Good morning.

David Cameron is launching an eleventh-hour appeal to Jean-Claude Juncker, we report this morning, in the hope of saving his EU renegotiation after negotiators reached a stalemate on the issue of migration and benefits. This led to him cancelling a trip to Scandinavia in order to pencil in a meeting with the European Commission president on Friday. The Prime Minister now has less than 10 days to knock heads together otherwise he will miss his target of striking a deal at the European leaders’ summit next month, which he can then put to voters in a swift June referendum. But Britain appears to have hit a snag because of opposition from the Commission, and a sudden change of heart from Germany over a proposal to insist EU workers must earn above a threshold salary before they can claim benefits. So how are its negotiators responding?

“Right now, the Brits have nothing,” an EU diplomatic source told our man Peter Foster. “The cupboard is bare.” British diplomats have narrowed their negotiating position down to three core demands, they bare minimum it considers acceptable. They want EU workers to be denied benefits for the first six months and to have to show “self-sufficiency”, and finally (most contentious of all) for Britain to get an emergency brake to stop services being overwhelmed by migration. However, under European Commission proposals, the brake would be substantially watered down, with it taking two years to operate. Downing Street would want to use it “pretty much straight away”, a source remarked.

The migration crisis continues to weigh in on the EU. Sweden has announced its to expel up to 80,000 failed asylum seekers, and Brussels came a step closer to sealing off Greece from the Schengen free travel zone after a report found “serious deficiencies” in its border. This means Athens now has three months to get a grip on the migrant inflow. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has rejected calls for Britain to take 3,000 orphaned child refugees who have made their way to Europe. British negotiators have been playing down their chances of securing a deal next month as European leaders increasingly fret about the migration crisis, with a source saying there was only a “50-50” chance of a deal. Some may wonder if this is a game of expectations management so that any deal, no matter how fudged, seem like a triumph.

The continued chaos should provide an ideal backdrop for the Out campaign to make its case for leaving the EU (an institution Sir Bernard Ingham has said is “corrupt and ridded with fraud”). Out campaigners will no doubt seize on the proposal from a senior EU official that it could review VAT, challenging Britain’s right to waive it on things like food and medicines, and the suggestion from Europe’s human rights watchdog that children’s paper rounds should be banned as examples of meddling EU interventions. However, they seem too busy caught up fighting each other, with the Times reporting on an attempt to oust Vote Leave’s directors Dominic Cummings and Matthew Elliot. Meanwhile, David Cameron is feeling confident that he has won around Boris Johnson and Michael Gove to the In side, according to the Sun, which would deprive Outters of two big Tory beasts. If Leavers don’t get their act together, the only part of Britain to vote for Brexit will remain the London borough of Havering.

“Right now, the Brits have nothing. The cupboard is bare” EU diplomatic source

News
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Greater Commons Diversity
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Bramall Fights Back
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