PM warns on EU talks
DAVID Cameron has admitted his bid to reform Britain’s relationship with Brussels was “not met with a wall of love” when he met his European counterparts in Latvia but he nonetheless insisted he was confident of success.
The Prime Minister’s Euro charm offensive will gain momentum next week when he meets Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, on Monday and will travel for talks with President Francois Hollande and Chancellor Angela Merkel.
During an eastern European summit in Riga, national leaders expressed concern that as the referendum debate progressed in Britain that Mr Cameron might lose the momentum in a surge of nationalism as happened in the Scottish independence poll.
One summit source said there was “a risk” that, just like last September, a comfortable lead could evaporate and a knife-edge result might follow.
The PM again refused to rule out campaigning for Britain to leave the EU if his renegotiation efforts failed. The Herald reported earlier this week that the UK Government’s EU Referendum Bill would take priority in the Queen’s Speech, leading to speculation that the Conservative leader was preparing for a referendum next year.
After a series of one-to-one meetings with EU leaders, Mr Cameron told reporters he would not “negotiate in public” but said there had been a “reasonable start” to today’s discussions. Asked whether or not he could campaign for the UK to leave the EU, the PM replied: “I’ve set out a series of changes which address the main concerns, which the British people have, that I have about Europe and I’m confident of getting those changes.
“I’ve tried to aim at things that are deliverable. But I’ve always said that if I don’t get what I think I need, I rule nothing out.”
Mr Cameron admitted his presence at the summit had been met with a less than enthusiastic reception by some.
“On the irritation factor, I’m not going to say I was met with a wall of love when I arrived but there were lots of people who were excited about our election result and we all said how much we are looking forward to working together.”
He added: “These talks will require patience and tenacity but by working together in the right spirit and sticking at it I believe we can reform the EU and our relationship with it. And then the British people will have the final say; they will decide.”
EU leaders in Riga were broadly positive, with Finnish premier Alexander Stubb expressing confidence that a deal could be found which would satisfy all sides.
Estonian prime minister Taavi Roivas said he was “open to discussion” but warned he would oppose any attempt to roll back the free movement of labour within the EU.
Meantime, President Hollande made clear it was up to Britain to make the necessary effort if it wanted to push through change.
Meantime, Alex Salmond was accused by Labour of “staggering hypocrisy” after admitting he could stand alongside Conservatives in the bid to keep the UK in the European Union. Asked if he would share a platform during the Euro campaign with Chancellor George Osborne, the former First Minister replied: “Listen, I share platforms with everybody except fascists and non-democrats.”
Given the Gordon MP ferociously attacked Labour for working alongside the Tories in the No campaign during the independence referendum, Jackie Baillie for Scottish Labour hit back, saying: “Alex Salmond’s hypocrisy is staggering. After years spent attacking Labour during the referendum, he is now jumping into bed with the Tories on the EU referendum.”
CONSERVATIVES who tell you Scotland must never have another independence referendum are the same people, as often as not, who complain that voters have not had “a say” on Europe in 40 years. Being half right has not let them down so far.
Desperate for their “in-out” European plebiscite, these are types who know exactly what they will say when they get their vote. David Cameron might have travelled to Latvia to canvass support for his reform programme. For a swathe of his party, the argument remains the same. If Europeans cannot be converted to Anglo-Saxon ways, stout Tories will organise disembarkation from the SS EU
The question is this: where does Mr Cameron really stand? By no accident on his part, that’s tricky to answer. First, we don’t actually know, in any detailed way, what he actually wants from his EU partners. Apparently this is because the Prime Minister is a cunning negotiator – if you forget his humiliation over the installation of Jean-Claude Juncker as President of the Commission – who will not show his hand.
That’s sensible, no doubt. It also means we have no idea of what Mr Cameron will (or will not) settle for. Various speeches have given a rough idea of the euro stuff he doesn’t like. But with the promised referendum likely sooner rather than later, the Prime Minister will have to proclaim that he’s won the day, or throw up his hands. Knowing what he wants and hopes to achieve is somewhat important.
The safe bet is he would rather not cut the United Kingdom adrift. The sceptics who find inspiration in relationships between the EU and Norway or Switzerland do not, we can assume, have Mr Cameron on their side. Disparaging Europe because of its economic problems might provide fun, but it does not trump trade flows, or diplomatic realities. Towing the UK into mid-Atlantic, like a parody of Terry Gilliam’s Crimson Permanent Assurance pirates, is not on the Prime Minister’s agenda.
In essence, he is no different from his predecessors, Margaret Thatcher included. Doing battle with Europe plays well in the cheap seats of the Tory press. It sedates sceptics. The fact remains: despite decades of angst, argument and rhetoric, the Conservative Party has never managed to find a prime minister prepared to walk out on a Europe that has deepened and widened its union with each passing decade.
There is a flaw in Tory thinking. Opinion polls, if you still trust them, say voters are not currently in favour of withdrawal, even if they support unspecified reforms. Euroscepticism does not qualify as populism, despite the efforts of Ukip. Business interests, on whose behalf the Conservative Party exists, are meanwhile out of step with Tory backbench opinion. And as Mr Cameron is no doubt aware, the White House would always be against the UK quitting the EU.
So the Prime Minister would rather stay in. The public (for now) wants to stay in. A big slice of the Tory Party, Ukip and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionists aside, there is a political consensus for staying in. Were it not for a press dominated by foreigner owners masquerading as British chauvinists, Mr Cameron’s task would be as easy as the one that faced Harold Wilson 40 years back. In 1975, the Labour leader made a show of “renegotiation”, yet barely. went through the motions. His victory rested on the importation of New Zealand butter.
Back then, 67 per cent (of a 65 per cent turn-out) voted to remain within the European Economic Community, even after wily Mr Wilson managed to push up the cost of UK membership. In those days, “Europe” was little more than the kind of loose trade alliance that is now, supposedly, the sceptics’ desire. Mr Cameron’s position is more complicated, at least on paper, but the room for obfuscation is as great as ever.
Pieced together, his reform programme would give the UK an “opt-out” from “ever closer union”. It would grant national parliaments a more substantial veto over EU legislation. It would, as ever, curtail “red tape” and protect the City of London from interfering European legislators while granting the UK more scope in bilateral trade deals.
In some fashion, it would also ensure that eurozone members could not impose their version of singlemarket reform on countries – the UK and Denmark – that have no interest in a single currency. Pushing on an open door, Mr Cameron will also be able to insist, in due course, that there should be no European army to supplant Britain’s not-so-mighty armed forces. Deals can be done.
For the sake of the home crowd, however, a Prime Minister who has seen his promises of net immigration in “the tens of thousands” destroyed has other ambitions. Yet again, British EU policy is at heart a matter of foreigners, how they get here, and what can be done to keep them out. So Mr Cameron would like to restrict benefits available to EU migrants. Piously, he would agree to union enlargement, but demand systems to halt “vast migrations across the Continent”.
On that score, the Prime Minister might encounter allies in Riga. The UK’s “immigration problem” might obsess Westminster and the London press, but other European countries deal with larger realities. There are north Europeans, meanwhile, who are happy to agree that the single market’s economic record in terms of growth and employment is lamentable. And that’s where Mr Cameron’s problems begin.
Germany’s Angela Merkel is a conservative and a purist. She is more rigorous than Mr Cameron in matters of debt and deficit, but she will not budge from the belief that a functioning single market in goods and services must involve the free movement of workers. She will no doubt agree that the UK can do as it pleases with its benefits system, but explicit discrimination towards EU migrants – or exemptions for the lawless City of London – will not meet her idea of a truly free market. Within Europe’s most powerful state, ordoliberalism rules.
Like Harold Wilson 40 years ago, Mr Cameron will present small gains as big victories. When his referendum campaign begins, he will spend more time talking about the risks of withdrawal than the benefits of his reforms. In reality, the Europeans at the EU’s core long ago gave up hope that the UK would ever become a willing participant in the drive to closer union. Only in Britain is there a real desire to halt the process.
In one way, that’s a pity. In 1975, Mr Wilson was opposed by those on the left who regarded the EEC as a scheme designed to benefit big business. It would, as the jargon went, “hard-wire monetarism”. Those long-gone critics were right. A Europe of vast unemployment and diminishing rights for citizens, a continent that turns on
‘‘ Towing the UK into mid-Atlantic, like a parody of Terry Gilliam’s Crimson Permanent Assurance pirates, is not on the agenda