Afternoon summary
- Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, has said there should be “no taboos” when EU leaders discuss David Cameron’s renegotiation demands at dinner on Thursday night. (See 3.28pm.)
- Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, is going to address the party of European Socialists in Brussels on Thursday, it has been revealed. It is expected that he will set out alternative ideas for EU reform.
We are delighted to welcome @jeremycorbyn to our pre #EUCO meeting this Thursday for the first time. pic.twitter.com/riOraArLJj
— PES (@PES_PSE) December 15, 2015
- The Labour MP Frank Field has used the 10-minute rule procedure to propose a bill forcing council to identify and register all children eligible for free school meals. In the Commons he said there are “160,000 children who are eligible for free school dinners but for some reason don’t claim”. He said the reasons for this were “moderately complicated to unravel”, but they included “uncertain” employment patterns, problems with benefits and some families leading “chaotic lives”.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Tusk says there should be 'no taboos' when EU leaders debate Cameron's renegotiation demands
Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, has issued his “invitation letter” ahead of this week’s EU summit.
In it, he says EU leaders need to have a serious debate “with no taboos” about Britain’s renegotiation demands because the stakes are so high.
During dinner we will discuss the UK issue, to see if we can pave the way for an agreement in February. As I set out in my letter, we have achieved significant progress in negotiations; however we are still far from an agreement on several topics. This Thursday we will need to focus especially on the most controversial ones. The stakes are so high that we cannot escape a serious debate with no taboos.
That implies that the possibility of some sort of curbs on free movement should be on the agenda. That will be welcomed by David Cameron, who wants the UK to be allowed to impose restrictions on the in-work benefits EU migrants can claim that would in practice be seen as an interference with the principle of free movement.
Here’s an afternoon reading list.
For now we remain in legal limbo as we wait to find out whether Uber will itself face its own great ‘disruption’ (to use their favoured phrase) in the form of a verdict forcing it to comply with UK workplace rights. Paying the minimum wage in full, together with becoming liable for employer’s NICs, pension contributions, and other employer responsibilities, would severely challenge the business model of many nascent on-demand enterprises.
All of which means we suggests that, like the US, we should be thrashing these issues out. Might it be possible to craft forms of protection that give greater security to so-called gig workers without destroying innovative and popular features of these new business models? Or would any gains to those potentially misclassified as self-employed be outweighed by the risk that larger numbers of other workers, in traditional sectors, get shunted into a new, less protected employment status? Ill-judged reform could mean more levelling down than up.
Today the gig economy is smaller than the hype would suggest. It remains in its infancy. But as it matures out of its noisy, insurgent phase it needs to find a better accommodation with the workforce that powers it.
The assumption that the next Tory leader will have backed Remain is questionable. It can be argued that, since the bulk of the voluntary party is apparently for leaving the EU, Cameron’s successor must take that stance too. I am not at all sure that I buy this, but it is possible that the Mayor may come to do so.
I learned a big lesson from the Corbyn campaign. I saw how enthusiasm for his directness overwhelmed every ‘moderate’ candidate. Sometimes dissenting principle is more admirable than loyal ambiguity.
My dissenting principles mean I can’t support Jeremy Corbyn being Prime Minister.
I believe Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership is a repudiation of the best of my party, not an echo of it.
No Labour purpose is served by exchanging the social reformism of Griffiths, Morrison, Addison and Harman for the arid slogans of John McDonnell.
No Labour principle is improved by abandoning the popular radicalism of Young, Castle, Crosland and Blair for the impossibilist conservatism of Jeremy Corbyn.
Two protesters from Vote Leave, the group campaign for Britain to leave the EU, disrupted the CBI’s conference last month when David Cameron was speaking. It was one of several steps Vote Leave has taken to try to discredit the CBI over its pro-Europeanism.
Today Carolyn Fairbairn, the CBI’s new director general, has hit back with a lengthy open letter to Vote Leave defending the CBI’s stance on Europe and challenging Vote Leave to explain its own position. Here’s an extract.
We would invite you to address some of the legitimate questions around what leaving the EU could mean for the UK economy. In particular:
- What would an alternative to EU membership would look like, and how this alternative would safeguard future UK growth and prosperity?
- How could businesses and employees be reassured that departure would not have an adverse impact on UK jobs and living standards?
- How long might the process of disengagement be expected to take, and how the impact of uncertainty on investment might be mitigated?
We would be happy to engage with you and your team to evaluate your answers to these questions and to test and debate them with our members through our ongoing consultation process.
Lunchtime summary
- The Commons procedure committee has recommended an end to the procedure whereby the name of any MP arrested by police is automatically published in a Commons document. MPs should have the right to keep the fact of their arrest secret, like other citizens, the committee says.
- Public sector debt in Scotland has mushroomed to record levels after an SNP government spending spree funded by billions of pounds’ worth of borrowing from pension funds, international banks and the Treasury. As Severin Carrell reports, an investigation by the Guardian has found that total borrowing to build schools, roads, railway stations, colleges and hospitals under the devolved government could reach £50bn by the end of the decade, putting a heavy strain on the public finances.The scale of the debt, which dwarfs Holyrood’s annual budget of £30bn, has never been set out by ministers or investigated by the Scottish parliament. It has led to calls by Scotland’s auditor general, Caroline Gardner, and opposition parties for greater openness over public finances.
- The Labour party has been fined almost £2,000 by the Electoral Commission for making late payments in relation to its 2014 European election campaign. Labour is appealing against the fine.
Here are the main points from the Number 10 lobby briefing.
- Plans to curb the powers of the House of Lords are due to be published before Christmas. David Cameron asked Lord Strathclyde to carry out a review after peers voted down the government’s tax credit cuts, and Lady Stowell, the leader of the Lords, told cabinet that this would be published before parliament rises. (The Commons rises on Thursday, but the Lords does not rise until next Tuesday, and so it may not come until next week.) The prime minister’s spokewoman said that the government wanted to safeguard the “decisive role of the elected House of Commons” in passing legislation. Strathclyde is expected to say the Lords should lose the power to block items of secondary legislation. The government will respond to the Strathclyde recommendations in the new year.
- Cameron told the cabinet that the passing of the EU referendum bill yesterday was an “important moment” that delivered on the government’s manifesto promise to give the public a say on Britain’s membership of the EU.
- At cabinet there were also presentations from Cameron on his plans for the EU summit later this week, from Nicky Morgan, the education secretary and equalities minister, on equalities and from Amber Rudd, the energy secretary, on the Paris climate change talks.
In the comments BTL albabarra asks what the Welsh think about Brexit.
Ever one to please, I can recommend this post by Roger Scully for the LSE Brexit Vote blog. He quotes the latest figures for Wales and says, generally, the Welsh are less Eurosceptic than the English, but more Eurosceptic than the Scots. Here’s an excerpt.
There has generally been a pattern in EU referendum polling that Scotland tends to be the most pro-Remain nation within the UK (or at least GB; the few polls on the subject in Northern Ireland have also shown clear margins in favour of Remain), and England the most likely to support a Leave position; Wales tends to be somewhat between Scotland and England, although closer to England. These figures are not inconsistent with that general pattern, and with the broad though modest drift in the direction of Leave in most recent polling across Britain.
I’m off to the Number 10 lobby briefing now. I will post again after 12.30pm.
One problem with polling whether people intend to vote to leave or remain in the EU is the existence of a huge unknown: the outcome of David Cameron’s renegotiation.
Pro-Europeans have long consoled themselves with the knowledge that, although the polls currently suggest that In and Out are relatively close, they also show there is a much bigger lead In lead if people are asked how they would vote in the event of Cameron recommending that Britain should remain following a significant renegotation of the terms of membership.
But, with Cameron’s renegotiation stumbling, it looks as if the pro-Europeans can not long rely on this renegotiation bonus.
One of the most interesting findings in the ICM poll (see 9.05am) is the figure showing that if Cameron fails to achieve any progress on free movement, the Out vote goes up. It rises to 53% for leave, and 47% for remain (excluding don’t knows), from 50% each.
YouGov have looked at this in more detail in their polling and Stephan Shakespeare wrote it up in a blog last week. He says that the success or failure of the renegotiation will be a factor, but that a successful renegotiation would do more to suppress the Out vote than an unsuccessful one would do to increase it. Here are the key figures.
Another set of questions found illustrates the same point in a different way. This is from Shakespeare’s blog.
We randomly split the sample of 4317 into two samples. The first sample were given a very negative scenario: “Imagine that David Cameron is unable to secure a good deal in his renegotiations and that many senior political figures back calls for Britain to leave the EU. Business figures are split, but assure the public that they are committed to investing in Britain whatever the result of the referendum. Other European Union leaders say they would respect Britain’s decision if we voted to leave, and would be willing to negotiate an alternative trade deal.”. Under these conditions, people tell us, they would vote 32% say they would vote to ‘remain’ v 44% to ‘leave’.
The other split sample was given a very positive scenario: “Imagine that David Cameron manages to sign a good deal in his renegotiations and that he and the leaders of all the main parties recommend that Britain votes to remain in the EU. Most business leaders back Britain staying, and several large employers announce plans to move operations to mainland Europe should Britain vote to leave. The European Union itself makes clear it would like Britain to stay, and there would be no option of the free trade deal if Britain did leave the EU.” Under these conditions, people tell us, they would vote 49% ‘remain’ v 25% ‘leave’.
I’ve been slightly mystified this morning by the amount of interest in that British chap heading into space. But lots of people are following it avidly, including, it seems, David Cameron.
It was great to watch Tim Peake blast off on his mission to join the International Space Station. pic.twitter.com/pqAw0ETuok
— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) December 15, 2015
Ladbrokes estimates the chances of Britain voting to leave the EU is now 40%.
Brexit chances rise to new high of 40%, according to Ladbrokes' latest odds. https://t.co/dPjy3S2cqw pic.twitter.com/OSh9ZJ80NE
— Ladbrokes Politics (@LadPolitics) December 15, 2015
Here are two columns from today’s papers on David Cameron’s EU renegotiation that are worth reading.
So far it is the Tory Eurosceptics who have given Mr Cameron the most trouble. Yesterday Owen Paterson, the former environment secretary, described the negotiations as “froth and nonsense”. But there is a sense of growing frustration among pro-Europeans too. Privately they warn that Mr Cameron is gambling with the country’s future by talking up the problems in Europe, rather than starting to set out the positive case for Britain remaining in the EU. Last week, they point out, it was left to the home secretary, Theresa May, to argue the merits of joining a scheme to share police DNA and fingerprint databases to solve crimes across Europe — a policy that could help convince the public of the benefits of co-operation, in the wake of the Paris attacks.
One senior Tory says: “The biggest error was to phone businesses last summer and tell them not to speak out in favour of the EU. By trying to keep everyone happy David Cameron has managed to annoy all sides.”
According to a minister, George Osborne’s approach of arguing in favour of remaining in the EU “from a Eurosceptic point of view” is fatally flawed. “If you tell everyone your opponents are right they will vote for your opponents,” he says. “When we come to building the referendum campaign we haven’t laid any foundations. It’s going to be built on sand. It may stand up but we just don’t know.”
The crash, the parliamentary expenses scandal and the popular turn against immigration have drained all confidence from the establishment, which has slumped from irrational exuberance to the vigilance of hypochondriacs in under a decade. Whether they deserve to or not, they should relax. Anti-establishment politics is a paper tiger. Britons vent in local and European elections but, when they have to choose a government or settle an existential question in a referendum, they vote with colder blood than we credit. Their livelihoods are at stake in a way the livelihoods of mobile, resilient elites seldom are.
There is something else — nearer to aesthetic taste than risk calculation. Britons dislike the establishment but not as much as they dislike people who rant about the establishment. Withholding trust from MPs and fat cats is only natural; defining your worldview against them smells too much like zealotry ...
Mr Cameron could not be more of an establishment man if he wore a crown to work, but voters take him seriously. The Leavers would learn from that if the sheer sport of acting the rebel were not so much fun. Britons are not lucky in their elites, but the elites are lucky in their enemies.
Political Betting’s Mike Smithson has a round-up of latest EU referendum polling.
REVISED Latest #EUref polling pic.twitter.com/UIioYJyhPM
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 15, 2015
Inflation rises to 0.1%
Here is the latest inflation figure.
- The rate of consumer price index (CPI) inflation rose to 0.1% in November from
minus 0.1% in October.
Here is the Office for National Statistics summary. And here is the statistical bulletin with the full details (pdf).
The EU referendum bill cleared its final parliamentary hurdle last night and is about to become law, and David Cameron’s EU renegotiation will be the focus of an EU summit later this week. We’re edging closer to decision time on whether or not Britain remains in the EU. And for Cameron, who wants to the UK to stay in a reformed EU, two polls today bring bad news.
An ICM poll for Vote Leave, the most prominent Out campaign, suggests that Britons are split 50/50 between In and Out, and that if Cameron fails to achieve changes to the EU’s free movement rules, the Outs take a six-point lead. Here is an extract from Vote Leave’s news release.
A new poll by ICM has the EU referendum campaigns neck and neck on 50% each (excluding don’t knows), giving the Vote Leave campaign its highest rating from ICM since 2013.
Significantly, the poll finds that unless David Cameron secures changes to EU free movement of people rules during his renegotiation, the number of voters backing the leave campaign increases to 53% against 47% backing remain (excluding don’t knows).
This shows that unless the Prime Minister gets fundamental reform he will find it difficult to persuade the country to back the ‘remain’ campaign.
ICM also asked voters how enthusiastic they are about the prospect of the EU referendum. Voters who were most enthusiastic back leave by 65% to 35% (excluding don’t knows). This suggests that people backing the Vote Leave campaign might be more likely to vote in the referendum and to encourage their friends and family to do likewise.
Here are the ICM figures. And the story has made the Telegraph splash.
Tuesday's Telegraph front page: Voters head for the Brexit #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/xTf4IFDZOh
— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) December 14, 2015
And another poll by Survation suggests that those wanting to leave are already narrowly ahead. The Daily Express has splashed on the figures, and here’s an extract from its story.
The Survation internet poll was commissioned by Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe, a group of anti-EU parties, including Ukip, in the European Parliament.
Yasmine Dehaene, the alliance’s executive director, said: “The chance that the British people will vote to leave is now at an all-time high.”
The poll, carried out on December 3, found 42 per cent of voters quizzed wanted to leave the EU, 40 per cent wanted the country to remain in the EU and 18 per cent were undecided.
With the undecided voters left out of the total, 51 per cent wanted to leave while 49 per cent wanted to stay.
Tuesday's Daily Express front page: Britain 'to quit' EU over migrants #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/3NzyPZmUZc
— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) December 14, 2015
Since the general election the Guardian and others have been wary of taking polls too seriously (because it emerged that they were all fundamentally wrong about the gap between the Conservatives and Labour, even though they got others aspects of the election right.) But we are yet to find a better way of measuring public opinion, and so it would be foolish to ignore them altogether.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Inflation figures are published for November.
9.45am: Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, gives evidence to the Commons justice committee about the Crown Prosecution Service.
10am: Lady Ashton, the former European commissioner, gives evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee about the costs and benefits of EU membership.
12pm: Number 10 lobby briefing.
3.20pm: Nicky Morgan, the education secretary and equalities minister, gives evidence to a House of Lords committee about the Equality Act.
As usual, I will also be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on@AndrewSparrow.
