George Osborne to stay UK chancellor if Tories win election

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/03/george-osborne-stay-uk-chancellor-general-election

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George Osborne is expected to remain as Britain’s chancellor if the Tories win the general election in the expectation that the Treasury would assume a pivotal role in negotiations over Britain’s EU membership .

The chancellor had flirted last year with a post-election move to the Foreign Office but is understood to have come to the view that he should remain at the Treasury if the Conservatives return to office. His original calculation – that successful chancellors prepare an escape route in good time – has changed as the economy continues to recover.

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The central role played by the Treasury in the Scottish referendum campaign has also persuaded Osborne that the chancellor should be the key figure in the EU negotiations after the prime minister.

“The EU negotiations are all Treasury-related so it makes sense for George to run them,” one senior source said, guaranteeing a turf war with the foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, who will regard himself as the most senior figure in the negotiations after the prime minister.

The prospect of Osborne playing the decisive role after Cameron in theEU negotiations will be seen as a clear sign that David Cameron is determined to keep Britain in the EU – assuming the negotiations are successful. Osborne regards the negotiations as “doable”. He believes Britain enhances its position on the world stage in the EU and that opponents of membership are neither coherent nor credible in believing in a form of membership terms along the lines of Switzerland and Norway.

The impact of this thinking was highlighted by Cameron at his recent press conference in Downing Street with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, when he described the Swiss and Norwegian options as “very contradictory”. The role to be played by Osborne after a Tory election win is disclosed in a Guardian report into the party’s general election campaign, which reveals that party insiders believe that they have:

• Played a “beautiful” game in ensuring that the Greens are included in the television general election debates. One senior figure said: “It was counter-intuitively beautiful on so many levels. It gave the media a week’s worth of broadcasting, the Greens were on everything and then you get them spiking in the polls.”

• Admits that the Tories made a mistake in photoshopping a picture of a German road for a Tory poster last month highlighting the continuing journey to be travelled as the economy recovers.

• Is confident that the Tory campaign is in a strong position after the party saw no fall in its poll lead, or saw it increase, even after a two-pronged Labour attack on the Tories over the NHS and spending cuts.

The party leadership has issued strict instructions that no one in the election inner circle is to discuss “process” – the word used in The West Wing TV drama to denote speculation about personalities. But the Guardian understands one “process” will mean Osborne remains at the Treasury to be a key figure in the renegotiations.

One friend of Osborne, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “George has worked out that the EU negotiations will be heavily done from the Treasury. Nobody will do it as well as him. The economy is going to continue to pick up. At least in the first half of the parliament – until the referendum is over – he would be happy to continue being chancellor. He is enjoying it, he understands it.”

Osborne gave serious thought to serving as foreign secretary after the general election to give him the chance to hold another of the four great offices of state. He had also thought that the foreign secretary would be second-in-command of the EU negotiations after the prime minster because foreign ministers attend the preparatory meetings for EU summits where a deal would be thrashed out. He now believes the nuts and bolts of the negotiations – and the groundwork for the referendum campaign – will fall to the Treasury.

He also believes one immutable fact remains in British politics whatever titles are handed out by the prime minister: the chancellor is the second most senior member of the cabinet. The thought of having to watch Hammond or Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, deliver their second budget is also said to have concentrated his mind.

The prospect of Osborne’s role in the EU negotiations is likely to alarm hardline eurosceptics who were encouraged last year when Hammond said Cameron was “lighting a fire” under the EU with his renegotiations. The foreign secretary also told the Daily Telegraph in November that Britain had “to be prepared” to leave the EU if its reform plans were rejected.