EU membership may be on the back burner, but it should not be thrown out

 Stephen Bush (political editor of the New Statesman) opines that neither Ed Davey nor Keir Starmer intend to campaign to rejoin the EU. His logic regarding the Liberal Democrats rings true: that we will struggle to get a hearing on more than one issue in any election campaign. 

Focusing on overturning Brexit makes it harder for the Liberal Democrats to get their points across on climate change, education or social care.

- to which one could add a fair voting system, a policy whose time will surely come again, the electorate having seen what sort of prime minister first-past-the-post voting can throw up. Certainly we should major on ecology, policing, justice, the governance of the UK, education and health, with the emphasis on the last two, especially in England.

Starmer has said that the issue of whether the United Kingdom is in or outside the EU has been settled fro the foreseeable.

There is another reason for Starmer shelving Europe which does not affect us Lib Dems. Brexit divided his party. There is a wide xenophobic strand running through not only traditional Labour voters but also their activists, especially in the trades unions. He wants to recover the "red wall" seats lost to Johnson at the last general election and there are suggestions that he is willing to tolerate anti-European feeling in the party in order to do so.

There is an opposite pressure on Davey. If there is no manifesto commitment at least to creative cooperation with the European Economic Area (which comprises the EU and EFTA, of which we were a founding member), and to rejoin EU if the conditions are right, then there will be a revolt within the party. These conditions of course would mean a clear indication that the majority of British people would be prepared to go along with an application for membership, bearing in mind that the entry conditions would be stiffer than those that met Edward Heath.

The motives for joining in the first place should be remembered. It was not only about giving a boost to the UK economy and thereby arresting - successfully - the rise in unemployment. It was also to ensure that it would no longer be in any member nations's intetest to go to war, because our institutions and economies would become closely intertwined. A common basis of human rights was essential. As the EU developed, it also became - and continues to be - a force for fairer trade with the third world. 

Any UK government of which the Liberal Democrats form the whole or a part should endeavour to further those ends, even if we remain outside the EU. The motivation of the present government is the opposite on practically all counts - not to mention the incentive to make a killing on the fall of sterling on the part of too many of those baankrolling the Tories.