Many factors push the country apart but hostility to EU budget proposals and 'Brussels powers' is a powerful means of bringing us together. Especially for Labour, argues Ed Jacobs, the Guardian Northerner's political commentor
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Tight-lipped. Standing up to Europe appeals to voters both in the north and the south. Photograph: Afp/Getty Images
As I write this post, we do not yet know what the outcome will be of negotiations in Brussels over the European Union's Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020, or the EU budget for mere mortals such as you and me.
But while the result of the long talks is still to come, the debate in Belgium finds itself at the heart of a political storm in the UK and not just one over EU finance. Demands that the UK allow prisoner voting and the permanent misery of the Euro crisis have led to a major loss of British confidence in all things European.
Just a few weeks ago I wrote in the Guardian Northerner about how the Commons vote on the EU budget had exposed David Cameron's northern rebels, top of the list being David Davis, MP for Haltemprice and Howden and Cameron's challenger for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2005.
David 'two referenda' Davis. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian As if to emphasis the point, this week saw that very same David Davis popping up again and using a speech at a ConservativeHome-organised event to call for not one but two referendum's on Europe.
First, a 'Mandate referendum' would take place, to give a Conservative Prime Minister powers "to get as close as possible to the trading alliance, the common market we all voted for in 1975." This would effectively mean rejection of the EU as it is currently constituted.
If a 'yes' vote was carried, this would be followed by a renegotiation, with the aim of getting as close as possible to that trading alliance agreed 37 years ago.
The second referendum would be fairly simple, on whether the public accepted the final outcome of such renegotiations. In the event of a rejection, it would amount to a vote to leave the EU.
Unlikely though it is that David Cameron would adopt such a policy, Davis' comments have played well among restless Conservative backbenchers who remain fearful of the UKIP threat from the right.
More intriguing still is the coolness that Labour now seeks to show in relation to Europe, as evidenced by their decision to join with Tory rebels in calling for the Government to seek a real term cut in the EU budget, a position which was not easy to take given Labour's past form on the subject.
In 1975, as the people of the UK went to the polls about whether or not to join what was then the European Economic Community, the Labour Prime Minister of the time, Harold Wilson, was forced to abandon collective Cabinet responsibility and witness his closest colleagues fighting on either side of the debate.
By 1983, Labour's 'longest suicide note in history' (aka its election manifesto) pledged to withdraw the UK from the Common Market out of a belief that continued membership would hamper its ability to implement "radical, socialist policies for reviving the British economy".
Michael Foot in 1983. Anti-EU but the voters failed to love him. Photograph: Sahm Doherty/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image Then, once the party was finally back in power in 1997, the election of New Labour saw Tony Blair as Prime Minister seeking to carve out a reputation as a good European, with a pledge from Downing Street to put the UK at the "heart of Europe". This continued in spite of the man next door, Gordon Brown, who as Chancellor did all he could to block Blair's ambitions of joining the Euro.
Fast-forward to today, and freed from the shackles of government, Labour has the time and space to reconsider its attitudes. Thus it was that Ed Miliband chose the words he did when addressing the CBI's annual conference this week.
While declaring that he would "not let Britain sleepwalk toward exit from the European Union", he nevertheless rattled off a list of measures that needed reforming – radically reshaping the Common Agricultural Policy (unlikely to go down well in France) and a need to ensure that the EU budget reflects the tough financial decisions being made in member states.
Where does this Eurosceptic tinge come from? After all, it was not all that long ago, as the Conservatives like to remind Labour, that Blair himself gave away the UK's EU rebate.
One explanation seems obvious: it is politically expedient for Labour to cause David Cameron such discomfort. But there is something more fundamental, and hitherto little explored, and that is the extent to which it feeds in to his one nation narrative.
Many comments on this blog have emphasised a north/south split in the UK on social and economic issues, but on Europe the country really is one, and united in seeking a political leader who shares its views. Recent polling by ComRes for the Independent on Sunday and the Sunday Mirror shows that the north and south are united in clearly wanting an outright cut to the EU budget and that the UK should leave the EU if it cannot regain more powers back from Brussels.
Most intriguing, earlier this month ComRes published polling for 'The People's Pledge', an organisation seeking a referendum on the UK's membership of the EU. It showed that 40%of people in Ed Miliband's own Doncaster North constituency felt that the UK needed greater distance from the EU and 69% supported the idea of an in-out referendum.
Europe may not be at the top of everyone's priority list, but it remains a subject which, rarely in politics these days, genuinely unites the country. The irony is that as it gives a common bond to north and south, it is dividing the political classes. Is this the opportunity that Miliband is seeking to grasp? Time, and we the voters, will decide if he succeeds. What do you think? Is it time to leave, reform or stick with the EU as it is currently constituted?