The referendum has weakened Cameron’s hand in Europe

The In/Out vote has generated bewildered mistrust both on the Continent and within his own party

David Cameron is on course to win his EU referendum (Getty)

There is nothing especially unusual about David Cameron’s attempts to renegotiate the UK’s membership of the EU. Countries are renegotiating most of the time. The EU changes often. Countries join, countries seek to join and one – the UK – contemplates departure on a regular basis. Some countries share a single currency; some do not. Treaties are sweated over – new agreements in which countries play their hands to secure what they want.

The only difference with Cameron’s current attempts to get what he wants is they will end with an In/Out referendum. On one level the sequence is absurd, a rhapsody in silliness to compete with the best Monty Python sketches. There is Cameron and his entourage betting everything on getting a deal that might prevent some immigrants from claiming benefits, a tiny issue for the UK and an even tinier one for the rest of the EU as it grapples with the apocalyptic migrant crisis. No doubt when British voters are asked if they oppose immigrants claiming benefits they will declare in large numbers that they do. But this has never been an overwhelming concern even for Eurosceptics more bothered about immigrants apparently coming to the UK to take the jobs of the indigenous population, rather than claiming for not taking the jobs.

Still, Cameron will get some concessions in this narrow area because he has to do so having made such a fuss about it. Then he will pose the question to the electorate: In or Out? It is the equivalent of buying a packet of peanuts at a supermarket and deciding on that basis whether to shop there ever again.

Not that the renegotiation will play a significant part in the referendum. As the former cabinet minister Alan Johnson put it at the weekend, being a member of the EU is part of a continuing process and not the consequence of a single frenzied negotiation during the dark winter days of this year and next.

Johnson is spearheading Labour’s campaign to stay in and will no doubt put forward different reforms he would like to see. His party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, will also have ideas although they will not necessarily be the same. The themes of the referendum will be both bigger and smaller than the package that Cameron will return with at some point over the next few months, bigger in the sense that they will include where the UK stands in the world, smaller because much of the campaign will be based on fantasy fears and hopes.

Cameron’s negotiation, like his decision to call a referendum in the first place, matters almost entirely in relation to the internal politics of his party. Mischievously or sincerely, big Tory party figures (and some who are not so big) claim to be awaiting the outcome of the Prime Minister’s negotiations before deciding their position. Two potential candidates in the forthcoming Conservative leadership contest, Theresa May and Boris Johnson, will say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when Cameron has concluded his nightmarish discussions. The likes of Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Gove have declared they would leave under the current terms of the UK’s membership but stand ready to change their minds once Cameron has waved his wand. Soon after the Prime Minister returns from this week’s summit of EU leaders he will deliver a statement in the Commons. The Conservative benches will be packed with MPs ready to ask him in various ways what is going wrong or perhaps right so far with his negotiation. Cameron needs some ammunition for dealing with his MPs. The country can wait.

He will not get much ammunition, partly because the prospect of an In/Out referendum generates bewildered mistrust on the two sides that Cameron must woo. In Europe, Merkel wonders how much capital she should use to help the UK’s renegotiation when it is still possible that at the end of the sequence the country might vote to leave. Other countries with more to lose from the UK’s demands are even less sure. In some respects Cameron would have more chance of prevailing if there were not a make or break referendum at the end of the sequence. It is the referendum and not the substance of his negotiation that fuels most uncertainty.

Yet on the other side, senior Tories wonder why Cameron is not trying harder for a genuinely fundamental renegotiation given that he has leverage in the form of the UK’s possible withdrawal. A significant number of Tory MPs, including some cabinet ministers, want Cameron to aim much higher.

As a result of this painful contortion, Cameron is accused from left and right of misjudging the negotiation. This is not the case. There is nothing he could have done to woo those countries he is negotiating with and, at the same time, convince his Conservative MPs that he is delivering significant reform. There is a strong case for more substantial reforms of the EU than the ones Cameron is proposing. Some of the changes will probably happen over time, closer integration of Euro countries, further reviews of what the EU should be doing and not be doing and perhaps new, rigid border controls within the EU. They do not fit into a timetable for a UK referendum. The referendum is both a diversion from bigger issues and yet potentially tumultuous.

Given the division in his party and the genuine threat from Ukip before the election, Cameron had no choice but to offer the plebiscite he did not want to hold. There is no point arguing he should not have offered one. Leaders only pledge referendums when they are too weak not to do so. They never make the offer out of a sudden hunger for direct democracy. He plans one on the basis of a re-negotiation largely of practical irrelevance to the EU and to the UK, the best he can get for now but not good enough for some in his party. This is not the most propitious way of triggering a campaign over which no leader will have much control.