Cameron at 10

by Anthony Seldon

  Cameron has been thinking ahead about a new settlement for Scotland in the event of a ‘No’ victory. After the 2014 Commonwealth Games from 23 July to 3 August, he signs a joint declaration with Miliband and Clegg, as part of the Better Together campaign. The worrying opinion polls suggest the need, endorsed and egged on by Brown, to come forward with their proposals, which are leaked by Danny Alexander to the Observer on 14 September.

  On 16 September ‘The Vow’ is published in Scotland’s Daily Record. It is conceived by Brown as a way of counteracting the SNP attack on NHS policy, by showing Scotland enjoys a beneficial financial settlement and that the nationalist onslaught is scaremongering. The text of ‘The Vow’, drafted by Labour’s Douglas Alexander, has been the subject of fevered debate with the Conservatives. The eventual wording is firmly anodyne. To the chagrin of Cameron and Osborne, as well as Labour and Lib Dems, the Labour-supporting Daily Record refuses to come out for the ‘No’ campaign. Published with great fanfare on the paper’s front page, and addressed to ‘The People of Scotland’, it promises that the Scottish Parliament is permanent, that it will receive more powers, and that the current system of funding for Scotland, the Barnett formula, will continue.28 Cameron communicates closely with Brown, who keeps pushing the prime minister to be generous to the Scottish people. Brown takes credit for both the idea and the wording of ‘The Vow’, if not for the way that it is presented, as if on parchment paper resplendent with burnt edges.29

  Wednesday 17 September is the final day of campaigning. Glasgow, Scotland’s most populous city, as well as the most pro-independence after Dundee, is chosen as the site for mass rallies. The ‘Yes’ campaigners gather in George Square in the centre of the city. A short distance away, in Maryhill, Better Together meet at the Community Central Hall. Brown gives a speech that is described by The Economist as ‘the speech of his life’.30 ‘The silent majority will be silent no more,’ he says, ‘our patriotic identity, proud of our Scottish identity, proud of our distinctive Scottish institutions, proud of the Scottish Parliament that we, not the nationalist party, created.’31 Brown’s speech is so powerful because he finds a passion which Cameron rarely feels able, or comfortable, articulating. Brown is able to find ‘the authentic reason for why the United Kingdom might be Better Together’, as one insider puts it. Brown’s impassioned intervention turned wavering voters back to the ‘No’ camp. Some even believe he saved the union.

  The polls open at 7 a.m. on Thursday 18 September. The turnout, at 84.59%, is the highest for any British election since the introduction of universal suffrage in 1918.32 Cameron is much more anxious than he had been on the night of the 2010 general election. As the polls close, his close team meet in Number 11 for a takeaway curry. Oliver Dowden has a camp bed set up in his office, the only occasion that he does so over the five years of the parliament. They consume what are described as ‘mountains of curry’, almost as a distraction to talking about the imminent results, before decamping to Craig Oliver’s office on the ground floor of Number 12. In front of them are two television screens. Cameron can’t bear to watch. He paces in and out of the room. Lynton Crosby is the most confident, but there is a genuine sense among them all that it could still go either way, even though the most recent indicators have been positive.

  At 10.30 p.m. a YouGov poll is released: 54% ‘No’, 46% ‘Yes’. The mood lightens. At about midnight, Cameron says, ‘I’ve had enough. I can’t stand it. I’m off to bed.’ He says he’ll keep his phone on silent so people can text him. The first result is announced at 1.32 a.m. with Clackmannanshire at 54% ‘No’ and 46% ‘Yes’. Orkney follows at 2.03 with 67% ‘No’, then Shetland at 2.43 with 64% ‘No’. Craig Oliver now texts Cameron, saying ‘looking good’. Cameron, who has been sleeping fitfully, replies: ‘Good. I’ll get a couple more hours’ sleep.’ The PM’s party continue to watch the screens in Oliver’s office, though they have now moved out into the adjoining open-plan press office in Number 12. Cameron has had speeches prepared in the event of a ‘Yes’ and a ‘No’ vote. Meetings have taken place with Heywood and Brown in the days before, confirming what both men might say if Scotland remains in the union. Cameron’s team have decided in the event of a ‘No’ that he will have to come out immediately and talk about ‘English votes for English laws’ (EVEL), so great is the pressure that they will come under given the concessions made in the last few days, and the hovering presence of UKIP. EVEL, it is hoped, will address the so-called West Lothian Question, whereby Scottish MPs can vote on English-only matters, but not vice-versa under devolution.

  ‘It’s no good. I can’t sleep,’ says Cameron who appears at the door shortly after his text exchanges with Craig Oliver. Dowden comes back at 3 a.m. having had a rest. Cameron is straight down to work making changes to the ‘No’ speech, which now looks increasingly likely to be the one he will deliver later that morning. At 3.58 Dundee comes out with 57.35% ‘Yes’, a larger figure than Glasgow which declares at 4.53 at 53% ‘Yes’. Shortly afterwards, the BBC’s Nick Robinson announces, ‘I think we know it now. The United Kingdom is surviving. There will not be an independent Scotland.’ The victory in Glasgow, he says, is ‘simply not big enough’.33 Indeed only four out of thirty-two local authority areas across the country vote ‘Yes’.

  At 5 a.m., Darling is called by Number 10. Cameron congratulates him on the result. Darling reportedly says that the heady post-referendum atmosphere is not the moment to sort out EVEL. To do so, he says, will inflame the SNP by restricting the voting rights of Scottish MPs. Cameron responds that the issue of English votes is one that needs to be addressed at the first opportunity.34 The wooing and promises to Scotland have created some dismay in England, including among Tory backbenchers. He senses great political danger if he doesn’t nip it in the bud emphatically, falling back on the claim that EVEL had been official Conservative policy since 2001, was endorsed by the McKay Commission in March 2013 but had then been blocked by Lib Dem opposition from the then Scotland Secretary, Michael Moore. Cameron also meets stiff resistance from Clegg, having spoken on the phone the day before. ‘I’m going to have to lean into the English issue,’ he tells Clegg. ‘I’ve got a problem with my English flank and I have to deal with it now.’ ‘You can say whatever you like, but we don’t agree on this – you’re not speaking on behalf of the coalition,’ replies Clegg. Although Cameron nuances his speech to avoid reference to the coalition, his determination to raise the issue on a cross-party consensus is undimmed.

  Just after the Darling call, Cameron’s children come downstairs and rush to their father. They sit on his knee. It is the first time that they seem to understand fully the significance of the work their father does: ‘Everyone could see how much it mattered to him, and they obviously picked up what was at stake for their father.’ At about 5.30 a.m., the close team gather in his study to work on the ‘No’ text at his desk. At 6 a.m., Edinburgh’s vote is declared: 61% ‘No’. At 6.18, Salmond concedes: ‘Scotland has by a majority decided, not at this stage, to become an independent country.’

  At 7 a.m., Cameron goes out onto Downing Street to deliver his text, declaring that there will be English votes for English laws: ‘The question of English votes for English laws – the so-called West Lothian Question – requires a decisive answer. Just as Scotland will vote separately in the Scottish Parliament on their issues of tax, spending and welfare, so too England, as well as Wales and Northern Ireland, should be able to vote on these issues … We will set up a Cabinet Committee right away.’35 He says that he has asked William Hague to draw up plans for the new settlement. As expected, the media interpret it as an attempt to outflank his right wing and UKIP, as well as exposing Labour’s ambiguity over the policy. Farage is quickly on the airwaves to demand English votes for English laws. Brown promptly telephones Heywood to express his anger at Cameron. Neither is Danny Alexander impressed: ‘What it did was just give the nationalists a whole grievance agenda from a minute after the result was declared. It was just dreadful.
’36 Gove stokes fires when he seems to imply in an interview in The Times on 20 September that further devolution to Scotland is conditional on progress on EVEL, a claim quickly countered by Number 10.37 He subsequently explained: ‘As chief whip, I was very conscious that the rights of MPs from England and Wales also had to be reasserted. Immediately after the vote, therefore, the PM acknowledged their rights.’38

  The swiftness and tone of Cameron’s statement angers the centre left. ‘Any prime minister is a party politician. But a prime minister must also be a national leader,’ says an editorial that Sunday in the Observer. ‘Cameron’s handling of the aftermath of the Scotland vote has fallen far short on this count … The clumsy partisanship of Mr Cameron’s response has made it look as if he is reneging on a promise.’39 Brown, and the SNP, are swift to jump on Gove’s interview as evidence of betrayal, which despite Number 10’s prompt response, they can do little to assuage. Neither are Cameron critics on the right reassured: ‘The English will not tolerate another lopsided settlement designed to appease nationalist sentiment paid for by English taxpayers,’ says Owen Paterson.40 The referendum has poked a hornet’s nest. The prime minister receives little praise or credit for his months of work and anxiety. Yet he has failed to anticipate the resentment that addressing the ‘English Question’ in such a precipitous manner just hours after the referendum result would stir – especially among the 45% of Scots who voted to leave the United Kingdom – and the damage it would wreak on the Unionist cause. The SNP may well have gone on to enjoy a surge in support irrespective of Cameron’s remarks that morning, but a more statesmanlike and magnanimous approach would have cooled the political temperature north of the border.

  A measure of Cameron’s extreme tension during the whole devolution denouement is discernible when he makes a rare slip the following Tuesday. To Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York, he confides: ‘The definition of relief is being the prime minister of the United Kingdom and ringing the Queen and saying, “It’s all right, it’s OK.”’ He then tells Bloomberg that ‘she purred down the line’.41 This is a significant breach of protocol and etiquette for a prime minister, and he knows it: he is deeply embarrassed. Compatriots in the White House, however, are only too happy to purr at the result. ‘You don’t want to do that again,’ Obama says to him, only half-joking. EU leaders, notably Spain’s Mariano Rajoy, are delighted to see the forces of separatism thwarted, but are also cross with Cameron for raising the separatist spectre so prominently by calling the referendum: ‘Please don’t open this Pandora’s box again,’ he is told by Rajoy and others facing separatist agitators.

  Earlier that week, a private meeting had taken place in Cameron’s room in Downing Street. Only Osborne, Llewellyn, Fall, Oliver and Gove are present. They are considering what will happen in the event of a ‘Yes’ vote, a very real possibility. Certainly, a defeated Cameron would face calls to resign from the press and the back benches. ‘I thought it fanciful he’d be allowed to stay – our feet wouldn’t have touched the floor,’ recalls one at the meeting. In addition to the loss of a third of Britain’s landmass, it would call into question Britain’s continued position in international organisations like the G7 and the UN Security Council. There are those who are adamant Cameron should remain: ‘Britain would be in a state of crisis and we shouldn’t exacerbate a very volatile division by having a prime minister resigning.’ His team try to convince him of the need to stay on. None of those present are really sure what is in his mind. The public outcry and anger would be so great, and his personal judgement would come under so much attack, that remaining in power would almost certainly have been untenable. ‘The truth is that if the vote had gone against us, he would have been out. He knew that, whatever he might have said to us,’ says one. He would almost certainly have jumped before he was pushed. With the prospect of going down in history as the man who broke up the United Kingdom, followed by a dishonourable dismissal, it is unsurprising that in those final few days his mood is so sombre. Even winning the referendum brings little closure or respite, for all the joy so palpably visible on his face at 5 a.m. that Friday morning.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  EU Tribulations

  January–June 2014

  It is midday on Friday 27 June 2014. Cameron is at lunch with the EU leaders on the eighth floor of the Council of Ministers office in Brussels. He is insisting on a vote on whether Jean-Claude Juncker should succeed José Manuel Barroso as president of the European Commission, the most powerful post in the EU. Cameron knows that he will lose, but seems not to mind. His fellow leaders, some defiant, some embarrassed with eyes cast down, make their views known via a show of hands. Only Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary, joins Cameron in refusing to support Juncker: they lose by a resounding twenty-six votes to two. Yet Cameron is typically phlegmatic in his response. He returns to the delegation office after lunch, telling his staff how Orbán and he had been heard respectfully in silence. He then compares it to an iconic scene from the film Spartacus: after he and Orbán made their stand, most of the other leaders felt compelled to say: ‘I am for Juncker’, ‘I am for Juncker’, ‘I too am for Juncker’.

  ‘Rarely, if ever, has Britain suffered such a rout on so many fronts in Europe,’ writes Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer that weekend. Cameron’s strategy of pinning all his hopes on Merkel has proved a ‘spectacular flop’.1 In The Times, Philip Collins writes that Cameron’s EU squabbles all have the same narrative arc: a loud demand, a failure to meet it, and then ‘he pretends that his recalcitrance is a virtue that he meant all along’.2 Nigel Farage milks the result for all it is worth, saying that with his defeat over Juncker, any hopes of Cameron being able to renegotiate Britain’s position in Europe ahead of a referendum are gone. Cameron is ‘looking like a loser who has learnt nothing, still insisting, though it is rather more difficult, that he can renegotiate our position. He can’t,’ is the UKIP leader’s conclusion.3 How has Cameron allowed himself to be cornered in this position, with bad headlines on the EU dominating over the following few weeks, when his Bloomberg speech of January 2013 was designed to take the steam out of the whole EU issue before the general election? To understand what happened, the complexities of the EU’s changing power balance need first to be unravelled.

  The president of the European Commission runs the executive branch of the EU, and can be very roughly compared to its prime minister, as opposed to the president of the European Council, who chairs the regular meetings of the heads of government. The president of the Council, chosen by the heads of state, serves a term of two and a half years. The Commission president is elected on a five-year term by the European Parliament after a candidate is put forward by the European Council. This process is further enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty of 2009. But for several years, the European Parliament has been seeking to enhance its power against the Council, which sets the political direction and priorities of the EU. A directly elected Commisssion president has been a federalist objective for a long time. As an official explains, ‘It creates a European politics in which people campaign on a party, and a platform, and a person. It’s about the political integration of Europe.’ This is a move that the political class in Britain has been slow to detect – despite Britain’s permanent representatives to the EU in Brussels, both indicatively ex-Treasury (Jon Cunliffe until November 2013, and then Ivan Rogers), warning about moves afoot by activist MEPs to adopt a process called Spitzenkandidaten. This entails the main political groups in the European Parliament – above all the two principal ‘families’, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the centre-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) – proposing lead candidates, and then getting behind the one from the group that wins the most seats in the European elections.

  Cameron gradually wakes up to the risk that the Spitzenkandidaten process poses by enhancing the power of the European Parliament to the detriment of the European Council. ‘This concept was never agreed by the European Council.
It was not negotiated between the European institutions. And it was never ratified by national parliaments,’ he says in June 2014.4 But Cameron’s ability to mould the process is affected by his decision in Opposition to take the Conservatives out of the EPP. ‘He didn’t realise how important the EPP would become. He did not realise that the European Parliament is all about multilateral relations, and he did not realise how the EPP would grow in importance after Lisbon,’ says a despairing diplomat. Cameron’s response is robust: ‘It would have made no difference if we had been in the EPP. Merkel, Reinfeldt [Sweden] and Kenny [Republic of Ireland] are all in the EPP, and they all disagreed with the Spitzenkandidaten process, yet it happened.’ Officials have been warning Number 10 since at least 2012 that the appointment of a new Commission president in June 2014 is ‘a slow-motion car crash coming towards us’. One senior diplomat thinks that firm action by leaders in the European Council as early as 2012 might just have stopped the car altogether. Had they ‘stood up strongly against it, there would have been a fight and the European Parliament would have complained bitterly. But the Council would have had its way. The Council could rightly have said that it had more democratic representation than the Parliament, and could have pulled it off.’

  Earnest conversations about a new Commission president begin in the EU Council meetings in October and December 2013. Leaders observe with some dismay that the process is being driven by the S&D and its leader Martin Schulz. At the time it is an open question whether the EPP will mimic the S&D and support the Spitzenkandidaten process. Advice flows back to London that, if they do, its two likely candidates will be Juncker or Michel Barnier, France’s EU commissioner for internal markets and services. Juncker quickly emerges as the more likely. Reports also flow back to London that ‘EU leaders are still in denial about the extent of the momentum within the European Parliament, and cling to the notion that the choice of Commission president is still their prerogative, rather than having it predetermined by the Parliament.’