July 26, 2010
Liberté, égalité, fraternité?
If I were to assume the mantle of the perennially dim, I might urge British civil liberties campaigners to get some perspective and calm down.
They squealed about proposed 90 day detention for terror suspects, and now moan about the removal of the democracy village outside Parliament. But (the dim-witted might continue) campaigners should appreciate that Britain is one of the most liberal nations in the world. Streets ahead of a regime which, for example, imprisons suspects without trial, denies them access to legal support, and does it all irrespective of numerous condemnations from the European Court of Human Rights.
I’m talking, of course, about France. Across the channel French lawyers are currently battling to gain the right to accompany suspects in police interviews, a basic legal right that the ECHR has affirmed repeatedly.
At present if you are arrested in France under suspicion of normal crimes you can expect to be held for 24-48 hours. If you are suspected of involvement in organised crime (which in effect is assumed for any drug-related offence, even just personal-use possession) or terrorist activity, it will by 96 hours. You can expect to see your lawyer once. For 30 minutes. Before your interrogation begins.
Your lawyer will not have access to any police documents on your case. They will probably not know you, or why you’ve been arrested. Much of the 30 minutes will be spent explaining your situation, and receiving the most basic general advice in return. You will then be left in the company of police officers trained to manipulate you into admitting your guilt – whether you’re innocent or not.
If you are unfortunate enough to be charged, especially for a drug-related offence, don’t expect bail. Reforms spearheaded by President Nicolas Sarkozy have introduced a tougher-than-tough approach. French citizens charged with petty offences are now currently held in prison cells whilst they await court dates. Yet because of backlogs in the French legal system the wait can be literally months.
A distant relative of mine was arrested on a minor drugs charge (what we’d call possession for personal use). He spent 6 months in jail, waiting for his trial. Let’s repeat: 6 months, in prison, without having been tried. In France, the idea that you are innocent until proven guilty is something of a bad practical joke. My distant relative eventually went to court and was given a slap on the wrist. A slap, of course, without any recognition that he’d lost half a year of his life in jail, unsurprisingly costing him his job and his home.
Which brings me back to the perspective of the dim-witted boor I began with. Britain’s civil liberties campaigners are quite right to kick and scream whenever the government proposes new measures designed to clamp down on individual liberty whilst increasing police power. Being a western European democracy is no guarantee that the relationship between state and citizen must remain a healthy one. Our French cousins offer proof positive of that.
June 15, 2010
David Cameron’s Splendid Isolation
Although I’m half French by birth and citizenship, I’ve only every used my British passport and I (with a certain amount of resigned despair and disgust) am currently supporting England at the World Cup.* But visiting France is always a useful experience to gauge our neighbours’ reaction to British politics and politicians.
Given that foreign interest is almost inevitably superficial, it’s hardly surprising that the French for a time were generally well disposed to Tony Blair – albeit for little more than he spoke decent French. Of course, that changed after the ill-conceived Mesopotamia Adventure of 2003. And indeed for much of the past 7 years Britain’s reputation has not stood particularly high on the continent.
Yet this summer it seemed Britain was finally enjoying something of a rapprochement with our French cousins. Again, the distance of foreign political issues means that most French don’t care for the particulars of UK domestic politics. Hence the worst failures of Dumbo Gordon were generally lost in translation, and he was instead seen as a firm and stable economic heavyweight, rightly credited with taking a decisive post-crisis recovery.
As for the Lib-Con coalition, the French have a certain difficulty appreciating just how rare a situation in Britain this is. For them, politics is generally built around particular personalities who conjure parties into existence for the transient purpose of putting whichever Chief into power. Coalitions of varying degrees are the French norm, and until Jacques Chirac introduced a bunch of reforms it was not unusual for the French President to be on the opposite political side to the Prime Minister (so-called co-habitation).
But one thing some of the French I spoke with did find disconcerting is Mr Cameron’s decision to pull the Tories out of the European People’s Party to sit with far-right crazies that D-Cam’s new best mate Nick Clegg recently called “nutters, anti-semites and homophobes“. In France the Front National polls up to 20%, and fascist leader Jean Marie Le Pen made it to the final head-to-head round of the 2002 Presidential election. Playing with the far right at the international level, for personal domestic gains, is no trivial matter. Not least because President Nicolas Sarkozy is himself a well-worn practitioner, but one struggling to remain popular.
Nonetheless, Britain seemed to be enjoying something of a renewed period of good-will.
I’m not sure how long it will last.
Mr Cameron has, after all, decided that the most important – and strategically wise – thing to do regarding the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster is speak out about the importance of BP as a British company, and defend it from American criticism.
Just to recap: we’re looking at one of the absolute worst oil spills in history, which some experts are saying could go on until Christmas, and which is getting media coverage around the globe. The offending corporate party has chosen to show as little contrition as possible, and to blow repeated raspberries in the face of the American people. What does D-Cam do? He accuses Obama of picking on Britain.
The mind boggles, because Cameron’s reaction just seems so pointless. Why do this, when he could just say nothing at all? Why irritate the beleaguered Democratic administration – especially after Obama has already previously described Cameron as a “lightweight”? One suspects that Cameron is not tuned-in to the fact that half-Kenyan Obama with an acute awareness of British Imperial legacies (who conspicuously refused to talk of a US-UK “special relationship”) is cut from a different cloth to previous WASP presidents.
This does not bode well. If Cameron’s judgement of international matters is so poor (or his capture by interest lobby groups so extreme) that he wrongly calls one of the most blatantly obvious early diplomatic relations tests he could face, we can forget about the legacy of a 100 year entente cordial. Instead, prepare for a return to splendid isolation. But this time imposed instead of chosen, delivered by the cold shoulder of needlessly alienated nations.
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*I have never, ever supported France and indeed the only thing making England’s perenial awfulness bareable this time around is the fact that France are shaping up to be even worse – albeit sans extreme goalkeeping incompetence.
April 30, 2010
Eurotroubles
In the 1999 book Both Sides of the Coin, Oxford economist James Forder argued against European Monetary Union. Like any good economist, he recognised that a valuable analysis necessarily combines economics with politics:
“Politically, poor economic performance is sure to reflect badly on the European ideal. Enthusiasm for European integration cannot possibly follow from economic failure created by EMU. But there is more to it than this simple fact. It is necessary to consider the case of a damaging economic policy being imposed from a foreign city. Imagine the scenario where inflation is a problem in Germany, France and some of the other countries. Interest rates rise, leading to a recession in one of the poorer countries which, let us suppose, did not have an inflation problem, and perhaps even needed lower interest rates. Most of the advocates of EMU, who are also hoping for closer political ties, apparently believe that using the same money will bind Europeans together more than the fact that rich countries will be seen to be imposing pointless recessions on poor ones to push them apart. The truth must be that such circumstances will lead to a growth of nationalist and perhaps even secessionist political movement in the recession-bound countries.”
Forder added:
“I fear, too, that the political movements arising from these circumstances will not all be in most things moderate. High, persistent unemployment breeds racism, not just separatism…It may then, if generally adverse circumstances develop or divergences between country’s interests become too great, not be inappropriate to doubt the hold of liberal democracy on the European political process. This is the greatest fear of all.”
Ten years later we appear to have the makings of an economic situation far worse than the recession-inducing scenario Forder imagined. With the collapse of Greece – and the threat of Spain and Ireland following suit – the Euro looks like it could be in terrible trouble. Things are made worse if Oliver Kamm is to be believed: that there is no procedure for Greece to exit EMU, and that doing so would also induce a devastating run on Greek financial institutions. The Eurozone is, apparently, stuck with the Hellenic albatross. Yet if measures to rescue failed EMU members mean recession-inducing policies in other member states, Forder’s warning of political consequences will be extremely prescient.
But there is more. On yesterday’s Newsnight, UKIP candidate and former leader Nigel Farage was simply delighted. He was able to point out that Nick Clegg had gone on record in the leaders’ debate to point out that proposed Tory migrant caps are largely redundant because 80% of immigrants come from EU member states. Accordingly, the British government cannot legally restrict these people’s movement. [Update: the Clegg figure is apparently wrong].
Many voters, like Gillian Duffy, are already resentful and angry about immigration; the issue was raised in all three leaders’ debates, after all. Furthermore, the last Euro election revealed a predominantly Eurosceptic electorate. As it becomes ever more politically-profitable for anti-Europeans to fear-monger about immigration, and to point out that whilst we remain EU members there is little we can do about it, what will the political outcomes be for British EU membership? Especially if we end up with a eurosceptic Tory government? And what if similar patterns of immigration-resentment are replicated in other EU member states – but are also combined with political resentments rooted in enormous economic failings?
The Treaty of Rome originally sought to bind leading European nations together economically. In large measure this was a bid to prevent the possibility of another devastating European war. However, the aspiration of “ever closer union” and ever-increasing political integration of the EU – with enormous democratic deficits in the EU presidency, commission and ECB, let alone the corruption and unaccountability of the EU Parliament – paradoxically runs the risk of inflaming member state resentments. It is too early to predict anything, but the Eurozone crisis centring on Greece surely has the potential to balloon out into a massive political crisis across the continent.
“Euroscepticism” normally brings to mind distasteful little-Englander xenophobes like Farage, the sorts who typically make-up UKIP and the Tory right. But anybody with an ounce of sense should be deeply concerned about the European project at this crucial juncture. As James Forder put it, he “always thought of himself as a Euroenthusiast until the Maastricht Treaty came to dominate European politics and made that position impossible for a liberal economist.”
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Disclaimer: I was taught by James Forder as an undergraduate.
November 3, 2009
Why I’m Scared
The busier you are, the faster time passes. So right now it feels to me like we’re hurtling towards the day David Cameron will be in Number 10. And i’m increasingly scared.
The first reason I’m scared is because of the Conservative’s rhetoric on economic policy. Tory grassroots have already launched an attack on the Financial Times (that renowned bastion of worker solidarity) for allegedly being biased against Cameron and Osborne. But it’s not just the FT that’s sounding alarm bells about Conservative economic rhetoric.
Think tank Centre:Forum last week released a report on Tory economic proposals. Despite having many political differences with CF, over the past few months I’ve come to respect their economic output – and in particular, their chief economist Giles Wilkes – a great deal. I’ve not had time to read the “Slash and Growth?” report yet, but I have read part of the conclusion posted on Free Thinking Economist:
It may seem odd to urge a future government to care about economic growth. But the Conservative’s extreme aversion to public debt risks producing policies that prioritize deficit reduction over all other objectives. Public debts have risen largely to allow private indebtedness to fall without producing catastrophic consequences for the economy. The prior rise in private indebtedness passed unnoticed by the same Conservative opposition that is now almost hysterically worried about a similar rise in public debt. This makes no sense; if the past few years tell us anything, it is that Britain’s macro-economy can be at far greater risk to private debts than public. . . .
If the next government is to take economic growth as seriously as the deficit, it should consider taking an economic path that allows for slightly more consumption. Japan’s experience during its long struggle against deflation is highly pertinent; twice (in 1997 and 2001) it introduced fiscal reforms to tackle the deficit, and twice achieved the precise opposite.27 Despite being an export-champion, its last fifteen years have been dire. If the next British government proceeds upon the basis of deficit reduction before growth, it risks achieving neither.
The natural reaction to this worrying conclusion about Tory plans is to think “but surely they can’t be so stupid; surely this is all just rhetorical posturing to garner votes, that will be abandoned post-election?” But then if one reads Hopi Sen, such comforting thoughts quickly evaporate.
The second reason I’m scared is to do with Europe, or more precisely, what the Tory attitude to Europe tells us about Cameron.
It’s not so much that Cameron has left the EPP to sit with a bunch of anti-Semites, homophobes and frothing maniacs who want to play Waffen-SS re-enactment (although this is worth repeatedly pointing out). And it’s not even that Merkel and Sarkozy have apparently started briefing against Cameron as being “untrustworthy”. Nor is it the fear that Cameron could become so isolated in Europe – and so desperate to please his grassroots and undercut growing UKIP support – that we are forced to leave the EU. (EU withdrawal may not be feasible or realistically on the cards, but even if it came to pass I’m not sure I’d be wholly distraught, as I don’t really know what I think about the EU overall. Because it’s bloody complicated. Though I do know that its enormous democratic deficits, problems with corruption and monetarist obsession with central bank independence and monetary union unsettle me, and that i’m not going to join the “Europhile” camp just to put smelling-distance between myself and odious prigs like Nigel Farage).
What really bothers me about the Tories and Europe was summed-up by (of all things) The Economist, when discussing the Tories’ new European alliance:
…if this shoddy, shaming alliance is the price [Cameron] was obliged to pay his party for the changes needed to make it seem modern and compassionate, what sort of party is it that Mr Cameron leads? What else will its members demand, and what else—when his popularity and authority wane—will he be obliged to give them, after he becomes prime minister?
Quite.
The third thing that bothers me is two-fold, and concerns opposite extremes of the Tory Party, and relates to the point just made.
At one extreme there is Lord Ashcroft, whom The Observer yesterday revealed may be being primed for a cabinet-level job. As well as Tory deputy-chairman, Ashcroft is a major donor to the Tory Party, who channels money into marginal seats so as to boost Conservative chances. He also recently bought a controlling stake in ConservativeHome, and has a controlling interest in TotalPolitics magazine (and by extension, Iain Dale). Ashcroft not only holds many purse strings, but is apparently attempting to consolidate power and influence within the party by maneouvering to influence its highly vocal and energetic netroots. This worries me. The man who pays the piper calls the tune (although interestingly, the Belize government appears to have objected to this principle recently). I am very concerned by the prospect of unelected Lord Ashcroft being the real power-holder in a Cameron government.
At the other end of extremes, the Tory grassroots appear to give the lie to the notion that Cameron has modernised or changed the nasty party. The idea of All Women Shortlists recently sent the grassroots absolutely cuckoo. Europe is obviously still a bomb waiting to explode inside the party. A while ago grassroots dissidents complained that influential ConservativeHome was “too right-wing”. Although the leadership went into hyper damage-limitation over Dan “60 Year Mistake” Hannan, he has a huge following within Tory grassroots. Unmarried Conservative PPC Liz Truss was recently at the centre of a storm as she faced de-selection by her local party following revelations she had an affair with an existing MP…though there was no hint of a suggestion from the grassroots that the married male MP Mark Field should lose his seat. Tory gut-reaction was straight from the 14th Century: punish the woman.
I could go on.
My fear is that Cameron is simply the presentable face of an unreformed party of many unrepentant Thatcherites, and even greater numbers of socially conservative, small-minded bigots…who are all increasingly coming under the influence of one hands-on billionaire.
So yes, putting all that together makes me scared. And I think I’m right to be.
October 12, 2009
How to make excuses for your nasty friends
So, you’ve gone and formed a new grouping in the European Parliament, forsaking your moderate allies in a desperate attempt to stop haemorrhaging votes to frothing right-wing lunatics in the Home Counties (led by a nonsense-spouting twit).
But there’s a catch! Your new alliance is full of frothing far-right loons, and if this becomes a point of mainstream discussion, people might stop moaning about the guy your grassroots keep smearing as “mental” and start to wonder if they really want you in power after all.
But never fear! There are 5 easy steps that your party can take to make this all go away! Do it right and you’ll be laughing all the way into Downing Street…
1 – Whataboutery: This one is easy. Anyone can do it (but it’s best for derailing threads on enemy blogs). If someone points out that it’s shameful to be in alliance with anti-Semites and homophobes, then you shout “yeah, but whatabout that thing what [insert opposition party here] did!?” Seems crass? Dishonest? Hypocritical (because when Damien McBride got caught, you said there should be no whataboutery)? Who cares!
2 – Gag and Boot: Reserved for Party leadership, the Gag and Boot is exactly what it says: try and gag your errant MEPs, and if they continue to point out what you are doing is wrong, boot them out. (Note: Has potential to back-fire if target starts writing in the Guardian).
3 – Misrepresent the nature of your new alliance: If steps 1 and 2 aren’t working, don’t worry! Here’s a little secret: politics is complicated, and people are forgetful. If somebody starts asking why you’re affiliated with a rump of extremists, just speak solemnly about how “it was necessary to leave the main grouping because of our opposition to the evil Lisbon Treaty”.
Don’t worry, people won’t notice that the leader of your little group actually supports the Lisbon Treaty – that’s complicated stuff, the plebs won’t notice! Try also: “hey, there are crazies in all the EU Parliament groupings!”, shrugging sheepishly with a whatcha-gonna-do grin. People will forget that you created this particular alliance of 55 MEPs (after leaving an alliance of 265) which can only continue to exist thanks to the homophobic, anti-Semitic, Nazi-apologists that you invited.
4 – Misrepresent the activities of your new allies: Very similar to 3. For example, if somebody points out that some of your Latvian friends are in favour of celebrating the Waffen SS, just claim that they are “commemorating their war dead”. Those who pay attention will notice that, actually, there’s a world of difference between commemorating war dead and wanting to rehabilitate fascism in the face of an official ban by the Riga authorities.
They may also notice that although the Latvian SS divisions in question formed a year after the last massacre of Jews in Latvia, the SS in fact started recruiting in Latvia in 1941, and that many of those recruited were instrumental in the murder of 80,000 Latvian Jews. But don’t worry, look how many words that took – and it required reference to boring history and complicated stuff like chronology! No, just ignore it, and keep repeating your line. Nobody will notice.
5 – Play the Man of Honour card: In your supposedly-neutral politics magazine, interview the leading – and potentially most-embarrassing – frothing extremist from your new alliance. Conclude that he is, in fact, not a homophobe at all, but a really nice bloke. Accuse others of nasty smears. Play the Damian McBride card again – that always helps.
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Originally posted at Liberal Conspiracy.
October 10, 2009
Naming and Shaming
Last month I wrote a post about a certain sheltered housing provider, and the awful treatment they were dolling-out to elderly residents of Southport. It’s an early example of how government spending cuts – that the Tories so gleefully promise to deliver - will hit society’s most vulnerable the hardest.
Back then I couldn’t name and shame the organisation in question, due to fear of legal repurcussions.
Fortunately, the Liverpool Echo and Southport Visiter have finally picked-up the story, and in doing so reveal the trust in question. Unfortunately, in the hands of the tabloids the story has become more one about “barmy EU law” rather than “disgraceful housing trust treats old people like dirt and uses EU regulations as the most pathetic and paltry of excuses.”
Nevertheless, at least you now know I wasn’t just making it up.
October 6, 2009
The Moral Philosophy of Infants
A small consolation for having to live with the knowledge that David Snooty and Pals will soon be in Downing Street comes from watching the Tories tie themselves in knots over the EU, and in particular the rather unpleasant friends they have made there. It’s always nice to point and laugh…except then we need to have a little cry about how it probably won’t make a blind bit of difference next spring.
But in the meantime, let’s observe a common Tory-apologist strategy for trying to gloss-over the Conservative Party’s anti-semitic, homophobic, Waffen SS-loving friends. It’s a rather weak strategy, and it’s popularly known as “whataboutery”. Which is exactly what it says on the tin: trying to divert attention from the issue at hand by shouting “but what about THAT!”
For example, Soho Politico has another excellent little piece up at Liberal Conspiracy about Cameron’s funny new friends in the EU Parliament. Here are some comments apologising for the Tories’ European alliance:
“I’m just glad the Laboour government never allied itself with reactionary, homophobic arseholes.”*
“[Y]ou’re quite happy when labour politicans support movements with links to the Waffen SS, and unhappy when Tory politicians are allied to other politicians who support movements with links to the Waffen SS.”
(*Which is “Shatterface” being sarcastic, because he likes to make the point that Tony Blair made friends – though note, not formal political alliances in an international Parliament – with the US Republicans, and some of its more nuttier elements).
Now there are several ways to reply to this whataboutery tactic. You could go the cerebral route, as Soho Politico does, attempting to spell-out the (numerous) asymmetries between the Tories and other parties, in order to explode the whataboutery which partly rests upon claiming there’s no difference between what the Tories are doing and what other UK parties do:
“The Lithuanian Liberal Movement are indeed one of four parties in the coalition government. As far as I am aware, not a single one of their 11 MPs in the Seimas voted for the law. But even if they had all voted for it, they are not MEPs, nor therefore sitting side by side in the EP with the Lib Dems.
The facts are these: the Lib Dems sit with a Lithuanian MEP who opposes the law, and sponsored a resolution to condemn it. The Tories sit with a Lithaunian MEP who supports the law, personally voted for it in his national parliament, and then voted repeatedly against a resolution in the EP to condemn it.”
Or you could do what Sunny Hundal does, and point out the sheer hypocrisy of the Tory right on this issue:
“It’s easy to sneer at sally for being slightly hyperbolic Tim J et al, but she’s not the one making excuses for homophobes and the Tories with brilliant arguments such as:
- look you were just as bad! or
- who cares about Europe anyway… *yawn*
- hey this is politics for you! get used to it
when Damian McBride was caught smearing all the same people were pompously proclaiming that the left was so nasty and that there should be no whataboutery on these issues etc etc. And now that’s all I see here. None of you Tory apologists can actually bring yourself to say: this is not a good move and I condemn the Tories for making this alliance”
Both these strategies are perfectly commendable. Personally, however, I prefer a third.
To cry “whatabout!” on this issue has the following logical structure:
1. Yes, the Tories are doing something bad by sitting with racist and homophobic far-right nutters
2. But Labour or [insert party] – or members of Labour or [insert party] – have associated with nasty people too
3. Therefore it doesn’t matter what the Tories do!
The logic of this “argument” (if it merits the name) amounts to a very simple proposition: that two wrongs make a right. Now I’m not sure about Tory apologists, but I was always taught that, in fact, that’s not the case. And in my experience, it’s mainly 5 and 6 year olds that tend to disagree. So there you have it. Conservative apologists: employing the sophisticated moral reasoning of…infants.
Further Reading:
For those who want to equip themselves with arguments as to why there is something deeply suspicious about Latvian MEPs who want to glorify the Latvian Waffen SS – and why this goes way beyond celebrating the war dead – Blood and Treasure is the place to go.
October 4, 2009
EU Complications
There’s a really good article by Ross McKibbin in the latest London Review of Books entitled “Will we notice when the Tories have won?” which does an excellent job of answering that question largely in the negative, whilst pointing out (as Andrew Rawnsley does here) how little scrutiny Cameron and Co. have been subjected to. This, for example, hits the nail squarely on the head:
Then there is the sad story of ‘choice’, from which the Tory leadership has learned little over the last 30 years. Much of the energy of recent governments has been expended on trying to create markets where markets cannot operate – particularly in education and health. One perverse consequence of this has been a huge increase in managerial bureaucracy in every sphere where ‘markets’ have been devised. Another has been to encourage a free-for-all, which favours, as one would expect, the well-connected and the well-to-do. ‘Choice’ has consistently undermined both the efficiency of the Labour government’s high levels of social expenditure and its worthy attempts to eliminate inherited disadvantages.
I agree with almost all of the article, but I do take issue with one particular contention: that the differences between (New) Labour and the Conservatives with regards to the EU are “more a matter of emphasis than of principle”, and that any post-2010 distinctions will be a “difference only in tendency and bias”.
As The Observer trumpets today, David Cameron is facing trouble on the issue of the Lisbon Treaty. Now that the Irish have voted “yes”, the Cameron pledge for the UK to have a referendum on the Treaty – regardless of whether it has been ratified by all 27-member states and regardless of whether it has come into force – looks like it may have problematic consequences.
Large swathes of the Tory Party are still virulently “Europhobic” (though more on this rather unhelpful term below), and they are now leaning hard on Cameron to ensure they get a referendum, which they are surely right in believing will return a resounding “no”. And thus the problem for Cameron: if Britain turns around and declares that it rejects the Lisbon Treaty, the rest of the EU may reply “well sod off then”. Cameron has already alienated his natural allies like Merkel and Sarkozy on the centre right by siding with Europe’s rightwing lunatic fringe. If Britain attempts to wreck the Lisbon Treaty, it could be the end of our time in the EU.
Yet the dilemma for Cameron is fairly easy to resolve. For consider: if he doesn’t live up to his anti-Lisbon promise, then there’s a good chance that the right of his party will move to decapitate him. It’s an open secret that large numbers of the Tory grassroots do not like Cameron; that he was picked back when Labour still looked electable, and that a Blair-clone was deemed the product needed to win. Now that a dead horse could beat Brown in 2010, many Tories are wishing they’d got somebody from the Thatcher right at the helm. If Cameron wants to survive as PM, he knows he will have to feed his trolls. He also knows that taking a pro-European/anti-referendum stand would likely be a pointless thing to do post-election: if he’s removed from within the party and a hardline Europhobe replaces him, then the Lisbon referendum will happen anyway. So for Cameron, there’s only really one option: have a referendum, stay PM, and if that means Britain gets kicked out of Europe, so be it – as a bonus, at least that way UKIP will cease to be a Home Counties hinderance because they will have lost their only selling-point.
So by voting “yes”, Ireland may have just pushed Britain onto the road to EU withdrawal.
But what to say about all of this? The knee-jerk reaction is decry Cameron for his pandering to the right of his party, and to bemoan the ignorance of the Mail-reading Europhobe electorate that “won’t know what they’ve got ’til it’s gone”. That is, to blithely predict that EU withdrawal will spell UK disaster.
Except it just isn’t that simple. Part of me thinks that Britain does need to stay in the EU, on the grounds that our economy will suffer tremendously if we are outside of it. I think there is good evidence for that. But then again, there seem to me very important and valid concerns about the economic policies of the EU, and who they benefit. There’s a long-standing left-wing tradition opposed to the EU on the grounds that it is an economic endeavour undertaken for and on behalf of big business, which is manipulated for the benefit of a few well-placed vested interests. The hugely wasteful Common Agricultural Policy – so-long defended by France, with great hypocrisy – is a case in point; not only does it result in huge wastage of food, and is exploited increasingly by gigangtic agribusiness corporations, but it also distorts market efficiencies (which the EU common market is in part supposed to avoid) and locks-out developing world producers from lucrative, protected EU member state markets. There’s a lot not to like there. And that’s just one (albeit, notorious) policy area.
Further complexities arise when we consider something like European Monetary Union. I’m against EMU for pretty much the reasons laid out by James Forder in this book. A core contention there is that bad economic policies arise from the EU because of its fundamental commitment to “ever closer union”, which in the long-run may create very dangerous political tensions, as well as bad economic outcomes for certain regions. Although the arguments don’t smoothly transfer over to, say, the European Common Market, I do have concerns that in exchange for the economic benefits we may gain from EU membership, we may be stepping down dangerous political paths.
After all, the problems with corruption and sheer lack of accountability within EU structures – whose democratic deficits are pretty staggering – are well-noted. Yet we seem on an irreversible path towards “ever closer union” – whether we like it or not.
The truth is, I personally don’t know very much about the Lisbon Treaty. But I am extremely alarmed by the idea of an unelected EU President and Foreign Minister (and even more alarmed by the prospect of the former being Tony Blair). And what compounds my alarm is indeed the case of little Ireland: they voted “no” to Lisbon last year, and what happened? The EU said “vote again” – and got the answer it wanted. If Ireland had voted “no” this weekend, who really believes the EU power-players would have accepted the verdict and not simply held a 3rd referendum, or a 4th and a 5th until it got the answer it wanted? From where I’m standing, the big players were going to be damned before they let insignificant tiny Ireland tear-up their treaty.
And it’s hard to deny that this is pretty damn worrying. The EU is both an economic and political issue. It may be the case that assuming (as is almost certain) a continued broadly neo-liberal capitalist economy in Britain, exiting the EU would be for the economic worst. Maybe. But on the flip side, “ever closer union” looks like it is taking us to some very dark, very undemocratic, very unaccountable places.
This is the complexity of the EU. The tragedy of political discourse in this country is that we just aren’t talking about it in anything like the required amount of detail. What happens is that the myriad issues are forced into frustrating, oversimplified dichotomies: you are either “Europhobic”, in which case you sit with frothing, jingoistic nutters and idiots like UKIP and the Tory Right (who are happy to associate with anti-semites and homophobes to further their cause), or you are lumped in with the “Europhiles” like the Lib Dems and (more lukewarmly) aspects of New Labour (in which case you are expected to talk vaguely about the benefits of “integration” and “economic co-operation” whilst quietly ignoring the very troubling aspect fo the EU’s deep democratic deficits). Those who defy this consensus – like the leftist No2EU group/party – are generally labelled “loonies” and ignored.
There is – as a general rule – no popularly recognised place for people like me to enter into this debate: people who can appreciate that (with important qualifications) the EU may be economically a Good Thing, but that this does not negate the fact that politically it looks like a rather terrifying, anti-democratic, unstoppable behemouth.
So a chunk of me wants to come out, all guns blazing, slamming Cameron for putting us on the road to withdrawal. But part of that feeling comes in great measure from a loathing of the extremists and idiots who make up UKIP and the other pro-withdrawal groupings. The fact is, however, that the EU question is an extremely complex one. There just isn’t a straightforward, simplistic case to be put for why EU withdrawal would necessarily be a Bad Thing. The illusion of such straightforwardness is a product of the paltry and pathetic state of political discourse on important issues in this country, and the simplified dichotomies upon which EU “debate” rests.
That Cameron has put Britain in this situation because of a desperate need to pander to nutters in his own party should not blind us to seeing the complexities of the issue. Accordingly, we should not lazily condemn Cameron simply because, y’know, that’s the left-wing thing to do; if we’re going to condemn him, we really need to think about why.
