[LINK] "Reform the EU? Changing the U.K. Matters More"

[rfmcdonald]

Bloomberg View's Marc Champion points out that British complaints about the European Union really relate to the failings of Britain proper.

Last week Britain's David Cameron made a rare visit -- for a Western leader -- to Hungary's pariah-like Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Cameron can't be picky: He needs all the friends he can get to secure agreement for the "fundamental" change to the EU he has promised Britons so they can vote to stay in the bloc in a referendum.

Reaching a deal next month as planned now appears to hinge on Cameron's demand for a four-year delay before new EU arrivals can claim welfare benefits in the U.K. He has already conceded that he'll have to compromise: Outright discrimination against EU citizens won't be accepted by Poland, or even Hungary -- no matter how cloyingly helpful Orban sought to appear on Friday. So Cameron will have to reform Britain at the same time he reforms the EU. That's an idea worth exploring more.

There are many reasons why host nations are disturbed by immigration and, in the U.K., one of these is a sense of unfairness. It seems unfair that foreigners should be able to come to the U.K. to claim benefits without having paid tax there first; unfair that low-skilled British workers should face competition from illegal immigrants willing to work under the table; unfair that schools and hospitals should suddenly be overwhelmed, extending waiting times and class sizes for locals.

I'm with the FT's Martin Wolf in thinking that the whole renegotiation is a charade. But why not use it as an occasion to fix some of these very real U.K. problems, which aren't even just about intra-EU migration?

The way Britain's welfare system is structured is indeed uniquely accommodating for immigrants. It is the only nation in the western EU (to which 98 percent of intra-EU migrants go) that doesn't require people to pay into social security insurance funds, or simply work, for a given period of time before they can claim unemployment and associated housing benefits. It hands out child benefit in cash. It offers tax credits to top up the incomes of low-paid workers. And none of this is conditioned on prior work.