You can tell it's silly season: Boris and the Eurosceptics are out in force.

You can tell it's silly season: Boris and the Eurosceptics are out in force

The mayor's 'coming out' as a candidate and a sceptic reinforces a dangerously cavalier attitude to Britain's position in the EU

William Keegan

The Observer, Sunday 10 August 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/aug/10/boris-eurosceptics-out-in-force-silly-season

Terrible things may be happening in the Middle East and parts of Africa, but August is usually regarded as the silly season for press and public in Britain, and this month is proving to be no exception.

One need look no further for an example of this than the inordinate degree of attention devoted last week to the admission by Alexander "Boris" Johnson that he is indeed planning to stand for parliament, in time, he hopes, for the May 2015 general election.

It turns out that your correspondent had a sixth sense about this. I had been invited by my old friend Dr Gerard Lyons to attend the launch of his new report on Europe at the headquarters of Bloomberg, the financial news agency, in Finsbury Square, London.

However, when I arrived there the cameras and massed band of groupies soon made me realise that this was a media event, and that, with due respect to Dr Lyons, they were all waiting for the star attraction: none other than the Mayor of London himself.

How shall I put it ? Well, let us just say that I made an excuse and scarpered – off to my local coffee bar, still in Islington, but north of Finsbury.

Now, I have known Boris for years as an acquaintance, and, like most people, I find him very entertaining. He is not, however, in the same league as my new acquaintance, the comedian Paul Whitehouse, whom I happened to bump into at the coffee bar, and with whom I was having an interesting chat about the relevance of Karl Marx to modern capitalism when Steve, the co-proprietor, told us the news from Bloomberg about Boris.

I am no more of a conspiracy theorist than the next man or woman, but the thought immediately occurred that this was a wonderful way for the No 10 spin machine – whose members would, of course, profess total ignorance – of diverting attention from the huge and potentially lasting, damage to the government caused by Baroness Warsi's honourable resignation over David Cameron's Pontius Pilate approach to Gaza.

The link between the mayor and Gerard Lyons is that the latter, after a long career as an economist with Standard Chartered and other financial institutions, has been serving as Boris's economic adviser.

His report, which the mayor has endorsed, concludes that the UK is better off within a "reformed" European Union. Lyons emphasises that his "main case is to stay and reform and position the EU in a changing world economy," adding "but the key thing is that it depends on the policies pursued".

I have seldom disagreed with Lyons over the years, but it seems to me that he and Johnson are far too relaxed about the prospect of leaving the EU if others do not do what they want. They are in danger of constructing men of straw here, because anyone who ventures beyond these shores will know that there is plenty of support for "reform" within the EU anyway.

But the idea that, after decades of trying to join in the old days, we should blithely depart and then try to negotiate special terms for UK plc strikes me as unrealistic, not to say a waste of time and resources.

We already have the perfect deal: we are members of the single market for goods – which will eventually be extended to services – and membership of the EU is important for trade negotiations, defence, environmental policy and many other areas. Moreover, we are the holders of a "get out of jail free" card with regard to the eurozone – a concession that would not be available to an independent Scotland.

It has been noted that Johnson's "coming out" on both his electoral intentions and his increasing Euroscepticism took place at the same venue – Bloomberg's London office – as David Cameron chose when he committed the Conservatives to a referendum on our EU membership, should he be re-elected.

It is not just Johnson's apparent move further in the direction of Euroscepticism that concerns me: it is also the fact that behind that jovial carapace lurks a deeply rightwing ideologue, whose Thatcher lecture last year called for further shrinking of the state come what may. In this, his thinking is akin to that of the man he is thought to rival for the succession to David Cameron, namely one George Osborne.

Which brings us to the third prominent politician to have made a major pronouncement chez Bloomberg in recent years. I refer to the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, who, in August 2010, made a remarkably prescient speech about the likely consequences of George Osborne's austerity policy. When I heard a rightwing commentator on Newsnight refer to "the discredited Ed Balls", I was reminded that, beneath the banter and the teasing, many Conservatives actually respect and fear Balls. So it suits them fine when dissident members of Labour's ranks call for the dismissal of this formidable shadow chancellor.

As the party conference season approaches, we shall return to this subject. For now, let us be content with remembering that Balls played a major role in thwarting Tony Blair's plan to take us into the eurozone, with its heavily deflationary bias. And – unlike Messrs Cameron and Johnson – Balls is well aware that it is in our national interest not to take risks with our membership of the EU.