Tory MPs launch a bitter attack on David Cameron's EU reforms plan, Jacob Rees-Mogg says the plans are 'pretty thin gruel', it is time to abandon his European adventure and go back to the drawing board, he can’t sell reforms for Britain in Europe, he needs to come up with a plan to fix the EU, a good start, an EU internal immigration policy

Dear All

When David Cameron said he would do a renegotiation process in the EU, I was highly sceptical that any talks wouldn’t be meaningful at all. If he was lucky, he would get a few concessions on areas that weren’t important.

On the major reforms needed, he wouldn’t make any real headway because of resistance to change.

The EU has potential, but like any potential, it is being squandered in that the real major reforms aren’t being discussed. It took a major crisis to get movement on the idea of an EU wide border force, the details still to be worked out.

A small shift towards what is needed, the EU internal migration policy but the flames of that idea are on a low peep at present, yet again.

David Cameron can’t sort out the British issues unless he tackles the entire EU project, he wants restricting benefits for migrants at the heart of his demands for European Union reform.

This wouldn’t work, might be illegal and is piecemeal, can you see what I mean, he is looking at the ‘peas’ and not concentrating on the ‘steak’. A bit of this, a bit of that all lumped together to pass on a botched job to the British public to vote to stay in and in reality, it is poor fare at best.

Other demands which aren’t fleshed out to the public are the UK should also be exempted from the commitment to "ever-closer union", get protection from eurozone integration and see improvements in competitiveness.

This is talk for the sake of talk, down at the ground floor people want control of the UK borders to be determined by the UK. The EU internal immigration programme could be the mechanism which successfully bridges the gap between what Britain wants and what the EU says it must do.

David Cameron sent a six-page letter to European Council president Donald Tusk spelling out his renegotiation checklist. Although six pages do sound a lot, you will probably find that some of the proposals wouldn’t see the light of day, let alone get a proper airing! This Europe adventure has one purpose, to try and get a British support to stay, and present David Cameron as having wrestled ‘control’ back to Britain.

His idea of a four year ban on access to welfare benefits for EU citizens isn’t workable, it is ‘populist’ to try and solve domestic problems but doesn’t stack up, he might as well be asking for a Yes vote based on failure to achieve any of his objectives. I am sure David Cameron wants to stay in the EU but he has his hands tied, and the Franco/German alliance isn’t minded to dance to his tune. Even other member states don’t wish to back his ideas because the concept is anti EU in nature, the real agenda should be change the EU.

Not just change for Britain.

Martin Schulz, the hugely powerful president of the European Parliament, says he thinks David Cameron's plan to restrict migrant benefits could be illegal. I would agree, the other side of the coin is tit for tat measures against British citizens.

How does that help?

Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg hits the nail on the head when he described David Cameron's EU reform plans as "pretty thin gruel".

And without the milk either to get it down!

Fellow Tory MP Peter Lilley told the Commons that changing the wording on an "ever closer union" would make little difference, and he is right, it is talk for the sake of talk, and unhelpful talk at that, what does the Prime Minister actually mean, maybe someone is working that out for him, because it just gassing.

Conservative MP David Nuttall said that David Cameron's letter failed to show any plan to regain control of immigration, fishing or the farming industry.

The key word in that sentence is immigration, and this issue will continue to grow until the UK gets back full border control.

Simply put the EU is too large now standing at 28 member states, there must be an EU internal immigration policy put in place.

Bernard Jenkin, another Conservative, asked: "Is that it? Is that the sum total of the government’s position in this renegotiation?"

I expect nothing of substance, and it seems that George Laird is right again, you can’t present failure as success and expect the public to swallow it.

I would entirely scrap the adventure that David Cameron is on, it has ran its course, doesn’t work and will collect bad PR the longer it goes on.

Angela Merkel says British demands are difficult but we can resolve them, this is from the woman who plunged Europe into the greatest crisis since WW2, I am not buying it and I am a supporter of the EU which is becoming increasingly difficult to be in this climate.

David Cameron needs to deliver real reform, his trouble is that he needs an EU wide approach and he can’t get that conversation started.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University