Lisbon is worse for Brown, not Cameron

Over at Conservative Home, Tim Montgomerie has written on why the Lisbon Treaty is David Cameron's number one headache.

Tim points to a poll that says 55% of the British people wish to see a whole new referendum process in place to renegotiate Britain's wider relationship with the EU.

However, I reckon for as long as the Conservatives remain slightly more Eurosceptic than Labour, they can't lose on the question of Europe in a Westminster election. The Euro elections, of course, are a different matter with UKIP more of a potent force but the kingmaker 'Middle England' are too keen to vote out Brown to not vote for Cameron in May 2010.

So I reckon the massive Yes vote that Ireland has delivered this weekend is a bigger headache for Gordon Brown than it is for David Cameron.

For a start it ensures that Europe will dominate the agenda for the foreseeable future, not just the next few days, which admittedly will cause short-term problems for Cameron, as Eddie Barnes muses.

For months we will constantly be reminded that we were denied a referendum on the new constitution, as promised in Labour's manifesto. We will soon forget that Cameron found himself in a bit of a pickle some time in early October.

Furthermore, it looks likely that Tony Blair will be installed as the EU President, a move that I'm personally not uncomfortable with but it will surely unnerve Brown to see his old foe sitting higher up the food chain than he is. The ex-Prime Minister's elevated profile will help to show up how out of his depth the current Prime Minister sadly is, both in terms of style and substance.

Also, I can't imagine the British people will be too happy to be led by Tony Blair after it took his many detractors ten long years to get rid of him. The fact that he has returned unelected will just make it all the more tougher to take.

No, the questions surrounding the Lisbon Treaty are relatively easy to answer for David Cameron. He can't really go back on all the decisions he doesn't like from past Governments so I expect he won't take much of a hit to his popularity when he decides, as he surely will, to accept the ratified Treaty and move forward on that basis, going out of his way to tut and sigh as he says he'll just have to make the best of it with a heavy heart.

Anyone holding out for some sort of European referendum will be sorely disappointed.

So in a way, Tim Montgomerie and I could both be right. The Lisbon Treaty could be Cameron's biggest headache but still be worse for Brown. After all, with a strong double digit lead and the media on his side, it's not like Cameron is struggling to get to sleep at night.

As a further thought, just think if Labour had held their Autumn Conference before the Conservatives had held theirs back in 2007. Gordon would have received a bump in the polls, polls that were already highly favourable at the time, and he would have called a snap election instead of dithering over what the Conservatives' post-conference bump actually meant.

Had David Cameron won that election, which I reckon he would have, then we would have had a referendum on the EU constitution by now, it would have been rejected, there would have been no need for Ireland's 2nd referendum and Tony Blair would not currently be buying new pens for his new job as President of the EU.

We may even have been shaping up for an independence referendum by now too.

And people say that Party Conferences have no real impact on Politics!