LONDON — The stage for the one-man show was set, the drama widely anticipated and the critics assembled. But the star dropped out at the last moment, saying he would reschedule when he could.
So it was on Thursday when Prime Minister David Cameron canceled a long-anticipated, much-delayed speech in Amsterdam on Britain’s future in Europe. Mr. Cameron cited the need to stay in London to be on hand for developments in the hostage crisis in Algeria, where Britons were among the dozens of captives taken by Islamic militants at a gas plant operated partly by BP, a British-based oil giant.
According to excerpts from the speech released despite the postponement, Mr. Cameron had planned to say that, without changes in the way the European Union is run, “the danger is that Europe will fail and the British people will drift toward the exit” — an explicit warning that was reported on Friday to have drawn an admonition from President Obama to Britain not to jeopardize its membership in the European Union.
Some who have followed the tortuous dispute over Europe within Mr. Cameron’s Conservative Party fancied that they could almost hear the sighs of relief at 10 Downing Street at the unexpected reprieve. Conservative prime ministers have wrestled unsuccessfully for 40 years over the deep split within the party over Britain’s ties with Europe, and Mr. Cameron has been no exception.
In Amsterdam, Mr. Cameron planned to set out an outline of a plan to renegotiate a pared-down role for Britain in the 27-nation European Union, rebuffing the centralizing momentum in other major European nations as they struggle to save the euro, the common currency that Britain has shunned, and to call a referendum by 2018 on the result.
But the reviews for his plan in Britain’s newspapers on Thursday were dismal, with few on either side of the European debate giving Mr. Cameron much chance of reconciling factions within his own party, much less of gaining traction with major European powers like France and Germany, both impatient with what they see as Britain’s opportunism as they grapple with the systemic troubles of the euro zone.
In advance of the speech, Mr. Cameron placed calls Thursday to President Obama in Washington and President François Hollande of France to set out what he would say, British officials said.
The conversation with the American leader elicited a warning from the White House not to jeopardize Britain’s membership.
British news reports quoted a presidential spokesman as saying Mr. Obama “underscored our close alliance with the United Kingdom and said that the United States values a strong U.K. in a strong European Union, which makes critical contributions to peace, prosperity, and security in Europe and around the world.”
The warning was the second after a senior State Department official, Philip Gordon, the assistant secretary for European affairs, said publicly last week that a continued “strong British voice” in an “outward-looking” European Union was in America’s interests, and warned specifically against the referendum on Europe that is an important component in Mr. Cameron’s plans. “Referendums,” Mr. Gordon said, “have often turned countries inward.”
Before the speech was canceled, Mr. Cameron’s office released excerpts saying the British leader had planned to warn that there was “a gap between the E.U. and its citizens which has grown dramatically in recent years and which represents a lack of democratic accountability and consent that is — yes — felt particularly acutely in Britain.”
“If we don’t address these challenges, the danger is that Europe will fail and the British people will drift toward the exit,” Mr. Cameron planned to say. “I do not want that to happen. I want the European Union to be a success and I want a relationship between Britain and the E.U. that keeps us in it."
“People are increasingly frustrated that decisions taken further and further away from them mean their living standards are slashed through enforced austerity or their taxes are used to bail out governments on the other side of the continent,” according to the excerpts.
“And yes, of course, we are seeing this frustration with the E.U. very dramatically in Britain. Europe’s leaders have a duty to hear these concerns. And we have a duty to act on them,” the excerpts said. But, according to Britain’s Press Association news agency which published them, the excerpts released by Mr. Cameron’s office did not reveal whether he intended to commit himself to a referendum offering Britons a “yes/no” response to continued membership in the 27-nation bloc.
David Cameron Delays Talk on New Role in Europe
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David Cameron Delays Talk on New Role in Europe
