David Cameron has dropped his plans to sign off his renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with Europe at the December European Council summit, accepting that he’s not going to get the deal he wants within the next few weeks. In a call today with Angela Merkel, the Prime Minister ‘noted that the scale of what we are asking for means we will not resolve this in one go and consequently he did not expect to get agreement at the December European Council’, a Downing Street spokesperson said. The summit will instead involve a ‘substantive discussion of the proposed changes in each area’. Downing Street also said that ‘there remain difficult issues to resolve’ before a settlement that manages to ‘address the concerns of the British people’.
This is an admission, finally, that Cameron’s renegotiation plan is not on track, and that he isn’t getting what he wants from leaders.
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