Labour’s pro-Europeans must stick to their guns, writes Pat McFadden
Labour’s general election defeat means the government’s proposed referendum on British membership of the European Union will go ahead. It is the prime minister’s top priority. It featured strongly in the Conservative manifesto and the government has placed it at the centre of the Queen’s speech.
Recognising that the referendum will happen is not the same as changing our position on the desired outcome of keeping Britain in the EU. On this Labour must stick to its guns.
We were right to argue in the election that Brexit poses huge risks for British jobs, trade and investment. The EU is still by far our biggest export market. Tariff-free access to 500 million customers is hugely important for our businesses. Half of our inward investment comes from the EU. And a significant proportion of the investment from outside the EU is helped by our status as a gateway to the single market.
And it is not only about economics, it is about security and values too. With a proxy war taking place in Ukraine it makes little sense for Britain to be calling for maximum European unity in sanctions towards Russia and in the next breath threatening to leave the EU. The hard end of our security will continue to be provided by Nato but we should not underestimate the importance of the shared values of peace, democracy and the peaceful resolution of disputes that are embodied by EU membership.
Labour should continue to argue the case for British membership in our economic and wider interests.
There will of course be much debate about the details of the referendum over the coming weeks. Who exactly should get to vote? We will argue for 16- and 17-year-olds to be allowed to take part. It worked well in Scotland and this referendum is about the country’s future so why should 16- and 17-year-olds not get a say?
On what date will the vote take place? We have already said that, whatever the timing, on an issue of such constitutional importance we do not believe this vote should be folded in to another set of elections such as the Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly and London mayoral elections next year.
These are important issues and there will be others as the bill is debated. But none of them is the exam question. That remains the issue of Britain in or out.
David Cameron has consistently placed tactics above strategy on this most crucial of issues. First, he pledged not to have a referendum, only to change his position under pressure from both the United Kingdom Independence party and his Eurosceptic backbenchers. Then he led his troops up to the top of the hill on immigration. Last year Cameron claimed he would stop the principle of free movement before announcing a retreat to the issue of benefit entitlement in his speech in the following autumn. Now his agenda for renegotiation is unclear, with a regular procession of ideas being floated and discarded.
There is a reason for the lack of definition in the government’s position. The prime minister must know that his renegotiation, whatever it produces, will inevitably be too timid for Ukip and for a proportion of his parliamentary party. There is nothing he can negotiate that will satisfy those who want to return to the days before Britain chose to engage in any joint decision-making in Europe. For them it is not about reforms to benefits or some new wording on ever closer union. Unless there is an individual United Kingdom parliamentary veto over everything the EU proposes, they will view his deal as paltry and insignificant.
Of course, like the emperor in the Hans Christian Andersen story, Cameron will end this process claiming to be wearing a beautiful new suit of clothes. He will say he has transformed the relationship. Some in his party, through loyalty and relief, will marvel at the colour and texture of the emperor’s clothes. But not all. The hardline Eurosceptics are already gearing up to point out that there will not be much keeping him warm.
What should Labour do in these circumstances?
On the campaign tactics, there is debate over learning from the Scottish experience. There is no doubt that the way we argued our referendum case was an issue on the doorstep in Scotland, though the troubles of Scottish Labour go deeper than that. The Scottish National party had been running Scotland for years and already held a majority in the Scottish parliament. That was why the referendum was held in the first place.
So let us debate how we shape our argument and if learning from the Scottish experience points to a more distinct Labour ‘yes’ campaign then we should establish that. But there is a difference between campaign tactics and holding to our strategic position. We could not have opted out of the argument to maintain the UK. We are not a nationalist party. And it would be a huge mistake for Labour to consign itself to irrelevance on the critical issue of the country’s future membership of the EU or the wider issue of how Britain sees its world role.
The argument to stay in the EU will be about far more than what politicians do. It will involve business, universities, people at work, people from all walks of life.
But Labour cannot stand back when this issue matters for every company in the country that exports to the EU, and every company that supplies them. The jobs and living standards of our supporters and those we want to reach out to are on the line.
Britain’s position as a country that attracts inward investment from both the EU and around the world is under threat. So too are some of the rights of millions of people at work which have been built up through the EU.
And if we believe in a rules-based world then we cannot regard with indifference the prospect of leaving a group of 28 member states where differences are resolved round a table rather than in older, tougher ways.
Being in opposition does not absolve us of our responsibilities to make the case.
Of course there are some in the Labour party who may favour withdrawal from the EU and they will argue their point of view. But in the past generation the centre of gravity in Labour has shifted firmly in favour of staying in the EU.
Britain’s retreat from the world is not an issue of passing importance. We should stand up for what we believe in and argue with passion for a Britain engaged in the world, leading in Europe not leaving it. That is the best future for our country.
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Pat McFadden MP is shadow minister for Europe
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Is the strength of the Swiss and Norwegian economies because of, or in spite of, the fact that those two countries remain outside the EU? How did any of us in Europe manage to survive before the Treaty of Rome?
Whatever arrangement with the EU has been renegotiated to the satisfaction of David Cameron will be horrendous from the point of view of British workers and the users of British public services. But then, our economic, social, cultural and political power cannot exactly be said to have increased since 1973.
Not for nothing did Margaret Thatcher support accession, oppose withdrawal in the 1975 referendum, and go on, as Prime Minister, to sign an act of integration so large that it could never be equalled, a position from which she never wavered until the tragically public playing out of the early stages of her dementia. “No! No! No!” was not part of any planned speech.
In anticipation of Cameron’s Single European Act on speed, all of the candidates for Labour’s Leader and Deputy Leader need to demand immediate legislation.
First, pre-emptively disapplying in the United Kingdom any Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Britain can and should strangle the wretched thing in its cradle. Secondly, restoring the supremacy of United Kingdom over European Union law, using that provision to repatriate industrial and regional policy as Labour has advocated for some time, using it to repatriate agricultural policy, and using it to restore the United Kingdom’s historic fishing rights of 200 miles or to the median line.
Thirdly, requiring that, in order to have any effect in this country, all EU legislation be enacted by both Houses of Parliament as if it had originated in one or the other of them. Fourthly, requiring that British Ministers adopt the show-stopping Empty Chair Policy until such time as the Council of Ministers meets in public and publishes an Official Report akin to Hansard.
Fifthly, disapplying in the United Kingdom any ruling of the European Court of Justice or of the European Court of Human Rights unless confirmed by a resolution of the House of Commons, the High Court of Parliament. That would also deal with whatever the problem was supposed to be with the Human Rights Act.
Sixthly, disapplying in the United Kingdom anything passed by the European Parliament but not by the majority of those MEPs who had been certified as politically acceptable by one or more seat-taking members of the House of Commons. Thus, we should no longer be subject to the legislative will of Stalinists and Trotskyists, of neo-Fascists and neo-Nazis, of members of Eastern Europe’s kleptomaniac nomenklatura, of people who believed the Provisional Army Council to be the sovereign body throughout Ireland, and of Dutch ultra-Calvinists who would not have women candidates.
And seventhly, giving effect to the express will of the House of Commons, for which every Labour MP voted, that the British contribution to the EU Budget be reduced in real terms.
All before Cameron had even set off for his renegotiation, never mind held a referendum on that renegotiation’s outcome.
How has it protected jobs – the semi-skilled and skilled, the Ds and C2s, have been under massive pressure due to a large influx of Eastern European migrant workers. How has being in the EU benefitted them.
And the EU is not the single market – why can we not trade with the EU without the anti-democratic political thuggery of the EU being imposed upon us.
We also saw off the Soviet threat with our allies in NATO – why is Pat McFadden so determined to enlist our armed forces under a would-be military EU umbrella in pursuit of extending a would-be EU empire.
We don’t have to “retreat” from the world, we can form a European village, with European countries as equals in a single market and not some kind of hierarchical faux democracy, We could trade with the World using global regulations, through already established bodies – as the European Union is required to do anyway.
In other words, the “Common Market” that we were promised in 1975.
WJ shows the delusional Little England views that might just trigger Brexit and set us on the way to international irrelevance and further economic decline. The problem posed to the working conditions and wages of British workers is not a problem of immigration; it’s the domestic weakening of labour market and employment regulation in favour of employers. EU law has traditionally strengthened workers’ rights, while British Tory governments have undermined protection from unscrupulous employers. The introduction of fees to go to employment tribunals is one of the latest blows to employee rights, with cases dropping by 80%. No good having excellent rights at work (which we don’t by international standards), if you can’t afford to enforce them.
As for trade, Norway and Switzerland spend substantial resource on complying with EU regulations in order to trade. Why would we carry that burden but give up our influence within the EU?
I see that, once again, I am confronted by name calling, one begins to wonder if “Little Englander” is any worse or better than ‘Little EUer’ – which, in fact, is what an inhabitant of the EU is, a timid individual in a protected EU bubble, afraid to go out into the world, and ruled by its anti-democratic institutions.
I don’t wish to be a Little Englander – I wish for the UK to fulfil its potential, free of the EU banquet and limousine brigade in Brussels, and following its own wishes under its own laws.
In what alternative universe does an influx of 100,000s of Eastern Europeans not have an effect upon the UK’s employed population.
What would you do if you were an employer – employ a person in their mid-forties, with the usual problems of family commitments and inevitable bodily wear and tear, or would you take on a young, fit Pole with no commitments, family, or ‘time off’ illnesses – on a short term contract.
And don’t forget that the last Labour government set a minimum wage and
the employers, quite legally, dropped to it.
I’m not a fundamentalist on the subject of workers conditions or rights, I just wish that people wouldn’t keep telling me that the EU is good for the ‘working class’ of this country – they most obviously are not.
The Norwegians feel very differently about the amount of influence that you don’t think they have – in this interview with Dr Richard North at EU Referendum, Anne Beathe K. Tvinnereim, state secretary for the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, tells us how things really are:
http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=84212
Reading the piece makes one aware that if the UK did break free and join the Norwegians and other ‘free states’, a collection of countries could join together and improve upon a single market of self-governing equals – the UK could even resume its place at the global table.
The little Englander phrase works well if the alternative was of wider international trade and collaboration which the EU has attempted to take using UK international influence amongst the English speaking world and wider. The ‘Little Englander’ is in danger of being replaced by the ‘Miniscule Eureos’ since trade with China and India is now the key to future advancement not a tiny bit of the future world trade now highjacked by Germany and France.
Most of our trade with the EU is for inward transition to the world via Rotterdam.
EU law has had a tiny and diminished effect of Labour Law.
Immigration is not a problem only the random, unplanned, neo-liberal mass movement of individuals responding the needs of large company corporate greed.
Except for the absence of overt corruption accountability of those self appointed self-seeking committees in the EU has more similarities to FIFA in the way it controls decisions – i.e. personal rewards for coalescence. The ‘within influence argument amounts to one person 28 committee decision, in any case served mostly by personal reward seekers. What we need is an internationalist outlook with accountability.
Unlimited immigration will inevitably crush our precious public services, health, housing and education by sheer weight of numbers. It’s already beginning to do so. Due to the total, often repeated refusal of the EU to allow it, there’s only one way to regain control of our borders…very little to ask I’d have thought…and that is to leave. In any event, we should certainly stop thinking it’s normal for one’s customers to make one’s laws. It isn’t.
Pat
I am pro-Europe and supported our stance that we should not offer a referendum. I was wrong and the Party was wrong. If you combine the Conservative and the UKIP votes there is a clear national majority for a change in our relationship with the EU and, after voting for an Economic Union in 1975, the British people should be allowed to decide what our relationship with Europe should be, political, economic or both.
Many Conservative voters would be content with an economic union. We need to think about what powers we want repatriated and whether it’s right to seek “ever closer political union”.
The EU is handling Greece very badly and a Progressive Party like Labour should speak out against the economic destruction of Greece as promoted by the economic purism of Wolfgang Schauble.
There is much wrong with the EU. It’s popularity is declining across Europe. We should use that to argue for change both politically and economically.
Let’s clearly define a Labour position on the EU that will help avoid Brexit and be a platform to win back voters lost to UKIP in 2020.
Barry Kendler
The worst thing for the present major 2 political parties is that the lower paid have voting rights but I suspect our present government will eventually cure that . Those not badly effected by the continuing influx of immigrants from the whole world want to stay in the EU .Recent immigrants, I know , and the lower paid generally do not want further immigration . Worst still those of us who voted to join the European Common Market have been betrayed by Thatcher and more recent leaders by the negotiation of the Treaty of Rome . The withdrawal of border security, customs men etc . by Thatcher and never replaced and the giving away of our capitulation of our national independence to a foreign power conglomerate without even letting us vote on it . I am pro european ,however because of the issue of Democracy I will vote for withdrawel from Europe in the same way that Tony Benn would have and for many of the same reasons . Britain can stand alone . Incidentally please do not use that inane American type phrase Brexit . Our treasonous Euro MP,s have not signed TTIP yet !