* Europe: the dog that doesn’t bark
At the East Midlands Liberal Democrat conference in February Sal Brinton’s advice was not to make Europe a campaign issue. Subsequent events have proved her right. My agent urges caution as UKIP did well in this constituency in the European elections. Ed Milliband ran it up the flagpole at the start of the short campaign by pointing out how destabilising a referendum would be for business, but but no-one saluted. Tony Blair mentioned it and had a similar non-response. On the doorsteps it’s barely figured. A handful of people have voiced strong anxiety over UKIP and been delighted when I say I’m their opposite: as many have said they are voting UKIP and slammed the door.
Even in the torrent of emails from 38degrees (and similar), the only thing even vaguely connecting to the EU has been TTIP, where the anxieties are far from reality.
Yet globalisation is moving quickly. The single market was formed to increase our competitiveness on the world stage (also the primary reason for TTIP), and the associated changes to the institutions of the European Union were to ensure democratic control — directly through the European Parliament, and indirectly though national governments.
The campaign seems bewildering. Attempts by Labour and Conservatives to grab the focus remind me of a particularly grim local election when the candidates seemed to be competing to find broken paving stones. The big picture seems almost entirely absent.
The SNP’s anti-austerity programme should make Scots relieved that being in the UK limits the damage they can do. UKIP’s desire to leave the EU seems even more detached from reality, though barely an improvement on attempts by Labour and the Conservatives to say things to appeal to their core supporters while remaining vague on the actual proposals for spending or cutting which would allow people to have an informed opinion.
In an interconnected world there are big limits on what national governments can do. The non-engagement makes sense of disaffection from politics, but it is the opposite of healthy democracy. The Liberal Democrat manifesto feels like a pragmatic starting point for working with others, in coalition in the UK, and in co-operation in the EU, but it is hard to get that voice heard.
As a parliamentary candidate I feel a contradictory pull: to offer things that will benefit my constituency, and yet to ignore the fact that MPs work in co-operation with others. I am pressed to oppose HS2 (which goes through the constituency) despite its benefits to the British economy and improved connections with the rest of the EU. It seems an impossible leap from “How do we stop it?” to “How can we join in sharing in its benefits?”, and yet the former is fantasy, and the latter offers real possibilities.
As an internationalist party, can we shift the debate to what is good for us as citizens of an EU nation? Can we move the debate from a frightened escape from reality, to engage with our actual situation?
* Mark Argent was the Liberal Democrat candidate for Huntingdon in the 2019 and 2024 General Elections.
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19 Comments
There is still problems operating EU law like the Brussels 11a, none of your Party MPs have been in the All Party since the only MP left.
It most certainly raises questions, should we be part of something that your MPs have little interest in, when it goes wrong.
Children and child abduction, that carries a prison sentence.
“…Yet globalisation is moving quickly. The single market was formed to increase our competitiveness on the world stage (also the primary reason for TTIP) ……..”
Hang on a second! The primary reason for TTIP ? How did that get into what is otherwise a reasonable article?
As recent threads have shown there is no consensus amongst Liberal Democrats as to the “primary reason” forTTIP or even if it is a good idea.
Some people seem to think that the Primary Reason for TTIP is to enable large corporations to take democratically elected governments to courts where the rules are stacked in favour of large corporations.
The idea that large Tobacco Corporations which operate across the world and have a keen interest in lobbying for TTIP do so primarily because they have an interest in “increasing our competitiveness on the world stage” seems fanciful.
A lot of people who are anti – europe are like toddlers who look at a food for the first time and say “I don’t like it”, without having tasted it.
To which I’d say, just as one would to a toddler: “you can’t say you don’t like it until you’ve tried it”.
In my experience, nothing makes someone realise the benefits of the EU quite as much as studying and/or working in Europe, so as practical measures, I’d suggest:
1. Make a period of study in another EU country a standard part of all UK degree & MBA programmes
2. Make language tuition compulsory from year 1 –> sixth form
3. Promote opportunities working elsewhere in the EU for all, but particularly for the unemployed.
Those still skeptical about the EU should then be made to go through the tedious rigmarole of getting a work permit for a country outside the EU (but not somewhere like Norway, which accepts freedom of movement as part of the price for access to the single market, a fact that Mr Farage seems to forget).
Also, make sure the legal systems are fit for purpose. I write on the failings within the Brussels 11a. I have written on the Hague Convention, if your child was taken and it proved very difficult and costly to get your rights, I think your thoughts would be different.
All I am saying is to your Party, take responsibility and become part of the system, you had no MPs in the All Party Group, time for change, end the postcode lottery on the subject.
By the way I speak Spanish and have written it when needed, brushing up on my Hebrew at present. A little German, a little French. I have some French relatives and Spanish.
@ JUF – i’m interested to see whether the lib-dem election high-command thinks your manifesto is salable…
I guess it is too late now but it might have been worth making pro/anti EU a standard canvass question, saves time if we have to fight a referendum later in the year.
@Mark Argent
Is it really only a month since your last article here pushing TTIP? No, I’m wrong – less than a month.
In that time I’m afraid it’s still as anti-democratic as ever – still a way of handing political power over to multinational corporations. Note to LDV – I accept that LDV (or at least some of its editors) are obsessed with trying to brainwash me with TTIP propaganda. If I’m really part of some Luddite minority, and there are a multitude of the opposition, I would expect at least a variety of voices pushing TTIP here; I’d expect that you wouldn’t be tapping the same people for the same articles in such a short space of time.
The party needs to “decontaminate” itself on EU issues. Saying we are the opposite of UKIP doesn’t help, I am afraid. But it is good that you also talk about pragmatism.
Even those on the left who wish to retain the “opposite of UKIP stance” should think how being soft on the EU, which together is more powerful than us, is actually a progressive stance. “Progressive” politics hasn’t boomed in Scotland because a party came along and said how much they loved the union.
I keep a French learning log and wouldn’t rule out moving there one day, so if even I am not starry-eyed when it comes to the EU then pro EU liberals have to ask themselves how big this market really is.
Trade is good. Lowering standards, and allowing multinationals to sue the UK if laws are put in place which restrict their profits, coupled with the ability to import workers from one country to another, and base themselves in tax havens are not good.
The obsession the Liberal Democrats have with supporting TTIP shows how a socially democratic sensible party of the centre ground has fallen into the trap of unrestrained corporatism. Are you really just a pro EU bunch of corporatists (to contrast from the Tories being a bunch of corporatists who have divergent views on the EU)?
If the party believes in social democracy and more localism, then TTIP is the antithesis of all of this. By all means trade fairly, but entering into an extremely complicated bilateral investment treaty negotiated in private, where the vast majority of those consulted are multinational corporations is betraying the people of this island.
I do not see public services as globally tradable goods, nor do I see why corporations should have their own privatised supranational court system. If the British public don’t want GMOs, fracking, public services handed over to foreign outsourcing companies or privatised rail, then we as a nation should obey their wishes.
I wish the Liberal Democrats would go back to a pro civil liberties, centrist position, rather than just being another vehicle to progress with international corporatism overriding all other methods of running an economy (a mixture of a healthy free market, socialism, and / or protectionism where needed).
Being pro-European doesn’t mean being soft on Europe. It is only properly committed pro-Europeans who can effectively fight within the EU for the reform that is so clearly needed.
Exactly the point I make. Unless, as a Party you are willing to not only keep the opinions os liking the EU, but helping to improve where its clearly failing.
Within our laws we have a consistent attitude towards improvement.
@JUF millions of our fellow citizens visit continental Europe every summer. Millions more live there. They turn their backs on local culture preferring ersatz fish and chips, premiership football and the Sun and Mirror.
I fear your scheme is a trifle idealistic.
“Sal Brinton’s advice was not to make Europe a campaign issue.
I assume from this and the following sentences that she meant not to make IN an issue in opposition to UKIP’s OUT.
Well, I’m afraid that particular dog does more than bark; it already gave the Lib Dems a pretty nasty bite – down to one MEP – and then only by her fingertips.
The odd thing about this is that the Lib Dems signature policy above all others is reforming governance – specifically proportional representation which, it is believed, it would lead to a more effective and representative Parliament. Fair enough. But why does support for reform stop at Westminster? The shortcomings of the EU’s governance are notorious, in particular the democratic deficit (a polite term for abusive behaviour) where smaller countries like Denmark or Ireland that get the ‘wrong’ answer in a referendum have to revote until they get it ‘right’. Then there are shockers like the CAP which hands vast amounts to wealthy landowners or the treatment of Greece where almost all the bailout money actually went to German and French banks.
It should be as easy as shooting fish in a barrel to oppose this lot and propose a better system – a properly federal approach with power flowing up for example – yet our official position is to support the status quo pretty well straight down the line and hope that by shouting loud enough (fat chance for a small party!) people will somehow cave in and acquiesce.
When this doesn’t work our, um, remarkable leadership comes up with Plan B – rinse and repeat.
“The single market was formed to increase our competitiveness on the world stage (also the primary reason for TTIP), …”
Err, what makes you think that it would do that? Production on a larger and more efficient scale is possible (but not certain) in a larger market than would be possible in a smaller one. However, the mere existence of a large market does not – of itself – create scale economies. That requires multiple other factors to co-exist – plentiful cheap finance, a skilled and motivated workforce, a good legal system etc. to be achieved.
One of the most signal failures of the Coalition has been its failure to do much about these other factors (a constrained solo effort by Vince Cable apart) as evidenced by falling productivity and the continued difficulties firms have in finding skilled labour or adequate finance. The TTIP cannot boost competitiveness absent these essential ingredients.
What TTIP does is to set multinationals interests above those of citizens and relieves them of the chore of observing regulations or the law when it doesn’t suit them. This make them a modern equivalent of ancient warlords – trampling all under foot in pursuit of their selfish ends. In history that’s never worked out well and I’ll bet you can’t argue that this time it would be different. At the very least you have to show that any gains to multinationals will trickle down to the rest of us. If you can’t show that then you are merely shilling for the powerful to become yet more powerful.
Newly leaked European Commission proposals for the TTIP include that all legislative initiatives should be vetted for their possible impact on private business interests. It’s yet more evidence of the anti-democratic nature of TTIP. How sad that a party with “Democrat” in its name struggles with the concept of democracy?
http://corporateeurope.org/pressreleases/2015/04/ttip-leak-eu-proposal-undermines-democratic-values
@GF – “Newly leaked European Commission proposals” – more seriously these show that the European Commission itself is opposed to democracy!!!
Just picking up the TTIP references, a better article than mine on that is Sean O’Curneen: https://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-threat-to-europe-countering-the-ttip-scaremongering-45354.html
@GF: Lib Dem MEPs did argue for reform of the EU and for a specifically liberal vision on issues that are discussed in the European Parliament. Unfortunately none of this came out during the Euro election campaign because our campaigns people chose to make it all about Clegg when he wasn’t even up for election. And even worse, to do the head-to-head debate with Farage and the “party of IN” campaign. The problem with this wasn’t just that it made us look like uncritical supporters of whatever the EU does, but also that the UK’s relationship with the EU is not something that MEPs have any role in deciding, seeing as they legislate for the EU as a whole. A non-political person could have gone through the entire Euro campaign not knowing that it was actually for electing representatives for a body that helps make EU laws. Even when Farage asserted that the EU is “undemocratic”, Clegg FAILED TO POINT THIS OUT !! Our air war campaign said NOTHING about the work that our MEPs had done. As far as I remember it didn’t mention them at all. It should have been wall-to-wall with specific examples of what our MEPs had done AS LIBERALS to work towards a more LIBERAL EU. We failed to give voters a reason to vote for Lib Dem MEPs rather than MEPs from some other party, and that is the main reason we did so badly. As a party we need to fight FIRST-ORDER Euro-election campaigns, and make them about political differences between us and other party groups in the same way as national election campaigns are.