I listened to BBC reports of David Cameron’s speech on Europe with increasing bafflement as it appeared that the Conservatives set out a complicated set of policies that to my mind addressed all the wrong problems.
Granted, by many standards, and certainly by Tory standards, I’m a rabid pro-European. But here are two obvious flaws in the Conservative position.
No more treaties without referendums
So for each new treaty, the Tories will make sure there’s a referendum. Awuga, wrong question alert. Ask people if they wanted the Lisbon treaty, and most often what you get in answer is why they don’t like the EU – not a specific Lisbon based answer. And if they do say no to Treaty A, then what? It doesn’t give you any specific idea why Treaty A shouldn’t be ratified, but neither does it give you any other action to take. Result? Institutional paralysis.
On this point, I think the Lib Dem line that there should be another referendum on continuing membership of the EU is probably the best way forward. It does allow for a proper debate on broad principles, and there are clear paths to follow whichever way the vote goes. It does also allow the few of us on the “pro” side of the fence the opportunity to make the case for the EU and to spell out the consequences of turning our backs on our nearest neighbours. But referendums on each and every treaty is a big, pointless commitment.
A sovereignty act
Hmm, this one is a special example of wrong headed thinking. The Conservatives appear to have noticed that some countries with written constitutions have defined institutions whose job it is to manage constitutional change. Does a supranational treaty change how Ireland or Germany is governed? Then the Irish and German constitutions show a way to check whether that change is significant.
Britain has an “unwritten constitution” which means that when change is demanded, the process to manage it is also unwritten. So the Tory plan to fix this is what? A bit of tinkering around the edge, that’s what! And lo, those wrong problem sirens sound again.
What is needed to correct the problem of an unwritten constitution is… wait for it… a written constitution! And if, as part of that, you wanted to set up a process by which the constitution could be changed if necessary, or to test whether demands made of the nation or indeed new legislation were unconstitutional, then you could do that. But a bit more tinkering to rewrite small parts of our unwritten constitution is not the answer.
Well, that’s my view anyway – what did you think about the new Conservative line on Europe?
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11 Comments
I’m still waiting for Europhiles to explain how we benefit from the EU interfering with our employment laws and putting tariffs on goods from outside the EU. As a traditionally free-trade party I’m surprised the Lib Dems don’t have more to say about the later.
No referendum is required when you are repatriating rights for future voters , just when you give them away. I could accept the case for an “in or out “ referendum had there ever been a referendum for going in. in fact the only referendum there has ever been was for remaining in a Common Market where fears about sovereignty were laughed off …. And yet the ‘loons’ of that time have been proved right in every detail
We know the Liberals are liars or they would have supported the Labour party in the Commons and not concocted their pathetic excuse “ Never mind that I am fucking your wife I cannot discuss it until, the whole subject of fidelity is discussed in the round …” . Even this attempt to evade odium did not carry into the Lords where ,as usual , they supported the Labour Party.
We have been lied to manipulated and betrayed by stealth over forty tears but we are far to enmeshed now to ask ordinary Conservatives to leap off a cliff . A slow steady withdrawal over time is the way to regain our rights form the forces of international socialism and those who hate the country .
Cameron has set the tone for that , the details are relatively unimportant although welcome . Cameron will come into power with a Manifesto commitment and a National mandate to fundamentally renegotiate our role in this monstrous dictatorship. Over time he will supported by the country and the Party.
|In this democratic process the Liberal party are welcome to seek support for their anti British pro mass immigration wish for us to consult Estonians about how we live our lives within a non democratic protectionist old ladies armpit of a club the rest of the word is leaving behind. If anyone can tell me what is Liberal about it I `d love to know , but then the Conservative Party became the true Liberals along long time ago
“On this point, I think the Lib Dem line that there should be another referendum on continuing membership of the EU is probably the best way forward. It does allow for a proper debate on broad principles, and there are clear paths to follow whichever way the vote goes.”
What rubbish. It was only ever a dodge designed to avoid taking a stance that might be electorally unpopular. Unprincipled populist politics at its worst.
Newmania
And who was it that took this country into EEC without a referendum?
The “true” Liberals!
Cameron is just making some ad-hoc noise to placate the ultra-sceptic wing of the party who thought they were getting a referendum on Lisbon. I don’t see any point in analysing it any deeper than that at this stage.
@Herbert
The Tory ‘Cast Iron’ commitment to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty – now that is definitely Unprincipled populist politics at its worst.
It does not deal with the real question – IN together or OUT on our own
simonsez
Well, of course it’s unprincipled to promise a referendum and then renegue on the promise, as Cameron has.
But it’s ridiculous to pretend that “the real question” is whether the UK should remain within the EU. Leaving the EU isn’t an option that any mainstream politician would even consider. It’s not the “real question” – it’s just a question that the party thought it would be less awkward to discuss than the Lisbon treaty. And from a wholly cynical viewpoint, you can always tell Eurosceptics on the doorstep “We’re promising you a referendum on getting out of Europe”.
Our in out referendum policy is embarrassingly illogical and goes entirely against our long term position to support EU integration through referenda, which I stupidly enthusiastically supported and found always went down well on the doorstep, so congratulations on being able to defend it.
I wish people would be honest and just say that they don’t think voters should have a say on giving further power to the EU because they fear that they won’t give the right answer.
Ask people if they wanted the Lisbon treaty, and most often what you get in answer is why they don’t like the EU – not a specific Lisbon based answer. And if they do say no to Treaty A, then what? It doesn’t give you any specific idea why Treaty A shouldn’t be ratified, but neither does it give you any other action to take. Result? Institutional paralysis.
Err, excuse me, but isn’t the role of politicians to provide leadership?
Do we really want government by opinion poll? Do we think it would work? For years successive governments have been heading in the wrong direction leaving the country in a terrible mess. We now need leaders who can understand what went wrong, what needs to be done to put it right and who can therefore chart a path to a better future. What we do not need are the sort that Tony Benn dismissively calls ‘weather vanes’. We do not have to surrender to ‘institutional paralysis’ because Mori or YouGov hasn’t told us what to think. We are perfectly capable of having a grown-up debate all on our own.
In the context of the EU that does not mean a stupid, dishonest choice between ‘In or Out’. It means developing another vision of Europe, a liberal one in fact, to stand against the horrid one the self-serving bureaucratic establishment has devised. For Lib Dems that would be one where the people are in control rather than the bureaucrats, where there is a clear understanding of what powers the EU should have and why and what powers should therefore be left at national level – or repatriated to the national level if necessary. (And, since this is much the same debate as is needed if we are to recreate a genuinely local government by pushing real power down the line from Westminster, I doubt if we will succeed in one without the other).
And the odd thing is that even a leadership apparently dedicated to ‘government by opinion poll’ is actually very bad at it. Years ago Chris Rennard told me that private polling showed only a smallish majority of members supported the Lib Dem EU policy. It is not an unreasonable stretch to infer that that narrow majority depended entirely on (misplaced) loyalty to the Party line and would gladly switch to a line that was vaguely liberal in inspiration. The trend of comments on LDV posts about Europe confirms the continuing internal discontent with the official line and as for the European elections the less said the better.
I am a proud European supporter and would happily campaign for the benefits and potential of the new Lisbon Europe in an in/out referendum; as indeed I did GOTV in Dublin during the Irish vote. I am proud to be part of a party that wears this on it’s sleeve.
It does make the line on opposing a Scottish referendum on In/Out rather embarrassing though. It uses the exact same logic on the flipside of this policy. The democratic thing to do would be to hold both: In/Out first then a detailed Ask the Nation type exercise in concert with MEPs. it is ridiculous to say that we have better things to do in both cases, we are in politics so we can listen to and engage with people.
Referenda are only ever promised in countries like this one for populist reasons – the democratically elected Parliament abrogating its responsibilities, throwing its hands up, and saying ‘we dare not take a stance’. What an MP knows, what they say, and how they vote are three very different things – and the poison that most conservatives drip regarding all matters European is for solely electoral purposes, them knowing full well that history, economics and plain common sense are to a united Europe.
Far too many of the rabid screamers (I’m looking at ConHome commenters mostly here, who are, by and large, thoroughly entertaining in that the planet they orbit seems to be Pluto. Possibly Saturn, but certainly no closer to Earth than that) are simply employing the wrong model; phrasing it as they do as “the EU interfering in our affairs”, “British interests against the EU”, or “us and the EU” – we are the EU. Those rules? They were written by us. Those tariffs? Agreed by us. Those interests? Our own. The fundamental flaw in Conservative logic, and one they cannot address without breaking their electoral coalition and world model apart, is that there is no argument for both having a United Kingdom (four linguistically distinct nations with individual yet connected and embroiled histories and economies) and not having a European Union (around… fifty nations in 27 states with individual yet connected and emboriled histories and economies).
Whilst there are those within the Conservatives who recognise some of us, and are by and large reasonable (such as Clarke, Heseltine, many of their Euro candidates actually, it was very interesting at hustings pre-June to see how different so many of them were to their Westminster colleagues), their faction is unfortunately small, and has allowed itself to be brow-beaten by the pot-banging, headline hunting unthinking fundamentalists. The effort to unite these into a single party leads them to such unfortunate and incoherent fudges as Cameron has unveiled.
What no frothing-loon has ever tried to explain is why when Britain’s MEPs, Commissioner, Ministers and members of the Committee of the Regions vote for something and it comes into force, this is somehow ‘imposed on us from outside’, but if every Westcountry MP voted against something, and the rest of the UK voted in favour, thus forcing us to enact it, that’s democracy……