Let’s not kid ourselves. What David Cameron is supposed to be asking for as he travels round other European capitals is for a package of reforms to make the European Union more open and efficient. But what many in his government and party want is a fundamental renegotiation: leading either to the position of Norway, of association with the free trade area but exit from the EU, or that of Switzerland, an international finance centre with a fractious but dependent relationship with the EU. The Eurosceptics who want the Prime Minister’s negotiations to fail are driven by myths of English exceptionalism, by a tea-party Republican vision of a shrunken state and a deregulated market, and a refusal to recognise the disastrous impact of exit from the EU on the future of the United Kingdom and its place in the world.
Britain belongs in Europe. NATO and the EU are the twin pillars of our foreign and security policy. We share political and social values most closely with our European neighbours: on human rights, on what the Germans have labelled the ‘social market’ economy, on civil societies and national communities in which all citizens have a stake. It’s also the framework through which our economic interests are best promoted: a continent-wide market into which British products and services are closely integrated, a trading bloc which enables us to bargain with the US and China on equal terms.
Our Eurosceptics deny all of this.They see Britain’s past as the history of the English-speaking peoples – harking back to Churchill’s post-1945 image of Britain holding on to its global status because of its special ties to the white Anglo-Saxon protestants of the US East Coast, and of Canada and Australia. They have not noticed, it seems, that multi-racial California now outweighs New England in the US Congress, that Asian immigration has transformed Canada, and that the Pacific has replaced the Atlantic as the focus for economic and security concerns for all our ‘Anglo-Saxon’ partners. Owen Paterson has told the BBC that Britain should move to a Norway-style looser association with the EU and ‘revive the Anglosphere’. Historians for Britain, one of the Eurosceptic campaign groups, claims that the EU threatens British values.
Our grandparents and great-grandparents fought two wars to bring peace and security to Europe. Some of our parents were stationed in Germany, to contain the Soviet Union, during the Cold War.The security of our children and our grandchildren rests on cooperation with our neighbours, on fostering open societies and prosperous democracies across the continent – as well as working with our neighbours to stabilise the countries to the south, from where refugees and desperate migrants struggle across the Mediterranean. The European Union is also the most effective vehicle through which we can combat the threat of climate change, pressing the United States, China and others over faster to limit carbon emissions.
Eurosceptics see all this as a threat to British sovereignty. They have a peculiar view of sovereignty, in which overseas takeovers of our most innovative companies, Chinese ownership of sensitive high technology, direct sales of London property to Malaysian, Middle East and Russian investors, tax privileges for wealthy foreigners, and French, German and Dutch state enterprises running parts of our vital infrastructure are all acceptable – but the European Court of Human Rights recommending that prisoners might be given the vote is an outrage. That’s because their antagonism to continental ‘Roman’ law is matched by their libertarian belief in a scarcely-regulated market and a smaller state.
Yes, the European Union needs reform. A stronger role for national parliaments, greater flexibility in applying regulations across 28 member states, a more open system of policy-making in Brussels, are all achievable. But the underlying agenda the right-wing Eurosceptics are pursuing would take the UK out of the EU, and move the British state and society away from the European model towards the free-market US-Republican dream. Their sour English nationalism also threatens the UK. Disengagement from the EU would strengthen arguments for Scottish independence, and undermine the cross-border cooperation between Northern and southern Ireland built up in recent years. Their reinterpretation of national history and identity leaves little space for cooperation with our neighbours in foreign policy, shrinking Britain’s role in the world to following America and negotiating on our own with China, Russia and other non-European powers. There’s a lot more at stake than David Cameron lets on.
This article was previously incorrectly billed as having been by Tim Farron MP and Lord Wallace of Tankerness. Apologies for the error.
* Tim Farron MP and Lord Wallace of Saltaire are Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokespeople in the House of Commons and House of Lords respectively.
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12 Comments
Good stuff.
Very sensible stuff
If we were dealing with a Royal Commission on the question of our membership, the case for EU membership would be found overwhelming. However the Tories do not wish any authority other than their own and will probably get their usual subservient support based on no particular rational reasoning.
Eurosceptic??? Every misuse of the word in this piece should be replaced with Europhobe. Liberalism involves being sceptical of all layers of government and all concentrations of power; we are Eurosceptics, but generally even more Westminster-sceptic. This article refers to those who are opposed, even viscerally opposed to the EU; scepticism does not enter into it.
“That’s because their antagonism to continental ‘Roman’ law is matched by their libertarian belief in a scarcely-regulated market and a smaller state.”
Sounds like a mis-characterisation of the kind of things I’d say.
It’s apt that you inserted the word “supposed” in your second statement…..The last few days have shown us that David Cameron’s attitude is as changeable as our weather…My current understanding, if the word is applicable, is that “He won’t tell us what he wants from Europe, he won’t tell us if he gets it and he’s not sure how to handle his ministers if they are not happy with what he gets”…. or, perhaps, I’ve just ‘misinterpreted’ what he said
I agree with Martin, As the debate intensifies it is important that those who see reform in the EU as beneficial to all states and paticularly to the UK, should be clear that UKIP and the Tory right are anti Europe and little englanders .It will be confusing to the electorate if we mix the two sides together by the term eurosceptic
HQ should consider updating the website because we are now in opposition in both houses.
http://www.libdems.org.uk/william_wallace
http://www.libdems.org.uk/jim_wallace
We should clarify the position on prisoners voting, which David Cameron has said makes him physically sick and which the former Justice Secretary Ken Clarke tried to elucidate before he was reshuffled..
Firstly it matters whether a prisoner has been convicted, so a person remanded in prison awaiting trial is eligible to vote. There is no principled opposition to this fact, only sloppy language in some newspapers and among some MPs of several parties.
Secondly some convicts have served part of their sentence/s in closed conditions in prison but are now in the community and subject to recall to closed conditions for some kinds of misbehaviour, such as breach of their licences.
Many MPs chose to let off steam in a special debate in the previous parliament in the presumed hope that that they would win votes amont theirelectorates, while demonstrating the old adage that they can keep their mouths shut and be thought to be foolish, or open their mouths and confirm that perception. They should have at least listened with care to those who were better informed, starting perhaps in their own parties.
Thirdly, Tory Minister Ken Clarke was probably right to assert (on The BBC’s World at One, 13 January) that few prisoners actually wanted to vote, but that they did want to be able to sue the government for financial compensation for being denied voting rights and therefore that MPs with prisons in their constituencies need not worry about the numbers.
The MPs might also check with the Prison Service website whether their local prison contains people who would be eligible to vote. Some prisons contain only foreign convicts.
This issue is not just about elections. It is also about what imprisonment is about.
Do we want an oubliette in which the courts, or the parole board, or the prison staff throw away the key?
Or do we accept that almost all prisoners will be released into society at some stage and therefore need to be rehabilitated so that they do not become a danger to society?
I don’t really think this article is good enough. The Liberal Democrats have been dishonest about the EU. It is not enough to say we should remain in the EU (or else), someone needs to define what sort of Europe is wanted, and what sort is not. And how are we to get what we want and ensure that the Europe we don’t want does not happen? The IPSOS-Mori poll that Mark Pack drew our attention to last year shows that only 3% of the electorate want a United States of Europe, the same ‘USE’ that the Vice-president of the Commission is calling for. I don’t know how many UK electors would vote for Herr Junkers Single European Army but I guess a similarly small number. We cannot go on writing a blank cheque called ‘Ever Closer Union’. the same IPSOS Mori poll suggests that most people in the UK, even if they don’t yet want to leave, think we are in too deep already. Indeed, the poll showed that more Lib Dem voters supported what David Cameron is trying to achieve than support the Lib Dem position on Europe.
The Lib Dem leadership cannot keep on ducking the hard questions, nor can it continue vaguely supporting Ever-Closer Union without knowing where it might lead.
Be careful what you wish for. The opposite of an ever closer union is an ever looser union. Is that what you want?
Constant repition of certain euro-sceptic lines could lead to an acceptance which is no more than brain-washing.
For instance the Lord Chancellor spelt out clearly the issue of parliamentary sovreignty in parliament when Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister. Those who argue that they were gulled in the 1975 referendum were, perhaps, not paying attention to statements that they did not want to hear.
Excellent post by Steve Coltman.
Either get behind the issue or the electorate will get you out the way (even more so than is currently the case).
ONE Main reason the lib dems and Labour got such a bad result in the last election was that both parties have anti English, anti England stance, frankly it’s racist. The student fee for the English was one prime example, no one else pays in the UK. England needs equality by having her own full parliament in a federal four nation UK. If not the union needs to be dissolved, we are not second class and we need our democracy back. It’s a joke at present.