David Cameron and the “marginalization of Britain”

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

Thursday’s New York Times carried an important Op-ed from the Brooklyn-based foreign correspondent Roger Cohen, which has some interesting quotes from David Miliband and strong criticism of David Cameron’s Europe policy.

Miliband told Cohen that “a strong Britain is a key to a strong Europe” and accused the Tories of fighting yesterday’s battles over “the phantom ghost of federalism.” In Europe, he noted, “there is no federal super state about to emerge.”

Miliband also says Europe needs strong leadership, and that if Tony Blair were a candidate for the Presidency, he’d be an “excellent choice.”

But the really interesing parts of the article are Cohen’s views on Conservative Euro-scepticism and what they could mean for Britain’s role in Europe, Europe’s role in the rest of the world and what he calls “the Obama administration’s interest in a strong European Union with an effective British presence”:

“What concerns the Obama administration is not Cameron’s loopy European Parliament allies – the Tory leader is clearly a mainstream pragmatist – but the conviction that a Euroskeptic Tory obsession could undermine British influence in Europe at a time when the Obama administration needs an effective E.U. partner.

Clinton, who met with Miliband earlier this month, has conveyed concern about any marginalization of Britain in Europe if Cameron wins.

Under George W. Bush, friends were privileged. Under Obama, friends have ceded to American interests coldly assessed. And on issues from Afghanistan to climate change, Obama wants Europe to step forward.”

But, he worries:

“Tory little-Englandism has become a strange anachronism since the end of the Cold War dictated a broad Europe rather than a deep one, a loose bloc rather than a United States of Europe. Cameron should lay the ghost to rest and start by reversing his weird European Parliament lurch.“

David Cameron’s new group in the European Union is weird, it is anachronistic and it would “marginalize” British global influence at a time when, at last, the United States has an internationalist President in the White House determined to use fair-minded diplomacy and engagement with those he may disagree with to find collective solutions to our collective problems.

But under a Tory government, Cameron’s reluctance to work within the European mainstream would be a constant headache for Obama. Worse than that, it would damage Britain’s ability to influence the agenda both within Europe’s borders and globally.

Now that America is increasingly waking up to the errors of the Tories’ Europe policy, perhaps David Cameron will, too.

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RT @LabourList