Europe has been “an enduring drama in British politics,” since Britain chose to remain outside of the European Coal and Steel Community upon its being formed in 1951. Christopher Tugendhat surveys the enduring swirling drama of Europe and the Conservative Party from 1951 to the Brexit referendum in 2016 in his excellent book The Worm in the Apple: A History of the Conservative Party and Europe from Churchill to Cameron. As a former Conservative member of parliament (1970-77) and European Commissioner (1977-85) as well as presently a Conservative member of the House of Lords, Tugendhat is exceptionally well-placed to write about his party and Europe, with its passionate arguments and bitter disputes. The book is replete with many perceptive observations and judgements. Recurrent themes in The Worm in the Apple are that Britain missed an opportunity to influence the direction of Europe by the decision of the Churchill government to stay out of the original enterprise as well as successive British governments consistently failing to “come clean with the people about the sovereignty implications of membership.”
By the coming to office of the Cameron government in 2010, promises of a referendum on Europe were being made by the Conservatives, Labour, and even the Liberal Democrats. As Tugendhat interestingly notes, “with so many commitments to a referendum being thrown around, it was becoming inevitable that sooner or later one would have to be held.” A referendum, as we know, was not held until Cameron took the gamble of an In/Out referendum in 2016. Although he did not support holding one at the time, as a pro-European Tugendhat now concludes it would have been better to have held a vote earlier as was being promised on a specific issue, such as the Lisbon Treaty. A defeat for Europe in such a vote would not have provoked “an existential crisis,” while having served to ease “the British people’s sense of being carried inexorably forward on a one-way tide to greater integration over which they had no control.” In reviewing the 2016 referendum, Tugendhat comments that, with both sides making “wild and unsustainable claims,” few UK election campaigns have rivalled it for playing fast and loose with facts and figures. He writes that with own his record as Eurosceptic, David Cameron was “an unconvincing advocate of Britain remaining in the EU.”
Tugendhat concludes that the “worm that ate away at the legitimacy of Britain’s membership of the EU and the pain of the divorce negotiations have made it impossible to restore the status quo ante. There can be no going back.” However, a new close, harmonious, and mutually advantageous relationship” must be created.
The Worm in the Apple is an absorbing read.