Prime Minister David Cameron laughs as he listens to a speech by Boris Johnson during the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham yesterday.
Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday said he would not be heartbroken if Britain left the European Union because he felt little attachment to a relationship he said was not serving British interests.
Cameron, who has promised to renegotiate Britain’s EU membership if re-elected before offering voters an in-out referendum by 2017, is under pressure from the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) and some of his own lawmakers to toughen his rhetoric on Europe.
“I feel about a thousand times more strongly about our United Kingdom than I do about the European Union,” Cameron told BBC radio when asked about a statement he would have been heartbroken to see Scotland leave the United Kingdom.
Cameron said his preference was for Britain to stay in a reformed EU after a new settlement with Brussels, but said that the relationship was not working.
When asked whether it would break his heart to see a British EU exit, he said: “The United Kingdom was an issue of heartbreak. This is a matter of important pragmatism: What is best for our United Kingdom? How do we get the best deal for Britain? That is what I feel strongly about.”
The Conservative party’s schism over Europe has marred Cameron’s last major party conference before the 2015 election, overshadowing his attempt to pitch a growing economy and lower welfare spending to voters.
The defection of a second Conservative lawmaker to UKIP on the eve of the conference ratcheted up the pressure on Cameron to take a tougher line on Europe, immigration and welfare less than eight months before a national election in May.
Under pressure from his own party to deepen his Eurosceptic accent, Cameron is also anxious not to offend German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Europe’s most powerful leader, who could scupper any British attempt at an EU renegotiation.
He has so far garnered only limited backing for his plans among other EU states and while Merkel does favour EU treaty change, she sees it as much more limited in scope than Cameron and as a way of deepening eurozone integration.
UKIP, led by Nigel Farage, could win its first seat in the parliament on October 9 - the day Cameron turns 48 - after lawmaker Douglas Carswell switched to UKIP.
Senior Conservatives admit Carswell could win the seat for UKIP, but Cameron has warned voters that supporting the anti-EU party could split the Conservative vote in what is expected to be a very close 2015 election, paving the way for the opposition Labour party to gain power.
“There is a renegotiation to be done that gets you guarantees on the single market, an end to ever closer union, better guarantees on immigration, a solution to many of the problems Britain finds in the EU. I believe that can be done,” Cameron said.
Mayor attacks Miliband
Boris Johnson yesterday used his conference speech to launch a scathing attack on Ed Miliband’s failure to mention the deficit.
Johnson joked that the “baggage handlers” of the Labour leader’s memory had “gone on strike” when he apparently forgot to mention the matter in his own conference speech last week. But Johnson also had a joke at the expense of David Cameron — ribbing his own leader for his recent royal faux pas.
The mayor blasted Labour plans for a mansion tax - which have also been questioned by some of Labour’s London mayoral candidates - and said he wanted Londoners to get the first chance to buy new homes built in the capital.
Addressing conference in the main hall in Birmingham, Johnson said: “In setting out what should have been his programme for the country the Labour leader gave a surreal speech in which he described how he had tried to find material by randomly accosting young people in London parks.
“Yet he failed to mention the economy. My friends, it can only be called a Freudian slip. His subconscious rebelled.
“The baggage handlers in his memory went on strike — as they would under a Labour government — and refused to load the word deficit on to the conveyor belt of his tongue.”
Last week Cameron was forced into an apology after being recorded saying that the Queen had “purred” when told about the result of the Scottish referendum.
In a reference to the embarrassing affair, Johnson said: “At this conference we can say with pride that London remains not just the capital of England but thanks to the wisdom of a clear majority of Scots it is the capital of Britain and the capital of the United Kingdom and will remain so for our lifetimes.
“You have permission to purr.”
Johnson made housing the centre of his speech, in particular laying into Labour’s plans for a mansion tax on homes worth more than £2mn.
Cameron pokes fun at Queen in new gaffe
David Cameron found himself at the centre of another embarrassing royal faux pas yesterday after sharing a joke with MPs at the Queen’s expense. It is claimed the prime minister was showing off art at Chequers when he amused guests by telling them how the monarch had to be corrected for mistakenly believing she had the original of a painting that was at the stately home. On Monday last week, Cameron invited some 20 MPs to his country retreat. During a tour, he showed them Anthony van Dyck’s painting A Family Group, and recounted a conversation that took place when the Queen and Prince Philip made a visit to Chequers in February. According to Cameron, the Queen commented that she had the original of the painting at Windsor Castle. But the premier then told how, in a toe-curlingly awkward moment, the curator at Chequers interjected to correct the Queen, pointing out the version she was looking at was the original and that her painting at Windsor was the copy. While the story delighted guests, it appears to once again breach protocol which demands private conversations with the Queen are not discussed. Ukip leader Nigel Fa rage joked that the Queen may want to lock up Cameron: “I’m pleased the Tower of London moat is being filled with ceramic poppies at the moment to commemorate World War I soldiers. But if the prime minister makes any more comments like this we should start to think about using the inside of the Tower as well.” Neither Downing Street nor Buckingham Palace would comment today.
