Adrian Hamilton: Neither of the main parties has a true policy on Europe
The Lisbon treaty is not the end of the debate, it is just the beginning
Digg
del.icio.us
Facebook
Reddit
Google
Stumble Upon
Fark
Newsvine
YahooBuzz
Bebo
Twitter
Independent Minds
It's a fair bet that the European embassies across London have been deluged recently with cables from their foreign ministries demanding to know just where British policy is headed. Are they to take seriously David Miliband's dramatic declaration of faith in the European Union as the repository of Britain's attentions and ambitions and what are they to make of the Conservative Party's constant anti-European rhetoric and its promise to keep bashing away even if the Lisbon treaty is signed?
I sympathise with them. They can't know. We in the media certainly don't know and I suspect none of the politicians, least of all the Tory front bench, seriously understand just what British European policy will be after the next election. My only advice to the ambassadors and their governments is to keep calm and remember two things. One is that Europe doesn't loom nearly as large in the British debate as the current chatter over the presidency would suggest. And the second point is that Britain is now in election mode. There is nothing, nothing at all, which is not said or done without the vote in mind.
If David Miliband is now making much of his European credentials, it is because he senses that the Conservatives are vulnerable on the issue and that he himself has a chance to look more statesmanlike. And so with the Tories. If they oppose Tony Blair's suggested appointment as the new president of the EU it's not just because they fear his presence in Brussels but because they sense that the appointment would not gain any votes back here. In many ways it would suit a Conservative government to have Blair across the water. They could constantly play on the differences. It just doesn't suit them to say so.
That's no cause for the Continent to despair of Britain's attitude to Europe. True, it's been only half-engaged this last decade. But it's not anti-European as such. UKIP, the BNP and others have gained traction as a result of the turn-off from the major parties but there is no real evidence that their vote is either going up that much or that it is Brussels which is driving the anger. David Cameron may have his problems with his party on this score (he does) but, as far as the public is concerned, an anti-European stance is not a critical vote winner..
If there is a change in government next year David Cameron will have a fair room to manoeuvre on the European issue so long as he looks as if he's playing the nationalist card in Brussels (which he will). The tone of a Labour government, if returned, will undoubtedly be more positive, but when it comes to the more contentious issues of joining the euro, financial regulation, Turkey's candidature and the Common Agricultural Policy, you'd have to be very naïve indeed to take David Miliband's speech this week as signalling a great change of approach.
Which is the nub of the question. The Lisbon Treaty has had a hard birth and there is a tendency, on the Continent as here, to regard its signing as the end of the story. It isn't. It is just the beginning.
Where the EU goes from here, towards greater integration or greater enlargement, has still to be settled – two-speed, multi-speed or all as one. If President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel want to press forward from the Lisbon base (as I think they do) to a more integrated unit, then Britain is going to have to make up its mind as to what it sees as a future Europe. Neither main party has even begun to do so.
As for the presidency, it's really a sideshow. President Sarkozy, and most British commentators, have presented it as a choice between an organiser behind the scenes or a front man of celebrity status. This is the last way the choice should be made. To pick either a grey man such as Jean-Claude Juncker or a plausible rogue from a discredited era as Tony Blair would be wrong. It just smacks – and on this William Hague is unfortunately right – of all that is worst about the backroom dealings of the EU.
Europe's problem is not how it presents itself to the outside world, it is how little support it has amonggst its own people. On that score what it needs is a figure from a smaller country, preferably a woman, who can inspire its citizens with the belief that the EU's future is theirs not with a bunch of power brokers meeting behind closed doors as Brown, Merkel and Sarkozy did last night. Someone like Mary Robinson, in fact.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.
Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP logged and may be used to prevent further submission. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by the Independent Minds Terms of Service.
- Print Article
- Email Article
-
Click here for copyright permissions
Copyright 2009 Independent News and Media Limited
Comments
However, through President Barroso, she has made it clear she doesn't want the post. She has other global humanitarian interests to pursue.
Until the UK, in particular Little Englanders, decide the role they wish to play in Europe, other Europeans should reduce the import of anything the UK has to say.
The EU should just shunt Britain into the sidings. It's where we deserve to be.
The Tories think we should be like Norway or Switzerland. Fine, lets go for that status, but like Norway and Switzerland, we would still have to pass EU laws and regulations in order to trade in Europe. It is our largest trading partner, yet we would have no say in the formulentation or revision of such regulations.
Our choice is simple either participate fully or not at all. If not, accept we will be in the fifth outer circle of irrelevence while Europe integrates further and we become a global and regional irrelevance.
Perhaps the EU should just tell our politicians to s--t or get off the potty. We forever hang on to nanny for fear of anything worse.
Let Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland become full members of the EU.
Let Little Englanders stew in their misguided chauvanism, Imperial nostalgism and incipient racism towards Johnny Foreigner.
Or maybe it's a question of democracy. The EU is a profoundly undemocratic organisation; the Commission proposes and initiates legislation for heaven's sake. Indeed it can never be truly democratic as the cultural, social, economic and linguistic divisions which exist across the continent of Europe make the construction of a proper functioning pan-European democracy impossible. There is no European demos. In these circumstances to attempt to graft the attributes of a federal state onto what can only legitimately be an association of sovereign states can only result in a short circuiting of the process of democratic accountability.
Supporters of further European integration should strap themselves in for what may be an uncomfortable ride over the next few years. The UK is finally about to get a government which shares the Euro-sceptic views of a settled majority of the UK electorate. Lets just see how it turns out.
One final point, so Northern Ireland should become a full member of the EU? Doesn't seem likely given the Euro-sceptic outlook of all the main Unionist parties plus Sinn Fein.
The problem is that the language used by both sides is wrong. To be Anti-EU does not mean being Xenophobic, a Little Englander or a pining for the days of Empire, it means not wanting to be part of an undemocratic organisation that rules every part of your life and is answerable to no one.
Can you imagine the citizens of the EU being able to do to MEPs the same as has happened in the UK over MP's expenses ? Of course not ! Thank Heavens that no previous British Parliament may bind the hands of a subsequent one, I wonder if they understand in Brussels that this Constitutional fact trumps all Treaties ?
Which is why I continue to support it, despite the rot that's in it. At least the EU provides a counter-power to the totalitarian tendencies of our own political elite, which have been so much to the fore during the New Labour years. If you can't trust your own politicians - and we clearly can't, be they Tory or Labour - there's some reassurance in knowing that there's a power beyond them - even a corrupt and defective one - which can put a brake on some of their excesses. It's the old principle of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" - the EU is useful in cramping the style of the dismal and shifty lot that infest Westminster. For the same reasons, I'm a devolution enthusiast. When power's corrupt, it's best spread around, not concentrated.
Patriotism, as so often in history, provides a convenient cover for political knavery and villainy, and the appeal to nationalism, which all parties have made when it has suited them, is too often just a blind behind which the political classes pursue their own interests and build their own power base.
It is this attempt to pretend that Europe is one country, when in reality it isn't, that forms the principle flaw in the idea of closer integration. People still think in terms of nation states. Even those who support Britain's acquiescence to the idea of full integration, in so far as they put forward a case at all, present their argument in terms of what is best for Britain, how damaging to the British economy would Britain's failure to participate fully in the EU project be. Thus they implicitly concede that political reality is such that it is the support of a population that overwhelmingly still thinks in these terms that they need to appeal to for support.
You can call these feelings of identity, patriotism, nationalism what you want; the fact is they are there. They have indeed been harnessed in the past by all sorts of unpleasant individuals for their own ends. But history suggests that substantial harm derives from constructing a political infrastructure which does not take account of these feelings. Whether it is the case of most of Ireland leaving the UK, the break up of Yugoslavia or the break up of the old European colonial empires, the message is that people need to feel that the political structure which governs them reflects their feelings of collective identity, social and cultural ties. Any project to create a fully integrated EU just seems too likely to end in repeating the mistakes of the past in ignoring these legitimate aspirations.
Pity, though. I do have a sort of pan-European ideal - legacy perhaps of studying history and the 1600 year legacy of the Roman Empire. But that was a different sort of Europe and I think you validly make the case in your final paragraph why that history can't be revived now - and certainly not be the EU as currently structured.
The Lisbon Treaty has effectively downgraded the UK Government to a local Council e.eg the development of the EU diplomatic service which over the next 4 years will employ at least 7000 and extend diplomatic missions throughout the world at a cost of billions.
Another example the EU approves of the plans for Northern Rock and is giving instructions on what has to be done to Lloydsto split it up. Why on earth should we accept this especially as our PM gave the Lloyds Bank Chairman permission to do what was done
Our net contribution rises every day with less and less return
We need to get out of the EU ASAP and trrade freely with the rest of the world
Fre trade is a good idea but political control is something entirely different which is why we have to leave the EU
Let's wait until the election before we start counting the votes. More people than you may imagine are opposed to the Fourth Reich.
To help stop Tony Blair becoming EU president:
1. Sign the following petition: http://www.stopblair.eu/
2. Contact your MP and MEPs to enlist their support against him, via: http://www.writetothem.com/
3. Contact your friends by e-mail and ask them to do the same.
The idea that the Common Market and its successors have prevented conflict between France and Germany that might have led to another war, is of course nonsense, it was the Soviet Union, the Cold War and the American Nuclear Umbrella that did that. However a community dominated by France and Germany is of little use to the rest of Europe so a policy of diluting their influence makes sense if only to ensure space for the smaller countries.
It is from this reality that France and Germany would like a two speed Europe so that they could once again rule the roost and decide between them what they want or will "allow". It is therefore British Foreign Office policy to prevent any such thing and to be fair, whether we like it or not, the FO will "guide" whoever is in power in the UK.
Personally I would like us to leave the EU totally because our essential problems lie in the radical cultural and legal differences between our Adversarial System and their Napoleonic one. This is not a matter of better or worse but just different and incompatible however, between this and the idiotic Court of Human Rights, in the UK we do have major issues. My view is that it is better for friendship and mutual cooperation that the UK is completely outside of the EU but I suspect it won't happen immediately and will only come about as the EU starts to crumble so the FO will insist that the UK remains engaged if ever troublesome.
On the Lisbon Treaty, the EU had a major problem because they knew that put to a Referendum, it would be rejected the same as the European Constitution was by France and the Netherlands so they agreed to ensure that except in the case of Ireland (for Constitutional reasons), there would be none EU wide. Unfortunately, the consequence for the EU is that now they have handed David Cameron and a Conservative Government, all the cards required to make Maggie Thatcher look like a dedicated European Federalist. They will play them carefully but, play them they will.
Although not the EU, a withdrawal by the UK from the jurisdiction of the Court of Human Rights to repatriate the final say in Law to British Courts would be a start. I would like to see public debate on each EU Directive so that each is explained rather than just signed in Council and then left to British Civil Servants to copper bottom each one.
All good fun ahead !
As to who is EU President, who cares, it wouldn't have suited Blair, it needs a conscientious non-entity. The job will mean little except the same as Barroso does, constant behind the scenes negotiations to achieve consensus at the lowest common denominator which then leads to policies such as the extinction of Blue Tuna and will no doubt lead to making the Mediterranean into a new Dead Sea and so on.
Of course UKIP doesn't get much support so that means the People are OK about the EU does it?
We live in a time when our politicians are mystics. They can clearly see future disaster like so-called climate change long before they happen, but disaster right under their noses like economical catastrophe, they just do not see coming.
Thus we poor fools allow ourselves to be led.
But when the People finally do turn on EU, none of the politicians; or evidently journalists, will have seen it coming.
And by the way, if not Blair who? What even more ghastly has-been dredged from the political sewers of Europe lays in wait?
Politicians are shallow thinkers leading to a cargo cult approach to competing with the USA and China. They think that merely creating a large market is the solution. They are incapable of coming up with an answer to the EU ageing population problem which cannot be solved by immigration. EU politicians are driven by their need to feel important on the world stage whereas China is setting the means in place for high growth in high technology which will leave the EU standing. This is way beyond EU politicians understanding.