The British government will not hold a second referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union "if the people deliver the wrong answer" in the vote expected to take place later this year, the British ambassador to Ireland has said.
Dominick Chilcott said the "strategic aim" was to keep the UK inside a reformed European Union and that proposals tabled by European Council president Donald Tusk could form the basis of a deal on the UK's demands for changes in how the union works.
He said agreement could be reached as early as next Thursday, in which case the in-out referendum could take place on June 23rd. “The government has made clear that it will be a one-shot referendum. There will be no second chance if the people deliver the wrong answer,” he told the Export Leadership Forum in Dublin on Wednesday.
In-work benefits
Of four areas in which British prime minister David Cameron has sought reforms, his attempt to limit in-work benefits for EU migrants in the UK is the most contentious. Mr Chilcott said net immigration into the UK was 330,000 people in the year to June 2015 - an all-time record and over three times the government's target. "That figure is significantly more than the population of Belfast. If that trend were to continue and other trends were to remain the same in Europe. the UK would be projected to overtake the population of Germany in about 15 years," he said.
“None of this is to deny that the vast majority of migrants work hard and pay taxes, but there is a rate of immigration above which a society cannot readily absorb all the new people joining it.” He added that at a certain point citizens found such an inward flow “unsettling”.
Mr Cameron wants to ensure that non-euro members of the EU should not be disadvantaged or lose their influence in policy areas which affect all member-states. He is also seeking changes that would make the EU more competitive and wants the UK exempted from the principle of “ever closer union”.
“There is a widespread fear in Britain that Europe is a train that only goes in one direction... We want to get off the train, essentially. We’re quite happy with the distance the train has travelled,” Mr Chilcott said.
Lukewarm affection
On the UK's lukewarm affection for the European Union, the ambassador contrasted the country's historical experience with those countries for whom the union had an "existential importance". For France, Germany of the four other original members of the then European Economic Community, faith in the European project as a peace project was "pretty much unshakeable". For Spain, Portugal and Greece, it was a salvation from and safeguard against the return to a fascist past, while central European states saw it as a way of keeping Russian influence at bay.
"For Ireland, I think EU membership, it is widely agreed, has been key to the country's modernisation and remains important not least for a mature, balanced relationship with the United Kingdom, " he said.
“As the UK was never occupied, our sense or our fear of another European war is less visceral. The European Union didn’t modernise us, it doesn’t guarantee our democracy. If anything, arguably it slightly dilutes it, since powers have been transferred from parliament in Westminster to the European Union institutions.
“So I think in Britain we do find an inherent exceptionalism. The European Union has to prove itself to the Brits on more prosaic grounds. Is it providing great opportunities for business? What benefits do individuals feel they get from membership?”
