11 November 2015

POLITICO: 10 takeaways on Cameron’s speech

1. The letter arrived late, the speech started late

Why this matters: Cameron was thinking hard about getting the substance and tone right, literally until the last minute. He’s good under pressure. Yet even at his best, Cameron still finds himself walking a political tightrope on this referendum. Cameron’s likely to be at permanent risk of falling off that tightrope as the renegotiation campaign continues, leaving no room for his trademark complacency. Cameron’s ongoing difficulty in accommodating all political players and groups of voters could be seen in the quality of the speech. It had the feel of a well constructed and executed first half. Having delivered most of his crucial points Cameron then tailed off into repetition and the sort of committee-style additions that tend to come from advisers, spin doctors and colleagues.

2. Insistence that he is asking for something “substantial” and “reasonable”

Why this matters: Reasonableness is usually self-evident. By having to insist you are reasonable, you’re showing that you or others doubt it. In choosing this route Cameron was risking mockery by political insiders in order to benefit from placing himself firmly in the center of the debate between Euroskeptics and Europhiles. He is asking those who admire him on other issues, and those who have doubts about leaving the EU, to stick with him in the safe center.

3. Cameron set his demands in the context of an EU facing fundamental challenges

Why it matters: His real message was to convey the inevitability of the British demands. By showing that meeting his demands are doable compared to much bigger migration and eurozone governance questions, Cameron presents his demands as reasonable. By reminding everyone of the problems facing the EU, he reminds us that if Brussels and national capitals can’t compromise to help him, they also stand little chance of confronting these bigger issues successfully. In this worldview it is therefore better for all if the U.K. gets what it wants.

4. New sleek rhetoric

Why it matters: The In campaigners have struggled to match the sharp, insurgent rhetoric of Out campaigners; with Cameron they may have finally found a convincing advocate. His top lines for insiders included that the EU “needs the flexibility of a network, not the rigidity of a bloc,” that he believes in “Europe where necessary, national where possible” and that “the answer to every problem is not always more Europe.” Cameron wants to “write competitiveness into the DNA of the EU.” If all that happens,  hand on heart, Cameron now says “I will campaign to keep Britain inside a reformed EU with all my heart and all my soul.”

5. A direct pitch to ordinary voters

Why it matters: Voters need to believe they are part of this process for the result to stick — and talk of “subsidiarity” is meaningless to most of them. When Cameron looked down the barrel of the camera and said “you have to judge what is best for you and your family. You and your children,” he knew he had his cable and nightly TV news lead quote. He rejected “ever closer union. We don’t believe in it. We don’t subscribe to it.” And his message was loud and clear: The U.K. intends to stay “proud and independent.”

6. Cameron’s straw men

Why it mattered: Cameron may want to sound collegial to other national leaders. For many Britons he still needs to prove he has won something from Brussels. An impressive list of bogeymen was lined up in order for Cameron knock them down: “fraudsters” and “sham marriages” would be migration targets. The threat of a monster called the euro pushed by a heinous club of euro-users was raised, and Cameron would stop it.

7. Green light for an EU fast-track 

Why it matters: More federalist leaning national capitals will be prepared to give something to Cameron only if they get something in return. Cameron gave the clear signal that he is ready to cut a deal so long as “Britain’s interests are protected.” With this prize, national capitals from Stockholm to Sofia can more easily tolerate any harsh rhetoric Cameron may employ in coming weeks.

8. Recent EU progress is Cameron’s progress

Why it matters: Cameron needs friends in Brussels, after spending five years alienating many leaders and officials. By praising the Commission for withdrawing more legislative proposals in 2015 than in the previous five years, he struck a conciliatory tone and drew Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans close. By reminding voters and leaders than the current EU budget is smaller than the last, he showed he can be part of — indeed a leader of — a majority in the Council that wants reform.

9. The list of four areas for reform – a bit player in the speech

Why it matters: Cameron spoke for 30 minutes before listing his four reform requests. It was evidence that this referendum will not be about the renegotiation, and the renegotiation itself is not really about the list of demands presented on Tuesday. Instead it is about generating a sense that the EU has listened to the UK and accepted that Britain can set limits to its involvement. Unless it can, Cameron won’t campaign to stay in.

10. Cameron wants to have his cake and eat it on migration

Why it matters: Migration is a powderkeg, and Cameron prefers Kafkaesque claims of securing openness through having less openness (making freedom of movement “more sustainable”) to having the issue explode. Instead of taking one side, Cameron took both. Expect him to continue praising the migrants that secure London as a global capital, and speaking in compassionate terms about “legitimate” refugees. But first and foremost he will says he “wants to restore a sense of fairness to our migration system” and that means sending people home if they do not have a job after six months, making them wait four years for welfare benefits, and implements capital controls on welfare payments so they are spent in Britain and not remitted home.

Full article in POLITICO

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