26/11/2014
"Since he unwillingly left the government, the former environment secretary has made speeches and remarks that have generally been of high intellectual calibre", says Daniel Finkelstein in
The Times. He then goes on to add: "I haven't always agreed with him (his most recent proposal on Europe I think utterly wrongheaded), but I have been impressed by their tone and internal consistency".
Faced with such compliments, one hates to be uncharitable about Mr Finkelstein, although we could have done without the "utterly wrongheaded" bit. The problem is, though, that although he may recognise the "high intellectual calibre" of
Paterson's speech, he doesn't seem to have spent much time studying it.
To put Finkelstein in perspective, he is commenting on
Time Montgomerie's interview of Owen Paterson, who opined that most Ukip voters want "robust and Conservative policies", which include "honesty about immigration". If we give them Conservative policies, Paterson says, we win them back.
In his own column, Finkelstein asserts that Ukip supporters want fewer immigrants and, in using the phrase, "honesty about immigration", Paterson appreciates that even outside the EU it will be hard to achieve what Ukip supporters are after. "If the United Kingdom wishes to take part in the single market", he adds, "it will, like Norway, have to accept free movement of labour in Europe".
"In other words", says Finkelstein, "a credible Conservative policy on immigration will be hard put to achieve what Ukip voters are after. And they will see that straight away. These are angry and disillusioned people who can tell the difference between 'honesty about immigration' and 'less immigration' straight away".
What we can see straight away, though, is that Finkelstein hasn't addressed the issues and, instead, is relying on the usual Europhile mantras. This is exactly what we get in
this piece, where we get the same low drone, as the author chants: "Norway just has to accept all rules related to the free movement of goods, services, capital and people within the EU".
In a way, these people are misled by our use of the shorthand "Norway option", to mean that we take the EFTA/EEA route to preserving the Single Market outside EU membership. Their febrile minds assume we mean that the UK will be like Norway.
What we actually mean is that we adopt the EEA Agreement, using EFTA as a portal to do so, and that gives us the opportunity to remove ourselves from the EU treaties and rely on free movement provisions in the EEA agreement, which refer only to workers and self-employed.
This detail none of the naysayers even begin to address. Outside the EU treaty provisions, family reunification relies on the ECHR (Article 8), from which we would cede, thus being able to prevent relatives and dependents joining employed migrants. This, as we have also remarked â and as Paterson points out â also gives us greater control over asylum seekers.
In addition to this, Paterson refers to "push" and "pull" factors, which drive the
mass movement of people. Again, this is something Finkelstein doesn't mention.
By coincidence, though, on the same day as the Peterson speech, we also get a report from
Open Europe which deals with "pull" factors in relation to free movement of workers from EU member states.
This think tank makes proposals which would limit the payment of non-contributory in-work benefits to migrants, for a period of five years, relying on the recent
ECJ ruling which reminds us that freedom of movement is "qualified and limited", and that discrimination on non-contributory benefits is permitted.
By eliminating such benefits, the UK would effectively remove what amounts to a migrant subsidy, making coming to the UK economically unattractive for many workers from EU member states.
Open Europe thinks this could be part of the "reform" agenda which allows the UK to stay within the EU while limiting migration flows. But such devices could just as easily pave the way for the UK to join EFTA and benefit from the Single Market, while reducing the impact of migrant flows.
And it is here that the battleground lies. Notably, while EU withdrawal has been high profile for the last few days, Ukip has absented itself from the debate. But that debate has to reconcile leaving the EU and staying within the Single Market, with retaining an element of freedom of movement.
Owen Paterson, in a speech of "high intellectual calibre", has confronted those issues delivering exactly that which is labelled on the tin, "honesty about migration".
Only the mouth-breathing tendency within Ukip would argue for the total cessation of immigration, which means that Paterson has squared the circle, offering a way of reducing immigration while protecting our trading arrangements with the EU.
That is something even (or especially) the Ukip leadership have not managed to do, opening the way to Ukip members to support the one party which is offering a referendum and has grown-up ideas on how to leave the EU. All
Farage can offer - the man who has spent 20 years not producing an exit plan - is a shallow jibe about Paterson joining UKIP.
That leaves Finkelstein and Farage both cast adrift â each in their own ways totally incapable of understanding that which has been put before them, locked in their self-furnished blinkers â while the debate goes on without them.
