BRITAIN: Tony Blair was attacked on all sides for his budget deal, writes Frank Miller
Tony Blair faced predictable Conservative charges of "surrender" last night after Downing Street confirmed the UK might give up between 12 per cent and 15 per cent of its controversial "rebate" in order to clinch a deal on the EU budget.
However the prime minister also found himself under attack from both sides of Britain's European debate as the Liberal Democrats warned his proposed budget deal could leave Britain and Europe with "the worst of all possible worlds".
Mr Blair braced himself for a predictable media storm upon his return to London, telling the BBC: "If you govern by the headlines you get, as I have learned over time, you do not govern well."
And he countered charges of a retreat on the rebate - which he had previously insisted could be on the table only alongside proposals for fundamental reform of the Common Agricultural Policy - by asserting that he had also always maintained the UK would have to pay its fair share of the costs of EU enlargement.
Mr Blair also argued that without Cap reform Britain's EU rebate would in fact continue to increase.
However retiring Conservative leader Michael Howard said Mr Blair had "squandered a tremendous opportunity to get reform of the EU budget in the last days of the British presidency". Claiming Mr Blair's proposed deal would cost the British taxpayer £1 billion (€1.5 billion), Mr Howard said the rejection of the European constitution in referendums earlier this year had given the British government the opportunity to lead the debate about Europe's future.
"We should have been talking about what we want the EU to do, about what the EU is for," he said. "And once you have decided what it should do and what it is for, then what it should cost and how you pay for its costs follow naturally. . . We never had the slightest attempt from the British government to take part in that debate or lead that debate and that's why we are in the mess that we are."
Lib Dem treasury spokesman Vince Cable said: "There's a danger of getting the worst of all possible worlds - Britain gives up £1 billion a year, the eastern European countries get less money, and there's no agreement to reform agriculture."
Sir Menzies Campbell, the party's foreign affairs spokesman, also charged that Mr Blair's "bad hand" was largely his own fault.
"An opportunity has been lost. An opportunity, for example, to make an improvement to EU proposals for agriculture tariff cuts in the WTO talks," he said.
"We are paying a very heavy diplomatic price for political ineptitude on the part of the government."