Judgement

I was rather irritated this morning to read stories alleging that Cameron wants to rush into a referendum on Europe this June, stories which, if true, suggest to me a serious error of judgement.

Western Europe is facing two related and serious problems: the various conflicts and problems in the Middle East and the millions of refugees arising therefrom. While they are not exactly our problems, we are rich and powerful and they are more or less on our doorstep. We have a history of meddling, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not for such good reasons, and we cannot stand aside now. We need, we have to work with the others involved or interested to deal with these problems.

Against this background, the UK whining about more or less parochial concerns seems to me to strike the wrong note. Mainland Europeans might just say "we have got more important problems to worry about than you at the moment, so shut up or get out. We don't got time to bother with you. PS: and stop being so selfish.

And collectively we really don't have the management bandwidth to cope with both the external problems and the relatively unimportant, internal problems. Cameron, his team, and the country at large, should put their shoulders to the collective wheel of sorting out the external problems. It is even possible that if a few major powers get serious about this, some of the big backsliders - like Poland, Russia and Saudi Arabia - might be shamed into constructive action. Pigs might even fly.

PS: and we might say the same to the Scots. Pipe down for the moment and we will get to you in due course. It is not as if they have anything like the grievance that the Irish had in their time, a hundred years ago, when we stood their independence down for the duration of the first war.