The Tribune

Peter Young looks at the tough and different challenges facing the British prime minister in 2016

LAST month marked the tenth anniversary of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s leadership of the ruling Conservative party. Having emerged unexpectedly to take the helm of his party after only five years as a Member of Parliament, he became prime minister in 2010 at the age of 43, assuming charge of the first coalition government in Britain since the Second World War.

Hampered during his first term by the need to negotiate with his coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats, he then won a surprising overall majority at last May’s general election, the first Conservative majority for nearly 20 years. With the opposition Labour party’s recent swing to the left and the Liberal Democrats down and out, he is now riding high despite his share of failures as well as successes.

Mr Cameron’s supporters maintain that he has modernised and transformed the Tory party, with the emphasis on compassionate conservatism – decency, reasonableness and common sense. He has succeeded in shrinking the size of the state and has insisted on sound and careful management of the nation’s economy.

Another notable success was the Scottish independence referendum with a comfortable victory against a break-up of the 300-year-old United Kingdom – a ”yes” vote would have almost certainly led to his resignation.

Shrugging off criticism of a privileged background and education together with accusations of unacceptable excesses of youthful behaviour as an undergraduate at Oxford University, he has dealt successfully with his detractors over issues like support for gay marriage, the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, his doubtful intervention in Libya (now in deeper chaos after the overthrow of Gaddafi), loss of a parliamentary vote on intervention in Syria in 2013 and failure to fulfil his promise to keep net immigration down to the tens of thousands (now at a record high of 336,000).

He has also been taken to task for flip-flopping on his stance on environmental issues and about a third runway at Heathrow Airport as well as on child benefit for higher-rate tax payers and an increase of value added tax to 20 per cent. In addition, he has been criticised for failing to create the conditions for speedier house building and to cut government spending more radically in order to reduce the budget deficit as quickly as promised.

Furthermore, Afghanistan has been a failure in so far as the Taliban are retaking Helmand province a year after British troops departed; and, although he has just won a vote in Parliament in support of his demand to bomb ISIS in Syria, it will need more than this to defeat the jihadist military group and its reign of terror around the globe. Air strikes alone are unlikely to be sufficient to defeat jihadism so that there is a danger of conflict in the Middle East becoming even worse.

In his New Year address to the nation, Mr Cameron identified his priorities as poverty, extremism, housing and social mobility. Drawing attention to the need for continuing reform, he stressed the importance of tackling issues like family instability and ineffective care systems, house ownership and improved social services. But, as an illustration of what he is up against domestically, he was criticised for stating that, because of its well-established religious roots as a Christian country, Britain had been a successful home to people of all faiths.

Such a reminder of the nation’s values came under fire from the National Secular Society to the effect that Christianity was just one “influence” amongst many and that Mr Cameron should remember that “he isn’t leader of Christians but prime minister of a diverse, multi-faith and increasingly non-religious nation.” Such, in part, are the unintended consequences of a policy of multiculturalism.

Notwithstanding this, at the beginning of a new year the prime minister is faced with four major interlocking problems in particular – Syria, ISIS terrorism, immigration and a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU).

While action on Syria and ISIS, including tackling the problem of people fleeing persecution and conflict in the wider Middle East, will depend in large part on international co-operation, the problem of immigration for Britain is also linked to her EU membership because of the fundamental principle of free movement within the internal market of the 28 EU member states.

According to recent polls, immigration is a top concern to 60 per cent of the British people. Mr Cameron has included this important issue in his current renegotiation of the nation’s EU membership. He has not contested the principle of free movement, which Brussels has made clear is non-negotiable, but one of his demands is to restrict the access of EU migrants to in-work benefits. His approach is to seek to require EU workers to live in Britain for four years before receiving benefits, though other EU member states see this as discriminatory.

Overall, he has made clear his view that Britain leaving the EU is a choice of whether the nation is stronger and better off with her European partners and neighbours as part of a union or on her own. For his part, he has said that he wants the UK to stay in a reformed EU, but he has not ruled out recommending leaving if he cannot secure the changes he wants from the other 27 EU members.

His other demands for reform include safeguards to protect British businesses (and those of other non-eurozone countries) against discrimination; boosting competitiveness by setting targets for reduction of the burden of red tape; and exempting Britain from “ever-closer union”. However, he has not included any specific demand to regain the supremacy of the UK parliament or to reduce the country’s huge contribution to the EU budget.

Eurosceptics say that the EU is undemocratic, bureaucratic and incompetent – and its obsession with open borders (the Schengen agreement) and cultural diversity is inconsistent with patriotism and the concept of national sovereignty.

Critics of the prime minister describe his EU reform demands as disappointingly unambitious. However, he is pressing forward with them. The next step is an EU summit meeting in February, when Mr Cameron has said he wants to conclude renegotiation of Britain’s EU membership.

Thereafter, the government is expected to establish a firm position on the matter in advance of a referendum. But it has now been announced that collective responsibility will be suspended so that individual Cabinet ministers will be allowed to campaign to leave the EU if that is their personal position. There is growing speculation that a referendum may be called as early as June.

So, these important issues - Syria, ISIS and terrorism in the wider Middle East and elsewhere, immigration and the EU - will take centre stage in Britain in the coming months, and none more so than the EU.

Former Prime Minister Harold Wilson famously said that a week was a long time in politics, meaning, of course, that events are largely unpredictable so that the fortunes of a politician can change drastically in a short time without warning.

Another famous British politician, Enoch Powell, wrote presciently that “all political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure …” (his own career ended prematurely following his outspoken remarks about uncontrolled Commonwealth immigration in Britain in the 1960s).

Be that as it may, who can tell what major catastrophe may be just around the corner to derail the efforts of a sitting prime minister who has been at that Conservative party helm for more than a decade?

Although Mr Cameron is indeed riding high after his success in last year’s election, the political pundits remain surprisingly uncommitted in judging his considerable achievements.

But what is for sure is that he will be severely tested by stormy waters ahead and his navigational skills will be stretched to the limit.

• Peter Young is a retired British diplomat living in Nassau. From 1996 to 2000 he was British High Commissioner to The Bahamas.