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A welcome burst of honesty from David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, when he addressed the 10th birthday party of the Centre for European Reform (CER), a busy and influential pro-European think tank in a field dominated by Eurosceptics. Miliband, a long-standing Europhile, was one of the group's founders. He told a convivial gathering of the European great and good at the German Embassy last night: "There were two aims for the CER. One was to change the debate in Europe, and the other was to change the debate in Britain. Let's be honest. We have significantly succeeded in building a different sort of European Union over the last 10 years, and we have significantly failed to build a different sort of debate about the EU in the UK." Miliband said that, once the new EU treaty had been ratified, pro-Europeans in Britain would have no more excuses as they tried to combat public hostility to the EU project. They would no longer be able to blame their lack of progress on the EU for spending its time debating itself and the way it is run. Why had the Europhiles failed? The Foreign Secretary conceded the Government had contributed to the problem by suggesting that "all sort of mad and bad things" were being proposed by Brussels and the UK was going to protect itself from them. Secondly, Britain's historic alliances, notably with the United States, tempted it to see its relations with the EU in the same terms, whereas being a member of a 27-nation club was different. "I think it is important that we try to get out of this 'zero sum' attitude to relations between Britain and the rest of the EU," he said. Thirdly, Britain had seen the EU as a foreign policy issue, whereas issues such as crime, econmics or climate change were domestic ones. Finally, every EU country is proud of the progress it has made and Britain is no exception. But there was a danger of that pride turning into a "lecture to everyone else that they should copy us" - something that Gordon Brown was accused of doing when he was Chancellor. Miliband's speech was timely. Brown will next week launch a "charm offensive" in Brussels when he finally visits the European Commission for talks with Jose Manuel Barroso, its President. Brown is trying to rebuild bridges after upsetting the rest of the EU with his "late, late show" at the treaty's signing ceremomy in Lisbon in December. Expect Brown to go EU-positive, for a while at least. But I doubt he will launch the sort of campaign to sell the EU to the British public that Miliband and his audience would like to see. To comment click
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