Holding the Wrong Opinion - Responses

As usual Google doesn't let you type out a long enough response in the comments section. Hence, Part II!

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Hi Alex,

Thanks for your responses, as always good to hear opinions and feedback on what I write about. It’s a really interesting observation that UKIP are in practice in the wrong election – your definitely right on the point that to achieve the goal of Britain leaving the EU requires a Westminster presence, however, from a practical/strategic perspective it is easier to break into the Euro-elections due to low voter turn-out (33% I think was the figure the BBC quoted) and the use of a PR system. This gives UKIP money and publicity in support of a Westminster campaign. Furthermore a “Brexit” is going to be a lot more practical with both a Westminster and Brussels presence, so taking MEP seats has a sound political basis.

I would be interested in some examples of what you consider “EU progress” and UKIP slowing this down – their stated position Is that any further transfer of powers to Brussels is a priorii a bad thing, and in my experience ‘EU progress’ is often a euphemism for increased integration. Same thing goes for internal reform – have there been examples of this, and did UKIP oppose them?

The second part is indeed a very bleak take on the future of Europe, but ultimately from a practical perspective I don’t see how a currency and political union can work in Europe with the destruction of European identities. America works because everyone identifies as “American”. The rich states subsidize the poor ones, and federal institutions are seen as accountable to the American people. However to achieve this in Europe requires the breakdown of national identities that go back literally thousands of years – as I mentioned in the original post, some people may say this is a good thing, and we should all embrace being “European,” but personally I consider my culture, traditions and heritage to be an important part of who I am, and would lament that loss of history in future generations.

To some of your more practical points about the EU, I have to disagree

“… ruled by a British government… no matter how deep EU integration goes.”

Aside from the logical argument that a suitably deep level of integration by definition means the end of the nation state, there is also an undercurrent in EU affairs that a federal super-state (The United States of Europe) is the ultimate objective;

“Europe's nations should be guided towards the super-state without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation'.

Jean Monnet”

“I would like to see the development of a European public space, where European issues are discussed and debated from a European standpoint. We cannot continue trying to solve European problems just with national solutions,”
Jose Barroso

“the time of the homogenous nation state is over”

Herman Van Rompuy.

There are plenty of other quotes along these lines, (the above came from a quick 10minute google-search to make sure I got the right names), one I couldn’t find, but was a attributed to a “senior European figure” on the same day Barroso made a number of speeches, was that within the “Brussels bubble” senior European figures see themselves as the ‘priesthood’ of a new age, and those who disagree with them about the future of Europe are wrong.

There are economic and political arguments for a federalist, integrated European super-state, and much of my hostility to the European project would be removed if this was accepted as the end goal. But as it stands at the moment; “ever closer union” together with senior EU figures stating the nation-state is an obsolete idea that people need to be (unwittingly) lead away from, sounds like a deliberate attempt to bring about a federal super-state, and by extension loss of sovereignty for member states.

“The ideal solution”

Just to clarify here- personally I think it is an awful idea to have Europe broken into micro-regions as part of a macro-superstate. That certainly appears to be the EU’s goal, and as mentioned elsewhere, I can see the logic behind it but personally I am still a supporter of the nation state and then supra-national bodies such as the UN, NATO, NAFTA and the Commonwealth to deal with international issues. A community of nations, not a super-state.

“Decisions best made locally will be made locally…”

In an ideal paradigm world this may be true, yet our own examples of layered government show this is a contentious issue that often decides into squabbling and feuding between layers of government. Local (council) government and central (Westminster) government are often in conflict due to different political alignments (Labour Council, Tory government), and the inevitable ‘power drag’ – central governments want more control, councils want more independence.

The Scottish Parliament is an excellent case in point, again it may be a cynical view, but personally I feel the SNP’s drive for independence has far more to do with certain senior political figures in Holyrood wanting more personal power than it does about long term benefits for Scotland. When those able politicians (and for all my personal dislike Salmond is highly effective) are in central government powers get sucked to the centre, when they are in the provinces we get regionalisation. Neither is necessarily the “best” place for decisions to be made, yet the too-ing and fro-ing itself can be divisive and damaging.

On the flip side, have continental level responses proved effective in virtually any area? The Euro has succeeded in crushing southern Europe into permanent slump (25-30% unemployment in Spain, in Italy the only sector growing seems to be the black market), while Germany currently has the world’s largest trade surplus thanks to a depressed exchange rate. Free movement of people may have benefitted individuals, but at a continental level we have Eastern European countries who have seen entire cohorts of their population leave – Romania has lost 12% of its population since accession, leaving behind a shell of a country and producing culture and infrastructure strains elsewhere.

“The EU Commission are completely answerable to the EU Council and Parliament”

I was originally going to work though the various institutions in turn, but this is worthy of entire series of posts on its own, instead a more concise answer would be “how are they accountable to me.” Having a group of organisations who are only accountable to each other breeds both contempt for the electorate as a whole, and the potential for corruption. Our own domestic political system suffers from this despite a more immediate link between voters and candidates. Britain is effectively run by the “Quad” (Cameron, Clegg, Alexander and Osborne). Quad decisions are taken in private, without wider discussion and presented to the Cabinet as a fait accompli. The Cabinet then (without much choice) ratifies those decisions and present them to Parliament, where the back benches vote it through by order. In theory the Cabinet is accountable to Parliament and Parliament is accountable to the voters, but in practice we have a four-man band running the country.

The second issue is one of transparency and scrutability. The British media keeps a vigorous spotlight on the affairs of government, and the bipartisan nature of the media mean it is always in someone’s interest to run damaging stories on any of the main political parties. The Daily Telegraph’s extensive probe in MP’s expenses is a good example of a free press bringing to light abuses within the system, and the elected officials of the day being forced to respond.

The detached nature of EU discussions and the general downplaying of the role the EU plays in our government (as an aside it is a curious paradox that pro-EU campaigns claim both that it is vital to our prosperity to be a central part of the EU because of how important it is, and simultaneously dismiss the concerns around sovereignty loss on the basis that the EU doesn’t have much impact on domestic affairs), means there is ultimately far less transparency around the EU decision making process.

As an specific example – the ECB is required to answer questions from the European Parliament, but is free to withhold documentation relating to internal meetings and decision making processes, and is not required to explain itself to other institutions. Compare with the BoE which although independent has to publish the minutes of key meetings, and the Governor’s requirement to provide a detailed account on a month by month basis of why key target’s aren’t achieved.

There is also the example of Mario Monti in Italy and Lucas Papademons in Greece – technocratic banker / eurocrats appointed as the prime minister of a nation state by the EU institutions. If this happened in the UK and say a German central banker was appointed as Prime Minister without an election, would we really consider this democratic? And by extension are Monti and Papademons accountable to the European electorate, or the institutions that put them in place?

“It does not aim…”

I’m deliberately skipping over some comments about national / regional identity etc since they are explicitly bound up in the idea of whether the EU is out to destroy the nation state. If I were confident that the intention of the EU was a “thin layer of continental collaboration” with nation states left to manage their own internal affairs in peace, then I would largely support the idea. Ultimately this is what the League of Nations, the Club of Rome, and various other pan-European bodies have sought to do in the past. However, as mentioned above, to me the stance and substance of EU actions and speeches is the relentless advancement of continental government, at the expense of national identities and independence.

“The notion that everything can and must be run at national level”

I am certainly not advocating a completely isolationist view of the world with each nation a realm-unto-itself. However, there is a material difference between supra-national bodies such as the WTO, WHO, UN, NATO, the Commonwealth, the EEA, NAFTA and so on, and a federalist EU superstate. I would question why it is foolish to believe that nation-state organisation, properly embedded in a set of global or continental organisations such as those mentioned above, with internal mechanisms for local government where appropriate, is so inferior to federalist super-states?

“The UK and other European nations benefit a lot by collaborating closely on many issues they would traditionally have done themselves, at very little cost”

I’m going to have to call for examples on this one – while most of the facts about the costs and benefits of EU membership are obscured or simply not available (deliberately so in my opinion since it benefits both sides of the argument to be able to make ludicrous claims), I’ve seen very little evidence of clear, defined benefits to the UK, that are a result of the EU, and could not have been replicated in other supra-national bodies. Britain (along with Germany) is the only country to have contributed more to the EU budget every year than it took out, we have lost rights over our fishing (CFP), our judicial system is at odds with a continental system (which has a very different evolution and legal tradition), we run a trade deficit with Europe, and the EU is currently trying to impose a FTT, whose sole impact will be to cripple London as a financial centre to the benefit of New York and Singapore.

 Final Thoughts

As I mentioned in my original post, I genuinely support some reasoned, in-depth debate on the European question, and I think it’s great to hear some positive arguments in favour of the EU rather than simply belittling Eurosceptics. I’d be interested in your take on some of the quotes above, and on the examples of British benefits to membership. As a final point – if Britain does vote to leave the EU in a referendum in 2017, do you think we will be allowed to go? The only historical precedent is the southern states of the US choosing to leave the Union they had been assured was voluntary in 1861…

 

Holding The Wrong Opinion

I've been a bit lackluster on my posting recently, partly as a result of holding various offline debates (and therefore satisfying my need to opine) and partly due to 40k and CK2 soaking up much of my spare time (watch this space for a historical recount of the triumphs and tragedies of House ua Briain on its journey from Earls of Thomond to Emperors of Britannia), however, I couldn't really let the euro-elections pass without some form of comment.

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More so then previous European elections, this particular round of vote-casting has attracted an unusual level of both media, and general, attention. Political debates and comments have appeared across both online and offline platforms, voting became a sufficiently trendy activity to attract facebook and twitter posts.

The reason for this level of interest is, to me at least, purely a function of the UKIP phenomena. Regardless of whether you support UKIP (or Ukip as it now seems to be), the potential for a new political party to make a mark on a system which has been dominated by the three established parties for my entire lifetime has been enough to attract attention. This is not, however, going to be a column specifically about Ukip, or indeed any particular party's policies, its not even going to be about Europe in general. Instead, this is about something far more sinister, and to me, far more concerning - the relentless vilification of political dissent, both in the media, and by the general population.

I once believed that Britain (and the British in general) honored the idea of free of speech, and freedom of political beliefs. We may disagree with certain political views (generally extremism of either direction), but on the whole Britain's liberal traditions stood strong. Having watched the recent elections unfold, I now believe this is no longer the case. While on a mass-media level I am not surprised by the effort expending on smearing Farage and the Ukippers (none of the main media outlets would benefit from the established political paradigm shifting), what I was surprised at was the vitriol with which people I had previously considered "reasonable" attacked Ukip candidates, Ukip voters, and Ukip electoral victories.

There are plenty of avenues for a reasoned attack on Ukip's position - positive arguments in favor of EU integration and multiculturalism would be one.  Objective, unbiased research showing how the indigenous British population has benefited by sustained EU immigration would be another. Likewise demonstrable examples of EU regulation producing better outcomes than an independent Britain could have achieved would at least provide a coherent explanation of why the costs of extra regulation should be borne. On a more basic level, an honest acknowledgement that membership of the EU means loss of sovereignty, but that this loss came with more important benefits would give meaningful context to the In / Out debate.

I, personally, haven't seen any of the above. Economically I think there are (strong) arguments for membership of the EEA (the European free trade zone), but not why this requires extensive political integration. Again I've seen solid, reasoned arguments about why attracting immigrants with high or much-need skill sets adds value to an economy (Australia's policy often being sited as a practical example), but not for an open-door policy to countries with a significantly lower standard of living (and the economic tension that breeds).

What I have seen, is; condescension, derision and outright hostility to people expressing a pro-Ukip position. Whether its labeling people fascists, racists, illiterate or mocking "little Englanders" this is a sustained attack not on the logic of people's opinions, or a rebuttal of the evidence they are basing that opinion on, but personal attacks against people for expressing their political opinions. That is something which anyone who places some value in the liberal enlightenment tradition should find repulsive. I may not agree with you, I may actively try to convince you to change your opinion by pointing out the flaws in your reason or showing the benefits of an alternative position. I may in the end simply throw my hands up in the air and accept your position is one rooted firmly in emotion and passion not logic and reason and thus further debate is futile. But ultimately, I will still support your right to an opinion, your right to vote, and the premise that everyone's vote counts equally. I will not call you a bigoted racist, by extension you voted "wrong".

Our democratic process is based on the idea that each area will be represented by the largest group within that area; it does not allow for pre-selection of parties and candidates based on some infallible moral code that weeds out "wrong" opinions, it does not allow for someone people to have more voting power than others because they hold the "right" opinions, power is given the people to make up their own minds, and we all tacitly agree to abide by the outcome (a duty that is lost on most people).

By way of being fair, I should note that this is hardly a one-way street. While anti-kippers are busy labeling people fruitcakes and loonies, the Kippers themselves are quick to label anyone not part of their movement as slaves to the establishment, traitors, white-apologists and so on. This is just as much a problem, and is one of the reasons (in my opinion) Ukip will never be in a position to form a government. While anger and passion will speak to parts of electorate that up until now have largely been ignored, government is (or should be) about strategy, planning and boring fundamentals. Farage does not look like a Prime Minister in waiting, and Ukip does not have the stability and endurance of a governing party. Blair and New Labour had it when they delivered three election victories, and the Tories, in their better moments, have the most genuine claim to being the party of government.

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On a more reflective and pensive note, I believe we are living through the death throes of the nation-state in Europe. Some may cheer this, and claim we are moving into an enlightened age. But to me, it is a sad passing of an ideal that has carried mankind through thousands of years of history. When the European Union has successfully eroded away the powers of national governments we will be left in a world of micro-regions, supra-national governments and group-think. I will no longer be able to call myself British, I will be European, with nothing to distinguish me from 500 million others, or I will be a member of some arbitrary micro-region (South East English? Wessexian?), its history largely meaningless to me, since my regional identity will be transient at best; Hampshirarian today, Londonisn tomorrow, Castilian in my retirement.

Democracy will have long since been extinguished, rule will be by Commission, Committee and Court, the European Parliament little more than a token remembrance. The tides of humanity will wash back and forth between the Atlantic and the Baltic as regional councils succeed in poaching bigger budgets from Federal departments and are therefore able to offer more generous welfare states or more subsidized living. And I hope that if, or when, this grey dystopian world of pan-culturalism, political correctness and over regulation comes to pass, those who mocked and insulted the believers in national pride and sovereignty look around and say "This is paradise".

/Z