A FOOL’S ERRAND

From the No10 insider whose blistering account of Brexit has dominated headlines, a new shattering revelation: the PM considered asking Merkel for more curbs on migration – then decided it was...

SIR CRAIG OLIVER’S inside story of the drama in Downing Street leading up to David Cameron’s defeat in the EU referendum was the talk of Westminster last week. Now he discloses that Cameron considered fighting for more immigration curbs on the eve of the vote but decided it would be rejected as lacking credibility so late in the campaign. And Oliver feared George Osborne’s emergency Brexit budget had gone down with MPs ‘like a cup of cold sick’.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 5

THERE are deep concerns about the EU renegotiation going off track. For months, we have been working out a new settlement for the UK. The PM worries there isn’t enough progress on curbing welfare for migrants – the idea being that less money will reduce the number coming. We have been asking for a four-year ban on migrants to the EU getting benefits. That seems to be a non-starter. Everyone is nervous, wondering how the hell we’ll land what we need before the crucial European Council meeting in a few weeks.

On January 18, the PM’s inner circle discusses the referendum over dinner in No11. DC seems distant. He lets us know what’s distracting him at the end of the meal with the joke: ‘Remind me whose idea this was?’ [It had been Cameron’s.]

Days later at Davos, the world economic forum in Switzerland, Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister, drops in. He says he’s been told the British people are too conservative to leave – they’ll end up coming on board, just like in the Scottish referendum. European leaders need a jolt of electricity to wake them up.

In his speech after Rutte’s visit, the PM says he will walk away from the February Council without a deal if it isn’t good enough. A French TV station asks if he considers himself a European. He responds with a fulsome ‘Yes.’ Of course, he should have said he considers himself British first. It’s a rare mistake.

The following week, DC, worrying about the state of the renegotiation, calls Angela Merkel. She begins: ‘Allo. These are demanding times. Everything is so far OK. I have my health…’ It’s an odd thing to say, basically hinting she is facing endless pressure on migration in her own country.

The conversation turns to the renegotiation. DC says: ‘There’s a lot of goodwill, but where we’ve got to on immigration and welfare is hopeless. If we let the official process grind on, it will be a car crash in February. If there’s a real deal, I can take it. But if there isn’t, I can’t, because we will lose.’ Merkel seems helpful. She floats the idea of an acceptable migration limit.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 29

DC LUNCHES with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels. He says it went well and everything is going in our direction. They appear to have accepted the emergency brake on welfare would apply now. But a problem emerges. The word ‘phasing’ hasn’t cropped up in any renegotiation discussion we’ve had. We’ve been pushing for a simple four-year migrant benefits ban.

Now it emerges the document will say in-work benefits will start at zero and be ‘graduated’ or increased over time. What does that mean?

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3

THE papers are brutal, having seen the draft renegotiation document.

‘Who do EU think you are kidding, Mr Cameron?’ says one headline. We’d always known they were going to throw a bucket of s*** over the draft deal.

DC is feeling pretty bullish about it but others are hard to convince. As we face the crunch European Council, a desperately unfair truism that we aren’t getting much is being established.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18

AT A meeting with European Council president Donald Tusk in Brussels, the conversation doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Other European leaders are saying the UK is asking for too much.

DC seems relaxed. He says: ‘I’ll tell Tusk I wouldn’t get this deal through the Cabinet, let alone a referendum.’

The next day, at Britain’s EU residence in Brussels, the PM is lying on the floor, trying to rest his sore back, when we hear Merkel wants to see him.

She sits down opposite me. It’s pretty clear this is the first time she has focused properly on the detail of a deal.

DC goes through what he wants, including an emergency brake on welfare payments to curb immigration that starts at seven years and is renewed for two bursts of three years.

He says that he will face ‘a barrage of criticism’ if there’s seen to be any further watering down of the deal. Merkel asks: ‘What is barrage?’ The PM offers ‘blitz-

krieg’ as a translation. She smiles like he is a naughty schoolboy.

After all-night talks a deal is agreed. It could have been a disaster but wasn’t. We need to explain why it is a success. We have made real achievements. We are exempt from ‘ever closer union’; we secured a target for reducing bureaucracy; and there’ll be protection for the pound.

And crucially, we have secured massive benefit restrictions. The mood on the plane is one of relief. This could have been a disaster and it wasn’t.

All of us have a drink. It’s a mini-party, with most people standing up and mingling but there’s a sober realisation the next four months are going to be a giant fight…

THURSDAY, JUNE 2

ANGELA MERKEL intervenes, essentially saying she wants us to stay in, and that it’ll be hard for the UK to do deals in Europe if we’re outside the room.

A senior Downing Street figure is very disappointed. ‘They never deliver the killer blow. They tell you they will – but they just don’t say it.’

He believes she was squeamish about appearing threatening.

MONDAY, JUNE 13

THE worst day of the campaign so far. In the evening I email DC. ‘We are asking people to accept something that is wrong: the EU’s unreasonable position that there should be no limit to freedom of movement. You could give a speech saying, “I have listened. The British people are right to be worried about immigration. Much of it is good but we have had too much of a good thing. Trashing our economy is no way to deal with it but there can no longer be a straight choice. We should vote to remain in the EU AND impose limits on immigration. I will do that by x, y and z.”’

DC replies: ‘Spot on. Always been my worry. We shouldn’t be asking people to choose between immigration levels they don’t want and an EU they don’t love.’

The next day he reads out my email at a No 10 meeting with George Osborne and other senior advisers. We conclude we cannot throw everything up in the air. All through this we have held to one core belief: telling people they will be poorer if we leave the EU trumps immigration. None of us is so sure any more. But we can’t shift now.

A call set up with Merkel now seems pointless. The idea was to test the water to see if we can agree to make plain that much more will be done on immigration. But as the time approaches we realise it is a fool’s errand. Even supposing a magical plan can be set in train – and it certainly isn’t – it will look desperate.

Merkel comes on the line. DC explains the situation and that he has decided this is not the moment to ask for more – though it will obviously have to be revisited if we win.

FRIDAY, JUNE 24 DAY AFTER THE REFERENDUM

MERKEL calls No10. There’s very little addressing the sadness of the situation. Perhaps she doesn’t know what to say. The closest she gets is: ‘What is painful to me is that young people failed to turn out in numbers to vote.’ The following week, flying to Brussels for his final European Council, DC says: ‘I’ll read them a few home truths on immigration. And say it might have been different if there’d been an emergency brake.’

Merkel sees him for a one-on-one meeting. DC tells us that she was adamant: ‘There could never have been an emergency brake.’

He takes comfort from knowing he could not have achieved more. Even I, as metropolitan and liberal on immigration as they come, questioned being part of an organisation that allows unlimited freedom of movement to work.

It is unsustainable. In the face of our renegotiation, the EU pulled up the drawbridge and resisted.

Merkel warned us in 2014 there could not be an emergency brake on numbers – and even after Britain voted to leave, insisted that could never have been on the table. Her roots in Eastern Europe told – when the Iron Curtain came down, she and millions of others were told they need never be second class citizens again. That meant freedom of movement.

Theresa May tells everyone, ‘Brexit means Brexit’. Of course, what Brexit means to dyed-in-the-wool Outers in the Parliamentary Conservative Party and the others who want to have as much access to Europe as possible, are worlds apart. There will come a moment when she is faced by those who want an end to free movement, and the immoveable object of business and the majority of MPs that supported Remain.

Compromise is inevitable. And that will lead to cries of betrayal.

Cameron decides this is not the moment to ask for more... It’ll look like we are desperate