David Cameron will be relived that his European Referendum Bill is finally on its way to Royal Assent, after weeks of threats from Labour peers. But Europe being Europe, there are a whole heap of other problems that the Prime Minister needs to contend with too. It’s not just the specific question of whether David Cameron can get any sot of reform to access to benefits for migrants that looks like he’s won a battle, but whether the overall renegotiation and its result are really sufficient to impress MPs and then voters into backing staying in the European Union.
Today’s European Scrutiny committee report on the renegotiation warns that the way the result will be presented as a ‘fait accompli’ could ‘give rise to legitimate concerns about the accountability and transparency of both the process itself and its outcome’. The committee adds that ‘we consider the approach adopted by the government to be reactive and opaque’. It also argues that Cameron cannot get the reforms he wants without treaty change, and this is impossible without a referendum. The report said that ‘we conclude that the negotiation priorities as set out by the Prime Minister will not deliver the legally binding and irreversible agreement leading to reform of the EU nor a fundamental change’.
Interestingly, europhile Damian Green tried to have this line removed from the document, but was only supported by Labour’s Geraint Davies when the committee divided, and so that comment remains.
But though Number 10 insists that treaty change doesn’t need to happen before a referendum, what does need to happen in order for the vote to go Cameron’s way (that is, to stay in the EU), is that voters and MPs feel able to trust the settlement that the Prime Minister does bring back, even if a lot of it is in IOU form.
Currently there is a small but fervent group of Tory MPs who are in favour of Brexit, and a smaller group of those who favour staying in at all costs. The rest of the parliamentary party are waiting to see what Cameron gets from his talks, though I have noticed in the past few weeks that those who are very keen to be supportive of what the Prime Minister is doing are now looking rather perturbed as they contemplate having to support a settlement that they think is rather disappointing. Cameron has won a lot of loyalty from his party in the past few months, particularly among the new intake who are grateful that he won them their seats and that they arrived in parliament to a Conservative. But will that loyalty be enough to get their support in the referendum? And as for voters, they have no loyalty, which makes it even more difficult to convince them to trust that the Prime Minister really has brought back something worth backing.
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