David Cameron was ambushed over Europe today as Tory MPs joined with Labour to press him to demand a real-terms cut in the European Union budget.
Conservative backbenchers tabled an amendment in the Commons seeking to force him into a bitter row over “profligate” plans for an inflationary new budget.
Labour’s shadow chancellor Ed Balls and foreign affairs spokesman Douglas Alexander also called for a cut, in an article timed to coincide with the amendment, leaving the Prime Minister in danger of losing a vote on Wednesday.
The EU is considering calls for a five per cent budget increase from 2014 to 2020 that would cost Britain about £13 billion a year in raised contributions, an amount equivalent to spending on child benefit.
Conservative MP Mark Pritchard, one of the architects of the rebel amendment, said: “It beggars belief that, at a time of restraint at home, the Government is caving in to the EU’s demand for an increase in the EU budget. The Prime Minister should veto any inflation increase demand and seek a real-terms decrease from an EU that is wasteful, inefficient and profligate.”
Mr Cameron has long called for a freeze in the budget. However, he recently made clear he would settle for a “real-terms freeze”, that is, in line with inflation which is currently running at two per cent, rather than a cash freeze.
It comes a year after 81 Tory MPs rebelled on a motion calling for a referendum on the European Union — one of the biggest rebellions ever. If Tories and Labour combine in the vote, Mr Cameron could end up agreeing a deal with Germany and France that goes against his own Parliament.
Mr Balls and Mr Alexander used an article in The Times to argue the 27 member states must embrace the
austere conditions. “Every country across Europe, including Britain, is having to make difficult decisions about spending — trying to do better with less,” they wrote. “And the European Union is not — and should not be — exempt from this challenge.”
But they claimed Mr Cameron’s strained relations in Europe left him in a weak position.
“As a result of David Cameron’s behaviour, those we used to call friends now ridicule the Prime Minister in meetings, shut him out of negotiations and bad-mouth him to the press,” they added.
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The Prime Minister’s office dug in its heels and said it would go into the negotiations pushing for “a real-terms freeze”, allowing for a rise in line with prices. Tory loyalists pointed out that Mr Cameron stopped plans for a massive seven per cent increase by forming an alliance with other leaders, including German chancellor Angela Merkel, based on an agreement to back a rise in line with inflation.
“Our position is a real-terms freeze,” said the Prime Minister’s official spokesman.
