Europe: Cameron Shows His Hand

November 11, 2015, 2:14 PM GMT+0

The Prime Minister has finally made explicit what he is trying to achieve in his renegotiation of the terms of British membership of the European Union.

But are his demands ambitious enough? And what chance does he have not only of pulling off a deal but also of persuading the British people to accept them and vote to stay within the EU?

David Cameron’s commitment to seeking a new deal for Britain in Europe and putting that deal to a referendum goes back to the middle of the last parliament. His political aims then were twofold. First, he wanted to tame the large number of hungry eurosceptics on his backbenches by offering them some red meat to be going on with: he had seen how they had gobbled up his predecessor, John Major, twenty years ago and he didn’t want it to happen to him. And secondly he wanted to spike the guns of UKIP, the avowedly anti-EU party that had been making gains in Tory seats and threatened the Prime Minister’s chances of being re-elected in this year’s general election. Mr Cameron’s commitment to renegotiation and referendum achieved both ends.

But the Prime Minister spoke only in broad – some would say vague – terms about what he was hoping to secure in these negotiations. After his electoral victory in May he embarked on a whirlwind tour of Europe’s capitals to discuss his ideas with the other heads of government who would ultimately have to agree (or not) to his demands. His critics complained that this diplomatic initiative was less about confronting his negotiating partners with his demands and then arguing his corner, and more about finding out what they would put up with and then formulating his demands accordingly. His continuing reluctance to spell out those demands in detail added to the suspicions harboured by his critics that the whole enterprise was a sham: that there would be no substantial renegotiation but a fake one from which the Prime Minister would emerge claiming victory so enabling him to lead the campaign for Britain to stay in the EU.

But now Mr Cameron has finally put pen to paper. In a letter to the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, he set out the changes he wants, and in an accompanying speech on Tuesday he argued why he wants them.

His demands boil down to four essential points. First, he wants new safeguards, ultimately enshrined in a new treaty, to protect Britain and other EU countries that don’t belong to the eurozone, from being outvoted on issues concerning the single market by eurozone members acting as a caucus. Second, he wants the EU to ‘boost competitiveness’ by setting targets for reducing red tape. Third, he wants an explicit exemption for Britain from the commitment of other EU member states to ‘ever-closer union’ and to give all national parliaments greater say in EU decision-making. And fourth, he wants to deter immigration to Britain from other EU countries by restricting the access of such immigrants to in-work welfare benefits.

The response of his domestic critics to this list was far from encouraging. The former Tory chancellor, Lord Lawson, called it ‘disappointingly unambitious’. A Tory back-bencher, Jacob Rees-Mogg, dismissed it as ‘very thin gruel’; another, Bernard Jenkin, scornfully asked ‘Is that it?’; and the long-standing eurosceptic Tory MP, Peter Bone, said: ‘no longer do we have to pretend that there is going to be a substantial renegotiation – we can get on with campaigning to come out.’

The ‘Vote Leave’ campaign mocked the list as ‘trivial’, and the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, said it was now clear that David Cameron ‘is not aiming for any substantial renegotiation’.

What many such eurosceptics were looking for included an end to the principle of the free movement of people and labour within the EU and what the Tory MP, David Davis, calls an ‘opt-out law’, which would reassert the supremacy of the British parliament over EU law. Supporters of the Prime Minister argue that neither was ever remotely on the cards since both would undermine fundamental principles of the EU. Instead, they say, his now-articulated demands address real problems and offer achievable solutions.

In particular, they argue, the first demand tackles a problem that, unaddressed, could lead to severe difficulties for Britain. The chancellor, George Osborne, has long argued that the eurozone risks falling apart unless its members agree to integrate much more fully, in effect setting up a system of centralised economic decision-making for the zone. But this, though essential in itself, would create difficulties for those EU countries outside the zone (especially those, as in the case of Britain, that have no intention of joining it) who would then risk being outvoted on matters within the wider EU, and especially the single market, by eurozone governments voting as a bloc. Were the problem left festering, he has implied, Britain would ultimately face the unpalatable choice of leaving the EU altogether since its voice no longer counted for anything, or having to join the euro. The safeguards Mr Cameron is seeking would save Britain from having to make this choice, he believes.

But it his proposal on welfare benefits that is likely to cause the biggest headaches, not only in the negotiations but in the subsequent referendum too. Mr Cameron wants to weaken the ‘pull factor’ drawing so many EU migrants to Britain. He believes it is not just our high employment rates that attract such migrants, but that in-work benefits here add to the attraction. He claims they can amount to an average of £6,000 a year. The Conservative general election manifesto said it was an ‘absolute requirement’ of the renegotiations to curb the right to such benefits and in his letter to Mr Tusk he argued that such migrants should have to wait for four years after taking up work here before being entitled to in-work benefits and social housing.

This demand is certain to meet stiff resistance from Poland and other eastern European countries whose nationals would be adversely affected. It has also been attacked as infringing the fundamental EU principle of non-discrimination, by which all EU nationals have to be treated similarly. Anticipating resistance, Mr Cameron said: ‘I understand how difficult some of these welfare issues are for some member states and I’m open to different ways of dealing with the issue.’ But this concession has been interpreted by his critics as a case of throwing in the towel even before the fight has begun.

Mr Cameron hopes the negotiations can now begin in earnest. Some of his allies are even hoping that a deal can be struck before the end of the year allowing the referendum to take place next summer. But this may be too optimistic. The EU has other things on its plate, not least the refugee crisis and the continuing instability of the eurozone. Either could dominate the EU agenda at the expense of Mr Cameron’s renegotiation efforts over the next few months. Indeed some pessimists think either could tear the whole EU apart, making the issue of whether Britain stays or goes a mere sideshow.

But assuming there is still an EU for Britain to belong to, Mr Cameron’s terms for our choosing to do so will now come under intense scrutiny. Are his demands ambitious enough? What should he be prepared to concede, and what not? And how will all this play with the British people when they vote in the referendum which Mr Cameron has described as ‘perhaps the biggest [decision] we will take in our lifetimes’?

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