All political parties have their blind spots. When policies are not particularly close to their hearts, parties can afford to be critical – examining, debating and ‘stress-testing’ those policies before approving them. But some policies are too close to the heart; they are ‘Articles of Faith’, not to be questioned or examined too closely. Articles of Faith sometimes do not get exposed to critical examination, and when contrary evidence is unearthed, it can be pushed aside. It is not surprising that when ‘Articles of Faith’ are put under the spotlight, they are found wanting.
Europe is an Article of Faith for many Liberal Democrats, and the contrary evidence that has been pushed aside is the IPSOS Mori poll of the UK electorate about their attitudes to the EU. This really does bear close examination; it’s a goldmine of information, if you can bear to look at it.
The first conclusion is that there is no radical difference between the attitudes to Europe of Lab, Con & Lib Dem voters. Unsurprisingly, UKIP supporters are a bit more of an outlier. So the EU doesn’t really constitute a key factor for people in deciding who to vote for, not until recently perhaps.
Secondly, 22% of Lib Dem voters want us to quit the EU, they support Nigel Farage’s position rather than Nick Clegg’s.
43% of Lib Dem voters want us to stay in the EU but want a rolling-back of EU powers; some sort of repatriation. They support David Cameron’s position.
15% of Lib Dem voters want things to stay the same, stay in but no further concession of powers to Brussels.
Add those three groups together and you have 80% of Lib Dem voters more-or-less rejecting the idea of ‘Ever-closer Union’.
Only 14% of Lib Dem voters are sufficiently positive about Europe to advocate a further transfer of powers, only 3% wanting to go as far as a United States of Europe.
I think this graphically illustrates how out-of-touch with our own supporters we are when it comes to Europe, and how blind we have been to the sentiments of the country as a whole.
Why do people vote for us when they want Britain to leave the EU? Obviously for other reasons: civil liberties, environment, local issues etc. Nick Clegg defined us as the Party of IN, but hitherto many voters have not defined us thus. I would suggest that for this party to so stridently support the EU is sending a not-so-subliminal message to at least 22% of our supporters that they are voting for the wrong party!
I believe that not only should Britain leave the EU, I think we probably will, despite only a minority willing to declare so at the moment. Taking the electorate as a whole, 28% want to quit the EU, 38% want to stay in but with the EU powers being reduced (the Cameron position) and 8% prefer the status quo. If repatriation of powers is not a likely option, then the biggest group of voters will be disappointed. Even the 8% who want no change will be disappointed if Andrew Duff is to be believed. He said recently that the status quo is not an option. So what will 46% of the electorate (38% + 8%) do when they are told there are only two choices –MORE Europe or NO Europe? It is easy to see that many in these two groups will join the ‘OUT’ group.
The Euro-enthusiasts have one last straw to cling to – the hope that the British electorate will be unwilling to vote for radical change. I think there is some validity in this but it depends on how you spin it. You could argue that leaving the EU would not bring about much change, so long as we negotiated a free trade agreement with Brussels (in everyone’s interests). We would continue not much different from before, except we would then have control over immigration, fisheries, agriculture etc. You could argue that to stay IN the EU would be a vote for radical change – if the EU was going down anything like a federalist route then Britain would come under pressure to adopt the Euro, hand over foreign policy more and more to Brussels and even defence policy is being gradually conceded, with a Common Security & Defence Policy and a directive about Defence Procurement. A single European Army, Navy and Air Force might be a long way off but let no-one doubt it is someone’s long-term ambition. Of course, national governments will resist these grabs for power (like they have resisted all the other grabs for power?) I doubt the British voters trust their own politicians to hold the line indefinitely.
Even among Lib Dem supporters, support for the EU is conditional. If the conditions are not met, if there is further hand-over of power threatened, this conditional support will partly evaporate to the OUT camp. If the EU insists on going down the road to federalism, Britain will not be going with them and the Lib Dem leadership, and membership, had better start getting reconciled to that.
* Steve Coltman is parliamentary spokesperson for Loughborough and an Executive member of the Association of Liberal Democrat Engineers and Scientists although he writing here in a personal capacity.
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Find Halloween and seasonal gifts in my Etsy shop today.
Weekly Road Report - West End Ward #dundeewestend
Sue Gray: Beware of beat-sweeteners and source-greasers
Is Kemi Badenoch still in the lead? - The Week in Polls
Belljar
England urged to bring in minimum unit price on alcohol as deaths rise 10% a year
David Warren
David Allen
Steve Trevethan
John Waller
Vince Thompson
38 Comments
I believe that not only should Britain leave the EU, I think we probably will
Britain doesn’t need to leave the EU: the EU will leave Britain.
The current arrangements are unsustainable; either another crisis will permanently split the Eurozone (and the EU is unlikely to survive the recriminations that would follow), or the Eurozone will get its act together and become a proper fiscal and monetary union: in essence a step on the road to a federal superstate. There’s no way any British government could sign up to that, so Britain will be left outside as the rest of the EU binds itself closer together.
In that case Britain may still nominally be ‘in the EU’ but it won’t in any real sense.
Thus the debate over whether Britain should leave the EU is irrelevant: within a decade, either the EU will no longer exist or it will have transformed into a proto-state which Britain will not be a part of.
I think this graphically illustrates how out of touch the Chair of the Association of Liberal Democrat Engineers and Scientists is with LibDem voters and with the electorate generally. On the Chair’s own figures:
43% want IN, with some form of repatriation of powers
15% want IN, no further transfer of powers
14% want IN, with more transfers of powers
3% want IN, a United States of Europe
So it looks like 75% of LibDem voters want Britain to stay IN. Also, on the Chair’s figures, a staggering 46% want IN, with either some form of repatriation or with no change. Add that 46% to those who want further powers and those who want a US of E and you get a clear majority of the electorate in favour of staying IN.
… a staggering 46% of the electorate want IN, with …
(Missing Words Day!)
Look, Steve, if the voter wants to commit economic and geopolitical suicide, there are plenty of other parties to vote for. There’s no point turning this party into a kind of cuddlier version of UKIP or the Tories, no support to be won that way.
We want a reforming European Union which brings power to the most local practical level. That means that the Union as a whole needs to be there to address environmental issues, speak with credibility on global concerns and tackle the rising problem of corporate malfeasance and anti-competition, for example. It also means keeping matters like the provision of health care or housing at a more local level. And particularly in Britain we need to realise that bringing power down to the most local practical level means something a little bit more radical than just repatriating the Tories’ shopping list of powers back to Westminster.
This is the positive case for the future of Britain and Europe. This party must make that case, partly because nobody else will but mostly because it is the best choice for the people of this country. Frankly, parties chasing after the magic policy that fits in with the illusions, emotions and prejudices of 50%+1 voter is what is wrong with politics today. Sometimes political leadership is necessary, and sometimes that means defending the right choice, even if it is made to appear unpopular in the press.
I completely agree with T-J.
All the talk of ‘transfer of powers’ and ‘reform’ is fairly meaningless without a specific context. The general principle of governance at the appropriate level is the key. This ought to mean at least as much transfer from national to local level as between the EU and national levels. How can anyone claim that people mostly support David Cameron’s position when it is impossible to second guess what his position is?
If the question is about pollution controls for example, I want to see the EU have more rather than less control. Again, I do not want to see the member nations going their own way with banking as this leads to beggar thy neighbour policies in which the bankers become the principle beneficiaries.
Control of our own fisheries? Have you noticed there are countries on the other side of the North and Irish seas? So we either have agreements on catches with them or fish in a smaller area.
I reject the black/white and either/or options portrayed by Bill and the author of the article. The federalist idea is as dead as the Dickensian door nail among the other leading powers in the EU (most certainly Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and France) while the moves towards integration of banking and fiscal issues is being driven forward by the dog’s breakfast which (for entirely non-economic reasons) the euro was allowed to become (and the future of which must be in doubt, e.g. with the option of a ‘northern euro’ being created and the southern states reverting to national currencies – hopefully with this being done in a regulated, planned and tightly supervised manner (in total contrast to the abysmal way in which the euro came into existence and was then just allowed to grow, mainly based on hopes and prayers!) I personally rejoined the party due to the IN campaign because I felt it absolutely great that, after decades of lies and bile being spewed out by the Murdoch press and others, one of the leading UK parties was at last coming out in favour of the UK’s membership of the EU (as opposed to the appeasement tactics towards his own backbenchers being pursued by Cameron and the totally deafening silence coming from Labour). There is no way, however, I believe, hope or expect that the EU will be “basically the same in ten years’ time” (one of Nick’s worst slips in the debates) but what is needed is a cold, rational focus on how the EU can benefit the UK in economic terms (for which the evidence (as opposed to the gut instinct, fear, misinformation, alienation and domestic concerns really underlying much of the anti-EU waves sweeping over Europe (by no means just the UK)) is now abundantly available (e.g. CBI Report last November and the even more recent publication by the CER: http://www.cer.org.uk/publications/archive/report/2014/economic-consequences-leaving-eu (if people are not already so immersed in their prejudices that they are beyond reasoned argument). The other, absolutely key principle (to which T-J refers) which needs to underlie every single action and proposal by the EU is subsidiarity, with decisions being taken at the entirely appropriate level (European, national, regional, local) in every single case and with absolute accountability being enforced (e.g. by the European Parliament which should be able to hold EU officials at all levels to account). As the successors to the party of Gladstone and Joseph Chamberlain, we should be THE proponents of the basic idea of “as much government as necessary (at whatever level), tempered by as little government as possible in the same way”.
Steve in his article concludes ” If the EU insists on going down the road to federalism, Britain will not be going with them and the Lib Dem leadership, and membership, had better start getting reconciled to that.”
I think Bill’s first comment above is probably right. The EU from the outset has been viewed on the continent as an inherently political project designed to integrate the European states in a political and economic union with a common currency and common defence policy.
Throughout the UK’s membership of the EU, we have struggled to come to terms with this essential nature of what the EU was created for. Successive governments, since the time of MacMillan, have portrayed it as a free trade area/common market only and downplayed the political aspects of the union and the transfer of sovereignty that political union implies.
The Eurozone (if, as Bill says, it gets its act together and becomes a proper fiscal and monetary union) will become the de facto European Union where the centre of power resides. Members, like the UK, outside the Eurozone will have no significant political influence and very limited economic influence i.e. the status of EFTA members.
The UK is unlikely to accept free movement of Labour in such a relationship. Ultimately, to make the case for long-term British membership of the EU, we have to make it on the basis of a confederacy of independent states voluntarily pooling sovereignty in a political union including currency union and not solely on free trade/harmonisation grounds. If Liberal Democrats are unwilling or unable to make that case, then EFTA status outside the EU proper may be our only realistic alternative.
Churchill understood clearly enough the aims of the European project and the implications for the UK. .At the first meeting of the Council of Europe in in 1949, he said: ‘We are reunited here, in this new Assembly, not as representatives of our several countries or various political parties, but as Europeans forging ahead, hand in hand, and if necessary elbow to elbow, to restore the former glories of Europe..
‘There is no reason for us not to succeed in achieving our goal and laying the foundation of a United Europe. A Europe whose moral design will win the respect and acknowledgement of all humanity, and whose physical strength will be such that no person will dare to disturb it as it marches peacefully towards the future.’
Later in November 1949, at a speech given for the European Movement Churchill said:
‘The British Government have rightly stated that they cannot commit this country to entering any European Union without the agreement of the other members of the British Commonwealth. We all agree with that statement. But no time must be lost in discussing the question with the Dominions and seeking to convince them that their interests as well as ours lie in a United Europe.’
Churchill added, `The French Foreign Minister, M. Schuman, declared in the French Parliament this week that, ‘Without Britain there can be no Europe.’ This is entirely true. But our friends on the Continent need have no misgivings. Britain is an integral part of Europe, and we mean to play our part in the revival of her prosperity and greatness.’
The following year, in 1950, Churchill called for the creation of a European Army ’..under a unified command, and in which we should all bear a worthy and honourable part.’
i’d like to add my support to the generally excellent comments by Charles and Joe.
the death of the the pan-EU political project is the reason why i am not a kipper.
there are alternatives for britain to ever-closer-union.
David Cameron’s words on the EU are worthless.
Firstly, he uses the word ‘Federal’ to mean centralisation. This is sheer dishonesty.
Secondly, when elected he promised a committee to look at what powers could be ‘repatriated from Brussels’… we’re four years on and haven’t heard a peep from them. Surely they must have found something by now, given all the euro sceptic blustering we’ve heard from him over the years? Because it seems to me that the lack of a response after this length of time is indicative that he was talking rubbish to deliberately mislead the public.
And this week really takes the biscuit – the Treaty of Lisbon states that the Council of Ministers should take into account the votes cast in the European Parliament when selecting a candidate for Presidency of the European Commission – but Cameron wants to ignore this move for greater representation of the voters in the EU and favour backroom deals over coffee and cigars.
I’m sick of hearing lectures on a ‘democratic deficit’ from a man who is throwing tantrums in public because the elected chamber of the EU wants to be heard. He’s an embarrassment.
My take is that the election of a MINORITY of Eurosceptic MEPs is partly due to the economic failure of the EU to tackle the financial crisis and partly due to European leaders forgetting that ‘ever closer union’ refers to the ‘peoples of Europe’ and not necessarily the Governments of Europe.
The reason the Euro got into such a mess is that EVERY government which joined the single currency, BROKE THE RULES. And as Margaret Thatcher said “You can’t buck the market”. Nevertheless all the countries of the Euro are still in it and another country has recently joined.
There is of course also the wild card that may well be played in September this year. The references to the British national interest may soon appear as dated and irrelevant as the interest of Austro-Hungary, or the implications for Prussian hegemony.
The outcome of that scenario is entirely unpredictable, partly because it is so unthinkable for so many in the capital. Not so elsewhere.
My view is that a new Scotland will see no real benefit to shackling itself to a kind of miniature version of the old EEC built around England, instead preferring the real thing. England of course will be waking up one morning to find its top ten status suddenly gone, being below Mexico in economic size and shorn of many key assets and facilities that its great power status relies on. And the role for Europe may be simply watching the remains of the UK walk out to an uncertain future. Or maybe it’ll end up being seen as the best way to keep England solvent and relevant. Or, worst case, it’ll have to pick up the pieces in Northern Ireland after botched breakup negotiations send both governments on Britain into a tailspin…
Interesting times. And the bookies are giving 1/4 odds of us getting to see which way it unfolds.
So what the article is saying is that Nick Clegg perfectly pitched the Lib Dem Euro-election campaign to appeal to 20% of Lib Dem supporting voters. Amazingly the powers that run the party still think the result is nothing to do with Clegg or like some medieval king we ought to blame his advisors – but like Blair – Clegg has become a conviction politician – the conviction that he is right and everyone else is wrong combined with a absurd over estimation of his powers of persuasion.
Caracatus
I think you have summed up the situation correctly.
I am still getting to terms with the sight of Danny Alexander three weeks ago in the wake of the worst election results in years trying to keep to his script that NickClegg had fought a ” fantastic ” campaign.
In retrospect — it may have been the look of the courtiers when they saw that the Emperor had no clothes.
After seven years of telling us that Clegg has been doing a “fantastic”job as leader even Danny could that there was nothing there.
The FE at their meeting this Monday seem to have decided to ask some of the tailors to mount an enquiry into the clothes and they will report back next month and tell us if the Empror is wearing any.
Well, apart from the “don’t knows”, LibDem and Labour views are almost identical….
On another thread Clegg is now strongly opposing the use of’unqualified teachers’; something he strongly approved of in 2011.
Far be it from me to cast aspersions on his motives but, having spent the last 4 years castigating Labour at every opportunity, this seems to be the time to ‘hedge his bets’…..Those LibDem ‘lefties’ (like me) he was once so keen to lose are now being wooed….
However, my over-riding thoughts are of the Jewish truism , “Fool me once, etc……” …
It is some small consolation that only 67 MEP’s have been deluded enough into thinking they have a mandate to sign up for this nonsense:
I think you are quite correct. It was a major mistake to oppose the agreed ALDE candidate, Guy Verhofstadt.
Notably, however, the lib-dem’s narrowly avoided ‘spitzenkandidat’ is one of them: ol’ Brit hating Guy!
I would like to welcome Charles Rothwell to the Party.. and I hope, Charles, that you will be at conference to inject some sense into the debate..
and as for Caracatus you are something beginning with a w….. aren’t you.. just plain Wrong.. but you entitled to your opinion .
apparently even Lazlo Ander believes the creation of the euro was a disaster, and that the measures necessary to save it are politically unachievable:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100027483/european-commission-endorses-telegraph-view-of-the-euro/
A good analysis, with the predictable head in the sand BTL responses.
Lib Dems and their attitude to anti EU sentiment is akin to somebody finding themselves in the path of an express train. Most would realise the peril they were in, and rapidly leave the track. A Lib Dem would probably look around for other LIbDems to make a quorum to join them on the track, immediately convening the first of a series of meetings express permitting, to discuss whether to face the express or turn their backs to it.
The result of course would be the same.
With what is happening in Ukraine, we should surely recognise that the EU is the glue behind NATO. In the Budapest Memorandum the US and the UK were pledged to support Ukraine but look how quickly that was abandoned. If any of the Baltics were just members of NATO but not members of the EU, would the rest really have the stomach to defend them?
The world is becoming Tri-polar as both Russia and China join the US in flexing their power internationally. If we do not want to become their lunch militarily and/or economically we need to be more united not less. I do not see the Commonwealth rushing to the UK’s defence in the 21st Century. Surely this is an argument even UKIP could understand?
I so would like to see the faces of the Brits who voted to get out of the EU when they cannot use the health care systems in Spain, France and Italy, when they have to pay extra taxes on their holiday and retirement homes, when they need a work permit to get a job, when they have to pay through their noses to change their pounds in euros, when they are ripped off by the telephone companies if they make a phone call from abroad, etc…..oh yes, I am really looking forward to it! Wake up, you don’t have those rights because you are British, but because you are EUROPEAN!
… except that the statistics show the anti’s to be the ones spread-eagled on the tracks! The nice graphic shows the electorate (“All”) to be divided as
28% want OUT
55% want some form of IN
17% don’t know
That’s a pretty clear majority for some form of IN.
Steve – Thanks for those polling figures. So, easily the largest single group of Lib Dems, and indeed of all parties except UKIP, want to stay in the EU but reduce its powers. That’s actually quiet remarkable because, apart from vague waffling about unspecified changes from Cameron (as others have noted above), there is actually no Plan B on the table. The voters are signalling that they want a change in direction despite the lack of leadership or specific proposals from the politicians to show what might be done.
I, like some others above, would prefer to see a radical plan based around real subsidiarity but that wasn’t what was on offer from the Lib Dems in the recent election by my reading – quite the oppose in fact as Lib Dems are supporting proposals to reduce democratic oversight over key regulatory powers and hand them over to transnational bureaucrats. When asked what changes he wanted to see Clegg could only waffle as reported here on LDV. How different might the outcome have been if he had instead said that ever greater union was out of the question and that we wanted to return powers to the proper level – and that, yes, some powers might move ‘up’ to Brussels where that was appropriate?
The first difficulty here is that ‘subsidiarity’ in the EU has a clouded history. In the UK we were first told to my knowledge that it was a foundational principle – baked into the Maastricht Treaty allegedly – when John Major got into trouble with some of his Eurosceptic backbenchers. Well I read the Treaty and that was a big fat porky designed to fob of opposition. The fact is that a powerful and unaccountable bureaucracy is intent on increasing its own power and prestige (as bureaucracies always do) while the Lib Dem establishment remains typically clueless.
I think there may be an indirect clue to what is going on in the recent admission on another recent LDV thread that the FE has no idea who is responsible for key internal communications etc. I suspect that the party’s central organisation is equally incapable of making coherent policy except when it stays firmly within existing tramlines – even when these are plainly leading over the edge of a cliff. Hence Steve’s “Articles of Faith”.
@ Michael Trup – “If any of the Baltics were just members of NATO but not members of the EU, would the rest really have the stomach to defend them?”
Yes. 110% sure.
just as we would for:
> the US
> Canada
> Norway
> Turkey
Otherwise the alliance is worthless.
Do you imagine otherwise?
Jedibeeftrix has placed a lot of faith in NATO simply existing and never having to deliver anything to justify its existence. The fact of the matter is that the members of NATO need to get some benefit to being ‘western-aligned’ that goes beyond simply not being under Russian control. Without those benefits, there’d be no real difference from when some of us were part of the Soviet sphere.
The European Union is the vehicle through which the benefits of ‘western-ness’ can be delivered. The glue, as Michael Trup put it. In the early days, ideas like the Marshall Plan dumped large amounts of material aid on the European states aligned broadly with the US and against the Soviets. Today, the US doesn’t have the spare cash nor the political will to do it again, partly because of its own troubles but also because there’s no real Soviet analogue in today’s world.
But Europe itself has the opportunity to take over that role, as well as to tackle the major issues that we’re all too small to address alone. NATO can’t do it. Its just a military alliance, it has nothing to say on the climate, on competition law, on tax evasion. To answer those problems, we need Europe, democratically run by a Commission held accountable to the people.
If that’s not what the average UKIP voter wants to hear, well, tough.
We have already got control over non EU migration which represents the main source of newcomers. The number of EU migrants here is roughly balanced by British people ‘over there’. The vast majority of EU migrants are young, educated by other countries’ tax payers and come here to work whereas a large proportion of Brits go to other EU countries to retire supported by local public services to which they have made no contribution.
The UK’s demographics are such that we will have a shrinking pool of young people going forward so even outside the EU we will still have to encourage large numbers to come and that at a time when we probably have to accommodate significant numbers of Brits returning home in tit -for- tat responses from former friends remaining in the EU. The 10,000, for instance, currently claiming unemployment benefit in Germany.
The Centre for European Reform (CER) has issued a report on the economic consequences of leaving the EU.http://www.cer.org.uk/publications/archive/report/2014/economic-consequences-leaving-eu It clarifies the choices that Britain would face in negotiations with the EU after a vote to leave.
After such a vote, the UK would have two years to settle a trade agreement with the EU. It would face a dilemma:
minimise the damage to its economy by sticking with EU rules and maintaining unimpeded access to European
markets; or escape the rules, but lose market access.
The EU’s single market is the world’s most comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA). There are no tariffs, and
trade costs are further reduced by common rules and standards. Membership of the EU has been a boon to Britain’s
economy in several ways:
According to the CER’s trade model, it has raised Britain’s goods trade with the rest of the EU by 55 per cent.
It has brought in foreign direct investment (FDI): in 1997, other EU member-states accounted for 30 per cent of
a growing stock of FDI in Britain; this proportion had risen to 50 per cent in 2012.
It has helped to make the City of London the EU’s – and the eurozone’s – largest financial centre. In 2012, the
City’s lending to the eurozone was 70 per cent higher than its lending to the US, despite the smaller size of the
eurozone economy.
Britain could reduce this economic damage by signing up to EU rules: in effect, staying in the single market, while
leaving the EU. The UK could join Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein in the European Economic Area, which requires
members to sign up to EU rules over which they have very little influence. But Britain would have less power over
regulation than it has now, which would be politically intolerable.
Alternatively, it could sign a free trade agreement guaranteeing tariff-free trade in goods. But British exporters
would still have to make goods that met EU standards. And Britain would find it difficult to secure access to services
markets; such an agreement would be very unlikely to give the City of London the same market access it now has;
and the UK would have little power to stop the EU from making rules that favour its own exporters. The burden of
regulation that British exporters face would therefore rise, not fall, after a British exit.
In other areas, the commission found little evidence that Brexit would boost the British economy:
A bonfire of EU rules would not significantly boost British output: according to OECD data, the UK has among
the least regulated product and labour markets in the world, despite its EU membership.
Trade costs with non-European markets would rise after Brexit: the EU’s FTAs would no longer be in force,
and Britain would have to negotiate new ones, which would take several years. Those new FTAs may not be
as comprehensive as the EU’s, as the UK is a smaller and more open economy, and would therefore have less
bargaining power than it has as an EU member.
As European immigration is a major reason for British hostility to the EU, the UK would almost certainly
cut it upon exit. Since immigrants are large net contributors to the Treasury, and rejuvenate Britain’s ageing
population, this would require higher taxes or lower spending than would otherwise be the case. And over 1.8
million Britons live elsewhere in the EU; their status would be threatened by a British exit.
The UK as a whole is a net contributor to the EU budget, but it would face pressure to replace EU regional
funding and agricultural subsidies with domestic spending.
And if Britain sought privileged access to EU markets, it would have to pay budget contributions. If Britain paid
into the EU budget on the same basis as Norway, its net contribution would fall by 9 per cent, and as Switzerland,
by 55 per cent.
@ T-J – “But Europe itself has the opportunity to take over that role, as well as to tackle the major issues that we’re all too small to address alone.”
NATO is a defensive alliance, before europe has ANY chance of taking over ANY role from the US it needs to take Defence seriously.
The declining defence spend in europe, currently averaging about 1.6% of GDP (somewhat less than the required 2.0%), means that there are a lot of countries that i do not have faith in to make good on the ultimate requirement of collective defense.
“Oh, Master, make me chaste and celibate – but not yet!
I know the US is serious, but europe…
@Jedibeeftrix
You missed my point entirely.
I wasn’t talking about the European Union taking over the US’ role in military terms, tomorrow. Europe isn’t going to be in any shape to stand united and alone against military aggression in the short term. As I said, that’s NATO’s role, and even if we could magic Europe into a federal union with a single armed force overnight, NATO would still be a vital part of tying the two democratic powers in the world into mutual defence and the protection of smaller aligned states outside both unions.
But the European Union taking over the US’ role in terms of delivering the benefits of ‘western’ alignment? Definitely. Has to happen.
The time of heaps of free American money sloshing about to bribe European states away from the temptations of Communism are firmly in the past. Europe, if it wants to avoid watching as the next generation’s living standards fall below the past one’s, needs to be the engine delivering prosperity. It can’t rely on the American umbrella backed up with NATO muscle to do that anymore, if it ever really could.
And if they can’t deliver prosperity, people will increasingly come to question their countries’ alignments in the world and the geopolitical game falls apart, either slowly eroding, or collapsing suddenly in a NATO version of 1989.
As we build the economic and political institutions that draw us into a more workable union, as we implement increasingly accountable structures and expand the democratic element against the bureaucratic or diplomatic ones, we draw towards a system of subsidiarity within Europe that can eventually deliver the system with the clout, the legitimacy and the flexibility to succeed in the modern world.
Steve of the original article recognises this course being set in Brussels, although for some reason he believes that Britain should be irrelevant, on the outside looking in.
If you want to call yourself a Liberal Democrat, or even a liberal, that must surely imply an internationalist approach to politics, because we think problems are better solved together rather than separately. For some reason, the whole British media has become infected by Europhobia, and even politicians enthusiastic about Europe fall over themselves to find fault with the EU, but This unique organization has achieved much in its lifetime – the construction of a stable and prosperous Europe from previously warring nations; the solidification of democracy in countries like Spain and Greece as well as in Eastern Europe; free trade, common standards and a strong and common negotiating position on trade with the Americans. I can’t imagine why we would not want to be members of a club that includes all the great democracies of Europe. The only faults with the EU are caused by the sceptics who oppose the demcratization of Europe. A directly elected European President, for instance, would stand a chance of inspiring a lot more enthusiasm for the project across Europe including here at home. This argument is all about emotion, not facts. I have yet to hear any meaningful arguments against Europe. And for us, I would be horrified if we allowed ourselves to be driven by the opinion polls. Our future as Lib Dems is tied to Europe – if we can convince the electorate that it is a great institution then our own support will recover. The fact that UKIP is doing well only shows how important our job is. Let’s not throw in the towel -let’s remind the country why we joined Europe in the first place and point out how ridiculous and insignificant we would look on the outside.
“Steve of the original article recognises this course being set in Brussels, although for some reason he believes that Britain should be irrelevant, on the outside looking in.”
Maybe because he looks at the possibility of europe being in a ‘unique’ position to dispense prosperity to great britain and… laughs?
The relevant info is not the total volume of trade but the “comparative advantage” (the extent to which we benefit). So trading with economies similar to ours, e.g. sending cars in both directions across the channel, does not benefit anyone much, whereas trade with economies more different to ours doess more.
2 percent on defence spending is too high when there are no threats of invasion and no will to intervene elsewhere.
@Jedibeeftrix
If so, then with the greatest respect, he’s got his head stuck firmly in the sand and is wilfully ignorant of the real situation across most of Britain.
Maybe you simply live in a leafy home counties suburb and just don’t encounter anything to challenge your view. But where I’m living there’s one of the largest popular movements in our history campaigning on the fact that actually, there’s a real need for some prosperity to be dispensed from somewhere and that Britain isn’t delivering.
@Richard S
Comparative advantage is one thing, but beyond a certain point, economies become too dissimilar to work together in a single market. UKIPs Commonwealth free trade idea is a case in point. They’d not be buying what we’re selling, because they can’t afford it. Our high value, low volume manufactured exports and our service sector need developed economies to deal with, preferably not from across a tariff wall.
All the post-EU strategies proposed for Britain rely on the EU bending over backwards to accommodate our every whim, on our former colonies being consumed with warm feelings for the old empire, and on Britain’s internal divisions suddenly and completely vanishing overnight. Now, living in Scotland you get used to unrealistic predictions regarding independence, but these UKIP fantasies just take it to another level.
@ RichardS – “2 percent on defence spending is too high when there are no threats of invasion and no will to intervene elsewhere.”
We disagree. Fundamentally.
2.0% is what we signed up to in NATO.
It is the minimum required to keep our high-end expeditionary capability at a useful scale.
Our Missionary Foriegn Policy is far from gone, don’t be deceived by the protest vote that was Syria.
@ T-J – “If so, then with the greatest respect, he’s got his head stuck firmly in the sand and is wilfully ignorant of the real situation across most of Britain. ”
The real situation is that being in the EU does not make much difference either way, we could leave in five years and still be exactly as wealthy in fifteen years time, with a little disruption in between.
The is though; however much fun it is to be at the heart of europe shaping regulations there is a question of whether we can continue to do so and yet continue to reject ever-closer-union. Some fundamental economic powers will need to be ceded to the ECB in the coming years if the eurozone is to survive, and the ecb has said it will seek to manage a consensus among euro members in QMV matters. To an euro-outs such as britain and sweden this will represent caucused decision making that sweeps past our (national) democratic control.
This is what matters, even in the remote and undeveloped part of Wales I live in.
Why do people assume that right-wing people all come from this other alien place called the home countries?
Because it’s the most reasonable explanation for how you can get so fundamentally disconnected from the reality outside that bubble. Going on about national democratic control is nothing but a distraction. What’s that, you’re poor? Don’t worry, the Westminster parliament is still sovereign, so its all fine. Seriously?
The scenario where we’re still as well off 15 years after an exit is one that assumes the UK will just get everything it asks for from the world, as if its still big enough to make demands and as if the world still owes it a living.
In reality, as a small, isolated competitor Britain will be on the economic hit list of every developed nation, and of no interest to emerging economies as an investment opportunity.
To keep the export economy the same size, and to persuade foreign firms to change their minds and stay in Britain after the EU, there would need to be savings made that at least compensate for the new tariffs. Where do you imagine them to be made? It’ll come out of workers’ pay and conditions, and it’ll come out of the tax corporations pay. Maybe this fits in with the right’s larger vision of the way an economy ought to be run, but I don’t agree. Maintaining headline GDP figures at the expense of living standards and legal protections? Not worth it, not even with the increasingly threadbare security blanket of national sovereignty.
Europe is an Article of Faith for many Liberal Democrats, and the contrary evidence that has been pushed aside is the IPSOS Mori poll of the UK electorate about their attitudes to the EU.
Yes, and what does the UK electorate KNOW about the EU in order to come to this conclusion?
Do people in this country have a detailed knowledge of what the EU does and how it is organised? Or are they relying almost entirely on what they are told by the right-wing press and right-wing political parties who have consistently used the EU as a distracting factor, something to get the people all worked up about in order to divert them from getting all worked up about the way our country is being taken over by a rich global elite who don’t like the EU because they don’t like the idea of countries getting together to challenge them?
I accept there is a particular issue over immigration, which many associate with the EU, although of course not all the immigration we have here is people coming from the EU. However, on other issues, when people say they are against the EU can they actually cite examples of things the EU is doing that harm them and they don’t want to see happening? Not vague things like “rule from Brussels”, “European super-state” and the like, no, I mean actual policies coming from “Brussels” that they have experienced as damaging them personally and they would rather not have?
The problem for me is that all this hot-headed “We’re opposed to rule from Brussels” rhetoric hides the reality of what it is actually about and so makes it harder to come to a rational conclusion. However, I am quite sure in what I can see that nearly all the things that are worrying me about the people of this country losing the ability to govern themselves and being forced to where they would rather not go by big outside powers are things where the big outside powers are not the EU but instead the big global corporations, the countries OUTSIDE the EU that we rely in for so much of our necessities, and the continuing cultural dominance of the English-speaking world by the USA.
I am pleased to have started such a good discussion, even if it did wander off-topic. One main point was that I could see where a majority for leaving the EU might come from, even if there is no majority right now. It is clear that the largest group of voters want some kind of repatriation of powers and no-one who knows anything about the EU can see that happening.
My other point was that Lib Dem voters are no-where near so keen on the EU as the party leadership, so much so there is a clear disconnect.
There seems to be a clear distinction between those who fear leaving the EU and those (like me) who do not. The UK has the 7th or 8th largest economy in the world; we are not an insignificant nothing. Other countries seem to manage quite well without being part of any supranational state, e.g. S Korea, Japan, Australia, Canada, Switzerland. I don’t kid myself that leaving the EU would set us on the high road to (more) prosperity but there are studies that suggest it would not hurt us much (if at all) to leave, so long as we negotiated a free-trade agreement with the remaining EU. Seeing as we are the rest of the EU’s main trading partner and that they have a significant trade surplus with us I guess they would be willing to sign.
Some people are ideologically committed to the Europe Project, it is their Article of Faith, no evidence or argument will shift them, I don’t want to be governed by such people.