All Out War: The Full Story of How Brexit Sank Britain’s Political Class. Tim Shipman
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desk’ and a staging a walkout as ‘huff and fury without any substance to it’. For his part, Cameron wanted to get the referendum out of the way, fearing his chances a year later would be impaired by mid-term unpopularity, protest votes and a fresh wave of migrants. Andrew Cooper remembers, ‘The big fear was another summer of migration issues dominating the news. The polls said that the previous summer had brought a 5 per cent swing from Remain to Leave, and we couldn’t afford another 5 per cent swing.’ He adds, ‘The problem was, they had exhaustively established that this was as good as they were going to get.’
David Cameron began the final battle for his deal at 2.20 p.m. on Thursday, 18 February when he arrived on the red carpet outside the Justus Lipsius Building, telling reporters he was there to ‘battle for Britain’. At 5.10 p.m., armed only with a red ring-binder of notes, he strode into the summit room on the eighth floor and faced his fellow leaders. After half an hour of small talk they posed for the traditional group photograph, and then had two hours of ‘tense’ talks. It was immediately obvious that it was going to be harder going than Cameron had hoped. He stressed that what he was after were just ‘modest’ requests which had already ‘been badly received’ at home and could not be ‘watered down any further’. ‘This is already a compromise on a compromise,’ he said. ‘I am not asking for anything impossible.’5
François Hollande was having none of it. With a vehemence that shocked Downing Street, the French premier went to war over the protections for non-eurozone countries, saying there could be no ‘British veto’ on eurozone policies. French officials had given no indication of the scale of their objections in preliminary talks. In the privacy of their delegation room, Cameron’s aides made pointed remarks about the ‘French resistance’. ‘With Hollande it has been a debate about three words, for four days,’ one official complained later.6
Cameron was soon fighting on two fronts. The Visegrad Four attacked en masse against the benefit cuts, particularly those to child benefit being sent back home. Cameron’s opening demand on benefits was for a ‘temporary’ emergency brake that would let him slash in-work benefits for up to thirteen years – an initial period of seven years which could twice be extended by three years at a time. The Czech Europe minister Tomáš Prouza declared, ‘It’s about as temporary as the stationing of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia.’7 Cameron’s bottom line was a brake lasting seven years.8 The Poles were insisting that there was no way any emergency brake could last for more than five years. To cap it all, Charles Michel of Belgium demanded an extra clause making it clear that any deal would be a final offer that could not be improved if Britain voted to leave. ‘There’s no second chances,’ he said.9 Enda Kenny, the Irish prime minister, was a rare voice in support. He urged the other leaders to give Cameron a break: ‘His party is divided, his cabinet as well. He faces a hostile media. Let’s give him the tools for this fight.’ Then, quoting from Macbeth, Kenny concluded, ‘If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.’10 Angela Merkel also made warm noises, but others present felt she was ‘detached’ and preoccupied with the migrant crisis.
At 7 p.m. the meeting broke up with no agreement. Cameron, growing increasingly anxious, warned that he could not go home with a dodgy deal: ‘It would be suicide. I would not have the support of my cabinet. And I would not be able to win the referendum.’ He had expected pushback, perhaps even a few confected rows, but this was much worse than that. As one aide put it, ‘Everyone was playing bad cop.’11
No army can fight on an empty stomach, and no EU leader should be expected to negotiate in the same condition. Over a dinner of avocado and shrimp ‘imparfait’, cod loin with wheat-beer emulsion and duo of potato, light mango mousse with caramelised pineapple and coffee, the leaders discussed the migrant crisis. After dinner, Tusk emerged at 1.20 a.m. and said, ‘A lot remains to be done.’ An hour later Cameron held an emergency meeting with Tusk and Juncker, the two presidents sitting across a table from him in a fifth-floor room resembling a police interrogation cell. The Council president agreed to press on with face-to-face talks with the three biggest troublemakers: the French, Czechs and Belgians. Cameron returned to the British delegation room, as soulless as it was airless, tired and depressed. There he wolfed Haribo sweets – one of twenty-three bags consumed by the delegation in the thirty-three hours of negotiations – and drank coffee while his aides swigged Diet Coke.12 Then he tried to sleep. At 4 a.m. he was summoned to see Tusk. They were still nowhere near a deal. Tusk sent the leaders to bed and asked them to return for a discussion over an ‘English breakfast’. Cameron left, pale and drawn, at 5.40 a.m., for the British ambassador’s residence. Dispirited but determined, he told his team, ‘I’m ready to stay here and work, but I am not going to take a deal that’s not right.’13
After just three hours’ sleep, and fortified by a breakast of scrambled eggs, Cameron was back at the Justus Lipsius Building at 10 a.m. on Friday for another meeting with Tusk, who was sustaining himself with croissants. Announcing this controversial Continental breakfast news, an aide addressed British reporters: ‘I hope that doesn’t offend you.’ Cameron told Tusk, ‘I’m happy to stay until Sunday. I’ve told the wife and children.’14 They agreed that there was no point summoning the national leaders to their ‘English breakfast’ – even the prospect of a fry-up had not been enough to satisfy the French or the Visegrad Four.
As the day went on Tusk held a series of one-on-one encounters with the holdouts, and the failure to convene for a meal became the subject of a running joke on the flatscreen televisions in the vast atrium of the Justus Lipsius Building which becomes the press room during summit weeks. ‘Breakfast’ became an ‘English brunch’ at 11 a.m., which was then delayed until ‘lunch’, then a ‘late lunch’, then ‘high tea’ at 4 p.m. Even the apparent prospect of scones and cucumber sandwiches did not do the trick. At 5.30 p.m. the screens in the press room announced that there would be an ‘English dinner’ at 8 p.m. Tired of waiting for the authorities to feed him, the PM and his team ordered pepperoni pizzas from a nearby takeaway. In the meantime he had held bilateral meetings with Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, Hollande and Merkel. Also peckish, the German leader popped out for a bag of Belgian frîtes drenched in andalouse sauce, mayonnaise spiced with pepper and tomato at a nearby fast-food joint.15 Those not involved in the crisis talks watched with wry amusement. Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė commented, ‘The timing all depends on the deepness of the drama some countries would like to perform.’
For Cameron’s staff the summit dissolved into long periods of boredom punctuated by panic. ‘It’s a very odd environment up there on that floor,’ one said. ‘The leaders withdraw to their national offices while envoys shuffle between them trying to gain agreement about a text. Suddenly you have these moments of great rush, and “Oh my god, there’s a text,” then, “The text’s not the right language,” and “Who do we need to manoeuvre around?” Then suddenly you’ve got two hours when fuck-all happens because everyone’s negotiating without you.’ Richard Holbrooke, the legendary American diplomat, once remarked that ‘Diplomacy is like jazz: endless variations on a theme.’ A Downing Street source said, ‘I think EU negotiations are a bit like that. You’re constantly open to how you’re going to play it.’
Cameron’s meeting with Hollande eventually resolved the eurozone issue, with the PM reassuring the French premier that Britain was not trying to opt out of all EU financial-services legislation. ‘There were some tweaks of wording,’ a delegation member said. Cameron’s crucial encounters were with Beata Szydło. It was the Polish premier’s first European Council after winning a general election for the conservative Law and Justice Party, led by Jarosław ‘Jerry’ Kaczyński. Szydło