11/02/2015
Yesterday saw the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), John Longworth,
reportedly throwing a spoke into Labour's wheels by saying the best way to end political uncertainty over the UK's relations with Europe is to hold an early referendum.
The call was quickly endorsed by
Boris Johnson but, for once, we got
some sense on the issue in the form of John Holland-Kaye, chief executive of Heathrow airport.
Talking to the
Financial Times, he said: "We need to have a proper discussion about the benefits or not of being part of the EU", remarking that, "We've actually had this sitting over our heads for years, for decades. It's not a trivial choice and we need to have enough time to have a proper debate".
Longworth had been arguing that holding a referendum as soon as possible after May's general election, rather than the current plan of 2017, would reduce uncertainty for business, so the candour from John Holland-Kaye is all the more welcome.
Ed Balls â still the shadow chancellor â also
spoke to the BCC (which was holding its annual conference), saying that that politicians should not flirt with the idea of Britain leaving the EU. They should not put party political interests above the national interest. "We have to reject the Luddite view of those that think we can cut ourselves adrift from the EU and go it alone".
Nevertheless, he too rejected Longworth's call for a quick referendum. "Setting an arbitrary timetable for a quick referendum [does not help] the prospects for us having meaningful reform from our European partners; those reforms are going to take time", he said.
Downing Street has also intervened in the question, stating that there are two practical obstacles to an early poll. In the first place it is likely to take up to two years to pass the legislation to enable the referendum to be held because the Tories expect that they will have to invoke the Parliament Act to override opposition in the House of Lords. The prime minister also believes it may take more than a year to negotiate "wide-ranging reforms".
Despite John Holland-Kaye's views, though, no one is actually giving any signs that they are prepared to have a sensible (or any) debate. In fact, the opposition's idea seems to be to repeat the
same old FUD, never engaging in the issues and never allowing any outsiders into the debate.
That said, we've taken the opportunity to post the latest version of
Flexcit, not yet complete by getting to the point where it is very nearly finished.
This version (v.20) is substantially re-ordered, with an entirely new chapter on asylum policy, and many other additions which bring the page count to 375 and the number of words to 147,000 â rather longer than the original IEA submission which ran to 26,000 words.
As a .pdf file, the work is fully searchable, and it will make a significant contribution to the debate, even though the media and many others will quite deliberately ignore it. Yet, on the basis of the ongoing dialogue that has run for over a year now, we are convinced that the flexible, multi-stage approach is the most cogent way of devising a credible exit plan.
One addition we expect to make is to turn the admirable work by
The Boiling Frog on
telecoms into a chapter, whence the first full edition of
Flexcit will be essentially complete.
Now comes the urgent task of putting together plans for an "out" campaign, in anticipation of the Conservatives winning the general election and Mr Cameron returning to office. Although the likelihood of us winning the campaign is low, I still think it is winnable, so long as certain pre-conditions are met.
The first is that we have a credible exit plan in place â and that is very close to completion â and the second is that we have a broad-based "out" campaign led by a coalition of existing anti-EU groups, willing to get behind the plan.
Here, the greatest obstacle to success is going to be the determination of a few individuals to take over the campaign, so it is vital that the existing players get together to work on a functioning campaign.
Then, of course, we will have to confront the problem of an indifferent and inadequate media, which is probably not capable of reporting on a sophisticated plan like
Flexcit without getting key details wrong. That, though, is a problem for the future. Before we address that, we have to deal with those who would seek to exclude us from the battle before it even starts.
