Bill Carmichael: Cameron’s weak compromise over EU

IMAGINE you were invited to a sumptuous feast and eagerly took your place at the table, taste buds tingling, only to be served with a bowl of lukewarm, watery porridge and a slice of mouldy bread.

That pretty much sums up the crushing disappointment many of us feel after David Cameron finally revealed his much anticipated negotiating points on the UK’s EU membership this week.

The Prime Minister has a glorious, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reform the sclerotic and moribund EU and help it compete and prosper.

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Sure, he was always going to face a tough battle against the ancien regime – the entrenched bureaucrats, crony capitalists and assorted subsidy junkies that infest the protectionist cartel the EU has become.

But instead of relishing the fight the Prime Minister has thrown in the towel before a single blow is landed. His set of four key negotiating points is so anodyne as to be practically meaningless.

Even if the EU were to accept each one of the points in its entirety, it would make absolutely no difference to the way the EU works or Britain’s relationship with it.

Take for example the fundamental issue of national sovereignty – in other words who governs us; our elected representatives in Parliament, or unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels?

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No so long ago Cameron was talking boldly of repatriating powers back to the UK and making Parliament supreme once again.

That has been dropped entirely. Instead the Prime Minister says we should be able to join other national parliaments to block EU rules we dislike and we should be exempted from the principle of “ever closer union”.

So nothing at all changes – our Parliament will not be able to act alone and can still be overruled by European Commissioners and judges, as happens today.

Next, Cameron demands that the EU formally accept the existence of the pound. Really? And what precisely is the alternative – that Europe pretends that the pound doesn’t exist? This is simply preposterous.

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Cameron also wants a “target” to be set to cut red tape that is stifling innovation and causing unemployment for millions of people across mainland Europe.

Promises are easy to make and I am certain they will be forthcoming in this case – but what will they be worth?

Here’s a clue – for decades the EU has made solemn pledges that it will finally sort out its chaotic accounts. This week, after finding more than £4.5bn of misspending last year, the European Court of Auditors refused to sign off the accounts – for the 21st year in a row!

But the most shameful surrender of all is on the matter of immigration.

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At a time when the German Chancellor Angela Merkel has thrown open Europe’s borders to tens of millions of migrants from Africa and the Middle East (without of course getting the agreement of other national leaders, still less their parliaments), Cameron has simply raised the white flag.

Only a few weeks ago we were told the Government was determined to curb the freedom of movement rules; that people would have to find a job before moving here and that any migrant unemployed after six months would be deported.

All gone, replaced by a pallid request that the UK be allowed to restrict in-work benefits to migrants for four years. Pretty please, Brussels! Even then, Cameron immediately announced he was prepared to compromise on this demand.

Expect this already weak request to be watered down to homeopathic levels before it is accepted by the EU and declared a great victory by Cameron in a few months time.

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The pity of all this is that the UK is in a fantastically strong negotiating position. Our economy is the second biggest in the EU and is growing fast while others, shackled by the disastrous Euro, are at a standstill.

Many states, especially the other grown-ups in the club – Germany, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries – are absolutely desperate for us to stay. Cameron could use this leverage to drive meaningful reform that would benefit the millions of people who have been driven to destitution by the diktats of Brussels.

In his timidity, he seems determined to spurn this opportunity. If this is the best you can do Prime Minister, then we are better off out.