Voters head for the Brexit
New poll shows surge in support for campaign to leave EU as Cameron prepares to face European opponents
BRITISH voters’ appetite for leaving the European Union is gathering momentum, raising the prospect of a knife-edge referendum on a so-called Brexit, a new poll finds today.
As David Cameron prepares to travel to Brussels for a crucial European summit to discuss his renegotiation plans, a poll has found that the British public is now evenly split on the prospect of the country leaving the EU.
The findings came as the EU Referendum Bill passed through the House of Lords last night, meaning that Mr Cameron could potentially hold his vote in June next year. According to the ICM poll for the Vote Leave campaign, when undecided voters are excluded, 50 per cent of voters would choose Brexit.
It is the first time since 2013 that ICM has found voters evenly split. A similar poll by the company in October showed that support for leaving the EU was at 46 per cent.
The poll will come as a significant blow to the Prime Minister, who will on Thursday face opposition from European leaders over his plans to restrict EU migrants’ access to benefits in the UK for four years.
Mr Cameron is understood to be preparing to offer concessions over the reforms in an attempt to ensure a final deal can be done by February.
The Prime Minister has been accused of preparing a “climbdown” over the welfare reforms and increasing numbers of eurosceptics are saying that his renegotiation has failed.
A Commons committee today warns in a report that any deal reached by Mr Cameron could be torn apart by European judges following Britain’s referendum because Downing Street has admitted that it will not secure treaty changes before the vote.
The European scrutiny committee said Mr Cameron’s proposals “will not deliver the legally binding and irreversible agreement” he has said he wants. According to today’s poll of 2,053 voters, when “don’t knows” are included, 42 per cent of people would vote to stay in the EU, with 41 per cent voting to leave.
The poll finds that there is a significant shift towards exit when people are asked how they would vote if “freedom of movement” rules allowing EU migrants to live and work in the UK are left unchanged as a result of Mr Cameron’s renegotiation.
If freedom of movement remains as it is now, 45 per cent of voters would leave the EU and just 40 per cent would vote to remain, the poll finds.
The survey also finds that, excluding “don’t knows”, 65 per cent of those list- ing themselves as “enthusiastic” about the in-out referendum are “leave” voters.
A separate poll of British businesses by the Financial Times found that 28 per cent of them feel that a Brexit would make no difference to their performance.
Matthew Elliott, the chief executive of the Vote Leave campaign, told The
Daily Telegraph: “If you look at the polling from today, it looks very, very different than it did right after the general election, when everybody was writing off the chance of a leave vote in the referendum. People couldn’t see how ‘leave’ could possibly win and
now, on the eve of the crucial European Council, the fact that both sides are now neck-and-neck means we have made up a lot of ground in the last year.”
He described Mr Cameron’s proposed EU reforms as “quite a trivial renegotiation and one that doesn’t really change Britain’s position in the EU one jot”.
And he predicted that the Prime Minister will face Cabinet resignations unless he allows his ministers to campaign on either side of the argument ahead of the referendum. Downing Street has said the Prime Minister will not decide on that until his renegotiation is complete.
Mr Cameron has told allies he will campaign to leave the EU if his renegotiation is unsuccessful. However, he has publicly maintained that he wants to campaign for Britain to stay in a reformed EU.
Ahead of Thursday’s European Council meeting, there have been growing signs that Mr Cameron’s renegotiation is flagging. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, last week said that every EU country was “against” Mr Cameron’s welfare reforms. However, Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, yesterday criticised EU countries for failing to come up with any alternative plan for curbing migration.
Last month, Mr Cameron said he would be willing to jettison his flagship demand of a four-year benefit ban for EU migrants providing that an alternative was presented. But since he made that offer more than a month ago, no “counter-proposals” have been made by any EU leader, Mr Hammond said.
With no alternative on the table, it sets the scene for a major row at Thursday’s European Council.
Mr Hammond said: “The four-year waiting time for access to benefits has been a consistent demand from us.
“We have put that demand on the ta- ble and we have heard that a lot of our partners in Europe have concerns about it. So far we haven’t heard any counterproposals, we haven’t heard any alternative suggestions that will deliver the same effect in a different way.”
In today’s Daily Telegraph, Mr Hammond writes an article jointly alongside Paolo Gentiloni, the Italian foreign minister, in which they call for the EU to “embrace a new model of its functioning”. This Italian embracing of British demands for the overhaul of “ever closer union” provides a boost for Mr Cameron ahead of this week’s meeting.
Italy and the UK have two very different views of Europe. While the UK holds the single market as its main focus, Italy’s position is inspired by the vision of a federal European Union and ever-closer integration, both economically and politically. Notwithstanding our different goals and outlooks, over the years Italy and the UK have promoted peace, freedom and human rights – the values on which the European project is built. Our two countries have worked together to ensure greater security and prosperity to our continent.
The EU that we have today was built with the contribution of all member states. Italy, as a founding member, was a leading actor in all of the crucial steps in the construction of the EU, while the UK played a key role in shaping it, particularly in relation to the creation of the single market and supporting enlargement.
And today, Italy and the UK agree on the need for deep EU reform, simplifying its functioning, its procedures and its rules. The time has come to equip the EU with policies and tools better suited to new international challenges. We need to encourage a competitive economy, to promote greater employment and fully to exploit the potential of the single market, not just in physical goods, but in services and digital goods. The EU should set a target to reduce the overall regulatory burden on businesses. But more broadly, we need a better EU to find the right long-term policy response to migration, to bring security and stability to our neighbourhood, to conclude successful free trade negotiations with the US, and to rebuild trust between EU institutions and European citizens.
Italy and the UK both believe we can work together on an EU reform package that deals with specific issues such as the role of national parliaments, competitiveness, economic governance and welfare, in order to make the EU simpler, more efficient and less bureaucratic. This renegotiation, prompted by the UK reform agenda, is an opportunity to create a more competitive, democratically accountable and flexible EU.
The Italian government believes that eurozone member states are entitled to go ahead with greater integration, as a way of regaining their growth potential and reconstituting the political credibility of Europe. This can be undertaken in a way that recognises that there is more than one currency in use in the EU and has full regard to the rights and interests of non-euro member states, in particular safeguarding the integrity of the single market, which is a shared asset of the whole EU.
The UK did not join the common currency and has no intention of doing so in the foreseeable future. However, stronger eurozone governance to ensure a successful euro in the long term, with the right safeguards for the countries outside the single currency, would be in all our interests. It would support the EU’s growth trajectory through macroeconomic stability and by improving the competitiveness of Europe overall.
More generally, Italy and the UK believe that the way to reconcile different visions of the EU among the member states is to embrace a new model of its functioning, based on the flexibility to manage greater or lesser integration. The possibility of differing levels of EU integration has long been debated when it comes to the future of the EU. In its June 2014 meeting, the European Council agreed that: “The concept of ever closer union allows for different paths of integration for different countries, allowing those that want to deepen integration to move ahead, while respecting the wish of those who do not wish to deepen any further.”
This approach would serve the interests of a European Union that may grow to more than 30 member states. It would allow all countries to find a suitable degree of integration within the EU, according to the will of their citizens. Italy and the UK may find that sometimes they will have differing arrangements. But this perspective makes it all the more important to make the most of the willingness on each side to work together to find a common position that takes into account both our interests and visions.
A successful EU will be one that can combine these different visions of Europe and embrace that diversity. We need a flexible, reformed EU in which different paths of integration can coexist successfully to build a Europe fit for the future. This is what we are working together to achieve.