Douglas Carswell

Dave's New Deal is a dud

So there it is. The Prime Minister's grand new plan to redefine our unhappy relationship with the European Union.

Except it's not so new, is it?

First, the PM says we need binding safeguards so that the block of 19 Eurozone countries cannot out vote the rest. Good luck with that. If 19 of 28 are in a common currency, the Euroblock will have a massive gravitational pull. It is in the nature of power that they will exert that gravitational pull. The only way not to be subject to rules written and rigged against us is to leave.

Mr. Cameron talked a lot about improving EU competitiveness. Just like Tony Blair did circa 2000-2001.

For all his talk about deregulation and scrapping rules, he also talks about the need to "deepen the single market" for services. You cannot have both. If we extend the single market rule making, we smother more sectors of the economy under job-destroying red tape. If you doubt me, look at the destructive impact of the EU's VAT rules on small Internet businesses.

Then the PM talked about public disillusionment with the EU. Rather comically, he seems under the impression that removing the words "ever-closer union" will fix the problem.

He can change the preamble to whatever treaty he likes, the acquis communautaire will still apply, and as a result European court rulings will continue to rule in favour of more Europe. The ratchet will keep turning. The PM, I'm sure, knows this, yet he chooses to pretend that amending the preamble to the treaties is a solution.

Then Dave outlined his idea of national parliaments being able to veto EU rules. If enough national legislatures got together, they could force a rethink. Sounds good, eh? Except it would formalise the subjugation of our parliamentary system. Looked at the other way, it would mean that those we elect would be conceding that they could not decide things without the permission of other European institutions.

Far from sorting out the issue of our self-government, it would recognise its demise.

Perhaps the saddest thing about Dave's New Deal is the idea that it boils down to in-work benefit claims. If the PM really thinks that paying people who happen to live in Warsaw differently to those who happen to live in Walsall will resolve our EU problems, his New Deal is going nowhere.

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