I DON’T WANT to make you feel foolish. That would be rude. But would you mind terribly if I asked you a couple of questions? Can you name all your local MEPs? And which international political grouping they belong to? Anyone? Anyone? No?

I don’t know either. I know the exact majority gained by Simon Hughes in the 1983 Southwark Bermondsey by-election (9,319), I know the name of Richard Nixon’s vice-presidential running mate in 1960 (Henry Cabot Lodge), I know the meaning of the word subsidiarity (I’m sure you don’t wish me to elaborate). I know, in other words, all sorts of things that no ordinary, well-adjusted individual ought to know. I know things about politics that I keep hidden because knowing them makes me look odd. But I don’t know the name of all my local MEPs.

And guess what? This gap in my knowledge has never been professionally debilitating or adversely affected my home life.

Which is why I have had difficulty believing in the importance of an obscure row in the Tory party, and echoed in the media, over which European parliamentary group Conservative MEPs should sit with. Who cares? I mean, honestly, who? For goodness’ sake, just sit anywhere you can find a chair.

But in the past couple of days, as the number of newspaper clippings on the subject has risen, I’ve begun to realise that the issue does matter. I’ve begun to realise that, ridiculous as it may seem, the whole thing is a test of the leadership of David Cameron. And one that he must not fail.

So how can an issue that doesn’t matter, matter? Easily. It happens all the time in politics. And a skilful politician recognises when it does.

To start explaining all this, I’ll have to admit that I wasn’t completely honest at the beginning of this article. I don’t know the identity of all my local MEPs. But I do (sorry about this) know the political groupings they sit with. The Conservative MEPs, for instance, sit with all the other big European centre-right parties, parties who together form something called the European People’s Party (EPP).

In fact, I’ve got a history with the EPP, one that goes back since before the Conservative Party was linked with it. Years ago, as a young apparatchik, I was sent by the party leader to a meeting in Luxembourg to discuss the possibility of membership with the EPP’s high command. I arrived in the morning, saw everything interesting in Luxembourg, and then had lunch. In the afternoon the informal talks began. It was quickly apparent that the officials would not raise serious objection to any of our policy ideas. But one thing was a deal-breaker. We were not European federalists (and never would be) and they were (and never would be anything else). This, I was told, was non-negotiable.

The story is instructive. For the party leader who sent me to Luxembourg was not a Conservative. It was David Owen, and the party toying with EPP membership was his Social Democratic Party. Repeatedly, during the weekend I spent with them, EPP officials told me that the EPP did not regard itself as a Conservative alliance. They also repeatedly made it clear that the commitment to a federal united states of Europe was central to their identity.

I am not surprised, therefore, that ever since the decision was taken to sit with the EPP in the European Parliament, most Conservatives, even the most moderate modernisers, have been uncomfortable about the relationship. I certainly am. There is no principled reason for the grouping.

And no practical one either. It has been suggested that leading Christian Democrats such as the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, won’t deal with Mr Cameron if he ends the relationship with the EPP. What nonsense. Whatever she says now, of course she will. And so will her fellow centre-right leaders. Christian Democrats have been working closely with Tony Blair for years without demanding that he join the EPP. And Labour’s membership of the European Socialist Group didn’t prevent the Prime Minister falling out with Gerhard Schröder over Iraq. Big questions of state will not be settled by the piffling issue of which grouping the MEPs sit with.

The idea, seriously canvassed, that it might be an issue on the doorstep, that voters might bring it up during, say, the European election campaign, is beyond absurd. Politicians should be grateful if any voter actually realises there is a European campaign.

Which leaves only one reason to remain seated with the EPP, and it is this — why on earth would anyone be bothered to leave? Leave, stay; stay, leave. No one will notice and it won’t change anything, not Tory policy, not Tory personnel, not Tory prospects.

And this would surely have been Mr Cameron’s position, save that in an incautious (or cunningly calculating, take your pick) moment in the leadership election campaign, he promised Eurosceptic Tory MPs that he would end the EPP link. Now they are waiting expectantly for him to do so. Every day that passes, their fear of betrayal rises and with it the chance of a serious split between Mr Cameron and the party base, a base that has been reasonably co-operative about his other reforms.

The delay is happening because the Tory leadership is trying desperately to settle the issue in a mature way, to find a new international grouping that looks like a solid alternative to the EPP. And this new grouping has proved elusive. But who needs a new group? Why don’t the Tories just sit on their own? Why would that be a problem? What is happening here is that Mr Cameron is getting confused about what matters. What matters is that he looks like a decisive, clear, consistent man who knows what he thinks and stands by his opinion. That really matters and with proper voters, too.

What does not matter is the EPP link. So the EPP link goes. It’s simple.

daniel.finkelstein@thetimes.co.uk

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