122 / 145
THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
122
very likely to be copied by other Member States.
The agreement reached by the European
Council fails to preserve the nature of the EU or
strengthen its freedoms and principles in the
highly sensitive area of the right to freedom of
movement for workers, arguably one of the
most vulnerable groups of EU citizens. Moreover,
in spite of its symbolic gesture against funda-
mental European freedoms, the agreement is
excessively technical and, as it stands, will in all
likelihood have little practical effect on the re-
sults of the referendum. From a British perspec-
tive, it makes little difference because the per-
ception of what EU membership entails and
means vastly outweighs the contents of the
agreement. The result of the referendum will
not depend on whether negotiations in Brussels
are perceived as a success or failure. The only
possible strategy –responding to the propo-
nents of Brexit with clear arguments setting out
the advantages of remaining in the EU– has
failed to materialise and perhaps it is already too
late.
Timeline and events
Although David Cameron formally proposed it
in a speech on 23 January 2013, a referendum
on membership of the EU was not part of Prime
Minister David Cameron’s initial agenda, par-
ticularly during his first term in government, in
coalition with the pro-European Liberal
Democrats. However, Cameron’s weakness with
respect to the Eurosceptic wing of the
Conservative Party led him to conclude that the
only way to manage his relationship with that
branch of the party was to call a referendum.
Even so, his initial statement was vague: “it is
time for the British people to have their say […]
it is time to settle this European question in
British politics […] when that choice comes, you
will have an important choice to make about
our country’s destiny.” This calculated ambiguity
was seen as a public admission of the weakness
of his leadership. Cameron sought to use the
referendum to put the issue to bed, at least for
a considerable period of time (as was the case
with the other referendum on Scottish inde-
pendence), to prevent future divisions in the
heart of the Conservative Party, and to bolster
its position against the threat posed by UKIP.
The strategy is at once risky and irresponsible,
since neither of the options addresses the un-
derlying problem: if the Remain camp triumphs,
it is hard to imagine the Eurosceptic ranks being
pacified; if the Leave camp wins, there will be
tragic consequences for both the UK (economi-
cally and politically, with the potential to reopen
the Scottish question) and for the EU, which al-
ready has enough problems without having to
deal with Brexit.
Cameron promised the referendum in spite
of the fact that his Liberal Democrat coalition
partners were against such a move, and in the
knowledge that making this promise constitut-
ed a public recognition of the weakness of his
leadership. We will never know if his announce-
ment of a referendum in 2013 was made from
a position of confidence or at least in the coy
expectation that the need to form a second
coalition government would protect him from
having to keep his word. However, the unex-
pected victory of the Conservatives with an ab-
solute majority in the 2015 election imposed
the scenario of the referendum and the very real
chance of Brexit. In his initial pledge, Cameron
had set the date of the referendum as 2017.
However, this failed to take into account the
fact that in 2017 the UK would hold the rotat-
ing presidency of the EU, and that it would also
coincide with elections in Germany and France,