EU Referendum


EU Referendum: never a dull moment


26/05/2015



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An action-packed day yesterday had Lord Hill, the British European Commissioner, claim that there was an "extraordinarily strong case" for Britain to remain in the EU.

The Commissioner then did what so many EU advocates do, resorting to the scare, with the warning that, "you cannot have your cake and eat it" and enjoy the benefits of the European Union such as the benefits of the single market and free trade if the nation votes to leave the European Union.

This was immediately countered by Owen Paterson, who said he was "totally and utterly wrong" and accused him of trying to paint a "wild caricature" of the risks of Britain leaving the EU.

Later, of Lord Hill, he told The Telegraph: "They think they're ahead in the polls, that they have us in the run. They are portraying a complete caricature that leaving the EU it is like leaping off the cliff into a dark abyss.

"My deepest respect to Jonathan, who I served in the Cabinet with", said Paterson, "but he is totally and utterly wrong. He is a member of the establishment, we all know where they are coming from. We need time to make the case that there is an incredibly optimistic destination".

"This idea that trade is synonymous with the European Union is complete and utter tosh", Paterson then declared: "We would under any sane solution continue very active membership of the market."

However, this did not stop the Sky News website blithely asserting that one of the reasons to stay in the EU was that: "Millions of jobs are linked to our EU membership.

I can never work out whether journalists who write this "utter tosh" - as Paterson would put it – are being deliberately dishonest, or are just plain thick. Either way, the dishonour their trade and make a mockery of their mission to inform people. But then, they gave up on that mission a long time ago.

Another one in that category is Dan Hannan who yesterday was filling space in the Daily Mail with his own brand of incoherence.

I am constantly under some pressure to be "nice" to our Dan – or, at least, less aggressive towards him, and there have been some attempts at a reconciliation. But this has to be a two-way process. Mr Hannan knows where I am coming from (or could find out if he could be bothered), and he should know that his particular brand of obdurate stupidity drives me to distraction.

He almost wants to weep at Mr Cameron's "missed opportunity" to negotiate a tougher deal with Brussels, he says. "We could settle the EU in a manner that would satisfy 80 percent of British voters. We could strike a bargain that would leave us fully involved in the single market, while allowing us to take control of most other policies".

"We could secure more freedom to reach bilateral trade deals with non-EU states such as Australia and India. We could reassert the primacy of our own law, so that EU directives and regulations would be treated as advisory pending the implementing of legislation by Parliament".

Nothing of this, of course, could be achieved without leaving the EU. Certainly, as long as we are in the EU, this is not in any way realisable. Hannan, you would have thought, would know this – except that anyone who has read The Great Deception knows more about the EU than Hannan. He is far too grand to read it.

Nevertheless, only someone as profoundly ignorant as this man could then say, "If the Government doesn't secure a looser deal through renegotiation, there is another way to secure it. We can get it by voting to leave, then striking the same bargain as the Swiss or the Channel Islanders, who remain successful despite being outside the EU - common market, not common government".

Thus having lauded the value the Single Market, which would "satisfy 80 percent of British voters", Hannan completely contradicts himself be seeking to take us out of that very same Single Market, entertaining instead a nebulous "Swiss" model or a totally unrealistic Channel Island settlement. And, as befits the man, he never troubles to tell us how the UK would negotiate these miracle solutions within the framework of an Article 50 settlement.

Even to get to this incoherent waffle, though, we have to read him telling us the obvious – that what Mr Cameron is asking for by way of renegotiation is very little. But, based on that slender intelligence, Mr Hannan believes that his fellow countrymen won't be deceived by the thinness of the offer.

Unfortunately, Hannan and his ilk do not seem to have explored (in public) the potential effect of Mr Cameron delivering a treaty change under the "simplified procedure", using Article 48 of the Consolidated Treaties. This states:
The Government of any Member State, the European Parliament or the Commission may submit to the European Council proposals for revising all or part of the provisions of Part Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union relating to the internal policies and action of the Union.

The European Council may adopt a decision amending all or part of the provisions of Part Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The European Council shall act by unanimity after consulting the European Parliament and the Commission, and the European Central Bank in the case of institutional changes in the monetary area. That decision shall not enter into force until it is approved by the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.
The points here are that the procedure is open to any Member State to invoke (it does not require approval of the European Council or its president), and in Part Three, administration of the Freedom of Movement provision are covered. Furthermore, approval by the European Council can be very quick – in the space of a rainy afternoon in Brussels, as I put it. And while the European Parliament has to be consulted, its approval is not required.

Given the effect Mr Cameron's false claim to have vetoed a treaty had on the gullible media and his own party, it takes very little effort to imagine the galvanising effect of a Prime Minister employing a Chamberlain-style "Heston moment". All he has to do is come back from "tense" meetings in Brussels, declaring: "I have in my hand this treaty agreed by the European Council". Media and politicians alike will be putty in his hands.

Given also that most major newspapers and almost all of the broadcast media support EU membership, we can readily see journalists willingly falling in behind the Prime Minister. With all three major parties behind him, and only a disconsolate rump of "right wing" Tory MPs and a discredited, disjointed Ukip against, the chances are that the popular vote will be massively in favour of Mr Cameron's "new deal".

All it then takes is for the Government to publish a White Paper six weeks before the poll, then delivering a summary to every household, commending the "deal" to the public. Are the people so easily fooled? Need you even ask? 
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Much, of course,  will depend on the stage-managed theatre, and Mr Cameron is continuing the charade with a heavily publicised meeting between himself and Juncker, where he told the Commission President that, "British people are not happy with the status quo" in Europe. The irrelevance of this in practical terms is almost as profound as Mr Hannan's ignorance. Mr Juncker has no locus and no role in relation to treaty change – which is a matter solely for Member States.

Despite that, the talks were said by the No 10 spokesman to have focused on "reforming the EU and renegotiating the UK's relationship with it", in what can only have been very general terms, staged almost entirely for public consumption.

To be fair, that spokesperson also said the meeting was unlikely to yield conclusive solutions and that the terms of Britain's EU membership was not just a topic for consideration by the Commission, but also the European Council and Member States. I am totally shocked, I tell you, shocked.

Not everyone is playing the game, though. Pascal Lamy, the former trade commissioner and erstwhile head of the WTO, warns that Britain is seen by some in the EU as a "pain in the ass so they can leave and it would be fine". This man, incidentally, does not agree with the view that David Cameron is unlikely to secure treaty change because it would "take an extremely long time". He is possibly aware that an Article 48 "simplified procedure" treaty is on the cards.

Another one not playing the game is Tony Blair. This former Prime Minister has decided to campaign to keep Britain in the EU. One imagines that his intervention is about as popular with the Europhiles as Hannan's are with me. Perhaps we should do a swap.

He (Blair, that is) will warn that a vote to leave would mean "chaos" for business and diminish Britain's place in the world. That is from the man who decided to invade Iraq alongside the US and had no plan ready to administer the occupied areas - a factor partly responsible for the humiliating defeat of the British Army.

Still, it's about time we got some breaks - and having Blair work for the other side is one. Nor was it the only one. In what otherwise amounts to a non-story, we learned that one million foreigners were to be banned from voting. A break this is, but since they were never going to be allowed – as the Westminster franchise (slightly modified) was always going to be the best option - the "victory" is slightly overstated.

Needless to say, that didn't stop a French-born Scottish politician moaning about a "democratic disgrace". But, as they say, it is not difficult to tell the difference between a ray of sunshine and a Scotsman.

Also whingeing were business representatives, who are vying with Hannan in the ignorance stakes by demanding a referendum in 2016. This is the EEF manufacturers' organisation, which says an early vote is needed to end the "creeping uncertainty" that now exists for business and industry.

One really does wonder how these Captains of Industry can be so ill-informed and still survive. In order to explain this perplexing phenomenon, one is drawn to the theory that stupidity – far from being the exception – has to be the norm, certainly in the ranks of the corporates.

Research carried out for the EEF shown that 85 percent of British manufacturers would stay within the EU, with only seven percent wanting to quit. Among larger businesses, the vote to stay in was even higher, which rather tend to confirm the "stupidity" thesis.

As to an early referendum, Mats Persson, who moved from the Europhile Open Europe to Number 10 last week, has warned of the dangers of trying to secure a "quick win" at the expense of "big reforms". Despite the fact that we will get neither, with this consummate liar at the helm Cameron will be well equipped to roll out his deception.

And with that – a busy day – we await the Queen's speech and the promise of the Referendum Bill that so many were so confident wasn't going to happen. Luckily, "I told you so", isn't in my vocabulary.