All voters will remember is that the Tories are giving them a referendum – and that Labour isn’t

Three things are blindingly apparent this week.

The first is that the Tories are still hopelessly divided on Europe. Plus ça change.

The second is that Labour’s refusal to match the Tory referendum pledge leaves the party framed as the enemy of choice, refusing to give the public its say.

The third is that a week is a long time in politics and people will forget the messy parliamentary to and fro of the past few days but remember that the Tories are pledged to hold that referendum. And that Labour isn’t.

This is madness. Ed Miliband’s critique of managerial politics and its bureaucratic, top-down remoteness has always been spot on. Yet I can’t think of an issue where the governed and the governing are further apart than on Europe.

And it’s not just our membership of the EU. In voters’ minds, the reason we have so much immigration is because of the EU’s free movement of people. And any number of other grievances, real, exaggerated and imagined – are also attributed to Europe. It is a lightning rod for the malaise at the heart of British political life.

It’s no use railing against these misconceptions. The pro-European cause has failed mightily. It has always been an elite movement that has never managed to popularise – or even normalise – Britain’s membership of the EU. The referendum is a chance to draw that poison.

‘Ah’, goes the theory, ‘why invade on private grief? Keep well clear and let the Tories rip themselves to pieces’. Labour can sit back, look like a responsible party of government and toady up to all those business leaders who are horrified at the prospect of us inching towards the EU’s exit door. Ed will look like the statesman against Cameron’s desperate political hack.

This is wishful thinking. What will happen is that the Tories’ referendum pledge will reclaim ground lost to UKIP. Rather than looking prime ministerial, Ed will be left looking belligerent and elitist – every inch the product of our managerial political class. Europe and immigration will dominate next year’s European elections and possibly the 2015 general election as well. Labour will be flummoxed as its candidates try to explain why giving the public a say is such a bad idea.

And make no mistake, Cameron will get his renegotiation in due course. If EU leaders will bust a gut to save economically peripheral countries like Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus, then they will not countenance the UK – the second largest economy in the EU – walking away. Cameron will get enough concessions to sell to the electorate.

He can then plausibly head a ‘yes’ campaign on the terms of his successful renegotiation. All those business leaders who are today telling Ed Miliband what a dreadful mistake this referendum pledge is will in due course flock behind Cameron.

Labour will have taken the hit for denying the public a say – for the best of intentions in trying to preserve our EU membership – only for Cameron to sweep in and steal our thunder. The party’s current position makes no strategic sense either viewed as high principle or as low politics.

Will it really take a hammering in next year’s European elections for us to realise that?