LETTER FROM LONDON
David
Cameron can’t win on Brexit
A
majority of Tory MPs will probably support their prime minister on
the EU. But it won’t be because he persuaded them to.
By JOHN RENTOUL
2/17/16, 5:30 AM CET Updated 2/17/16, 6:16 AM CET
LONDON — David
Cameron has secured everything he promised in his EU negotiations,
only the same old Conservative faces oppose his deal, and the
opposition is in disarray. All the same, he is in deep trouble.
For the
all-conquering prime minister, everything will start to unravel in
Brussels this week. The leader who won the election against the
polls, the pundits and the odds; who stretched every sinew of
negotiating ingenuity to win a deal that looks as if it might be
acceptable to 27 other nations; who managed his own party, with a
ferocious history of division on the Europe question — until now.
Now we are going to hit the emergency brake.
So many things can
go still wrong for Cameron — let’s count the ways. The most
obvious is that the deal could come unstuck at the last moment. The
prime minister’s intense EasyJet diplomacy over the past few months
has been unprecedented. But energy and a persuasive manner do not
guarantee an outcome.
Cameron took the
elementary precaution of setting his demands low. Most of them were
carefully pitched at what he knew would be acceptable to other EU
leaders. The only tricky one seemed to be the requirement that new
arrivals to Britain from other EU countries would have to pay taxes
for four years before they could claim working tax credits — an
income supplement for the low-paid.
This
is still a 28-sided negotiation, in which each of the 28 has to agree
and therefore also has negotiating power. If you give politicians
enough leverage, some are bound to try to use it.
But this is still a
28-sided negotiation, in which each of the 28 has to agree and
therefore also has negotiating power. If you give politicians enough
leverage, some are bound to try to use it. So it could still all come
unstuck as leaders meet to agree on the text at the European Council
summit on Thursday and Friday.
And then Cameron
would be back on his budget-air tour of the continent en route to the
next summit, with a pall of failure hanging over a negotiation that
has tried the patience of his EU partners. It wouldn’t be long
before he started to bump up against the deadline he set himself for
a referendum by the end of 2017.
* * *
What would be even
worse for Cameron, though, would be an agreement in Brussels this
week. Then the modesty of his demands would start to count against
him.
Opinion polls show
that the elements of Cameron’s negotiation are popular. The British
people don’t want to be committed to “ever closer union;” they
don’t want the eurozone countries to dictate to countries with
their own currencies; they like more powers for national parliaments
to block EU laws; and are overwhelmingly in favor of the four-year
wait for tax credits.
But British voters
also think that the whole deal doesn’t go far enough in recasting
the terms of the U.K.’s membership of the EU.
It
would be extraordinary if the European Parliament’s sulky jealousy
of its own prerogatives helped to push the U.K. out of the EU.
This week the
European Parliament exposed the spatchcock deal. Because there isn’t
time in Cameron’s political timetable to rewrite EU treaties, his
deal depends on changes to EU law that require the European
Parliament’s approval. This week, the Parliament’s leaders
refused to guarantee that approval in advance. Which means that the
British people would be invited to vote in a referendum on a deal
that could be undone by MEPs soon afterwards. It would be
extraordinary if the European Parliament’s sulky jealousy of its
own prerogatives helped to push the U.K. out of the EU.
When Harold Wilson
renegotiated the U.K.’s terms of membership in 1975, mainly by
allowing more imports of New Zealand butter, the prime minister of
Belgium complained that Europe’s heads of government had been
“reduced to the level of auditors in a supermarket chain.”
Forty-one years
later, jumped-up representatives elected on low turnouts by
uninterested voters refuse even to be reduced to the level of
promising to honor a deal to keep Britain in.
* * *
Which brings us to
opinion polls. There is something strange going on with British
polling companies, already battered by their failure to predict last
year’s general election. Telephone polls, conducted among that
shrunken minority of people who answer their landlines and don’t
hang up on unsolicited calls on their mobiles, show a majority in
favor of staying in the EU. Internet polls, conducted among people
who have signed up for online panels, tend to show a (smaller)
majority for leaving. But both have shown a movement towards the exit
door since Cameron’s draft deal was published early February.
Philip Cowley,
political analyst at Queen Mary University of London, commented:
“There’s a very simple solution for anyone wondering which of the
polls are right about the referendum, which is: Learn the lesson of
May 2015, and don’t base your analysis or coverage on what the
polls are saying.”
But one more thing
about the opinion polls before we do that. I was influenced by polls
suggesting that Cameron’s recommendation would be influential in
rallying support for his deal. And I still think that it is
important, especially when backed by the chief executives of all 250
FTSE companies and the governor of the Bank of England. Yet,
paradoxically, the recommendation of the leader of the Conservative
Party may carry less weight with Tory MPs and party members.
These are people who
know what they think about Europe. They are not as hostile as is
often assumed. For a long time the term “Euroskeptic” applied to
those who opposed Britain adopting the euro — a debate that, even
though it ended in 2003, has obscured the deeper division between
those who basically want out of the EU altogether and those who could
be persuaded to stay in a reformed Union.
For a long time,
Cameron managed to keep this second group on board, but this week
could be the moment they finally have to choose. And it looks as if
large numbers of them will plump for Brexit. Cameron’s deal is such
a small and cosmetic thing that they are not likely to be impressed
by prime ministerial prestige and establishment consensus.
A majority of Tory
MPs will probably support their prime minister. But it won’t be
because he persuaded them to. Most think it’s in their own interest
A majority of Tory
MPs will probably support their prime minister. But it won’t be
because he persuaded them to. Most think it’s in their own
interest. It is notable that the most senior Tory likely to declare
for Brexit is Iain Duncan Smith. As a former party leader, the work
and pensions secretary is respected within the tribe, but he is not
popular with the wider electorate. Michael Gove, the justice
secretary, is publicly agonizing over his choice, but is not popular
either. The Outers are desperate for a more inspiring figurehead.
That’s why all
eyes are on Boris Johnson. The mayor of London is of that endangered
species, the politician of whom more people have a favorable opinion
than an unfavorable one. People who know him well say he’ll land on
Cameron’s side of the fence, but with an exaggerated show of
reluctance designed to persuade the Tory party members who will
choose the next prime minister that he is really one of them.
* * *
Which brings us to
the Tory grassroots members. Polls suggest a large majority are
opposed to EU membership. Some of them might be swayed by their
leader and the campaign, but the best Cameron can hope for is that
they split equally for and against on the issue. This is the Tory
party disaster Cameron has tried to fend off for more than a decade,
ever since he appealed to his party to stop “banging on about
Europe” when he ran for the leadership in 2005.
The Tories lack the
enforced discipline that comes from a threatening opposition party,
and can’t count on that sentiment to keep them together. They can
be as divided as they like and still prevail over a Labour Party led
by Jeremy Corbyn in 2020.
It
is hard to see Cameron’s premiership ending well in such
circumstances, whether or not he wins the referendum.
It is hard to see
Cameron’s premiership ending well in such circumstances, whether or
not he wins the referendum. If he wins, what if the anti-EU members
in the Tory party respond to their own defeat the way Scottish
National Party supporters did in Scotland in 2014? What if the party
grassroots become energized and make it their cause to fight for
another referendum in a few years’ time?
Then there is the
question of what happens if Cameron loses his referendum. Graham
Brady, the leader of backbench Tory MPs, argues that the prime
minister should stay on to handle the two-year process of leaving the
EU. I don’t see that position lasting any longer than 10 p.m. on
June 23 — if that is indeed the night of the referendum.
It suits both Brady
and Cameron to pretend that the prime minister can lose a referendum
and carry on. Brady because he doesn’t want the Outers, of whom he
is one, to be seen as personal crusaders against Cameron. Cameron
because he doesn’t want to give Labour voters the chance to turn it
into a referendum about him.
The moment a vote to
leave the EU is announced, however, the situation changes. Cameron
may try to hold onto office, but his party will not be so indulgent.
Whatever happens
this week, Cameron’s troubles are only just beginning.
John Rentoul is
chief political commentator for the Independent on Sunday and a
biographer of Tony Blair.
Authors:
John Rentoul
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