Category Archives: UKPolitics

The stuff that makes me motivated in UK politics. Tends to be about the Labour Party, election reform, and environmental and transport policies. Sometimes some London politics too.

Where has the pro-EU camp gone? Maybe the project is harder to defend these days?

Daniel Korski has written a short piece at Spectator Coffee House entitled Where has the pro-EU camp gone? It’s a valid question to ask, if you view UK politics along the traditional lines of pro-EU versus anti-EU. The problem is that very frame only gets you so far.

Korski rightly cites hardening attitudes to the EU in Labour. But equally how could any Labour person in their right mind support the Common Agricultural Policy or the agreement to ‘solve’ the Eurozone crisis through the fiscal pact that basically lumps the Eurozone countries with a commitment to austerity for a decade? So while the EU (and the UK’s membership of it) may be of enduring value, who spends their days arguing in favour of something that’s also getting things wrong?

The danger of course is that if Britain edges towards leaving the EU and a referendum were to be held, could those wanting Britain to remain in muster enough support and organisational competence at that time? That must be a worry. But for the moment, while Britain remains in, it’s much more worthwhile to argue about the direction the EU should go (more socially responsible, more free market, more decentralised – take your pick) than it is to simply man the barricades for its defence.

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Why Nick Archer’s blog doesn’t work

I’m just back from the Presidency Press Trip in Copenhagen. It has resulted in numerous blog entries from me (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), a set on Flickr, and masses of activity on Twitter. The FT blog has a post about the trip, and Nicolas has a couple of posts in French (1, 2). OK, perhaps not stellar, but at least there is some online discussion about the Press Trip and the launch of the Presidency.

So the UK’s Ambassador to Copenhagen, Nick Archer, has decided to write a blog post on it too. I found out via this tweet. Number of links in his post: zero. Photos: zero. Engagement with anyone else writing about the same issue: zero. I don’t know whether it is Archer himself who writes, or a minion in the Embassy, but I really do wonder whether it is worth the time invested. Blogs work well when they network, form part of a wider conversation in social media. That isn’t happening from the Copenhagen Embassy’s Presidency blog yet.

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Why there’s no LabourList column from me today

It seemed like an excellent opportunity – to write a weekly column for LabourList, one of the biggest left-leaning blogs in the UK. Take EU matters to a new, wider audience. So I thought. In the second half of 2011 I churned out more than 20 columns, and a variety of other pieces.

But things have not turned out as I had expected and – at my own choice – I am weighing up whether the columns should continue. Things are on hold for now.

Above all, the joy of blogging (here on this blog in any case) is that hitting Publish is only the start. I learn from the comments, the comments are largely civil, and themes grow over time. Importantly I get an e-mail notification every time a new comment is posted to allow me to follow discussions. On LabourList I can’t get this, meaning that by the time I go back to the website I’m treated either to a stream of critique, or comments that have departed at a tangent. There I don’t have the tools to engage with the audience properly. Secondly, there is no RSS feed of just my posts, meaning no way to auto-import into Facebook or auto-tweet my posts, two important ways I generate useful discussion around what I write here. I’ve even volunteered my technical assistance – for free – to solve these issues, to no avail.

More widely, writing to a weekly schedule is rather tiresome, as I am used to the immediacy of blogging, while writing columns on a Sunday morning is probably the last time I would choose to do it. Plus – apart from an interesting spat with Emma Reynolds over my critique of Douglas Alexander – what I’ve written has generated very little substantive follow up. I also have no meaningful feedback on whether what I write – either in terms of style or substance – is what the readers of LabourList want.

Thoughts and comments from LabourList readers and others would be most welcome in light of this blog post…

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Thoroughly non-plussed by politics

Today has been a normal sort of day for me online, in that I’ve stumbled across a couple of really fascinating things, stuff that’s brilliant. Today it was the Lytro camera, and an examination of the design work of Dieter Rams. Earlier this week it has been Solar-Powered 3D Printer that Prints Glass from Sand and the joys of the Kew Gardens iPhone app. Pick any day and there will be some new nugget of information fixed in my mind somewhere.

Only the problem is that so damned few of these things relate to politics. How many things that really make you sit up and think, inspire you, have there been in politics recently? The only things that have come close for me in the short term have been Radek Sikorski’s Berlin speech, and Jack Layton’s Letter to Canadians. Stoltenberg’s Til Deg made me smile with its neat combination of tech and politics. But beyond that I am absolutely non-plussed. At least I’m not alone in this.

Today in the UK we have a case in point. Purported to be one of the thinkers of the Labour Party, Gregg McClymont has written a pamphlet (with Ben Jackson) summarised on Comment is Free with the piece entitled “How Labour can avoid the Tory trap“. I don’t actually disagree with the tactical substance of what they write, but the style and approach is so narrow, so insider orientated, so lacking in optimism in its articulation. “A patriotic appeal for national growth could highlight the divisiveness and inefficiency of Conservative political economy” they argue. Really? Can we not do any better than that? The same tired appeals to worn out nationalist rhetoric? As innovation and thinking proceed apace across the rest of our society, it seems our politics has failed to move on. Perhaps it was always thus. But where is my role within this morass?

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A generalised explanation of the decline of political leadership

Political leaders in the EU are incapable of leading us out of the current multiple crises we face. I think that’s generally understood. But what we’ve been incapable of explaining is why is leadership in such a bad way? Where is our Adenauer, Kohl or Delors when we need them?

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Cameron, Vickers, the EU and the recapitalisation of banks

It sounded a bit far-fetched – that the UK wants to set higher standards for its banks than the EU would allow. But these are Cameron’s words in his statement on Monday [from Hansard here]:

To those who say that we were trying to go soft on the banks, nothing could be further from the truth. We have said that we are going to respond positively to the tough measures set out in the Vickers report. There are issues about whether this can be done under current European regulations, so one of the things we wanted was to make sure we could go further than European rules on regulating the banks.

First of all this relates to regular EU law (Directives rather that Regulations actually, but definitely not in the Treaty). So whatever Cameron had or had not negotiated last week will not have impacted this.

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A simplified conversation between David Cameron, and Merkel and Sarkozy

Take a deep breath. Step aside from your preconceptions about the UK and the EU, and your views on David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sakozy. I’m trying to do that when writing this blog entry. Follow the steps of the simplified conversation below, and please comment if I am factually wrong.

Merkel & Sarkozy: To stabilise the Eurozone we want to agree a new EU Treaty among all 27 Member States.
David Cameron: I will agree to that only if you add a protocol to the Treaty protecting the City of London, changing some areas of financial service legislation to Unanimity rather than Qualified Majority Voting* (paper summarising Cameron’s proposals here).
Merkel & Sarkozy: But this Treaty is about the stability of the Eurozone, not about financial services. Why are you raising these issues now?
David Cameron: I am raising these issues because they are vital for the UK.
Merkel & Sarkozy: We know that. But we do not want to discuss financial services now. We need to stabilise the Eurozone. So will you help us?
David Cameron: Not without the protocol.
Merkel & Sarkozy:  OK, so we will go ahead in the Eurozone without you, because we can, and you knew that was the danger. And as there will be no protocol as a result of us doing this, then rules for regulating financial markets remain unchanged.

Result: Merkel & Sarkozy get the Eurozone integration that they want, albeit with legal complexity to make it work outside the EU treaties. David Cameron gets nothing, because without the protocol the provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon apply.

* – whether this actually would have been achieved with Cameron’s protocol is another debate. Let’s assume it would do what he demanded.

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Cameron at least can’t block the Euro 17+6(+3?) using the Court of Justice

There’s too much still to digest in the fall-out from yesterday’s summit for me to write a full blog entry on it all, but there is one technical point on which David Cameron is wrong. As if he didn’t already look petulant enough, Cameron stated that he would make sure the Euro+ group would not have access to EU institutions (see para 3 here).

Here’s Article 273 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union [PDF of full treaty here]:

Article 273
The Court of Justice shall have jurisdiction in any dispute between Member States which relates to the subject matter of the Treaties if the dispute is submitted to it under a special agreement between the parties.

The ‘special agreement’ would be part of the pact the 17 Eurozone members, plus 6 (+3) others would sign, and so the Court of Justice could intervene, making legally binding fiscal surveillance by the Court of Justice viable, whatever Cameron says.

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