Today’s PMQs was one of those statesmanlike occasions that could be summarised as “Does the prime minister agree with me that the world is a dangerous place?” Ed Miliband devoted all six of his questions to the crisis in Iraq, with no hint of disagreement with Cameron. The PM used the session to announce that humanitarian aid to the country would be increased from £3m to £5m and hit back at the isolationists in his party and others by insisting that Britain would be “playing its role”. While declaring that “it would be a mistake to believe that the only answer to these problems is the hard attack of direct intervention”, he added: “I’d also disagree with those people who think this is nothing to do with us and if they want to have some sort of extreme Islamist regime in the middle of Iraq, that won’t affect us. It will.”
In response to Miliband’s question on Iran, in which he supported the reopening of the British embassy but warned that the country “does not support a vision for a democratic and inclusive state in Iraq”, Cameron replied that the rapprochement with Iran should be done on “a step-by-step basis” and “with a very clear eye and a very hard head” due to the “appalling things” that happened to the British embassy in 2011.
It was an appropriately serious-minded and sober exchange, later unwisely attacked by the Tory Treasury Twitter account, which tweeted: “Another week with no question from Ed Miliband on the economy. No credibility and no #longtermeconomicplan“
The most politically notable moment of the session, aside from Peter Tapsell’s quixotic call for parliament to impeach Tony Blair for war crimes, came when Cameron was asked about Jean-Claude Juncker’s bid to become EU commission president. After Labour’s Ben Bradshaw mockingly asked how his campaign to stop Juncker was going, Cameron seized the opportunity to deliver a eurosceptic blast against the arch-federalist. He declared:
I don’t mind how many people on the European Council disagree with me: I will fight this right to the very end. And what I would say to my colleagues on the European Council, many of whom have expressed interesting views about both this principle and this person, if you want reform in Europe you’ve got to stand up for it. If you want a change in Europe, you’ve got to vote for it. That is the message I will take and that is the right message for this country.
The Tory backbenches lapped it up, crying “more, more!”, but Cameron should be wary of playing to the eurosceptic gallery. If he fails in his bid to block Juncker’s candidacy, a significant number of them will view that as a good reason to leave the EU altogether, but he will not. The gap between Cameron, who ultimately believes that EU membership is a positive good for Britain, and the anti-EU fanatics on the Tory benches remains as wide as ever. He should not fall into the trap of trying to appease the unappeasable.
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