15/11/2014
No sooner have we seen reports of
John Major's speech in Berlin beseeching the "colleagues" to tighten up controls on freedom of movement, then we have Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Charlie Flanagan (pictured above), in London,
warning that it is virtually inconceivable that David Cameron will achieve changes to the rules.
Yet it doesn't seem to matter how many times Mr Cameron is told this. It doesn't seem to matter that no end of
Commission officials have told him that freedom of movement is "
non negotiable", or that Angela Merkel has even said that she would sooner see the UK leave the EU than change the rules.
And now we have Charlie Flanagan telling a meeting organised by the European Council on Foreign Relations that he "cannot conceive of any situation in which such limitations would find the necessary political support around the table".
"To try and place any general limitations" on freedom of movement would, in his view, "strike at the very basic principle upon which the union was founded", the
Irish Times records Flanagan saying, leaving not the slightest of wriggle room for the British prime minister.
The remarkable situation now represents one of the most bizarre enigmas of modern politics. A prime minister is quite deliberately pursuing a policy line which is not only impossible to achieve but is one which he has been repeatedly told is impossible to achieve.
Despite this, Cameron
applauds, John Major's misplaced endeavour, congratulating him for telling the "colleagues that there is a need "⦠to address Britain's concerns about immigration inside the EU".
The enigma, though, is magnified by "senior Conservatives" who
believe that the only way to confront the "existential threat" posed by Nigel Farage and Ukip is to take an increasingly hard line on immigration and EU reform.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond declares that, "we have to be prepared" to leave the EU if reforms to the immigration system are resisted. "We're in the beginning stages of a negotiation and â first of all, never, never go into any negotiation unless you're prepared to stand up from the table and walk away", he says. "We have to be prepared to. In this case it isn't even our decision because there's going to be a referendum at the end of this process".
As this craziness continues, immigration is set to continue as a festering political sore. But it also represents a battle that the prime minister and his party allies cannot possibly win. They cannot prevail against the "colleagues" so - in the longer term - nothing but humiliation beckons. In the shorter term, though, Cameron's one saving grace is that the issue is unlikely to come to a head by May next. This means that it will still be part of the gameplay if the Conservatives win the general election.
It will then dominate any referendum campaign, undoubtedly becoming the centrepiece of the new prime minister's showcase "renegotiations". And it is at that point, barring a miracle (for Cameron), that the strategy will collapse. The new prime minister will be turning up with empty hands, asking voters to back an unreformed EU.
On the face of it, that presents the anti-EU movement with a win-win situation. An EU which bluntly refuses to concede any points is not one which is going to attract the unalloyed support of a majority of voters in a referendum. Its very obduracy is opening the way for the UK reserve a space in the departure lounge.
The only way this might work out different is that if UKIP overplays its hand â which is always a possibility. There are
far more people concerned about migration than are prepared to support UKIP. The disparity would support anecdotal evidence that some voters are repelled by UKIP's "extremism", which even seems to have
Godfrey Bloom crying foul.
This, on the face of it, points up Cameron's appalling strategy. Given that he was on top of his brief, he could introduce sufficient measures to contain the immigration problem without having to go cap in hand to the "colleagues", asking for their assistance. He could thus satisfy the majority of those concerned about immigration, thus neutralising UKIP without putting himself at risk of rejection from those uncooperative colleagues.
But this is not the full extent of it. UKIP is rejecting freedom of movement in its entirety, under any circumstances. It is thus
sacrificing market access rather than accept any EEA membership, which means that the party is balancing one voter preference against another. Yet, where every vote might count, logic suggests that it would be unwise ask voters to make a choice. Tactically, it would be better to offer market access
and engineer better (or sufficient) control over immigration.
It might also be better if all parties took a more nuanced approach to migration. The public does not look at all migrants in the same way. Greatest hostility
is registered against low-skilled labour migrants, extended family members, and asylum seekers. Two of those categories lie with the ECHR rather than the EU, giving the opportunity to reduce the opposition to migration, without relying wholly on containing E-mandated migrants.
Dealing with such issues is, in my view, going to be the defining feature of the referendum campaign. That means the result will not be decided entirely by the straight playoff between the opposing sides. It will also be affected by the balance between Mr Cameron' incompetence and UKIP's tactical inflexibility. Which side wins will depend on whether Cameron or UKIP loses more votes.
This is why the interplay between UKIP and the Conservatives is so important. Labour and the Lib-Dems are known quantities - as indeed is the Europhile rump of the Tory party. We expect their opposition and can deal with it. But the damage UKIP and the Tories can do is more subtle and more difficult to counter. But either can lose us the referendum.
In such matters, it is often "friends" who do more harm than enemies. On news of the fall of France, a tugboat captain returning from Dunkirk in 1940 reputedly exulted, "no more bloody allies!". His words might be even more relevant now. In any "in-out" referendum, our enemies could damage us, but our "allies" could lose us the war.
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