LETTER FROM LONDON
5
takeaways on the UK’s EU renegotiation
David
Cameron has given the British people something to think about — but
a lot could still go wrong.
By ROBERT COLVILE
2/2/16, 2:31 PM CET Updated 2/3/16, 7:54 AM CET
At long last, the
details of Britain’s renegotiation with Europe are out in the open.
But how will the provisional deal hammered out by David Cameron and
Donald Tusk go down in Britain? Here are the five most important
points to remember.
1) This isn’t the
deal Cameron promised
It was a declaration
of victory — sort of. “Right at the beginning of this process, we
set out the four areas where we wanted substantial change,” said
Cameron, as he trumpeted the draft of Britain’s renegotiation
agreement with the European Union. Real progress had, he insisted,
been made in all four areas — although this was not, he repeatedly
insisted, the finished article.
That’s true —
but only up to a point. For all the talk of tough negotiating and
concessions wrested from Brussels by sheer force of will, the truth
is that Cameron’s renegotiation strategy has been a bit of a
moveable feast.
Since Cameron’s
“Bloomberg speech” in 2013, which set out his stall for
renegotiation, all manner of issues that were claimed to be vital for
Britain — completing the single market, tackling over-mighty
European judges, limiting the effects of workplace regulation, taking
whole areas out of the EU’s purview and handing them back to
national parliaments — have been quietly shelved.
This week, Paul
Goodman, editor of ConservativeHome and a leading campaigner for Out,
highlighted 10 proposals the prime minister floated and then dropped
over the course of the negotiating process.
Many elements within
the renegotiation don’t match Cameron’s rhetoric. The “red
card” system for national parliaments, which requires a majority to
agree to block European rules, sets a dizzyingly high threshold for
forming such coalitions. Indeed, as became clear at Open Europe’s
recent “war games” event that modeled Brexit negotiations, the
red card is more likely to be used against Britain than for it — in
completing the single market in services, for example, which Britain
wants but others don’t.
2) It might be the
best deal Cameron could get
The deal still needs
to be wrangled over by other European Union leaders at a summit on
February 18-19 — a process that might result in Britain winning
more concessions, but is equally likely to see certain aspects being
unpicked. The early reaction has been decidedly lukewarm. The Daily
Mail summed up the mood on the Right with a front-page headline
Tuesday morning: “Is that it then, Mr. Cameron?”
Out campaigners have
long suspected that any deal with the EU would be purely cosmetic.
But Cameron always faced a structural problem: There has been almost
no overlap between what can be useful for Britain to get in terms of
reform, what can be sold to the public as a real victory, and what
the European Union is actually prepared to give.
The current deal
represents a creditable attempt to square that circle. True, it lacks
a slam-dunk concession that can be sold on the doorstep as a great
example of Cameron standing up for Britain. But the mere fact that
there’s an outline deal in place is, in many ways, more important
than the actual contents.
The Out side are
rubbishing it, as they were always going to. But Cameron might be
able to sell this step as his long-awaited pivot from stern critic of
the EU to passionate defender of its (suitably amended) virtues.
3) The big beasts
aren’t yet persuaded
Until this week,
Cameron had done an excellent job of playing a weak hand well. A
series of figures within the Conservative Party who might have been
expected to plump for Out reportedly confirmed that they would not
vote for Leave after all.
This was put down to
a combination of self-interest — Chancellor George Osborne has been
reported to be starting conversations with: “So, are you supporting
Leave, or do you prefer to have a career?” — as well as personal
loyalty to Cameron (in the case of Justice Secretary Michael Gove)
and a feeling that the very public in-fighting on the Out side was
best avoided.
Cameron has kept his
party more united than might otherwise be expected. But the deal’s
apparent limitations have opened a chink of light for those who see
their best route to succeeding Cameron as being leader of a
successful Out campaign (not least because the bulk of Tory activists
will be on that side).
London mayor Boris
Johnson is already rowing back on his apparent conversion to the In
cause by saying that he would need to absorb the deal in its “full,
quivering magnitude,” but feels that there is “much, much more”
that needs to be done, and that the red card system does not go far
enough.
Home Secretary
Theresa May, meanwhile, has made it clear that the EU’s concessions
on migration are too weak. Both are careful to couch their comments
in terms of respect for Cameron’s efforts. But both are keeping
their options open.
4) Meanwhile, the
Wilson plan remains on course…
Come February 18,
other leaders could derail or dilute Cameron’s plan to the point
where his strategy falls apart — or where support of Johnson or May
gives a major boost to the Out side.
But at the moment,
it looks like Cameron will be able to repeat Harold Wilson’s 1975
strategy: promise a referendum, present a limited package of
concessions as a stunning diplomatic victory, then use his authority
as prime minister to lead his nation to an In vote.
Yes, skepticism
towards the EU has grown since then. And yes, the Leave camp will
have more heavyweight media support than last time — the Mail and
Express seem like locks for the Out side, while the Telegraph is
keeping its options open. The Out side will probably have more
mainstream leadership than last time, when it had to make do with
Tony Benn on the Left and Enoch Powell on the Right.
But against that is
40 years’ worth of decisions that have bound Britain to Europe, and
which would be incredibly painful and difficult to untangle.
The thinking (and
the betting) is that Cameron will be successful in his argument:
While the EU isn’t perfect, and there is much to grumble about,
voting Out is too much of a risk for the country to take.
Some in England may
also be swayed by the argument that voting for Brexit would break up
the Union, given Scotland’s much more positive view of the EU.
5) The country is
changing
The X factor here is
not what further changes will be made to Cameron’s deal, but
something entirely beyond his control: the migration crisis. Polling
shows that concern about immigration has surged in Britain as
everywhere else — an unprecedented percentage of voters, close to
60 percent, now call migration one of the most important issues
facing the country.
It’s unclear
whether Cameron’s “emergency brake” — the temporary
restriction of in-work benefits to new arrivals from the EU — will
do anything to help, partly because the conditions for using the
lever will be determined in Brussels but mostly because wages here
will still be vastly higher than in parts of Eastern Europe.
More generally,
there is an anti-politics mood abroad, a reluctance to listen to the
established elites who brought us the financial crisis and the MPs’
expenses saga — and who will, by and large, be the ones making the
case for Out.
In an era in which
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz can dominate the Republican race in the
U.S., Jeremy Corbyn can claim the Labour leadership in the U.K., and
parties of the extreme Left and Right can gain strength across
Europe, who’s to say that the voters won’t choose to blow an
almighty raspberry at the powers that be?
One of the reasons
Cameron wants to hurry the referendum along — the suggested date is
June 23, barely a month after local council elections, Scottish
elections and London mayoral elections — is to prevent such an
insurrection gathering momentum. The theory is that the less time the
British public have to think about this, the less time there is for
things to go wrong.
The odds are still
that Cameron can take the country with him. But there are an awful
lot of things that could go wrong along the way.
Robert Colvile is a
regular contributor at POLITICO.
Authors:
Robert Colvile
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