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.

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.

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…

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?

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?

First of all, our political context is markedly different from forty or even twenty years ago. The threat of war in Europe is no longer real, and the ending of the Cold War means the west has no convenient enemy any longer. The end of the Cold War also means capitalism won. The problems are more diffuse, longer term, more complicated, and harder to use to focus minds.

Then there is the changing nature of our political systems. The more politicians know, the more they follow. So daily polling and focus groups on anything and everything are used as a reason for not acting – it’s important to do what’s popular, not what’s right. Add to that the influence of 24 hour news with studios to fill, and the internet and social media, and proposals are picked over and taken apart before they have even been debated by parliaments. The leaders of the past – Kohl for example – would never have succeeded in modern politics. He would have been too brutish and fat for our current political culture. Yet we do not yet have any convincing leaders of the networked era – even Obama who used the net to get elected has been unable to effectively govern.

Our political parties are also sick, and good people arguably do not join parties, and if they do, they don’t lead them because their will to do so is killed off before then. Poor people and those that are ideologically flexible are instead understandably promoted – in the EU Günter Oettinger and Olli Rehn are cases in point. Better someone weak who will not cause offence than a dangerous but brilliant maverick.

The breakdown of traditional left-right ideology (partly due to the post-Cold War effect) has led to a multitude of parties, and by definition it is harder for complicated coalitions to take tough or long-term decisions. Even in countries like the UK or Spain without this multitude, declining turnout and extra-parliamentary movements pose a valid challenge to the status quo. I’m not quite as pessimistic as the outcomes of Bawn et al’s paper, but I’m getting there.

Throw into this the sheer complexity of our interdependent, multi-level, partially globalised political systems, and the battle of markets versus politics, with the latter seen to be subservient to the former. Then add a dose of ageing population, and scandals among political elites over the years and, hey presto, we are where we are…

Any way out of this?

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.

Secondly, according to Michel Barnier, the Commissioner responsible for this dossier, there is no problem of incompatibility between the draft [PDF] and the Vickers conclusions, demanding 10% core tier one capital, higher than the 7% proposed in Barnier’s draft.

Third, this is a codecision dossier and – even if the original proposal was a problem – almost the whole of the legislative procedure lies ahead. Timetable information is here, and Sharon Bowles in the EP is on the case. It seems there is some genuine confusion over the compatibility of Vickers with existing legislation (see Mervyn King’s comments here (ignore the silly story title)), but the new proposals amend the legislation currently on the statute books. So this is the chance to make sure everything is compatible.

Fourthly, the Vickers conclusions are due to be implemented in 2018, and the EU proposals according to a similar timeframe, and the timetable for the agreement of the legislation in Brussels is the next 6 months. It is not as if this all has pressing urgency.

I’m just rather surprised that – at an event earlier this morning – I heard a rather extraordinary spat between Charles Grant and a Commission official on this point, with Grant defending the Cameron line. On the basis of my efforts to look at this, documented here, I cannot see how the Cameron line is right.

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.

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.