Afrigather By BAGEHOT
IT TELLS you a large number about David Cameron’s dinner in London final evening with Donald Tusk that the press couldn’t subsequently resolve whether or not it was a coup or a catastrophe for the prime minister and his plan to renegotiate Britain’s EU membership. On the one hand the European Council president bluntly commented “no deal” as he swept out. His staff confirmed that it might not be circulating a proposal right this moment—and presumably not tomorrow both, if remaining variations can’t be ironed out. Then again Downing Avenue was upbeat, describing as a “vital breakthrough” the information that “the Fee have tabled a textual content making clear that the UK’s present circumstances meet the factors for triggering the emergency brake” (a four-year advantages freeze for incomers).
Ongoing disagreements concern Britain’s calls for for protections for non-eurozone EU members (France is sad at what it sees as an try to safe preferential therapy for the Metropolis of London) and guidelines governing spousal visas for immigrants. However the primary sticking level stays the emergency brake; particularly for the way lengthy it ought to apply. On Friday, after a gathering in Brussels with Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Fee, Mr Cameron dismissed a proposal for a two-year brake with a doable two-year renewal (an choice apparently too clearly designed to stifle British opposition to the EU till the referendum is safely received). Now the prime minister is reportedly pushing for a seven-year brake, one that may outlast his premiership and dump the query of its renewal—virtually definitely within the energy of the European Council or Fee—onto his successor.
Deal with a lot of this with warning. Leaks and statements from each London and Brussels are half megaphone-negotiation (all sides warning the opposite to not push too exhausting) and half shadow-boxing designed to provide an exaggerated impression of the battle between the 2 sides—the higher for Mr Cameron to promote a closing deal to his MPs and voters and for Mr Tusk to steer the EU’s different 27 governments to wave by an settlement on the summit on February 18th and nineteenth. That latter course of might show trickier than the preliminary deal between London and Brussels. Central European governments are cautious of making a precedent whereby their nationals in Western Europe are handled as second-class employees (situating the facility to hit the brake in Brussels, reasonably than in nationwide capitals, might assistance on that), whereas governments in Austria, Sweden, Denmark and even Germany are threatened by populist events pushing exhausting for native variations of Mr Cameron’s renegotiation.
Mr Cameron’s calls for, it have to be conceded, should not ground-breaking and don’t quantity to the drastic reshaping of Britain’s EU membership that he declared needed in his Bloomberg speech in 2013, by which he first dedicated to an in-out referendum. Tightening migrant advantages is probably the most contentious of his 4 “baskets” of calls for. The others are protections for euro-outs (which matches with the grain of present shifts in Brussels), an anti-red tape drive (ditto) and an finish to the mantra of ever-closer union (successfully killed off at a Council summit in 2014, which concluded that “the idea of ever-closer union permits for various paths of integration… whereas respecting the needs of those that don’t want to deepen any additional”).
But none of this want be deadly for the referendum. Regardless of the rhetoric, the renegotiation was solely ever going to be a symbolic train; a illustration of Britain’s potential to affect the agenda in Brussels and an acknowledgement of swing voters’ issues, nevertheless inaccurately or impartially they replicate the fact. Mr Tusk’s readiness to declare the impact of migration on Britain’s public providers an “emergency” (it’s not, nor do many EU migrants transfer there to assert advantages) signifies his willingness to play together with this. If Mr Cameron leaves the summit on February nineteenth with an settlement that nods to Britain’s home EU politics—he claims he’s keen to attend for an excellent deal, although in apply is aware of that his possibilities of profitable the referendum enhance the earlier he holds it—he stands an excellent likelihood of maintaining the nation within the union on the polls, maybe as quickly as June.
Why? The Out marketing campaign is split, struggles to rally round a single imaginative and prescient of what Britain outdoors the union would and may appear like and, better of all for Europhiles, may but find yourself basically run by the chaotic and controversial UK Independence Celebration and its allies. Mixed with Mr Cameron’s massive lead over his Labour rivals, that appears to be nudging all however probably the most die-hard Brussels bashers into the In camp. Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, each spoken of as potential leaders of the Out marketing campaign, are reportedly on-board. The place anti-EU leaders as soon as boasted that 100 or extra Tory MPs would help Brexit, that now appears to be like a shade optimistic. Writing in yesterday’s Sunday Instances, Mark Pritchard, a rebellious Eurosceptic again bencher, unexpectedly endorsed continued membership: “In an unsafe world, Britain is safer within the EU.”
The citizens is leaning in direction of this place. too. The polls, it’s true, recommend the race is slim. However wanting simply at cellphone voting (extra consultant than the cheap-and-easy on-line type) means that In has a stable if unspectacular lead. Voters are inclined to err in direction of loss aversion in referendums and broadly respect Mr Cameron (the comparability with the leaders of each the Labour Celebration and the Out marketing campaign is beneficial) to the extent that, if he brandishes a “renegotiated” settlement (nevertheless superficial) and says it accentuates the pragmatic case for Britain to remain within the EU, he stands an excellent likelihood of persuading sufficient wavering Eurosceptics to carry their noses and vote In. Upsets are nonetheless doable—an extended marketing campaign may give the anti-EU forces the time to construct momentum, an extended summer time of refugee chaos on the continent or one other Paris-style terror assault may flip the referendum right into a proxy vote on immigration, an sudden home coverage failure may kill Mr Cameron’s relative reputation—however all else being equal Britain will most likely vote to stay within the EU. For the way lengthy this settles the query, after all, is one other matter.
