Contagion

Cameron had his feet held to the fire at PMQs today on the EU question and waffled badly. Pressure is mounting outside Parliament too with Boris now saying that any Treaty change either has to be vetoed or put to a referendum. Admittedly being in a coalition with a bunch of Europhile UK haters makes Cameron's job more difficult but for that very reason it must make sense to act like Pontius Pilot and wash his hands of any decision which would rile either the LibDems or the Eurosceptics and instead put the issue to the people in a referendum. The LibDems would not dare leave the coalition because Cameron allows a referendum to be held as they would be tainted for years afterwards as undemocratic particularly as the Conservatives allowed the LibDems a referendum on the AV question. Cameron may find himself unpopular with his EU colleagues for holding a referendum but so what. We know their attachment to democracy - we only have to look at the governments of Greece and Italy to remind ourselves how shallow democracy beats in the German and French breasts. Frightening. It is therefore good to see that Berlusconi's party is not prepared to vote for some of the austerity measures that Monti's government is proposing. As Dan Hannan says here by trying to sort out Greece's problems the eurozone has taken them over when it would have been more sensible to push Greece out of the euro and leave it to settle its own problems. Ironically the contagion the eurozone feared would not have happened if the pus of Greece had been cut out but is happening now by the eurozone having clasped Greece to its bosom. Fiscal union would work if it is proper fiscal union of the US kind. The kind of semi fiscal union proposed for the eurozone will be a disaster waiting to happen.