I know it’s probably me being a bit slow in understanding things, but David Cameron’s EU renegotiations do seem to be a little bit, as opposed to a lot, about nothing. His key demands seem to be as follows:
– Stop giving foreign people working age benefits for four years.
– Allow us to not integrate more with the EU, which we didn’t have to do anyway.
– Hands off our friends in the banking sector
– Er…
– That’s it
I may not have grasped some of the technical aspects, or perhaps it’s just that there aren’t any.
I had imagined Cameron would be negotiating on the very principles of the EU, you know the entire reason we are in the thing in the first place, but it doesn’t seem to be that way at all and instead he is tinkering round at the edges. So we are going to have a referendum on whether foreign workers can be paid tax credits or not. It doesn’t seem all that substantial to me.
Meanwhile, the government dresses it all up as if this is a world-shattering moment. I am half-expecting Cameron to arrive on a flight from Brussels exclaiming: “I hold in my hand a piece of paper.”
The last thing the few pro European Tories will want to see is Cameron acting like Neville Chamberlain. They will want blood on the carpets as the PM, famous for his quick temper, lamps Angela Merkel until she bows to Dave’s demand. “All right, all right. Foreign workers can’t have your tax credits. Anything for the quiet life. Just put that handbag away, Dave.”
Most Tories, and a good number of Brits, do not give a toss about Cameron’s negotiations. If he came back with a deal that meant the other EU countries had to pay US billions of pounds to stay in, they’d still say no. And there is a simple reason: they don’t like Johnny Foreigner.
After a brief wobble last summer, I’m in favour of staying in. I like the idea of free movement of workers and trade without barriers. I don’t really want a million pensioners sent back from the Spanish Costas if we leave – imagine the state of the NHS if that happened – and I don’t want to miss out on free roaming on my portable telephone which will apply across the EU from next year. I’m quite happy for us to remain British within Europe.
I don’t think Dave has called for workers’ rights to be further diminished which is something, but that’s only because they couldn’t be. He announced there would be a referendum to pacify the right of his party, which is most of it, and in fear of the fruitcakes of Ukip, who it turns out are a bigger danger to Labour than it is to the Tories.
The referendum is an expensive pantomime to mollify the Tory Party. There would be no referendum if Cameron were not so weak a leader. He even watered down the actual question to be asked so he wouldn’t upset the likes of John ‘Deadwood’ Redwood.
Soon, we will be told that Cameron, through his negotiating genius, has secured all his objectives and probably a few things that weren’t in his list and the vote will proceed. There’s quite a lot hanging on it for the Tories.
Win and Cameron will survive probably until around 2019, when he will stand down in order to allow his successor to get his feet under the table. Cameron’s preferred choice is George Osborne whose colours on the EU are nailed to Cameron’s mast. Lose and he will not last long. His miserable legacy will be further damaged, but so will Osborne’s ambitions. By 2020, we may have a bizarre general election between Boris Johnson’s Tories and Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour.
The Tories always get in a mess with Europe. I know people are interested in it, to a point, but more are interested in the state of NHS, schools and the economy. People, so far as I am aware, do not fret about whether the bankers, who wrecked our economy in 2008, are being well looked after. Many of us wish they were in jail.
Tell me if there really is more to Cameron’s ‘renegotiations’ than I can fathom. I don’t think there is and that’s what troubles me.
