It warns: “further restrictions on skilled migration could restrict the growth of our businesses and hurt UK’s digital economy”.
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However, Cameron is not expected to say that arrangement will work for the United Kingdom, as Norway is signed up to Europe’s free movement rules but has no MEPs, thereby not allowing it to vote on European policy.
Norway has rejected European Union membership in referendums twice.
Number 10 highlighted comments from senior Norwegian politicians about the prospect of a looser relationship to Brussels. One minister told me that, at the very least, you have to look as if you’re trying.
At the forum, the Prime Minister will hold talks with the leaders of Norway and Iceland, which have negotiated a different deal with the EU.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister leans on eurosceptic ministers to follow his lead on pain of the sack – leaving only Boris Johnson, in his breaks between clowning, to raise the occasional doubt about our subjection to Brussels. “That is what the PM is focused on”, she said.
“After we vote leave, we will negotiate a new UK-EU deal based on free trade and friendly co-operation”, Mr Cummings said. So what use is our seat, if the other 27 refuse to listen – and if the laws they impose on us damage our national interests?
Richard Tice, co-chairman of the Leave.eu campaign said: “It is nonsense to suggest that we can not control our own borders if we leave the EU”.
But the Prime Minister is likely to argue that being part of the European Economic Area (like Norway and Iceland), but not the EU, will see Britain face the same problems it now has with the EU, with few of the perks.
Speaking on Radio Four, Mr Leadsom said: “I think that Britain could make a very good place for itself inside or outside the EU”.
Indeed, as the European Union, BBC and Whitehall gear up their publicly-funded propaganda drives in support of membership, it seems we must brace ourselves for a dismal campaign of insidious spin, suppressed truths and downright lies – instead of the responsible and serious debate on an issue of historic significance.
“You can’t have your cake and eat it too”, he said. “That doesn’t mean I will”.
They all abide by the EU’s rules and regulations, but with no way of influencing them.
Mr Timmermans also said it would be “perfectly reasonable” for Britain to request the flexibility to remove the 5% “tampon tax” now charged on women’s sanitary products because of EU VAT rules.
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Campaigners who support Britain’s exit from the European Union were quick to attack the suggestion. “We’d still pay but would lose our say over many rules, including free movement”, the group’s executive director, Will Straw, said in a statement.
