Will Miliband actually look like the weaker player of diplomatic chess?

Sure he needs to win the popularity contest over Cameron, but he needs to look like a more shrewd operator. If you analyse Cameron’s play it is actually designed to be more likely to get him what he wants. If this plays out, it will hurt Miliband’s election chances.

Cameron’s play over the Commission President seems to be getting some flak at the moment. The thing is, he must have brainstormed the potential outcomes to this play with his advisers. They must have known that he would either succeed in influencing Merkel’s choice of Juncker, or fail, leading to the current outcome. Sure he might have hoped more than just Hungary — in the pool of leaders delaying their entry into the Euro — to have stood with him, but he must have known that given there was no chance, many leaders would have chosen to keep Germany on side rather than join the UK helping make our statement.

Perhaps this humiliation actually exactly what Cameron was hoping for?

What have been the reactions from other parties?

Labour through Douglas Alexander in this piece tried to suggest that Cameron was poor at forming consensus, that failing to unite people. A limp play, and one easily rebuffed by the Tories when you look at Cameron’s record in the European Parliament. He was instrumental in 2009 in founding the European Conservatives & Reformtists ECR group, whose aim is to achieve exactly the reforms Cameron seeks. In this years election is has gone from being the 5 largest group with 58 MEPs to the third largest with 70 — much larger than Farage’s group.

Further, Alexander suggests that Cameron should have been less vocal about his dislike of Juncker. Really? The entire aim is to make this very public, it plays well to the UKIP voters at home. Hence, this defensive play by Farage. More importantly though it makes it very public across Europe and the rest of the world, that the leader of the 2nd largest economy in the EU wants change to their membership.

Though to be fair to Alexander, at least he stuck to criticising policy by attacking how Cameron had acted. Miliband just went for an all out personal attack on Cameron describing him as “toxic” and “dangerous for the economy” in this coverage. If Cameron’s strategy yields results in the long term this will come back to bite Miliband, especially when Cameron is distinctly ahead in the argument over whom is best for the economy.

The entire hope for Labour is that voters will take Cameron’s loss at face value, that they won’t understand his long play. It is a cheap attack for political capital.

The most hilarious play for political capital was from Alex Salmond covered best in this piece in the Torygraph. Believing that an independent Scotland would stand a chance fielding a candidate as President of the Commission is farcical. Further, drawing attention to the fact that a “Yes” vote for independence would lead to EU integration and most likely the Euro, at the cost of staying in the UK and getting a vote in a 2017 UK referendum on EU membership — seems like a slightly risky play.

So why might this be exactly the outcome Cameron sought?

As the concessions after the vote from the German and Swedish leaders towards Cameron have shown, following this year’s EU elections the electorate have defined a clear need for political change in Europe. Merkel is aware of this, and knows that this Commission needs to start to legislate for this — there needs to be a better defined two tier system:

• 1st tier — that are heading for greater political integration. Most likely the Euro countries, and newly acceded countries that are keen to accelerate the development of their own economies.
• 2nd tier — those who are not keen on political integration, but are keen to contribute towards a free trade and labour area without having to join the Euro. There are 10 non-Euro countries in the EU at the moment, of these two — UK and Denmark — have opt-outs that mean they are already in an ill-defined 2nd tier. Of the remaining eight — Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden — only Lithuania has actually set a date of 2015 to join the Euro.

So of these remaining seven how many are likely to join?

Sweden the longest standing member in this group looks very unlikely to do so, Hungary has voted with Cameron, so makes it very likely it would seek to join this 2nd tier. All the others are dragging their feet. Which means there are at least 4 countries possibly up to 9.

So why did more of them not just vote with Cameron?

There are two factors that the media seem to have overlooked:

1. The President is not just there to serve the needs of these would be 2nd tier nations. The hard part is defining how to move the 1st tier to closer integration, the 2nd tier will then be defined by a more legitimately consistent set of opt-outs.
2. Ever since the Treaty of Lisbon the power of the European Commission to lead policy direction has weakened. The strengthened European Council now meets regularly and it is Merkel and Cameron along with the other leaders that can direct the work of this new President.

So, all the leaders know that the President matters less, but it needs to be one that plays well for the 1st tier countries agenda. By playing a strong hand on this vote Cameron makes it clear to his fellow leaders he needs their support in pushing through legislation to create a 2nd tier over the course of this parliament. Merkel’s and Reinfeldt’s concessions to Cameron after the vote show that they understand Cameron needs this. Voting for Juncker does not really influence this support.

Cameron as the leader of the 2nd largest economy in the EU has calculated that taking such public humiliation now only strengthens his position in negotiating these terms. In fact, had he actually succeeded in messing with the election, it is likely to have made Merkel’s domestic situation worse, leading to far less support for what Cameron wants. She now knows she owes Cameron one, as do the leaders who have not stood with him whom he thought would. Further, Juncker knows he owes Merkel. This is gives Cameron real negotiating power. This is game of chess that Miliband is failing to demonstrate he understands, and another example of why he has failed yet again to really win an argument over Cameron.