UK to press for EU immigration reforms despite Merkel’s warning

Chancellor George Osborne has said that the UK will continue to push for reforms ‘in the UK’s national interest’ with the European Union despite warnings from German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Osborne claims that the British people had concerns about EU immigration and access to benefits by EU migrants that need to be addressed by renegotiating the UK’s position within the EU.

However, Merkel reportedly said that the free movement of people was sacrosanct to the EU and she would rather see the UK leave than introduce a quota system as called for by Prime Minister David Cameron.

Der Spiegel, quoting sources within the German chancellor’s office and German foreign ministry, said that Merkel had acknowledged for the first time that the UK may exit the EU.

Cameron is trying to appease both the UK’s business leaders, who are almost universally pro-EU, and the Conservatives Eurosceptics, who threaten to desert the party for UKIP, and failing both. His ‘hard-nosed’ negotiating with the EU and faux anger over a £1.6 billion debt for under-reported GDP for the last decade has been described as “loud and shrill” by the media in Berlin and found him no alliances in Brussels.

While other northern European nations may also have been interested in a renegotiation of EU treaties, none are prepared to ally themselves with a Britain that has yet to clarify what it wants from Europe and refuses all compromises because of internal conflicts within a political party that is unlikely to be re-elected in 2015.