EU referendum: a significant event
Wednesday 15 May 2013
By the media and the paid politicians, almost any subject can be trivialised to the extent that it becomes a low-grade soap opera. And that transition was managed with consummate ease earlier this morning during PMQs, when deputy prime minister Nick Clegg stood in for Mr Cameron.
Perhaps the highlight of the event was Edward Leigh taunting the Clegg with a copy of a 2008 Lib Dem leaflet (below left) in which he declared: "It's time for a real referendum on Europe" at the time of the Lisbon Treaty negotiations.
Leigh, asked Mr Clegg whether the man pictured in the leaflet was "an impostor or just a hypocrite", only to get a dead-bat reply that he was in favour of a referendum when the rules changed.
Clegg, in turn, complained of the Conservatives of "constantly shifting the goalposts" on a referendum. He said the Commons had spent a hundred hours debating the Bill which gave a legal guarantee of a referendum if powers were transferred to Brussels. Nevertheless, he now seems to concede that a referendum is inevitable.
In anticipation of a vote today on an amendment to the Queen's Speech, the deputy prime minister declared: "We on this side should go out and promote what is in the Queen's Speech, not spending days bemoaning what is not in the Queen's Speech", then adding: "I think we should stick to the priorities of the British people, which is growth and jobs".
This is a theme echoed by Paul Goodman on Tory Diary, who is relying on a time-honoured formula in an attempt to defuse the "Europe" issue. "The matters that most move the British people at the ballot box", he claims, "are the meat, potatoes and two veg of British politics: the economy, hospitals, schools and crime - plus, of course, immigration".
Notwithstanding that these issues are all, to a greater or lesser extent affected by our membership of the EU, Goodman is unwittingly illustrating what we should have a referendum on the EU. Such constitutional matters tend to be swamped by more immediate concerns in a general election, so they should be deal with separately, with the referendum format being the most appropriate mechanism.
What is interesting though is the contrast between this mealy-mouthed response and the triumphalism of the Daily Express which was the only national newspaper to give the referendum full frontal treatment this morning (right). Claiming a victory for its own campaign, it announces without equivocation that we are to get a straight in-or-out choice in a referendum on Britain's EU membership.
In a dismissive response, however, Nigel Faragedeclares that, "This latest talk of an EU Referendum is nothing more than gesture politics". Thus, his earlier-declared stance of planning to stand for Westminster in 2015 is still in force, which means that the effect of UKIP's intervention could be to ensure that we have a Labour government and no referendum.
Meanwhile, we have the putative rebellion of up to 100 MPs, in the Queen's Speech vote, which is scheduled for 7.15 this evening. As Labour and the Lib-Dems were whipping their MPs against the motion, it is almost certain to fall.
Dominic Sandbrook in the Daily Mail is amongst the many who see in this evidence of the Conservative Party tearing itself apart, Sandbrook himself relying on comparisons between Mr Cameron and John Major.
This also allows the loss-making Guardian to question Mr Cameron's leadership skills, asserting that he once led his party by challenging it, but now meekly muddles through by pandering to its obsessions.
But, for all that, the publication of the draft Bill seems to have had an effect. We are told that the rebellion is "fading away", possibly signifying that MPs attach more significance to the referendum promise than does Mr Farage.
Certainly, an evidently frustrated Daniel Hannan has bought the package – but then you would expect that. However, one has a sneaking sympathy for his complaints about the tendency of lobby journalists to look at the EU through the tinted glass of party management. He thus observes that, amid the hubbub about "Tory splits", we are in danger of missing the magnitude of what is taking place.
We are no fans of young Hannan here, but in this one instance, I tend to veer closer to his "take" than anything the likes of Iain Martin has to offer. This man, whose own judgement is very often suspect, thinks the Conservatives have "lost the plot".
To me, that is the kettle calling the pot black. I think we are looking at an event of some magnitude here, one which the media and the serried ranks of MPs have not entirely succeeded in trivialising. And such are the dynamics of the Cameron offer that I would not be entirely surprised to see Labour and the Lib-Dems supporting the idea of a referendum.
Indeed, Cameron is now on the attack, saying that the "focus" must now shift to Labour and the Lib-Dems and whether or not they would be prepared to offer the British public a vote on Europe. He is criticising the two party leaders for "pretending nothing has changed" in the EU in recent years, putting them on the back foot.
But, once the events of this day are over, the real focus must then shift to king-maker Farage and his UKIP supporters. As the reality of a referendum seems to be firming up, Farage may come under pressure to rethink his somewhat glib response.
If it has become the role of UKIP to deny us a referendum on the EU, then he had better start telling us what he has in mind as an alternative.
COMMENT: COMBINED REFERENDUM THREAD
Richard North 15/05/2013
EU budget: a done deal
Wednesday 15 May 2013
We warned last week that it was on its way. And now it is here (see page 9). The finance ministers of the EU member states, including Mr George Osborne, have agreed to provide an additional €7.3 billion for the 2013 budget, as the first tranche of an overall figure that will eventually reach €11.2 billion.
The "amending budget no.2" will add about £800 million to Britain's EU bill, with potentially another £400 million to find when the complete deal is reached. That will come with the second tranche, expected to be agreed after the summer break, bringing the additional British liability to £1.2 billion.
The sum so far agreed represents rise of 5.5 percent on the original budget of €133 billion agreed for this year, itself and increase on the previous year's budget (2012) of €129.1. With the budget now standing at €140.3 billion, that represents an 8.7 percent year-on-year increase, kicking into touch any idea of EU budgetary restraint.
Needless to say, Mr Osborne has been very quiet about this, and the UK media has been playing it relatively low key, making light of the British humiliation. Only the BBC hints at the scale of the defeat, citing a British government source who said the government could not support the amending budget. But, with the vote taken by QMV, there was nothing a powerless Mr Osborne could do.
Ironically, this came on exactly the same day that the Conservative Party published its draft Bill for an EU referendum. The Party could well have pointed out that we were having to find another £1.2 billion to feed the ravening maw of Brussels, making it another good reason why we should be planning our exit.
And still there is the battle of the multi-annual budget to come. Then there will be many more amending budgets to come, as the "colleagues" attempt to chip away at the hidden deficit which technically makes the EU insolvent.
Unsurprisingly, we saw yesterday Kenneth Clarke claim that us leaving the EU could "spell catastrophe for the economy". What Clarke didn't specify, of course, was that the real catastrophe would be to the EU Commission's economy. They desperately need our money – and much more of it. We have not heard the last of this.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 15/05/2013
EU referendum: a poison chalice?
Wednesday 15 May 2013
A due amount of cynicism is warranted, and all the things I said last night about the prime minister still stand.
However, it is possible to concede a small amount of surprise at the exact text of the referendum question that might be asked, if we ever get a referendum, which is now supposed to be before the end of 2017. And that question, the one which causes the surprise is, "Do you think that the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union?"
The reason for the surprise is that it abandons the great advantage, upon which Mr Cameron was to rely – the "renegotiation" ploy which, according to Kellner and others, converts a majority in favour of leaving into a comfortable win for him.
Cameron is still going to be pushing his renegotiation agenda but, unless that is tied in to the referendum question, he has problems. In the 1975 referendum, the question was very similar: "Do you think that the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (The Common Market) ", but that time it was prefaced by: "The Government have announced the results of the renegotiation of the United Kingdom's terms of membership of the European Community" …
Also, tying the referendum to the end of 2017 at the latest opens the way to the "colleagues" to block any negotiations right up to the very last minute, leaving Mr Cameron with no room for manoeuvre in seeking to big-up the deal.
On the other hand, the one thing Cameron has going for him is that he is now able to say only his party is offering a "clear choice" about the UK's future in Europe. But most of all, he can say with a little more conviction that the only way we are going to get a referendum is by voting Conservative.
Whatever one might think of the way he has been dragged kicking and screaming to this position, it would be very hard now for a new Conservative government to back away from a referendum. Even without legislation in place before the election, they have nailed their colours to the mast.
Interestingly, Miliband is holding firm so far. He is not bending to vulgar "populism" and matching Cameron's offer. But we can bet he will be watching the polls very closely, and if there appears to be electoral advantage from putting a referendum on the table, the Labour leader will surely be tempted.
This also rather puts Farage on the rack. If we judge that Cameron is making a genuine offer, then our best hope for a generation for getting out of the EU is most definitely to back the Conservatives. A vote for UKIP at the general election would have the effect of denying us the opportunity of quitting.
These are difficult judgements though. To treat Mr Cameron's offer as suspect is entirely an honourable position. With so many promises made, and not fulfilled, there is every good reason for not believing that this is a genuine offer.
Thus, we ourselves have to make the call. Are we going to hammer the Tories, and hold out for something better – whatever that might be – or do we go with the latest offer and hope it comes off? And then, we have to ask whether we are actually capable of winning a referendum, or is Mr Cameron presenting us with a poison chalice.
Just for once, the ball is back in our court. We maybe have a chance of a referendum, but maybe it is an illusion. And then, do we really want something we might not win? We are unprepared, with no coherent arguments to put to the electorate, and could very easily lose a referendum.
As yet, though, it is not decision time, but the choices are getting more interesting and challenging.
COMMENT: COMBINED REFERENDUM THREAD
Richard North 15/05/2013
EU referendum: environmental FUD
Wednesday 15 May 2013
Whether we even have a referendum, much less when, isn't even settled. Yet, with the help of the loss-making Guardian, the EU-funded Friends of the Earth is already moving in to defend its generous sponsor's interests.
This is just a taste of then things to come, should a real referendum campaign get underway. What we are being told is that the environmental consequences of Britain leaving the EU would be "huge". Membership of the European Union has been a boon to the UK's wildlife and habitats, and human health is better as a result - we are told.
Thus, according to the less than impartial analysis for Friends of the Earth, published today by the EU policy expert Dr Charlotte Burns from the University of York, a go-it-alone Britain would be far from green and pleasant. The UK really was once the dirty man of Europe and only the EU has saved us from a polluted fate worse than, er … a polluted fate.
Now, there is no way we're going to be able to mix it with the Greens on their turf, and hope to win. Never get into a fight with a chimney sweep. The trick thus is not to accept the argument on their terms. We have to change the terms the debate.
Here, we already have input for the Secretary of State for the Environment, Owen Paterson. A "pragmatic" eurosceptic, he agues that we could not possibly abolish all EU law on leaving the European Union. We cannot have a situation where vital issues, such as environmental control, become totally unregulated. Even EU law, pro temp is better than no law.
On that basis, when we leave the EU, we take with us the whole acquis - the whole rag-bag of EU law. We repatriate it, and take it onto our statute book as our own.
Actually, much of it already is our own. EU law has already been integrated into the British statute book, by Acts of Parliament and through Statutory Instruments approved by Parliament. These do not disappear just because we repeal the European Communities Act. They stay in force until they are specifically repealed.
It is only EU Regulations that fall when we walk away from the EU, and it there that we have to legislate to repatriate the law. We bring it home, so that it becomes ours, to be implemented without a break.
On this basis, the Friends of the Earth is wrong. There would be no environmental consequences from Britain leaving the EU. The day after we leave the EU will be exactly the same as the day before we leave.
Some have interpreted this, in almost a malicious sense, as the UK remaining locked into the EU. But these people are not thinking straight, if at all. Almost all current environmental law is of EU origin. Thus, the prohibition, say, on dumping toxic waste in a school playground is, ostensibly, a breach of EU law. This we do not want to remove.
Looking at this in the round, not all EU law is bad law. Some, in fact, was originally sponsored by the UK. Some we would have implemented whether or not we were in the EU. But some is bad law, and we need to be rid of it.
So, what we do is appoint a Royal Commission and/or a review committee to look through the entire raft of legislation. After due consideration and much public debate, we keep what is good. We get rid of the unnecessary onerous and the bad. And we fill any gaps, and improve on what we've got – but we take our time, working carefully and deliberately.
Even then, we will not be on our own. Some is Single Market legislation and, if we remain in the EEA, we keep it anyway. We remain members of UNEP, of UNECE and of a myriad of lesser-known environmental organisations. So we stay fully engaged with the international community. And we honour international commitments.
That is how we deal with the FUD. That is how we must deal with FUD if we are to win a referendum. We change the terms of the debate.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 15/05/2013
EU referendum: "splitters!"
Tuesday 14 May 2013
Peter McKay in the Daily Mail today suggests that eurosceptics would not be demanding a referendum if they thought they'd lose it. They would, he writes, be playing a longer game, softening up public opinion by publicising the iniquities of the EU.
The mistake that McKay makes, though, is in assuming that "eurosceptics" are a homogenous group with a common aim, rather than a rag-tag bundle of groupescules, with more discord than the People's Front of Judea.
On the matter of a referendum, there is not even any agreement as to the nature of any referendum that should be held, or when it should be held, and there most certainly is no consensus on whether we could win a straight "in-out" referendum. This blog is very far from alone in asserting that we could win and, therefore, we are indeed playing the longer game.
Those who have watched the clip from Monty Python (above), will note with delight the parody of small group politics, with John Cleese (of the People's Front of Judea) declaring that, "The only people we hate more than the Romans is the f*****g Judean People's Front".
The cry of "splitters" thus resonates throughout the land, as each groupescule declares itself the custodian of the one true faith, condemning the heretics and dissenter, seeking to condemn them to outer darkness. Far from fostering a debate, the intolerance of many of these groups is such that they assert that dissenting voices should not be heard.
No more so is this heard than from the tiny claque which holds itself to be the guardians of the flame of freedom, they who assert that the only way to regain our "sovereignty" is to repeal the European Communities Act. It is this tiny band of malcontents that holds that Article 50 is a "trap", or even worse.
The trouble is that, if we assume that the first step towards withdrawal from the EU is winning an "in-out" referendum, without which there is nothing, then it seems to make sense that the entire weight of the eurosceptic "movement" should be devoted to winning the referendum.
Necessarily, this means crafting a message which will appeal to the largest possible constituency, including the vast majority of the electorate who do not read the newspapers, do not engage in political discourse and who, increasingly, do not even vote.
Here, the vast sum of experience of fighting referendums suggest that the dominant driver will be thestatus quo effect, with people tending to shy away from uncertainty. And, with that in mind, we have already experienced a taste of the europhile campaign, with the emphasis on "FUD" (Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt), as a means of convincing people that they should stay within the warm embrace of "Mother Europe".
Remarkably, though, there is a voluble faction within the eurosceptic community which also seems to want to rely on FUD, and in particular, maximising the uncertainty attendant on our leaving the EU.
This is the faction which would eschew Article 50 and have us repealing the European Communities Act, on the back of a declaration that we have unilaterally abrogated the treaties. Assuming then that the EU would not take any "retaliatory" action against us on the matter of trade, it seems that the newly sovereign UK would then embark on a series of negotiations with the EU, to determine the nature of its ongoing relationship.
Bizarrely, anyone who does not agree that unilateral and immediate withdrawal is the winning strategy, is branded as a "europhile", a tool of the establishment, or even worse.
However, at the risk of being called that ultimate of epithets, a "splitter", we have to say that the crucial element of any winning campaign is to offer a "soft landing". People are far more inclined to risk "letting go of nurse" if they are reassured that the unknowns have been addressed, and their effects contained.
What we would prefer individually, then, is of less relevance. While the prospect of immediate withdrawal, and rolling out the coils of barbed wire in the cliffs of Dover, might have its attractions, the key to the adoption of any strategy must be the assessment of how it will play with what Spinelli called the "swamp" – the uncommitted middle ground.
These are the people that matter, and the evidence indicates that they will look first and foremost for reassurance that short-term interests will not be adversely affected by withdrawal. If we cannot give the necessary reassurances, or there are too many uncertainties, the voters "hold onto nurse". We lose.
And there, we can do without the "splitters". As far as is possible, we need to be able to present a common front. The opposition will seek to project the most extreme "eurosceptic" stance as representing the whole – something the BBC is very good at. The uncertainties of an immediate withdrawal are a gift to the opposition, and we cannot afford to give them the game.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 14/05/2013
EU referendum: not very much further forward
Tuesday 14 May 2013
David Cameron will propose laws tomorrow to guarantee that the public is assured an in-out referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union before the end of 2017.
So says one of the businesses owned by the Telegraph Media Group Ltd, which also tells us that the Conservatives will take the highly unusual step of publishing "draft legislation". This will illustrate the law that the Tories would like approved.
The development emerged in Washington last night after Barack Obama effectively backed Mr Cameron's attempts to renegotiate Britain' s relationship with the EU before ordering a referendum.
The president called for Mr Cameron to be given time to "fix" the EU, asserting that, "you probably want to see if you can fix what's broken in a very important relationship before you break it off". He then warned that Britain would lose influence if it ever left the single market.
Comments like this are politically illiterate, but are typical of American politicians and many US commentators, who understand the nuances of UK politics about as well as we tend to understand the nuances of theirs. Our problem with the EU, for instance, isn't specifically that anything is broken. It is that the EU is a putative United States of Europe - and we want no part of it.
However, we need have few fears about an Obama endorsement. American presidents interfering in British politics do not go down well, so his intervention is not likely to help Mr Cameron.
And nor is this "draft legislation" any big deal. A government Bill is not going to follow, so the best the Conservatives can hope for is a private member's Bill. This has only a limited chance of becoming law, and then only if supported by the Lib-Dems. As it stands, that support is unlikely, so we are being treated to gesture politics.
There is also the question of timing. If Mr Cameron is set on the renegotiation path, he must have some certainty that he will be able to conduct and conclude negotiations with the "colleagues" in good time for a referendum campaign to be conducted. That, effectively, means doing a deal by the end of 2016, or very early in 2017, only 18 months or so after the general election.
Assuming Mr Cameron does get re-elected, this is a very small window for renegotiations – or would be if there was any intention of them seeking serious concessions. And it depends entirely on the good will of the "colleagues", who could refuse to deal – as is widely expected.
All-in-all, therefore, we are not very much further forward. There is still no certainty of a referendum and it is in any case dependent on the successful conclusion of negotiations, over which Mr Cameron has no control.
Putting all this together, these recent events don't do so very much to enhance Mr Cameron's credibility either. On top of the imponderables, the anti-politics vote keeps soaring, making his re-election ever more unlikely.
One of these days, the man will realise that the only way off the hook he has impaled himself is Article 50 – but it is going to be a while yet before he gets to grips with the inevitable.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 14/05/2013
EU referendum: the genie is out of the bottle
Monday 13 May 2013
I rarely read the Boris Johnson effluvia, not least because I don't think a fully-paid up politician should have a column in a newspaper – or take money from newspapers. The media is supposed to be scrutinising politicians, not employing them.
Even more bizarre is the practice of his employer taking his column, for which it has paid the man, and then treating it as news as a statement from "the London Mayor" (illustrated above). This is wrong. He was writing in his capacity as an employee of a business called the Telegraph Media Group Ltd.
It also says very little for the news values of this business that it chooses to headline the claim by its employee that "this country's workers are plagued by 'sloth' and under-perform compared with their foreign rivals" – something which is dead easy to write when you are getting £250,000 a year for writing a crappy column for the Telegraph Media Group Ltd, on top of your Mayor's salary of £143,911 plus expenses (£11,445.93 last year).
However, far more interesting – insofar as anything Johnson says is interesting – is the bit tucked in at the end of the news piece where we learn that The Great Man thinks that the EU will only take us seriously on renegotiation, "if they think we will invoke Article 50, and pull out, if we fail to get what we want".
Never mind that this dismal creature cannot actually think straight. If he was not too grand to read the Booker column, he could have learned that the only way to get what we want is to invoke Article 50. Like Samuel Johnson, who observed of a woman preaching that it was like a dog walking on his hind legs. "It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all". So it is with Boris and Article 50.
However, it is hugely entertaining to find that the groupescules are squeaking with rage at my references to Article 50, and have been particularly active this weekend in condemnation of Booker and myself, as well as polluting the Booker comments.
However, they are too late. The genie is out of the bottle, and we even have the loss-makingGuardian picking up the overpaid Boris and his reference to Article 50, while even John Redwood has discovered it and Farage has joined in the fun in the Daily Star.
Farage is accusing Mr Cameron of trying to obscure the truth of what would be involved if Britain was to leave the EU. He says that, under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, a country wishing to withdraw had to action Article 50 of the treaty, which then provided for a two-year "period of grace" while negotiations took place.
"He isn't haggling, he is wriggling," Farage says. "The Prime Minister is obscuring the truth. One can only imagine it is to fool his own backbenchers because it doesn't fool our friends on the Continent".
This has even made ITV News, which has former Conservative Cabinet minister Lord Forsyth adding to Cameron's disquiet, by saying that the prime minister is "wrong" to think he can renegotiate Britain's EU membership.
"David Cameron is thinking he can persuade the golf club to play tennis, and his negotiating position is impossible because he is saying, 'If I don't succeed, I will continue to play golf'", Forsyth says.
With the agencies also picking up the Farage quote, Article 50 is now spreading far and wide, even to be found in the Ellesmere Port Pioneer and (here's real fame for you), the Solihull News.
Despite all this, Mr Cameron, embarking on a three-day trip to the US, is complaining about people discussing a "hypothetical" referendum. There isn't going to be one tomorrow, he says, so, "What matters is making sure that we do everything we can to reform the EU, make it more flexible, more open, more competitive".
The poor man also wants to "improve Britain's relations with the EU, change those relations so that when we have the referendum before the end of 2017 we give the British public a real choice, a proper choice".
But the real choice, the proper choice, is Article 50, and it isn't going to go away. Much as the groupescules hate it, it is now part of the political discourse.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 13/05/2013
EU politics: one treaty to cover them all
Monday 13 May 2013
Members of the German government have been blowing hot and cold on treaty change for so long now that it is difficult to know what to make of the thrust of their statements – especially as they often contradict each other.
Another complicating factor is the general election in September, so everything has to be seen through the filter of domestic politics – further complicated by the emergence of the AFD.
This time, though, it's our old friend, Wolfgang Schäuble and he isn't even talking to his home audience. Rather, he is in the Financial Times, perhaps speaking to a British audience, but perhaps not.
Schäuble, we are told, is warning that a single EU bailout agency and rescue fund for ailing banks is legally untenable until a new treaty is on the block. The timing is interesting as we are just weeks away from a European Commission plan for a single bank resolution agency and rescue fund.
This will be the second pillar in the eurozone's much-vaunted "banking union", but there is now some confusion about whether it can go ahead on schedule.
Nevertheless, Schäuble is making his pitch, complaining – if that is the right word – that, "The EU does not have coercive means to enforce decisions", sinister words for someone close to the centre of German power. "Its historical roots are young", says Schäuble, then admitting, "Its democratic legitimacy could be improved upon".
In a more elliptical reference to the status of the EU, the German finance minister then adds, "What it has are responsibilities and powers defined by its treaties. To take them lightly, as is sometimes suggested, is to tamper with the rule of law".
What this suggests is that the limit if "treaty stretch" has been reached, and Schäuble is getting nervous about faking it. It may also be something to do with rumblings from the Bundesbank, and the continued unease at Draghi and his ECB stirring the euro pot, with his possible purchase of corporate loans, in breach of state funding rules.
What usually happens next is that Merkel steps in and tells her finance minister to cool it – although the rebuke is rarely public, or direct. And then we enter another round of blowing hot and cold.
Meanwhile, the signal will not have escaped Mr Cameron – or those of his advisors who can count to eleven without taking their socks off. They are looking for signs of an early treaty to hijack, and this could be the answer to a Conservative's prayer.
At least the water should be nicely muddied as Mr Cameron grabs this lifeline to divert attention from his own growing disarray.
However, Cameron should not get too excited. Schäuble is still talking of a banking union of sorts that can be had without revising the treaties, including a single supervisor; harmonised rules on capital requirements, resolution and deposit guarantees, and other trimmings.
Using nice homely analogies, Schäuble calls this "a timber-framed, not a steel-framed, banking union". Ominously, he says this would serve its purpose and "buy time" for the creation of a legal base for "our long-term goal: a truly European and supranational banking union, with strong, central authorities".
Even more ominously, perhaps explaining why he is talking to a British audience, he says this "legal base", aka treaty, could "potentially cover the entire single market". If that is the case, the British "referendum lock" kicks in. Be it Cameron or Miliband in a couple of year's time, we could still be having a referendum, this one on a new treaty.
Let no one say that EU politics is ever boring.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 13/05/2013
EU referendum: feeding frenzy
Sunday 12 May 2013
Entirely typical of the Fourth Estate, the media is turning the serious question of our continued membership of the EU into a biff-bam, soap-opera style contest, centring on a putative "commons revolt" which may or may no occur some time this coming week.
Particularly prominent in this low-grade game are the two Sunday "heavies", the Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph, both of which offer front-page headlines relating to Tory "revolts" or "civil war".
The latest development in this saga is Michael Gove declaring that he would vote for Britain to exit Europe if there was a referendum tomorrow.
Fortunately, there won't be a referendum tomorrow. The Times YouGov poll earlier this week (published Wednesday) had 35 percent wanting to stay in the EU, with 46 percent leaving and 20 percent "don't knows". This isn't anything like a big enough margin to ensure victory.
The big problem with all the hyperventilation, though, is that it is not leading to any better appreciation of the problems of leaving the EU, and nor is it leading to any change in Tory strategy, which remains one of attempting to renegotiate the treaties. Thus, to have 100 or so Tory "rebels" calling for a referendum, without the first idea of how they are going to win it (assuming they do want to leave the EU), is not exactly helpful.
Neither is the official Tory response, which is to have "strategy" chief Lyton Crosby calling for the date of an EU referendum to be brought forward a year early from the planned 2017.
This simply means leaping over the edge of the cliff a year earlier than anticipated, as we confront a referendum that is difficult to win and which risks serious damage to the eurosceptic cause.
On the other hand, we have Ed Miliband who is taking on the mantle of a rock of stability, refusing to countenance a referendum, and maintaining a staunch pro-EU position.
If the Kellner view is accepted, and we are likely to lose a referendum which gives the choice between a "renegotiated" settlement and leaving, then the best option for avoiding electoral defeat is increasingly looking to be Labour. Those who can't go that far should simply vote UKIP – especially in Tory-Labour marginals - as the next best thing.
Completely oblivious to the adverse effect of his manoeuvring, however, John Baron still pursues the idea of "paving legislation", to convince the electorate that Mr Cameron is serious in his intention to hold a referendum.
But thereby, he misses the point. The referendum is just a means to an end, and if it is to be manipulated by a Conservative prime minister – should the party gain office – there is no real point in having one. It most certainly will not convince the hard-core "outers" that they should vote Conservative.
Sadly, therefore, with the aid of the media, all be are getting is a huge confusion between activity and outcome. The referendum soap opera may keep the hacks entertained, as they indulge in their feeding frenzy, but withdrawal from the EU is no closer than it has ever been.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 12/05/2013
EU referendum: the only way out
Sunday 12 May 2013
David Cameron thinks it is possible to change and reform the European Union and to change and reform Britain's relationship with it.
In the very limited sense that it is theoretically possible, Mr Cameron is right. But in practical terms, it is absurd to believe that the UK can steer the EU away from its founding objective of "ever closer union" and, therefore, that we are going to be able seek changes to our "relationship".
Thus does Booker write to tell us that the only solution to our "EU mess" is Article 50.
In all the brouhaha over a Euro-referendum unleashed in the wake of that surge in the polls by UKIP, he writes, it is hard to know who is talking the emptiest fluff. We really are paying the price for all those years when our politicians and media were so keen to bury our European system of government out of sight that they have little idea of the harsh realities of the situation in which we find ourselves.
We have Tory MPs piling in to demand an in-out referendum before 2015, which they are not going to get. We have former political heavyweights such as Lord Lawson, Denis Healey and Norman Lamont queuing up to say that if there were such a referendum they would vote to leave.
We've even got Nick Clegg and those poor little BBC presenters locked in a 13-year-old time warp, trying to tell us that, if we did leave, 3.5 million British jobs would vanish because our trade with our European neighbours would somehow dry up overnight.
None of this bears any more relation to where we actually are, as one of the 27 fully signed-up members of the EU, than David Cameron's threefold dollop of wishful thinking that, if only we re-elect him in 2015, and if only he can somehow persuade his EU colleagues to hand back a few unspecified powers of government –– in breach of the most basic principle on which the EU was founded – he can somehow lead the " yes" campaign in 2017 to a referendum vote for Britain to stay in.
It is true we may one day by law have to have a referendum, whichever party is in power, because sooner or later the drive to give Brussels even more powers in its efforts to save the doomed euro will require a new treaty.
But in the meantime Mr Cameron is terrified that, unless we stay in the EU, we will lose the right to trade freely with its single market. Lord Lawson, in his own muddled way, seems equally to think that, by leaving, we would indeed be excluded from the single market, but that this would be OK because it would somehow bring us "a positive economic advantage".
The truth is that there is only one way we can get what they, and most people, seem to want, but none of them, except occasionally Nigel Farage, ever mentions it – and even then he barely gives it any emphasis. The only way we can compel our EU partners to negotiate a new relationship which would still give us access to the single market is by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.
Only thus can we negotiate precisely the kind of relationship already enjoyed, in their different ways, by the two most prosperous countries in Europe, Norway and Switzerland, which trade as freely with the EU as we do, but without the rest of that political baggage that inspires such growing resentment not just in Britain, but in many other EU member states.
This, of course, catches out Mr Cameron, because Article 50 can only be invoked by a country announcing its wish to leave the EU. He flatly refuses to recognise that it is perfectly possible to continue trading freely with the EU without belonging to it.
Lord Lawson falls into the opposite trap by also imagining that leaving the EU means being excluded from the single market, although he seems to think this could be an advantage because we could somehow make up for it by increasing our trade with the rest of the world. But both these men, like countless others, are living in cloud-cuckoo land. They will not bring their thinking back to earth by looking hard-headedly at the rules of the game.
The only way we can now face up to the reality of the plight we are in is by putting Article 50 at the very centre of the national debate. It is the only way we can get the best of both worlds that so many people say they want.
Unless we do so, we are doomed to wander on in a fog of wishful thinking that can only continue to leave us with the worst of all worlds – ruled by a dysfunctional system of government that we increasingly resent, but refuse to understand, Booker says.
In the words of Lady Thatcher, which he has quoted before, from her book Statecraft, that we should ever have become absorbed into this "European superstate" will one day be seen as "a political error of the first magnitude".
If we really wish to remedy that error, the only practical way that can be brought about is by invoking Article 50.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 12/05/2013
EU referendum: a significant event
Wednesday 15 May 2013
Perhaps the highlight of the event was Edward Leigh taunting the Clegg with a copy of a 2008 Lib Dem leaflet (below left) in which he declared: "It's time for a real referendum on Europe" at the time of the Lisbon Treaty negotiations.
Leigh, asked Mr Clegg whether the man pictured in the leaflet was "an impostor or just a hypocrite", only to get a dead-bat reply that he was in favour of a referendum when the rules changed.
Clegg, in turn, complained of the Conservatives of "constantly shifting the goalposts" on a referendum. He said the Commons had spent a hundred hours debating the Bill which gave a legal guarantee of a referendum if powers were transferred to Brussels. Nevertheless, he now seems to concede that a referendum is inevitable.In anticipation of a vote today on an amendment to the Queen's Speech, the deputy prime minister declared: "We on this side should go out and promote what is in the Queen's Speech, not spending days bemoaning what is not in the Queen's Speech", then adding: "I think we should stick to the priorities of the British people, which is growth and jobs".
This is a theme echoed by Paul Goodman on Tory Diary, who is relying on a time-honoured formula in an attempt to defuse the "Europe" issue. "The matters that most move the British people at the ballot box", he claims, "are the meat, potatoes and two veg of British politics: the economy, hospitals, schools and crime - plus, of course, immigration".
Notwithstanding that these issues are all, to a greater or lesser extent affected by our membership of the EU, Goodman is unwittingly illustrating what we should have a referendum on the EU. Such constitutional matters tend to be swamped by more immediate concerns in a general election, so they should be deal with separately, with the referendum format being the most appropriate mechanism.
What is interesting though is the contrast between this mealy-mouthed response and the triumphalism of the Daily Express which was the only national newspaper to give the referendum full frontal treatment this morning (right). Claiming a victory for its own campaign, it announces without equivocation that we are to get a straight in-or-out choice in a referendum on Britain's EU membership.In a dismissive response, however, Nigel Faragedeclares that, "This latest talk of an EU Referendum is nothing more than gesture politics". Thus, his earlier-declared stance of planning to stand for Westminster in 2015 is still in force, which means that the effect of UKIP's intervention could be to ensure that we have a Labour government and no referendum.
Meanwhile, we have the putative rebellion of up to 100 MPs, in the Queen's Speech vote, which is scheduled for 7.15 this evening. As Labour and the Lib-Dems were whipping their MPs against the motion, it is almost certain to fall.
Dominic Sandbrook in the Daily Mail is amongst the many who see in this evidence of the Conservative Party tearing itself apart, Sandbrook himself relying on comparisons between Mr Cameron and John Major.
This also allows the loss-making Guardian to question Mr Cameron's leadership skills, asserting that he once led his party by challenging it, but now meekly muddles through by pandering to its obsessions.
But, for all that, the publication of the draft Bill seems to have had an effect. We are told that the rebellion is "fading away", possibly signifying that MPs attach more significance to the referendum promise than does Mr Farage.
Certainly, an evidently frustrated Daniel Hannan has bought the package – but then you would expect that. However, one has a sneaking sympathy for his complaints about the tendency of lobby journalists to look at the EU through the tinted glass of party management. He thus observes that, amid the hubbub about "Tory splits", we are in danger of missing the magnitude of what is taking place.
We are no fans of young Hannan here, but in this one instance, I tend to veer closer to his "take" than anything the likes of Iain Martin has to offer. This man, whose own judgement is very often suspect, thinks the Conservatives have "lost the plot".
To me, that is the kettle calling the pot black. I think we are looking at an event of some magnitude here, one which the media and the serried ranks of MPs have not entirely succeeded in trivialising. And such are the dynamics of the Cameron offer that I would not be entirely surprised to see Labour and the Lib-Dems supporting the idea of a referendum.
Indeed, Cameron is now on the attack, saying that the "focus" must now shift to Labour and the Lib-Dems and whether or not they would be prepared to offer the British public a vote on Europe. He is criticising the two party leaders for "pretending nothing has changed" in the EU in recent years, putting them on the back foot.
But, once the events of this day are over, the real focus must then shift to king-maker Farage and his UKIP supporters. As the reality of a referendum seems to be firming up, Farage may come under pressure to rethink his somewhat glib response.
If it has become the role of UKIP to deny us a referendum on the EU, then he had better start telling us what he has in mind as an alternative.
COMMENT: COMBINED REFERENDUM THREAD
Richard North 15/05/2013
EU budget: a done deal
Wednesday 15 May 2013
The "amending budget no.2" will add about £800 million to Britain's EU bill, with potentially another £400 million to find when the complete deal is reached. That will come with the second tranche, expected to be agreed after the summer break, bringing the additional British liability to £1.2 billion.
The sum so far agreed represents rise of 5.5 percent on the original budget of €133 billion agreed for this year, itself and increase on the previous year's budget (2012) of €129.1. With the budget now standing at €140.3 billion, that represents an 8.7 percent year-on-year increase, kicking into touch any idea of EU budgetary restraint.
Needless to say, Mr Osborne has been very quiet about this, and the UK media has been playing it relatively low key, making light of the British humiliation. Only the BBC hints at the scale of the defeat, citing a British government source who said the government could not support the amending budget. But, with the vote taken by QMV, there was nothing a powerless Mr Osborne could do.
Ironically, this came on exactly the same day that the Conservative Party published its draft Bill for an EU referendum. The Party could well have pointed out that we were having to find another £1.2 billion to feed the ravening maw of Brussels, making it another good reason why we should be planning our exit.
And still there is the battle of the multi-annual budget to come. Then there will be many more amending budgets to come, as the "colleagues" attempt to chip away at the hidden deficit which technically makes the EU insolvent.
Unsurprisingly, we saw yesterday Kenneth Clarke claim that us leaving the EU could "spell catastrophe for the economy". What Clarke didn't specify, of course, was that the real catastrophe would be to the EU Commission's economy. They desperately need our money – and much more of it. We have not heard the last of this.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 15/05/2013
EU referendum: a poison chalice?
Wednesday 15 May 2013
However, it is possible to concede a small amount of surprise at the exact text of the referendum question that might be asked, if we ever get a referendum, which is now supposed to be before the end of 2017. And that question, the one which causes the surprise is, "Do you think that the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union?"
The reason for the surprise is that it abandons the great advantage, upon which Mr Cameron was to rely – the "renegotiation" ploy which, according to Kellner and others, converts a majority in favour of leaving into a comfortable win for him.
Cameron is still going to be pushing his renegotiation agenda but, unless that is tied in to the referendum question, he has problems. In the 1975 referendum, the question was very similar: "Do you think that the United Kingdom should stay in the European Community (The Common Market) ", but that time it was prefaced by: "The Government have announced the results of the renegotiation of the United Kingdom's terms of membership of the European Community" …
Also, tying the referendum to the end of 2017 at the latest opens the way to the "colleagues" to block any negotiations right up to the very last minute, leaving Mr Cameron with no room for manoeuvre in seeking to big-up the deal.
On the other hand, the one thing Cameron has going for him is that he is now able to say only his party is offering a "clear choice" about the UK's future in Europe. But most of all, he can say with a little more conviction that the only way we are going to get a referendum is by voting Conservative.
Whatever one might think of the way he has been dragged kicking and screaming to this position, it would be very hard now for a new Conservative government to back away from a referendum. Even without legislation in place before the election, they have nailed their colours to the mast.
Interestingly, Miliband is holding firm so far. He is not bending to vulgar "populism" and matching Cameron's offer. But we can bet he will be watching the polls very closely, and if there appears to be electoral advantage from putting a referendum on the table, the Labour leader will surely be tempted.
This also rather puts Farage on the rack. If we judge that Cameron is making a genuine offer, then our best hope for a generation for getting out of the EU is most definitely to back the Conservatives. A vote for UKIP at the general election would have the effect of denying us the opportunity of quitting.
These are difficult judgements though. To treat Mr Cameron's offer as suspect is entirely an honourable position. With so many promises made, and not fulfilled, there is every good reason for not believing that this is a genuine offer.
Thus, we ourselves have to make the call. Are we going to hammer the Tories, and hold out for something better – whatever that might be – or do we go with the latest offer and hope it comes off? And then, we have to ask whether we are actually capable of winning a referendum, or is Mr Cameron presenting us with a poison chalice.
Just for once, the ball is back in our court. We maybe have a chance of a referendum, but maybe it is an illusion. And then, do we really want something we might not win? We are unprepared, with no coherent arguments to put to the electorate, and could very easily lose a referendum.
As yet, though, it is not decision time, but the choices are getting more interesting and challenging.
COMMENT: COMBINED REFERENDUM THREAD
COMMENT: COMBINED REFERENDUM THREAD
Richard North 15/05/2013
EU referendum: environmental FUD
Wednesday 15 May 2013
This is just a taste of then things to come, should a real referendum campaign get underway. What we are being told is that the environmental consequences of Britain leaving the EU would be "huge". Membership of the European Union has been a boon to the UK's wildlife and habitats, and human health is better as a result - we are told.
Thus, according to the less than impartial analysis for Friends of the Earth, published today by the EU policy expert Dr Charlotte Burns from the University of York, a go-it-alone Britain would be far from green and pleasant. The UK really was once the dirty man of Europe and only the EU has saved us from a polluted fate worse than, er … a polluted fate.
Now, there is no way we're going to be able to mix it with the Greens on their turf, and hope to win. Never get into a fight with a chimney sweep. The trick thus is not to accept the argument on their terms. We have to change the terms the debate.
Here, we already have input for the Secretary of State for the Environment, Owen Paterson. A "pragmatic" eurosceptic, he agues that we could not possibly abolish all EU law on leaving the European Union. We cannot have a situation where vital issues, such as environmental control, become totally unregulated. Even EU law, pro temp is better than no law.
On that basis, when we leave the EU, we take with us the whole acquis - the whole rag-bag of EU law. We repatriate it, and take it onto our statute book as our own.
Actually, much of it already is our own. EU law has already been integrated into the British statute book, by Acts of Parliament and through Statutory Instruments approved by Parliament. These do not disappear just because we repeal the European Communities Act. They stay in force until they are specifically repealed.
It is only EU Regulations that fall when we walk away from the EU, and it there that we have to legislate to repatriate the law. We bring it home, so that it becomes ours, to be implemented without a break.
On this basis, the Friends of the Earth is wrong. There would be no environmental consequences from Britain leaving the EU. The day after we leave the EU will be exactly the same as the day before we leave.
Some have interpreted this, in almost a malicious sense, as the UK remaining locked into the EU. But these people are not thinking straight, if at all. Almost all current environmental law is of EU origin. Thus, the prohibition, say, on dumping toxic waste in a school playground is, ostensibly, a breach of EU law. This we do not want to remove.
Looking at this in the round, not all EU law is bad law. Some, in fact, was originally sponsored by the UK. Some we would have implemented whether or not we were in the EU. But some is bad law, and we need to be rid of it.
So, what we do is appoint a Royal Commission and/or a review committee to look through the entire raft of legislation. After due consideration and much public debate, we keep what is good. We get rid of the unnecessary onerous and the bad. And we fill any gaps, and improve on what we've got – but we take our time, working carefully and deliberately.
Even then, we will not be on our own. Some is Single Market legislation and, if we remain in the EEA, we keep it anyway. We remain members of UNEP, of UNECE and of a myriad of lesser-known environmental organisations. So we stay fully engaged with the international community. And we honour international commitments.
That is how we deal with the FUD. That is how we must deal with FUD if we are to win a referendum. We change the terms of the debate.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 15/05/2013
EU referendum: "splitters!"
Tuesday 14 May 2013
Peter McKay in the Daily Mail today suggests that eurosceptics would not be demanding a referendum if they thought they'd lose it. They would, he writes, be playing a longer game, softening up public opinion by publicising the iniquities of the EU.
The mistake that McKay makes, though, is in assuming that "eurosceptics" are a homogenous group with a common aim, rather than a rag-tag bundle of groupescules, with more discord than the People's Front of Judea.
On the matter of a referendum, there is not even any agreement as to the nature of any referendum that should be held, or when it should be held, and there most certainly is no consensus on whether we could win a straight "in-out" referendum. This blog is very far from alone in asserting that we could win and, therefore, we are indeed playing the longer game.
Those who have watched the clip from Monty Python (above), will note with delight the parody of small group politics, with John Cleese (of the People's Front of Judea) declaring that, "The only people we hate more than the Romans is the f*****g Judean People's Front".
The cry of "splitters" thus resonates throughout the land, as each groupescule declares itself the custodian of the one true faith, condemning the heretics and dissenter, seeking to condemn them to outer darkness. Far from fostering a debate, the intolerance of many of these groups is such that they assert that dissenting voices should not be heard.
No more so is this heard than from the tiny claque which holds itself to be the guardians of the flame of freedom, they who assert that the only way to regain our "sovereignty" is to repeal the European Communities Act. It is this tiny band of malcontents that holds that Article 50 is a "trap", or even worse.
The trouble is that, if we assume that the first step towards withdrawal from the EU is winning an "in-out" referendum, without which there is nothing, then it seems to make sense that the entire weight of the eurosceptic "movement" should be devoted to winning the referendum.
Necessarily, this means crafting a message which will appeal to the largest possible constituency, including the vast majority of the electorate who do not read the newspapers, do not engage in political discourse and who, increasingly, do not even vote.
Here, the vast sum of experience of fighting referendums suggest that the dominant driver will be thestatus quo effect, with people tending to shy away from uncertainty. And, with that in mind, we have already experienced a taste of the europhile campaign, with the emphasis on "FUD" (Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt), as a means of convincing people that they should stay within the warm embrace of "Mother Europe".
Remarkably, though, there is a voluble faction within the eurosceptic community which also seems to want to rely on FUD, and in particular, maximising the uncertainty attendant on our leaving the EU.
This is the faction which would eschew Article 50 and have us repealing the European Communities Act, on the back of a declaration that we have unilaterally abrogated the treaties. Assuming then that the EU would not take any "retaliatory" action against us on the matter of trade, it seems that the newly sovereign UK would then embark on a series of negotiations with the EU, to determine the nature of its ongoing relationship.
Bizarrely, anyone who does not agree that unilateral and immediate withdrawal is the winning strategy, is branded as a "europhile", a tool of the establishment, or even worse.
However, at the risk of being called that ultimate of epithets, a "splitter", we have to say that the crucial element of any winning campaign is to offer a "soft landing". People are far more inclined to risk "letting go of nurse" if they are reassured that the unknowns have been addressed, and their effects contained.
What we would prefer individually, then, is of less relevance. While the prospect of immediate withdrawal, and rolling out the coils of barbed wire in the cliffs of Dover, might have its attractions, the key to the adoption of any strategy must be the assessment of how it will play with what Spinelli called the "swamp" – the uncommitted middle ground.
These are the people that matter, and the evidence indicates that they will look first and foremost for reassurance that short-term interests will not be adversely affected by withdrawal. If we cannot give the necessary reassurances, or there are too many uncertainties, the voters "hold onto nurse". We lose.
And there, we can do without the "splitters". As far as is possible, we need to be able to present a common front. The opposition will seek to project the most extreme "eurosceptic" stance as representing the whole – something the BBC is very good at. The uncertainties of an immediate withdrawal are a gift to the opposition, and we cannot afford to give them the game.
COMMENT THREAD
The mistake that McKay makes, though, is in assuming that "eurosceptics" are a homogenous group with a common aim, rather than a rag-tag bundle of groupescules, with more discord than the People's Front of Judea.
On the matter of a referendum, there is not even any agreement as to the nature of any referendum that should be held, or when it should be held, and there most certainly is no consensus on whether we could win a straight "in-out" referendum. This blog is very far from alone in asserting that we could win and, therefore, we are indeed playing the longer game.
Those who have watched the clip from Monty Python (above), will note with delight the parody of small group politics, with John Cleese (of the People's Front of Judea) declaring that, "The only people we hate more than the Romans is the f*****g Judean People's Front".
The cry of "splitters" thus resonates throughout the land, as each groupescule declares itself the custodian of the one true faith, condemning the heretics and dissenter, seeking to condemn them to outer darkness. Far from fostering a debate, the intolerance of many of these groups is such that they assert that dissenting voices should not be heard.
No more so is this heard than from the tiny claque which holds itself to be the guardians of the flame of freedom, they who assert that the only way to regain our "sovereignty" is to repeal the European Communities Act. It is this tiny band of malcontents that holds that Article 50 is a "trap", or even worse.
The trouble is that, if we assume that the first step towards withdrawal from the EU is winning an "in-out" referendum, without which there is nothing, then it seems to make sense that the entire weight of the eurosceptic "movement" should be devoted to winning the referendum.
Necessarily, this means crafting a message which will appeal to the largest possible constituency, including the vast majority of the electorate who do not read the newspapers, do not engage in political discourse and who, increasingly, do not even vote.
Here, the vast sum of experience of fighting referendums suggest that the dominant driver will be thestatus quo effect, with people tending to shy away from uncertainty. And, with that in mind, we have already experienced a taste of the europhile campaign, with the emphasis on "FUD" (Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt), as a means of convincing people that they should stay within the warm embrace of "Mother Europe".
Remarkably, though, there is a voluble faction within the eurosceptic community which also seems to want to rely on FUD, and in particular, maximising the uncertainty attendant on our leaving the EU.
This is the faction which would eschew Article 50 and have us repealing the European Communities Act, on the back of a declaration that we have unilaterally abrogated the treaties. Assuming then that the EU would not take any "retaliatory" action against us on the matter of trade, it seems that the newly sovereign UK would then embark on a series of negotiations with the EU, to determine the nature of its ongoing relationship.
Bizarrely, anyone who does not agree that unilateral and immediate withdrawal is the winning strategy, is branded as a "europhile", a tool of the establishment, or even worse.
However, at the risk of being called that ultimate of epithets, a "splitter", we have to say that the crucial element of any winning campaign is to offer a "soft landing". People are far more inclined to risk "letting go of nurse" if they are reassured that the unknowns have been addressed, and their effects contained.
What we would prefer individually, then, is of less relevance. While the prospect of immediate withdrawal, and rolling out the coils of barbed wire in the cliffs of Dover, might have its attractions, the key to the adoption of any strategy must be the assessment of how it will play with what Spinelli called the "swamp" – the uncommitted middle ground.
These are the people that matter, and the evidence indicates that they will look first and foremost for reassurance that short-term interests will not be adversely affected by withdrawal. If we cannot give the necessary reassurances, or there are too many uncertainties, the voters "hold onto nurse". We lose.
And there, we can do without the "splitters". As far as is possible, we need to be able to present a common front. The opposition will seek to project the most extreme "eurosceptic" stance as representing the whole – something the BBC is very good at. The uncertainties of an immediate withdrawal are a gift to the opposition, and we cannot afford to give them the game.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 14/05/2013
EU referendum: not very much further forward
Tuesday 14 May 2013
So says one of the businesses owned by the Telegraph Media Group Ltd, which also tells us that the Conservatives will take the highly unusual step of publishing "draft legislation". This will illustrate the law that the Tories would like approved.
The development emerged in Washington last night after Barack Obama effectively backed Mr Cameron's attempts to renegotiate Britain' s relationship with the EU before ordering a referendum.
The president called for Mr Cameron to be given time to "fix" the EU, asserting that, "you probably want to see if you can fix what's broken in a very important relationship before you break it off". He then warned that Britain would lose influence if it ever left the single market.
Comments like this are politically illiterate, but are typical of American politicians and many US commentators, who understand the nuances of UK politics about as well as we tend to understand the nuances of theirs. Our problem with the EU, for instance, isn't specifically that anything is broken. It is that the EU is a putative United States of Europe - and we want no part of it.
However, we need have few fears about an Obama endorsement. American presidents interfering in British politics do not go down well, so his intervention is not likely to help Mr Cameron.
And nor is this "draft legislation" any big deal. A government Bill is not going to follow, so the best the Conservatives can hope for is a private member's Bill. This has only a limited chance of becoming law, and then only if supported by the Lib-Dems. As it stands, that support is unlikely, so we are being treated to gesture politics.
There is also the question of timing. If Mr Cameron is set on the renegotiation path, he must have some certainty that he will be able to conduct and conclude negotiations with the "colleagues" in good time for a referendum campaign to be conducted. That, effectively, means doing a deal by the end of 2016, or very early in 2017, only 18 months or so after the general election.
Assuming Mr Cameron does get re-elected, this is a very small window for renegotiations – or would be if there was any intention of them seeking serious concessions. And it depends entirely on the good will of the "colleagues", who could refuse to deal – as is widely expected.
All-in-all, therefore, we are not very much further forward. There is still no certainty of a referendum and it is in any case dependent on the successful conclusion of negotiations, over which Mr Cameron has no control.
Putting all this together, these recent events don't do so very much to enhance Mr Cameron's credibility either. On top of the imponderables, the anti-politics vote keeps soaring, making his re-election ever more unlikely.
One of these days, the man will realise that the only way off the hook he has impaled himself is Article 50 – but it is going to be a while yet before he gets to grips with the inevitable.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 14/05/2013
EU referendum: the genie is out of the bottle
Monday 13 May 2013
Even more bizarre is the practice of his employer taking his column, for which it has paid the man, and then treating it as news as a statement from "the London Mayor" (illustrated above). This is wrong. He was writing in his capacity as an employee of a business called the Telegraph Media Group Ltd.
It also says very little for the news values of this business that it chooses to headline the claim by its employee that "this country's workers are plagued by 'sloth' and under-perform compared with their foreign rivals" – something which is dead easy to write when you are getting £250,000 a year for writing a crappy column for the Telegraph Media Group Ltd, on top of your Mayor's salary of £143,911 plus expenses (£11,445.93 last year).
However, far more interesting – insofar as anything Johnson says is interesting – is the bit tucked in at the end of the news piece where we learn that The Great Man thinks that the EU will only take us seriously on renegotiation, "if they think we will invoke Article 50, and pull out, if we fail to get what we want".
Never mind that this dismal creature cannot actually think straight. If he was not too grand to read the Booker column, he could have learned that the only way to get what we want is to invoke Article 50. Like Samuel Johnson, who observed of a woman preaching that it was like a dog walking on his hind legs. "It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all". So it is with Boris and Article 50.
However, it is hugely entertaining to find that the groupescules are squeaking with rage at my references to Article 50, and have been particularly active this weekend in condemnation of Booker and myself, as well as polluting the Booker comments.
However, they are too late. The genie is out of the bottle, and we even have the loss-makingGuardian picking up the overpaid Boris and his reference to Article 50, while even John Redwood has discovered it and Farage has joined in the fun in the Daily Star.
Farage is accusing Mr Cameron of trying to obscure the truth of what would be involved if Britain was to leave the EU. He says that, under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, a country wishing to withdraw had to action Article 50 of the treaty, which then provided for a two-year "period of grace" while negotiations took place.
"He isn't haggling, he is wriggling," Farage says. "The Prime Minister is obscuring the truth. One can only imagine it is to fool his own backbenchers because it doesn't fool our friends on the Continent".
This has even made ITV News, which has former Conservative Cabinet minister Lord Forsyth adding to Cameron's disquiet, by saying that the prime minister is "wrong" to think he can renegotiate Britain's EU membership.
"David Cameron is thinking he can persuade the golf club to play tennis, and his negotiating position is impossible because he is saying, 'If I don't succeed, I will continue to play golf'", Forsyth says.
With the agencies also picking up the Farage quote, Article 50 is now spreading far and wide, even to be found in the Ellesmere Port Pioneer and (here's real fame for you), the Solihull News.
Despite all this, Mr Cameron, embarking on a three-day trip to the US, is complaining about people discussing a "hypothetical" referendum. There isn't going to be one tomorrow, he says, so, "What matters is making sure that we do everything we can to reform the EU, make it more flexible, more open, more competitive".
The poor man also wants to "improve Britain's relations with the EU, change those relations so that when we have the referendum before the end of 2017 we give the British public a real choice, a proper choice".
But the real choice, the proper choice, is Article 50, and it isn't going to go away. Much as the groupescules hate it, it is now part of the political discourse.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 13/05/2013
EU politics: one treaty to cover them all
Monday 13 May 2013
Another complicating factor is the general election in September, so everything has to be seen through the filter of domestic politics – further complicated by the emergence of the AFD.
This time, though, it's our old friend, Wolfgang Schäuble and he isn't even talking to his home audience. Rather, he is in the Financial Times, perhaps speaking to a British audience, but perhaps not.
Schäuble, we are told, is warning that a single EU bailout agency and rescue fund for ailing banks is legally untenable until a new treaty is on the block. The timing is interesting as we are just weeks away from a European Commission plan for a single bank resolution agency and rescue fund.
This will be the second pillar in the eurozone's much-vaunted "banking union", but there is now some confusion about whether it can go ahead on schedule.
Nevertheless, Schäuble is making his pitch, complaining – if that is the right word – that, "The EU does not have coercive means to enforce decisions", sinister words for someone close to the centre of German power. "Its historical roots are young", says Schäuble, then admitting, "Its democratic legitimacy could be improved upon".
In a more elliptical reference to the status of the EU, the German finance minister then adds, "What it has are responsibilities and powers defined by its treaties. To take them lightly, as is sometimes suggested, is to tamper with the rule of law".
What this suggests is that the limit if "treaty stretch" has been reached, and Schäuble is getting nervous about faking it. It may also be something to do with rumblings from the Bundesbank, and the continued unease at Draghi and his ECB stirring the euro pot, with his possible purchase of corporate loans, in breach of state funding rules.
What usually happens next is that Merkel steps in and tells her finance minister to cool it – although the rebuke is rarely public, or direct. And then we enter another round of blowing hot and cold.
Meanwhile, the signal will not have escaped Mr Cameron – or those of his advisors who can count to eleven without taking their socks off. They are looking for signs of an early treaty to hijack, and this could be the answer to a Conservative's prayer.
At least the water should be nicely muddied as Mr Cameron grabs this lifeline to divert attention from his own growing disarray.
However, Cameron should not get too excited. Schäuble is still talking of a banking union of sorts that can be had without revising the treaties, including a single supervisor; harmonised rules on capital requirements, resolution and deposit guarantees, and other trimmings.
Using nice homely analogies, Schäuble calls this "a timber-framed, not a steel-framed, banking union". Ominously, he says this would serve its purpose and "buy time" for the creation of a legal base for "our long-term goal: a truly European and supranational banking union, with strong, central authorities".
Even more ominously, perhaps explaining why he is talking to a British audience, he says this "legal base", aka treaty, could "potentially cover the entire single market". If that is the case, the British "referendum lock" kicks in. Be it Cameron or Miliband in a couple of year's time, we could still be having a referendum, this one on a new treaty.
Let no one say that EU politics is ever boring.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 13/05/2013
EU referendum: feeding frenzy
Sunday 12 May 2013
Particularly prominent in this low-grade game are the two Sunday "heavies", the Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph, both of which offer front-page headlines relating to Tory "revolts" or "civil war".
The latest development in this saga is Michael Gove declaring that he would vote for Britain to exit Europe if there was a referendum tomorrow.
Fortunately, there won't be a referendum tomorrow. The Times YouGov poll earlier this week (published Wednesday) had 35 percent wanting to stay in the EU, with 46 percent leaving and 20 percent "don't knows". This isn't anything like a big enough margin to ensure victory.
The big problem with all the hyperventilation, though, is that it is not leading to any better appreciation of the problems of leaving the EU, and nor is it leading to any change in Tory strategy, which remains one of attempting to renegotiate the treaties. Thus, to have 100 or so Tory "rebels" calling for a referendum, without the first idea of how they are going to win it (assuming they do want to leave the EU), is not exactly helpful.
Neither is the official Tory response, which is to have "strategy" chief Lyton Crosby calling for the date of an EU referendum to be brought forward a year early from the planned 2017.
This simply means leaping over the edge of the cliff a year earlier than anticipated, as we confront a referendum that is difficult to win and which risks serious damage to the eurosceptic cause.
On the other hand, we have Ed Miliband who is taking on the mantle of a rock of stability, refusing to countenance a referendum, and maintaining a staunch pro-EU position.
If the Kellner view is accepted, and we are likely to lose a referendum which gives the choice between a "renegotiated" settlement and leaving, then the best option for avoiding electoral defeat is increasingly looking to be Labour. Those who can't go that far should simply vote UKIP – especially in Tory-Labour marginals - as the next best thing.
Completely oblivious to the adverse effect of his manoeuvring, however, John Baron still pursues the idea of "paving legislation", to convince the electorate that Mr Cameron is serious in his intention to hold a referendum.
But thereby, he misses the point. The referendum is just a means to an end, and if it is to be manipulated by a Conservative prime minister – should the party gain office – there is no real point in having one. It most certainly will not convince the hard-core "outers" that they should vote Conservative.
Sadly, therefore, with the aid of the media, all be are getting is a huge confusion between activity and outcome. The referendum soap opera may keep the hacks entertained, as they indulge in their feeding frenzy, but withdrawal from the EU is no closer than it has ever been.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 12/05/2013
EU referendum: the only way out
Sunday 12 May 2013
In the very limited sense that it is theoretically possible, Mr Cameron is right. But in practical terms, it is absurd to believe that the UK can steer the EU away from its founding objective of "ever closer union" and, therefore, that we are going to be able seek changes to our "relationship".
Thus does Booker write to tell us that the only solution to our "EU mess" is Article 50.
In all the brouhaha over a Euro-referendum unleashed in the wake of that surge in the polls by UKIP, he writes, it is hard to know who is talking the emptiest fluff. We really are paying the price for all those years when our politicians and media were so keen to bury our European system of government out of sight that they have little idea of the harsh realities of the situation in which we find ourselves.
We have Tory MPs piling in to demand an in-out referendum before 2015, which they are not going to get. We have former political heavyweights such as Lord Lawson, Denis Healey and Norman Lamont queuing up to say that if there were such a referendum they would vote to leave.
We've even got Nick Clegg and those poor little BBC presenters locked in a 13-year-old time warp, trying to tell us that, if we did leave, 3.5 million British jobs would vanish because our trade with our European neighbours would somehow dry up overnight.
None of this bears any more relation to where we actually are, as one of the 27 fully signed-up members of the EU, than David Cameron's threefold dollop of wishful thinking that, if only we re-elect him in 2015, and if only he can somehow persuade his EU colleagues to hand back a few unspecified powers of government –– in breach of the most basic principle on which the EU was founded – he can somehow lead the " yes" campaign in 2017 to a referendum vote for Britain to stay in.
It is true we may one day by law have to have a referendum, whichever party is in power, because sooner or later the drive to give Brussels even more powers in its efforts to save the doomed euro will require a new treaty.
But in the meantime Mr Cameron is terrified that, unless we stay in the EU, we will lose the right to trade freely with its single market. Lord Lawson, in his own muddled way, seems equally to think that, by leaving, we would indeed be excluded from the single market, but that this would be OK because it would somehow bring us "a positive economic advantage".
The truth is that there is only one way we can get what they, and most people, seem to want, but none of them, except occasionally Nigel Farage, ever mentions it – and even then he barely gives it any emphasis. The only way we can compel our EU partners to negotiate a new relationship which would still give us access to the single market is by invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.
Only thus can we negotiate precisely the kind of relationship already enjoyed, in their different ways, by the two most prosperous countries in Europe, Norway and Switzerland, which trade as freely with the EU as we do, but without the rest of that political baggage that inspires such growing resentment not just in Britain, but in many other EU member states.
This, of course, catches out Mr Cameron, because Article 50 can only be invoked by a country announcing its wish to leave the EU. He flatly refuses to recognise that it is perfectly possible to continue trading freely with the EU without belonging to it.
Lord Lawson falls into the opposite trap by also imagining that leaving the EU means being excluded from the single market, although he seems to think this could be an advantage because we could somehow make up for it by increasing our trade with the rest of the world. But both these men, like countless others, are living in cloud-cuckoo land. They will not bring their thinking back to earth by looking hard-headedly at the rules of the game.
The only way we can now face up to the reality of the plight we are in is by putting Article 50 at the very centre of the national debate. It is the only way we can get the best of both worlds that so many people say they want.
Unless we do so, we are doomed to wander on in a fog of wishful thinking that can only continue to leave us with the worst of all worlds – ruled by a dysfunctional system of government that we increasingly resent, but refuse to understand, Booker says.
In the words of Lady Thatcher, which he has quoted before, from her book Statecraft, that we should ever have become absorbed into this "European superstate" will one day be seen as "a political error of the first magnitude".
If we really wish to remedy that error, the only practical way that can be brought about is by invoking Article 50.
COMMENT THREAD
Richard North 12/05/2013
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