Cameron's EU austerity drive: Mixed results

All this leaves Cameron's campaign looking more like a symbolic gesture to bolster the austerity drive in the UK, says Philip Whyte, Senior Research Fellow at the London-based think-tank the Centre for European Reform. "The size of the EU budget is peanuts. But whatever the reasons—good or otherwise—to raise the EU budget, it is a difficult sell back home ... Unfortunately, the substance in this issue is often overlooked in Britain, where political debates on Europe are generally reduced to an 'us and them' approach."