Tag Archives: European Union

What would leaving the EU actually mean in practice?

In 2005 I went to France to campaign in the referendum on the European Constitution, making the case for oui. One thing about that campaign has been with me ever since: it was clear what oui would mean (France would ratify) while it was never clear what non would mean. The diverse interpretations of non – from ‘stick with the Treaty of Nice’ via ‘we want a Social Europe instead’ to ‘we want to punish the government’ – meant that non was a responsibility-free shot at the establishment. The EU could have operated with the old treaties, so it’s not as if the non had a particularly high price.

Fast forward 6 years, and calls on left and right of UK politics are growing to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU – in or out. I’ve previously argued why Labour should not favour such a referendum and Nosemonkey has taken apart the People’s Pledge arguments.

This post raises a further issue that all ‘we want to leave’ advocates need to answer: what would leaving the EU actually mean? It’s not as simple as it sounds.

It strikes me that the yes answer to a question such as “Should the United Kingdom should remain a Member State of the European Union?” is simple enough – the relationship with the EU remains unchanged, and the UK fights its corner in the EU, winning some fights and losing some, just as it has since 1973.

But what would about no?

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European federalism – never more necessary, yet never has the prospect looked so distant

Essentially journalists, politicians, bloggers and the general public have two frames of reference when talking about the European Union. Either it’s talked about in terms similar to the descriptions used for international organisations (the UN, NATO) or in terms similar to states.

Take for example the question of whether the EU is adequately democratic. Compare the level of democratic accountability in the EU, where the European Parliament has rather little scope to shape the major issues of the day, and that in a state in the developed world, and the answer is clear – the EU suffers from a democratic deficit. Compare the EU to NATO or the UN and – unique among international organisations – it does have a democratically elected parliament, so it’s far, far ahead of those organisations.


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Some questions for David Cameron today

David Cameron - CC / Flickr

David Cameron - CC / Flickr

It has been widely trailed that David Cameron is going to outline his new European policy today, after capitulating yesterday on the Treaty of Lisbon issue. The feral members of the Tory Party are baying for blood, so what is Cameron going to give them?

The most likely position that Cameron is going to propose to negotiate a withdrawal of the UK from all EU employment and social legislation, essentially getting out of the Social Chapter that Blair agreed. Any sensible journalist should ask the following two questions if that’s what Cameron proposes:

  1. What – in practice – will that mean? What precisely in EU employment and social affairs legislation does the Tory Party disagree with? Does he want to do away with maternity leave? Or the rights of posted or agency workers? None of those things are especially social, and the one thing that would be – the Working Time Directive – is dead at the moment.
  2. Does Cameron think the other Member States would allow the UK to negotiate such an opt-out? For its the Member States that would decide that, not some mendacious Brussels bureaucrats as Cameron might try to imply. I don’t reckon he could get 26 other countries to agree to his plans.

In short, if Cameron says that employment and social affairs matters are the big things he’ll deal with, it will be largely symbolic, and will not be achievable anyway.

Cameron could of course adopt the more wide-ranging, harsher line chosen by David Davis in today’s Daily Mail, positions outlined here on Conservative Home. Quoting Davis:

recovering control over our criminal justice, asylum and immigration policies; a robust opt-out of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights; serious exemptions to the seemingly endless flood of European regulations which cost the UK economy billions of pounds each year; a recovery of our rights to negotiate on trade; exemption from European interference into trade in services and foreign direct investment rules; and an exemption from any restrictions on our foreign policy

Essentially that equates to tearing up the rule book of the EU Single Market – do Tories these days not even believe that a Single Market in Europe is a good thing? Even Thatcher agree with that by signing up to the Single European Act in the 1980s. Plus how would the UK negotiate in the WTO (the logical conclusion on Davis’s line on trade)? How could the UK even stay in the EU if UK financial institutions operated according to different rules than ones in other EU Member States.

Plus Davis would fall into the same trap as Cameron: even if the UK held a referendum stating that the UK wanted such opt-outs, could the Tories pick a fight with the EU and 26 other Member States and actually win it? I seriously doubt it.

If the Tories want to be honest and bold they should promise a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, full stop, in or out. But that prospect might be a bit scary; unrealistic, nationalist posturing is of course much more desirable.

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The joy of languages

lipsToday’s EUObserver has an article about how the European Commission is struggling to find enough English language mother tongue interpreters. As everyone in Brussels works in English, so the need for Brits and Irish to speak other European languages declines – or at least that’s the gist of the article. The scrapping of compulsory language learning to GCSE level in the UK, and the subsequent decline in language graduates is also partly to blame.

This news comes at a time when, for me personally, I have never before profited so much from the languages that I speak. I’ve given interviews on TF1 and Radio Canada in French, and for Deutschlandfunk and RTL Nachtjournal in German. I really need to lose the English accent though. :-( I’ve launched a website for a Swedish MEP and needed knowledge of the language to make the work easier. I spent a week working in Italy where knowledge of Italian made the whole thing so much easier and even allowed me to report on the predicament of the Roma. I’ve also been able to decipher Norwegian government documents and understand an article in NRC Handelsblad in Dutch about Anyone But Barroso.

The essence of all of this is about getting my message across. That’s why I still think Welsh in Council meetings is a waste of time, but personally without my French there would have been no piece about the atheist bus campaign on Radio Canada. I would never have dared live in Berlin. I would never have ended up working on EU politics matters and feeling completely at home in all kinds of places across Europe. And especially the last couple of months have been such fun with languages – oh for more Brits to be able to be equally inspired.

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