 UK politics: Farage at bay
Friday 17 May 2013
 Scotland has always been difficult for Farage and, as he gets higher-profile, something like this was bound to happen. One wonders, though, whether the UKIP leader should have been better briefed, and whether he would have listened if he had been. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 17/05/2013 |
EU politics: eurosceptic splits
Friday 17 May 2013
 Without dwelling specifically on the fate of the AFD, one can observe that this dynamic seems to be a characteristic of political groupings – witness the constant talk of "Tory splits". But this dynamic seems at its most virulent in the eurosceptic movement, which, as we have already remarked, increasingly resembles the Monty Python anti-Roman factions. Of the various groupuscules inhabiting the eurosceptic terrain, at this time there are perhaps as many factions as there are Pashtun tribes, each with their own fanatical adherents which make the People's Front of Judea look moderate. Factions are, in part, defined by their beliefs, and some of the more vitriolic adhere to the "trappist" doctrine – the belief that invoking Article 50 is a "trap" and that withdrawal from the EU should be occasioned only by the repeal of the European Communities Act and the unilateral abrogation of the treaties. These factions have recently been fortified by the support of convicted criminal and former MEP, Ashley Mote. He asserts that an unnamed "bureaucrat", of unspecified rank, location and employer, was "honest enough" to tell him personally that Article 50 is "about being told, after two years of discussions exclusively amongst the other members, what our terms of leaving would be". According to this anonymous official, as conveyed exclusively and uniquely by Ashley Mote, "we would then have to accept the EU's terms or withdraw the application to leave" – even though, in the absence of an agreement, the self-same Article 50 specifies that the Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question … two years after the notification of withdrawal. Such an egregious misreading of the Article, however, does not detract from the religious fervour of the believers, who are given even more sustenance by the holiest of all cult leaders, Rodney Atkinson. He has recently handed down The Word from on high. Should, as a result of a referendum, the decision be to leave the European Union then the 1972 European [Communities] Act will be repealed, he has pronounced. Then, "the United Kingdom will leave the European Union and begin negotiations AS A SOVEREIGN UNENCUMBERED STATE to establish free trading and co-operation agreements with the EU together with other EEA States not part of the European Union". Thus, we are informed, the UK will not act under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty since the country will no longer be part of that constitutional Law. Quite what we are supposed to do by way of trade, in between the period of leaving and concluding negotiations to establish free trading and co-operation agreements, we are not told. But given that such negotiations – should the EU member states agree to them – could take some years, it is of more than academic interest. Nevertheless, what these tiny groupuscules think is generally of very little importance but for the tendency of the opposition to pluck them from their deserved obscurity and project their views as representing the eurosceptic community as a whole. The BBC is particularly adept at this technique, and nothing would serve the europhile cause better than to suggest that the alternative to staying in the EU is immediate, unilateral withdrawal, with all the uncertainty that that entails. The prospect of the chaos that would ensue is probably the best advert for staying in the EU that could be devised. Another reason why the "trappist" cult is dangerous is that it plays into the hands of the pretend eurosceptics, the so-called "europlastics" such as Rodney Leach. They belong to the rival "reformist" cult. The majority of the public, the political class and business, cultist Leach recently asserted, "are sceptical about the EU but rather than leaving it they want a new deal to reduce its power over their lives". And, high up in the list of reasons he uses to justify this assertion is the claim that none of the "outers" (recent or otherwise) has set out a credible alternative. Leach is very selective in order to make this claim, as there have been credible alternatives set out. These, he ignores, enabling him to cite the "trappists" in order to make his point. In his rivals, he has a ready-made alternative to condemn, one that completely lacks credibility. However, while Leach is quick to brand his rival cultists as lacking in credibility, his own plans miraculously escape a similar appellation. Yet, in the Leachate "new order", the EU is redefined as the Single Market, "not as a vague aspiration to political union, still less as a currency union".
Safeguards, he then says, would be put in place to ensure that the eurozone did not write the rules for the rest of the member states, following which, "the next step would be to strengthen the powers of Westminster over EU decisions".
Here on this blog, we have been known to accuse the "trappists" of fantasy politics, going for what we have called the "magic wand" option. But Leach is in a league of his own. In a twinkling of an eye, he wants to reform away over sixty years of political integration, turning the EU into a cuddly free market. Then, for his next trick, he wants to weaken the primacy of EU law. Supposedly, though, the "trappist" and "reformist" cults are both eurosceptics, sharing the same faith. In theory, therefore - like the AFD - they should be united behind their common banner. But the reality is that, when there is such a yawning chasm between the different ideas, unity will always be a façade. At the beginning, we saw in the AFD the elements of disharmony when they could not agree whether the euro should be abolished, or whether eurozone should just contract, to include only the northern European states. With that much difference, there was never going to be harmony. And when British eurosceptic cults range from trappists to reformists, it is hard to concede that they even belong to the same religion. Their differences are not so much "splits" as the Grand Canyon on steroids. Such cults, sharing only the tendency to indulge in fantasy politics, are never going to be united. But "split" is far too mild a word. They don't even inhabit the same universe. Richard North 17/05/2013 |
EU referendum: a load of Balls
Thursday 16 May 2013
 To commit to a referendum about a negotiation that hasn't begun, on a timescale you cannot predict, on an outcome that's unknown, where Britain's appeal as an inward investment market would be the centre of the debate, seems to me like an unnecessary gamble.To take that "unnecessary gamble" now, says Balls, "would be the wrong thing to do". This, he adds: "is exactly the same position as the one the Prime Minister and the Chancellor joined us in the Lobby to vote against in October 2011". Balls then reminds us of what Mr Cameron told the Conservative party conference in 2006: For too long, we were having a different conversation. Instead of talking about the things that most people care about, we talked about what we cared about most. While parents worried about childcare, getting the kids to school, balancing work and family life - we were banging on about Europe.Now, says Balls, his party has certainly been banging on about Europe day after day over the last week - banging the nails in the coffin of Tory modernisation and in the coffin of this Prime Minister's prime ministership, too. And there, it seems to me, lies the essence of the europhile tactics. They are – and always have been – seeking to close down the debate on the EU altogether. We should not even discuss "Europe". This was exactly the line taken by Paul Goodman in Tory Diary yesterday. These people would have us eternally condemned to having a debate about whether to have a debate, never actually getting down to the substantive issues. And today, we see a variation of the same thing with the intervention of Vince Cable, who tells usthat leaving the EU would be "self-indulgent and reckless". No "serious friend of British business" would call for a break-up of Britain's relations with the EU, he is to tell a business conference in Birmingham, warning that if Britain quit the EU, he will warn, "we could reasonably expect an exodus of the non-EU firms headquartered in this country, precisely because they regard the UK as the gateway to Europe".
However, no one in their right mind (other than the Judean People's Front) would actually call for "a break-up of Britain's relations with the EU". In or out of the EU, we still need a relationship with the member states of the EU. Thus, the question is how those relations would be managed.
Cable is, of course, spreading FUD, but it is that which sterilises the discussion, and makes it so unremittingly tedious. We never seem to be able to get down to the core issues, discussing the merits of membership and how we would fare outside the European Union under various exit scenarios. Richard North 16/05/2013 |
EU referendum: a step closer
Thursday 16 May 2013
I'm not quite sure when the practice stopped but certainly before the war, an important debate in Parliament would get at least two full pages of coverage. And that was in the days when the likes of the Daily Express was a broadsheet. The reports, in eight, densely-printed columns, with only tiny pictures, would run to several thousand words.
Now, we just get the highlights, which means the flavour of the debate comes via the filter of the reporters covering the story – and most often they are either working from agency reports, or broadcast highlights. There is, however, some compensation in that we can watch the debates live and read the Hansard reports later. I prefer to do the latter, finding the written word more reliable without the distraction of the theatricals. Thus, while the MPs were chuntering at each other this evening, I was actually watching a decade-old episode of West Wing on the internet. I'll read the full debate tomorrow. Anyway, the headline news is that 114 Conservative MPs voted for John Baron's amendment to the Queen's Speech "expressing regret" that an EU referendum Bill had not been included in the Government's legislative programme for the next session. This is slightly more MPs than had been anticipated but, nevertheless, the amendment was defeated by 277 votes to 130. Labour and Lib-Dem MPs responded to their whips, and toed the party line. Strictly though, the Tory vote was not a rebellion or a mutiny, as there had been a free vote. The good news is that at least this blog is back doing the very thing is was set up to do when we set it up on 22 April 2004. That makes us now just over nine years old. By the time we get a referendum in 2017, if we do, the blog will be thirteen years old, longer than a typical life sentence for murder. The bad news is that it could be another five years after than before we see a referendum – depending on a lot of things, including the outcome of the general election, so the blog could be 20 by the time we see the results come in. With that thought, we take comfort in the view of the Independent which thinks that David Cameron's "bloody nose" tonight brought an EU referendum a step closer. Please let it be so. COMMENT: COMBINED REFERENDUM THREAD Richard North 16/05/2013 |
Friday, 17 May 2013
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