Cameron’s saboteurs pushing him to Brexit

If the British PM’s negotiations with Europe are backfiring, it is because his own ministers are undermining them

The idea of the European Union (EU) is under threat as never before, as Marine Le Pen’s anti-EU campaign powers on, Hungary challenges first principles and Britain lurches nearer the exit. What good timing for the Victoria and Albert Museum this week to open its redesigned European galleries, a strong reminder of common history, told in artefacts. See how cultural influences from Italy and France ricochet across the continent; how trade spreads not just design and technology but ideas, as the Enlightenment breezes across borders. “We have a shared inheritance. Whatever they say, they can’t take that away from us,” says Martin Roth, the museum’s German director.

Querulous British negotiations look tawdry against that sweeping backdrop. As he celebrates 10 years as party leader, British Prime Minister David Cameron is stepping closer to taking Britain out of the EU: Will he make such a momentous move for such trivial reasons? Caught in a trap of his own devising, he has twisted together two wicked political issues — Brexit and benefits — like a pair of snakes.

For the first time, observers are reporting that Brussels and Berlin regard a British exit as a serious possibility. They don’t want Britain to go, but Cameron’s cavalier approach pushes them towards indifference. Some report that he himself seems to care less about leaving than he once did, as United Kingdom polls sway closer to exit — and he hits a brick wall through his own ineptitude.

Why did he make the emotive but empty issue of abolishing working benefits for EU migrants the centre-piece of his renegotiation? His officials and government lawyers warned this was an impossible demand. Other leaders will not, and cannot, in law agree: Free movement of labour without discrimination is a founding EU principle. Why did Cameron ignore legal advice? He seized on a report by Open Europe, a sceptical thinktank, that said denying benefits to EU migrants is legal. But the law is not so straightforward, and now he’s in a fix.

At first, it looked as if a simple residency test might do the trick: People qualify for in-work benefits only after living here for four years, so Britain’s own 18-year-olds would automatically qualify. But EU lawyers say, rightly, that this would discriminate against new arrivals who couldn’t have lived in Britain from the age of 14. The only legal answer is to deny tax credits and housing benefit to everyone — including Britons — who hasn’t contributed by working for four years. When Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, was asked on last Sunday’s Andrew Marr Show to rule that out, he refused — and praised the contributory principle that only pays out to those who have paid in. How many people would be hit? The usual thinktanks can’t produce exact figures yet, but here are their informed calculations: 24,000 people aged under 20 draw tax credits — young parents unlikely to have four-year work histories; more are out of work; and a further 100,000 people aged 20 to 24 have been in work for less than four years. The total affected would be around 200,000, mostly parents, who draw significant tax credits.

Depriving young people

Here’s the irony: That’s many more than the number of EU workers who draw these benefits. Others who would be harmed — this might alarm Tory MPs — are stay-at-home mothers who have never worked. But there’s another wicked twist in all this. After Duncan Smith had sounded somewhat sanguine on the Marr show about the possibility of imposing a four-year wait on UK citizens, sources close to him suggested something very different: No, he would be strongly opposed as it would be so unfair, depriving too many young people and families of benefits they need. Really? This was a surprising softening of the heart from the man who has overseen colossal benefit cuts and the bedroom tax — with another £12 billion (Dh66.83 billion) of cuts to come.

Here is where the two snakes intertwine. Remember Duncan Smith is one of John Major’s original antiEU crusaders, and sits on the cabinet sub-committee overseeing EU negotiations. By refusing to let UK citizens suffer this four-year benefit delay, might he be ushering the country towards the Brexit gate he’s always favoured? If he is sacked or resigns for not accepting the renegotiated conditions, how principled he can sound? If you need another reminder of just how crazed the Leave campaign is, consider its response this week to rumours that Cameron may campaign for “out” if he can’t win his impossible benefit demand. The Brexits say they don’t want him to lead them: He’s toxic and they prefer Boris Johnson as their figurehead. Their perversity knows no bounds; the prime minister’s weight behind them would surely swing the referendum their way.

Britain’s future hangs on the short-term political whim of this prime minister. Stroll through the V&A’s gallery and contemplate how deep Britain’s roots lie in this common European culture.

Polly Toynbee was formerly BBC social affairs editor, columnist and associate editor of the Independent.