There are many conundra concerning the British Conservative Party and its attitude to Europe, few of which will be answered by a detailed speech from William Hague, the Conservatives’ shadow Foreign Secretary, at Policy Exchange yesterday. This was a real curate’s egg of a speech, good in parts, but ultimately displeasing in its lack of real nourishment.

Its principle defect is that Hague fails, quite deliberately, to deal with the issue of what happens if the Conservatives come to power after the Treaty of Lisbon (which is the wolf of the EU Constitution dressed up as lamb, albeit a lamb that is purposely indigestible) has been ratified or, looking even further ahead, has come into force.

This remains the Achilles Heel of Conservative Party policy on the Treaty and the EU. We know only too well why Cameron and Hague refuse to spell out their policy in this event: once the treaty is in force the shape of the battleground will change out of all recognition because renegotiation of the Treaty of Lisbon will be something all but impossible for the EU and pro-constitution nations to concede, which will leave very little choice but to renegotiate completely the United Kingdom’s relationship with the Union.

Fortunately this speech provides those of us who long earnestly for such a renegotiation to take place with a number of hostages to fortune, which may yet come back to haunt Mr. Hague if, as many predict and fear, the Government railroads through Parliament its Bill to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon.

Thus Mr. Hague observed:

It ought to be obvious that European integration can only be built on democratic consent – yet this Treaty is uniquely devoid of any democratic mandate in Britain […] if this Treaty is ratified in this country without a referendum and if it is ratified in all other countries and comes into force before a general election, in our view not only would political integration have gone too far but the Treaty would lack democratic legitimacy in Britain.

And that is really the problem for the Conservatives in not spelling out what its policy would be in the event the treaty is in force by the time they come to power. The Treaty would remain repugnant to our government and our people and would continue to lack the consent of the British people but would be part of the law of the United Kingdom. As such, as these observations implicitly accept, the Treaty of Lisbon cannot be just left in force without any further steps being taken. Indeed, the Conservatives recognise that to be the case:

So as we have already made clear, that situation would not be acceptable to an incoming Conservative Government

Yet, though the circumstances cry out for an answer to the question “what then?”, none is forthcoming.
 
They cannot, surely, continue to do this. Brown will make headway in due course with his attack on this point as every time the matter of the Treaty is raised he will enquire, legitimately, what the Tories plan to do in power about a ratified treaty. A failure to answer is, sooner rather than later, going to make the Tories look either incompetent – on the basis that they have not got a clue what to do then – or shifty and devious, giving, as they will, every appearance of wanting to conceal something uncomfortable from the electorate.
 
One understands the superficial logic of this: there is a natural desire to focus on the easy bit which is kicking Brown and Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, over their dishonourable refusal to give effect to their Manifesto promises but no desire whatever to explain the logical consequences of a ratified treaty, the tricky bit, which, when the far-reaching consequences are explained might frighten off some voters. But once the matter has been raised by Brown, as it has been, it is no longer enough to retreat into a mantra of ‘we would not let matters rest there’ without more.
 
The consequences which Hague foresees as flowing from a failure to put this Treaty to a referendum are recognised by him as being of the utmost gravity:

Then there will be the effect on the EU's standing in Britain. Far from securing the European Union's status, failure to put this Treaty to the people in any way at all would gravely undermine its democratic legitimacy in Britain. It will have been given powers for which the voters had never given their permission. And the lack of democratic legitimacy is all the more worrying given how intimately concerned with our citizens' rights and freedom many of the Treaty's most important provisions are.

His analysis is entirely right, but it also emphasises all the more the lack of candour with which the Conservatives are approaching the totality of this issue. For, as he acknowledges, not only is the democratic legitimacy of the Treaty undermined but the whole basis of United Kingdom law from the passing of the European Communities Act 1972 to the present day is called into question and, in effect, the rule of law.
 
Given that 70-80% of the law which comes into force in the United Kingdom emanates from the Brussels Diktat, the absence of democratic legitimacy strikes at the heart of the very body politic of our country and opens wide the issue of the extent to which we, as citizens who have not given our consent to this state of affairs, should or need consider ourselves bound by laws which lack the very necessary ingredients of consent and legitimacy.
 
Yet, grave and dangerous though this state of affairs undoubtedly is, Hague still remains unwilling to explain how this damage to the EU’s standing in the UK is to be remedied.
 
Such a failure cannot continue for ever, for it will soon begin to be exploited by political opponents of the Tories who will make them to look shifty, evasive and no more than political mountebanks bent on a cynical piece of unprincipled opportunism rather than as a party having a carefully reasoned and principled plan of how to deal with a Treaty which is wholly inimical to the interests and independence of the United Kingdom.
 
Part of Hague’s difficulty, one suspects, is that, as a supporter of membership of the EU, he lacks the stomach and political courage to follow his reservations through to a logical and principled determination, knowing that that determination betokens a probable end to our membership of the EU in anything like its present form.
 
The second half of his speech has one good point but is more disappointing otherwise. He adumbrates a number of policy areas where he asserts the EU is doing a good job – global warming, global poverty, global competitiveness – without acknowledging for a moment that there is nothing in these issues which the United Kingdom could not address as an independent sovereign state, just as Switzerland, Norway and Iceland manage to do without loss of sovereignty quite happily.
 
The one remaining good point that he offers is surely one that is right:

No student of politics can be in any doubt that, like a child with a new toy, if a political institution is given new roles and powers it will be dead set on using them as soon as possible. So it is all too likely that if this Treaty comes into force we would see European institutions pouring their energy not into the hard grind of making our economies more competitive but in exploring how far and to what ends their new competences in these areas might reach.

That this will be so is already evident from the fact that across the board the Union is preparing to put in place all the structures that will be needed to put exercise the power that the Treaty gives. And they will not be content with any minimalist interpretation of the Treaty, of that you may be sure.
 
Rather they will, in the wont of all power-acquisitive entities, to seize as much power as they can as soon as they can, an exercise which can only be reined in by a genuinely independent European Court of Justice (ECJ). But that organisation is tasked under Article 9 with duties that are not compatible with independence:

1. The Union shall have an institutional framework which shall aim to promote its values, advance its objectives, serve its interests, those of its citizens and those of the Member States, and ensure the consistency, effectiveness and continuity of its policies and actions.
 
2. Each institution shall act within the limits of the powers conferred on it in the Treaties, and in conformity with the procedures, conditions and objectives set out in them. The institutions shall practice mutual sincere cooperation.

Thus is the ECJ required to ‘serve [the] interests’ of the Union, ‘advance its objectives’ and ‘ensure the […] effectiveness of its policies and actions.’ In doing so it must ‘practice sincere mutual co-operation’ with other institutions.
 
Whilst it will need no further encouragement, this primary purpose must influence its entire approach to the Union and its doings and mean that it cannot, even were law and justice to suggest otherwise, act against the interests and objectives of the Union and the effectiveness of its policies.
 
Thus will every competence be seized and its fullest parameters explored, unfettered and unrestrained by an emasculated ECJ. It will be years before the Union has digested those new competences and powers but meanwhile important matters of policy and law await attention which they will not receive from a Nomenklatura more interested in the exercise of that power than the genuine interests of the Union’s citizens.
 
It is this acknowledgement by Hague of what will happen under the Treaty which makes his and his party’s failure to tell us what their policy to counter it so lamentable. Those who support the Conservative Party are willing to be lead but only provided they know where they are going. If, on the other hand, Hague merely points to the road and says ‘follow me’ without telling them of the destination, any failure to arrive at an end which conforms to the logic of our present position will, surely, lead to division and grave recrimination.