End this EU charade and lift gag on ministers

WHAT a charade! From beginning to end, just as the Mail predicted, the Brussels summit followed the familiar choreography of the EU spinmeisters.

Act One: the show of intransigence, with figures such as European Council President Donald Tusk declaring that key British demands for reform are ‘unacceptable’.

Act Two: the dramatic late-night talks, this time over a four-hour dinner of chicken terrine, filet de biche (venison) and spiced oranges.

Act Three: the ‘ breakthrough’ or, in David Cameron’s words, the ‘pathway to an agreement’. Much work still to be done… etc, etc... but the way is now clear, we’re assured, for ‘fundamental change’ in a deal to be finalised in February.

So much for the well-worn script; the reality couldn’t be more different.

Indeed, the derisory 53-word communique fails to conceal that, yet again, absolutely nothing of any significance was achieved.

There was a ‘political exchange of views’ on the UK’s referendum plans, it says, while ‘ the members of the European Council agreed to work closely to find mutually satisfactory solutions’. In other words, deadlock.

Yet on the strength of this non-agreement, Mr Cameron has dropped all pretence of being ready to campaign for Britain’s withdrawal if his conditions are not satisfied.

Leave aside that three of his four demands are so insubstantial that they could be met without changing a thing about our relationship with the statist, sclerotic, anti-democratic, corrupt EU.

As for the fourth, curbing in-work benefits for migrants, he’s on the brink of abject surrender, signalling his willingness to accept a temporary brake on payments (with the brake handle to be controlled, naturally, by Brussels).

Whatever happened to his original demands for ‘full-on’ treaty changes, reforms in the Common Agriculture Policy, scrapping the open-borders Schengen Agreement, curtailing the European Court’s jurisdiction, refusing entry to migrants without job offers and ending the costly insanity of constantly moving the European Parliament from Brussels to Strasbourg and back?

However, despite having nothing to show for his renegotiations, Mr Cameron declared yesterday: ‘I firmly believe that for our economic security and increasingly for our national security, the best future for Britain is in a reformed EU.’

So saying, he not only threw away his only negotiating card for the February summit. He effectively fired the starting pistol for the referendum campaign, with his eyes fixed on a ballot as early as next summer.

The Mail has made clear its deep reservations about rushing a matter of immense significance to this country, our children and grandchildren.

But if Mr Cameron insists on bringing the date forward, there is one point he must surely concede: the debate must be free, honest and open so voters are fully informed of the arguments for both sides and the facts supporting them.

Though it grieves this paper to say it, his record on transparency has so far been abysmal. It’s not just through stage- managed EU summits that he’s attempted to manipulate news coverage and pull the wool over voters’ eyes.

Only yesterday, the Mail exposed how Whitehall suppressed official data on the true scale of EU migration into Britain, because revealing it would be ‘unhelpful’ to Mr Cameron’s renegotiations.

Most insidiously, eurosceptic ministers have been gagged, while their europhile colleagues are paraded before the broadcasters to toe the official line – aided and abetted by Sir John Major (whose hatred of his party’s eurosceptics can’t be overstated), spreading histrionic scare stories about the perils of pulling out.

The fact is that on the Tories’ eurosceptic wing, there are heavyweights with hugely important contributions to make – Iain Duncan Smith at Work and Pensions, Theresa May at the Home Office, Michael Gove at the Justice Department, Sajid Javid at Business and Boris Johnson, the London mayor.

With their deep knowledge and experience of how the EU affects us, it is a grotesque affront to democracy that they remain silenced, with the referendum perhaps only months away.

If this vital debate is to be anything but a cynical, one- sided sham, the gags must come off immediately.