Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s red meat EU speech: five key points

Cameron has finished delivering his ‘red meat’ speech on the European Union and answering questions from journalists. You can read the full text here, but here are five key points to take away:

1. The Prime Minister is a pro-European sceptical about the current EU settlement

It actually took Cameron a long time to reach his vision of a new Europe because he was so busy praising its history. We had a whistle-stop tour through the EU’s creation, dotted with praise for its peacekeeping mission first. He was clearly keen to emphasis his pro-European credentials as much as he was to criticise, saying: ‘I am not a British isolationist’ and ‘I speak as a British Prime Minister with a positive vision for the future of the European Union’.

When he did swoop into detail, it wasn’t about the really, really ridiculous bits of Europe that it’s easy to caricature such as directives on the shape of bananas, but whether Britain should have power over the working hours of its own doctors, rather than Europe.

2.

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