EU Referendum


The EU debate: Clegg's seven percent lie


29/03/2014



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Following my post on Clegg's claims on the proportion of UK laws that originate in Brussels, Breitbart has picked up the story, reporting that his claim has been disputed.

The deputy prime minister, it will be recalled, cited a House of Commons Research paper to support a claim that only seven percent of British law came from the EU. In fact, this figure applied to statues over a limited period, whereas more than twice the amount of statutory instruments over the same period (14.1 percent) had a Brussels component. Clegg therefore misrepresented the Commons paper, says Breitbart.

"What you're owed are the facts", Mr Clegg had earlier told the audience, yet when it came to this issue, facts were not so being misused as abused on an industrial scale. Furthermore, in the circumstances, the deputy prime minister cannot have been unaware that he was perpetrating a deliberate lie.

"The House of Commons", he said, "has shown that roughly seven percent of all new laws are related to the European Union". He was challenged by Nigel Farage, who offered the 70 percent recently proposed by Commissioner Reding, also agreeing that UKIP relied on a 75 percent figure. He then went on to say that he had not met anybody serious who said that less than half of our laws were now made in Brussels.

"Can I tell you someone who is serious", responded Mr Clegg, at the start of a sequence which turned what could have been a mistake into an outright lie. "[I]t's the House of Commons Library. And I suspect the House of Commons Library is going to know better than Nigel Farage, or indeed the German president or indeed anybody else, how many laws in the House of Commons, which is where laws are transposed onto the statute book, how many of them are generated here in Britain, how many are generated in the European Union". "Their estimate is seven percent", he asserted, "not 75 percent". 

With the lie thus established, he then started to nail it in. "What we've heard this evening on jobs, on immigration, on investment, and now on EU laws", Clegg said: "again and again and again are the wrong facts". So Farage's 75 percent was a "wrong fact", which indeed it most likely is. But Clegg was about to replace it with a lie.

Thus warming to his theme, Clegg said: "Now let's disagree. Fine, But I really do think we owe it to you [the audience], we owe it to everybody to make sure that these debates on a very important issue is at least based on facts. And the House of Commons Library has been unambiguous. It's said that it is seven percent, not 75 percent and I believe them".

This is the classic "appeal to authority fallacy" (this is held by someone in authority, so it must be true). But is was also an outrageous lie. We should recall that the House of Commons actually said that 6.8 percent (rounded up to seven) of primary legislation (Statutes) had a role in implementing EU obligations, but 14.1 percent of secondary legislation (Statutory Instruments), also had a role. And since by far the more numerous quantum is SIs, to cite only statutes is completely to misrepresent the House of Commons briefing paper.

At this stage, we should also recall the figures produced were from a very limited survey carried out "over the twelve-year period from 1997 to 2009", looking at laws which specifically mentioned an EU origin. Apart from the fact that many British laws do not identify an EU origin, there is also the growing number of EU regulations which have direct effect. No attempt was made to count these.

For the record, if we are to accept the constraints defined by Mr Clegg and look just at new laws, we find that, in 2013, the EU produced 2,405 new laws, comprising 68 directives, 1,429 regulations and 908 decisions. The UK, by contrast, produced 3,003 new laws, comprising 2,970 Statutory Instruments and 33 Acts. Therefore, in strict numerical terms, the EU actually produced 80 percent as many laws as did the UK.

Nevertheless, it is virtually impossible to work out how many of the EU laws apply to the UK as a direct proportion, so when it comes to the percentage of EU law, the House of Commons Library actually concluded that: "there is no totally accurate, rational or useful way of calculating the percentage of national laws based on or influenced by the EU". 

In terms of the assertions made by the deputy prime minister, this means, that the conclusion was very far from "unambiguous". No fair-minded or honest person, citing the House of commons report, could have failed to mention this. The "unambiguous" claim, therefore, was another lie perpetrated by Clegg.

Furthernore, from Mr Clegg though, the misinformation was not a question of a slip of the tongue or a half-remembered statistics. Clearly, his was a rehearsed, structured argument, with the seven percent figure at its core, repeated several times. It was then reinforced and rammed home with an appeal to authority relying on the prestige of the House of Commons. Without allowing for a scintilla of doubt, Clegg held that the "facts" were that Brussels produced only seven percent of all our new laws. And that, repeated with such certainty and conviction, was a lie.

Unfortunately, Mr Farage was not allowed to come back on the lie, and of the media, only Breitbart, so far, have called out Mr Clegg. Even the Open Europe Muppets, have said Clegg is wrong, though (as indeed is Farage with his 75 percent), but that is not good enough. "What you're owed", Mr Clegg told us, "are the facts". 

What marks Clegg out is his utter conviction, citing an authoritative source, and using it to reinforce his lie, presented unambiguously as fact. Mr Clegg should be called to account on his seven percent lie, and be asked to apologise at the next debate on 2 April. If he doesn't, Farage should take him to the cleaners.