Is Germany calling the shots on the EU?

IN his highly-charged speech on Monday, David Cameron invoked the ‘serried rows of white headstones in Commonwealth war cemeteries’ as a reason why voters should choose to remain in the eU.

But did the occupants of those graves really lay down their lives so that a future German Chancellor could dictate terms to a British Prime Minister over who should have the right to settle in the UK?

Such is the clear implication of Iain Duncan Smith’s intervention yesterday, when he claimed Angela Merkel exercised a secret veto and ‘ultimate power’ over Britain’s proposals for eU reform. By IDS’s account – and as Work and Pensions Secretary at the time, he should know – Mr Cameron meekly changed a speech after last-minute resistance from Berlin, deleting his ‘red line’ demand for an emergency brake on eU migration.

True, the Prime Minister’s aides insist that he dropped the demand of his own accord, while a German MeP intemperately accuses IDS of lying. But they would say that, wouldn’t they?

After all, No 10 still claims that the PM’s frankly pathetic deal represents the ‘radical reform’ and ‘full-on treaty change’ he once demanded.

Indeed, in his contortions over the referendum, isn’t Mr Cameron in acute danger of losing his credibility?

Only months ago, he said he was ready to lead Britain out of the eU, declaring ‘nothing is off the table’. Yet this week, he warns that Brexit would heighten the risk of genocide and a third world war!

Meanwhile, Labour’s Alan Johnson cranks up ill- feeling by branding Leave campaigners ‘extremists’. What an insult to people who conscientiously believe Britain would be safer and better off free from the shackles of Brussels bureaucracy.

With polls showing the two sides neckand-neck (unreliable though they may be), the sorry truth is that the remain camp appears gripped by hysteria.

Yet vital matters demand to be debated. For example, how serious is the possibility that Turkey will join the eU, opening up free movement to another 88million?

And is IDS right to say Brussels is ‘ a friend of the haves rather than the havenots’ – backing Germany, banks and big businesses, while families suffer from the influx of cheap migrant labour?

Is it too much to hope that, in the six weeks remaining, such bread-and-butter issues can be discussed calmly and rationally – without further recourse to insults and hysterical scares about genocide and the apocalypse?