EU deal: What David Cameron asked for... and what he actually got. A Pathetic Deal, No Timetable and Not Irreversible
Cameron's pathetic "deal" has no timetable, may not be implemented and is not irreversible. Vote leave!
UKIP's Nigel Farage On David Cameron's EU Deal Being Worth Nothing
[video=youtube;Pfq3Msgiga4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfq3Msgiga4[/video]
[video=youtube;oYrBmodQN5Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYrBmodQN5Q[/video]
Cameron's pathetic "deal" has no timetable, may not be implemented and is not irreversible. Vote leave!
EU deal: What David Cameron asked for... and what he actually got
In his January 2013 Bloomberg Speech, David Cameron announced he would seek a “new settlement” for Britain in Europe, promising to win a host of concessions from Brussels that would convince Britons to remain in a newly-invigorated Europe.
More than three years later, on February 20 2016, Mr Cameron finalised that deal with 27 other European leaders. Here we analyse line by line, what Mr Cameron originally promised…and what he actually delivered.
Migration and benefits
Pledge
"We will insist that EU migrants who want to claim tax credits and child benefit must live here and contribute to our country for a minimum of four years." Conservative Party Manifesto 2015
What he got
Draft text: This was Cameron's trophy achievement. It consists of a mechanism to “limit the access of union workers newly entering its labour market to in-work benefits for a total period of up to four years from the commencement of employment” if the UK, or any other member state, can show that EU migrants are “putting an excessive pressure on the proper functioning of its public services”.
No details are provided on what “excessive pressure” means, but a note on the mechanism says it will be tabled on the understanding that "it can and will be used" by the UK and the UK will do so "in full expectation of obtaining approval". However the control of the brake appears to remain firmly in the hands of the Commission who must be "notified" by any member state that they believe they are eligible to use it.
The text also adds an important caveat that the “limitation should be graduated, from an initial complete exclusion” to be followed by “gradually increasing access to such benefits” the longer that an EU worker stays in the host member state’s labour market.
Final deal: All of the above, including a declaration that the four-year brake will be available to Britain for “a period of 7 years”. This is a ‘win’ for Cameron, although he had reportedly demanded up to 13 years availability.
On the negative side, Mr Cameron’s negotiators were unable to remove the “tapering mechanism” which will see EU migrants start to receive benefits when they start to contribute to the system – probably after their first year of work.
Critics will point out that deal only fully denies in-work benefits for one year, not four. There is also no mention of the benefits changes being protected by treaty change, which some critics have warned could leave them vulnerable to challenge in the European Courts.
Budgets and EU waste
Pledge
“Can we carry on with an organisation that has a multi-billion pound budget but not enough focus on controlling spending and shutting down programmes that haven’t worked? David Cameron in his January 2013 Bloomberg speech
What he got
Draft text: A pledge by the European Commission to continue its current work cutting red tape. Specifically “continue its efforts to make EU law simpler and to reduce regulatory burden for EU business operators...by applying the 2015 Better Regulation Agenda, including in particular the Commission's Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme (REFIT). Cutting red tape for entrepreneurship, in particular small and medium size enterprises, remains an overarching goal for all of us in delivering growth and jobs.” (Draft declaration on subsidiarity implementation mechanism)
Final deal: Unchanged
Red card for national parliaments
Pledge
"We want national parliaments to be able to work together to block unwanted European legislation." Conservative Party Manifesto 2015
What he got
Draft text: A win. An agreement that if, proportionately speaking, 55 per cent of national EU parliaments object to a piece of EU legislation “within 12 weeks” the Council Presidency will hold a “comprehensive discussion” on the objections raised and “discontinue the consideration of the draft legislative... unless the draft is amended to accommodate the concerns expressed in the reasoned opinions”. (p13 of draft agreement).
It remains far from clear that the current European Commission which has made a point of cutting red tape would ever table a measure that would garner such high level of objections. Critics will argue this is a 'red card' that, in practice, will never be shown.
Final Deal: Unchanged.
Ever closer union
Pledge
“We want an end to our commitment to an ‘ever closer union’, as enshrined in the treaty to which every EU country has to sign up." - Conservative Party Manifesto 2015
What he got
Draft text: A re-statement of a EU heads of government decision from 2014 that has already clarified that the phrase “ever closer union” does “not compel all member states to aim for a common destination". The Tusk text says (p10) specifically: “It is recognised that the United Kingdom, in the light of the specific situation it has under the treaties, is not committed to further political integration into the European Union.” It also promises to incorporate this in the EU treaties next time they are opened.
Final Deal: A win for Mr Cameron who has convinced EU leader that the EU treaties, when they are next opened, will include a new reference to make it clear that the words “ever closer union do not apply to the United Kingdom”.
This clearly meets the manifesto commitment, however in a sop to Europe’s federalists like Belgium early drafts suggesting this exemption might apply more broadly – for example to countries like Poland and Hungary who have no intention of joining the Euro any time soon - were removed. This is a blow to Mr Cameron’s calls for the EU to accept the need for a looser, more flexible ‘live and let live’ Europe.
EU referendum: How stupid does David Cameron think we are?
Michael Gove's decision to show duty to his principles and his country contrast with the shallowness of the 'deal' on offer
The events of recent days followed the script exactly. Recalling his facile training as a public relations man, the Prime Minister talked up a drama, put his head into the jaws of defeat, to withdraw it when the Germans told their satrapies to do what they were told. The whole nauseating performance was useful on two counts: it made Mr Cameron appear virile; and it created a distraction from the fundamental issue.
The fundamental issue, as you know, is that tens of millions of us wish to regain the right to govern ourselves – notably in the matter of immigration controls – and Mr Cameron never even asked for it: which is why his “renegotiation” was not a renegotiation at all, but a fraud on the public. The performance may obscure this for a moment, as bluster often does: but the truth will out, and has indeed been out for months.
When the Prime Minister mouths (as is his habit) the bromide “let me be clear” – he did it in his statement from Brussels on Friday – he betrays a defensiveness born of the fragility of his claims. What is “clear” is that nothing fundamental has changed. Britain does not govern itself, and will not govern itself should it choose, at the referendum, to stay in the European Union. As with any colony, its political life will be conducted at the pleasure of a foreign power. If we wish to change that, and be independent, we must vote to leave. Nothing has changed.
The carapace of triumph he presented is being shattered: not just by the missiles of sections of the press, or the sticks and stones of the Tory rank and file, but by the wrecking ball of MPs and ministers, including members of the Cabinet. Michael Gove’s decision to show duty to his principles and his country (in a statement of impeccable logic and massive moral weight), rather than remain loyal to someone whose loyalty to him has been at best selective, is moving and uplifting. It is an act of heroic political leadership of a type that comes perhaps, if we are lucky, once in a generation. It sets a tone of reality in a debate that, since Mr Cameron emerged on Friday, had seemed to be conducted in a parallel universe. And it shows Boris Johnson in a true and unedifying light, whatever he chooses to do.
Those who wish to stay in the EU must deploy arguments that came threadbare from the loom. The misinformation, fear and lies their campaign must now rest upon, in the absence of any restoration of sovereignty and democratic rights, underpinned remarks Mr Cameron made on Saturday. The scaremongering that our security and the economy would be imperilled if we left the EU began on the steps of No 10. Take his promise that we would never join the euro: it was as relevant as if he had said we would not form a federation with North Korea.
We have heard assertions of improved competitiveness since the Single European Act was passed in 1986; his claim that Britain can exercise its “influence” by agreeing to digest the scraps on offer is the oldest, and lamest, canard in the whole European debate. Then he spoke of the jobs that might be created, and the growth that might be experienced, and the red tape that would be cut: one almost had the impression he genuinely believed we had not heard it all before, after every summit in which British sovereignty has been further diminished, and forgotten what flannel and tripe it all was.
This drivel is why some cabinet ministers know that, as Enoch Powell once put it, they would have to turn all the mirrors round if they went along with it. It is why even some usually sycophantic pundits cannot reconcile themselves to it. His talk about the “reformed” European Union is where hyperbole tips into dishonesty. His claim that he has in some way ended “open borders” was an outrageous falsehood: any citizen of the other 27 countries in the EU will still be able to enter the United Kingdom at will: indeed, irrespective of temporary benefit restrictions, they will be encouraged even more to come here because of the Chancellor’s socialistic intention to raise the minimum wage.
One often finds oneself asking, about our rulers, “how stupid do they think we are?” Mr Cameron’s boasting about his “deal” suggests a distressingly unflattering answer to that question, as it Mr Osborne’s pitiful defence when interviewed by John Humprhys on Saturday’s Today programme. The insistence that they have achieved something “special”, when they have completely failed to secure the “fundamental and far-reaching change” promised before the election, is splitting the Government. It will in different proportions split the Tory party, which in parliament is overwhelmingly opposed to the EU and in the country almost entirely so.
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Unlike in 1975, when the chance to regain our democratic rights last arose, we have years of ugly experience of the lies, expense – £55m a day – corruption and wilful interference of the European Union. There are also greater proportions of the media, the political class and the country that know the EU undermines British interests, and who have had enough of the propaganda. And when the vote comes, the level of motivation for change among those who want out makes them formidable foes of the saturnine, corporatist elites who wish to stay in, and who will find it far harder to mobilise their supporters.
This is, expressly, not about party. Conservatives, Labour supporters and floating voters are now joining those in Ukip who have argued for exit for years. If this pitiful “deal” is all Europe can offer Britain then it is essentially offering nothing. Nothing will change if we stay in. Our people are not so stupid that they do not know that. We are now on the threshold of a grand moment in our history, as we were when we repealed the Corn Laws, completed the Glorious Revolution or embraced the Reformation. It is a powerful sense of destiny and responsibility that only an old and great nation can have.
Hugh Gaitskell, one of the greatest men in Labour’s history, understood this in making perhaps the finest speech of his life, pledging his party against the Common Market in 1962. “We must be clear about this,” he said. “It does mean, if this is the idea, the end of Britain as an independent European state. I make no apology for repeating it. It means the end of a thousand years of history. You may say 'Let it end’ but, my goodness, it is a decision that needs a little care and thought.”
We now have the chance to care and think again: and to resume the history of a strong, independent, free country that participates in the world, unbound from an increasingly alien superstate that has proved, beyond doubt, that its political culture and aspirations can never be ours.
UKIP's Nigel Farage On David Cameron's EU Deal Being Worth Nothing
[video=youtube;Pfq3Msgiga4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfq3Msgiga4[/video]
[video=youtube;oYrBmodQN5Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYrBmodQN5Q[/video]
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