Purchase today

Enter your email address here to receive updates from the team.

Jobs

User login

The Staggers

The New Statesman’s rolling politics blog

RSS

Michael Gove: I would vote to leave the EU

The education secretary has reportedly told friends that the UK has to be ready to threaten to leave the EU.

By Caroline Crampton Published 14 October 2012 10:59

Michael Gove during this year's Conservative Party conference. Photograph: Getty Images

The Mail on Sunday has splashed today on the revelation that Michael Gove has apparently told friends that if a referendum were to be held, he would vote to take the UK out of the EU:

It's a bold headline, but inside the story is a bit softer - Gove has apparently told "close allies" that Britain needs to be ready to threaten to leave the EU altogether if it is going to renegotiate our relationship successfully.

Simon Walters says this intervention by the education secretary is part of an "anti-EU pincer movement" by Gove and Cameron. The latter is due to announce a pull-back from some EU justice measures later this mornth, Walters says.

On the face of it, "Tory cabinet minister doesn't like the EU" is hardly an earth-shaking revelation.

What's interesting, though, is that Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome says:

My estimation is that at least eight Tory Cabinet ministers would privately sign up to exactly that view.

If Montgomerie is right (and he often is about such things) and Gove is just one of a number of senior Tories having these thoughts, this story takes on a whole new dimension. Parliament returns tomorrow, so the next month or so will be an interesting one for the future of the UK's relationship with the EU.

Will the Lib Dems have anything to say about this?

Special Offer: Get 12 issues of New Statesman magazine for just £12

Tags: European Union

More from Caroline Crampton

View the discussion thread.

16 comments

Mon, 2012-10-15 21:02 — JacquesOuze

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I reckon this is all part of Alex Salmond's plot to win an independence vote. Gordon Brown as possibly the most hopeless PM ever, now old trout face bothering small children on a scale that Jimmy Savile could only have dreamed of. You can only think it's all extravagant ploy to make the Scots so hated in England that we'll be glad to see the back of them.

Mon, 2012-10-15 13:29 — Stuart Eels (not verified)

What I want to know is this- Why hasn't the NewStateman run any comments about Jimmy Savile and the Scottish Referendum? and as you haven't I thought I'd ask why on this thread!

I consider the possible breakup of the UK to be far more important than Michael Gove's passing fancies!!!!!!!!!

Mon, 2012-10-15 13:49 — bill23 (not verified)

I think most people would regard a potential exit from the EU as more important, closely followed by, who was the poor sucker that bought Jimmy Savils Rolls Royce?

Tue, 2012-10-16 11:53 — Stuart Eels (not verified)

No I don't think so Bill23, the EU is failing right now and there is nothing we can do about it, the UK could go the same way and no one seems to care. I must admit I do feel sorry for that bloke wasting so much money, still musn't grumble!

Mon, 2012-10-15 12:29 — ClaireL (not verified)

Having heard Nigel Farage's rant in EU parliament, I'm voting for UKIP next election. Well done, Nigel, for saying what's in the hearts and minds of a great many Britons. The whole thing has gone mad, people sitting on a fat little income for doing what exactly ...bringing EU countries to their knees. As for the Nobel Peace Award, it has lost all credibility and will be viewed in the same light as fat cat bankers helping themselves. It's time to bring the farce to an end. We see through it - governments are fooling no-one but themselves, it seems.

Sun, 2012-10-14 21:52 — Hugh C Markey (not verified)

Lose the 'spec' Mike. Makes you look like a headmaster from public school. As for the EU don't forget Europe's various wars over succession and whatever allowed England and then Britain to get on with the business of nation building.
Besides keeping the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks at bay. Europe dealt with the Med's troublesome North African littoral.
Protected by European p0wers, Britain had the time and space to become Great.
And don't forget those tariff walls have fallen. If the EU again sheltered behind them how would this re-imposition distort the world market. Holidays to the EU would also involve medical costs for UK tourists. And what about the ex-pat pensioners? Consequences?

There's Gratitude for You

Mon, 2012-10-15 06:35 — willoyen

not to mention euromillions...

Sun, 2012-10-14 20:54 — Justin Forster (not verified)

I would vote for Michael Gove to leave the EU.

Mon, 2012-10-15 10:20 — roger. (not verified)

I would vote to leave the eu.I have always voted for the conservative party, and always will. David cameron made lots of promise when he was trying to get in,saying he would do this and that,but we have all heard it before NO BACK BONE to put into practis and no guts to stand up to the eu just all wind. What a wast of our votes. I think call me dave must go and get a good right wing leader for the party and for th uk.

Sun, 2012-10-14 20:35 — Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley (not verified)

How could anyone sign up to a " view"? One either sees it or one doesn't. Why should anyone need to sign anything about what one sees and what would signing any thing or marking anything down ( or up) prove?

Only that one is willing to buy whatever risk is being flogged within the greater jungle that is the world of voluntarism.

Sun, 2012-10-14 18:00 — A Realist (not verified)

The eu is a political money making game, to serve politicians. Not one of them will ever talk about the real europe. We must make the poorest greeks take more austerity, whilst upping the eu budget to interfere in the real work of fishermen etc. We must make german engineers take a cut in wages etc. It's time european citizens took control of their lives and let the eu politicians pay for their own free hotel and catering services. Merkel is an eu junkie- worse than any benefit scrounger. They are eu scroungers. They take eu tax payer money and spend it on their vanity projects. Ask real people, not the eu dictatorship. Who are the eu again?- oh yes- tax evaders, bankers, bureaucrats- all sanctioned by moody and the markets!

Sun, 2012-10-14 15:35 — willoyen

Gove along with most tories and sundry other europhobes is a dreamer, haunted by vainglory. dreaming that Thatcher really did put the "great" back into Britain, that Britain "pass all", as they say in West African pidgin. Well, the EU and Europe generally will be much better off without the eurospoilers, the most undemocratic of the member states, tiresome privilegearians and fantasists as they are entitled to be. Laughing stocks crowing on their British (as long as it lasts) dunghill.

Sun, 2012-10-14 15:15 — TomS (not verified)

It's about time that the real Tories stood up to be counted.

Well done Gove. He is the most effective Tory minister by far.

Sun, 2012-10-14 12:48 — Barrie J (not verified)

With Matthew Fox on this.
Please, pretty please don't vote for UKIP in 2015, vote for us, you know in your hearts that the Tories always deliver on their promises.
Empty rhetoric from an empty vessel.

Anthony (Little Englander and Proud)'s picture

Sun, 2012-10-14 12:42 — Anthony (Little Englander and Proud) (not verified)

Are the Conservatives really starting to wake up from the E.U wet dream or will they continue to dream on with other bed fellows until the E.U "Project" is nothing more than an unsightly stain on the blanket of history.