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?

I pose this question with complete honesty – I really do not know the exact answer, and would like to hear opinions on this. Because without a definitive answer to this question, how could anyone realistically make up their mind in a referendum? Leaving the answer to this important issue until after a referendum would be irresponsible in the extreme, because even those arguing for withdrawal contend that the UK’s relationship with the EU is an matter of high importance.

Here – in rough terms – are three possible scenarios for how life could be for the UK outside, making the UK’s relationship with the EU similar to that of Norway, Switzerland or the USA, and I would be keen to hear thoughts on these.

If the UK were to have a relationship with the EU similar to Norway’s relationship today (in the EEA), this might be how it could look. The UK would be legally obliged to implement all aspects of EU law as applied to the Single Market, but not to agriculture and fisheries. The UK would have no say over those Single Market laws and would just be expected to implement them. The UK would contribute much less to the EU budget (Norway participates in some EU programmes, so pays a little) as it would not be part of the Common Agricultural Policy, but UK farmers would not receive CAP cash. This however would mean that tariffs would apply to export of UK agricultural goods to the EU. The UK would lose any say over EU foreign policy, and would receive no regional funds.

The Switzerland case (EFTA membership) is similar. Here the UK would not be legally obliged to apply EU law relating to the Single Market, and yet would – as in the Norway case – have tariff free access to the Single Market for everything except agriculture and fisheries. However the UK would be allowed to develop legislation applying to market issues that would be different to EU law (lower recycling standards for goods, or lower sanitary standards for foodstuffs for example). This could be argued to be an extension of democratic control in comparison to the Norway case, but would create non-tariff barriers to trade – manufacturers would have to make different versions of goods for the UK market and the EU market. It is worth noting that Switzerland implements all EU food law precisely to avoid this sort of thing. Agriculture and fisheries, and foreign policy and regional funds would be the same as the Norway case.

The USA case is the most extreme. Here the UK’s trade relationship with the EU would be regulated by international negotiations in the WTO, meaning that – within reason – the EU could impose tariffs on the export of goods and services from the UK to the EU, and the UK impose tariffs in return. Any market standards would be free to develop any way the UK government saw fit, but each development at odds with the EU Single Market would create non-tariff barriers. Importantly in such a case the automatic right of UK citizens to live and work in the EU, and EU citizens to live and work in the UK, would not be guaranteed. Agriculture and fisheries, and foreign policy and regional funds would be the same as the Norway case.

In short the Norway case would cause least disruption to trade, but is questionable in democratic terms – with no seat at the negotiation table in Brussels and a legal obligation to implement EU law this solution is even less democratic than current arrangements. The USA case is the opposite – a win for democracy, but a hit for the economy. The Switzerland case is a bit of both.

Which of these scenarios do those that advocate the UK leaving the EU actually want?

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.

When it comes to discussions about the budget the EU needs we’re stuck again. Compare the EU’s €140 billion annual budget to that of other organisations and it’s huge. Compare it to the budget of European states and its something close the the amount of public spending of a state the size of Portugal. Some UK government departments spend more than the entire EU does. [Note: this doesn't mean the EU need spend more, or that what it spends today is right]

So – in short – what’s your yardstick?

Argue that the European Union essentially should remain an intergovernmental bargain among states, that it should remain technocratic, limited and shallow, is an intellectually coherent position. But you cannot in the same breath argue the case that the European Union is not adequately democratic. Networks of states imply incremental progress and slow negotiations behind closed doors. There’s not even the debate over whether the UN, G20 or NATO are democratically legitimate.

Further, the notion that the root of EU democracy lies with national elections is, and will always be, rubbish. Yes, the 27 governments are legitimate, but what can any government honestly put forward in terms of an EU policy in an election campaign and stand a chance of delivering? Just look at the knots the Tories are tying themselves in over the referendum lock idea.

This approach guards national sovereignty, but damns the notion of an effective or democratic EU.

The opposite position is to take the yardstick of a federal state, and use that to determine your answer to questions about EU politics. Here you come up with ways to achieve genuine democratic accountability – a European Parliament that would choose the executive, the European Commission, and hence have a role setting the political direction of the European Union. The EU would gain its legitimacy from the people primarily, but also through its states represented in the Council.

This approach, too, is intellectually coherent, but it damns national sovereignty and emphasises EU-wide democratic legitimacy and effectiveness.

Considering the challenges the western world is facing – succinctly outlined today by Timothy Garton Ash – which of those future EUs would do a better job? I’d bet it’s not the first.

Yet the prospects of making any steps towards the federation of Europe have never looked so distant. For so long federalists could at least use the process of treaty reform to advance the cause of EU-wide democracy forward at a snail’s pace, but that route has hit an impasse in an EU of 27, and it was essentially an elite, bureaucratic process anyway.

Where institutional reform offered a partial solution, proper EU-wide leadership would be another option. But as I’ve previously blogged that prospect is a distant hope, especially in the era of 24 hour news and the internet. The intergovernmental vision is as dominant as it has ever been. With an ageing population and a stuttering economy there’s little prospect of improvement.

Elderly and slightly less elderly federalists try to keep the flame alive, and in sentiment I am with them, although their lack of practical plans about how to move forward and an old-fashioned understanding of legitimacy and politics mean their efforts are destined to fail. Yes, blame the UK all you wish, but there’s scant little determination for federalism anywhere – France and Germany very much included! There also seems to be a recent tendency to favour the term ‘United States of Europe’ – not sure that’s good in Lakoff framing terms. Sure;y we don’t just want USA-lite?

So I’m stuck with the rather negative conclusion – the need for federalism in Europe is more valid than ever, but the prospects of advancing in that direction are further away than ever. It’s all understandable, but not desirable.

[UPDATE - 31.1.2011]
Anand Menon and John Peet have penned 9 pages for CER (pdf here) entitled “Beyond the European Parliament: Rethinking the EU’s democratic legitimacy”. I had intended to write a full blog post about it, but once beyond the 3 line summary realised it’s not worth the effort, and this post on federalism is already an adequate riposte. A quote from the paper: “However, the problem with the EP is that it fails to carry out satisfactorily the core task of any parliament – namely, adequately to represent its electorate. There is more to democratic legitimacy than just being elected. [...] In the absence of any obvious means to remedy this failing, we consider a strengthening of the role of national parliaments to offer the best way of enhancing democratic legitimacy in the EU.” It’s not as if national parliaments are especially legitimate anyway, and how about giving the EP power to choose the Commission (the federal model) – something that Menon and Peet don’t even consider.

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.

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.