CALL THAT A DEAL, DAVE?
Child benefit curbs shelved for four years Emergency brake falls short of election pledge Gove throws weight behind Out campaign
DAVID Cameron finally agreed his referendum deal with Brussels last night, after being forced to water down key demands.
It put Britain on course to hold a historic vote in June.
After 30 hours of gruelling talks, the Prime Minister declared that he had secured a sufficiently strong agreement to allow him to campaign passionately for Britain to remain inside the Brussels club.
He flew back to the UK last night and will hold a Cabinet meeting at 10am today. Immediately afterwards, he will fire the starting gun on the referendum.
The deal came on the day it emerged that:
Up to 5,000 Islamist jihadi fanatics are at large in the European Union, according to Europol;
In Greece, authorities said 2,000 migrants are arriving on the island of Lesbos every day; and
No 10 conceded Cabinet heavy- weight Michael Gove would campaign for Britain to leave the EU.
Putting a gloss on his climbdown, the PM declared ‘I don’t love Brussels. I love Britain’ and said he had secured Britain’s ‘special status’ in the 28-nation bloc.
But to strike his deal, which was already under attack from Eurosceptics as ‘thin gruel’, he had to make further compromises to countries from eastern Europe.
Most controversially, restrictions on the payment of child benefits to EU workers will not be introduced until 2020.
This is a watering down of a policy that already fell short of a Tory manifesto commitment for an outright ban.
A so-called emergency brake on migrants claiming in work benefits will last only seven years. The PM had been seeking 13 years.
However, in a boost for No10, he secured an agreement the City
will be offered some protection from new regulations devised by the eurozone – and a British exemption from the EU’s commitment to ‘ever closer union’ will be written into future treaties.
Eurosceptics said the deal was ‘irrelevant’ as Mr Cameron had not asked for any changes to freedom of movement or the repatriation of powers to the UK.
They also said it did nothing to address the chaos raging across Europe.
The Out camp was boosted by the news that Cabinet big hitter Mr Gove is likely to campaign for out. The Prime Minister said he was ‘disappointed, but not surprised’ that he and his close friend would not be on the same side.
Announcing the deal last night, Mr Cameron said: ‘Britain will be permanently out of ever closer union, never part of a European super-state, there will be tough new restriction for access to our welfare system for migrants, no more something for nothing.
‘Britain will never join the euro and we have secured vital protections for our economy. And a full say over the rules of the free-trade single market, while staying outside the euro.’
He added that the British people will now decide whether to stay in a reformed European Union, or to leave.
‘This will be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape the destiny of our country. This is a historic moment for Britain and people must be free to make their own decisions,’ he said.
‘And in the end this will not be a decision for politicians, it will be a decision for the British people. And we’ll need to look at all the facts and ask searching questions about what being in the EU really means.’
Last night Matthew Elliott, chief executive of Vote Leave, said Mr Cameron’s ‘hol- low’ deal was bad for Britain, adding: ‘David Cameron always wanted to campaign to stay in the EU so he only ever asked for very minor changes.
‘He will now declare victory but it is an entirely hollow one: the EU courts are still in control of our borders and our laws, we still send £350million a week to the EU instead of spending it here on our priorities and we have not taken back any control.
‘Crucially, this deal is not legally binding and can be ripped up by EU politicians and unelected EU judges so it will have no more force than an unsigned contract. The only way to get real change is to Vote Leave and take back control – that is the safer choice.’
Eurosceptic Labour MP Frank Field said, on the basis of the deal, he will be campaigning to leave.
‘The Government has failed to secure the key renegotiation requirement, namely, that we should regain control of our borders,’ he said.
Leave.EU co- chairman Richard Tice said: ‘The Prime Minister promised half a loaf, begged for a crust and came home with crumbs.’
Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan wrote on Twitter: ‘Britain banged the table and aggressively demanded the status quo. The EU, after some mandatory faux-agonising, agreed.’
Earlier, Mr Cameron’s EU referendum talks in Brussels had appeared dead- locked in a bitter row over state handouts to eastern Europeans.
Last night, he finally secured the agreement at just before 10pm – but only after making still more concessions to the rest of the EU to a deal already dismissed as feeble by Eurosceptics. He is expected to confirm today that the referendum will take place on Thursday, June 23.
Yesterday Italy insisted that its borders must remain wide open – allowing tens of thousands of refugees to flood into the mainland. Meanwhile, the Austrian government enraged Brussels by imposing a daily cap on asylum-seekers. It will process only 80 asylum claims every day and let in just 3,200 migrants looking to travel through the country each day.
Tory MPs said the tumult on the continent showed the PM’s negotiations had been nothing more than a ‘sideshow’.
They pointed out not a single thing in his package of proposals would limit free movement across the EU and No 10 was ‘fiddling while Rome burns’.
Tory MP Peter Bone, one of the leading figures in the campaign to leave the EU, said the warnings from Europol about jihadis in Europe showed the futility of the PM’s negotiations.
He told the Mail: ‘People are not worrying about whether we can pay reduced child benefit or any of the other meaningless things Mr Cameron is asking for.
‘They are worried about mass immigration of people coming into the continent. Some of those people coming in will be terrorists. The Prime Minister hasn’t even asked the question that people want the answer to which is whether we can control free movement.
‘It’s a complete sideshow in Brussels. Unless we can control our borders any terrorist can walk in through the EU. We must be allowed to let in only the people we want to. The Prime Minister is fiddling while Rome burns.’
Eurosceptics last night poured scorn on the EU talksTory MEP and leading out campaigner Daniel Hannan said: ‘Other EU leaders are openly laughing at the idea that the changes are other than cosmetic.’