Brexit aftermath: an advisory referendum?

There seems to be some debate over whether or not the Brexit referendum was always intended to be advisory rather than binding. Yesterday, for instance, a friend told me on Twitter, "And that 'advisory' caveat has only emerged since folk have wanted to reverse/ignore [the poll result] -- we heard no talk of it before the referendum, or when Remain were strong favourites."

He's not been alone in taking this line, but I think this may be a case of "what you hear depends on who's doing the hearing", because I'd certainly heard and understood that the Brexit referendum, unlike, for example, the AV one, was purely advisory, such that regardless of the result it would be for Parliament, which in British democracy is sovereign, to decide whether or not the UK would leave the EU; individual MPs could and should take the referendum result into account in deciding how to vote, but they would not be bound by what was going to be, in effect, a glorified opinion poll.

Here is The Guardian, for instance, reporting in February that "Legally the referendum is advisory but in practice it is binding, and may even prompt the resignation of the prime minister." There's a distinction here between legal and political realities, of course, and the latter need serious pondering, but there's a clear statement that as a matter of law the referendum was to be an advisory one. 

Business Insider, more than a week ahead of the referendum wrote that "Parliament doesn't actually have to bring Britain out of the EU if the public votes for it. That is because the result of the June 23 referendum on Britain's EU membership is not legally binding. Instead, it is merely advisory, and, in theory, could be totally ignored by the UK government."

And around the same time, David Allen Green was writing for the Financial Times that, "The relevant legislation did not provide for the referendum result to have any formal trigger effect. The referendum is advisory rather than mandatory. The 2011 referendum on electoral reform did have an obligation on the government to legislate in the event of a 'yes' vote (the vote was 'no' so this did not matter). But no such provision was included in the EU referendum legislation. What happens next in the event of a vote to leave is therefore a matter of politics not law. It will come down to what is politically expedient and practicable."

Also in advance of the Referendum, the Telegraph reported that, "A spokesman for the electoral commission said that as the result was an advisory election, rather than a binary one, it was a matter for the Commons.

'It's an advisory referendum so Parliament is likely to advise but it's a matter for the Government,' he said. 'It's what's referred to as an advisory rather than a binary result.'

That piece also quoted Nigel Farage as recognising that a 52-48 outcome would be anything but decisive, saying, "In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the Remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it."

Ahead of the Referendum, The Week wrote that, "In the extremely unlike result of a mathematical tie, it seems likely that Parliament would decide the matter – not least because the referendum is not, in fact, legally binding."

Strikingly, on the day of the Referendum, the Israeli daily Haaretz asked "Is the referendum binding?

" and answered "No. Parliament isn't legally required to abide by the vote, but there would be strong political pressure to do so, especially if the result of the referendum is clear-cut."

I'm not saying that the fact of the referendum being a non-binding advisory poll was sung from the rooftops in the run-in to the vote. I am, however, pointing out that this fact wasn't invented -- even in the old sense of 'discovered' -- in the aftermath of the vote or even when things were looking bad for the cause of remaining in the Union.

Let's face it, if the Israelis knew well before the votes were in that the referendum was  not something that parliament would be obliged to implement, but only something to be engaged with and take into account rather than be obliged to implement, any English voters who didn't to grasp this only have themselves to blame.

What happens next is a matter of politics, not law. The fact that an English majority a few weeks back said they wanted to leave the EU is an important political reality. It's not the only one.

After Brexit, what now for the North?

I was troubled last night to read people expressing delight at the huge queues at polling booths across the UK. Such a massive turnout, seemingly, was a triumph for democracy. I wasn't so sure. There's far more to democracy than just casting votes, and those who act as though democracy is something that happens but on rare occasions and purely in the privacy of the polling booth do a disservice to democracy. 

If democracy is to mean anything -- if our votes are to mean anything -- we have to participate in an informed way. I was pretty sure that wasn't happening: how valuable are votes cast on the basis of a mythical £350m a week, or to ward off Turkish accession, or in the belief that EU laws are made by unelected bureaucrats, or that there's no way to remove the European Commission from office, or because of the belief that British fishing collapsed when it joined the EEC, or any of a host of other lies? 

The 'Leave' campaigners lied and lied egregiously throughout the Brexit referendum campaign, and did so tapping into decades of popular poison from the British press, and if lots of people who've long felt disenfranchised and ignored should have been willing to go along with this kind of stuff, well, maybe that should have been expected.

I've less sympathy for others, for those who take the pains to be informed of things they care about, but who on other issues prefer instead to listen simply to those whose political views conveniently tally with their own judgments and to shout down calls for them to inform themselves as mere elitism.

So for those who make much of their pro-life credentials, and who dismissed my concerns and those of others about the lives and livelihoods of those in Northern Ireland being actively endangered by a vote to quit the EU, here are just a handful of things they might look before they next put themselves forward to speak as Catholics or pro-lifers, or even just look in the mirror.

Not for nothing has The Irish Times said, "Of all the things that could happen to an Irish government short of the outbreak of war, this is pretty much up there with the worst of them."

Then there was The Guardian a couple of days back, observing that, "Great Britain may be able to weather a Brexit, but Northern Ireland simply cannot."

Lucinda Creighton may not be everyone's cup of tea, but she had a point when she said the other day that, "Brexit poses the greatest threat to the Northern Irish Peace Process since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998."  

For a more cautious take, unsurprisingly from a pro-Brexit paper, The Telegraph warned, "The scenario of the UK leaving the European Union, when a majority of the population of Northern Ireland have opted to remain (and especially if there has been a decisive vote in favour among the nationalist community), may exacerbate tensions, fuel demands for a border poll on Irish unification and challenge the durability of the peace process."  

Then we have from the Centre on Constitutional Change the observation that "a British exit from the EU risks undermining the very self-determination and national sovereignty that its adherents believe it will bring about", continuing, "This is because it risks shattering the fragile balance and stability of the UK by threatening the peace settlement in Northern Ireland ".  

Onetime MEP Brendan Donnelly wrote from the London School of Economics, meanwhile, that "it is clear that much potential exists for the destabilisation of Northern Ireland through a vote to leave the EU on 23 June", continuing, "The Good Friday agreement is under more strain from a currently low level of sectarian violence than is sometimes appreciated".  

At the Euractiv site, Paul Brannan hammers this home when he says, "with politics in Northern Ireland already on the brink of breakdown and the Good Friday Agreement in jeopardy, a UK EU exit threatens a total collapse of the peace process".

And for those who think Britain can keep the show on the road, as though it's taken seriously as an honest broker and was never known as 'perfidious Albion', The New Statesman points out: "Funnily enough, the same people who don't trust Britain to administer the peace process would also be unhappy with the EU leaving that process."

I could say more, but that'll do for now. Words seem unlikely to do any good now the die is cast.

Final Week Brexit Thoughts II - The Threat to Northern Ireland

About a week or so back Catholic Voices hosted a debate in London in which two speakers gave impressive speeches on why the UK should remain in the European Union and two argued in similarly impressive fashion to the effect that the UK should leave the Union. 

Better-humoured, more honest, more thoughtful and broader-minded than almost all engagements I've read or witnessed on the topic, the debate on the motion "This house believes that Catholic values are best served by remaining in the European Union" was nonetheless striking for a complete absence of references to the single most Catholic part of the UK, that being Northern Ireland.

According to 2011 figures, 40.8% of the Northern Irish population is Catholic. This stands in stark contrast to England and Wales, for instance, where, if Steven Bullivant is right, just 13.7% of the population say they were raised Catholic, with a mere 8.3% of the population holding to the Faith now.

I appreciate the Brexit debate is really an 'Exit' debate in that the discussion is primarily driven by English concerns and will be decided by English votes, with the lesser partners in the UK at best hoping to tip the scales if an English vote is finely balanced, but I think that English voters should at least give some thought to how their votes are likely to affect things beyond England.

Northern Ireland's bishops have, of course, warned of the dangers of a Brexit to the North, and their concerns seem shared by Northern Ireland's Catholics. A Millward Brown poll in early June found that 70% of Northern Catholics were in favour of the UK remaining in the EU, with a mere 12% advocating that the UK quit the Union. A more recent Ipsos Mori poll has shown just 56% of Catholics in favour of remaining in the Union, though again a mere 12% seem to back a Brexit. 

Dividing countries the hard way

Such low support for withdrawal from the Union is understandable in a region where the UK's only land border is to be found, and where there has never really been a traditional border: for centuries, after all, Ireland was united under one form or other of British rule, and even after the Irish War of Independence it was possible for people to cross back and forth without a passport. Under the UK's 1949 Ireland Act Irish people are not considered aliens in British law, and the soft and porous nature of the border has been vital for the North's economy. It's not really surprising that people in the border counties especially might not be looking forward to this ending.

Of course, it's far from obvious that a hard border will be imposed between Ireland and the UK within the island of Ireland. Given the realities of Irish roads, about 200 of which cross the border, and how farms and fields straddle the boundary, it's hard to see how any border within Ireland, even one policed by border guards and soldiers, could bar from the UK anyone really intent on crossing over. And given that immigration fears are utterly central to Britain's EU debate, this is a question that needs pondering.

Cameron engaged with this in the Commons last week, when he answered a question from the SDLP's Alasdair McDonnell by saying that following Brexit there would have to be a hard border. "Therefore," he said, "you can only have new border controls between the Republic and Northern Ireland or, which I would regret hugely, you would have to have some sort of checks on people as they left Belfast or other parts of Northern Ireland to come to the rest of the United Kingdom."

I suspect that in practical terms a functional EU/non-EU border would have to be not in Ireland but between Britain and Northern Ireland, thus splitting the UK and making the Northern Irish second-class citizens, as the alternative would be bringing in checkpoints on dozens of Irish roads with soldiers patrolling the lands and minor roads between them, all of which would be likely to require the kind of security apparatus likely to fire up the republicans again, inviting a return to the kind of protracted low-intensity civil war that previous blighted the North.

Impoverishing the Six Counties

Even aside from the technical issue of the border, there's a high chance that a Brexit vote would impoverish Northern Ireland. Farm subsidies are regional expenditures, and it's striking that Northern Ireland's farmers receive four times the amount of EU subsidies than do England's ones. 80% of Northern dairy produce is exported, and when pondering this people need to remember that no part of the UK exports a higher proportion of its exports to other parts of the EU than does Northern Ireland. Any kind of border would hurt that, as would any imposition of tariffs and any hindering of the currently free trading arrangements. Tariffs on dairy imports to the EU, it's worth pointing out, average 36%.

The EU has played an absolutely crucial role in the Northern Irish peace process, of course, with John Hume detailing in his 1998 Nobel Prize acceptance speech how he had been hugely inspired in his work for peace by his European experience.

"I always tell this story," he said, "and I do so because it is so simple yet so profound and so applicable to conflict resolution anywhere in the world. On my first visit to Strasbourg in 1979 as a member of the European Parliament. I went for a walk across the bridge from Strasbourg to Kehl. Strasbourg is in France. Kehl is in Germany. They are very close. I stopped in the middle of the bridge and I meditated. There is Germany. There is France. If I had stood on this bridge 30 years ago after the end of the Second World War when 25 million people lay dead across our continent for the second time in this century and if I had said: 'Don't worry. In 30 years' time we will all be together in a new Europe, our conflicts and wars will be ended and we will be working together in our common interests', I would have been sent to a psychiatrist."  

"But it has happened," he continued, "and it is now clear that European Union is the best example in the history of the world of conflict resolution and it is the duty of everyone, particularly those who live in areas of conflict to study how it was done and to apply its principles to their own conflict resolution." 

"All conflict is about difference, whether the difference is race, religion or nationality," he said, continuing, "The European visionaries decided that difference is not a threat, difference is natural. Difference is of the essence of humanity. Difference is an accident of birth and it should therefore never be the source of hatred or conflict. The answer to difference is to respect it. Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace - respect for diversity."

"The peoples of Europe then created institutions which respected their diversity - a Council of Ministers, the European Commission and the European Parliament - but allowed them to work together in their common and substantial economic interest. They spilt their sweat and not their blood and by doing so broke down the barriers of distrust of centuries and the new Europe has evolved and is still evolving, based on agreement and respect for difference," he said, before declaring, "That is precisely what we are now committed to doing in Northern Ireland."

Fine words? Sure, but accurate ones too, and not merely has the European project, with its dedication through most of its history to peace-building through calling people of different communities to work together, inspired peace in the North, but it has underpinned it too. 

As the Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson wrote the other day, "I will always remember when, in October 1994, just as the loyalist ceasefire was announced, Ian Paisley, John Hume and I met with then European Commission president Jacques Delors. He shared our optimism that Northern Ireland would move to a new beginning away from violence and pledged EU financial support. And he was true to his word -- weeks later, £240m of European funding for peace-building in Northern Ireland was approved. By 2020, Northern Ireland and the border region of the Republic will have received more than €2bn in PEACE funding alone.

PEACE funding only makes up one part of the money the North draws down from Europe, Nicholson continued, and the truth is that the EU has largely rebuilt Northern Ireland since the ceasefires began. Northern Irish prosperity, and Northern Irish peace, in no small part depend on the EU.

(Of course, the EU has done a huge amount in general to support those parts of the UK furthest from London; whether London lets them languish and runs the UK for the benefit of the English South-east you can mull over for yourselves.)

Explicitly undermining the Good Friday Agreement

Those who might doubt that a vote for Brexit is a vote to destabilise Northern Ireland should look too at the Good Friday Agreement, which explicitly rests on the fact of the UK and Ireland being "partners in the European Union".

The North-South Ministerial Council envisages the Northern and Republican governments working together -- at a local level, for those who doubt that subsidiarity matters to the modern EU -- on a range of such necessarily EU-related matters as agriculture, the environment, tourism, transport, and the management and oversight of EU programmes through Ireland's National Development Plan and Northern Ireland's Structural Funds Plan.

It's hard to see how this strand of the agreement can work if Northern Ireland is no longer in the EU, and since the Northern Assembly is explicitly described in the agreement as "mutually interdependent" with the Council, it looks as though withdrawal from the EU could endanger the entire Northern settlement.

And that's not even getting into how under the agreement everyone in Northern Ireland is entitled simultaneously to be citizens of the UK and Ireland, such that following a Brexit they could -- on the face of it -- both be citizens of the EU and non-citizens of the EU. I'm not sure how how much thought's been given in the Brexit camp to Schroedinger's Ulstermen.

Overall, a Brexit vote is a vote to risk instability, poverty, and civil war in Northern Ireland. It's not really surprising that the Northern bishops and the vast majority of Northern Catholics are opposed to it. It baffles me how many in England seem not to care in the least about this. 

Final Week Brexit Thoughts 1 - Brexit: The Movie

Imagine if, during the Scottish independence referendum, a few nationalists with a bit of cash had got together to make a ‘Scexit Movie’.

“We the people,” a gravelly burr would portentously intone, “are being cajoled, frightened, and bullied into surrendering our democracy and freedom. This film is a rallying cry. We must fight for ourselves for the right to determine the freedom to shape our own freedom.”

Imagine, then, a succession of talking heads babbling about how England having 85% of the UK population means the Scots can only influence the direction of the UK when the English are split down the middle, about how the UK voting system means that two out of five English votes can be enough to control the whole UK, and how a free and independent Scotland would be wealthier than anyone could imagine.

And then, having pondered that, imagine a thoughtful-looking Scot on the train from Edinburgh to London, saying he’s on his way to London to find out what the UK is all about, and in London hopping into a black cab at Trafalgar Square, addressing a baffled cabbie with “The UK, please”.

That’s pretty much how last month’s Brexit: The Movie starts, and looking at it again now after a few weeks’ recovery since my last viewing, it’s not matured with time.

Time and again in recent weeks, friends and nodding acquaintances have been flagging video after video online, calling on people unsure of their referendum voting intentions to watch them as though they’re slamdunk arguments for the UK quitting the EU. I’ve looked at a few and found them unpersuasive, typically loaded with fictions, half-truths and contradictions, dependent on dubious presumptions, and assiduously devoid of inconvenient truths.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’ve been impressed by the louder voices calling for the UK to stay in the Union; while prominent Brexiteers have traded in outright falsehoods about the past and present, prominent Bremainers have with depressing frequency tended towards apocalyptic predictions based on worst-case exaggerations, their cases not being helped by – all too often – their own back catalogues of anti-European opportunism.

Sure, I think reckless prophecies are better than blatant and demonstrable lies, but I think we can all agree that neither's especially good.

Given this is my fourth attempt in the last fortnight at trying something on Brexit: The Movie, as life keeps getting in the way, I’ll not be tackling any other high-profile interventions in a head-to-head way this side of the referendum. Instead, if I can, I’ll try to do two or three posts this week on why I think the EU is a good – if imperfect – thing, and why I think leaving it would be an irresponsible thing to do.

First Impressions

When I first watched the film I scrawled 18 pages of notes detailing obvious problems in it, and though I’ll not get through them all now, I think it’s worth starting by pointing out how problematic and telling the map that first appears a little over a minute into the film is.

See the obvious problem? Yep, there’s the EU carefully marked in blue, and there, floating off its coast in ‘rest of the world’ beige, are Britain and Ireland. It’s almost as though the people who’ve made this film don’t realise that most of Ireland is part of the EU and indeed has been independent of the UK for almost a century. 

In truth, it’s almost as if the people responsible for this film haven’t a very good grasp of history at all: they seem to have but the most cartoonishly propagandist understanding of British history up to, oh, 1913 or so, and depend utterly on pub rantings for their knowledge of what’s happened since.

But on that, more later.

As suggested above, the whole “take me to the EU” thing is, of course, as absurd as hopping into a taxi in London and saying “take me to the UK”, partly because you can’t be taken to the EU when you’re already in the EU, and partly because just as there no single building that houses the UK’s governing institutions there’s of course no single building in which the EU’s institutions are found –that's the nature of complex institutions intended to tackle complex things like, well, reality.

For Brexit: The Movie, this is a bad thing: the narrator describes this as where “the EU slips its first cog” since “for a democracy to function there needs to be transparency”. Of course, while the EU has democratic elements, it isn’t a democracy, and I don’t know many British people who would want it to be one, given how this would mean abandoning all British vetoes and any decision-making mechanism beyond the parliament in which they’d never be likely to make up more than 12% or so of the vote.

No, the EU’s structure is basically that of a mixed constitution, a bit like the UK and a bit like the US and a bit like Germany, but overall is something entirely new. Its institutional structure is actually pretty simple in its essence with laws being made more or less as follows:

• The European heads of government collectively set the EU’s direction through the European Council;
• The Commission then drafts legislation in line with that direction;
• These drafts are then sent to national parliaments for feedback;
• The directly-elected European Parliament approves, proposes amendments to, or rejects the draft legislation;
• Providing the Parliament hasn’t rejected the proposed law, the European governments then through the Council of the European Union actually make the law based on parliamentary feedback;
• And the Commission is tasked with implementing it. 

There’s more to it than this, of course, not least as there are different types of laws, but this is the guts of it.

The key thing to note is that it is the elected national governments that collectively set the course of the EU, and that make the laws in combination with – in most cases – the elected MEPs of the European Parliament. These are not “faceless bureaucrats” or anything of the sort. They are elected representatives whose own people can remove from office.

The Commission, despite constant claims to the contrary, do not make the laws. They may draft things, but unless the European governments decide to turn those things into laws, they’re just bits of paper. It is a blatant untruth that “the real power in the EU, including the power to legislate, lies not with the parliament, but with EU officials”: EU officials do not make laws.

If the various talking heads in this polemic don't understand how the EU works, well, maybe this says something about the extent to which they’re qualified to criticise the EU. At this point I'm starting to wonder if it'd be worthwhile paraphrasing Fulton Sheen to the effect that there are not one hundred people in the United Kingdom who hate the European Union, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly believe the European Union to be.

“Would it help if you knew who they were” wails one of the film’s talking heads, continuing, “because you don’t have any power over them, so what’s the point?”

An extensively lobbied and utterly irrelevant parliament?

Cue a section dismissing the Parliament, beginning with Claire Fox of the Institute of Ideas rhetorically asking, “Have you ever known anybody know who their MEP is? No, because nobody does.”

Leaving aside how mine, fwiw, are Brian Hayes of Fine Gael, Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan, and the independent Nessa Childers, I think the question doesn’t really work in the UK, or at least in England. English people are used to having “their MP”, such that it’s not always easy to get the hang of having, say, eight MEPs, as people in North West England do. Would Claire Fox require people in that constituency to know the names of all eight of their MEPs, or just one?

Nigel Farage pops up next, claiming that the European Parliament is the world’s only parliament where elected representatives cannot initiate legislation. The fact that the Parliament can ask the Commission to draft legislation – with these requests increasingly being acceded to, reflecting an informal but real growth in parliamentary influence – doesn’t get a look in. 

Next up there are more heads claiming that the MEPs are utterly powerless, and that voting for them is pointless, all of which is rather undermined by a sequence later in the film about how large corporations spend a fortune trying to influence them. Would large corporations really try so hard to woo MEPs if they didn’t matter?

In truth, MEPs have a wide range of powers, can block most Commission proposals from becoming law, and have the power to censure the Commission, forcing its resignation. Yes, democratically-elected MEPs have the power to depose the Commission. None of this, of course, is mentioned in Brexit: The Movie, which instead concentrates on painting a risibly false picture of the British as subjects of unelected bureaucrats who impose laws in which the British have no say.

All of which makes it all the stranger then to see, after a section about how MEPs are given startlingly large amounts of money, MEPs Nigel Farage and Daniel Hannan banging on about how the only reason why local authorities, academics, and people in the arts like the EU is because their support is bought with EU money. 

Yep, people who get money from the EU can't be trusted to tell the truth about the EU, say two people who are very well paid by the EU. I’ll just let that sink in for a bit.

Teach a man nonsense about fish...

Predictably enough there’s a section on fisheries, which talks of huge declines in the numbers of fish being processed in Newcastle while skipping how fish processing often happens at sea nowadays or how more than a third of the British catch is landed abroad, before declaring, “When Britain joined the Common Market it lost control of its fishing grounds. When quotas were imposed, several other European countries lobbied the EU for Britain’s fishing rights to be divided up between them. The British government was powerless to stop this.”

An elderly fisherman then says, “The EU has just obliterated the English fishing industry altogether. The quota system they’ve got now is just mad.” He then gestures beyond a nearby pier to say how a huge Dutch trawler had been there, three or four miles off the coast, entitled to “25% of the whole quota of all of England”. There is still a prospering North Atlantic fishing industry, the film continues, “but only in countries that have retained their independence”.

Now, there's no denying that fishing in Britain is not what it was, but what tends to be glossed over is that the main decline in the industry happened before Britain joined the EEC. The numbers employed in fishing dropped by 55% - 26,000 people – between 1948 and 1970, before basically stabilising and staying more or less the same until 1994, when numbers again began to drop after quotas had to be imposed in order to prevent fish stocks from being wiped out.

The overall decline since 1994 has been less than half that than the years leading up to the UK joining the Common Market.

What's more, it's simply nonsense to talk of how Britain lost control of its fishing grounds when it joined the Common Market; at the time Britain joined the EEC, Britain’s territorial waters extended twelve miles beyond the coast, and this twelve-mile zone is still exclusively British now. If a large Dutch trawler was indeed genuinely operating in this zone, as claimed in Brexit: The Movie, it was breaking the law, and the issue then is one of simple lawbreaking and perhaps an English inability or unwillingness to enforce the law as it stands.

Britain’s territorial waters have since the mid-1970s extended 200 miles from the coast, but this extension into waters where the Dutch,  Scandinavians and others had long fished happened while Britain was already an EEC country. Far from being powerless to prevent others from being allowed to fish in these waters, the UK agreed to this in negotiations.

According to recent statistics, the UK has the second-largest fishing fleet in the EU, and with 30% of the overall fish quota, lands the second-largest catch in the Union.


An invisible empire
A core part of the video is a “historical” section, purporting to explain how “the British” are different from “the Europeans”. Yes, the inverted commas are deliberate.

“The British,” it begins, “freed themselves from suffocating feudal regulations centuries before the Europeans.” Leaving aside how this ludicrously presents feudal class structures as though they were akin to government regulations, the point of this line is to lay down the central thesis of the film: regulation is bad and the absence of regulation is good. 

“While serfdom still existed in large parts of Europe,” it continues, “the free British were carrying out the great commercial and industrial revolutions that gave birth to the modern world. In the 19th Century, unregulated Britain was the pioneer of global free trade, the workshop of the world, dominating the world economy like a leviathan.”

There’s not a word about how the costs of unregulated industry were born by the urban poor, of how diseases, malnutrition, child labour and infant mortality were rife in 19th-century Britain, and there’s certainly not a word about how a lack of regulation and a fetishisation of free market economics contributed to the Irish famine that killed more than a million UK citizens and forced at least as many again to leave their homeland.

Yep, the single biggest disaster in terms of lives lost the UK ever experienced was in no small part caused by a lack of regulation. Good times.

Neither is there even the slightest mention of how all this was utterly dependent on the exploitation of people all over the world, with vast numbers dying in the colonies through famine and massacre. Orwell nailed this reality in 1937’s The Road to Wigan Pier when he observed that “apart from any other consideration, the high standard of life we enjoy in England depends upon our keeping a tight hold on the Empire, particularly the tropical portions of it such as India and Africa”.

He continued: “Under the capitalist system, in order that England may live in comparative comfort, a hundred million Indians must live on the verge of starvation — an evil state of affairs, but you acquiesce in it every time you step into a taxi or eat a plate of strawberries and cream. The alternative is to throw the Empire overboard and reduce England to a cold and unimportant little island where we should all have to work very hard and live mainly on herrings and potatoes.”

With nary a mention of how Britain needed that Empire to maintain what comfort the middle classes and those above them had, the film ignorantly or duplicitously goes on to talk about how things were great till the First World War, when regulations started to creep in, being ramped up in the Second World War, and going out of control after that, strangling British ingenuity.

The 1950s and 1960s, then, are painted as an over-regulated hell, with no mention of how Britain was struggling with the massive costs of the Second World War and was in the business of losing the Empire. Most of Ireland had broken away from the UK itself after the First World War, massively reducing the national territory, and India broke away within three years of the Second World War ending; colony after colony would follow. 

The single most important factor in Britain’s mid-century decline goes unmentioned in Brexit: The Movie, which is determined to hold up regulation as its culprit so it can present deregulation as the saviour of an independent Britain/

Heroic deregulation strikes again

Meanwhile, the film claims, West Germany was blossoming through deregulation, which I think a somewhat simplistic take on the Economic Miracle. Along came the Common Market then, holding up a wonderful tariff-free future. Daniel Hannan leaps in to claim that in the 1970s Britain had loads of problems but looked across the channel and thought “these chaps are doing something right”, almost as though the UK hadn’t been desperate to join from 1960 on.

“But the architect of the EEC wasn’t German – he was French,” the film continues, presenting Jean Monnet as an obsessive planner, partly responsible for having crippled the post-war British economy, and all set to shackle the EEC. Schuman and the other fathers of the European project don't get a mention in this shamefully selective narrative, of course, but maybe that's the nature of polemics: this isn't about truth, this is about winning.

“It soon became clear that the Common Market was so much more than a trade deal,” observes the film, as though this hadn’t been obvious since Robert Schuman’s 1950 Europe speech, explicitly stated in the first sentence of the Treaty of Rome, and praised by a young Margaret Thatcher in the 1960s.

“Its membership kept going up, as the EU assumed greater powers,” it goes on, as though increased membership wasn’t a British objective, before returning to the eternal villain that is regulation. Rather than arguing that perhaps some regulations shouldn’t have to be applied to companies that trade only on a local basis, but the creation of a genuine common market requires common standards for companies, products, and services being traded across that market, the film simply goes for the line that regulation is bad.

EU regulation pushes up the price of everything, we learn, forcing up the cost of living and making Europeans poorer. Now, I think we all know that since the crash of 2007 things haven’t been as they were, but still, if you look at the overall figures I don’t think there are many economists who’d say the figures show that Europeans have gotten poorer since joining the EEC or EU. Certainly Britain hasn't.

The Common Agricultural Policy is another predictable baddie in this screed, but while the policy is by no means unflawed and in some ways has been immoral, there’s no hint in the film of how it exists to ensure that Europe keeps people on the land and can always feed itself if it has to.  It’s worth bearing in mind how much food – not far off half its total consumption – Britain has to import, remembering that food security was one of the reasons why Thatcher said on 8 April 1975 that Britain shouldn’t leave the Common Market.

Still, if regulation is a villain in this film, it’s nice to see the World Trade Organisation appearing as a hero, even if its first head, Peter Sutherland, was previously an EU commissioner and someone who consistently warns against what he sees as the absurdity and destructiveness of British withdrawal from the EU, noting that the current incumbent of his old WTO seat holds the same views.

The WTO is opening up the markets, deregulating and driving down tariffs, the film assures us, claiming that the EU is a thing of the past, a declining trade block, and a macroeconomic corpse. None of these claims about the EU are true, and insofar as the EU has a smaller proportion of global trade than it once did, this mainly reflects how such huge countries as China and India have been playing catch-up, and expanding rapidly in the way that low-cost economies can.

Switzerland is held up as a model of what a Britain outside the EU might be like, with ludicrous lines about how despite not being in the EU, Swiss exports per head are five times higher than Britain’s. Predictably, the film doesn’t discuss how Switzerland avoided such major 20th-century body blows as the two world wars and the loss of an empire, and how this might have benefitted the country. One Ruth Lea rightly says comparisons with Switzerland are “totally bizarre”, but the film storms on to show just how wonderful things can be outside the EU.

Indeed, the film maintains, Switzerland’s secret lies in its radically democratic nature, with its politicians and bureaucrats being kept on a tight rein with – you guessed it – one of the least regulated economies in the world. “Do it like the Swiss,” another talking head says, “have some arrangements with Europe but be independent and look to the world.”

There are others, of course, who would point out that Switzerland offers a genuinely useful case study in why it's not a good idea to thumb one's nose at the rest of Europe. Given how the EU countries responded to Switzerland trying to curtail immigration a couple of years back, is it ever really likely to be the case that the EU will give competitive advantages to a country that turns its back on the whole project?

And finally, the trading fantasy

Nigel Lawson shows up thwarting a straw man when he says “the idea that you have to be in the European Union to trade with the European Union is a total absurdity” – so it is, Nigel, which is why nobody’s saying it.

Onward then, with the claim that “the EU is desperate to keep its goods flowing into the UK”, with German cars as ever highlighted as the key product; the “Germans’ biggest industry needs us to the tune of 16 billion plus every year,” declares David Davis. Perhaps so, but with Germany’s automobile sector having a turnover of €351 billion in 2011, and a foreign generated revenue of €194 billion, I’m not sure how “desperate” Germany might really be.

Besides, we’re told, there’s a big world out there. Anglo-Chinese trade over the last ten years has been growing several times faster than Anglo-EU trade. The fact that less than 3% of the UK’s trade is with China, as distinct from about 45% with the rest of the EU, is conveniently omitted. “They need us more than we need them” declares Ruth Lea, which is a baffling statement given how the proportion of UK exports that go to the rest of the EU is far larger than the proportion of exports from the rest of the EU that go to the UK.

“It’s true that British companies wanting to export to the EU will have to comply with EU regulations,” the film wryly observes, triumphantly continuing, “but it’s also true that EU companies wanting to export to Britain will have to comply with ours.”

Ours? What regulations are these? The fact that the whole film has been holding up the dream of an unregulated Britain seems to have been forgotten. 

I'd hope that most people who've watched the film would realise that that line made no sense whatsoever. Just like the economic models underpinning the films grand aspirations.

More again.

Why quibble about 'Europe' while cherishing 'Britain'?

I know, I've been quiet lately, but Brexit debates and other matters are causing me to rethink my unremunerated silence.

Just after work, and before I pedal home, I want to write something about this annoying Spiked article in which Brendan O'Neill wheels out the Brexiteer whinge that it's oh-so-unfair that the BBC often refers to the EU as 'Europe'.

I think the BBC is right to refuse, but before considering why, I think it's worth noting that Brendan plays some tricky language games in this piece. When he bangs on about "the conflation of the Brussels-based oligarchy with the continent of Europe", he conflates the European Union with the European Commission, the latter simply being the Brussels-based civil service that proposes possible actions that only become laws if the national governments (or most of them, at any rate) vote for them.

I don't think there are that many people out there who would think it okay to say, as a matter of course, "the UK" or indeed "Britain" when what they really mean is "the Civil Service".

If there's dodgy conflation going on here, it's mainly on Brendan's part. I mean, really, what's he on about with lines like "the way Brussels can impose its writ on nation states"?

Does he mean "the way the European civil service, staffed by people from all over Europe and headed by people answerable to the European Parliament* and appointed by every single member state's government, can draft possible laws either when asked to do so by the governments or the European Parliament or do so off their own bat, send them to the national parliaments for feedback, and then submit them to the Parliament and the Council where the governments will scrutinise the proposals, haggle over them, and then vote so they become binding decisions which the national parliaments will then vote on so they can harmonise with their own national law codes"?

I think the process is a lot more representative and a lot less dictatorial than Brendan suggests.

In any case, like I said, I think the BBC is right, for at least three main reasons.

First,"Europe" has long been a colloquial term for the European project, whether speaking of the EEC, the EC, or the EU, such that it seems like a deliberate attempt to rig the game further by trying to change this now. There are no shortage of Brexiteers who've opposed the project since before the establishment of the EU, after all, whether at the time the UK signed up to the Treaty of Rome on the basis that the UK, with other countries and among other things, was "determined to establish the foundations of an ever closer union among the European peoples" and had "decided to ensure the economic and social progress of their countries by common action in eliminating the barriers which divide Europe", during the 1970s referendum of withdrawal from the Treaty of Rome, or at the time of the Single European Act in 1980s.

Second, proponents of UK withdrawal from the Union typically don't just want to withdraw from the EU. The European Court of Human Rights is constantly invoked as a shackle on British sovereignty, with the conflation of the Court with the EU being rationalised by the claim that you can't be in the EU without being subject to the court as a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights. Quite so, but neither can you be in the 47-country Council of Europe -- the flag of which the Union shares -- without accepting the Convention and the authority of the Court.

Third, it's a bit rich that people who insist that 'Europe' should never be used as a synonym for "European Union" are all too often quite comfortable saying "Britain" as though it's somehow synonymous with 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland', not least when they say "Brexit" when they mean "Ukexit". I'm not saying this is brazenly hypocritical, well, not necessarily, just that it seems at best indicative of muddy thinking, unless it's a recognition that Brexit might well precipitate the disintegration of the UK, as William Hague, the Scots nationalists, most Northern Irish parties, and others have all acknowledged.

It's probably worth adding that the oft-repeated line about how "Britain isn’t leaving the continent of Europe" is historically dodgy, leaving aside the Britain/UK issue. Europe is a cultural continent rather than a physical one, after all; really just Asia's western peninsula, its borders are a matter of changing convention rather than anything else. Norman Davies talks in Europe: A History of Europe being a tidal continent, such that it's eminently possible to imagine Britain leaving it. Certainly, I know people who would insist that Britain is not and never has been part of Europe, and while I think they're wrong, they testify to a possible reality.

As an example of this sort of thing, it's worth noting how Cambridge's David Abulafia, one of the 'Historians for Britain' crowd, talks of "a historical perspective on Britain’s relationship with Europe" and "a long history of British engagement with Europe" -- noting that Europe is a place with which Britain can have links, rather than a place where Britain is to be found.He talks of Britain "becoming European", which seems a claim that Britain has not been European in the past, perhaps because, he says, "the United Kingdom has always been a partner of Europe without being a full participant in it".

Granted, you might think that someone who says of national boundaries that "even Britain has contracted, with the departure of most of Ireland" hasn't really got a handle on what or where exactly Britain is, and might be better off not talking about this issue at all, but that's a debate for another day.


_________________________________________________________________________
* Yes, it is called that. The European Parliament. Not the EU Parliament. Do the Brexiteers think the BBC should start calling the European Parliament by a name they've made up? Presumably they likewise think the European Commission should be renamed the EU Commission, and the European Court of Justice be called the EU Court of Justice. And then, maybe, they'll suggest the BBC become the UKBC.

They Don't Teach Geography Like This Anymore - Part I

Well, like Frank Baum's Woggle Bug, I now feel Thoroughly Educated.

Having talked about geography classes and my schooldays last night, I was delighted this morning to be shown a nineteenth-century geography book, Professor J.M.D. Meiklejohn's 1890 A New Geography On The Comparative Method. It was clearly a popular tome in its day, as my friends' copy proudly boasts of being the twenty-second edition of the book. 

It is, no doubt, the sort of book with which Michael Gove would think all British students should be acquainted. 

You'll no doubt be pleased to know that the book makes sure to confirm British schoolchildren in the conviction that they are, of course, the world's luckiest children. 'The British Isles,' it announces, 'occupy the best geographical position in the world.' (24)

Where the book really shines are in its sections on national stereotypes, or as it subtitles them, 'Character and Social Condition'. Allow me...

Of the French:

'The French people consist of a mixture of races -- Celtic, Romanic, and German; and their character gives evidence of the mental habits of all three. The Frenchman is said to be light and frivolous, but in most cases he is a very serious person; brave, when he is succeeding -- but too easily depressed; very clever with his hands, and generally amiable, polite, and urbane. Intellectually, the Frenchman is famous for lucidity of thought and expression, for fine taste and eloquence of style, for suppleness and even subtlety of intelligence, and for rigour and consecutiveness in his reasoning and methods. Few nations in the world have done so much for literature and art. The Frenchman is also a lover of justice, and has a keen feeling of his own dignity and equality. The working classes, more especially the small farmers, possess the virtue of thrift in the highest degree.' (98)

If the French are seen as being something of a curate's egg, the Dutch are clearly people of whom enough good cannot be said. 

'Attacked by the sea from without, and by rivers from within; gaining land from the ocean and saving it from river-floods; daily using the powers of wind and steam against the powers of water; employing the powers of water against hostile armies; gaining land here, losing it there -- but on the whole steadily gaining; wrestling new lands and farms from the depths of the sea and the beds of lakes, and thus making the whole kingdom grow and expland; eternally on the watch against inundations, -- such is the life of the nation called the Netherlanders.' (107)

And what sort of people does such a life of maritime warfare make? 

'The Dutch character has been determined mainly by two things -- the long struggle against the Spaniards, and the perpetual struggle against water. The Dutch love freedom and are very independent; they are hard-working and thrifty; they are brave and self-possessed; and they are generous to those who have been overtaken in disaster. The Dutchman is slow in promising; but he always keeps his promise. He is slow to make up his mind; but, having once made it up, he acts with untiring energy. He has plenty of common sense, and is fond of method. Generally taciturn and thoughtful, he is boisterous in his amusements. He is fond of old customs and old costumes; and quaint distinctive dresses still linger even in the towns. His most remarkable external virtue is cleanliness.' (113)

Yes, cleanliness. This seemingly, is a matter in which the Dutch have little choice.

'Cleanliness is a passion with the Dutch; and it is forced upon them by the moistness of their climate. From morning till night scouring, rubbing, scrubbing and washing goes on. Even the barges shines with polishing, and are "as clean as a new pin". "Stables are kept with the same care as a drawing-room." Houses, barns, gates, and fences are always bright, clean, and in thorough repair.' (114)

Frankly, this is a far cry from what I learned about the Cool Temperate West Coast Climate with a continental influence, but clearly the Victorians felt confident enough to take a more subjective approach to geography. 

If there's anyone the Victorian schoolchild was called upon to admire more than the Dutch, though, is would have to have been the Germans. 

'Germany is the name of the great military power which stands in the middle of Europe, and which is the chief guardian and guarantee for peace between the large and warlike empires that flank it on three of its sides.' (139)

Two of those, it's worth remembering, would have been France and Russia. Given how things played out within a generation, I can't help feeling this has a certain ring of irony. 

Later it informs us that 'Education is compulsory throughout Germany; and the German people are, on the whole, the best-educated people in the world... The Germans, on the whole, are a straightforward, honest, steady, hard-working, brave, and loyal people. The Empire is growing rapidly in population and in wealth; and, as a military power, it is the first in the world... German belongs to the same family of languages as English. The German printed in books is High-German; English is a kind of Low-German. German is a very pure language; English is greatly mixed with Latin and French words.' (145)

The English shouldn't feel too inadequate, of course, as the book had made sure to remind them early on of their essential Germanness, pointing out how the people of England belong to the Teutonic stock of the Aryan or Indo-European family. There was Scandinavian, Celtic, and Norman-French blood in England too, of course, but even so, 'In spite of all these mixtures, the Englishman is and remains a Northern Teuton.' (37)

The Scandinavians, it's worth adding, fall into the same general category of 'people more-or-less like us':

'The Norwegians are a singularly courteous, helpful, and kindly people: they are a nation of gentlemen. They are the "English of Scandinavia," and are famous for their tenacity of will. -- The Swedes are also good-natured, polite, and hospitable -- "cheerful without excess, firm without violence;" and they are also hard-working and thrifty. The vice of both nations is intemperance.' (167)

We later hear of dirty Russian peasants and Greek schoolboys learning their pages of Homer off by heart, but Where the book really comes into its own, of course, is when it turns towards feckless Latin types. We'd had a hint of that in its ambivalence towards the French, but it's once it turns to Italy that things get really interesting. Italy, of course, is raved about, but the Italians? Well, they don't fit their stereotype, says the book, making sure to remind us what that stereotype was...

'The common notion is that they are extortioners, uncivil, given to revenge, assassination, lying, treachery, and dirt. This is a mistake. The most impartial travellers speak warmly of "the disinterested couresy, the unselfish kindness with which they have been universally treated." The genuine Italian is kind and courteous to all -- high and low, rich and poor; and his courtesy is enhanced by a wonderfully gracious, charming, and attractive manner. He is sober and thrifty, and an ardent lover -- as he cannot help being -- of his country.' (199)

And then we come to the Spaniards. 

'The peoples of Spain differ from each other as much as the climates. The Catalan is hard-working, strong-willed, sober, and thrifty; the Murcian is lazy, sleepy, and given to reverie; the Valancian is industrious, gay, and easily induced to use his knife; the Arragonese so stubborn that he "drives in nails with his head"; the Andalucian graceful, eloquent, charming in manner, fond of song and dance and colour, lazy, poor -- and content to remain so. The Galicians and Asturians are the hewers of wood and the drawers of water both for Spain and Portugal. -- The "noble science of bull-fighting" still, unhappily, continues to brutalise the emotions of the otherwise noble Spaniard. 

The siesta or afternoon sleep, is an institution in Spain. Then, every city is like a city of the dead.' (211)

So much for the highlights of Europe. If I have time, I'll tell you tomorrow all about the rest of the world.

Deceitful Cassandras...

I think Peter Oborne's rant on Newsnight yesterday was useful. Jon Worth's response to it is pretty much on the money:

'Extraordinary "debate" on Newsnight last night between Amadeu Altafaj Tardio (Ollie Rehn’s spokesperson) and Peter Oborne. Oborne repeatedly calls Altafaj Tardio "the idiot in Brussels", a phrase that Paxman also uses, and Oborne is equally vile towards Richard Lambert, giving him a copy of Guilty Men.

I don’t know whether I am more annoyed by Altafaj Tardio who was just rubbish (but hell, he’s employed by Rehn, so are we remotely surprised?), Peter Oborne who was vile and offensive, Jeremy Paxman who let Oborne rant on and on, or Newsnight for having invited Oborne and Altafaj Tardio onto the programme in the first place. Oborne’s vitriol might have a place in the Daily Mail but it surely has no place on Newsnight.'

Pretty much, I say, but not quite.

The episode had some value, not least is providing those of us who've long argued that the BBC doesn't have a bias towards the Union with a handy little stick with which to beat those who claim it does. Look at how the National broadcaster invited Peter Oborne onto its premier current affairs show, allowing him to insult a spokesman for an EU Commissioner and to insult those who'd advocated an EU project that had been on the cards even before the UK joined the then EEC. Look at how the presenter of that show himself addressed the spokesman as 'Mister Idiot from Brussels', allowing Oborne to rant freely to a point where the spokesman walked off.

Anything who thinks Chris Patten is compromised in his position as chairman of the BBC Trust by virtue of having been an EU commissioner between 2000 and 2004 -- with all that that entails -- should make a point of keeping their mouths shut in future. After last night, you can't say anything.


Self-fulfilling Prophets...
Aside from the sheer gratuitous bad manners shown by Oborne, I get irked by this sort of carry-on for a host of other reasons, not least that most of the people sneering about the troubles facing the common currency now are people who've opposed it from the start. It reeks of an 'I told you so' attitude, but hardly in an honest way, not least because the game's not nearly over yet, and they may yet be proven wrong.

If Britain is to sneer about France and Germany never having applied the EU's own rules properly, thus having undermined it from the start, they should give some thought to how the United Kingdom stood sniffing at the sidelines when the project was being launched; perhaps these problems could have been headed off with British help.

To hear these people whine is almost like listening to a footballer complaining about his team losing a match, in a situation where he himself has chosen to sit out the game. Imagine, say, Carlos Tevez whinging about Manchester City having been beaten by Bayern Munich the other day, despite him having refused to go on when summoned from the bench, or Roy Keane whinging about Ireland having been knocked out of the 2002 World Cup, despite him having gone home rather than playing. Imagine. That's what it's like.

An unfair analogy? No, I don't think so.


The Origins of the Euro
See, the thing is, monetary union has always been part of the European project, and the UK knew that all through all the years it was so desperate to join. The Treaty of Rome's primary aim, as stated way back in 1957 in the first sentence of the treaty's preamble, was to lay the foundations of an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe. In order to do this, the EEC aimed to eliminate the barriers that divide Europe, to strengthen the unity of their economies, and to implement a common commercial policy. The second article of the treaty makes clear that the EEC had never been intended to be merely about establishing a common market:

'The Community shall have as its task, by establishing a common market and progressively approximating the economic policies of Member States, to promote throughout the Community a harmonious development of economic activities, a continuous and balanced expansion, an increase in stability, an accelerated raising of the standard of living and closer relations between the States belonging to it.'

Yes, those are my italics. A common currency had always been on the agenda, as a necessary tool to harmonise the development of Europe's economies, and it was in 1969 that work first began on establishing it. The then Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Pierre Werner, was commissioned by the six EEC countries of the day to head a group to look into the practicalities of economic and monetary union and in particular the issuing of a single currency. Werner's report was submitted in 1971, before the UK joined the EEC, and the UK was informed of the direction in which the EEC was heading; it was free not to join, but it did so anyway, signing the Treaty of Rome in 1972.

The plan wasn't implemented, of course, for various reasons, not the least of which related to the convulsive effects of the Oil Crisis, but it was only ever put on the back burner -- monetary union was always on the agenda.


And then there's Mrs Thatcher...
Thatcher is, of course, the hero of so many British Europhobes, whose apotheosis as an anti-European divinity has only ever possible by the determined refusal of so many to consider her early role in championing the European project, and by their ignoring how it was she who signed 1987's Single European Act with all that entailed...

Thatcher, of course, had been a prominent member of the Heath Government that had brought their country nto the EEC, despite opposition from the Labour party of the day. She was one of those who signed Britain up to a process of ever-closer union with her neighbours, and who knew that that ever-closer union was always intended to involve a currency union and the abolition of the pound. Just a few years later, in early 1975, she vigorously affirmed that this had been the right thing to do, praising Britain's accession to the EEC as Ted Heath's greatest achievement and saying of him:

'This torch must be picked up and carried by whoever is chosen by the party to succeed him. The commitment to European partnership is one which I full share.'

And then, on 8 April 1975 she openly championed Britain's full and determined participation in all aspects of the European project, and did so using arguments that are as valid now as they were 36 years ago.

I know I've talked about much of this before, but I've been meaning to get into that 1975 speech for a long time, and it needs context. I'll look at the speech itself tomorrow, I think.

A Proposed Activity, not a Proclaimed Institution

Right, so yesterday's post was longer and more rambling than ever. I was really just thinking aloud. Sorry about that. This'll be rather more to the point.

Having watched yesterday's Merkel-Sarkozy joint statement and press conference in a state of some confusion, I was bothered in its aftermath by the Guardian's tardiness in reporting on it, and then appalled to watch Tonight with Vincent Browne (without Vincent Browne) on TV3, it basically being a frenzy of Germanophobic hysteria, starting with this ridiculous opening:

'Good evening. I'm Declan Ganley, standing in for Vincent Browne. Behind closed doors in Europe today, leaders of France and Germany made a decision with immeasurable consequences for the people of Ireland. Tonight the Irish Government is scrambling to make sense of it. Does this spell the end of what's left of Irish sovereignty, and is there an alternative?'

And then, following an absurdly scaremongering questioning about the death of democracy in Europe, Lord Alton weighs in, saying:

'This is about creating a greater Germany. Let's not beat about the bush. This is what this about. There's been an agenda that's been running now for many years, where people want to create a sort of United States of Europe with Germany in the driving seat, and I think that's the agenda we're seeing being driven on, under the cover of the fiscal crisis that's been affecting the whole of Europe.'

And so it began, with the next panellist babbling about 'the first step in the destruction of the Common Market', misrepresenting the statement as a 'diktat' with 'conditions set in stone', and a third panellist saying 'this has been about the United States of Germany for a very long time'.

Suffice to say the show was more polemic than discussion, with only the most tentative attempt at balance, and all the while with the Twittersphere muttering darkly about spiked helmets and a 'Franco-German Empire'. Given his record with Libertas and its lies about the Lisbon Treaty, Ganley shouldn't have been allowed chair a discussion such as this.

We can all see that the Euro's in dire trouble. Even the British Conservatives think that its collapse would be disastrous for everybody, such that George Osborne's been advocating the raising of Eurobonds for the Eurozone countries based on a common -- or at least a co-ordinated -- fiscal policy, arguing that greater Eurozone integration is necessary if the single currency is to continue to work. Some degree of fiscal co-ordination had been foreseen when the common currency was first proposed forty years ago, but for whatever reason when the currency was being forged the countries that embarked on the project disregarded that economic reality. It's time now to face facts.

A More Sober Analysis...

Jason O'Mahony puts the Irish dilemma in starkly accurate terms on his blog:

'But now we have to confront the reality of a higher standard of living through cheaper Eurobonds and German supervision, or a lower standard of living, exclusion from the bond markets for the short to medium term, but keeping total control over our very modest resources. What will we do?

[...]

We need to be cool and calm about this. There is an argument that we would be better off staying out, keeping our fiscal sovereignty, and if we are willing to pay the price of having far less money to spend on public services, then it’s a strong one. But one thing is certain. Indignant guff ain’t gonna buy us any chips at this table.'

That's the option, and in considering it we need to think about why we joined the EEC in first place back in the day, signing up to a process of 'ever closer union'.

... In the Best Traditions of Realpolitik

Though I'm sure there's been some great work done since on the topic, it's well worth taking a look at what Joe Lee says about the Irish accession process in his Ireland 1912-1985: Politics and Society. Lee quotes with approval those hard-headed diplomats and civil servants in the Department of Foreign Affairs who took the view that those who banged on most loudly about our sovereignty being a pearl of incalculable price didn't have a clue what they were talking about.

True independence, in international affairs, is defined by freedom of movement, and the more options a country has, the more free it can be said to be. Arthur Griffith argued more than a hundred years ago that political sovereignty is meaningless without economic sovereignty, and the Department of Foreign Affairs at the time of accession to the EEC took that ball and ran with it. Lee says:

'Defining sovereignty as "the freedom to take autonomous decisions and actions in domestic and foreign affairs" the White Paper asserted that "as a very small country independent but with little or no capacity to influence events abroad that significantly affect us", Ireland enjoyed very little effective economic sovereignty.'

Our economy was in thrall to the British one, and dependent to a lesser degree on the decisions made by other European countries. Our only hope was to take our place at the European table and to have some say -- however small -- in the collective European decision-making process. What's more, by doing this we could diversify our trade, weaning ourself of our dependency on the UK, thereby increasing our range of options. By surrendering a small amount of nominal sovereignty, we would in practice hugely increase our sovereignty.

And so it proved, until Irish banks borrowed far too much money, and the Irish government guaranteed all money that had been loaned to those banks, not realising that by doing so -- and by not reneging on this arrangement once the reality of what it entailed became clear -- it was condemning Ireland to a condition not a million miles away from indentured servitude.

What Are They Talking About?

So, what have Sarkozy and Merkel said? Well, in truth, they haven't said a huge amount, and you'd never think, to hear the hyperbole and screeching from some of Ireland's more europhobic commentators, that Merkel had to be dragged to this position, as further European fiscal integration isn't exactly a vote-winner in Germany!

They've proposed that economic and fiscal policies in the Eurozone should be coordinated more than hitherto, that serious efforts should be made to facilitate this through twice-yearly meetings of the European heads of government, these meetings being chaired by the president of the European Council, that Eurozone countries should institute constituitional limitations on deficits into their constitutions, and that a pan-European tax should be introduced on financial transactions. They've resisted the idea of introducing Eurobonds just yet, though they remaining open to the idea in the long run, and they intend to work together to coordinate their own national tax policies.

That's all.

Firstly, I don't think anyone should be getting upset about two countries agreeing to work towards harmonising their own taxes. If we believe in our own sovereignty, it seems unfair to deny Germany and France the same thing; we can hardly object to countries deciding on their own tax policies. Will this make it harder for Ireland to resist pressure to join in this harmonised tax arrangement? Maybe, but what kind of an objection is that? Is it really tenable to say that Germany and France shouldn't be allowed to harmonise their taxes unless Ireland says they can do so? Can a government representing 4.5 million people really dictate the domestic policies of two other governments representing 145 million people?

Second, why all the screaming about a European Economic Government under a European President? Well, the clue here lies in the translation, which is why I got rather frustrated when the press conference was on; I wanted to read official transcipts not listen to immediate and perhaps innaccurate interpretations.

The word 'government' can mean either an institution or an activity; sometimes the word 'governance's is preferred in reference to the activity, as this is clearer. It's striking that while Google throws up about 35,500 results for the phrase '"true economic government"',  it throws up almost as many -- 31,000 -- for the far more precise phrase '"true economic governance"'. It's clear that what Sarkozy and Merkel were suggesting was not a new institution, but simply a meaningful activity, and one coordinated to some degree by elected heads of government rather than by unelected bankers. Indeed, this should be common sense: surely we can all see that while two meetings a year would hardly constitute an institutional government, it might at least suggest some effort to steer things. 

As for Van Rompuy's presiding over these meetings, well, doesn't this make sense? The President of the European Council is really only a chairman -- the French word Presidente in this context really just means that, in that he presides over meetings. It's been Europhobic propaganda that's established the position in the popular mind as an 'unelected President of Europe'. Having Van Rompuy chair the meeting would free the heads of government from that deliberately neutral role and allow them to focus on arguing their countries' cases.

And finally, don't forget too that these are just proposals. There's nothing to stop -- say -- Italy, Spain, and Portugal from getting together to put forward their own ideas for how things should be handled, or even Ireland announcing its own plans. There's nothing to stop countries working together in the Council to block proposals they don't like. There's nothing to stop countries from using their veto if need be. And, at least in the case of Ireland, there's nothing to stop us from refusing to amend our Constitution in accord with other people's wishes, unless they're our own too; we might, after all,  think it a good idea to live within our means.

This is a negotiating position, nothing more. No need to panic.

There's a Reason Why the New Testament Calls 'Party Spirit' a Sin

No, really, it does. Factionalism leads to tribalism, and tribalism kills thought.

There are friends of mine who make me sigh, people who are incapable of changing their minds when faced with inconvenient facts, things that challenge or flatly refute their dogmas. They have a habit of reading stuff merely to validate what they already believe, and are incapable of realising that when a source they trust is shown to be either dishonest or ignorant on one issue, that it may well be far from trustworthy on others.

One yesterday said he was a bit cynical about the Guardian's revelations about the News of the World coming three days before the BSkyB decision goes through, as they'd surely known about it long ago.

A Manichean Siege Mentality

This, of course, is typically tribal nonsense, as spouted on the Telegraph blogs yesterday with reference to the BBC, paranoid rot which even the normally odious Cranmer is sensible enough to recognise as reprehensible gibberish. It's of a par too with the victim mentality displayed by Boris Johnson last year and by Conservative Home's Tim Montgomerie in the Guardian the year before, when he said:

'Given that Coulson has behaved impeccably since becoming a key adviser to the Tory leader, we can only assume that the attack on him is politically motivated... 

If this affair was simply a matter of Labour versus the Conservatives it would have quickly died a death, but the antagonism towards Coulson is also rooted in the hostility of the Guardian and the BBC to Rupert Murdoch's media empire. Polly Toynbee articulated that hostility on Saturday. She accused the owner of the Sun, the Times and Sky of "Europhobia", and of corrupting politics. 

I do not wish to defend every action of the News International empire, but Rupert Murdoch has been an overwhelming force for good in this country's life and politics. Sky Sports has revolutionised English football. We now have the most exciting football league in the world thanks to the money that football was denied when the BBC and ITV possessed their duopoly of stale, pedestrian coverage. Murdoch's Wapping adventure broke the stranglehold of the Fleet Street union barons – a bold action from which all newspapers have since benefited. His newspapers and Sky News have formed the most powerful rival to the dominance of the BBC. Without the Sun and the Times, the Eurosceptic message would have struggled to prosper. The BBC has never reflected the British people's concern about the European project and Murdoch has been a champion for them.'

Well, of course. We can only assume that attacks on Murdoch's Minions News are politically motivated. It's inconceivable that there might more to it than that. It's inconceivable that demanding journalistic integrity, standing up for the British people, and opposing the Murdoch Empire might just be the same thing. Isn't it? And no doubt Murdoch is shocked to learn what's been going on...

Of course, the claim that all the newspapers have gained from 'Murdoch's Wapping adventure' is a dubious one: their sales figures certainly haven't. And the idea that the Premiership is a particularly exciting league is, frankly, codswallop, given that it's less competitive now than it ever was in the pre-Sky era. The poppycock about the European project is particularly reprehensible; opposition to the EU has been moulded for decades in Britain by the Murdoch press. It hasn't so much been that Murdoch championed opposition to the European project, as that he basically formed it. Sensible Conservatives can see that.

Margaret Thatcher, Champion of European Integration!

Look at Thatcher, for instance, who before she became Murdoch's creature was herself a champion of the European project. She'd been part of the Conservative government that had negotiated entry to the EEC in the first place, and that signed Britain up to a process of ever-closer union, that being the avowed aim of the European project as stated in the very first sentence of the Treaty of Rome. She had thus been fully aware that a single currency was on the cards at the time of UK accession, and that there was no point the UK joining the Common Market if didn't plan on adopting the planned Common Currency.

When running for the Conservative party leadership in early 1975, just months before the British referendum on Europe, Thatcher insisted that leading Britain into Europe had been Heath's greatest achievement, and said:

'This torch must be picked up and carried by whoever is chosen by the party to succeed him. The commitment to European partnership is one which I full share.'

On 8 April of that year, she openly championed Britain's continued participation in the European project, basing her case on Britain's need for security, guaranteed food supplies, and access to the European market in general, as well as the prospect of a more important role in the world, saying:

'I think security is a matter not only of defence, but of working together in peacetime on economic issues which concern us and of working together on trade, work and other social matters which affect all our peoples [...] The Community opens windows of the world for us which since the war have been closing. [...] When we went in we knew exactly what we were going into.'

She was right, too. It's clear that way back in the 1970s, before Murdoch and his ilk got their talons into her, Thatcher had foreseen and was comfortable with all those things she has denounced since the late 1980s,* with her rabid minions whining and yelping in chorus behind her ever since.

Did Blair Really Sell Out Britain to Europe?

And unfortunately, those curs just keep barking idiotically, foaming at their feral mouths. Yesterday I saw a piece in the Spectator, entitled 'Barroso's EU Confidence Trick', which argues that

'... the battle for Britain's EU spending was lost under Blair. In 2001-02, Britain was a net beneficiary of EU to the tune of £900 million. The next year, the cost of EU membership soared to £3.4 billion. By 2004-05 it was £5.7 billion and in 2009-10 it was £6.6 billion. It's rising even more. Consider that the total defence cuts will save £2.4 billion: this is masses of cash. And for what? [...] Britain is paying billions for membership of a club that most of us think isn't helping at all.'

In the first place, Britain gains massively from the EU through trade within the common market and through having a combined negotiating position globally, so it's ludicrous to limit Britain's gains to what it receives from Brussels directly. That aside, though, 2002 was an anomalous year for Britain, where various factors including the rebate led to Britain receiving more from Brussels than it contributed; this was compensated for the following year. Britain has basically been a contributory state -- which makes sense, given that it sees itself as a successful and wealthy country -- for a very long time, long before Blair. All you have to do is look here to see how long this has been the case.*

Secondly, that contributions to the EU should have risen over the last decade is hardly surprising, given that a dozen countries have joined the Union since 2004, most of these having needed financial help in becoming functioning and profitable capitalist economies, or, if you like, in becoming useful partners for Britain. The UK, in fact, has long been the great champion of EU expansion, and had wanted the accession of all those countries, just as now it's the UK that shouts the loudest in favour of Turkish accession to the Union. This has to be paid for, of course, so it's somewhat ironic that those who should cry most for the Union to be broadened should then cry loudest when the bill arrives.

But of course, the opponents of the EU don't care about such facts, evidently taking the line that reality is something to be sampled rather than understood. They probably don't realise that as a proportion of national GDP, Britain contributed rather less to the EU under Blair and Brown than it did under Thatcher and Major.

* And if you don't believe me and can't be bothered trawling through Hansard, go and have a look at John Campbell's Margaret Thatcher, Volume I: The Grocer's Daughter. Because they hide this information in books.
** Yes, I know, this doesn't seem to incorporate the Rebate. Still, the general trend is discernible either way.