Is Cameron losing touch with Britain?

WILL the Prime Minister please do the country a favour and stop pretending that he pulled any rabbits out of the hat in Brussels last week?

He was at it again yesterday, trying to persuade MPs that the pathetic deal he sealed at the summit on Friday would bring about a fundamental change in Britain’s relationship with a ‘reformed Europe’.

Yet everyone can see – ‘outers’ and ‘inners’ alike – it will do no such thing. As this paper has forensically exposed, the agreement alters nothing of any significance, leaving Britain as much under the thumb of an unreformed EU as ever before. But then David Cameron made two huge mistakes when he embarked on this renegotiation.

The first was to make it clear to our partners from the start that he was intent on remaining in the club, come what may. No wonder they didn’t bother to offer him anything worth having.

The other, paradoxically, was to tell voters at home that everything depended on the outcome of the talks, saying that if he didn’t get what he wanted, he would cheerfully walk away.

Thus, he painted himself into the corner he’s in today – insulting the intelligence of voters and the House by trying to pass off his mangy pup of a deal as the gamechanging transformation for which Britain yearned.

Frankly, this is dishonest and unedifying. So, too, is his mobilisation of the government machine to spin the case for a ‘remain’ vote.

Indeed, yesterday’s scaremongering confection of highly contentious assertions from the Civil Service – under its head ‘Sir Cover-Up’ Jeremy Heywood – had uncomfortable echoes of Tony Blair’s infamous ‘dodgy dossier’ on Iraq. How telling, meanwhile, that big businesses which deal every day with the public – such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Lloyds Bank – have refused to sign a letter, orchestrated by No 10, which claims leaving the EU would ‘ put the economy at risk’.

Nor does Mr Cameron win any friends, or enhance the dignity of his office, by descending into personal mockery of Boris Johnson (though we may well understand his temptation).

For the truth is that whatever the PM may think of his lifelong rival, the London Mayor has a strong popular following – particularly among grassroots members of the Conservative Party, who lean heavily towards the Out camp.

With more than 40 per cent of Tory MPs also declaring for Brexit (a proportion that’s likely to increase), the Prime Minister risks looking dangerously detached from the party that gave him his job.

Indeed, the more he sneers at Boris and impugns his motives – and the more he fibs about the wonders of his deal – the more he comes across as the voice of the euro-elite, disdainful equally of his party and the people.