BY CONTINENTAL and even recent British standards David Cameron has long had a Eurosceptic bent. In 2013 this outlook was combined with a growing anti-EU clamour in the Conservative Party, leading him to promise a grand “new settlement” that would put Britons’ Euro-cavils to rest. Three years later, on February 2nd, after an election victory and several months spent bustling about Europe, Mr Cameron sealed a draft offer with the European Council (see article). In a speech the next day he declared it a triumph. The press and Eurosceptic MPs, on the other hand, branded it a joke (“The great delusion!” bellowed one headline). Who is right?

Both, to some extent. The deal, it is true, was more of a throat-clearing exercise than a roar of reinvention. Mr Cameron did not fulfil his ambition to overturn Europractice on immigration limits, treaty changes and repatriated powers. His “emergency brake” on migration is a graduated restriction of newcomers’ benefits; the “red card” that lets national parliaments block EU decisions will have little effect, because the threshold to do so is high. Yet the prime minister has won some valuable, if mostly symbolic, concessions to the British vision of a plural, open and liberal union. Pledges to cut bureaucracy, respect currencies other than the euro and let members opt out of “ever closer union” are airy but welcome. Non-euro-zone economies can assert their interests, thanks to a mechanism that delays an agreement if they fear being strong-armed by Europe’s core.

At home the deal will not change any of the minds that are already made up. But it should help Mr Cameron sway a few undecided voters ahead of the in/out referendum (which is likely to take place on June 23rd if this deal clears the European Council later this month). The first, minor reason is that it makes the union work a smidgen better for Britain. The second, larger one is that the very process of renegotiating has neatly shown the force of the pro-Europeans’ arguments.

In graphics: A guide to “Brexit” from the European Union It has exposed a series of anti-EU fallacies. A giant governmental audit that Mr Cameron claimed in 2013 would identify areas where powers needed to be repatriated found the balance broadly appropriate. And if, as Eurosceptic campaigners insist, the “emergency brake” will not reduce immigration, that is because EU nationals come to Britain to work, not scrounge. The brake is unlikely to be renewed in the future because Britain will struggle to show that its migrants constitute an “emergency” (far from it: they pay more into the state than they take out in services). Meanwhile the prime minister’s European peregrinations have given the lie to tabloid bluster about almighty Eurocrats. The shape of his deal has been hammered out in Europe’s capitals with the elected leaders of other governments—just like all the most important Eurodeals.

A seat at the table

This highlights the unattractive alternative, of leaving the EU. The trials of renegotiating Britain’s membership would pale in comparison with those of securing a favourable Brexit. At least now the EU and most of its members are on the prime minister’s side. An out vote would reverse their incentives: the harsher the terms of Britain’s flounce, the lower the odds of other countries following it out of the door. Being outside the club would exclude Britain, like Norway and Switzerland, from the continental perma-churn of alliance-building and deal-cutting that forges decisions.

Only partly by design, the Eurosceptic Mr Cameron has thus vindicated what pro-Europeans have been saying for years: some of the popular hostility to Brussels is misplaced and, even where it is not, Britain sits at more tables, sells more stuff and talks more loudly thanks to its EU membership. Time to close the deal and take that conclusion to the country.