Cameron cave-in on EU benefits was always just a matter of time
- 9 years ago
After months of shadow-boxing over his much-vaunted EU renegotiation, David Cameron has finally been forced to face facts about the limits of British leverage when it comes to forging a new deal in Europe.
His decision to drop his most talismanic demand the manifesto commitment to make newly arrived EU workers wait four years before receiving in-work benefits comes after months of ultimately fruitless bargaining on the issue.
In the end, the opposition was as much legal as it was political indeed diplomats all across Europe have been at pains to stress that they wanted to help the UK de-incentivise our benefits system and remove labour market distortions, but just not that way.
There were other methods available many of which will now be considered but as recently as two weeks ago Mr Cameron was still demanding the right for Britain to breach the core European principle of equal treatment for all nationalities doing the same job.
His decision to drop his most talismanic demand the manifesto commitment to make newly arrived EU workers wait four years before receiving in-work benefits comes after months of ultimately fruitless bargaining on the issue.
In the end, the opposition was as much legal as it was political indeed diplomats all across Europe have been at pains to stress that they wanted to help the UK de-incentivise our benefits system and remove labour market distortions, but just not that way.
There were other methods available many of which will now be considered but as recently as two weeks ago Mr Cameron was still demanding the right for Britain to breach the core European principle of equal treatment for all nationalities doing the same job.