David Cameron came back from his latest EU summit seemingly confident that he can get a deal on new terms for Britain’s membership of the European Union at the next meeting in February and then call his referendum on it in the summer.
His critics, however, think he is getting very little worth having in the negotiations and are more convinced than ever that Britain should leave the EU. Some of those critics are in his own Cabinet and they want to be free to campaign against British membership when the referendum campaign begins. Should the Prime Minister let them do that or should they be forced to resign from the cabinet?
Mr Cameron left Brussels last Friday saying he was ‘well on the way’ to securing a deal that would bring about ‘fundamental change’ in Britain’s relationship with its EU partners. But he returned also with a rebuff. One of his main goals was an agreement to delay eligibility for in-work benefits to EU migrants for four years, but that was flatly rejected by all twenty-seven other EU leaders. They said it would discriminate between different EU nationals and so would be against one of the main principles of the EU. If he wanted to restrict what he regards as one of the ‘pull’ factors, drawing EU nationals to Britain’, they said he would have to apply the same policy to the British too.
Whether Britain’s relatively generous in-work benefits are such a pull factor is a matter of dispute. Sir Stephen Nickell, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, has said such benefits have little effect on migrant numbers. Other factors, such as Britain’s relatively low unemployment rate are regarded as bigger draws. At 5.2% it compares very favourably with the EU average of 9.3% and sensationally with those countries whose unemployment rate is in double figures. And the government’s own policy of raising the national minimum wage to a new, more generous national living wage from next April is likely to add to the “pull”.
But Mr Cameron insists he is still keen to find a way to restrict in-work benefits to EU migrants in a manner that his EU partners can agree to. The trouble is that the ideas floated so far are likely to antagonise cabinet colleagues already known for their Eurosceptic views. One idea is to withhold such benefits to British workers until they could prove they had been in the labour force for four years. But it’s estimated that this would hit around 300,000 working Britons and it is opposed by the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, who is engaged in a long-term reform of the welfare system.
A less draconian solution would be to restrict these benefits to British nationals who could prove they had been resident in this country for at least four years. This would hit only 50,000 but it is believed to be opposed by the Home Secretary, Theresa May on the grounds that it would aid workers who had been here illegally over those years.
What is clear is that on this issue, and probably on the other three goals Mr Cameron has set himself in the renegotiations, many of his more Eurosceptic ministers are not going to be satisfied with the outcome. One of those sceptics, the former defence secretary, Liam Fox, has said ministers who oppose the deal and want to campaign for Britain to leave the EU should be allowed to do so while remaining in the government. Another former cabinet minister, Owen Patterson, agrees. He says the decision to be taken in the referendum is the most important the country has faced in five hundred years. The influential chairman of the backbench 1922 committee, Graham Brady, told me that collective cabinet responsibility should be maintained while the Prime Minister is still negotiating, but thereafter ministers should be free to argue their own corner.
Those who make this case point to precedence. Back in 1975, when Britain had its first referendum on whether or not to remain in what was then the European Economic Community, the Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson, allowed his cabinet colleagues to campaign on both sides. Prominent members of that cabinet, including Michael Foot, Tony Benn, Barbara Castle and Peter Shore, publicly fought against their own prime minister’s position.
Mr Wilson’s decision to allow them to do so – indeed his prior decision to hold a referendum at all – was taken largely from the point of view of party management. Many commentators think that too was the main motivation for Mr Cameron to promise a referendum and it is a reason offered by those who want cabinet ministers to be free to express their personal views now. Mr Patterson says that since it is vital for cabinet ministers to go on working together on other vital issues once the referendum is out of the way, it is necessary that they should be allowed publicly to agree to differ on Europe.
But Lord Heseltine, the former Tory deputy prime minister and staunch pro-European, told me that the ‘keeping the party united’ claim wasn’t true back in 1975 and isn’t true now. He maintains that the suspension of collective cabinet responsibility in 1975 led directly to the split in the Labour Party and the formation of the SDP six years later. Now, he argues, letting cabinet ministers have similar licence would cause ‘civil war’ in the Tory Party and make Mr Cameron an international laughing stock.
For some, these considerations of party interest may seem deplorably self-interested compared with the national interest. But there are even narrower concerns involved. The future leadership of the Conservative Party casts its own shadow across all these considerations. Mr Cameron has made clear he will leave office by 2020. It now seems fairly obvious that he and his preferred successor, the chancellor, George Osborne, will be campaigning for a ‘Yes’ vote in the referendum. But another contender, Theresa May, could well see an opportunity of improving her chances in a very Eurosceptic party by coming out against the deal. From Mr Cameron’s point of view, it would be harder for her to do this if he insisted that she resign first, rather than be allowed to campaign against his position from within the Cabinet. This may well be one of the reasons he is resisting the blandishments of Messrs Fox, Patterson and Brady.
And then there is Boris Johnson, the leadership contender who will end his stint as Mayor of London next May. He has positioned himself to go either way on the issue but there has been speculation that in order to secure him for the ‘Yes’ side, the Prime Minister might make him foreign secretary before the referendum, again insisting, of course, that he toes the line as a member of the cabinet.
Former party leaders, however, are in a position to disdain such squalid political manoeuvring and take a more lofty view. Sir John Major, the former Tory prime minister, has even gone so far as to say that the terms Mr Cameron eventually secures in Brussels should not in themselves determine how British voters make their choice in the referendum. He said: ‘If we vote out, then we are out and we will have to face the consequences. Of course we will survive; we are a big and powerful nation. That’s not the point. The point is, would we be as safe? No. Would we be as well off? No. Would we be as influential? No.’
Many current Tory ministers are itching to take this argument on and make the opposite case. The question is: should they be allowed to do so from within the government, or should they be forced to resign first?
