Ideas on Europe Blog

So now the truth is out. The ‘Leave’ campaign don’t just want Brexit – they want to see the end of the European Union.

Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, said as much in his keynote speech this week for Vote Leave, the official campaign which he leads, fighting for Brexit in Britain’s EU referendum.

Mr Gove said:

“Britain voting to leave will be the beginning of something potentially even more exciting – the democratic liberation of a whole continent.”

He described Britain’s departure from the EU as “a contagion” that could spread across Europe.

Reporting on Mr Gove’s speech, the BBC stated:

“Leaving the EU could also encourage others to follow suit, said Mr Gove.”

Commenting after the speech, a senior aide for the Leave campaign indicated to the Herald Scotsman that Mr Gove would be, ‘happy if Britain’s in-out referendum sparked similar polls across Europe.’

The Herald Scotsman reporter asked if Brexit would lead to the break-up of the EU as we knew it and the aide replied, “Yes.” When asked if the Out campaign hoped that it would trigger “the end of the Brussels block” the aide replied, “Certainly.”

In his speech, Mr Gove suggested that far from being the exception if Britain left the EU, it would become the norm as most other EU member states would choose to govern themselves. It was membership of the EU that was the anomaly, argued Mr Gove.

The Guardian headline was:

‘Brexit could spark democratic liberation of continent, says Gove’

The Telegraph headline:

‘Michael Gove urges EU referendum voters to trigger ‘the democratic liberation of a whole continent’

The Express headline:

‘BREXIT WILL BREAK-UP EU: Leave vote to spark domino effect across bloc, says Gove’

The Bloomberg headline:

‘U.K. Brexit Vote Would Be End of EU as We Know It, Gove Says’

The Irish Times headline:

‘Michael Gove says other EU states may leave EU’

The right-wing of the Conservative Party, which makes up the biggest support for the Vote Leave campaign, is now in tune with UKIP’s long-held ambition to see the end of the European Union.

On Talk Radio in Spain three years ago, UKIP leader Nigel Farage said that he not only wanted Britain to leave the European Union, he also wanted to see “Europe out of the European Union” – in other words, the complete disintegration of the European Single Market.

This week, Mr Farage shared a Brexit rally platform with Conservative cabinet minister, Chris Grayling, who backed Mr Farage’s chant of, “We want our country back.”

The battle lines are now starkly clear. Britain’s EU referendum is not just about whether Britain should remain in the European Union. It’s now a referendum about whether the European Union itself should continue to exist.

This is no doubt going to wake up all pro-EU supporters across the continent. What happens in Britain on 23 June could result in Brexit and EU breakup.

Britain chose not to be one of the founding members on the Union back in 1957 but joined later, in 1973.

Now Britain might be the first member state to leave the Union, with the open aspiration of the ‘Leave’ campaigners that some or all of the other EU members will follow to the EU exit.

It now seems impossible for ‘Leave’ campaigners to continue with their rhetoric that Britain could negotiate a ‘good deal’ with the European Union if the referendum results in Brexit.

EU leaders will no doubt be in a state of heightened alarm that not only could Britain’s departure from the EU trigger the downfall of the EU, but that this is actually the stated aim of Brexit campaign leaders.

For all of us who cherish the European Union as one of the most successful post-war projects, this is now a battle to ensure that Britain’s EU referendum doesn’t result in either Brexit or the end of the EU.

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Other stories by Jon Danzig:

• EU is the not the USSR
• What does Brexit look like? Nobody knows
• Can’t vote or don’t vote?
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

To follow my stories please like my Facebook page: Jon Danzig Writes

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The post What they really want: End of the EU appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Isn’t it strange how history sometimes seems to repeat itself? Not always in exactly the same way, but in ways to make it seem uncanny.

Take the remarkable resemblances between the referendum of 1975 and the one we’re having now, both regarding Britain’s future in Europe.

Back in 1974 Labour leader, Harold Wilson, won a general election with a very slim majority.

One year earlier Britain joined the European Economic Community (later to be called the European Union) under a Conservative government led by Edward Heath.

Prime Minister Wilson promised to re-negotiate the terms of Britain’s membership and then to hold a referendum on whether to remain in the EEC.

The Labour government was in favour of Britain’s continued membership. But the cabinet was split. So Mr Wilson suspended Cabinet collective responsibility. Cabinet members were allowed to publicly campaign against each other.

In total, seven of the twenty-three members of the Labour cabinet opposed EEC membership, mostly the left-wing stalwarts of the Labour Party, such as Michael Foot, Tony Benn and Barbara Castle.

In some ways, the 1975 referendum was a mirror image of today.

Unlike today, in 1975 the Labour Party and the TUC were against Britain’s membership of what was then nicknamed the Common Market. Indeed, the Labour Party conference voted 2-to-1 against continued membership.

Also unlike today, in 1975 all main British newspapers were in favour of Britain’s continued membership.

And unlike today, Conservative Party members in 1975 were mostly in favour of Britain’s membership. Indeed, the then leader of the Conservative Party and the Opposition, Margaret Thatcher, fervently campaigned for Britain to stay a member.

Some of the same language was used in the 1975 referendum as today. When Labour cabinet minister, Tony Benn, claimed that Britain had lost half-a-million jobs as a result of membership of the EEC, the Daily Mirror responded by calling him, “The Minister of fear.”

Although many Eurosceptics today claim that, in 1975, they were only told that the European Economic Community was to do with free trade, that wasn’t reflected in the campaign literature of the time. In the ‘No’ campaign brochure voters were warned about Common Market membership:

• To end a thousand years of British freedom and independent nationhood is an unheard of constitutional change.

• Do you want us to be a self-governing nation, or to be a province of Europe?

• Do we want self-government as a great independent nation, or do we want to be governed as a province of the EEC by Commissioners and a Council of Ministers, predominantly foreign, in Brussels?

• Do we want to lose the whole of our individual influence as a nation, which is still great, in order to enhance the status of Europe, which would then function largely outside our control?

David Cameron also only won the General Election in 2015 with a very slim majority.

Just as Prime Minister Harold Wilson had promised in 1974, Prime Minister David Cameron also promised in 2015 that he would renegotiate Britain’s membership of the European Union and then hold a referendum.

Just as detractors in 1975 described Mr Wilson’s reforms of Britain’s membership as ‘cosmetic’, so have Eurosceptics today similarly described Mr Cameron’s reforms.

Just as Harold Wilson’s Labour government was in favour of Britain’s continued membership, so is David Cameron’s Conservative government.

Just as the Labour Party membership was mostly against EEC membership in 1975, in 2016 most Conservative Party members are against Britain’s membership of the European Union.

And just as Harold Wilson allowed his Cabinet Ministers in 1975 to campaign against each other on the question of Britain’s future membership, so has David Cameron in 2016 allowed his Cabinet Ministers to campaign against each other.

Just as in Harold Wilson’s Labour government of 1975, a total of seven of David Cameron’s 22 Cabinet Ministers are campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union.

They are mostly the right-wing stalwarts of the Conservative Party including Michael Gove, Chris Grayling and Iain Duncan-Smith (who recently resigned as a Cabinet Minister).

In June 1975, the electorate voted overwhelmingly – two-to-one – in favour of Britain remaining a member of the European Economic Community.

However, the Labour Party was never the same again.

Nine months after the referendum, Prime Minister Harold Wilson resigned.

Four senior Labour Party members later split from the party and formed the Social Democrats in 1981, later to be merged with the Liberal Party.

The 1974 Labour victory wasn’t to be repeated again for 23 years, when Tony Blair won the General Election for Labour in 1997.

Of course, to what extent, if any, the 1975 referendum was responsible for the change in Labour’s fortunes is difficult to prove, and there were many other factors.

However, it’s interesting to compare the striking similarities between Britain’s referendum of 1975 and the one we are about to have in ten weeks time.

Britain’s second referendum campaign on the question of our membership of the European Community has now officially begun. The vote will take place on 23 June, and we will know the result on 24 June.

Will there be any other similarities to the 1975 referendum? We will have to wait and see..

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Other stories by Jon Danzig:

• EU is the not the USSR
• What does Brexit look like? Nobody knows
• Can’t vote or don’t vote?
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

To follow my stories please like my Facebook page: Jon Danzig Writes

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• Share and join the discussion about this article on Facebook:

The post The EU Referendum Repeat appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The opening of the official campaign on the EU referendum hasn’t been all fireworks; instead, it’s been mostly more of the same. Each side trading consequences and perils, questioning the other side’s competence or intent. In particular, we’ve been lacking vision.

The vision thing is an easy one of trash: too many overtones of Tony Blair, too much of a hostage to fortune. But vision matters: when no one seems to agree about the state we’re in, speaking instead of the state we might achieve looks less problematic.

This is particularly true for Leave. Saying that the status quo isn’t good will only get you so far, whereas a vision of the brighter, better future might well draw in more people. As Sunder Katwala noted some time ago, without that positive construct, Leave lacks a focus to its energies. While that might be a painful process, the potential value of a pre-agreed plan to a Leave side that won the vote would be immense, not least in the Article 50 negotiations that followed.

Again, the problems here are legion. Leave covers a huge array of ideological and party political positions that barely agree on what’s wrong with the EU, let alone what’s to be done. Any attempt to push a plan is thus likely to meet with internal resistance, since it will implicitly favour one worldview or another. As such, it might push away as many as it attracts.

All of which makes Michael Gove’s speech this week all the more interesting.

Gove is one of the more thoughtful figures in the Leave camp, in the sense of working through the implications of different decisions and being grounded in the politics of the situation. However, on this occasion, that thoughtfulness seems to have led him to a strange destination (thanks to whoever on Twitter reminded me of this on the confusion of opinion and action).

Gove’s argument is that the UK will be able to move out of the EU’s control but still maintain full access to its markets. He talks of a free trade area stretching across the European continent, which the UK – by virtue of its size and importance – could almost not help be part of. Moreover, the sheer success of the UK in this new position would start a contagion of democracy and would presage the collapse of the EU itself.

This ‘Goveland‘  obviously suffers a number of problems, as commentators (and Remain) were all too happy to point out. Yes, the UK is a large market for the EU, but not nearly as large as the EU market is to the UK. Coupled to the lack of incentive for other member states to give a generous deal to the UK – which would only raise further demands from domestic eurosceptics – and this ‘Albanian model’ looks not only less appealing but also less likely. Finally, as Pawel Swidlicki rightly pointed out, how could the UK negotiate access to an EU that was falling apart?

If the mechanics of the proposal are dubious, then the politics is less so. This speech has been one of the few big moments so far in the debate, where someone has tried to move things on. The absence of a clear leader of Leave means that there is opportunity for Gove to take up the reins, which might serve him well in the future, whatever the outcome. In addition, Gove’s proposal is open enough/lacking enough detail that it could act as an umbrella for many Leavers, at least in the broadest terms.

Gove’s speech matters not for its plan, but for its projection of a strong, independent and confident Britain. It taps into many of the themes that Leave have pushed over recent months, about not doing down the UK and about holding up our heads. For many voters that might be enough to convince them that Leave is the ‘right thing to do’, and we’ll work out the details as we go.

However, this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There has been something of a swing towards Remain in the past week or so, which might be down to the government leaflet, or to the numerous statements about economic uncertainty caused by the potential of Brexit. While Remain has even less of a vision of the future than Leave – essentially, they’re relying on “it’ll be like it is now” – that doesn’t hurt them in the same way. Thus it falls to Leave to make their case stick better in the coming weeks.

The post Leave’s painful choices appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Two years ago, the European Union had its first true electoral campaign held in public for the selection of the EU’s chief administrator, the President of the European Commission. Now, although within a different institutional context, we witness a similar process in the United Nations: the first open nomination procedure for the next chief administrator of the UN, its Secretary-General.

Is Helen Clark a UN Spitzenkandidat(in)? (Screenshot from the hearings live stream, 14 April 2016)

The so-called Spitzenkandidaten-process (‘Spitzenkandidat’ means ‘top candidate’ in German) in 2014 was basically a power-struggle between the European Parliament, especially the main European political parties represented therein, and the European Council, the representation of all 28 heads of state and government in the EU. I  blogged occasionally about this process here, and I followed the process professionally while working at Transparency International.

By now, there’s also ton of research discussing the Spitzenkandidaten-process and how to interpret it. Most arguing it was a win of the European Parliament, but others disagree. The question is whether there is any resemblance to the UN’s (s)election procedure for the next Secretary-General.

With this week’s public hearings of the (first) nine candidates for the post of UN Secretary-General, the UN is also entering a new period that will require a lot of interpretation once the process is over. At UNdispatch, where the hearings and the social media reactions have been nicely covered, Mark L. Goldberg and Richard Gowen have discussed the hearings and how to interpret them in a 30-minute podcast episode well worth listening to.

Interestingly, some elements of the UN Spitzenkandidaten-process are pretty similar to that of the EU’s:

1. Just like the EP asserted the power of de-facto nomination from the European Council, so did the UN General Assembly when proposing in April 2015 to have a more transparent nomination process and now imposing the hearings upon the Security Council.
2. Just like the United Kingdom (and some other European Council members) disagreed with the parliamentary (s)election process and has tried to stop it, Russia and China do not seem to be big fans of the open nomination process. As Goldberg and Gowen discussed in the podcast, Russia was the only permanent member of Security Council not asking questions to the candidates and China only was represented through the G77 representative.
3. Similar to the EU’s Spitzenkandidaten, the ones who have come forward so far include a former prime minister with extensive UN experience – i.e. Helen Clark, kind of the Jean-Claude Juncker of the UN process – or with previous experience as presidents of the UN’s General Assembly – making Vuk Jeremic and Srgjan Kerim the Martin Schulzes of the process.
4. The UN candidates are not just present and visible in the formal hearings, but they are actually campaigning publicly, by touring around the world and (some) use social media campaigns to be visible to a wider public (as did the EU Spitzenkandidaten), although the UN’s public are rather diplomats and political leaders around the world.

There are some other elements that are relevant in both arenas, such as geographical balance, in the UN a rotation between the different regional groups, in the EU a geographical and political balance between the various top posts (European Parliament and Commission presidents, High Representative and European Council president).

The big different is the institutional setting: first, the UN General Assembly is a member state body, whereas the European Parliament is a directly elected assembly. Thus, whereas the Spitzenkandidaten-process in the EU can be seen as a struggle between (supranational) parliamentary forces and (intergovernmental) executive forces, the transparency-process in the UN is rather a struggle between the “Big Five” and the 188 other countries, or, as suggested by the absence of Russia and China in the hearings, a geopolitical fight between public policy making of the “West” and the politics of backroom diplomacy in search of traditional stability by the “East”.

There is a second difference: in the European Council, the United Kingdom could be outvoted thanks to the voting procedures for the nomination of a candidate. In the UN Security Council, each of the Big Five has a veto. In his 2015 article “The Secretary-General We Deserve?” (Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations 21:4), Simon Chesterman suggests that this could lead to a situation in which there is an institutional deadlock:

If the favourite candidate(s) of the General Assembly emerging from the open hearings is (are) blocked by one of the five permanent members, a potential compromise candidate of the Security Council might be blocked by the General Assembly. A similar situation was considered possible after the 2014 European elections, when it was still unclear whether the European Council would ultimately nominate the candidate of the European People’s Party, Jean-Claude Juncker, or some other name.

The majority in the European Parliament pretty much threatened to refuse any other candidate, and in the end won this fight. However, different to the General Assembly, candidates were actually put forward by wider political groups which, in the end, could claim to be legitimised by a popular vote, no matter how invisible the Spitzenkandidaten-process had been in most countries. There is no such legitimising force in the UN General Assembly, and so it will be interesting to see how this plays out when the end of the year comes closer and the term of Ban Ki-Moon comes to an end.

In summary, whereas the two recent or ongoing (s)election procedures for the President of the European Commission and the Secretary-General of the European Council share some common dynamics and elements that make them look similar in some sense, the institutional setting and the geopolitical dimension of the (s)election of the UN Secretary-General makes this process a much different beast to the EU’s recent process. Nevertheless, it is still interesting to see whether the UN’s General Assembly manages to impose its transparent process onto the Security Council, just like the European Parliament did on the European Council.

The post (S)electing the next Secretary-General of the United Nation: similar to the EU’s Spitzenkandidaten-process? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

As the debate about Britain’s place in Europe intensifies ahead of June’s referendum on EU membership, the role of the press has come under close scrutiny. Alastair Campbell, who was director of communications to the former British prime minister, Tony Blair, recently attacked the majority of the UK press for having “totally given up on properly informing the public”.
Meanwhile, writing on the coverage of the referendum in March 2016, Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee said the referendum was “a battle of strength, a war to the death” between the government and press owners Paul Dacre and Rupert Murdoch about “who rules the country”.
While it is easy to exaggerate the short-term impact of newspaper coverage, it is true that a large proportion of British voters feels ill-equipped when asked to decide about continued membership of the EU. Research conducted in 2013 by the independent UK Electoral Commission to test different referendum questions found “low-levels of contextual understanding of the EU, with some participants having no knowledge of the European Union, or the status of UK membership of the EU, at all”.
More importantly, this research showed that participants themselves felt under-informed – and some told the survey staff they had changed their voting intentions as they “became more aware of their lack of knowledge, or thought more in depth about what being a member of the European Union means”.
It would be worrying for a thriving democracy if citizens’ knowledge of the EU remained so low come June 23 that they could not confidently connect their personal preference with the voting choice. It is also worrying because British citizens are the least well-informed in Europe, according to analysis of Eurobarometer survey data by the LSE’s Simon Hix.
The survey contained three simple questions with true-and-false answers such as whether Switzerland is member of the EU or not. Nearly a quarter of British respondents got this question wrong (only Greek Cypriots scored lower here) and only 28% could answer all three questions accurately (just above Latvia).
Sound and fury
So why is public knowledge so low? The electoral commission study considered the media a crucial source of individuals’ knowledge about the EU. Single issues gleaned from it, or from personal experiences, influenced initial voting intentions.
But not all media types are trusted equally. A representative European survey in September 2015 shows that 73% of people in the UK “do not tend to trust” the printed press – the highest figure among all EU member states and a staggering 23% higher than the EU average. The “do not tend to trust” figure for UK television, meanwhile, is 46% – in line with the EU average.
Yet the press is a major source of information about the EU and often sets the agenda for television, which is why many researchers worry about some of the longstanding traits of UK press coverage of the EU.
One very basic issue is accuracy of reporting about how decisions and laws are made in the EU. Press coverage frequently depicts the European Commission as if it had the same powers as a conventional government backed by a majority in parliament and able to have its proposals ratified and implemented. This is inaccurate as the overwhelming majority of legislation can be amended and potentially rejected by the European Parliament as well as by national ministers in the Council, who in turn are accountable to their own parliaments.
Getting it wrong
On the same day that The Sun published its controversial claim that the “Queen Backs Brexit”, the paper also acknowledged that it had confused an opinion by an advocate-general of the European Court of Justice with an actual ruling of the “euro judges”. It is a seemingly trivial example, but part of a broader picture of many press stories containing false alarms about alleged regulatory frenzy against larger condoms and prawn cocktail flavour crisps. Some of these stories are plain wrong, others result from unnecessary national “goldplating” of EU directives as Boris Johnson conceded when giving evidence before the Commons Treasury Select committee.
Another example of deficient press coverage were the 2014 European Parliament elections. Large parts of the press failed to explain to their readers and voters that a change in the Lisbon Treaty meant that one of the candidates nominated by the two large party groupings had a good chance of becoming Commission president. As Simon Hix shows, this resulted in large differences in British and German media coverage of Schulz and Juncker, which also partially explains why Britain ended up in a minority of two (against 26) when opposing the winner of the parliamentary elections as Commission president.
In turn, this misjudgement on the part of the press was partly the result of its overreliance on the government for interpretation of EU issues. In the past this has often translated into a rather one-sided picture of what actually happens behind closed doors at the Council and a failure to appreciate that genuine government victories are much rarer than compromises.
The ‘battle of Brussels’
However, as press attention on the EU has fluctuated strongly depending on the influence of eurosceptics on government majorities, readers can easily miss out on coverage of EU initiatives that are important in their own right and potentially far-reaching consequences, for better or worse. And the familiarity of UK journalists with Westminster’s confrontational culture leads many journalists to cover “Brussels” as a battle of national interests between member states, thus missing the equally important left-right conflict within the various groupings in the EU institutions.
Claims that media coverage of the EU is biased are naturally contested and are difficult to measure accurately. However, a representative survey conducted in November 2015 asked British respondents about how their country’s press presented the EU. British respondents were much more likely to identify negative bias against the EU (23%) than the EU average (11%). British television was seen as more objective (46%) in its EU coverage than the press (37%), but even here the perception of negative bias was ten percentage points higher than the EU average.
It is to be welcomed that some papers, prominent among them The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph, have recognised the problem and try to provide their readers with essential and usually accurate information about the EU and what British membership means in practice, not just different opinions. However, as more newspapers enter campaigning mode, this switch may intensify some of the problems described, and further damage – rather than enhance – readers’ trust in the press.

Christoph Meyer is Professor of European and International Politics at King’s College London.

*this is a slightly longer revised version of a piece first published on The Conversation and the ESRC UK in a Changing Europe Initiative

The post Press coverage of the EU is failing readers and voters* appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

 

There’s not much that’s clear so far in the referendum, but one thing that looks pretty certain is that the campaign has yet to catch the public’s interest fully. Indeed, it might not be pushing things too far to say that most people don’t really care.

The reasons for this are many and various. Firstly, the EU has not been an issue of significant public interest for over a decade: as much as it’s motivated Tory MPs and Eurosceptic activists, the same hasn’t been true of the wider population. Secondly, and related to this, levels of knowledge about the EU remain low, which acts as a disincentive to engage with substantive points of debate. Finally, this is a very long campaign, having been set in train properly by Cameron’s general election success last May, with a couple of years before that of it being a possibility.

In short, people don’t care, don’t understand and don’t feel a sense of urgency.

Clearly, some of this is contingent: as we close in on 23 June, so more people will become interested and engaged. However, the question will be whether this is a big or a small effect.

Why does this matter?

There are two main arguments on this. The main one is the democratic need for participation in a mechanism that is precisely designed to let people have a voice. Whatever the outcome, if it results from a low turnout, then it robs that decision of much of its legitimacy. That holds notwithstanding the British political convention that non-participation is a valid political act: since politicians have decided that they cannot make the decision themselves, it falls to the citizenry to take that role.

The second argument is more self-serving for the Remain camp. Turnout looks more and more to be the crucial factor in this referendum: the polling strongly suggests that the higher that turnout, the more likely a Remain vote will be. This matters all the more, given the lack of obvious movement in polls in recent weeks, despite the European Council deal, Boris’ coming-out or any other event. Of course, the flip side of this is that if turnout can be raised, and Leave still win, then Leave’s mandate will be all the stronger.

How do you get lift-off?

Motivations to one side, the question then is one of how you get significant public engagement. As I’ve argued on these pages many times before, engagement would not only be good for democracy, but also for the consolidation of a clearer British policy towards the EU, which has long floundered on a lack of obvious objectives.

If we assume that there will not be a spontaneous engagement by most people, then something needs to happen to make engagement look attractive. Here it’s helpful to think about this in terms of positive and negative drivers.

On the positive side, we might have the arrival of a strong voice into the debate, who fuels a lot of public interest. However, even writing that sentence highlights the difficulty: we’ve shot our bolts on Boris, Blair, Obama, Clarkson and even the Queen, so it’s not going to be anyone you’ve heard of.

Likewise, the structural inability of the Leave campaign to settle on a single plan for post-membership and the indifference of Remain to strategise how they will continue to promote British interests within the EU mean that the scope of a positive agenda also looks slim.

Negative drivers look more likely. The reaction to external voices – essentially, “butt out of our debate” – illustrates this well, where debate is not valued per se, but only within a heavily gate-kept framework. The things that are more likely to cut through that are also more likely to be negative articulations of fears or risks.

Partly, that comes from the wider environment. An EU facing another summer of the migrant crisis, weak Eurozone economic performance, aggressive Russian posturing, awkward Turkish and TTIP negotiations and assorted populist challenges within member states looks a lot like a recipe for multiple negative headlines. Worse still, those potential points of weakness or failure would go straight to challenging what limited legitimacy the EU has, based on its outputs.

Making that even more difficult, both sides in the campaign might be tempted to push negative claims about each other. While Leave might have an embarrassment of riches in extrapolating from the EU’s failures, so too can Remain make hay from the contradictions that arise from the multiple alternative futures offered outside the EU. Whatever one thinks of “Project Fear” type agendas, shock stories do have some media value. It’s not hard to imagine pieces about either outcome will destroy the NHS, cripple the economy, mean the end of the British countryside as we know it, and the rest.

To some extent, all of these things are already out there: indeed, that rather proves the point that publics aren’t that engaged. Drivers can only got so far if they lack receptive audiences. The danger is that the only things that matter are those that occur in the final couple of weeks: given the extent of the ramifications of the decision, that looks rather careless, both on the part of politicians and on the part of citizens.

The post Achieving lift-off in the referendum appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Thee Queen has issued a formal complaint against The Sun newspaper’s claim that she supports Brexit.

Last week The Sun ran a front-page ‘exclusive’ claiming that, ‘the Queen has been hailed as a supporter of Brexit’.

According to the Sun’s version of events, ‘Her majesty let rip’ during a lunch at Windsor Castle with the then deputy prime minister and Lib-Dem leader, Nick Clegg.

It’s reported that the event took place in 2011 during the coalition government between the Conservatives and Lib-Dems.

The Sun’s report asserted:

‘The 89-year-old monarch firmly told passionate pro-European Mr Clegg that she believed the EU was heading in the wrong direction. Her stinging reprimand went on for “quite a while”, leaving other guests around the table stunned.’

And The Sun added,

‘Brexit-backing Tory MPs are already leaping on The Sun’s revelations as a strong sign the Queen is secretly on the side of Leave ahead of the landmark EU referendum on June 23.’

The newspaper also quoted Tory Eurosceptic MP, Jacob Rees Mogg as saying:

‘The reason we all sing God Save The Queen so heartily is because we always believe she is there to protect us from European encroachment.’

Former Lib-Dem leader, Nick Clegg, has  complained that he had no recollection of the conversation ever taking place.

Buckingham Palace officials confirmed that the Queen is neutral on matters of politics, and that she disputes The Sun’s version of events.

In modern times the Queen cannot throw the Editor of the Sun, Tony Gallagher, or indeed, The Sun’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, into the Tower of London, although maybe she’d like to.

So instead, The Queen  is making a complaint to IPSO, the ‘Independent Press Standards Organisation.’

Although, I would hardly call IPSO independent – it’s owned, and mostly run, by the press: the very people who would want to protect their industry, rather than uphold complaints against it.

The Queen is complaining to IPSO under clause 1 of their ethics code called, The Editors Code of Practice, which deals specifically with inaccurate stories in the newspapers. However, it should be noted that the chairman of the Editors Code of Practice is none other than Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail – who just attended the wedding of Rupert Murdoch, owner of The Sun.

The Sun says it stands by its story that the Queen supports Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, and that it has impeccable sources and will “defend this complaint vigorously”.

I don’t have confidence that the press watchdog – mostly run by the press – will adequately investigate or adjudicate on the Queen’s complaint.  Let’s see.. I would hope to be surprised and proved wrong, as for sure, we do need a proper press regulator. (See my video below: why I won’t use IPSO)

In the meantime, although we don’t know for sure what the Queen said in private, we do know what she said in public.  Last June, speaking in Germany, the Queen talked about Britain’s relationship with the rest of Europe.

(That’s four years after her disputed comments in private that the EU was ‘heading in the wrong direction’).

Speaking with her Greek husband by her side, the Queen at least hinted that she supports the UK’s continued membership of the European Union.  The Queen spoke in front of an audience of 700 dignitaries in Berlin, including British Prime Minister, David Cameron, and German Chancellor, Angela Merkel.

She said:

“The United Kingdom has always been closely involved in its continent. Even when our main focus was elsewhere in the world, our people played a key part in Europe.”

And addressing German President, Joachim Gauck, the Queen continued:

“In our lives, Mr President, we have seen the worst but also the best of our continent. We have witnessed how quickly things can change for the better. But we know that we must work hard to maintain the benefits of the post-war world.

“We know that division in Europe is dangerous and that we must guard against it in the West as well as in the East of our continent. That remains a common endeavour.”

Observed The Guardian at the time:

‘As she spoke, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor who sat at the Queen’s table in Berlin’s Schloss Bellevue along with her husband Joachim Sauer, nodded vigorously, a gesture that did not go unnoticed among observers.’

The Queen spoke of the advantages of Britons emigrating to the rest of Europe in the past, such as the Welsh engineer, John Hughes. He founded the mining town of Donetsk, now in Ukraine, in the Russian empire of the 19th century.

She also mentioned the 17th-century Scottish publican Richard Cant, who moved his family to Pomerania.

“His son moved further east to Memel and his grandson then moved south to Königsberg, where Richard’s great-grandson, Immanuel Kant, was born,” said the Queen.

The German media were very supportive of the Queen’s visit. The Bild mass daily described her as “the secret weapon of British diplomacy” on a visit to “remind everyone of how poor Europe would be without the UK”.

And the Handelsblatt business daily commented:

‘Every gesture, every word of the queen in the coming days has meaning, for Germany, Britain, Europe. It is the politics of the apolitical.’

But possibly it was Britain’s ‘Guardian’ newspaper headline that summed up both the mood and impression following the Queen’s historic speech:

‘The Queen hints at desire for Britain to remain in European Union.’

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• They want their country back, not yours
• Winston Churchill wrongly recruited for Brexit
• Never again? It’s happening again
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Writing exclusively for the Daily Telegraph, London Mayor Boris Johnson said that if Britain left the EU, “we would have to recognise that most of our problems are not caused by Brussels”.

Mr Johnson made his remarks after Michael Gove and Philip Hammond became the first two Cabinet ministers openly to support leaving the EU unless there is significant reform.

But responding in his Telegraph article, titled ‘We must be ready to leave the EU if we don’t get what we want’, Mr Johnson claimed that, “the question of EU membership is no longer of key importance to the destiny of this country”.

In his article, Mr Johnson added that he supports an EU referendum – but warned that Britain’s problems will not be solved by simply leaving the EU as many of his Conservative colleagues apparently believe.

The mayor asserted:

“If we left the EU, we would end this sterile debate, and we would have to recognise that most of our problems are not caused by ‘Bwussels’, but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills, a culture of easy gratification and underinvestment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure.”

He added:

“Why are we still, person for person, so much less productive than the Germans? That is now a question more than a century old, and the answer is nothing to do with the EU. In or out of the EU, we must have a clear vision of how we are going to be competitive in a global economy.”

Mr Johnson warned that there might be a risk that international companies could stop investing in Britain if we left the EU. He also cautioned that UK firms could be put at a “long-term disadvantage” if Britain was unable to “influence the standards and regulations in Brussels.”

There was also an argument, alerted Mr Johnson, that the EU, “is better placed to strike trade deals with the US, or China, than the UK on its own” – although this proposition hadn’t actually been tested.

Mr Johnson added that, “More generally, there is a risk that leaving the EU will be globally interpreted as a narrow, xenophobic, backward-looking thing to do.”

He wrote that there may be other good reasons for Britain to stay in the EU, “but I can’t think of them now.” On the other hand, if Britain left the EU, “we could save money… we get back our sovereignty.. we can no longer blame Brussels.”

But Mr Johnson’s article concluded that we “have to recognise that most of our problems are not caused by Bwussels..”

And in a nuanced comment on the EU referendum debate, the London Mayor urged, “we need a much more informed debate about the pluses and minuses of EU membership”.

It should be noted that Mr Johnson wrote his article for The Telegraph back in May 2013.

Now, Mr Johnson is campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union. Writing exclusively for the Daily Telegraph he stated, “There is only one way to get the change we want – vote to leave the EU.”

The influential economist, John Maynard Keynes, is often quoted as saying, “When the facts change, I change my mind.”

Have the facts about the EU fundamentally changed since 2013?

No.

So why has Mr Johnson now changed his mind and is campaigning for Britain to leave the EU to ‘solve our problems’?

Your guess is as good as mine..

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Other stories by Jon Danzig:

• Boris Johnson’s big blunder
  
• They want their country back, not yours
  
• Never again? It’s happening again
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The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. It is the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice, which was established under the League of Nations. Located in the Peace Palace in The Hague, the ICJ is composed of 15 judges, who are elected by the U.N. General Assembly to serve nine-year terms.

The ICJ is empowered to decide two types of cases. First, the ICJ can issue advisory opinions when requested to do so by the Security Council, the General Assembly or several other United Nations bodies authorized to request such opinions. Since its creation, the ICJ has issued twenty-one advisory opinions.

Second, the Court can exercise jurisdiction in a contentious case between two or more States with the consent of the parties. The ICJ does not have jurisdiction over individuals, except to the extent that a State espouses their claims. Since its creation, the ICJ has issued judgments in thirty-nine contentious cases. That amounts to the Court hearing an average of less than two cases each year. During the 1990s, however, the Court became increasingly active, and it currently has eight contentious cases, and two requests for advisory opinions on its docket.

Consent to jurisdiction over contentious cases can be given in three ways. First, States can agree to have their disputes decided by the ICJ on an ad hoc basis. Second, many treaties contain provisions giving the ICJ jurisdiction over any dispute between parties to the treaty as to its interpretation or application. Third, States may make a declaration under Article 36(2) of the ICJ statute, agreeing to the compulsory jurisdiction of the Court in relation to other States that have made a like declaration. As of 1997, fifty-nine States had accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ.

Declarations made under Article 36(2) may specifically exclude certain categories of disputes from the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction. Such declarations are subject to reciprocity, and a defendant state against which a proceeding is brought may invoke an exclusion not stipulated in its own declaration but included in the declaration of the plaintiff state.

The United States had agreed in 1946 to the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ with two principal exceptions. The first, known as the “Connelly reservation,” provided that the United States does not accept the jurisdiction of the ICJ over disputes with regard to matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of the United States as determined by the United States. The second, known as the “Vandenberg reservation” exempted the United States from the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction with respect to any disputes arising under a multilateral treaty unless all parties to the treaty affected by the decision are also parties to the case before the Court. After the ICJ ruled that it had jurisdiction over Nicaragua’s suit against the United States concerning U.S. support of the Contras and mining of Nicaragua harbors, the United States terminated its acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ.

The termination of the United States’ acceptance of the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction has not completely immunized the United States from the ICJ. The United States has subsequently been hailed before the ICJ on several occasions pursuant to clauses contained in multilateral treaties to which the United States is a party. It has become the recent practice of the United States to make a reservation opting out of the ICJ jurisdiction clause of multilateral treaties at the time of ratification, but the United States continues to be party to over one hundred treaties containing an ICJ jurisdiction clause.

Judgments of the ICJ are binding between the parties. Under Article 94(1) of the U.N. Charter, all members of the United Nations have undertaken to comply with a judgment of the ICJ in any case to which they are parties. If a party fails to comply with the judgment of the ICJ, any other party may call on the Security Council to enforce the judgment. ICJ decisions are widely recognized as important statements of existing international law, and they are often cited as authority to support fundamental principles of international legal development.

Contentious cases usually involve three phases. First, the parties often request that the ICJ “indicate” provisional measures in order to preserve their respective rights while a case is pending. Decisions on provisional measures are usually issued within a few weeks from the initial request. While provisional measures are somewhat analogous to a preliminary injunction or a temporary restraining order under U.S. domestic law, the court has never ruled whether an order indicating provisional measures is mandatory on the parties. The second phase involves challenges to the Court’s jurisdiction. The Court will entertain briefs and oral arguments on the matter before making a decision. Finally, the Court will entertain briefs and oral arguments on the merits of the case. From start to finish, the ICJ may take several years to rule on a dispute. The final decision of the ICJ is not subject to appeal.

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Britain belongs with the European Union, despite their differences.

The European Union is a crucial part of the fabrics that make up Great Britain. Although, it is nowadays one of the most important talking points in British politics, for a very long time, the European Union had not occupied the consciousness of many British people. As times keep changing the picture of British politics, factors such as the eurozone crisis happening in fellow European countries, has not managed to alter the perspective that if the British are faced with a sudden in-out referendum, then they are going to overwhelmingly steer clear from the thought of Britain exiting the European Union.

David Cameron started playing a risky game in politics the moment he decided to launch a referendum for Britain’s status within the European Union. His basket of thoughts on complex issues such as sovereignty and migration has called for an upheaval of the European Union simply to push in a limited set of reforms that could have been done without, like his avoidance of addressing his own instigated referendum, for a noticeable period of time. This pieced-together decision of numerous heads of governments is singularly suggestive of the referendum scheduled for June 23 to be an aimless, unclear, harmful, senseless and odd piece of political work.

People who are for a Brexit have no clue about what are the positives of leaving the European Union and the British are far too conservative to entertain the idea that their own sovereign state will ever be acting independently from the European Union. Great Britain had signed the Maastricht Treaty, with its fellow European countries in 1992 that had officially proclaimed the European Union into reality, so the public have never really been denied the chance to express their opinion with freedom about the Union. This legally binding referendum should, therefore be looked upon as an opportunity instead to let the British permanently become a part of the European Union with the help of international law. The deal should be more authoritative and not be subjected to the decisions of the heads of governments of all of the member states, at any point in time.

The Eurozone crisis is posing as a major problem for the British perspective on the European Union.

If there is any dissatisfaction involved with Britain’s position in the European Union, then it should be reserved for certain proposed amendments instead, which the 1969 Vienna convention already permits. Let’s not beat around the bush: Euroscepticism is a major driver of political ideologies for all British parties and they have very rarely been able to address concerns over European integration. Geographically, Britain is detached from Europe as an island country and has had a victorious record at the Second World War. The foundations of British thought were laid with those ideas in mind and factors, such as pride, a love for democracy, liberty and independence, made Britain what it is today: individualistic.

Britain never thought it necessary to cooperate with fellow European powers for the common good because it also had the Commonwealth (and a positive relationship with the United States) to ponder about. Furthermore, Britain still runs on the Anglo-Saxon model of less regulation and more capitalism inclusive of national social welfare, unlike European states who like to put their faith in state interference. Meanwhile, the eurozone crisis sounds alarming to Euroscepticism here because now whilst doing common good to Europe, states are also being asked to pitch in and support weaker states, through national wealth redistribution. This crisis is denting the idea of Europe for the British, coupled up with fluctuating levels of British interest in the EU, when you want to talk about the nation’s history. During the early eighties, most British people were not concerned with the thought of Europe and in the nineties, many members of the general public quizzed the European agenda for Britain.

The European Union influences policy in Great Britain but there is this likelihood that the British public will want different sets of opinions guiding all of that for the many different policy divisions, such as for foreign policy and social policy. But the European Union does not need to dictate British national policy if it doesn’t want to because subjects such as the labour market, education and employment can be led with a different British point of view, than the kind that would perhaps guide a more European policy framework. It is also important to note that since post-2011 (and specifically when the Masstricht Treaty was signed) the popularity index for Britain’s position inside of the European Union peaked. This means that despite the differences in attitudes and thinking over Europe, the British are still deeply interested in Britain remaining a part of the European Union.

The post The Brexit Debate appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

When the European Council finally drew to a close on February 19, 2016, the deal to help secure the UK’s continued membership in the European Union (called the ‘Anti-Brexit’ deal in continental newspapers) was finally agreed. After years of discussions and months of negotiations, there was a deal, publically available. This document provides insight into the issues highest on the UK renegotiation agenda, and how the UK and its EU partners were able to reach a compromise. Analysing it from an environmental perspective reveals a number of surprises.

Firstly, this document does mention the environment. Looking back to UK calls for EU reform over the last twenty years, this should not be surprising. Hence, in the wake of the Danish ‘no’ vote to the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, the Major Government produced a ‘hit list’ of social and environmental legislation it wanted scrapped. In his 2013 Bloomberg Speech and in the discussions which ensued in the UK’s House of Commons afterwards, David Cameron identified environmental policies as an area in which the EU had gone too far. But when it came to the negotiation proper, the environment together with the Common Agricultural Policy — two usual suspects when it comes to UK-sponsored EU reform — were conspicuously absent.  Hence it is surprising in itself that the environment even gets not one, but four mentions in the text (although two of these refer to the “changing environment” – a reference to the economic, not the natural, environment).

Secondly, environment is mentioned in relation to competitiveness – as part of “Section B” on competitiveness of the UK-EU deal as well as in the annexed European Council declaration on competitiveness. This, in itself, is not surprising. Recent British efforts to increase EU action on ‘red tape’ decried the economic cost of environmental action (e.g. the 2013 Business Task Force report pushed for a reform of REACH, and opposed the proposed soil directive). Similarly, at EU level, talks of REFIT and an ever greater focus by Team Juncker on better regulation has been interpreted as pitting the environment against competitiveness (and favouring the latter) by European environmental NGOs in their highly successful #NatureAlert campaign. No, what is surprising is that the environment figures in a rather positive light in this document:

 UK-EU deal (p.15)

At the same time, the relevant EU institutions and the Member States will take concrete steps towards better regulation, which is a key driver to deliver the above-mentioned objectives. This means lowering administrative burdens and compliance costs on economic operators, especially small and medium enterprises, and repealing unnecessary legislation as foreseen in the Declaration of the Commission on a subsidiarity implementation mechanism and a burden reduction implementation mechanism, while continuing to ensure high standards of consumer, employee, health and environmental protection.

Competitiveness declaration (p. 30)

The European Council urges all EU institutions and Member States to strive for better regulation and to repeal unnecessary legislation in order to enhance EU competitiveness while having due regard to the need to maintain high standards of consumer, employee, health and environmental protection. This is a key driver to deliver economic growth, foster competitiveness and job creation.

So, what does this deal mean for the future of EU environmental policy? These EUCO conclusions confirm that, even when talking about environmental policy in a rather positive tone, EU governments are talking about its achievements in the past tense – it is about “continuing to ensure” and “maintain[ing]” “high standards”. It is not about raising standards and policy expansion. High environmental standards are caveats to the better regulation surge – not an alternative policy agenda. While this may alleviate concerns about the fate of the environmental acquis (i.e. the rules already in place) it does nothing to alleviate concerns about the EU’s capacity for increasing its ambition in the future. This is particularly problematic for areas in which the EU is already falling behind – with regard to biodiversity, where its current policies fall short of its objective to halt biodiversity loss by 2020, and with regard to climate change, where the surprisingly ambitious Paris COP21 deal means EU climate policies are not currently strong enough to deliver on the Paris pledge.

 

The post A surprising deal? Cameron’s ‘reformed EU’ & the environment appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Business minister, Anna Soubry, the most enthusiastic pro-EU member of the government’s cabinet, has sent a letter to UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, with three vital questions.

She posed the questions after Mr Farage made clear that he didn’t want Britain to remain in the Single Market of Europe if the referendum resulted in a ‘leave’ decision. Instead, said Mr Farage, he wanted Britain to be “a fully independent country” (although it’s not quite clear what that means).

Subsequently, Ms Soubry sent these three questions to Mr Farage:

1. Was he happy that his policy would increase the costs for business because the UK would face the EU’s common external tariff, which stands at 10% for cars and 15% for food?

2. How long would it take for the UK to renegotiate trade deals with more than 50 countries with whom the UK trades on the basis of EU deals?

3. Did Farage accept that the UK would have to accept many EU regulations, in order to trade with the EU, while having no say over how they were drawn up?

Ms Soubry also asked Mr Farage:

“I suspect you will claim that these consequences are avoidable by our negotiating a new ‘free trade deal’ with the EU. If so, can you set out precisely the terms you would expect and any evidence that they are credible and achievable? If not, your response will be taken as a sign that you want only to cover up the serious consequences of Britain leaving Europe.”

An answer is awaited from Mr Farage.

Footnote: What interests me is why any answers from Mr Farage should be taken seriously? He is not in power. He is not a Member of Parliament. He is not in government. His party only has one MP who most often disagrees with Mr Farage on Britain’s possible Brexit terms.

If Britain decides on 23 June to leave the EU, Mr Farage still won’t be in power. What difference will his answers make (assuming he can answer at all)?

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• UKIP’s fantasy island
  
• What does Brexit look like? Nobody knows
• Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Farage?
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#EUReferendum 3 questions for @Nigel_Farage by #UKgov minister @Anna_Soubry See my Facebook: https://t.co/mL8IUSA513 pic.twitter.com/cFXwJ92wS2

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The UK’s renegotiation of its EU membership concluded on Friday at the European Council in Brussels. The text of the settlement is contained in the Council conclusions. We also now know that the EU referendum will take place on Thursday 23 June 2016. Some comments on the renegotiation and referendum:

David Cameron EU Statement – Feb 2016, Georgina Coupe (Crown Copyright), CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0

1. This is an historic agreement. It is the first time that a Member State has unilaterally sought (and achieved) a renegotiation of its own terms of EU membership. This process has been entirely centred on the UK. In practice, however, many elements of the deal will impact the other Member States and the EU more generally. More to the point, how long before the next country seeks its own deal? The future of European integration, which inherently depends upon a high degree of policy harmony and/or unity, could be put into question in the months and years ahead.

2. The deal combines symbols and substance. Stating that the EU is a ‘multi-currency Union’, opting the UK out of ‘ever closer union’ and reiterating that states are responsible for its own national security are highly symbolic. The new ‘red card’ on subsidiarity for national parliaments is interesting, but it is unlikely to be used often. Parliaments would need to work together to exercise this right and, for different reasons, they may well not be interested in doing so. The restrictions on the free movement of workers (ie access to in-work benefits) represent a fundamental change in how the EU has functioned. The measures are relatively modest and unlikely to reduce the movement of EU citizens into the UK, which is ostensibly their objective. However, the precedent that non-discrimination on the basis of nationality can be made flexible in this way is a significant concession on the part of the other Member States.

3. Its impact on the campaign will be mixed. The content of the deal may not exert substantial influence on (undecided) voters. Most of it is technical and legalistic. The principles which the agreement is meant to amend are also not particularly well known amongst the UK public. However, that is not to say that the deal is unimportant. The fact of simply having a deal (whatever it contains) plays into the narrative that the EU has been ‘reformed’ and is therefore now more acceptable. Instrumentalisation of the deal could sway voters one way or the other.

4. The referendum date has broader implications. The decision by the UK government on the June date raises questions about the impact on the devolved institutions and local government. Devolved elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and local elections in England and Wales are scheduled for Thursday 5 May 2016. That leaves just under seven weeks (48 days) between the elections and the referendum. It is possible that the campaigns will become conflated with each other. The emergence of ‘Europe’ as a central issue in the May elections could also alter the dynamics of the respective campaigns. More broadly, the four months between the announcement of the date and the referendum is not a particularly long time to campaign (compared for instance to the Scotland independence referendum), although low-level campaigning and preparation have been ongoing for some time.

5. The vote won’t settle the UK’s relationship with the EU. The referendum is only one step in a wider process. If the UK votes to stay in the EU, the status quo of membership will continue, as modified by the changes provided for in the settlement. Arguments around EU membership will continue and opponents are likely to seek a second referendum in the future. If the UK votes to leave the EU, years-long discussions will take place to determine the new arrangements for UK-EU relations. This new relationship will presumably need to be legitimised in some way, perhaps through a vote in Parliament or even another referendum. In any case, the debate will continue, at varying intensities, for the foreseeable future. The next four months are likely to be particularly intense indeed.

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Salamone, A (2016) ‘Five Comments on Britain’s EU Settlement’, Britain’s Europe (Ideas on Europe), 22 Feb 2016, britainseurope.uk/19

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The mayor of one of the world’s most pro EU capital cities has announced that he wants Britain to leave the European Union.

Boris Johnson, MP and London’s Mayor, made his announcement after apparently agonising over the decision for hours and following the pleas of Prime Minister, David Cameron, for him not to abandon the government’s position for Britain to remain in the EU.

Boris’s view is apparently clear: in the event of Britain leaving the EU, he will be in ‘pole position’ to see-off David Cameron and rival, Chancellor George Osborne, and grab his long coveted job of Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

From his comments today, it seems that his strategy on a ‘Leave’ victory in the referendum would then be to negotiate a new and ‘better’ deal with the European Union.

My view? It’s an enormous gamble by Mr Johnson and one he may live to regret for the rest of his life.

Over the next four months, Britain and Britons are going to be exposed for the first time to fuller facts about the European Union, and all the hype and misinformation that we’ve been fed for years will be robustly challenged and corrected.

The country will go from blissful ignorance about the functioning and benefits of the European Union, to becoming global experts.

We’ve seen from past referenda campaigns in other European countries that such increased knowledge usually results in the populace becoming much more in favour of EU membership.

The bookies currently foresee a referendum victory for Britain to ‘remain’ in the EU – and unlike pollsters, bookmakers are more usually accurate at predictions.

It seems Boris has backed the wrong side. No doubt he’ll be able to brush that off with his usual bluster and buffoonery when the referendum results are announced on 24 June that Britain has voted to ‘Remain’ in the EU.

But just say Britain votes to ‘Leave’ the EU, and Boris cycles over to 10 Downing Street to take up his new position as Prime Minister. If he then tries to negotiate a ‘new deal’ with the EU, he will almost certainly be sent back home with a severe haircut.

Contrary to the view of Brexiters, EU leaders are not so desperate to keep Britain in the European club, otherwise they would have given Mr Cameron everything he demanded. They didn’t.

The foundational principles of the EU are much more important than the vexatious demands of one recalcitrant EU member, let alone an ex-member.

And if Britain leaves the European Union, what will happen to our Union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

Almost certainly, Scotland would immediately demand a referendum to leave the United Kingdom and apply to join the European Union as an independent state. It’s quite possible that Wales and Northern Ireland, which are both much more pro-EU than England, could follow.

Then Boris would be Prime Minister only of Little England. Yes, he might ‘get his country back’, but it could be only one country out of four. He’d be ‘king’ of a much smaller castle; no longer an island state and leading EU member, but surrounded and sandwiched by EU member-states over which he’d have no say or influence.

So the referendum exercise – if ‘Leave’ wins as Boris Johnson hopes – could result in not ‘getting our country back’ but instead losing our United Kingdom of countries.

The European Union would still exist, without England, but possibly with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as EU members.

Such a scenario is not beyond the realms of possibility. Boris could become leader of a country – and a Tory party – literally cut in half.

Boris has blundered. He should have shown loyalty to his Prime Minister and backed the ‘Remain’ campaign, in the unselfish interests of his party, the countries of the United Kingdom, and the capital city which he represents as Mayor.

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Other stories by Jon Danzig:

• Proud to be British and European
• A reminder: What has the EU done for us?
• EU migrants are NOT ‘bleeding dry the NHS’
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

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The @MayorofLondon @BorisJohnson has made a big mistake backing #LeaveEU. My blog explains: https://t.co/YVEAglDwqc pic.twitter.com/EqnnMeVcHy

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) February 22, 2016

 

#EUReferendum: Boris’s big blunder – does he wants #UK to #LeaveEU so he can lead UK? Blog: https://t.co/KyALcBqgXU pic.twitter.com/l9RFCs6y2k

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) February 22, 2016

The post Boris Johnson’s big blunder appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

• The new InFacts website, putting right incorrect ‘facts’ about the European Union

It’s often said that truth is the first casualty of war, and it seems that’s also the case with the way the EU referendum is going so far.

Facts, stats and data are flying about all over the place from all sides, and it’s not surprising that many people are confused.

This morning, for example, over a communal hotel breakfast, friends and colleagues claimed, “The EU isn’t democratic!” and “The EU accounts have never been signed-off!” and “EU migrants only come here for the benefits!”

All these statements are untrue, but when trying to challenge them, the incredulous reply is often, “I don’t believe you!”

Well, of course, as an independent journalist I have been trying my best to post factual articles to counter the mistruths about Britain’s membership of the EU. But with few resources and working on my own, there is a limit to what I can achieve.

Now, however, a new website has launched that I can highly recommend. It’s called InFacts.org and it’s doing a sterling service in combating some of the blatantly incorrect information being published and broadcast about the European Union.

It has, for example, a section called ‘Sin Bin’ where every day it takes to task statements proclaimed by newspapers and politicians that are provably wrong.

Hopefully this will be helpful to all those who, like me, support Britain’s continued membership of the EU, and need ready-facts at the breakfast or dinner table when discussing with friends and family whether Britain should stay in the EU.

And it seems that, in the lead-up to the EU referendum, such meal-time, pub-time and work-time discussions are going to become more and more prevalent and likely quite heated too.

• In the latest edition of Infact’s ‘Sin Bin’, The Independent is taken to task for falsely reporting that, since 2010, one-third of new jobs were taken by foreigners. 
• Tory MEP and ardent Eurosceptic, Daniel Hannan, is challenged for wrongly stating that the EU only has trade-deals with two Commonwealth countries. 
• Vote.Leave boss, Matthew Elliot, is pulled up for erroneously claiming that the UK sends almost £20 billion a year to the EU. 
• And Margaret Thatcher’s former Press Secretary, Bernard Ingham, is ‘sin binned’ for wrongly claiming that the EU accounts haven’t been signed off for ‘nigh on 20 years.’

For these and other ready-facts and challenges on why ‘Britain should stay in the EU’, take a look at the new ‘In Facts’ website at www.infacts.org

Does the fact that I am promoting ‘In Facts’ make me biased as a journalist? Yes, it does.

I am openly pro-EU and happy to declare that as ‘an interest’. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t also have a healthy respect for the truth. As I have often written, I accept the truth, and don’t argue with it, whether I like it or not.

After all, my reputation as a journalist of many years standing is based on being a truthful and honest reporter of facts.

So, if the Leave campaign do come up with better information and verifiable evidence that Britain should end its membership of the EU, then yes, my mind is open to change. So far, however, they haven’t managed to persuade me.

Sure, there is a lot wrong with the EU. However, my view is that the EU isn’t bad enough, and the alternatives aren’t good enough, for Britain to leave. So, consequently, I intend to vote for Britain to ‘Remain’ in the EU.

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Other stories by Jon Danzig:

• A reminder: What has the EU done for us?
• EU migrants are NOT ‘bleeding dry the NHS’
• What Nigel Farage told British expats in Spain
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

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The publication of the UK’s draft EU settlement marks another milestone in the refashioning of its relationship with the EU. The proposals – which remain to be agreed in the European Council and thus could change – are noteworthy for their comprehensive and exacting nature. They represent a new mode of engagement between a Member State and the EU.

As I have written previously, this is the first time a Member State has unilaterally sought a renegotiation of its own terms of membership. This draft deal is not a means of accommodating a country trying to ratify an EU treaty (like Denmark with Maastricht or Ireland with Lisbon). Nor is it inherently in response to a particular policy change at European level. It is the product of national politics and the implementation of a manifesto pledge.

The ramifications for the EU of this unilateral approach remain unclear. How long before the novelty wears off and other countries seek their own individual settlements? Some will suggest that such a prospect is unlikely and that the UK is a special case. However, other Member States have opt-outs, protocols and reservations in their favour – having opt-outs does not in itself make a Member State unique.

It is true that the likelihood of another state (particularly a less influential one) succeeding in winning its own EU settlement is marginal. Nevertheless, the argument could be made, and refusal to accept it might damage the EU’s legitimacy. More to the point, how could Britain seriously stand in the way of another country following in its footsteps?

The draft deal would make a number of substantive changes to the EU’s architecture. If agreed, the potential qualifications of the free movement of workers would be ground-breaking. Over time, the implications of such a move could certainly be wider than the drafters ever intended.

Other measures are important but less radical, such ‘taking account’ of opposition by national parliaments to EU legislative proposals on grounds of subsidiarity. Agreement to eventually attach a protocol to the EU treaties clarifying that ‘ever closer union’ does not equate to obligatory political integration for the UK is less substantive.

Regardless of the meaning of creating ‘an ever closer union of the peoples of Europe’, the UK would have always had a say in any treaty change, and if it did not want to take part a significant new EU initiative, it would surely have received an opt-out, as it has always had before.

More importantly, the eventual settlement will carry a strong symbolic value. It attempts to codify the UK’s EU membership, listing all the opt-outs it already holds, such as on Economic and Monetary Union, the Schengen acquis and parts of police and judicial cooperation. It singles out specific elements of one country’s relationship with the EU – a sort of bespoke terms and conditions of membership. This kind of agreement runs counter to how the EU has always worked before.

Moreover, such differentiation would set the UK apart from the other Member States. The UK will not help Eurozone countries in financial crisis (who presumably will not be lining up to help the UK if it ever needed it). It will not treat EU workers equally under certain circumstances. In short, it will not participate in much of what the EU is meant to be about.

This arrangement would likely sap much of the goodwill from the UK’s EU membership. It is understood, and accepted, that the UK will not partake in particular elements of European integration. However, coldly stating the fact, codifying it and adding on to it are unlikely to endear Britain to the rest of the EU. It moves in the direction of reducing the UK’s membership to a transactional relationship between it and the other EU Member States.

The EU has always been about more than transactions, even for countries largely averse to political integration. Presuming the deal is agreed, it will have broader implications for the UK’s place in the EU. It has the potential to generate sizeable ill-will from the other Member States, which will have compromised much for the UK. It could also damage the UK’s long-term influence in the EU. If countries perceive the UK as semi-detached from the Union, they may not take it and its views as seriously as they would have otherwise.

All of this is of course predicated on the settlement being agreed and the UK subsequently voting to remain in the EU. Should Britain instead vote to leave, it will perhaps not be off to the best start in the withdrawal negotiations, having just wasted the other Member States’ time in reaching a now void settlement that concedes much of what is important to them about the EU.

This article was originally published (under a different title) on the LSE BrexitVote Blog.

Please read the comments policy before commenting.

Shortened link: britainseurope.uk

How to cite this article:

Salamone, A (2016) ‘Britain’s New Settlement Could Remove the Goodwill from its EU Membership’, Britain’s Europe (Ideas on Europe), 17 Feb 2016, britainseurope.uk

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According to an article published in the Rheinische Post on 2nd January 2016, the motor manufacturer Daimler reported that it had built 180,000 Sprinter vans in 2015 – 5000 more vehicles built than in the previous year – at the company’s manufacturing plant at Derendorf in Düsseldorf. The boom in sales of Daimler’s Sprinter van is the result of an increasing demand for parcel and package delivery services, driven by the expanding market of online retailers such as Amazon and Zalando.

However, this increase in productivity and sales has not led to greater job security for the workers at the Düsseldorf factory. The management of Daimler has decided to build a new Sprinter factory at Charlestown, South Carolina in the USA, which will produce Sprinter vans for the United States, Canadian, and Mexican markets. Up until now the company’s factory in Germany has been manufacturing vans which have been exported to North America. The result of the Daimler’s new manufacturing plant in the United States will be the redundancy of 650 workers out of a workfore of 6500 at the factory in Düsseldorf.

Daimler seems to have been distracted by the short term boom in logistics services both in Europe and North America, without considering the long term sustainability of its business model. Once a delivery company buys a new van, it has that van for use for perhaps five or more years. So demand will suddenly drop once the market is saturated. A thriving logistics industry could also be threatened by another recession. At the moment Germany’s economy appears to be in a strong position, but that could change if more jobs are lost in traditional industries. The online retail industry depends upon the wages of customers, who work in companies like Daimler, to buy the products that are delivered to the customers’ homes.

The price of crude oil may be very low at the moment, but as more consumers in the world feel the effects of climate change, then there will be grater demand for vehicles driven by cleaner fuels. Daimler is already committed to the transition from fossil fuels to other fuels such as hydrogen produced from renewable forms of energy. The company is a partner in the Hydrogen Mobility Europe (H2ME) project, which aims to expand the network of hydrogen refuelling stations across Europe, and at the same time increase hydrogen-fuelled transport. In five years time, when the Sprinter vans with diesel engines made during the boom year of 2015 come to be replaced, then all of the vans manufactured by Daimler at the Düsseldorf factory should be hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Instead of making 650 workers redundant at the factory in Germany, Daimler should retrain and redeploy these workers along with the rest of the workforce at the factory to build the new vans with hydrogen fuel cells.

Sources

Breitkopf, Thorsten (02.01.2016) ‘Daimler meldet 180.000 Sprinter gebaut’, Rheinische Post.

http://www.itm-power.com/news-item/hydrogen-mobility-europe-launched-with-e32m-funding

©Jolyon Gumbrell 2016

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“There will never be a good a solid constitution unless the law reigns over the hearts of the citizens; as long as the power of legislation is insufficient to accomplish this, laws will always be evaded“  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1772).

You can have the best political institutions in the world but if the people who live within them do not want to use them properly, then those institutions will not work.  The challenge is to make people want to use common institutions properly and to agree on what constitutes proper use.  This is the challenge that Jean-Jacques Rousseau tackled in his “considerations on the government of Poland and on its proposed reformation.”  It is the same challenge advanced industrial democracies face today — at all levels of government.  Moreover, better institutions or ‘structural reforms’ were not the answer for Rousseau and they are not the answer now: “Although it is easy, if you wish, to make better laws, it is impossible to make them such that the passions of men will not abuse them as they abused the laws that preceded them.”

When I listen to politicians like Wolfgang Schäuble or Jeroen Dijsselbloem talk about ‘moral hazard’ and the need for everyone to ‘follow the rules,’ I can see immediately that they have not understood the problem that people have to believe in the rules first.  And when I hear about politicians like the late Helmut Schmidt deriding the need for ‘vision’ saying things like “people who have visions should see a doctor,” then I know we are in trouble.  People have to want to follow rules or they will find a way around them.  People only want to follow rules if they believe those rules are fair and just; they also have to believe that following the rules is useful.  Moreover, ‘following the rules’ restricts freedom and requires discipline. This means that people have to have some justification for collective action and common sacrifice.

When you add this all up – fairness, justice, effectiveness, purpose – you come up with a pretty complicated set of ideas that people need to receive and accept if they are to make institutions function.  Maybe ‘vision’ is not the most appropriate metaphor to describe this requirement to explain why politics works the way it does, particularly in a democratic system.  ‘Ideology’ is probably even more uncomfortable in the modern vernacular.  But whatever we call it, we need to come up with some way to get people to believe they are all part of a bigger project.  Democracy without solidarity does not work.

The examples of democracy suffering from a lack of solidarity are all around us.  As someone who spent a long time studying Belgian politics, my first instinct is to point to the 550 days that the New Flemish Alliance complicated efforts by the country’s elites to form a government.  That crisis only ended when the pressure in government bond markets was intense enough to focus attention on the very bad things that would happen if events spiralled out of control.  The debate that took place in the United States Congress over the debt ceiling during the summer of 2011 is another illustration.  But as we look more deeply into the functioning of the two Houses of Congress over the past few years, it is easy to see that the debt ceiling debate is just the tip of the iceberg. As Thomas Mann and Norman Orenstein describe it, the U.S. political system is “even worse than it looks.”

The Belgian and U.S. examples show two aspects of the pattern.  One is the argument about legitimacy.  This is where politicians or protestors claim that the current arrangement is unfair, unjust, ineffective, or headed in the wrong direction.  Here you can think of just about any stump speech by Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, or Beppe Grillo.  Clearly these speeches resonate with some part of the electorate.  Depending upon the country, you can usually mobilize between 15 and 25 percent of the vote around the general message of disenchantment; in some cases the appeal is even broader.

The second aspect is how the message translates into action. This is the part I try to capture with ‘solidarity’ (and its absence).  When solidarity weakens or diminishes, people start breaking rules or reinterpreting them in ways that exaggerate the worst features of any institutional  arrangement.  They begin using exclusive (or offensive) speech patterns which they justify as a break from the confines of ‘political correctness.’  They start dividing the world into ‘us’ and ‘them’.  And they find ways to hold the functioning of institutions hostage until their specific concerns are addressed.  Such actions are standard practice for Beppe Grillo’s ‘Five Star Movement’ but they are also what brought Ted Cruz such notoriety when he entered the U.S. Senate (following Nigel Farage’s playbook from the European Parliament).

Unfortunately, democratic institutions are not very good at channelling or constraining this kind of disruptive behaviour.  On contrary, democracy thrives in a context where speech is free and institutions operate under ‘checks and balances’.  This is the perfect environment for a loss of solidarity to spark a crisis of governance and yet we risk losing the essence of democracy whenever we try to use new rules to proscribe such unruly behaviour.  It is a delicate and difficult balance — as you can see by looking at countries like Hungary, Poland and Turkey.

The balance is even harder to find when you look at federal countries or multinational arrangements.  It is no accident that the two easiest examples of the problem we face (Belgium and the United States) are both federal countries.  But the implications for the European Union are even more dramatic.  In the end, I do not see a scenario where the United States collapses into a collection of smaller political units.  Even Belgium is showing significant resilience and the New Flemish Alliance is participating in the federal government without demanding further devolution of power to Flanders (for now).

By contrast, the European Union is facing an existential crisis.  The knee-jerk European response is always more rules, better enforcement, and structural reform.  These are good responses in many situations.  Unfortunately, this is not one of them.  Too many Europeans do not believe that the rules are just or fair, they do not understand the need for collective sacrifice (or that the sacrifice is truly ‘collective’), and they do not think the solutions being offered are going to be effective.  You can see this in debates about macroeconomic policy, financial regulation, migration, and the single market.  You can see this in the language that is being used to divide Europe into north and south, east and West, creditor and debtor.  And you can see that both protest groups (including anti-European parties) and national governments are starting to use the institutions of Europe to jam up the process of governance until they get what they want for themselves.

Europe as a whole is not a democracy but it shares many democratic strengths and weaknesses.  Free speech, freedom of assembly, and institutional checks and balances are at the top of both lists.  The collapse of solidarity in Europe is threatening to break the union into pieces.  If Europe’s politicians don’t start focusing their attention on coming up with an argument to explain how Europeans are all in this together, why they need to work with one-another, and where this great project is going, then they will have to live with the consequences of their inaction.  This is what David Cameron promised when he raised the whole prospect of a national debate on Europe in his Bloomberg speech.  Unfortunately, that conversation has deteriorated into a debate about details rather than focusing on the big picture.  National politicians need to tell the big story about Europe if they are to capture ‘the hearts of the citizens,’ in Rousseau’s turn of phrase.  Whether we call that a ‘vision’, an ‘ideal’, or an ‘ideology’ is less important than winning the argument about Europe’s importance.  The same is true for democracy itself.

First published on February 13, 2016 at Prof. Erik Jones’ Personal Webpage.

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• Fairy-tales about Britain leaving the EU?

On last week’s BBC Question Time UKIP’s deputy leader, Paul Nuttall, presented a fantasy vision of Britain outside the European Union.

It was supposed to be his leader, Nigel Farage, to appear once again on the weekly discussion show, but apparently he got stuck in traffic (no doubt he’ll blame that on foreigners, or foreign cars, or an EU directive, or something).

So, last week it was his deputy, Paul Nuttall, who appeared on Question Time instead.

(But last night, UKIP leader Nigel Farage was on Question Time – that means that UKIP’s leader and deputy leader have been on the programme two weeks in a row. Doesn’t that seem disproportionate?)

I want to pick up on four comments Mr Nuttall, a Member of the European Parliament, said in answers to questions from the audience last week.

When someone asked him, “What will happen to the EU migrants already living in Britain if we leave the EU?” he replied:

“People who are already here will not be asked to leave. We have a heart!”

Well, UKIP may have a heart, but the thing is, they’re not in charge.

Pre or post Brexit, they will still only have one Member of Parliament. Hardly enough to form a government, let alone to dictate what will happen if Britain leaves the EU.

The former attorney general, Dominic Grieve, commented last year that if Britain leaves the EU, around two million Britons living in the rest of Europe would become “illegal immigrants overnight”.

And in today’s Telegraph, Alex Taylor, a Briton living in France, wrote that, “If Britain does withdraw from the EU, two million of us will be stranded and no longer have equal rights as the citizens of the countries we live in – overnight” (See: Expats are being frozen out on Europe)

The fact is that nobody can really say, let alone promise, what will happen with the EU migrants living in Britain, and the British migrants living in the rest of the EU, if Brexit should happen.

No EU member state has ever before left the EU, so it would be uncharted territory.

On ‘Question Time’ Mr Nuttall spoke as if his party would have a say in Britain’s Brexit terms if the referendum resulted in Britain’s departure from the European Union.

But actually, he is in no position to promise anything.

Mr Nuttall also told the Question Time audience in Bradford:

“Peace was kept by NATO, not the European Union.”

For sure NATO has helped to keep the peace from external threats. But peace among and between European nations came about primarily because of the European Union.

Above all economic considerations, no countries during their membership of the European Union have warred with one another; we’ve found peace. That’s quite an achievement, I believe, when one considers that the planet’s only, and hopefully last, two world wars originated right here, in Europe.

Winston Churchill, who is recognised as one of the founders of the European Union, passionately promoted the idea of a Union of the states of Europe as the antidote to war.

Furthermore, not all EU member states are even members of NATO.

Commented EU law expert, Professor Steve Peers, “The founders of the EU, when they signed the original Coal and Steel Community Treaty, said explicitly that their aim was to develop the EU in order to avoid wars between them.

“The USA has always supported the EU from the outset, as a parallel body to NATO, realising that both organisations contributed to securing peace between EU nations.”

Mr Nuttall also claimed:

“The simple fact of the matter is you don’t have to be a member of the EU to have access to the Single Market…”

Well, of course, countries throughout the world trade with the European Union. The EU is the world’s biggest exporter, and the world’s biggest importer, of manufactured goods and services.

But having full and complete free access to the lucrative internal market of the European Union – the world’s richest, biggest, most successful trading block – that’s a rather different matter.

The EU is Britain’s single most important export market – that’s unlikely to change if Britain exits the EU. However, as a member of the EU, we have free access to the single internal market of Europe. That, according to many economists, is worth considerably more than our annual EU membership fee.

It’s true that non-EU member, Norway (often referred to as ‘the Norway model’), has free access to the internal market of the EU, but in exchange, they have to make an annual contribution to the EU, and they have to accept all the rules of the Single Market.

And yet they have no voting rights and very little say in those rules.

Commented Professor Steve Peers this evening, “The EU has indeed been willing to let non-EU States sign up to the internal market, but in the form of the EEA treaty, which includes obligations to contribute to EU programmes, to apply many EU laws without having a say, and to accept the free movement of people, which UKIP dislikes.

“But UKIP’s manifesto says that they oppose the EEA – so how exactly do they think the EU will agree to internal market access without those conditions?”

Finally, Mr Nuttall claimed:

“We can have a bespoke UK deal with the European Union, we have a huge trading deficit, they need us more than we need them.”

It’s a rather arrogant stance. After all, why would the other 27 members of the EU allow Britain to enjoy membership benefits without having to pay the EU annual membership fee, or agreeing to the rules of the Single Market?

If that was to be permitted, the European Union may as well close shop tomorrow – and we all know that’s not going to happen.

I have membership to a local gym, but I think it’s highly unlikely that they would let me continue attending if I stopped paying the monthly fee. Why should it be any different with the EU?

Of the 28 EU members, only Britain is considering leaving. The other members obviously consider that the cost of EU membership is modest compared to the huge advantages. In other words, the benefits far outweigh the costs.

Also, if the other members of the European Union were so keen to keep us onside, why are they not agreeing to all of UK Prime Minister, David Cameron’s, reform agenda?

Commented Professor Peers, “Critics of the EU say that it has offered us a poor renegotiation deal. If the EU were so desperate to retain trade with Britain, why wouldn’t it have offered us a fantastic deal to stay in the EU, and retain all that trade the easy way?

“The Leave side assumes that the EU will be mean to us as long as we’re members, but nice to us as soon as we leave. That’s just not plausible.”

He added, “The EU might well be willing to do a bespoke deal with the UK in the interests of trade, but it’s unrealistic to imagine that it will be anything like the fantasy deal which UKIP imagines: with full internal market access, no financial contribution, veto of all relevant EU legislation, and no free movement of people.

“The UK will likely have to give up on at least one and probably more of those objectives. And the obvious questions are: why would the EU agree to a deal so generous that it would encourage other countries to leave?”

In summary, UKIP seems to have a fantasy, fairy-tale vision of the deal that might be available to Britain if we vote to leave the European Union. But the most important point is that, whatever UKIP might wish or hope for, they don’t have any power to deliver.

In my view, leaving the EU would be a walk into the dark. The ‘Leavers’ can’t agree on what deal might be available if we left. Even if they could agree, they can promise anything they like, but they can’t implement.

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Other stories by Jon Danzig:

• What does Brexit look like? Nobody knows
• Wrong answers on Question Time
• What Nigel Farage told British expats in Spain
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

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#UKIP’s fantasy island vision of #Britain after #Brexit that it can’t deliver #BBCQT Blog: https://t.co/u8Su16UwPw pic.twitter.com/nrEhtBXdcM

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) February 12, 2016

My blog debunks #UKIP’s #fantasy vision of #Britain after #Brexit. Please share: https://t.co/MJJFQ1uu5t pic.twitter.com/PjM3NsGVkp

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) February 13, 2016

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• The question they can’t answer: What does ‘leave’ mean?

Here’s a question for you. Would you move home without knowing what your next home looks like? No, me neither.

But that’s what those campaigning for Britain to leave the EU are expecting you to do – vote to end our membership of the EU without knowing what we’d have instead.

The problem LEAVERS have is that they simply don’t know, and for sure they can’t agree.

As a result, two rival, irreconcilable ‘leave’ campaigns have been launched. UKIP’s leader, Nigel Farage, supports one (Leave.EU) and UKIP’s only MP, Douglas Carswell, supports the other (Vote Leave).

(*Update: and now there is yet another ‘Leave’ campaign called Grass Roots Out – more proof that the ‘Leavers’ cannot agree on their vision(s) of Britain after Brexit)

And as confirmed by the Financial Times, the ‘leave’ campaigns are in disarray.

On the one hand, Mr Farage wants to curtail immigration and stop EU migrants coming to Britain. On the other, Mr Carswell wants to promote a Singapore-style model for Britain, open to capital and migration.

Instead of Britain leaving the EU, these two prominent members of UKIP seem to be putting the case for leaving each other.

Or as the Financial Times put it this weekend;

“It is not just a matter of discordant personalities. Out campaigners have struggled to unite around a single vision of what Britain’s post-Brexit trading arrangements would look like.”

And this is the core problem for the LEAVERS – their Achilles heel. Explained the FT:

“They have also failed to provide a convincing explanation of how leaving the EU would give the British greater control over their destiny and improved economic prospects. This is not surprising because none of the models that is mooted for a future outside the EU is convincing.”

Some Eurosceptics are proposing the same model for Britain as Norway – but to participate in the EU internal market, Norway has to agree to EU rules, without any say in them.

Another option favoured by some Eurosceptics is for Britain to strike trade deals on a country-by-country basis. But, as the FT points out, that would mean British businesses having to pay higher tariffs to trade internationally.

As the Financial Times asserted:

“When it comes to these models – and others – the problem is that Britain moves from being a rule-maker to rule-taker.”

If Eurosceptics can’t even agree among themselves what it would mean for Britain to leave the European Union, it seems a bit rich to expect that voters will know. They don’t know, because the LEAVERS don’t know.

On this basis, I can’t recommend anyone to vote to leave. Our membership of the EU is not that bad; and the options for leaving (whichever one you might choose) are not that good.

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Other stories by Jon Danzig:

• My vote for Europe
  
• The end of free movement to and from Europe?
• Wrong answers on Question Time
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

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What does #Brexit look like? Nobody knows. Please share my blog today: https://t.co/MxkurNP5xP pic.twitter.com/BfSqEQLjPV

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) February 7, 2016

 

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