisbon treaty look unrealistic, on the timescale being proposed. The procedure is too long and tortuous to provide any immediate relief.

Thus we start seeing clues that the "colleagues" are thinking about a co-ordinated intergovernmental agreement, outwith the EU treaty framework, hinted at by the Irish Examiner. This also has the merit of avoiding the automatic referendums required in some member states.

However, there is the EU to deal with. It is not so easily by-passed. Council president Herman Van Rompuy is already making his pitch, planning to define what changes might be needed to the Lisbon Treaty before the European Council on 9 December. On his leisurely timetable, he is suggesting that a further Council meeting in March could then give a mandate for limited treaty change, followed by an intergovernmental conference (IGC) to draft the amendments.

This, in retrospect, must be when the Merkozy start to firm up on alternative plans. The Van Rompuy timetable, clearly, is not to the liking of the French president and the German chancellor.

Thus, we get a series of crucial meetings, firstly Sarkozy on 1 December in Toulon, addressing 5,000 of his faithful. He talks of a "new European treaty refounding and rethinking the organization of Europe". But he opposes greater powers for the EU commission. "It is not by going down the path of more supranationality that Europe will be relaunched", he says.

Merkel is hampered by her own constitutional court. There is a limit to how much more power she can hand over to a supranational authority. Following the next day, she addresses her own parliament, rejecting the idea of a "quick fix". She tells MPs that the German constitution does not permit devolving budgets to a European institution.

Although very much in vogue, discussion about Eurobonds - multi-national issuance in which Club Med would piggyback German credit ratings - is "therefore pointless", she says. The only way to have them would be full fiscal union. Thus, we are told by Merkel herself that she is determined to create a legally-enforceable "fiscal union" for the eurozone - but, it would appear, not just yet.

There is a short interlude, where Sarkozy meets Cameron in Paris, but this is a perfunctory meeting, friendly in public but not warm. Even then there is talk of the UK being "sidelined".

The following Monday, on the week of the European Council, we then see a key meeting between Merkel and Sarkozy. Then, they evidently resolve their differences, with the detail emerging in a letter addressed to Van Pompuy the following Wednesday. This is very clearly a template for a treaty and it effectively contradicts proposals made jointly by Van Rompuy and the commission, which have been issued on the Tuesday.

The Van Rompuy proposal is – as you would expect – aimed at a full-blown EU amendment treaty. The scene is now set for conflict, not between the Merkozy and Cameron, but between Merkozy and the commission. Protocal and politics both demand they follow the path set by the commission, which neither of them want to do.

So it comes to 8 December and the heads of state are assembling for the European Council the following day. The media is already hyping this as the make-or-break "summit" - unable or unwilling to use the correct terminology. Many headlines assert that the EU leaders are gathering to agree a new treaty. This cannot be the case, but the hare is running and that is a general media expectation: the leaders are meeting to negotiate a treaty.

Now according to Cameron, the question is not whether there should be a new treaty but whether there should be a full treaty change at an EU level, or a treaty outside the EU. Cameron, under attack from his own backbenchers – and under pressure from an increasingly eurosceptic electorate – needs to put up a robust face, showing the world that he is not a Brussels poodle.

Now, an important but widely neglected detail here is that the action starts on 8 December, the Thursday evening. By tradition, there should be no formal business in the Council on the evening before. Even the dinner is supposed to be "informal". The formal, scheduled discussion does not start until the Friday. Therefore, discussions which now take place, lasting well into the night and early morning, are known technically as "on the margins".

They are, in fact, being hosted not by the Council but by the eurogroup heads, who put forward their proposals, which include changes (amendments) to the Lisbon Treaty. The 17 are thus asking for the support of the other ten, the UK included. It is here that Cameron intervenes, demanding "modest safeguards" for the City of London.

Now comes the most crucial point of the whole affair. Neither Merkel nor Sarkozy really want an EU treaty, but are obliged to pursue this line in deference to Van Rompuy and the commission. But, having decided 18 months previously to exercise his veto in such circumstances, Cameron tells the Merkozy that he will not support an EU treaty unless he gets the safeguards he is calling for.

This refusal, according to Jean-David Levitte, President Sarkozy's chief diplomatic adviser, offers just the excuse the Merkozy need to kick the EU treaty into touch, without incurring the wrath of Van Rompuy and the commission. They reject Cameron's proposal for safeguards, thus clearing the was to go down the preferred intergovernmental route.

There is, of course, no veto. This is not a formal meeting, and it requires a formal intergovernmental conference to wield a veto, with a full draft of a treaty on the table – a draft which at this stage did not exist. Thus, Cameron could not stop the "colleagues" going ahead with an IGC and producing an amendment treaty for approval, if they has so wished.

But, because it suited then, the "colleagues" chose to treat the Cameron intervention as a formal veto, even though it was not. But it was their decision not to go ahead. Cameron was just the foil, the excuse to do what they wanted to do anyway.

For Cameron, however, this proved a lucky break. Almost by accident – and certainly not though any action of his own – he is now seen as blocking an EU treaty. Quick-witted enough to exploit the development in an early morning press conference, he claims: "I effectively wielded the veto". He thus converts himself in one fell swoop from Brussels poodle to darling of the eurosceptics.

Thus, in what has all the makings of a theatrical coup, everybody walks away with something. Merkel and Sarkozy get the green light for an intergovernmental treaty, and Cameron gets to be a hero. And so, in the final analysis, with a gullible and ignorant media to endorse the legend, we see people fed what Peter Hitchens calls a "blatant fake".

Cameron will dine out on it for a while, and he may even get away with it altogether, but it is a media-driven charade and will always be so. The Prime Minister did nothing courageous or even significant in Brussels last week, says Hitchens. But of such things is history made.

And that is the story so far ... unless you know different.

COMMENT THREAD

So, Cameron speaks of his derring-do in Brussels, when he managed correctly to identify that he attended a European Council. He went there for one purpose, to protect Britain's national interest.

Let me be clear about exactly what happened, he told the members. The eurozone economies decided that there should be much tighter discipline. The question at the council was not whether there should be more discipline, but how ... whether there should be a full treaty change at an EU level, or a treaty outside the EU.

He demanded "modest" safeguards, knowing that an intergovernmental arrangements was not without risk. But the choice was an EU treaty with safeguards, or no treaty. It was a tough decision, but the right decision. We remain, however, a full member of the EU ... huzzah! "I believe we should be in the European Union", he says.

And there you go. Not a single mention of the "v" word. If he vetoed a treaty, he makes no claim in front of his MPs. It is as if the last three days had never happened. Why the reticence?


Ed Miliband says The Boy has come back with a "bad deal for Britain". Boy meets Boy. "We walked away from the table", says the Miliband. We have a "diplomatic disaster" of 26 countries going ahead without Britain. Far from protecting our interests, he has left us without a voice.

The prime minister claims to have exercised a veto, yet a veto is supposed to stop something. But it goes ahead. That's called loosing, says Miliband. The truth is though, the prime minister didn't want a deal, so he made sure we wouldn't get one.

Responds The Boy, he hasn't told us whether he (Miliband) would sign up to the new treaty? But what treaty? That has not been stated. "I'll tell you what we gained from the veto", says The Boy, now admitting for the first time that he (thinks he) cast one. How revealing - no mention of the veto in his main statement - the first reference is in response to the leader of the opposition.

Peter Tapsell then gets in with a question ... many I declare my admiration ... Oh, yuk. And from here, it goes downhill, although it hasn't far to go.

Jack Straw then says there was no draft treaty before the Council. Would the prime minister like to point out the paragraph numbers which threatened British financial services. Look at the letter from Merkel, says Cameron, ducking the issue. He doesn't answer, because he can't answer.


Outside the Westminster micro-bubble, however, reality begins to dawn. "It ain't Cameron you should be praising or blaming, but Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarkozy. The truth is, Cameron hasn't stood-up for Britain or quit the eurozone debate: Britain has been kicked out". This is from Louise Armitstead, Chief Business Correspondent of the Failygraph.

What a plonker, says Dennis Skinner.

"A treaty without safeguards" is The Boy's developing mantra. "I refused to sign a treaty change without safeguards". "We're not signing up to a treaty that could have put that (financial services) industry at risk". Thus does he keep asking of Miliband: "Would you have signed this treaty without safeguards". But what treaty change? What document was he asked to sign?

And, in over ninety-minutes of questioning, not one MP presses that point. There are more questions about the absence of Nicky Clegg, who was not in the House to adore his Leader.


But the turnout tells its own story. When you compare with the packed benches during PMQs, you immediately see that the "honourable members" are not that fussed by the great drama. Perish the thought that they should actually put an appearance in the House and challenge the man masquerading as our prime minister. Can we now turn the building into a museum of democracy, get rid of the MPs and save ourselves some money?

COMMENT: "NOW YOU SEE IT" THREAD

David Miliband, at least, seems to be getting close. Using words such as "delusional" – a reference to the uber-moronic Sun - he is also talking in terms of "a phantom veto against a phantom threat".

Judging from the broader context of what he is saying, he doesn't seem quite there yet, but he is not very far away from pulling the plug on The Boy. And questions in the House are in place for this afternoon, ready to ask The Boy for sight of the fabled treaty that he supposedly vetoed. It could be quite fun if they are asked.

One always lives in hope, but on some occasions, media sentiment can swing wildly from one extreme to another. The Boy is going to look awful silly if that happens here – especially with AEP putting the boot in elsewhere.

Mind you, I think he is being a bit unfair to me. "The North has not yet accepted any serious responsibility for its role in this currency imbalance", he writes. Not my fault, guv.

COMMENT: "NOW YOU SEE IT" THREAD

One senior Lib-lim, the disgraced former chief secretary to the treasury David Laws, is blaming The Boy's "veto" on a lack of British pre-summit preparatory work "to get some of the big nations on side and understand the concerns the UK had".

But doesn't the silly man recall the Welt online piece on the Thursday of the European Council, telling us that Cameron was "likely to find his European partners in no mood for British intransigence"?

At the time, it was very obvious what Merkel and Sarkozy were aiming for – they put it in a letter, and it was pretty obvious that they were not going to take anything less, having already seen off Van Rompuy and his proposal of 6 December.
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Then there was also the meeting between Sarkozy and Cameron, the week before the European Council. If there was going to be a meeting of minds, it would have been apparent then. But if he wasn't listening to Van Rompuy, it was pretty obvious Sarkozy wasn't going to be taking a lot of notice of The Boy.

At the time, there was a small but important detail. Sarkozy bid adieu to The Boy from the steps of the palace, leaving Cameron to walk the 100 yards or so to his car on his own. When it came to Merkel though, Sarkozy was with her right to the door of the car, right down to the lingering touch as the German chancellor slipped into her seat.

These small signs tell one a great deal. It was very obvious that the Franco-German motor of integration was lining up against perfidious Albion, and there was nothing Cameron could have done to stop it.

Laws, thus, is blowing wind. But it does beg the question as to what Cameron could have done. And here, if he had insisted on Van Rompuy convening an IGC, it is hard to see how he could have been refused. The "colleagues" would have been trapped into doing something they did not want to do – negotiating amendments to the Lisbon treaty – which The Boy could then have vetoed.

To that extent, Laws does have a point. At a European level, Cameron's tactics were flawed. But then, more likely Cameron was playing to his domestic audience. Flying out as the poodle of Brussels and returning the eurosceptics' darling, he has succeeded perhaps beyond his wildest dreams.

It is only the Lib-dems that seem to care what actually happens in "Europe", even if they can't actually be bothered to inform themselves properly about what is going on.

While some may rejoice in this presaging a break-up of the coalition, and an early general election (next Spring?), the thought of a resurgent Tory party sweeping into office, with their europhile leader at its head, does not exactly fill one with joy. And, if that has been the agenda all along, both the Lib-dims and the British public are falling for it.

COMMENT: "NOW YOU SEE IT" THREAD

Andrew Grice, for The Independent tells us:

I have been watching British prime ministers at international summits since 1987. I saw Margaret Thatcher wield her handbag, and John Major and Tony Blair veto the appointment of federalists as president of the European Commission. In Brussels last Friday, Mr Cameron went much further. He has broken Thatcher's law: always keep a seat at the table. She knew that was in the national interest.

After all this time, Grice still hasn't learned enough to tell the difference between a "summit" and a European Council. But the substantive point is that Mr Grice is telling porkies. He hasn't actually watched a single prime minister at a "summit". He most certainly did not see Thatcher wield her handbag, of John Major and Tony Blair perform. The press are excluded from plenary sessions.

He has waited for many hours in drafty press centres, sometimes not even in the same building as the talks, bored witless most of the time, to be fed a diet of BS, and self-serving spin during the periodic press conferences.

Why the man feels the need to embellish his experiences is uncertain. However, if the great British public realised how ill-informed the media actually were, and how much of what they told us was invention, then perhaps we might look upon them differently.

But then we know that already. People who allow themselves to be misled by the media do so largely because they want to believe what they are told. The children want to be led to the promised land, and Mr Grice is just the man to do it.

COMMENT: "NOW YOU SEE IT" THREAD

So, directly from Boris – or from his extremely well-paid fingers as they tap delicately on his golden keyboard - this observation about the "colleagues" (pull-quote above):

They blame David Cameron for "vetoing" a new EU treaty, when really he has done no such thing. It is perfectly open to the other EU countries now to go ahead and form their own new fiscal rules.

So there we have it … "really he has done no such thing". There was no veto. Soon enough, we'll get an admission that there wasn't an EU treaty either. Just a proposal for a treaty, and a draft statement of intent, neither of which were amenable to veto.

As for the fabled non-veto, the "colleagues" could have ignored The Boy and gone ahead with treaty negotiations anyway. There is absolutely nothing Cameron could have done to stop them convening an IGC and drafting a treaty.

What actually happened though is that The Boy was asked to support the statement by euro area heads launching a new "fiscal compact". He asked for the inclusion of a reference to some vague and as yet specified "protections" for the City of London.

The "colleagues" told The Boy to get on his bike, and to pre-empt any veto further down the line when they had actually prepared a treaty, they redrafted the statement, declaring that they had opted to go down the intergovernmental route – which is immune to interference, and does not require unanimity.

That was something the "colleagues" probably preferred to do, making the process of treaty preparation quicker and easier. The Boy gave them the excuse they needed to do what they wanted to do anyway.

So where does that leave Mr Cameron, and his hype? This is hardly the heroic eurosceptic dragon-slayer of legend. It is more like a lost little boy who really did not know what was going on, and has been comprehensively out-manoeuvred by the "colleagues".

With his PR skills, however, The Boy at least had the wit to spin it during the subsequent press conferences, giving a bored and idle press corps a "line" for a story that would keep their editors entertained. Never mind the quality chaps, feel the width.

So what of a media that can't seem to tell the difference between a draft treaty and a statement of intent, and between a refusal of support and a veto? This is the media which would have us rely it for information and analysis, and give it money for the privilege?

This is a bunch of dummies that needs to go back to reporter school – the whole lot of them. They are not even worth they paper they are not writing on. But to add to the surreal situation in which we now find ourselves, 57 percent of respondents in a Times poll (no link) declared that The Boy was right to cast his non-existent veto against the non-existent treaty, so that the "colleagues" could go ahead anyway. Next, a poll on whether the moon is made of green cheese.

Meanwhile, later today (about 3pm) we have the prime minister's statement in the House on the European Council - not the "summit" to which the brain-dead hacks refer, but a European Council. It will be interesting to see how The Boy spins this one, and whether our expensive and largely useless MPs let him get away with it.

COMMENT: "NOW YOU SEE IT" THREAD

Deputy prime minister and foreign minister for the Irish Republic, Eamon Gilmore, indirectly offers conformation that there was no treaty that Cameron could have signed last week.

Asked whether the deal require a referendum, Gilmore said it was too early to tell at this stage, adding that it would not be clear if a referendum was actually needed until the text of the European agreement was finalised.

That, of course, is the reality. This was a heads of agreement discussion, with the detail to follow, when the fine print will be poured over and the parties will fight their corners during months of negotiations. Only then will a draft be available for signature and, only then, had it been an amendment to an EU treaty, could there be a veto.

Yet there is no mistaking Cameron's claim. On the Downing Street website, we see the text of his press statement on Friday, when he tells us that "I wasn't prepared to agree that treaty, to take it to my Parliament in that way, and that is why I rejected signing this treaty today".


Never mind the lèse majesté - "my Parliament" indeed - on the Conservative Party website (screen grab above), we see an extract from this press statement, with the introduction telling us that, "Prime Minister David Cameron has today spoken of his decision to veto a new European treaty following a round of discussions with European leaders in Brussels".

Notably, he does not use the word veto in his formal press statement, but the Daily Mail records him saying that, "I effectively wielded the veto". That seems to have been in response to a question from a journalist and although it has disappeared from the website, we have a screen grab.

So Cameron has it that there was a document that was ready to sign, one which he "effectively" vetoed – with the "effectively" being written out of the script as his own party website, speaking in his name, claims that he vetoed the treaty. Yet the Irish deputy prime minister talks of a text that needs to be finalised.

Of course, it could be that there was the text of an EU treaty amendment – that is what Cameron is claiming, unlikely though that is. However, if there was a treaty draft ready for signing, it must exist and be available for scrutiny. An FOI question, therefore, is on its way to No 10, asking for sight of the same. So, Cameron either coughs up the document, or he is unable to prove that he is not a liar – and that is without pursuing the awkward question of whether there was an IGC in which a veto could be exercised, "effectively" or otherwise.

And, of course, if Cameron cannot recall precisely what he saw, there were others in the room. They too have their national freedom of information requirements. One way or another, one suspects, the truth will out.

COMMENT THREAD

Within the main The Sunday Telegraph entertainment section is the business news which devotes considerable space to a story which tells us that, so much noise has accompanied the latest EU "crisis summit" that it is easy to miss the singular point – that the events, "treaty" and all – will not make the slightest bit of difference to the survival (or otherwise) of the euro.

This is no more or less than any number of observers have been saying, making the whole charade of the European Council meeting nothing more than displacement activity. Bereft of ideas, and unwilling to take the measures which will stabilise the single currency, the "colleagues" have opted for their classic strategy of tinkering at the margins, on top of playing around with their institutions.

If the main drama is merely displacement activity, however, that makes Cameron's little sub-plot equally irrelevant to the task in hand, giving us the bizarre experience of watching the politicians pile displacement activity upon displacement activity – the irrelevant in pursuit of the immaterial.

But in the life-cycle of a fantasy, there can come a point when the legend takes such a powerful grip on those caught up in it that it temporarily displaces reality, and assumes its own form of distorted reality, seemingly more real than anything than the hard, cold sober world can deliver.

So it is that Cameron's fantasy world of vetoing non-existent treaties is assuming its own reality. It matters not that it is fiction in that it is beginning to dominate British politics as if it were real. The heart of the issue may be miasmic, but the response to it is solid.

At that heart, in a developing political crisis is not-nice-but-very-dim Nicky Clegg and his band of Lib-dims, whose love of the European Union does not stretch to knowing anything about it, or at least sufficient to understand that they, like the bulk of the media corps, have been taken for the gullible fools that they are.

According to the Financial Times, the world – including the Lib-dims, it seems - is relying for its sole source on a press briefing delivered by Cameron at 6.20am in Friday, when he "revealed" that he had been "forced to veto the proposed new treaty". And upon that single, uncorroborated and frankly ludicrous assertion, rests now an industry of massive proportions.

Wedded to the veracity of that assertion, Clegg now tells us that he is "bitterly disappointed" by the outcome the European Council, which he too insists on calling a "summit".

And with the europlastic groupescule within the Tory party crowing, this is creating stresses within the Cleggeron coalition which some believe could result in the collapse of this unholy alliance.

In some ways, you have to stand back and enjoy the irony. Here you have two politicians, Cameron and Clegg, besotted in their love for the European Union, now falling out over an imagined veto, which could well have been engineered by the "colleagues" to get them off the hook of having to amend the EU treaty, into less demanding and faster intergovernmental procedure.

If he was in the loop, and had a better understanding of the labyrinthine politics of the European Union, Clegg might have understood that, most likely, Cameron was serving the designs of the "colleagues" in providing the fall guy necessary to legitimise the switch from one procedure to the others.

Like his hero and one-time mentor, Roy Jenkins, however, Clegg is only concerned with les grandes lignes of Europe, and knows nothing of the detail. Thereby, in his ignorance, he is prey to unwarranted concerns which could be the undoing of his own political ambitions. That would be irony indeed.

The one thing about which Clegg need not worry though, is about Cameron turning his face against "Europe". The man-child is as much a europhile now as he was last week.

Although briefly on the outside – mainly because it suits the "colleagues", one can see a situation where, with the new treaty in the bag, The Boy then goes grovelling back to the object of his heart's desire, and offers no end of concession to be allowed back into the fold.

In the meantime, he will have cemented his wholly undeserved reputation for being a born-again eurosceptic, a legend Nick Clegg is helping to build.

But, behind the scenes, nothing at all will have changed and, waiting in the wings is a reality that cannot be denied. The euro is on the ropes and nothing can be done to save it. For want of anything sensible, we are being treated to a phenomenal display of "workers' playtime" which knocks Nero's attempts to provide musical entertainment in similar circumstances firmly into the shade.

COMMENT: "AUTHORS OF OUR OWN GRIEF" THREAD

Never in the field of human conflict have so many been misinformed by so few. One of the most notable additions to the litany of misinformation being The Times. As the paper of record (no link), it declared: "Early yesterday morning, Mr Cameron became the first British prime minister to veto a new EU treaty …".

It is topped only by a fatuous leader in The Sunday Times this morning, which witlessly pontificates, "The Prime Minister was left with no option but to exercise the British veto in Brussels", and the moronic The Sunday Telegraph leader, which declares: "Early on Friday morning, the Prime Minister used Britain's EU veto to block a full-scale treaty that would have created a closer fiscal union between the 17 members of the eurozone".

For the small but growing band who know that there was no treaty draft to veto, and no IGC in which framework a formal "British veto" is cast, these last few days mark something of a watershed. It has been a period in which the combined mass of the MSM has demonstrated that it has not the least interest in purveying the truth, and has no interest in distinguishing between falsehood and the truth.

Even in this tarnished world, though, it does matter that the man who calls himself prime minister of the United Kingdom has created an artful web of lies, for political advantage. The last time that happened with any degree of profile was when Blair made his false claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Blair's defence then was that he believed the falsehoods he was spouting, so technically he was not lying. The same cannot be said of Cameron.

Unless he is willing to admit to a level of ignorance that would render him entirely unsuitable for any high office, he cannot believe that on Friday last he was presented with an "EU Treaty" in Brussels or, within the context of the European Council he attended, that he actually vetoed this non-existent treaty.

But as with the weapons of mass destruction, the media is again found wanting. Instead of calling out the quite obvious falsehood, it has perpetuated the myth, no more so than the BBC which even yesterday was retailing second-hand falsehoods as the preposterous Osborne joined the fray to defend his boss.

"Chancellor George Osborne says David Cameron's decision to veto changes to the European Union treaty has 'helped protect Britain's economic interests'", it told us – without so much as a blush.

The thing about the BBC, of course, is that it enjoys "prestige". This matters far more in the media world than veracity. Thus, we saw the Osborne's version of Cameron's falsehoods filtering through the system, to be repeated by most of the British print media, then into the news agencies and eventually, by that route, into The Washington Post.

By dint of repetition and multiplicity of prestigious sources, falsehoods acquire the mantle of truth, conveying far more authority and reach than the truth itself, which struggles for a hearing.

It is not as if the truth, even from first principles, is in this case so difficult to work out, and neither can it be said that it is not accessible to those who wish to be informed. Latterly, we have seen Witterings from Witney pitch into the fray once more. Jim Greenhalf adds his voice and now Booker puts his weight behind the truth - contradicting his own newspaper.

But Booker's column, this week, provides a good, if unintended, example of the lack of interest in the truth, as his Cameron story is grouped with a discussion of David Attenborough's latest propaganda on climate change – and it is this which gets the comments.

Elsewhere, attached to the torrent of on-line media stories, purveying uncritically Cameron's lies, we see a blitz of comments, running collectively to hundreds of thousands. And while there is a very significant minority which does not buy into the falsehoods, it is a tiny minority. By far the majority is willing, if not eager, to swallow the lies, taking what the media tells them as the truth, using it as the baseline for discussion.


What then is the value of public opinion when, as we see today in this Mail on Sunday poll, the collective pronounce on an event which did not happen, giving Cameron a 62 percent approval rating for "using" his non-existent veto on a non-existent treaty?

One is accustomed to the inherent statistical errors in polls, but this is in a different league. Public sentiment has been whipped up to respond to a lie.

Then, in the same poll, we see 48 percent support for leaving the EU. Noting how easily public opinion has been manipulated on the previous question, how solid is that finding? Given different circumstances – such as a real referendum, with the cold winds of economic reality blowing – does the poll represent anything other than the madness of the moment?

This says a great deal for the prospects for this nation (and any other) enjoying a functioning democracy. We should expect politicians – even prime ministers – to lie. And we should expect slovenly and superficial reporting from the media. To assert that they lie and mislead is entirely unexceptional.

But what chance have we of exerting ourselves as the people, when despite that so many of us are prepared, uncritically, to believe what we are told by both sources?  How can the people be relied upon to approve or even dictate policy when they are so easily gulled by lies?  How reliable is public opinion when it can so easily be manipulated?

"The key to wisdom is this - constant and frequent questioning ... for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth", says Peter Abelard, in one of many quotations extolling the virtues of scepticism. Although I am accused of the sin of cynicism, it is scepticism that I believe should be the default mode, especially – and always – when dealing with politicians, their officials, and the media.

Until we can learn that simple lesson and apply it, we are nowhere. We end up the gullible tools of the politico-media complex, ready to do their bidding at a drop of a hat, on the strength of a diet of lies and distortion that we are prepared so readily to believe.

But whether we have the capacity as a nation to transcend our collective gullibility and develop into a mature, functioning democracy, I have my serious doubts. And recent experience has not given me any cause for optimism. These are dark days, and especially so when, as a collective, we are authors of our own grief.

COMMENT THREAD

I am reminded by a reader that we have been in a similar situation before, back in 2007 when I wrote this piece and this, writing in the latter:

The current trouble is that that the media – and not a few of the member states – are playing the current round of discussions as if they were an IGC, which cannot be – there has not been one convened. Much of the confusion comes from the indiscriminate use of the word "summit" to describe the forthcoming European Council meeting – thereby failing to distinguish between the IGC denouement which is correctly described as a summit.

Some people tend to be dismissive of the need for precision in the use of terminology, but if people were aware of the differences between an IGC and a European Council, and understood that the veto only had an application in the former, Cameron would never have been allowed to get away with his deception, and much of the tosh currently in the newspapers simply would not have been written.

There seems in the ranks of the media, however, an almost wilful refusal to use the correct terminology, no doubt for many profound reasons. But it does mean that the media is stricken by institutional amateurism, which can only be calculated to confuse and deceive.

Nevertheless, it is a waste of time suggesting that the media ups its game. Looking at the low-grade of journalist currently polluting the pages of once proud newspapers, it is very doubtful as to whether they are capable of doing any better than they are. They fail in their duty to inform, largely because they themselves are so ignorant.

COMMENT: "COUP DE THEATRE" THREAD

It does look as if the man masquerading as our prime minister has form on the matter of inventing narratives to go with his European Council appearances. As my erstwhile co-editor reminds me, he pulled a similar stunt in November last year, when he invented a wholly fictitious joust to cover his embarrassment over the EU budget, claiming to have won a famous victory.

Yet, despite his account of his derring-do, no independent corroboration of his sterling deeds could be found in the Council conclusions, while - under robust questioning, his story does not stand up.

We have to remind ourselves that, apart from Cameron's own account his own fearless deeds at the current European Council, there is no independent account, and by convention, other heads of state and government do not interfere with or contradict statements made by individual members to their own domestic audiences.

I do recall, however, once going through the different press statements made by the participants to their nation press corps, marvelling at how many different meetings had been conducted simultaneously, each bearing absolutely no relation to each other. Nevertheless, we have absolute trust in everything our politicians tell us.

Yet, despite that, we (my erstwhile co-editor included) are not the only ones uncharitable enough to smell a rat. In addition to Alex Massie, Mary Ellen Synon also has her doubts about that has been going on in Brussels.

She, of course, was actually "there" covering the European Council, but it has to be said that "being there" is not necessarily an advantage. It means being corralled in the press room and general environs of Justus Lipsius (the Council building), bored witless most of the time.

At best, one picks up tiny tidbits from passing leakers (and pretenders), from door-stepping politicians and officials heading in and out of the building, and the infrequent and generally uninformative press conferences. From experience, one finds that it is better standing back, watching the multi-national TV coverage, reading the wire reports and the constant flow of drivel from the bored hacks, and relying on one's own sources to fill in the details.

Having a good knowledge of the procedures helps enormously, allowing one to distinguish more easily between the fiction (which simply could not happen) and the reality, which is very often much duller and rarely suitable for publication.

Nevertheless, despite the handicap of "being there" – and imbibing some of the nonsense pervading the building – Mary Ellen notes that Cameron got exactly what he wanted from the European Council.

He flies over as the Brussels poodle, always ready to do the bidding of the "colleagues", and – at the shake of a "veto" - comes back the conquering hero, the eurosceptics scattering rose petals in his path.

This is all just a little too pat, and while the gullible hacks might lap it up, that is no reason for the rest of us to throw natural scepticism to the wind, and buy into The Boy's narrative. Even if you accept his fairy tale, an objective assessment would suggest that he has achieved very little - a view with which Witterings from Witney readily concurs.

But it does not take rocket science to work out that the current narrative suits an awful lot of people, including the "colleagues" who can get on with producing their treaty, unhindered by the presence of querulous (or even emollient) British officials, aided by the bogeyman from Britain to act as a unifying force.

Currently at 26-1, never in recent times has "Europe" been so united ((or not, as Raedald observes). Nevertheless, there is a closing of ranks against the interloper who tried to rain on their parade. How so very convenient it all is, even if people are rather wary. After all, no one believes a word they read in the newspapers, do they?

Aren't we all far too sophisticated and worldly-wise to allow that to happen?

COMMENT: "UNCERTAIN SITUATION"THREAD

Standing back from the detail, as has Ambrose, one needs to ask oneself not whether Cameron has handled this European Council well, but whether the "colleagues" made the best of it.

Ambrose takes the view that they have displayed "remarkable petulance and stupidity", with the leaders of France and Germany having "more or less bulldozed Britain out of the European Union" for the sake of a "flim-flam treaty" that offers absolutely no solution to the crisis at hand, nor indeed any future crisis.

Looking at events from that perspective, it is hard to disagree with Ambrose. As we intimated in an earlier piece, the Council could have been handled very differently.

As we have actually seen with the lead-in to other treaties, there was no need even for the European Council to discuss the detail of treaty issues. It is not their role to do so, and the members, as constituted, have no power or authority to negotiate EU treaties.

In what is one of the arcane but important details relating to EU affairs – which the media insist on ignoring – there are two bodies involved in a treaty negotiation.

Confusingly, each body can comprise exactly the same people – the heads of state of government of the European Union member states – but in their various capacities, they have very different powers, responsibilities, with their status changing according to the role, when it comes to amending treaties.

In the first instance, we have the European Council, but its role, under Article 47 of the Lisbon Treaty, is to define the terms of reference for a "conference of representatives of the government", i.e., an intergovernmental conference (IGC). It is that body which then amends the treaty. The president of the Council – Van Rompuy – convenes the IGC, which in the first instance comprises exactly the same people who make up the European Council.

However, while the European Council is an institution of the European Union, charged with furthering the aims and objectives of the Union, the IGC – in theory at least – comprises independent representatives of the member states acting in their national interest.

Now, as far as we are able to ascertain, there was no attempt to decide on the terms of reference for the IGC, and nor is Van Rompuy recorded as seeking to convene an IGC. There is simply no mention of either in the Council Conclusions.

Crucially, the point here is that both decisions, if contested, are settled by majority vote. There is no veto, so Cameron could not have stopped the Council settling the terms of reference, nor the president convening the IGC. Thus, that there is to be no attempt (in the short-term) to amend the EU treaties, via the IGC, was the result of a decision made by the "colleagues", not the result of any action taken by Cameron.

In short, therefore, there is to be no attempt to amend the EU treaty because the "colleagues" did not want to pursue this route. It was their decision, and theirs alone, a decision which was not amenable to a veto. A veto could only have applied once the IGC came formally to approve a final text of a treaty amendment, whence any member state can exercise one.

But without a formal text under consideration, within the framework of an IGC, it has to be emphasised that there can be no veto.

The question thus remains as to what Cameron did veto, if he did indeed veto anything. There are several possibilities, but my current favourite is that he was presented with a draft statement similar in content to that eventually published by the eurozone heads, only cast in the name of the entire European Council.

One must remember here that, in European affairs, Cameron is a novice, and is also demonstrably ignorant on EU procedures and related matters. In the European Council, without access to his advisors, it is possible that he mistook this draft declaration for a treaty proposal which he was being asked to approve and, on refusing to endorse it, mistakenly confused his own action for a veto.

In other words, while Cameron was not presented with the text of a treaty – because one did not exist – was not working within an IGC because one had not been convened, and could not veto anything, in his ignorance he mistook his own actions for something they were not.

From this, it emerges that, had they so desired, the "colleagues" could have gone ahead with an IGC, challenging Cameron to veto at some later date the end result. Presumably, they chose not to take the risk.

Alternatively, it is not outside the bounds of possibility that they exploited Cameron's action to legitimise that which they wanted to do anyway – to side-step the EU treaty amendment process. In this latter case, it has to be said that the "colleagues" retained the initiative, and an unwitting Cameron, far from calling the shots, has been used.

This brings us back to Ambrose, who sees in recent events the possibility that the "colleagues" are using Cameron as a scapegoat.

Possibly, that makes sense. Faced with an existential crisis and treaty options which, even if fully implemented cannot work, they are facing the break-up of the Union, come what may. It is better, therefore, for the "colleagues" to sacrifice one member in the hope that, when the collapse comes, the rest will rally to the flag, blaming their woes on a recalcitrant Britain.

In the current events, therefore, Ambrose sees a "moment of liberation", which he enjoins us to enjoy. Certainly, his analysis allows us to speculate that Britain is engaged in a process which may eventually lead to its withdrawal from the EU - whether intended or not. And, if this is the outcome of the events of the last few days, then we can count our blessings without worrying too much about the whys and wherefores.

But the worry is that Cameron, inherently, is an enthusiastic europhile – with no substance to his actions other than an attempt to reclaim lost ground amongst his own party's europlastics. Once he has secured his flanks, one can then see him making serious concessions to the "colleagues" in order to recover his position in "Europe", leaving us worse off than we are now and were a few days ago.

As it stands, Cameron is not in control, but then neither is there any evidence that the "colleagues" are any better placed. In that uncertain situation, we feel that any rejoicing is premature and may even be misplaced. Events are too hard to read, and the outcome of recent events too obscure for anything other than continued vigilance.

Trust and optimism are not sensible options.

COMMENT THREAD

This is Cameron, according to the Failygraph: "You've never seen Britain say 'no' to a European treaty before. There was a treaty on the table, it didn't adequately protect Britain's interests. Instead of going along with it, I said no to it. I thought that's my job".

It comes from an interview with the BBC, where he sets out this bizarre claim: "We were offered a treaty that didn't have proper safeguards for Britain. I decided it was not right to sign that treaty … I decided not to sign that treaty".

There wasn't a treaty on the table. It is inconceivable that there could have been a treaty. In fact, the colleagues have not even begun the process of drafting it – there was nothing there to sign. This is Walter Mitty territory. The man is inhabiting a fantasy world, one that does not exist.

Strangely though, no one in the media – all those thousands of clever people – has thought to ask for a copy of this treaty. After all, if there was a treaty on the table, then we ought to be able to see it, to see what The Boy has so bravely saved us from.

This is even percolating the Spectator collective. "What, precisely, has the Prime Minister vetoed?" asks Alex Massie. Good point ... so where is this fabulous treaty?


What is beginning to emerge, though, not least this Reuters report, is a picture of a Cameron so desperate to placate his "eurosceptic right" that he is now inventing his own scenarios to fit their expectations. Needing to deliver something to placate his monsters, The Boy has to resort to a fairy tale, having nothing else to offer.

For The Boy actually to have vetoed a treaty, he would of course have needed two things - an actual treaty and the framework of an Inter-governmental Conference (IGC) within which to exercise it. One wonders, therefore, why he did not insist on an IGC being convened, an issue that the "colleagues" could hardly have sidestepped, as theirs was the professed desire to have one.

Turning this round, if the majority of members had demanded an IGC, Cameron could not have blocked one. This is decided by majority vote, with no veto, as Thatcher found to her cost. The fact that one has not been called - with the content of a treaty held in abeyance until the first meeting - rather suggests that the "colleagues" did not want one.

This may not be irrational. The formal EU treaty process is tortuous, uncertain and lengthy, and would almost certainly trigger referendums in a number of countries, such as Denmark and Ireland. By kicking the idea of an EU treaty into touch - which is the only thing Cameron has achieved - he may have done the "colleagues" a favour. That may indeed have been what they were angling for, the opposition of the UK being the one thing certain to unite otherwise diffident member states.

In a world where nothing is what it seems, Cameron may have walked into a trap, eyes wide shut. But then, he's got what he wanted - the adulation of the Tory europlastics, who are foolish enough to believe that he has achieved anything of substance, while the "colleagues" can get on with writing their treaty, without being hectored by The Boy. And without the formal declaration of a 27-nation IGC, the process is actually immune from a veto, as Cameron has already shot his bolt.

When you think about it, what's there not to like?

COMMENT: "COUP DE THEATRE" THREAD

Through the day, some of the background to the issues paraded in this morning's press will become clearer – others will become murkier and, in other areas, we will end up even more confused than we are already.

The first thing I need to do is firm up my immediate response to events, and then build on what we know, taking into account the developments of today.

First port of call is the Council website, where we find the text of the statement, over which the media have been hyperventilating, and thence to affirm quite how much the fourth estate have been taken in. Cameron – with his PR skills to the forefront – has engineered a huge coup de théâtre. This is smoke and mirrors on an industrial scale.

The essence of the Cameron coup, of course, is to convince the ever gullible media that somehow he has vetoed a new treaty, and thus altered the course of events, protecting British interests.

Thus Cameron the pansy, under fire from all sides for giving in too easily to "Europe", reinvents himself as the "hard man", getting tough with Europe, emerging as the darling of the Conservative right wing, defender of the faith and all that. Boris has already fallen for it. Many more will follow - they are sooooo easily pleased.


"I effectively wielded the veto" goes the Cameronian legend, from the lips of the hero himself, except he did no such thing. The statement, to which he ostensibly takes such great exception is a "Statement by the Euro Area Heads of State or Government". And unless you know different, Cameron is not a euro area head. He could not, on any account, veto a statement issued by a group of which he is not part.

Of course, it could be that The Boy has forced the issue, making the smaller euro area group deliver the statement, instead of the whole European Council, but that is not what is being claimed. The "hard man of Europe" has blocked the treaty.

Looking at the small print of the statement though, we see that the position of the UK has already been factored in, and discounted. Whatever Cameron said last night has had absolutely no impact on events.

Some of the measures described in the statement, it declares, can be decided through secondary legislation. In other words, no treaty changes are necessary, and no direct involvement by member states is needed. Either the ECB or the commission can adjust the rules. And other measures (such as the financial transaction tax) can be contained in primary legislation. Again, there is no treaty change needed.

Then, says the statement, "Considering the absence of unanimity among the EU Member States, they (the heads of state or government of the euro area) have decided to adopt other measures "through an international agreement to be signed in March or at an earlier date".

In a direct snub – or a harbinger of the climbdown to come by Cameron – the statement goes on to say that the "objective remains to incorporate these provisions into the treaties of the Union as soon as possible". In other words, work will continue apace on preparing amendments to the Lisbon Treaty, although there will be no IGC as yet.

With no IGC, of course, Cameron is stuffed. For all his willy-waving, the changes are to be introduced though an "international agreement", the negotiations on which will be conducted without the presence of the UK. Cameron is not invited, and will not be a signatory.

There can be no demands for repatriation of powers, no veto and no referendum. Cameron has been relegated to the role of impotent bystander.

However, the Heads of State or Government of Bulgaria, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania have indicated their intention to join in the process. And the Heads of State or Government of the Czech Republic and Sweden are consulting their Parliaments before taking a decision.

Furthermore, within that framework, there is an important development which all but by-passes the EU treaties, yet still manages to enforce budget discipline on member states, requiring of eurozone members that their general government budgets shall be balanced or in surplus.

This, incidentally, is defined as ensuring that the annual structural deficit does not exceed 0.5 percent of nominal GDP.

However, taking into account Sarkozy's reservations about the encroachment of supranationalism – as expressed at Toulon, this is being made enforceable in an ingenious way. Rather than making it a treaty obligation, such a rule will also be introduced in member states' national legal systems at constitutional or equivalent level. Thus, each member state will be obliged by its own constitution to obey the deficit rules.

The rule will, according to the statement, contain an automatic correction mechanism that is triggered in the event of deviation. For external oversight, the rule will be defined by each member state on the basis of principles proposed by the Commission. And the ECJ will verify the correct transposition of the rule at national level.

Thus, le plan continues apace. Between yesterday and today, nothing has changed in that respect, except that Cameron and the UK are now out of the game. It would be nice to think that we were in the departure lounge, but that is not Cameron's intention. He still wants to play.

But where the "hard man of Europe" goes next is anyone's guess. Perhaps the "colleagues" will invite him to the ceremonial signing of the new treaty in March – as an observer. The sky's the limit, and by then he will probably need the air miles.

COMMENT THREAD

European Councils are always pure theatre. With 27 drama queens packed in one building, what do you expect?

Most of the hacks (and sometimes all of them) have very little idea of what is going on, and dwell in a fog of incomprehension.

The media are not admitted to the council chamber (and nor indeed are civil servants and aides). Therefore, the hacks know only what they are told by leakers, who are most often retailing second and even third-hand information - or through carefully managed press conferences and statements. Here, they are swallowing Cameron "spin", wholesale - a composite of leaks and "official" statements, written and oral.

Everything that comes out of Brussels is "Londonised" before it hits the streets. It is being run through a distorting filter, compounding the inherent "spin" and fog of incomprehension, making it highly unreliable as source material. Nothing can be taken at face value, and nothing can be trusted.

Whatever Cameron might say, the European Council is not negotiating a treaty amendment – it cannot. Inter alia, it is deciding whether it wants to convene as an IGC in order to negotiate a treaty amendment. The Council muddies the waters though, by not sticking to its own procedures. It is sometimes difficult to ascertain the precise legal format, under which the "colleagues" are operating.

Despite this, David Cameron has not vetoed a treaty change, dramatically or otherwise. He, himself, talks of an "effective" veto - i.e., not a veto.

Cameron could only deploy the veto if there was a vote on the draft of a substantive treaty change, formally "on the table" at an IGC. This is not an IGC. It is not a summit. Cameron is speaking within the framework of a European Council. Apart from the passerelle, the European Council has no authority to negotiate treaty change. The European Council makes political declarations.

The "fiscal pact" being referred to is not a treaty, and nor is it a treaty change. It is a political declaration - a statement of intent. It has no legal status and is not enforceable. This is, of course, why Merkel wants a treaty change … to make it enforceable.

Every national delegation is playing two games – one inside the chamber, where everyone is being terribly communautaire, and the other for domestic consumption. The two are rarely the same. And, at the moment, it suits Cameron to be seen (by his own media) as "isolated". It don't mean nuffink.

The UK is not the only member state with reservations about a treaty. See Sweden below. However, it often suits the "dwarfs" to have one of the big boys take the heat, riding on their coat-tails.

The hacks have deadlines to meet and space to fill. They are entirely reliant on the leakers, and will believe what they are told, if it fits the narrative. Media and politicians have common cause, in that they all want to keep the narrative going.

Just because all the media are saying the same thing does not mean they are right. The herd mentality is at play here, and the hacks like to stay within their comfort zone. If they depart from the herd narrative, they get asked awkward questions. Better to be part of the herd and wrong, than out on your own and right – but at the risk of being wrong and ostracised.

Within the herd dynamic, crowd psychology dominates. Even respectable, "sensible" newspapers get it wrong, sometimes knowingly, preferring to stay within the comfort zone.

The "colleagues" are well known for their propensity to milk the drama – it is their chance for a place in the sun (literally in some cases). Therefore, the "poised at the edge of a precipice" meme is quite often employed. The media believe it because they want to believe it. It suits their purposes.

Media pundits are never wrong - especially when they are wrong. Their egos will not allow them to be. When they are forced to admit that they were wrong, they simply re-write the narrative, which proves they were actually right all along. Hence, even when they are wrong, they are right. And the more tosh they talk, the more they are "respected" by their colleagues in the media pack.

What you see is not what you get. Very often, high-profile dramas are used as a screen to obscure more fundamental and important issues - in this case, the fact that there are still fundamental differences between Merkel and Sarkozy. These, more than anything, are driving the current negotiations. The Cameron drama is largely an inconsequential sideshow.

It ain't over until it's over.

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