EU Referendum


EU politics: rigging the debate


25/04/2014



000a Clegg-024 myth.jpg

Nick Clegg was in full spate yesterday reportedly pitting his party's "optimism and openness" against the "fears and falsehoods" of what he calls "isolationists" at the launch of the Liberal Democrat campaign for the European elections.

The BBC has it that he condemned UKIP's plan to leave the EU a "dangerous fantasy" which would cost British jobs, and then criticised Labour and the Conservatives for going "missing in action" instead of challenging UKIP. Only Lib Dems would fight for the "best of British values", he said.

On the one hand, one must compliment Clegg for taking on the fight. In the last euro-elections, the Lib-Dems managed their campaign by focusing on domestic issues, barely mentioning the EU - in common with the other two main parties. Now, at least, Clegg has broken ranks, to acknowledge that these are "euro" elections.

However, that doesn't mean that Clegg is playing it straight. Like so many of his ilk, he is engaging only on his terms, positioning his party as the good guys and UKIP as the "isolationists", its plan for leaving a "dangerous fantasy".

By focusing on UKIP this way, Clegg obviously wants to tar the whole of the anti-EU movement with the same brush.. And, even though UKIP does not actually have a plan for leaving the EU, relying only on inchoate aspirations, the inference is that leaving the EU, per se, is a dangerous fantasy.

Thus does Clegg seek to rig the debate – essentially building his own straw men, by the battalion, then to knock them down. What he can't possibly admit is that the debate is far wider than UKIP, that there are exit plans that are very far from "isolationist" and that a properly structured exit could be beneficial to the UK.

This is a man, therefore, who cannot allow himself to listen. He is perpetually in "transmit only" mode, his idea of communication being, "I speak, you listen". And then he wonders why politicians are held in such contempt.

Interestingly, he is very far from alone in this characteristic. Whether it is Douglas Carswell or the IEA, there is a belief amongst the higher orfders that as long as they keep repeating their mantras, and refuse to engage in debate, they can hold the line. What they fail to understand is that they are not in control of the message any longer. In their absence, the debate goes on without them.

It is only by speaking to themselves, with no feedback permitted, that their likes can convince themselves that they are still in control.

Thus we get Clegg saying yesterday: "For far, far too long, the isolationists have got away with peddling their myths, their fears, their falsehoods, without any challenge whatsoever, pretending that every problem in the world would somehow disappear, like the morning mist, if only we were to pull ourselves out of the EU".

He would not last two minutes on our comments threads without being ripped to pieces, but as long as he stays in his comfort zone, he can get away with comparing leaving the EU to an "act of monumental economic vandalism".

And thus does he declare: "That is why we should now draw a line in the sand as the leading party of in British politics, and say to the isolationists, to the myth-makers, to the scaremongers: 'Enough!'"

There is the irony. He isn't drawing a line in the sand, but building a wall behind which he can cower. He can't engage in the real issues, or engage in real debate, with real people. Staged matches on the TV he can do, where there is no real challenge, but the rest of the world must be held at arm's length.

That is probably the thing that gives me most encouragement. If the Cleggs, the Carswells and the IEAs of this world were really confident of their arguments, they wouldn't be afraid to get down in the dirt and mix it with the oiks. That they feel the need to rig the debate, and keep us at arm's length, tells us all we need to know.

FORUM THREAD