Yes-campaign blog - February 2005

By Richard Laming

26 February 2005
A shot fox

A debate on Wednesday evening with Marc Glendening of the so-called Democracy Movement. (You may recall a conversation I had with him in an earlier blog entry.) We've debated with each other several times in the past, so it is always interesting to see how his arguments developed. This time, he didn't make the same points as he had on previous occasions. Here is why.

The trademark arguments of the so-called Democracy Movement (you notice that I always use that epithet - you can read why here) have in recent months and years centred on the European arrest warrant and the fear of a growing EU police state. High-profile cases such as the plane-spotters in Greece have attracted a lot of attention in the UK, and this has been exploited by the anti-Europeans. The issue taps into some kind of primeval British fear of foreign courts and foreign justice. We're not very good at foreign languages, we don't trust them to play fair, that kind of thing.

Marc has previously made a lot of hay with this argument, but not this time. The problem for him is that the biggest governmental threats to civil liberties in the EU at the moment come from the British government and not from abroad. Only in the UK is it proposed to introduce house arrest on the say-so of a government minister. The European Convention on Human Rights prohibits this, so the government intends to opt out of the convention. Europe is the protector of our rights, not the thief of them. Maybe the government will back down or change its proposals in some way, but the point is still made. The anti-Europeans' fox is shot.

My argument in the debate was not that the EU is perfect, not at all. It has its flaws and its problems, like any political institution, and these need to be understood and acknowledged. But the point is that it is another political institution with a distinctive job to do. The national governments of Europe on their own cannot deal with all the problems faced by the citizens of Europe. Supranational democracy is needed to deal with some of them. That's what the EU is for. To argue against the EU or other supranational institutions means that you have to argue that the British government is all we need. But can we preserve a Britain-shaped patch of ozone layer?

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News from Tom Wise MEP about the Monnet quote. He read it in the letters page of a newspaper. That's hardly an authentic source, is it? What someone needs to come up with the date and place and occasion for the quote. (The reason I am on my high horse about this is that it is completely at odds with everything else Monnet ever did or said: the whole point of federalism is to extend democracy, not to subvert it.) I am happy to debate the merits or otherwise of the EU on the basis of facts, but not on the basis of quotes that somebody made up somewhere.

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23 February 2005
America's support for Europe

The visit of President Bush to Europe this week has opened same interesting discussions about what American policy really is towards the EU.

In the past, of course, the Americans were strong supporters of European integration. Twice in the last century, they were dragged into wars in Europe that arose precisely because of the lack of European integration and they were understandably keen to see such a possibility prevented in the future.

As time wore on and the possibility of war in Europe became more and more remote, there was also the idea of haw a united Europe could contribute more towards promoting peace and stability because it would itself be more powerful. The division of EU defence expenditure among so many different national military establishments is certain to be much less cost-effective than if it were all concentrated together. Of course, there are big hurdles to be overcome if this is ever to happen, so the European constitution wisely leaves the development of a European army to a subsequent decision on another occasion (to be taken by unanimity, Europhobes please note).

But the importance of the EU as a means of harnessing European resources to the full is still there. And the Americans know that they need it on their side.

When the Iraq crisis was at its height, things looked rather different. Donald Rumsfeld toured central and eastern Europe in June 2003 voicing opposition to the International Criminal Court.

"We must take care to not damage the core principle that under girds the international system - the principle of state sovereignty," he said. Readers of this blog will know what that means. But since then, the pendulum seems to be swinging back again.

Condoleeza Rice spoke warmly about the EU during her tour here two weeks ago. And President Bush said himself in Brussels on Monday:

"America supports Europe's democratic unity for the same reason we support the spread of democracy in the Middle East -- because freedom leads to peace. And America supports a strong Europe because we need a strong partner in the hard work of advancing freedom in the world."

It is good to know that adopting the European constitution will not damage our relationship with America.

The position of Atlanticist anti-Europeans in Britain is, of course, now ridiculous. They are defending a vision of America that even the Americans don't have,

There is a stand of British political opinion that is, in effect, more pro-American that it is pro-British. They remind me of British Communists in the 1930s who backed whatever it was that the Soviet Union did, whether opposing Hitler or signing a pact with him. "My country right or wrong" is bad enough: "someone else's country right or wrong" is truly insane. These people are now left high and dry.

The pro-European case, as I have remarked in this blog before, is fundamentally a democratic case. Donald Rumsfeld, on the other hand, rates national sovereignty above all else. If you have that view, then I guess that the European constitution is not for you.

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18 February 2005
Court politics

An interesting discussion this evening on the subject of sovereignty, a familiar theme to readers of this blog. The speaker was exploring the idea that sovereignty is slipping away from the member states but is not really reappearing anywhere else. The institutions and practices of government are becoming hollowed out, in effect, as a challenge to both traditional and contemporary notions of sovereignty (I think I am explaining it properly). It is a phenomenon common in a range of fields of policy, and he was wondering whether it could be identified in the European Union too.

It's an analysis that I don't think I agree with- federalists have a different and, to my mind, coherent description of what is happening to sovereignty and why - but it is nevertheless an interesting and important argument to consider. What makes it doubly important is the fact that it can sensibly be levelled at the EU at all. For it is clear that there is a problem with the location of sovereignty in Europe. The contest or rivalry between the national and European levels of government is obscure and unclear and unsatisfactory. It is not surprising that it is hard to understand.

And before it can be understood, it has to be explained. And that in turn is something that the British find it hard to do, too.

Take the news today about EU funding for information, for example. Jack Straw has asked that the European Commission should not spend money in the UK on public information about the EU. I find that extraordinary. Here in the UK is the lowest level of knowledge about the institutions of the EU and how they work, and yet here in the UK is the place where people should not be told about them. I suppose it is one thing to say that public funds should not be used for persuasive purposes in a referendum campaign but quite another to say that they should not be used to convey facts about the system of government we live under. Readers of this blog who live in the United Kingdom should look away now.

The speaker this evening used a really telling phrase to describe the EU's decision-making: he called it "court politics". I think that that phrase says a lot. It's not a question of laws or principles or procedures but a question who knows whom and has influence over what. There is still too much court politics about the European Union. The constitution is intended to diminish it and put parliamentary politics in its place, but if the people aren't allowed to be told the facts, how will they ever know?

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Still no reply from Tom Wise regarding the quote that he said was from Jean Monnet but for which he could not provide a source. I'll ask him again.

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6 February 2005
More on national sovereignty

My comments on national sovereignty in an earlier blog entry seem to have provoked some reactions. Let me try and explain.

Think of the Sellafield nuclear reactor on the Cumbrian coast of the Irish Sea. Who should decide how much radioactive waste it is allowed to dump into the sea? Is this is a matter for Britain alone? What about the interests of the people of Ireland? The radioactive waste washes up on their shows too and contaminates their fish. What say do the Irish have in the matter?

In a world in which national sovereignty is the defining political characteristic, then the people of Ireland have no say. They simply have to take whatever it is they are given. And if what they are given is toxic and carcinogenic, then that's too bad. British national sovereignty entitles Britain to do whatever it likes within its own territory, including to pollute its neighbours,

This is hardly satisfactory. A better political system would be where sovereignty belongs to people and not to nations. Sovereignty is expressed through different types of political institution for different purposes. If a particular set of political institutions don't work well enough, then they should be changed.

The case of Sellafield is an example where the organisation of decision-making on national lines dearly does not work, An issue of vital interest to the peoce of Ireland is, foreseeably, one from which Irish democracy is excluded. There is no vote that an Irish citizen can cast which will lead to a cleaner Irish Sea. National democracy has its limits.

However, to defenders of the idea of national sovereignty, national democracy is the only kind of democracy on offer. Advocates of popular sovereignty have an alternative to propose. If one accepts that the people are sovereign, then democracy can exist at more than one level. It is the democratic recognition of interdependence in the modern world.

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3 February 2005
Federal Europe or splendid isolation?

I spoke in a debate yesterday on the subject of "Britain's destiny: federal Europe or splendid isolation?". You can guess which side I was on. I don't agree that there is such a thing as destiny, though. Nothing is preordained. It may make sense for Britain to do one thing rather than another but it is not inevitable that it will do the right thing. That is what the argument now is all about. Pro-Europeans like me have got to fight for it rather than simply assume that our better understanding of the world is automatically going to win.

Also in the debate was Chris Bryant, Labour MP for the Rhondda. He gave a great speech. The last question asked from the floor really summed up the challenge for the pro-Europeans: why aren't the pro-Europeans more passionate? Chris Bryant left nobody present in any doubt of his willingness to take up the fight in the next year and a half. Our opponents were Lord Pearson of Rannoch and lain Milne, of the think tank Global Britain. They seem to think that free trade agreements between countries are a preferable alternative to a proper single market Economically, that is surely wrong (a home market of 450 million consumers is better for business than one of only 60 million) and it also misses an important point: a free trade agreement is not an alternative to a single market but a precursor to it. Why scrap tariff barriers but leave non-tariff barriers in place?

lain Milne also presented a rather mournful view of the future of Europe based on its demographics. Germany, Russia and Bulgaria are watching their populations decline, he said, and therefore the UK should not seek to share a European Union with them. This strikes me as an odd argument for two reasons.

First, why should the size of the population of another member state make any difference? Do we think we should have different relationship with Sweden and Denmark because one has 50 per cent more people than the other? A small or declining population might be a factor in a country's own policy-making, but their declining population should not be a factor in our policy-making.

Secondly, this argument depends on selective quotation. Germany might be looking at a future population decline, for example, but the French and Dutch populations are growing at the same rate as ours. lain Milne avoided commenting on this.

On the positive side, though, at least there are some anti-Europeans who welcome immigration and don't oppose it. The reason why the British population is set to continue growing is because of our openness to new people from other countries. Robert Kilroy-Silk has raised immigration as the major reason for him to set up his new party. It is good that Global Britain does not agree with him on this issue. If they did, of course, their demographic arguments would be completely ridiculous.

We also had the pleasure of the company of Tom Wise, a UKIP MEP from the East of England. He repeated the familiar but disputed claim that Jean Monnet deliberately set out to undermine democracy. Nobody who actually knew Monnet believes this. I have asked Tom Wise for the source of his allegation: I shall let you know what transpires.

These blog entries first appeared on www.yes-campaign.net. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of Federal Union or of the Yes campaign.