David Cameron took his reform proposals, published by European Council President Donald Tusk on Tuesday, to the House of Commons yesterday, in an attempt to win MPs to his cause. His particular target were those Conservative and moderate eurosceptic parliamentarians, who could be swayed to support the deal and campaign for Britain to remain in the European Union.

The Prime Minister urged his MPs yesterday to consider the issue based on what’s in their hearts. He is particularly worried that Tory parliamentarians will be swayed by those eurosceptic party activists, and will decide to base their opinion on what they are bullied into, as opposed to what they actually think is right. He told the Commons on Thursday “Don’t take a view because of what your constituency association might say…or you think it might be advantageous this way or that”. This plea to his party comes as Prime Minister Cameron’s deal has been attacked on all sides from Conservative MPs, to Labour MPs, researchers and the press both traditionally eurosceptic and europhile. In Evening Standard on Thursday, it was reported that Alan Johnson, the Labour parliamentarian and former Home Secretary, said that the brake mechanism outlined in the proposals wll not have any effect whatsoever, as they didn’t target the actual “draw factor” which brings European citizens to Britain. Instead, he said that people come here, not for the benefit system, but for the higher-paying jobs and standard of living. An article in the Independent which interviewed EU migrants in the UK supported this claim; headlined “‘We don’t want benefits – no one will be deterred’ say EU migrants”, the article argued that migrants coming to the UK are not here to leach off of Britain’s benefit system, as it has been claimed. According to one of those interviewed, Maciej Dokurno from Poland, said “none of us come here to claim benefits”. Mr Dokurno works to help people into employment, and has said that the process to claim in-work benefits is complicated and migrants cannot rely on it. Another man, Greek-born Noel Smaragdakis, said “he’s trying to create this image of a bad EU-migrant that doesn’t exist”. In the Evening Standard article, former conservative Minister for Europe, David Davis, also said that the emergency brake on in-work benefits would be inconsequential. According to the ex-Minister, only 10% of EU migrants who arrive in Britain claim tax credits in the first year, and the majority of those are single and childless.

Figures from the Guardian published on Thursday seemed to support the idea that the in-work benefit argument was nonsense, saying that the emergency brake plan would only affect 84,000 people who currently reside in Britain. These figures, the paper obtained from Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), who issue national insurance numbers and record citizens’ incomes. This is in contrast to the figure provided by a No. 10 Downing Street briefing last November to The Times, which claimed that 148,000 people would be affected by the plan. Those figures were provided by the Department for Work & Pensions, and were criticised at the time by the UK statistics authority and the National Institute of Economic & Social Research for being misleading. To put the figures into perspective, it is estimated that 800,000 polish citizens currently are living in the UK, and the total number of EU citizens is just over 2 million. According to the Office of National Statistics, net migration to Britain was 336,000 last year, 42% of which were EU citizens.

Other Tory parliamentarians also lined up to take a swipe at the package the Prime Minister won on Tuesday, with names like Jacob Rees-Mogg, John Redwood, Anne Main and Sir Bill Cash all coming out with their own soundbites to criticise the planned reforms. Mr Rees-Mogg said “the thin gruel has been further watered down. You have a fortnight, I think, in which to salvage your reputation as a negotiator.” Ms Main said “this is not what the British public wants.” In fact, this may be true about conservative activists, which a recent conservative home poll put at 67% in favour of leaving the EU, however when it comes to conservative voters as a whole, the party’s support base is split 50/50 on the issue, according to an OBR poll for The Independent. An average of the last 6 polls on Brexit taken between 22nd January and 4th February, from sources including ICM, YouGov, and Ipsos Mori and presented by The Telegraph, shows that the remain side is leading with 54% of the population to 46% in favour of leaving. According to YouGov polling, every proposal put forward in the draft deal except for the “ever-closer-union” demand received over 50% support of those polled, with the issues of increased competitiveness and protections for non-eurozone members getting 72% and 69% support respectively. People do support the negotiations. This was also highlighted by Kenneth Clarke in the chamber on Thursday; the eurosceptics intense backlash to the proposed reforms a sign that eurosceptics are surprised in the concessions from Brussels and are trying to downplay the results, saying “The Prime Minister has achieved more on the big issues in this negotiation than I ever expected, and I suspect, more than the hard-line eurosceptics ever expected, which is why they are denouncing it so fiercely.”

However they are not the only ones. Not only Alan Johnson, who is the leading Labour MP in their remain campaign, but also much of the press also unleashed a broadside against the Prime Minister’s negotiation results. Headlines from The Sun (“It Stinks”), and The Daily Mail (“The Great Delusion!”) are to be expected. But that fact that pro-EU papers such as The Guardian, which published the figures proving that one of the most hard-fought proposals (the welfare brake) would be very inconsequential, and the FT, which said the “Renegotiation does not affect the Brexit case one way or the other”, calling it “a flimsy deal”, give us pause for thought. The papers are considered pro-EU and will likely support the remain campaign, yet such a battering will only undermine the importance of what Prime Minister Cameron has tried to pass of as crucial negotiations in the road to the referendum. I think this most crucially underlines the weakness of the proposals. Many have said from the beginning that they would be trivial. There is a difference however from the pro-Brexit media, who seem to be saying that the results of the negotiations aren’t good enough, and what the FT is trying to argue, which is that they are unimportant. I took that line from early on; these were by no means going to persuade convinced eurosceptics, and frankly there will be much stronger arguments to convince those still on the fence. What needs to be taken from this is that the negotiations’ results themselves are not especially defensible. If Mr Cameron does get this deal signed later this month, he won’t be coming back to Britain waving the papers in his hands telling us all “peace in our time”.

Meanwhile in Strasbourg, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker also spent Thursday convincing the European parliamentarians that this was a deal worth backing. President Juncker told the chamber “We have addressed the Prime Minister’s concerns while respecting the treaties”, and that the proposals were “fair for the UK and fair for the other 27 member-states”. It’s worth noting that the European Parliament will also have to approve certain aspects of the proposals, however this has been taken largely as a given, by President Juncker in particular himself “Apart from the UKIP representatives and the other political parties on the extreme wings of this house, all members of all political parties have pleaded to keep the UK in the EU.” Mr Juncker’s own group in the chamber, the European People’s Party (EPP) supported the proposals, with its leader in the chamber, German parliamentarian Manfred Weber saying “We want the UK to stay in the EU and for the people of the UK to be convinced it is better to stay.” Meanwhile, the European liberal ALDE party leader, Guy Verhofstadt, told the chamber that the UK would geopolitically be a “dwarf”, and has in the past declared that only Vladimir Putin would benefit from a Brexit because “Putin likes a divided Europe”. The Belgian parliamentarian has vowed to come to Britain and debate Nigel Farage during the elections campaign on why Britain should remain in the EU. In other news, the British Prime Minister today announced that he would go to the European Parliament on 16th February to speak to the Conference of Presidents on his reform proposals for the EU, outlined on Tuesday. This was confirmed after the President of the Parliament, Martin Schulz, requested in person the Prime Minister do so on Thursday. This means he will not speak before the chamber, which has reduced the importance of the gesture in the eyes of some MEPs. The Prime Minister also intends to conduct talks with his counter parts in other parts of Europe; yesterday he held talks on the sidelines of the London summit on Syria with the Greek, Swedish, Belgian & Slovakian Prime Ministers, as well as the German Chancellor. Today he plans to fly to Warsaw and Copenhagen to begin his final round of diplomacy before the February summit on the 18th.

Sources: The Guardian, FT, POLITICO, The Independent, The Evening Standard