Though Cowards Flinch

Sunny thinks Ed Miliband should now:

[A]sk Cameron if he will call for a referendum on the EU itself to clarify whether the UK stays in or out.

He says this because:

[C]alling for a referendum would expose the fact Cameron doesn’t want to be out of the EU despite the crumbs he has thrown at his Eurosceptic MPs. It would put him in a bind and expose the farcical situation that Britain is in now.

I disagree with Sunny on this one. 

I think raising the possibility of a referendum will make Miliband looks like he’s playing silly party politics. 

Cameron will get all the favourable media exposure he wants over the next week or two on this, as he struts around, doing the British Bulldog.  That image is all over the rightwing press this morning.  By comparison, Miliband asking about a referendum will look like an annoying little chiwawa snapping petulantly at Cameron’s heels.

Instead, Miliband should focus on what’s important.  Strategy, not tactics.

Miliband should ignore Cameron as far as possible, other than to point out how much he has sided with the fund managers, and how very typical that is.  The main message should be that Cameron is now an irrelevance.

Miliband should get on with setting out clearly how the removal of the fiscal stimulus option, under the proposed Treaty, would be an unmitigated economic disaster both for the Eurozone and for the UK as a key trader.   He should be pointing out that Germany’s economy has remained fairly strong till now precisely because:

a) Back in 2002, Germany broke the same deficit rules now proposed under the Treaty, but then set out under the European Growth & Stability Pact, using its political weight to have the rules ignored;

b) Germany, now calling for fiscal restraint, has itself used a bigger stimulus  to keep its economy going than any other European country since the 2008 crash.

Miliband should be in Europe every other weekend, talking to Centre-Left and Leftwing leaders about developing coherent alternatives to the proposed Treaty, following on the lead given by François Hollande.  He should not be afraid to go for Merkel’s jugular, calling her out on her hypocrisy.  The message he should try to get over is that Merkel is the important player, not Cameron.

He should be using his Labour MEPs to the maximum to ram home the message that Labour is interested in finding workable, long-term solutions to the European crisis. This will send a strong message, to LibDems in particular, about where Cameron’s tactics have got us, without ever having to mention Cameron, other than as an irrelevance.

Finally, he should recognise that if Francois Hollande does become French President in May, the whole political landscape in Europe will change, and that there is a chance the disastrous Treaty could effectively be stopped in its tracks (even if it has been signed, implementing it is another matter).

He should be talking to the Labour NEC this week about how the Labour party can get behind the Socialist Campaign in France, getting resources and volunteers over in numbers; this campaign is more important now than the Obama campaign in 2008, which saw lots of willing young Labourites lend a hand.

It’s time for Miliband to stop shouting from the sidelines, brush Cameron aside, and get on with the real business of social democratic politics in Europe.