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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Politics
Matt Dathan

PMQs: George Osborne and Angela Eagle go head-to-head as David Cameron jets to Eastern Europe seeking support for EU reforms

George Osborne deputises for the absent David Cameron at Prime Minister's Questions and goes head-to-head with Jeremy Corbyn's deputy Angela Eagle for the first time. 

It comes as:

 

The devestating floods that have hit parts of the UK are set to dominate the session, closely followed by demands for Donald Trump to be banned from the UK after calling for Muslims to be banned from the United States. 

A petition calling for him to be barred from the UK under anti-extremism laws has nearly reached the 100,000 required for it to be considered for debate in Parliament. 

It is a week on from the decision by MPs to authorise air strikes in Syria, so expect plenty of demands for updates. 

Mr Osborne is stepping in for the Prime Minister while he visits Romania and Poland, where he continues his attempts to persuade European leaders to agree to his demands for reforming Britain's membership of the EU. 

But Mr Cameron's efforts have run into difficulty - specifically over his most contentious demand to ban EU migrants from claiming in-work benefits for four years. 

Eastern European countries are the strongest opponents of this proposal and that is why Mr Cameron has focussed his diplomatic efforts there over the last week - on Friday he travelled to Bulgaria - ahead of next week's key EU summit. 

Downing Street hopes they can thrash out the details and prepare a final renegotiation agreement to be signed at the next summit of EU leaders in February. 

In Romania, Mr Cameron will hold talks with Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos and President Klaus Iohannis before travelling to Warsaw for a working dinner with Prime Minister Beata Szydlo.

On Tuesday the Prime Minister was reminded of the tough task ahead of him, however, after meeting with Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, who warned that "some areas would be more difficult than others".

 

 

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