EU hands Cameron a losing proposition To a certain kind of socialist, every problem has a solution waiting to be deduced by rational men of goodwill. By contrast, conservatism, at least in its traditional strain, is defined by its understanding of the insoluble. Some problems facing statesmen have no good answer. The challenge is to choose between grim outcomes. In recent years these Burkeans have pointed to the war in Afghanistan as an example: the conflict was perhaps always unwinnable and yet a country that continued to harbour al-Qaeda bases after 9/11 could not be left to itself. Was the folly of invasion worse than the folly of not invading? Just be thankful it is not your burden to decide. In the coming years, Afghanistan will give way to Europe as the ultimate case study of a no-win situation in politics. David Cameron is on the verge of offering a referendum on the vexed question of the UK's place in the EU. Unhappy with the current terms of membership and with the prospect of leaving entirely, he hopes to negotiate the repatriation of significant (though as yet unspecified) powers if he is still British prime minister after the 2015 election. He will then ask voters to accept the new arrangements; it remains unclear whether the alternative will be an exit from the EU or continued membership on the current terms. Although Mr Cameron is a eurosceptic, he is not picking this fight. There are forces pushing for a re-evaluation of British membership that are irresistible. His Conservative party, which is now almost uniformly hostile to the EU, demands a referendum. The British public, the most eurosceptic anywhere in Europe, understandably want their first say on the matter since they voted to stay in the European project in 1975. Mr Cameron also faces intense electoral competition from the pro-exit UK Independence party. These are just the political forces. On the substance of the issue too, British membership of the EU has more drawbacks than it once did. Labour market laws from Brussels are a problem for a country whose competitive edge lies not in productivity or gleaming infrastructure but sheer flexibility. Yet more menacingly, the mooted integration of the eurozone could leave the UK without a meaningful say over policies such as financial services regulation that affect its vital interests. In other words, Mr Cameron is not behaving whimsically. Even a europhile Labour prime minister would be under pressure to question at least the character and dimensions of British membership, if not the very principle. But if not holding a referendum is increasingly unthinkable, then so is holding one. It does not require an extremely pessimistic habit of mind to forecast the following sequence of events. In 2015, a narrowly re-elected Mr Cameron goes to Brussels to win back major powers. What he returns with is nothing like enough to satisfy the large swath of eurosceptic Tories who want the impossible: membership of the single market without the burden of European regulation. The prime minister calls a referendum for 2017 and campaigns on behalf of the new settlement. Much of his party refuse to join him, causing a split only eclipsed in Tory history by the rupture over the Corn Laws in the 19th century. The entire first half of the parliament is lost to the European issue. When the vote comes, a eurosceptic nation - confronted by a Yes campaign led by an unpopular midterm prime minister who lacks the support of many on his own side - rejects the new terms. Having failed to achieve unity on the referendum, much less win it, Mr Cameron and his government fall. Even if the referendum is won, the Tories are too bitterly riven to govern either the country or themselves. Meanwhile, there is the little matter of the UK leaving the EU. Even if the other option on the ballot is continued and unchanged membership, neither Tory eurosceptics nor the general public are happy, and the push for outright exit merely intensifies. What happens to the UK outside the club it has belonged to since 1973 is harder to predict. It might prosper as a business hub that looks beyond Europe, a bigger version of Hong Kong. But would the British people, accustomed as they are to the welfare state, vote for a sudden shift to Hong Kong-style laisser-faire? If not, the UK would find itself in the invidious position of being neither very competitive by global standards nor able to count on the protective cocoon of the European single market - from which it would be excluded or, like Switzerland, allowed to participate only on the condition of accepting its regulations. In short, Mr Cameron has no good option available to him. Refuse a referendum, and the clamour will swallow him. Hold one, and his party will probably unravel while his country heads into the economic unknown. Politics does not have the language to do justice to this kind of dilemma; "intractable" does not cut it. He should play down how much he can achieve in his renegotiation of powers, but there is nothing to suggest that his party would lower its expectations accordingly. No, his only real hope is time. The referendum is probably five years away, enough of a leeway for a deus ex machina to emerge. It is possible that eurozone integration, and therefore its implied marginalisation of the UK on single-market decision-making, will not come to much. Even the currency itself is not assured of survival in its present form. Mr Cameron might not even be in government by then, though the predicament would be only marginally less confounding for a Labour government. By instinct and habit of mind, Mr Cameron is a conservative as well as a Conservative. He is comfortable with the reality that earthly problems sometimes have no good solution. It might be some small consolation that he is temperamentally suited to the lose-lose situation that confronts him.