We are due what will be undoubtedly be a hard general election in 2015, and Liberal Democrats are already lagging behind the other main parties by not planning our post-coalition policy. The economy, of course, is the most obvious issue – an elephant in the room that, this time around, everyone will be fully aware of! Falling back into second place, if not further, is the comparative whale in the fishtank: the EU, and Britain’s place in it.
Few would deny the time for debate is close. As the nation watches what looks like the slow-motion collapse of the Euro, Euroscepticism is on the rise. And with UKIP snapping on our heels in some polls and the Tories keeping their supporters unhappy on the issue, we should start positioning ourselves to fight off the right as well as the left. We will face a Conservative party keen to pick up seats to take a majority in 2015, and our seats will be an easier option than those of Labour’s. Make no mistake, they may be being nice to us at the moment, but the Tories will not hold back when the time comes.
So where should we stand? Certainly in favour of a referendum on membership, something guaranteed in our 2010 manifesto for the next time the relationship between the UK and the EU ‘fundamentally’ changes and reinforced by the Coalition’s referendum lock. Yet we should consider going further and offering a referendum come what may, above and beyond talking more of the reforms we shall make and buoying our democratic credentials. I’d hope to see at least some Lib Dem support of a referendum in the forthcoming debate on the matter in the House of Commons. In general, however, reform of key areas will undoubtedly be a far better, liberal, centrist position for us to hold than advocating leaving completely – a viewpoint that, whether you agree with Peter Oborne’s ‘guilty men’ accusations or not, is already relegated to easily-dismissible fringe groups, and easy to keep there!
We should also be open and blunt about the large reforms that we will make. One obvious place to look for ideas is Nick Clegg’s chapter in The Orange Book, ripe for updating. His suggestion of stopping perpetual change in the EU to help it gain public confidence is good but probably unworkable in the current extended crisis, and talk of scrutinising the European Commission’s workings more thoroughly simply does not go far enough. We should publicly change our approach to the EU, our media spokespeople making clear our belief that it is flawed and in desperate need of reform. Where is the political benefit in making unpopular arguments in defence of the EU in general when we could be telling of our plans, say, to replace CAP? Why should we not criticise the EU for making directives about the types of balloons that children can inflate without adult supervision at all, instead of defending it because unlike what the tabloids say, they’re not actually banning it?
Clegg was right to declare that the EU should act only on issues that have clear cross-border benefits unattainable by nations on their own – from free trade to international crime. He was right to point out the foolishness of countries giving the EU money to have it recycled back to their own deprived areas, right to call for repatriation of powers over social and agricultural policy, and these are issues which the party should become much more aggressive over. The EU is a liberal experiment that has gone awry in certain areas, and pointing out those and seeking to correct them should be our priority.
At present, we are seen as unashamed Europhiles, in puppy love with the EU and wanting to take the UK into the Euro; a position that makes us look ridiculous in the current climate and puts off voters from switching to us. The public has many concerns over the EU that could be dealt with sensibly were clear proposals to be offered in language that matched their fears – instead, they are pushed into the arms of extremists. Although we are EU-reformers in policy terms, we are not yet associated with that in the public mind, being so stunningly bad at selling it. Time to change that.
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39 Comments
If I want to vote for stuff like this there are lots of other parties. I want a party that believes in a United Europe. I suggest the writer joins UKIP.
Good post. I’m not sure I agree supporting a referendum is a good idea. The farce of a debate surrounding AV with scaremongering lies and misinformation dominating the discussion, but maybe if we regulated campaigning to ensure truth and honesty then it would be okay.
Definitely in favour of us adopting the Euro-reformist position though.
In every other area of policy we’re at the forefront demanding reform. We have a very localist agenda where we’re keen for people to make the decisions on their local community rather than be dictated by some politicians in a distant capital. Reform and localism are important liberal principles, but they seem absent from our approach to Europe where we come across as weak defenders of the status quo.
I’m currently drafting a motion for the next conference to get the party to urgently sort put together a coherent vision for a liberal Europe complete with policies to achieve it. I’d like us to have a European policy we can shout about rather than currently mutter quietly.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EawIMz8YakxuOMLHKo8RG3lvu1-ResxAvvuNgVCaU-k/edit?hl=en_GB
@ Chris
I didn’t see any mention in the article of breaking up Europe or leaving it, just a call to reform it.
There was a suggestion that we need to take certain powers back, but isn’t making decisions as locally as possible a strong part of Lib Dem tradition?
Wanting to improve and stengthen Europe is very different to wanting to leave it altogether.
@Daniel Henry
Someone who blithely assumes that “wanting to take the UK into the Euro; (is) a position that makes us look ridiculous in the current climate and puts off voters” is making an application for a blog at the telegraph if ever Daniel Hannan is feeling a bit tired. He is buying into everything the tory press have ever told you about the euro.
Indeed, most people recognise that the European Union is far from perfect and yes, whilst in the general public that image is magnified by the dodgy reporting of certain papers, that doesn’t discount the fact that the EU can be improved and we as Lib Dems should be at the forefront of that reform……
This is a good piece.
There is a danger that we are seen to defend EU policies that are originated by socialist and conservative national governments in the European Council.
Any disagreement with those policies is in danger of being interpreted as disagreement with EU membership, which is pretty silly. As if every protestor against the UK government, Labour party supporter, etc ought to be a secessionist of some sort with regard to the UK.
The EU has a vital role on the world stage, but national governments within it have been holding it back, preferring it too often to look inward.
Interesting that this highly sensible article is talking purely in terms of the 2015 General Election, and ignores the 2014 European Elections. For the party most engaged with Europe, we really should have more MEPs.
We should be coming into the 2014 Euros as the only party that takes Europe seriously, recognises the many benefits it has brought but also the need for urgent improvements in efficiency and transparency. This reflects our party policies and the work that our MEPs are actually carrying out in the Parliament, and is a respectable position.
Excellent piece although Dave is right to remind us of the importnat of the 2014 Euro elections.
Unfortunately many of our Euro MPs are unreconstructed Euro fanatics who seem to put the interest of building a federal state above those of the UK. For example Fiona Hall, Leader of the Lib Dems in the Parliament recently called for the UK to lose our rebate ( no doubt we will hear more of this at the Euro elections from the Tories).
The problem is that the sensible position opined by the writer can somewhat clash with unreconstructed fanatics like Andrew Duff.
Interesting to note that in the current crisis the European Commission has been shunted stage right and the so called parliament has disappeared off the radar altogether.
Thanks to all for comments so far.
Chris – it’s a shame that you take such a black/white view of the situation. You’re *really* happy with the EU as it is? Even if so, I’d hope for a more constructive response than “join UKIP” – as I said in the piece, I don’t think we should support leaving Europe.
Daniel – Our attitude to referenda is, of course, now forever burdened by the awful Yes2AV campaign, but I think the public reaction to a referendum on the EU won’t be so hostile to us and our arguments since the perception of us trying pathetically to feather our own nest with a ‘miserable compromise’ etc etc would be out of the window. I like your ‘coherent vision’ approach and look forward to seeing the draft motion taken further, hopefully to conference.
Dave – yes, good point in regard to the 2014 elections.
Expanded on my argument here
http://joeotten.blogspot.com/2011/10/problem-with-eu-is-that-it-is-same-as.html
excellent article.
@chris so anyone that disagrees with your view, which is not party policy as endorsed by conference, they shoudlleave, thats not very liberal and I would question whether you are in the right party.
Clegg’s chapter in the Orange Book, and thisa article both highlight that the EU, howvere noble and progressive it is in principal, is in dramtaic need of structural reform….we can be the champions of that reform
“If I want to vote for stuff like this [reforming the EU] there are lots of other parties.”
except there aren’t.
CONSERVATIVES: Tories don’t want to strengthen European institutions, improve transparency and make them more accountable, but encourage referenda on all meaningful reforms to limit the authority of institutions to act while retaining access to markets.
They don’t have a European policy, they are only interested in the additional value to be gained from Europe. http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Europe.aspx
LABOUR: Labour doesn’t want to strengthen European institutions, improve transparency and make them more accountable, but protect the British job market, prevent eastern European immigrants from accessing welfare and resist any referenda or constitutional changes so they can blame the Eurozone, international finance and bankers for the economic crisis. http://openeuropeblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/does-labour-have-eu-policy.html
Labour doesn’t have a European policy, they are only interested in tinkering around the edges so they can make populist noises for electoral advantage. Since Miliband took over they’ve completely removed the policy page on their website. http://www.comparepolitics.co.uk/Policies/europe_labour.aspx http://www.labour.org.uk/labour_in_europe
GREENS: The Green Party doesn’t want to strengthen European institutions, improve transparency and make them more accountable – they want a ‘fundamental transformation’ to redesign it as ‘overlapping, decentralised groupings of nations and regions’ – they want to see ‘very profound’ changes, amounting to a ‘reconstitution’ of the whole EU and its ‘fundamentally flawed’ institutional structures.
Greens oppose free trade and economic growth as the underpinnings of political integration and peace, would abolish the ECB and are working to abandon the Euro. http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/eu
UKIP: They don’t want to strengthen European institutions, improve transparency and make them more accountable, but weaken them wherever possible as a precursor to complete withdrawl from the EU.
Farage & Co want to develop free trade through bilateral arrangements without political oversight. http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/eu/2010/04/party-policy-on-europe-ii-ukip.html
BNP: Nick Griffin & Co don’t want to strengthen European institutions, improve transparency and make them more accountable, they are not interested in any form of international cooperation except as “the protection of our own national interests” and would withdraw from the EU.
They want to develop free trade through bilateral arrangements without political oversight. http://www.bnp.org.uk/policies/foreign-affairs
LIBDEMS: Clegg argued at the general election that the EU should take on a supra-national character, to provide political support for the process of globalisation and thereby support individuals who become the unwitting victims of it.
This means ‘Europe must adapt to the challenges of the new century’ and concentrate on completing the single market to effectively regulate free trade, deal with climate change and prevent international criminality such as terrorism, tax fraud and human trafficking.
According to Clegg this does not require wholesale reform, and would be achieved by improving transparency and accountability. http://europe.libdems.org.uk/full-manifesto/putting-europes-house-in-order
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There is consensus that Europe must change, but there is no agreement on how it should change.
Yet there is precious little debate about Europe to be had because all five other parties are avoiding the real issues of institutional weakness, which can only be done by improving transparency and accountability. And they are all more interested in control than good policy.
Conservatives, Labour and Greens are each ideologically split from head to toe internally over how to proceed on Europe, and UKIP and BNP are completely united in opposition to Europe on ideological grounds.
Meanwhile LibDem members are largely confused about the purpose and practises of Europe, leading our support for it to decend into dogma whereby we promote conflicting visions for it (such as on the need for changes to the UK rebate).
The argument for liberal Europe can and must be won, but it can and will only be done if and when LibDems are able to win our internal debate and speak with a coherent and unified voice on the subject.
Good idea, bad detail.
We should be pushing a reform agenda in the EU as anywhere else, I’m not that mad about the idea of an in/out referendum but if the UK would actually be an active player in the EU if the country voted to stay in. then I’d be okay with it.
But I would say that stopping perpetual change in the EU is a terrible idea. In fact, stopping change for any real time in any institution is a shortcut to stagnation and obsolescence. Stating that the EU is flawed is true, but it is actually the least dysfunctional of our layers of government, this is not a credit to the EU but rather a shame on the UK. We should not shout it too loudly, or we should make it clear that the UK isn’t exactly a paragon of brilliance itself. Stressing that we want to reform CAP, however, is clearly a good idea.
As for the balloon comment – quite frankly, I consider the fact that the media is quite content to willfully misinterpret a directive that’s over twenty years old as a ban on children blowing up balloons (i.e. that they’re willing to just deliberately write a story they know is factually incorrect) is a far more important thing to tackle than the EU putting warning labels on balloons. In fact, I can’t think of any occasion where there wouldn’t be bigger fish to fry than some overzealous warning labels on packets of balloons, don’t we have real civil liberties to defend?
I also disagree with Clegg’s position on what the EU powers should be. Where it is advantageous for member states to pool resources, then this should be facilitated and encouraged by the EU. The litmus test should be whether it is beneficial for most of the members to pool sovereignty in an area , not whether it is an area impossible for member states to be effective on by themselves. Common EU foreign and military policies can be advantageous (depending on exactly what is meant) but are evidently aspects of policy that states could or do take care of by themselves.
Let’s also remember that some of the most harebrained EU policies are exactly in the areas where the EU should operate, even by Clegg’s standards, for instance the CFP is probably the second worst policy to have ever come out of the EU but it is absolutely correct that this should not be a policy for individual states to decide.
It is true that it is silly to have a country paying into the EU only for that money to return in development funds, but not because the EU is somehow overstepping a remit, but because the country is so negligent of its own deprived areas that any net contributor still needs EU development funds. In the case of the UK it’s not as if places like the north of England or Cornwall have exactly only recently become deprived, we’ve had decades to sort it out prior to joining the EU; and that Brussels has to step in where Westminister won’t is not a failure of the EU, it’s a failure of the UK.
As an aside, the CAP is a prime example of an area where the EU probably shouldn’t intervene (unless Europe ever does federate, which is to say, unless pigs fly). Unfortunately, it’s there for historical reasons, to replace the heavy intervention of the state in agriculture practiced by most of the original member states and so to allow free trade in agricultural produce between them. It’d be great if it could be axed but the original pushers of the policy (notably France) are still staunch defenders of the policy, as are many of the recently admitted states.
So, while I agree with the broad thrust of your post, despite being quite keen on the EU myself, I think the fine detail needs to be reworked and rethought. Reform is needed, the EU has genuine flaws and I should be cheering the LDs attempting to make a better EU, instead I’m just vaguely disappointed. An image of a euroreformist LD party would be a good one to attain, but not the image laid out in your post, or the image that Clegg would seek.
I think the most telling thing about the UK’s attitude to the EU is that the UK is the only country in the bloc where more people consider the EU a bad thing than a good thing (even then only by a few points). The hardline eurosceptics are loud but the prevailing mood about the EU in the UK is really more apathy than anger, the LDs should be mature and make a positive case for the good aspects of the EU, make a case against anything genuinely bad about it (and do their best to reform them) and topple any euromyths along the way. We shouldn’t make a vain attempt to grab eurosceptic Tories, to put it bluntly, I doubt we’ll get them even if we shifted to opposing British membership of the EU!
@Chris
The perception of us wanting to take the UK into the Euro does make us look ridiculous. Of course, joining the Euro is not ridiculous (the current crisis being largely about non-enforcement of the rules rather than anything more inherent), but until the currency has stabilised and it is more clear that it is what it is – i.e. the world’s second currency after the US Dollar – any perception of favour for the UK involvement in the currency will seem silly to the electorate.
Of course, there are sound economic reasons for and against joining the Euro. But it’s a bit difficult to argue for it when many commentators are (hyperbolically) predicting its immediate demise.. I’m under no illusions that if and when the UK joins the Eurozone it will because economic reality makes it a necessity, rather than it being some mass groundswell of pro-Euro feelings. Neither will happen now.
DunKhan: “An image of a euroreformist LD party would be a good one to attain, but not the image laid out in your post, or the image that Clegg would seek.”
Great! That’s more than fair enough. I only really meant to suggest Clegg’s Orange Book chapter as a possibility for EU reform, not to lay it out in cast-iron terms as we must do this, this and this, although I’m obviously in favour of what I wrote… But as I said in the piece, there are areas I disagree with Clegg on as well as ones I think he was fundamentally right on. Clearly, in updating suggestions from a book from 2004 much will need to change – kickstarting a debate on it was the minimum I wanted, and I’m happy that that seems to be happening. Don’t be disappointed that we two individuals disagree on the detail, but take movement on the issue as a positive and please do keep speaking up with your views – LibDem policy on Europe should be dragged into the light and debated by our entire party, from Europhobes to Euromaniacs.
DunKhan: Thank you for a considered and Liberal post. The fact is that the EU is serially misrepresented in British politics and media. Providing money to the EU to be invested in the country from which it came is hardly ridiculous unless you find the concept of coordinated economic planning ridiculous. It is all about strategies to stimulate the economy, so that the EU as a whole benefits from growth.
This is why Norway and Switzerland rightly have to contribute so much to the EU’s development funds, in order that they too can take advantage of economic growth in the EU.
It is utterly fruitless to pander to Daily Mail/ Express/ UKIP hysteria about EU standards that may relate to balloons. Without EU standards, there would still be national standards, but if the standards were all different there would be back door protectionism. I am not sure whether Zadok Day would support protectionism within the EU, but part of the point of the EU is to prevent protectionism.
Protectionist arguments are often populist, but this does not mean that they should be supported, still less that the Liberal Democrats should give such arguments their blessing in the hope of electoral gain.
I don’t even believe there would be any electoral gain, since there will always be other parties who will play the anti EU card more strongly.
As for an IN/OUT EU referendum, the Lib Dems proposed this in the last parliament, so I will be interested how the parliamentary party will respond this time. I think that the line that resists referendums on lengthily negotiated treaties is a recipe for stagnation is correct. This means that the central question is whether to be or not be a member. A referendum would resolve this question for another generation.
Not much here that I haven’t said before. The EU is a good idea that hasn’t been executed very well, and it would be better to stake out a position of “making it better”, in opposition to the “waste of money” of the eurosceptics and the “embrace failure” of the europhiles.
Andrew Suffield: whilst fully in accord with putting forward a position of improving the EU, I totally reject the apologetic “The EU is a good idea that hasn’t been executed very well”. Imagine the furore if similar statement was said of the NHS: it would be taken as an expression of scepticism and threat towards the NHS.
The fact that UK politics neuters UK engagement in Europe, is not evidence that the EU is poorly conceived.
A fully functional united states of Europe might have a much better structure, but currently there is not the political support and will to achieve this. The statement “The EU is a good idea that hasn’t been executed very well” is generally heard from those who wish for a weaker, less effectual Europe, not something with which Lib Dems would want to be associated.
We need to start from first principles:
Indirect democracy, parliamentary or otherwise, only functions in a healthy manner when it is perceived as legitimate.
It is only perceived as legitimate if the people recognise that it is both representative and accountable.
Representation:
The collective trust in shared aims and expectations that allows the people to put their destiny in the hands of another, safe in the knowledge that even if ‘their’ man doesn’t get the job then the other guy will still be looking after their best interests. The manner in which this trust is built is the knowledge that you and ‘he’ have a history of cooperation, and that your respective families likewise have a shared social and cultural history of cooperation, all of which allows you to trust that when adversity strikes ‘he’ will act in a predictable and acceptable way.
Accountability:
The absence of a common Demos with which to represent will automatically cause a governing institution to retreat into itself, struggling with futility to create policy anodyne enough to be accepted by all, and creating an ever more ‘sophisticated’ machinery with which to create said policy. That sophistication in actual fact only serves to obscure the machinery from public view, in itself a bad thing, worse still it will isolate the policy making from the need to respond to public demand. In short, it lacks accountability in both perception and reality.
When adversity strikes, those aims and expectations forged from that shared history really stand out, and make an utter mockery of the idea of a trans-european representative governance for all. People have different needs, and right now the sovereign nation state is best placed to meet that need.
Well guess what, adversity has arrived, and the Lib-Dem’s would do well to recognise this and support option “c” from the commons debate: “renegotiate the terms of its membership in order to create a new relationship based on trade and co-operation”
Transnational progressivism remains an ideology not a reality, and like all ideologies it will struggle for credibility, then it will struggle for relevance, and finally it will struggle to be remembered.
This is a brilliant post. Something I’ve been saying for ages is that most of our policies, especially on Europe, are ones that most people can agree with – yet we always seem to communicate them in the worst possible way. Euro-reformism is one of the key things which attracted me to this party and it’s a shame that hardly anyone outside the party seems to understand what our policy is on the EU.
@ Dunkhan –
“I’m not that mad about the idea of an in/out referendum but if the UK would actually be an active player in the EU if the country voted to stay in. then I’d be okay with it.”
I am mad about it, but I would totally agree that if the vote is yes then we ought to accept that we should be willing participants than offering surly recalcitrance.
“But I would say that stopping perpetual change in the EU is a terrible idea. In fact, stopping change for any real time in any institution is a shortcut to stagnation and obsolescence.”
Entirely agreed, continual evolution is the key to successful nations as they adapt to the changing world about them. WhereI have a problem with the EU is the continual change without any mandate or acquiescence from the peoples of europe. That is not representative democracy.
“Of course, joining the Euro is not ridiculous (the current crisis being largely about non-enforcement of the rules rather than anything more inherent)”
Here I disagree, there is more to competent governance than creating and enforcing a sufficiently sophisticated set of rules by which to regulate it.
An economic union, just as a nation-state, is effectively a collective agreement that a people are a family, who have sufficient trust in each other to accept indirect governance from representatives of the prevailing will of a majority, it is also a collective agreement to work together for the benefit of the whole rather than the individual. In short it is a marriage which results in a transfer union.
Inevitably there will be richer and poorer parts of the nation-states economy, and if that economy is not to tear itself apart from the strife resulting from a polarising divergence in wealth then there must be a compact agreed by the people that national taxation will be redistributed in a manner the assists less advantaged areas. In short the rich pay for the poor.
This compact is seen in every developed country, by way of social benefits applied equally throughout the territory, by way of regional development funds to promote wealth creation in poor performing areas, and by concentrating public sector activity in areas of reduced economic potential. It is fundamental to the cohesion and harmony of the society.
Without a common demos with which to commonly assent to this family obligation a currency union does not work. Greece’s problem will not be solved by a mere haircut, and the germans et-al will not assent to treating the olive-belt in the same way northern italy has done with the south for the last century.
It is perfectly legitimate for Liberal Democrats to demand the EU run itself much better while still supporting the principle of its existence. The EU is an embarrassment in so many ways, not least the increase in its budget at a time of belt-tightening across European nations. Yet at the same time as criticising its weaknesses we should do more to celebrate its achievements, such as the ceilings on mobile telecom roaming charges.
Brits are quick to criticise the EU but are perfectly happy to take advantage of cheap flights subsidised out of EU grants, to travel freely in Europe without having to change money all the time and have the freedom at will to work in or retire to mediterranean countries. If we left the EU, what would we do with the million Brits suddenly repatriated from Spain? Eurosceptics should be careful what they wish for.
@ PhilW – “If we left the EU, what would we do with the million Brits suddenly repatriated from Spain? Eurosceptics should be careful what they wish for.”
It is called EFTA……………
On the subject of accountability:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8837173/EU-fraud-analysis.html
Yes, it’s Hannan, but play the ball not the man.
On the subject of representation:
http://www.eldrfocus2011.eu/2011/08/lib-dem-meps-%E2%80%9Cconsign-uk-rebate-to-history%E2%80%9D/
From a pressure group this is fine, from a political party it is rank stupidity.
——————————————-
More generally; i am deeply disturbed by the Lib-Dem tendency to whitewash EU criticism as a fabrication of the ‘populist’ press as if that invalidates it as a legitimate concern.
Why, because it treats the electorate, or at least the non-latte sipping proportion of it, as something less than adults of legally sound mind who are capable of responsibly carrying out their duties as a fully participating citizen of the state.
It indicates a deep distrust of democracy itself, and that is a very unhealthy position for a political party to articulate!
Great post as usual Zadok, and interesting discussion in the comments.
I fully support both reform of the EU and being vocal about wanting to reform the EU; being characterised as puppy lovers of the EU is clearly not a good look. Though I am completely opposed to acquiescing to the systematic lies propagated by the Twitching Xenophone Press (TXP) regarding balloons, straight bananas etc; the influence of such lies is so corrosive on public discourse, and prevents normal debate from taking place.
Which, along with a certain pessimism, brings me onto my main comment: it is becoming clearer and clearer that EU membership is a whale in the fishtank, and public opinion is demanding a say. As a liberal, I can’t think of any reason to defend there not being a referendum; EU membership is becoming an issue of great constitutional import, and it would be democratic to have a referendum on this issue. However, if one does take place, the result will only ever go one way, because of the influence of the TXP and the systematic lies they have told over decades. Ignorance about the reality of the EU and its work is all-encompassing, and a referendum would certainly lead to defeat, whatever we say, which would be the final death knell for this arrogant, creaking, exceptionalist basket-case nation, and the straw that finally busts the mixed-metaphorical flush. So I can think of no reason to oppose a referendum on democratic grounds, but we must be aware that by doing so we are consigning our own country to failure. A referendum would be unwinnable, reform or no reform.
(If we do decide to run with it, give me a heads-up in advance so I can apply for Irish citizenship…)
I’m astonished at how badly Fiona Hall has presented her views. Most people read little more than headlines – Fact. What is the article about – Reform of EU Finance. What is the Headline about – Loss of British Rebate. Does she, or the member of her staff who did this, really think this will go down well in the UK and increase support for the party whom she represents?
What a Muppet.
“Ignorance about the reality of the EU and its work is all-encompassing, and a referendum would certainly lead to defeat, whatever we say, which would be the final death knell for this arrogant, creaking, exceptionalist basket-case nation, and the straw that finally busts the mixed-metaphorical flush.”
I have to disagree with the conclusion, for I have yet to see any cogent argument that explains why Britain as an EEA/EFTA member would be a single penny poorer for the decision……….?
“So I can think of no reason to oppose a referendum on democratic grounds, but we must be aware that by doing so we are consigning our own country to failure.”
At the very least you are willing to trust democratic governance to follow its proper process, and do not choose to decide against a referendum by working backwards from what you consider to be an unfavourable result. That is at least honest, if only such an attitude was more widespread.
“If we do decide to run with it, give me a heads-up in advance so I can apply for Irish citizenship…”
I have several friends who feel the same way. You have to remember that Britain is just your internationalist science experiment just as it isn’t my classically-liberal ‘paradise’ of yore. To me the high-point of european integration was the cooperation and collaboration of the EC, and by treaty the St Malo declaration in 1998 with everything afterward patently absurd, it looks like you too will suffer bitter disappointments.
@jedibeeftrix
Britain would not be a single penny the poorer for withdrawing to the perceived safety of EFTA. Withdrawing from that as well would be economic suicide, but it is of course possible to get the free trade without having to be in the EU itself. There is however, as in all things, a price.
What the eurosceptics so often fail to mention is that in order to be a member of EFTA, one must enact most of what comes out of Brussels, while getting no say whatsoever in deciding what it is that’s going to become policy.
This is necessary in order to ensure that no members of the Free Trade Area are working with an unfair competitive advantage, so all the regulations, rules and rights decided on in Brussels have to apply across the tariff-free zone.
In the case of Norway, for example, they find they must participate in a number of European Union projects in order to interact successfully with their EU neighbours. This is all fine, but they get no votes on those projects. They really do have unelected, unaccountable officials handing down decisions to them with no say in what’s going on.
We’re better off inside helping to make the decisions than outside having to put up with them.
Jedibeeftrix
“I have yet to see any cogent argument that explains why Britain as an EEA/EFTA member would be a single penny poorer for the decision……….?”
The argument for political engagement is about political stability, which is the fundamental underpinning required for economic growth.
So comparing the British strategic diplomatic position to EFTA members is like comparing the British economic position to Andorra and Leichtenstein.
If you didn’t notice Britain left EFTA in the mid-70s because our political security had become a serious issue as our economy fell into a dire position when productivity lagged behind continental neighbours, and joining the political project (albeit under a cloud of obscurity) paved the way for economic restructuring which would otherwise have happened in a much more radical (read: violent) way than Thatcher actually perpetrated.
Free trade associations don’t promote trade to the same extent because although they remove barriers to entry they maintain separate markets. If you want to maximise economic growth by promoting trade then a unified market is integral, and this requires common – not multi-lateral – political reform, which in turn requires a shared political forum to regulate it. So I’d be obliged if you could point out what advantage EFTA membership has other than as a subsidiary to the EU – EFTA is a largely meaningless entity, as the level of bi-lateral Norwegian-Swiss trade unmistakably shows.
Should Britain leave the EU now government finances may see a minor temporary repreive, but it would be mothing more than a blip on the radar since income growth will fall behind competitors as trading conditions become more difficult for us. Even should we secure access to the single market, as a full EEA member, we would still lose out because market rules would not account for our particular economic strengths and decades would be required for rebalancing the jobs market, potentially punishing millions if not tens of millions of ordinary people – how many graduates are currently prepared and willing to retrain?
Self-interest only gets you so far, up until precisely the point you realise the overriding permanent interest is shared mutually and equally by everyone.
Would you prefer for Britain and the EU to speak with one voice at the WTO when faced with emerging forces like Russia and China, or would you like to cede the initiative to their more dubious motives?
And given the recent ugly spectacle of Liam Fox, can critics of Europe really say Britain necessarily upholds a higher standard and we’re better off out?
Which raises the real security issues – if Britain left the EU, would you propose to compensate for the loss of shared military capability by raising defence expenditure, currently about 2% of GDP, to 4-5% of GDP as our commitments would otherwise require (and were before we joined the EU)?
Even the more modest warnings of the UKNDA proposes a 50% rise to 3% is required now to maintain current levels of capability, even with ongoing shared input (1% of GDP is about £16bn).
On the basis of those two measures alone Britain would see relative annual declines in trade of 1-2% and face additional £30-50bn military spending at today’s prices. How many pennies is that?
Or are Europhobes proposing to deny our historic legacy and give up Britains permanent seat on the UN Security Council, hand over the Falklands to Argentina (with it’s potential oil and gas fields) and play no active role in restricting global piracy, trafficking, fraud etc.?
What about responsibility for the global order – what power does EFTA have to negotiate terms for environmental protection treaties? Rising sealevels don’t matter if you live on a mountain-top, do they?
And equally, leaving the EU will encourage the break-up of the UK, as the devolved powers in Scotland, Wales and NI each see their long-term interests within Europe. Would we passively hand over to French and Germans troops the military bases they could not conquer?
Our failure to promote just and equitable integration is the cause of the current crisis – and leaving the EU would create chaos and spread disorder even compared to everything we currently experience. It would turn history into reverse gear.
Please tell me, what exactly is the case for leaving the EU?
They speak with funny accents? You want to go on holiday there, but you couldn’t live or work there? Your conservatory has collapsed and you don’t want to pay for the town library any more? You weren’t able to vote 30-40 years ago?
I’d really like to hear exactly what you think it would achieve.
I very much agree with Oranjepan and mostly with Bolivia Newton John, however I sometimes think that the UK needs to experience how it is outside the EU, to understand why it needs to be a fully functioning member.
The risk is, of course, that some countries would be reluctant to let the UK back in. However if they did then the UK would be obliged to commit itself to the Euro and also adhere to basic democratic standards, which it currently fails to meet.
The Lib Dem position on the EU has to be just about the biggest policy failure ever in a crowded field. Yes, I know that anyone closely examining the policy entrails would find calls for reform of this and that aspect, but rarely said with much conviction or from the top table. In effect, we supported whatever initiatives came from Brussels never mind how undemocratic, centralising, dysfunctional, guaranteed to fail or simply corrupt it was.
And this is liberal? No wonder we already trail UKIP in european elections and are likely to do even worse next time around. A referendum against this background would run the high risk of leaving control of the agenda entirely to those who would tear down rather than build a better future. What is to be done?
For a start we urgently need to move to a public position of euroreform, to criticise at every opportunity what needs to be criticised. So let’s attack the CFP, the CAP, the corruption and the rest. But we cannot stop at criticising – we must also propose a better vision for Europe and a better plan to get us there. David Henry’s draft conference motion is a good start but only a start. We need positive proposals.
@ DunKhan
“the current [Euro] crisis being largely about non-enforcement of the rules rather than anything more inherent”
Not so. As Jedibeeftrix says its about structural imbalances and was knowable in advance; that it wasn’t considered says nothing good about the economic management of Europe. For instance, I went to a public meeting before the euro was launched at which a Lib Dem MEP spoke in favour of joining and a UKIP person against. In questions I asked how imbalances could be handled because the mechanisms available within a nation state – inter-regional migration and/or tax transfers to support poorer areas – neither of which would, in my opinion, work across Europe. The MEP’s answer was that growth would be so much higher that it wouldn’t matter. This was either stunningly ignorant or dishonest – I’m still not sure which. Even if rapid growth had materialised (which I doubted), growth differentials would have blown the system up eventually. And that is exactly what has happened with, as a side effect (which I did not foresee), the destruction of the banking system that is playing out now.
Liberal Eye,
“we supported whatever initiatives came from Brussels never mind how undemocratic, centralising, dysfunctional, guaranteed to fail or simply corrupt it was.”
You may have, we certainly didn’t.
You’re post-rationalising with a sweeping generalisation that the appearance of support for the European project equated to a completely uncritical stance towards it.
Growth differentials would not necessarily have ‘blown the system up eventually’, rather it was the practise of relative implementation of rules (Britain habitually over-implements, Greece under-implemented) which resulted in economic divergence. While growth in individual countries remained positive this was manageable, but it was more convenient to sweep the systemic (not structural) problems under the carpet – meaning when the crunch came it has been that much more dramatic.
Could these problems have been averted if we’d had an engaged pro-European party in Government at Westminster for any of the preceding 34 years? Very likely, but we’ll never know for sure.
To be clear, I’m strongly in favour of a united liberal democratic Europe, but we’re still a long way from achieving that.
Critics say Brussels is unaccountable and untransparent, so let’s have some accountability and transparency; critics say the economic order is skewed towards the institutionally powerful and rich, so let’s broaden access to fair opportunity; critics say they don’t see what they get for the money it costs, I hope it never gets to that state of affairs.
As for a referendum, calling for one at the height of a crisis is like whipping a lynch mob up into a frenzy and expecting justice to prevail.
“What the eurosceptics so often fail to mention is that in order to be a member of EFTA, one must enact most of what comes out of Brussels, while getting no say whatsoever in deciding what it is that’s going to become policy.”
Sure there would still be a lot of regulation, but it would be [significantly] less!
And to tinker round the edges with the economic merits is to be diverted by a minor factor, what I argued above in my first to posts is the meat of the issue; political union is not wanted, it is in fact antithetical wellbeing of the social fabric in britain as evidenced by rising euroskepticism.
This is supposed to be a political party, not a pointy-headed pressure group, and that requires being accountable to, and representative, the will of the electorate.
http://www.brugesgroup.com/EFTAorTheEU.pdf
@ Orangepan –
“The argument for political engagement is about political stability, which is the fundamental underpinning required for economic growth.”
As noted above, ever-deeper-union is bringing us the exact opposite of political stability, precisely because there is no common polity. Yes free trade is good, yes cooperation and collaboration is good, but I want Lib-Dem’s to ask themselves the following question:
If the purpose of the European project was to create a happier Europe, more at ease with its neighbours and less prone to industrial warfare, at what point did the means become confused with the ends?
That is to say, to the point where ever-deeper-union is deemed to be a good thing regardless of the fact that it is now leading to a less happy Europe, because the model of governance is perceived to be unrepresentative and unaccountable!
“So I’d be obliged if you could point out what advantage EFTA membership has other than as a subsidiary to the EU – EFTA is a largely meaningless entity, as the level of bi-lateral Norwegian-Swiss trade unmistakably shows.”
My pleasure:
http://www.brugesgroup.com/EFTAorTheEU.pdf
“Or are Europhobes proposing to deny our historic legacy and give up Britains permanent seat on the UN Security Council, hand over the Falklands to Argentina?”
Re the security question generally; please don’t make me laugh.
Britain’s security depends on NATO first and foremost, it is the guarantor of peace in europe.
Britain also depends on political stability in europe………………………. but; attributing that stability to the EU is a joke!
Even suggesting that european stability depends upon the process of ever-deeper-union is frankly disgusting.
Insomuch as ever-deeper-union (post St Malo) has an effect on european political stability it is in the negative, as we are seeing all over europe with the rise of populist parties.
As to our security council seat; that will be retained by two reinforcing factors:
1. We maintain the second most powerful expeditionary military [capability] outside the US, i.e. the ability to go places and achieve useful stuff. It is called sovereign and strategic power-projection, and while our capability is declining it will remain in the top five for many decades to come.
2. We maintain the [will] to employ military force as a country, particularly for elective warfare, in a way the most of our european neighbours do not. You can argue that this is not a good thing, and you may be right, but it doesn’t change the fact of the matter that Britain remains a ‘warry’ nation.
There is only one other country in europe that possesses the twin necessities for Great Power status, that of capability combined with will, and that is France.
More fundamentally than raw military factors is the influence we achieve via our foreign policy choices, i.e. how much weight our preferences have in the international arena, and here I would argue that we have gone backwards. Where europe acts as a venue for cooperation and collaboration to reach a common viewpoint it is a multiplier, where it turns into a venue for bickering on process because a common viewpoint is not achievable it actually reduces our influence.
Where you lack a common polity to provide a common mandate you cannot advocate or implement radical policy because it will lack legitimacy in the eyes of a significant proportion of the electorate. Europe is not considered legitimate or accountable so it can achieve legitimacy.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2011/10/eu-foreign-policy
“Growth differentials would not necessarily have ‘blown the system up eventually’, rather it was the practise of relative implementation of rules (Britain habitually over-implements, Greece under-implemented) which resulted in economic divergence.”
To accept this as the cause of europes problems is to grossly mistake governance for a purely technocratic affair where every problem can be solved by sufficiently sophisticated legislation and regulation.
It is not!
Government is at heart a visceral and emotional rollercoaster that hinges upon the assent of the people to be governed by others, and to accept the consequences of their decisions.
The crucial feature of indirect democracy is the perception of representation, the collective trust in shared aims and expectations that allows the people to put their destiny in the hands of another, safe in the knowledge that even if ‘their’ man doesn’t get the job then the other guy will still be looking after their best interests.
The manner in which this trust is built is the knowledge that you and ‘he’ have a history of cooperation, and that your respective families likewise have a shared social and cultural history of cooperation, all of which allows you to trust that when adversity strikes ‘he’ will act in a predictable and acceptable way.
Do the rioters in Greece accept the validity of the austerity being imposed upon them?
Does the German populace feel that the descent into a debt-union is a legitimate goal for their government to pursue?
Do the huge number of voters for Finlands new populist party believe that the mainstream parties were interested in doing their bidding?
In short; do they consider their governance to be accountable and representative?
They do not.
@jedi
thanks for that.
The Bruges Group makes some interesting – if incoherent – debating positions. As a lobby organisation they aren’t completely reputable and should be treated with scepticism.
Historically they are associated with promoting widening the union at the expense of deepening it, but I’d argue widening and deepening must go hand in hand, as anything else undermines security.
Basically they promote several false assumptions, which you’ve apparently swallowed whole. So I’m glad to have the opportunity to counter them.
1) Common polity.
British foreign policy strategy is traditionally to build alliances, which in the context of Europe means trying to build a common polity.
You say there is no common European polity, but this is contradicted by the existence of the debate we’re having about reforming the European Union. European political unity is weak, so the question is really about what measures we should take to help advance it, if indeed we do.
Deeper union is not weakening political stability because it is not happening fast enough to cope with the widening union, rather wider union has weakened political resolution and this has impacted economic stability (as seen in the non-implementation and circumvention of entry criteria to the Euro).
All current discussions are driving movement towards the only two real solutions – being to rebalance the depth and width of union, either through strengthening the depth or loosening the width, and thereby establish a better equilibrium between the different constituent parts. My answer is that a compromise is necessary, and some means of flexibility between the two will be found to make it more relevant to all individual members (currently the EU is driven by the Franco-German imperative, which has lost significance with the addition of new members, but has also ceded more influence to Franch and German governments).
In any event, while equilibrium is being rediscovered those who make the move against greater integration will see a temporary competitive gain while those who move towards greater integration will reap much larger and longer lasting benefits.
It is this which is creating a political choice between those who emphasise the immediate concerns of individuals and those who seek to secure the future of common humanity.
So where and how that equilibrium can be discovered is a vital debate.
2) Sovereignty
the concept of absolute national sovereigty has not existed since 1648, when the modern era began and the concept of a ‘concert of nations’ was formally established.
Britain has not had or attempted to regain the capability of sovereign strategic power projection any time in the past 400 years (since Britain’s humiliating failure to reinvade Spain, which helped eventually lead to the Peace of Westphalia, from where we get the limitations on the nation state, through the end of the ‘divine right’ of kings).
Arguably the principle never existed, albeit as exceptions from the rule in practise – it is not the ability to make war that is relevant, but the ability to make peace: any fool can start an argument, it takes a genius to stop it (ahem, Bush and Petraeus).
In particular the outcome of WW2 was forged by our alliance-building capability, by which we pooled our military sovereignty in the common interests of national security. However ongoing deescalation of hostilities and demilitarisation since this strategic mode defeated the Axis powers could, and can, only be maintained by transferring the pooling of sovereignty in the military sphere to the political sphere.
Pooled sovereignty increases the overall level of public control over our own affairs precisely because it decreases the sovereignty of particular divisions of administration and gives people more power to hold repreentatives and institutions to account, should we know how to combine and choose to use our power effectively – or are you saying that there is something special about national governments which means they necessarily act in the best interests of all the people all of the time? Clearly your arguments regarding Greece and Germany suggest not, and this is a major contradiction.
In which case aren’t you overlooking the fact that nation states are the product of a collective pooling of individual sovereignty and you are therefore additionally failing to explain why this principle which you depend upon for your reasoning cannot and should not be applied further?
3) The security question and Nato
Who are fully-subscribed Nato signatories if not either EU members or proponents of European integration? Nato is Eisenhower’s baby – the offspring of his Allied Command in Europe, to which the defeated armies of western Europe surrendered, and of which he was also the first secretary-general. Nato’s HQ is near Brussels (Mons actually) and to all intents and purposes is the European central military command.
British influence on the international stage is secured and mandated only through our committed membership to various international organisations, of which the EU is potentially the most significant. So maybe you could address the funding point – Norway spent over 4% of GDP on defence in the past year with proportionally far fewer global commitments than Britain undertook, while we spent about 2% of GDP. The fact that we can do so much with so little is the direct consequence of our diplomatic position at the heart of the global order where we are most able to set the agenda.
Yet Nato’s relationship with the EU creates an interesting dynamic, since this prevents direct accountable oversight through a common foreign policy, but enables the flexibility for groups of individual countries to take action on the basis of shared aims (such as in Libya). Withdrawl from the EU would therefore hinder our ability to reach agreement. And this requires you to answer how would you propose replacing our influence, except by raising defence expenditure to account for the lost diplomatic investment made in the EU (replacement of which would require increases in defence expenditure to meet the average level over the 65-year period of the post-war peace – ie an annual budgetary commitment of 2%), and thereby also making the dangerous choice to exchange soft power for hard power and restart the age-old arms race?
If a new global conflict becomes inevitable it would obviously be necessary to rearm at that point, but it is a frightening thought that anyone would even contemplate the possibility of such a devastating scenario becoming reality instead of using all available means to seek to avert it right up until that point. Essentially the anti-EU camp are a combination of short-sighted, pessimistic and war-mongering paranoiacs – which are you?
4) Governance and democracy.
In a democracy those ‘others’ you describe are nothing but ‘us’ by another name, so if you wish for greater democracy then it is also up to you to recognise our responsibilities within the competency of European institutions.
Therefore EU regulations are a complete red herring, since Britain is nominally a fully participating member – we help set up the institutional structure of Europe, we scrutinise, debate and implement legislation and we enforce it, so it is perverse in the extreme to complain about the lack of any veto or otherwise wish to minimise it’s effect.
But, importantly, you are right in identifying that this is where the problems arise: because common European polity is weak the cultural traditions of different members must be taken into account, since there is divergence on the rigour of implementation this creates divergent attitudes to their composition – which in turn reflects national cultures and the popular respect for the force of law and order, and correllates closely with the historic commitment to democracy and the depth of support for democracy in each country.
And just as you describe there is confusion caused by the political distinctions regarding how states and individuals relate.
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So you ask: “at what point did the means become confused with the ends?”
And I answer: at the point at which the pace of institutional integration became separated from the rate of cultural integration.
This applies whether you choose to measure it in general terms or across the various different levels at which connections exist.
Perceptions of accountability and representativeness are not what caused the crisis in confidence, rather the divergent nature of the reality undermined the systems of good governance it would otherwise promote.
The change in emphasis of public perception from desirability to actuality is merely an indicator of underlying problems facing us in the challenge of building a lasting peace, not the cause of them. Ultimately events have caused this shift, but the crisis is beneficial precisely because this is forcing us to address these questions – and our ability to successfully negotiate our way out of it will bring us together.
Maybe you could try again, this time elaborating on the particular references which you’d like to draw as to the benefits of EFTA.
“Historically they are associated with promoting widening the union at the expense of deepening it, but I’d argue widening and deepening must go hand in hand, as anything else undermines security.”
A position I have always supported as the quickest way to spoke-the-wheels of the more ardent europhiles and their silly ambitions. Not only has Turkey earned it’s place in the EU by standing on the front-lines of NATO for fifty years, and not only would europe benefit from a large and fast growing economy like Turkey’s, but it would force an end to the perception of ever-deeper-union.
More to the point, you just spent a great deal of effort trying to convince me why I need to accept that I must embrace a european identity when that is in not in any way necessary.
There is no requirement for ever-deeper-union, it is not a necessity. I have no european identity that you could foster, and desire to inculcate one.
But more importantly than your philia and my phobia is that that there is no indication that any useful majority of the British electorate has any tangible european identity, particularly not one of sufficiently corporeal nature that it could replace a British identity.
More crucially, the assumption of ever-deeper-union is in effect forcing such an identity on people who now actively reject it; congratulations, european harmony is now going into reverse.
The EU will be at its most effective if it becomes a broad and shallow forum for intergovernmental cooperation and collaboration, and only then if at a level of decision making that can be accepted by all.
A common market with freedoms of goods, capital and labour will be quite sufficient thank you.
@Jedi
“The EU will be at its most effective if it becomes a broad and shallow forum for intergovernmental cooperation and collaboration, and only then if at a level of decision making that can be accepted by all.
A common market with freedoms of goods, capital and labour will be quite sufficient thank you.”
The EU has grown to 27 members. Decisions regarding the internal market are made without qualified majority voting. The EU is ‘broad and shallow’.
This is what you want. It has caused the crisis. What you want is unacceptable.
Our options are to move backwards to a ‘narrow and shallow’ system (where we face additional costs) or forwards a ‘broad and deep’ situation (where we require greater accountability), or allow the crisis to continue.