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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
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…
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