Part-time Parliament a loopy idea

This week Jack Straw proposed abolition of the European Parliament. Richard Howitt MEP, Chair of the European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP) and speaker at this weekend's 'Social Europe: Worth Fighting For?' conference gives his response.

Oh Jack. You are and have been a great servant of the party and I have always forgiven that the European Union isn't your favourite dish. But you only needed to ask some of the politicians in your own generation to know that returning to a European Assembly of national politicians replacing the directly elected Parliament would be completely loopy.

It was tried in the 1970s and the logistics of MPs undertaking their parliamentary duties at home, travelling and trying to engage in joint work with counterparts from eight other countries proved unworkable. It was why direct elections were first agreed for 1979.

The politicians of that era I have talked to, speak with affection about the bars and nightspots of Strasbourg, but not of any political achievements in going there.

And that was before the European Parliament had full legislative powers, now incorporating 27 countries, and meeting 44 weeks a year, (far more than Westminster). Unlike the Commons division lobby, the European Parliament votes on 800 policy proposals and 10,000 amendments in each parliamentary year.

If the aim is to build trust in European institutions, a part-time Parliament is the last thing we need.

Indeed the impact of abolishing Europe's directly-elected Parliament would be to reduce scrutiny of legislation and of EU spending, lessen visibility and remove the very people the Eurosceptic press can never justifiably brand as "Eurocrats." In British public opinion, it would have the very opposite impact to the one you propose.

Parliamentary democracy is a fine and noble thing. It builds public support by bringing political debate and decision-making in to the open, and by giving citizens the chance to be the ultimate decision-makers through the electoral process. This is the case throughout the world and has to apply to Europe.

But there is a narrow Labour Party point to all this too.

Labour Euro MPs constantly strive to serve our constituents effectively and we must always be prepared to be self-critical on how we can do better.

But Labour in Government - the government in which you proudly served - too often failed to put the case for Europe, and fell in to the trap of claiming credit for European achievements for itself and blaming Europe for the things that go wrong.

But the days of the party treating its MEPs as the embarrassing aunt are long-gone.

The new generation of Labour politicians from Ed Miliband to Douglas Alexander, Emma Reynolds to our own leader Glenis Willmott, all appreciate that Labour has to do better on Europe as on other issues than limiting solutions to those from within the Westminster bubble.

Jack, it was a privilege to serve in your team as Labour's Foreign Affairs Spokesperson in Europe, when you were an outstanding Foreign Secretary.

But I recognise that perhaps one job that is beyond me is to be able to change your own views on Europe.

Richard Howitt MEP is Chair of the European Parliamentary Labour Party and Labour Member of the European Parliament for the East of England.

E-mail: richard@richardhowittmep.com Twitter: @richardhowitt

Millande? Hollaband? Why Labour must get off the sidelines on Europe

Fabian Society General Secretary Andrew Harrop writes for Next Left ahead of this weekend's Social Europe: Worth Fighting For? conference

With the European right rallying behind Nicolas Sarkozy for the upcoming French presidential election, Ed Miliband must now move Labour away from the sidelines and offer similar support for socialist candidate Francois Hollande.

As politicians on the European right, buoyed by a period of centre-right ascendancy across the EU, have been campaigning together to secure austerity Europe, the left has, in contrast, been fragmented. As a consequence the burden has fallen on the grassroots to emerge as the sole vehicle to oppose the right’s vision of enforced austerity. Instead of the centre-left political parties articulating an effective opposition across Europe, it is in the indignados of Madrid, the Occupy movements and the anti-cuts protests in Brussels, London, Rome and Athens, rather than parliaments where the real opposition has emerged.

This is no more obvious than here in the UK where the Labour party has seemingly adopted a position of pragmatic Eurosceptism. Ed Miliband seems to be content to look on as the Tory right tear chunks out of David Cameron, while judging the issue far too toxic to actually make a serious comment on.

This is simply not good enough. With the centre-right coalescing around a shared vision of austerity, Ed Miliband must put himself at the forefront of an 'alternative to austerity', allying with leaders like Hollande who are willing to espouse the same policy. To succeed this must incorporate an economic message – propounding the need for investment in jobs and growth not just budget cuts – but also champion European policies defending strong social rights and welfare.

The Fabian Society’s Social Europe conference this weekend will focus on these rights which the centre-right consensus in Europe has identified clearly as an obstacle to the small-government, fiscal discipline answer to the financial crisis. In Greece, the enforced budgetary cutbacks have targeted the minimum wage, working time regulations and the pushed for the introduction of a more ‘flexible’ job market. In France, Sarkozy has talked about the need to relax the 35-hour week and to pay for removing social charges on businesses paid for by an increase in that least-progressive of taxes, VAT. In the UK, right-wing Tories like Liam Fox talk about relaxing constraints on business, a message woven closely together with the endless Conservative diatribes about Brussels red tape.

This race to the bottom will help no-one in the long run. There is growing evidence from the UK and abroad that government spending cuts are fundamentally harming growth, producing fractional growth figures for successive quarters. Nor is there any substantive evidence showing that cutting back on employees’ rights and making it easier to hire and fire, produces genuine growth in jobs. Both Ed Miliband and Francois Hollande have spoken convincingly about the need for a more responsible capitalism, this message must be a key part of this.

These are problems that are taking place on the European scale and merit a response from a united left in Europe. It is simply not credible for Ed Miliband and Ed Balls to propose their economic alternative in the UK, while ignoring the wider European context. Sooner or later, they will have to get off the fence.

There are still a handful of tickets available for 'Social Europe: Worth Fighting For?' - to get yours please visit the Fabian Society website 

Social Europe: Worth fighting for - The Results

Ahead of our ‘Social Europe: Worth Fighting For?’ conference on 25th February the Fabian Society conducted a membership survey on the EU to find out if the views of our traditionally pro-European membership have shifted.

The results, in many ways, were as expected. Our membership remains overwhelmingly pro-European but, in tune with the country at large, our members are also starting to move further towards the Eurosceptic side of the argument. This is especially the case when questions about widening the UK’s involvement with the project and of democratic accountability are asked. This is underlined by eight out of ten Fabian members believing the EU lacks democratic integrity and only one in five being able to name all their MEPs.

First the good news for our pro-Europeans, a North Korean-esque 94 percent believes that the UK should not only remain part of the EU, but that we as a people benefit from continued membership. EU-led changes such as relaxed border controls, free trade and even the single currency were all cited as reasons for optimism about what the project has accomplished.

When asked about which policy areas should see deeper integration with our EU partners the picture becomes more mixed. There is clear support for deepening our ties when it comes to tackling climate change (78 percent), employment rights (70 percent) – surely a victory for Trade Union campaigning there - and security and defence (64 percent).

The most important issues for Europe to cooperate on

There was less enthusiasm, but still a majority, for home affairs. A signal that, while Fabians see the benefits in areas where we are already integrated, increasing numbers are wary of deepening ties. 53 percent wanted more integration on issues like social affairs such as health and 54 percent on crime and justice, a 20 point gap from our top rated issues.

The real Achilles heel for the European project continues to be what anti-EU campaigners call the ‘democratic deficit’ in its institutions. When asked if it was thought voters had enough power over the EU an astounding 78 percent said no. As if to underline this point we asked how many of our members knew who all their MEPs were and only a paltry 22 percent could name them all (56 percent said some and 22 percent said none).

Given that Fabian members are both very engaged politically and overwhelmingly pro-European these are shocking numbers and questions about Brussels democratic element have to be seriously asked.

Do you know who your MEPs are?

Our MEPs lack of cut through isn’t a new phenomenon and there are questions for all of us who work in politics. A quick straw poll of the Fabian office revealed just one staff member who could name all his MEPs (a far lower percentage, it has to be said, than Fabian members managed), and he previously worked for an MEP.

Without a recognisable public face the charge of ‘faceless Brussels bureaucrat’ becomes impossible to refute, and easy shorthand for any anti-EU campaigner looking to score cheap points in a debate. The EU can’t dissolve the electorate and elect a new one so it needs to look at itself and work out the fairest (and most engaging) ways of making decisions in future. Without it even our Fabian pro-Europeans will continue their drift towards Euroscepticism.

You can view the full survey results here

There are still a few tickets available for "Social Europe: Worth Fighting For?" on Saturday 25th February. Visit the Fabian Society website to get yours today.

Olly Parker is head of Partnerships and Events at the Fabian Society

Why we need Social Europe

Ahead of the Fabian Society's Social Europe conference on 25th February, Ivana Bartoletti, Editor of Fabiana and former policy advisor to Romano Prodi government in Italy, writes for Next Left on why a social agenda must be at the heart for Europe  

European social policy comprises a variety of interventions, which take place mainly through the so-called Open Method of Coordination. The outcome is an amalgam of legislation, financial aid, cooperation and soft law mechanisms such as guidelines, benchmarking, and best practice.

In recent years, soft law mechanisms have become the preferred route to promote innovation in social policy. They are embedded in the Lisbon Strategy, which was adopted in 2000 with the aim of turning Europe into a socially inclusive and competitive, knowledge-based economy by 2010.

However, in the past ten years the idea underpinning the Lisbon Strategy — that economic and social goals must be closely connected — has been slowly abandoned. By 2005, the focus of the Strategy had shifted from considering social policy as a key factor for growth, to simply ‘growth and jobs’, without any mention of it. This didn’t happen by chance, but has been the result of the swing to the right, which has occurred in many countries over the past ten years.

Such a shift in the political agenda has become clearly visible in the way the EU has decided to deal with the current crisis. European countries, almost all run at present by conservatives, seem to believe that austerity is the only way forward to tackle the crisis. Whether true or not, this has had the effect of making citizens feel that Europe cannot provide any social protection, thus disenfranchising them; this belief can lead easily towards nationalism and protectionism.

Political and economic wisdom, as well as analysis of the outcomes, should suggest that austerity, à la Merkel and Sarkozy, does not work. A Wall Street Journal article, published in 2009 warned of the risk of EU countries entering a vicious circle of deflationary ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ wage strategies; something which would endanger countries and lead to a spiral of poverty and lower living standards.

I am reluctant to accept historic comparisons which do not recognise the fact we live in an unprecedented time.

The process of European integration has now gone far enough that old remedies, such as currency devaluations and trade protectionism, are not viable solutions.

At the same time, solutions based on the traditional social-democratic vision of the big State are in my view outdated too, not only because resources are tight but also because big, state-led programmes have not always achieved what was hoped for.

It is within this context that Labour needs to develop a new narrative on Europe and I think the way to achieve this is by endorsing the original spirit of the Lisbon Strategy: to re-establish the social element as a key factor of growth.

Firstly, the EU is a single market, and it is in our interest to pursue a concerted social agenda among all member states. Equalising the social conditions of workers means ensuring we avoid a race to the bottom, which would ultimately affect us all. The reality is that the trend in reducing rights has already started. 

Secondly, we need to compete in the wider world. In 2006 I became head of human rights for Labour sister party in Italy, and I have since advocated that if we, as Europe, want to compete with, for example, China — a country which does not combine growth with rights — we cannot follow the same path, and would not want to.

Having recognised the importance of the social element as a key factor of growth, we can relish the challenge of developing a new social agenda in these tough times.

My argument applies very well to women: maternity rights as well as the provision of adequate and affordable childcare (topics which have always been at the very heart of the Lisbon agenda) are social priorities which will trigger growth. History shows us that removing the obstacles to women’s full participation in the labour market is a key factor for growth and the creation of wealth for households.

This is why I believe the European social agenda can give Labour the bedrock for a new narrative on Europe, so long as we restore its original spirit and we make it work in today’s tough times.

There are still a few tickets available for "Social Europe: Worth Fighting For?" on Saturday 25th February. Visit the Fabian Society website to get yours today.

Cameron deserves credit, and tripartisan support, over Libya

David Cameron and his government deserve credit today for having worked hard to play a constructive role - alongside France, Arab League nations and others - to eventually push the United Nations process to agree a no fly zone in Libya.

The British government was previously criticised for its shaky response to the Libyan crisis, and with a good deal of cause given blunders over the evacuation of British citizens, and some rather mixed messages in the region more generally. But the British and French have shown that they can have an influential and, in this case, decisive role at the United Nations given how ambivalent the US administration has been over what, if any, further international response was demanded by the unfolding crisis in Libya.

So Cameron deserves tripartisan support for the British government's broad approach and I expect that he can broadly expect to receive it. There are certainly some pessimistic realist voices, particularly on the Conservative right (continuing an ages old debate, as Brendan Simms anatomises), and there will be a section of opinion around Tony Benn on the left and of broadly pacifist instincts who are worred about perceptions of 'western imperialism'. But the broad centre around the Responsbility to Protect ought to have a wide range across the spectrum on this occasion.

That will include a strong proportion of those on the liberal left who opposed the Iraq war, but who will rightly see this case - with an imminent crisis rather than a pre-emptive claim, two clear Security Council resolutions to authorise action, and backing from regional powers such as the Arab League - as having quite distinct features, which need to be judged on their own merits. Those are the reasons why much Liberal Democrat opinion will also be instinctively supportive of the government's position, whether they were in the Coalition government or not.

Despite the possibility of a broad consensus, the UN decision means accepting many risks. The diplomatic response may well have come too late. The moving response in the streets of Benghazi to the UN decision could simply prove a prelude to tragedy: the celebrations of those who hoped to be assisted by an international community which is rather anxious about whether it can in fact practically assist.

There are important questions about whether a no fly zone will prove effective against Libyan resistance, and whether it will prove insufficient as the dictatorship moves to suppress an uprising by other means. If it does not work, there will be no shortage of Monday night quarterbacks to point out why it was folly to think that it ever could.

Nor should anybody have any relish about the prospect of military action. Yet the alternative to the UN resolution would be an acceptance that governments can kill their own citizens with impunity - with barely even a word of protest, still less any effort to prevent this - whatever the cost to human rights, and to broader regional peace and security.


***

That this effort to protect in Libya now has the multilateral legitimacy of UN authorisation ought also to weigh with critics or sceptics of the decision. There is certainly an arbitrary element to viewing the ethical standing of a course of action as depending on whether China and Russia can be persuaded not to veto it, but these may well, for now, be necessary tensions for those who want the international community to commit to effective action to prevent atrocities while also developing and deepening the transition to a rule-based system of international law. (Next Left has previously discussed the importance of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, as a principle that can and should connect human rights, sovereignty and its limits, and multilateral legitimacy, as well as the frustrations of the current institutions of international diplomacy)

If Gaddafi were to succeed in restoring his de facto power, it will be important to be clear that control of a territory by brute force no longer confers international legitimacy and status: an important emerging distinction in international politics.

Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans has been among the architects and champions of the Responsbility to Protect principle. He has been arguing that a UN response to the Libyan crisis would mark an important threshold for establishing this core principle. As Evans puts it, "sovereignty is not a licence to kill". The question now is whether this can be upheld in Libya in practice, and not only in theory.

The breakdown of the Security Council vote is interesting.

Given the reasons behind their positions on sovereignty over human rights, it is interesting that both China and Russia recognise the potential diplomatic costs and reputational risks to vetoing such a resolution - choosing instead to lay down their vetoes and abstain. Reuters reports that the Chinese foreign ministry has cited Arab League and African support for the resolution as decisive.

In view of the concerns and stance of the Arab countries and African Union and the special circumstances that currently apply in Libya, China and other countries abstained, and did not block the passing of the resolution," said Jiang.

U.N. diplomats said they understood the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Jordan were among Arab League members prepared to take part in enforcing the no-fly zone.

But it is also disappointing that Germany joins India and Brazil among temporary Security Council members in abstaining.

It is novel for the division in the EU to be about agreement between Britain and France, but dissent from Germany.

Guio Westerwelle, the beleaguered leader of the liberal junior coalition party, is facing increasing pressure over his lacklustre performance in the role, as The Guardian reports today.

Opposition Social Democrats have noted that Westerwelle's objections to the resolution are not coherent, as The New York Times reports:

The German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, said that a military intervention was no solution. “Germany is not prepared to be dragged into a civil war,” he said in interviews.

It was unclear which countries would enforce the no-flight zone, how it would work and which countries were prepared to send forces to Libya, he said. “I can see no German troops in Libya.”

Gernot Erler, a foreign policy expert and the deputy parliamentary leader of the opposition Social Democrats, said the government’s decision to side with Russia and China in opposing the no-flight zone would isolate Germany. He said support for a no-flight zone did not automatically mean sending ground troops.

While the ambivalence of Angela Merkel and Guido Westerwelle does reflect the German Federal Republic's history and focus on a peaceful role, the decision to support and participate in NATO action over Kosovo showed that this did not necessitate abstention.

And it was certainly possible to back the resolution without deploying "German troops in Libya".

Australia has championed a no fly zone, while being clear that it would not participate militarily, while Canada and Norway are among those preparing to participate, alongside Britain, France, the United States and Arab states.

Whatever the pros and cons of the German government's stance, all German democrats on different sides of the argument will surely find Gaddafi's response offensive.

Again, from the New York Times:

The Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, praised Germany. He told RTL, the German commercial television channel, Tuesday that “Germany was the only one with a chance of doing business in Libyan oil in the future.”

The Germans, he said, “have taken a very good position toward us, very different than many other important countries in the West.” Along with Germany, “our oil contracts are going to Russian, Chinese and Indian firms, the West is to be forgotten,” Colonel Qaddafi said.

The Libyan leader said President Nicolas Sarkozy of France was “his friend,” but was “suffering from mental illness.”

While respecting reasons for doubts over the no fly zone proposal, it would be good to hear the German government immediately vocally reject this overture.

Meanwhile, the French Presidency denies Libyan claims that the Gaddafi regime funded the Sarkozy election campaign. In any event, it is good to be able to decisively mark the end of that beautiful friendship.

Bring back social Europe!

This week's Tribune carries a short report on last weekend's Fabian Europe conference.

How could pro-Europeans seek to close the stark class gap in attitudes towards the EU - and what type of social Europe agenda would be most relevant to the current economic challenges we face?

Claude Moraes, deputy leader of Labour’s MEPs, told a Fabian conference on the future of Europe on February 19 that ending an “austerity first” message and putting social Europe back on the agenda is essential if the European Union is to address voters’ concerns.

Mr Moraes said the last Labour Government had “confused people” by instinctively opposing most social legislation when in power, and said he believed leader Ed Miliband could see the strong case for protecting the rights of agency workers.

A YouGov opinion poll for a Fabian Society/FEPS book, Europe’s Left in the Crisis, reveals a stark class gap in attitudes to the EU, with C2 and DE social groups saying British membership is a “bad thing” by 53 per cent to 13 per cent. The 40 per cent gap compares to a 12 per cent gap among ABC1 voters.

Yet the poll also found strong majority support in Britain for common labour standards across the EU to prevent minimum conditions being undercut.

“What we have got is the Treaty of Versailles and what we need is the Marshall plan”, said David Coats, the former head of economic affairs at the TUC. He argued that “austerity Europe” would not win public support for extending the single market without a strong social dimension.

More from Tribune - and how to subscribe.

Who would win an EU referendum?

Saturday's Fabian Europe conference invited pro-Europeans and Eurosceptics to set out competing visions for Britain's role in the EU. In this guest post, Ben Shimshon of Britain Thinks, who spoke at the conference, looks at public attitudes evidence to ask who would convince the public if there was a referendum on British membership, and says that pro-Europeans could learn from lessons from Eurosceptic campaigners.

***


Snapshot polls suggest that a large proportion of the UK public instinctively support withdrawal from the EU.

Were a previously unannounced referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU to be held tomorrow (perhaps via phone or email), the polling evidence suggests that the public would be more likely to vote in favour of pulling out of the EU than staying in.

The last few times the public have been asked the “in or out” question, the response has been fairly decisive: In the absence of any information other than their pre-existing views, just under half of people say they are in favour of pulling out, about a third say they are in favour of staying in, and the rest say they don’t know. (YouGov, Sept 2010, showed 47% in favour of pulling out, and 33% in favour of staying in; Angus Reid, Dec 2010, showed 48% and 27% respectively).

This hasn’t always been the case. In the decade up to 2007, when they stopped tracking the question, Ipsos MORI’s polls were slightly more likely to show greater support for ‘staying in’ than ‘getting out’, although the tendency was for about 40% on either side of the argument and 20% undecided.

These ‘snapshot’ polling numbers need to be considered in the light of the overall salience of the EU for the British public. The last round of Mori’s issue index showed only 1% mentioning EU/Euro/Common Market as the main issue facing Britain, and only 3% mentioned it when prompted to come up with other issues facing Britain. The last time the EU was mentioned by more than 10% was in summer 2005, when the UK took over the presidency, and before that, in 2004 when the Fifth Enlargement took place. The signing of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2010 hardly registered at all.

The euro-sceptic view expressed by many in the British public in opinion polls is underpinned by a widespread, and commonly held, set of underlying associations with the EU. A Fabian/FEPS poll conducted by YouGov in November 2010 confirms the public’s baseline negativity towards the EU: 45% feel that membership of the EU is a bad thing for Britain, while 22% feel it’s a good thing and a similar number say neither. The same poll shows that the public instinct bends towards loosening ties, rather than greater cooperation (Fabian/FEPS/YouGov, Nov 2010) Angus Reid’s December poll shows that fully 59% of Brits feel that EU membership has been negative for the UK, while 29 feel it has been positive.

Qualitative research explains why these ‘knee jerk’ perceptions are often so negative. In focus groups with middle of the road swing voters, asking what comes to mind when they think of the EU typically elicits a predictable, and very narrow, range of responses. These tend to align with views that are loudly and persistently proclaimed in some of the UK’s most popular newspapers. The EU is seen to be the source of many of the perceived problems that are tied up in the phrase ‘political correctness gone mad’:

• Wasting public money
• Human rights law that seems to protect criminals at the expense of victims
• Unnecessary regulation and bureaucracy – straight bananas, abolishing pounds and ounces
• Employment law that stops people being sacked
And, most difficult of all,
• Immigration laws that have led to what many respondents describe as ‘a flood’ of new arrivals from Eastern Europe into ‘their communities.’

Focus group participants discuss each of these in an incredulous tone of voice, agreeing vehemently with each point as it is made, and shaking their heads in disbelief at each example. Often, the whole discussion is capped-off by the assertion that the UK is being ‘taken for a ride’; the belief is widespread that places like France and Italy just ignore the rules and regulations that come out of Brussels and that it’s only the ‘soft touch UK’ that plays along.

Negative feelings towards the EU are also bound up in a unremittingly bleak narrative about politicians and politics generally. Ask a focus group of typically informed Brits what they think an MEP does and, if you’re not met with silence, you’re likely to receive a tirade about things like ‘gravy trains’ and being ‘in it for all they can get’. The sense that the EU is fundamentally unaccountable underpins the public appetite for a referendum – no matter whether the question is about being in or out, or about a particular treaty – pollsters continually show that the public wants the opportunity to take decisions about the EU. A YouGov poll for the Sun in January this year showed 41% saying there should be referenda on all new European treaties while 31% felt that there is no need for ‘minor’ treaties. At the time that the Lisbon Treaty was signed in Dec 2007, Ipsos Mori found that 54% of people wanted a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU – but even then, only 4% would mention the EU as a top issue.

The mess around the Lisbon Treaty provided no end of ammunition for the ‘venal politicians’ point of view’, with both of the main parties seeming underhand and unwilling to trust the people; Labour because they signed the treaty without holding a referendum; the Tories because they ended up having to choose between backing down or insisting on a referendum that couldn’t change anything. Calls for a vote on Europe are likely to be a continuous feature of the coming months and years. In the focus groups, we often find that people believe that the Conservative Party have promised them an ‘in or out’ referendum – something which may prove difficult for the Government to navigate further down the road, especially as their coalition partners actually did promise a referendum on membership at the time of the Lisbon treaty.

What if there really was a referendum? Should it ever happen, a referendum on membership of the EU would be accompanied by high profile pro and anti campaigns, with all the coverage and press interest that entails. The question then becomes about how far an increase in saliency will be accompanied by a shift in perceptions about the EU as the public begin to pay more attention and think beyond their existing views.

Those who are in favour of continued membership of the EU clearly have the most work to do, both in terms of addressing the existing perceptions about the EU, but also in finding the messages that can actually chime with what the public care about. Both sides will attempt to connect the EU to other, more salient, issues in the public mind. Immigration, which was felt to be the number one issue facing Britain in the months and years preceding the downturn, is already closely (and negatively) connected to the EU in people’s minds. Doubtless the pro-withdrawal campaign would leverage those concerns, alongside tapping into ‘stock’ issues such as accountability, waste of public money, “bizzare” court judgements, and laws that fly in the face of “common sense”

The Fabian/FEPS poll suggests that, despite the prevailing winds, all is not lost for the pro-membership groups. Asked a general question about cooperation between EU countries, the UK public are more likely to favour ‘loosening the links’ between countries (49%) rather than cooperating more closely (21%). However, when it comes to almost any particular issue, they are more likely to support closer ties between EU countries every time: Climate change; diplomacy; tackling terrorism; regulating banks; financial recovery are all areas where respondents were more likely to advocate closer ties than looser ones. That means there is space for the pro-European voices to develop messages around high-salience issues such as the economy, trade and defence in order to promote a more favourable view of the UK’s EU membership. Those messages could be about the ‘positives’ of membership, but it may well be that the potential negative impacts of withdrawal - in terms of isolation, lack of power, loss of favourable trading partners – have the most potential. The challenge for advocates of the EU in the UK is to find the messages, words, images, tone of voice and spokespeople that can get those messages to land as powerfully as the anti-EU messages do.

At the moment, though the anti EU voices are winning the battle. Their arguments, and their ways of framing the debate, are cutting through and chiming with the existing perceptions and preoccupations of the UK public.

Those who want to make the case for the EU must do the same – and would be well advised to do so, whether they end up fighting a referendum or not.

Ben Shimshon is a director at BritainThinks, having joined Deborah Mattinson and Viki Cooke at the founding of the company. You can follow Ben on Twitter: @BenShimshon

EU referendum would settle the issue for a generation, says leading Tory sceptic

An "in or out" referendum would settle the question of British membership of the European Union for at least a generation, and perhaps half a century or more, Tory MP Mark Reckless told the Fabian Europe conference 'Britain and Europe: In, out or somewhere in between?' at the weekend. (This blog will run several posts this week reporting on several different conference themes).

While there is an emerging discussion among a minority of pro-Europeans about the potential value of a referendum, many were very sceptical that it could "settle the question" for any time at all. Might Eurosceptics advance this issue with their pro-European opponents if they could promise that the 'in or out' question would not be put again for, say, twenty years?, I asked Reckless, who is a vocal advocate of Britain leaving the EU.

"At least [twenty years]. Perhaps it would be more like fifty years", said Reckless, arguing that the strongest case for a referendum was that nobody under the age of 54 had the chance to vote in a referendum, last held 35 years ago in 1975.

"The implication is that you wouldn't accept the result. That's wrong. You would have to accept the result", he said. The experience of Norway and Switzerland was that - even if politicians wanted to reopen the issue - the public would take the view that you've asked us, so don't ask us again, he said.

The idea of an in/out referendum was discussed by several speakers, having become a talking point in the EU debate after Shadow Europe Minister Wayne David said that Labour's policy review would address the question at a Policy Network event the previous week. Speaking at the Fabian conference too, David reiterated that position and also that he was personally unpersuaded - "and so, more importantly, is Ed Miliband" - identifying some of the barriers to the idea.

There are a number of real problems. The issue which is debated and voted on is often not the issue on the ballot paper. Whatever the result, it may not settle the question and it could coarsen the debate. It could becomes a massive distraction from the debate we need to have. We need to talk not just about Europe good or bad, or in or out, but about what kind of Europe the centre-left wants to create.

LibDem peer Shirley Williams, in opening the conference, warned against the idea.

Williams said she had been "deeply furious" when Labour MP John Silkin launched a Labour no movement to overturn the referendum result within just four years of the public vote, managing to put Labour on a pro-withdrawal ticket by 1980, a major issue in Williams and her fellow SDP founders deciding to quit the party.

I was deeply furious. I had gone along with a referendum reluctantly but I did think we would get at least ten years of constructive engagement and influence. Instead, we were right back in the civil wars ... So remember, the referendum is time and again the escape hatch for politicians who can't make up their minds ... It decides nothing in the long-term. In the short-term, you do get a chance to shift the argument. But it doesn't end the argument and it probably never will", she said.

But UKIP MEP Derek Clark, standing in for party leader Nigel Farage who had to withdraw from the event, suggested that whether anything was settled might depend on how close the result was.

If you think you'll win, then OK, do it - and you'd solve the problem for a generation and you'd kick us out of the European Parliament ... But the trouble with a referendum is the margin of victory on one side or the other. There might be a clear result. But if it is 49-51% one way or the other, then the losing side may say that the result does not have legitimacy and they would be right"

Former Tory MEP John Stevens, who left the party over its Eurosceptic stance, said that he had long been sceptical of the use of referenda, but had changed his mind.

"I have come reluctantly to favour an in or out referendum as the only way to settle this", said Stevens.

He predicted a "very rough read" in the next few years, but was confident of a clear victory for EU membership in a referendum.

Reckless argued that the principle of a referendum should trump tactical judgements about which side might win:

"Instead of everybody predicting the result, and working back, we should ask 'Is this the sort of issue we ought to have a referendum about'. But another reason we might have a referendum is if both sides were confident of winning it", he said.

Meanwhile, Stevens predicted that the Cameron government would concede to pressure to hold a referendum on the EU during this Parliament, over Treaty changes rather than the in/out question.

"I predict that we will have a referendum on an EU issue before the end of this Parliament", he said, predicting that "the package on the euro crisis is going to lead to a more substantial Treaty change than most people think ... If that is the case, I think it is going to be extremely difficult for a British government to say 'this is nothing to do with us".

Back on the "in or out" question, Reckless wondered if "there could be a race to be the first party who is pushing it. ... David Cameron has shown on AV that he is willing, in order to gain power, to hold a referendum on something he doesn't believe in", he said, to laughter from the audience.

***

As I blogged on Saturday, this "in or out" discussion probably somewhat over-estimates the chances of Labour adopting a pro-referendum stance. The leadership is sceptical of the argument. An entirely unscientific show of hands among the largely pro-European Fabian audience (with a smattering of strong 'sceptics) saw a split of about two to one against a referendum, among those attending the final session of the day.

Former Europe Minister Keith Vaz told the House of Commons last month that he favours the move. But probably the most intriguing pro-European advocate of an in or out referendum is Tony Blair's Downing Street Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell, who discusses its potential historic impact in an article (£) for E!Sharp, the European magazine which was (coincidentally) one of our media partners at Saturday's conference.

What Tony Blair did not succeed in doing was winning the British people over to Europe. In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, David Trimble said that Northern Ireland felt like "a cold house" to its Catholic population. That is the problem for Britain in Europe too. The British feel that Europe is something done to them by the French and Germans rather than something in which they have a shared leadership. If they felt more comfortable, the battle could be won. Euroscepticism in Britain is wide, but it is also shallow. If there were a referendum on :in or out", the sceptics could be beaten.

Coalition has "hokey-cokey" approach to Europe, says Mandelson

Peter Mandelson has charged the Coalition government with risking British influence through a "hokey-cokey" policy of one leg in and one leg out on the EU.

"We are in our usual half-in, half-out state of mind", said Mandelson,
speaking at a Policy Network conference in London last week, where he was chairing a panel discussion with speakers including LibDem business secretary Vince Cable and former EU Commissioner Mario Monti. His hokey-cokey theme anticipated rather well today's Fabian conference - "Britain and Europe: In, Out or somewhere in between" which takes place in London from 11am today. Perhaps we should have gone for "shake it all about" instead in the title.

I am looking forward to Shirley Williams opening the conference. Shirley, who is a former Fabian General Secretary and ex-Chair of the Society, has had a frontline seat over the topsy-turvy debate over British EU membership, having been among the 69 Labour MPs who broke the 3-line whip to support Britain joining the EEC, and having had a frontline seat through developments including the 1975 referendum and the SDP-Labour split in which Europe was significant, to the tensions and debates of the Major, Blair/Brown and now Coalition era. Next Left will bring some news and views after the conference, and I would be interested to hear from those who attend.

Here are some more of Mandelson's comments at the recent Policy Network event.

"We know that our own economic future is intimately linked" with the success of the eurozone countries, said Mandelson. "But we are, as ever, terrified of the political and economic consequences of greater integration". The issue was not about Britain joining the euro, he stressed ("heaven forfend"), but about our ability to engage with or influence major strategic decisions about the future of the EU which would deeply affect us.

"The Coalition government gives a good impression of not knowing if it is coming or going on its European policy. It is very hokey-cokey, one leg in and one leg out, and try to keep the whole show on the road".

Mandelson's comments raised a wry smile from Liberal Democrat Business Secretary Vince Cable, who acknowledged that "we are operating in a political context". Cable said that he was seeking to pursue a policy which was pragmatic, engaged and "pro-European". "Within the eclectic range of views within the Coalition, we maintain that position quite well", insisted Cable.

Mandelson acknowledged that he could not develop his critique of current policy into a "Coalition-bashing tirade" since the Labour government had also had to respond to competing pressures over the EU, managing what he called "a sort of alright reconciliation" between the government's belief in pursuing national interests through EU engagement and political pressures

"We could hardly claim that we ended up with an absolute implementation of this European idea", he said, noting that he had himself become rather "impatient" with the government's approach after returning to Gordon Brown's government in 2008.

***

So is Britain always going to have a hokey-cokey approach to the European Union? What would positive outcomes could be achieved by less hesitant participation - and how should the political barriers to this be overcome?

I reported for Left Foot Forward that Shadow Europe Minister Wayne David told the Policy Network event that there was growing discussion of the pro-European case for an "in or out" referendum - and that the Labour party's policy review would consider what David, while unpersuaded, called a "finely balanced" question. Andrew Grice of The Independent reports on this today, in previewing the Fabian event. Jon Worth is sceptical, though not implacably opposed. Like several other voices at the Policy Network conference, he doubts that the "lance the boil" argument actually happens, and suggests that it instead crowds out a debate about the engagement within the EU that Britain should want, and that Labour and other pro-European forces should prioritise.

But Joe Litobarski for Comment is Free thinks any referendum, whoever brought it about, would result in a yes vote, and would finally shake it all about by forcing a debate on the EU.

While there is clearly a live, somewhat eye-catching discussion, the chances of Labour proposing an "in or out" referendum could easily become somewhat overstated. Wayne David noted that an increasing number of pro-European voices (like Keith Vaz) support the prospect, but it does remain a minority view. David's statement that an open policy review will consider an issue is, in itself, unremarkable, and there is little or no reason not to consider the question. While I think that there are good grounds to be confident of a Yes vote - and potential gains from one as a way to shift the longer-term debate - there is a strong argument right now that any additional period of uncertainty about Britain's medium-term future could send a damaging signal, particularly in terms of investment in the UK where our participation in the EU is seen as important for long-term decisions. It remains to be seen whether our second UK-wide national referendum in 35 years - on electoral reform - whets the appetite for more direct democracy, or rather suggests a risk of referendum fatigue.

It seems to me that a quite plausible and potentially attractive outcome could be for Labour, as a pro-European party, to set out a case or being agnostic to primarily Eurosceptic campaigns for an in/out referendum, without agitating for a referendum itself but nor seeking to oppose or block one either. As a pretty unitedly pro-European party, Labour will support the principle of membership, whether in the Commons or in the country, while also respecting the right of Eurosceptic parties and strands of opinion to disagree democratically over our national future.

Labour might, while making the public case for British engagement perhaps also take an active decision to not oppose future referendum calls, for example in the House of Commons. A referendum would not be Labour's priority, or campaign goal, but it could decide not to offer a veto or block either. It would then be for Eurosceptics to show that they could democratically mobilise sufficient support from those who want to challenge the status quo, or could win the argument within the Commons (and the Conservative Parliamentary party) for a referendum. If so, Labour would be ready to go and make the case before a public vote, and would not be actively seeking to prevent one. (If that was Labour's position, whether or not we had a referendum would depend on the balance of forces on the right. It would be for David Cameron to decide whether to follow Harold Wilson, in seeing a future referendum as a way to keep a party of different views together, or whether to block a vote for fear of splitting opinion).

***

On his own blog, Jon Worth critiques that emerging referendum discussion and the broader "in, out or somewhere else" framing of the Fabian event as frustrating, because it keeps the debate stuck. I am naturally somewhat sceptical about this challenge: it seems to me to underestimate the political challenges of securing public consent for the bolder multilateralism we will need.

Worth writes that - "The only way to really put these matters right is to push for greater democratic accountability of the EU’s institutions – federalism essentially – and ensure the individual decisions at EU level are themselves legitimate". This seems to insist on settling one of the central question at stake, so that concerns about the accountability of ever closer union can be dealt with best only by completing a process of full federal integration so that it can be more democratically accountable. Moves in this direction - whether directly elected European Parliament or the so-called citizens' convention have often disappointed their architects by not doing more to create a European demos. Most people's locus and conception of democratic accountability remains primarily national. The 'connect with the citizens through a constitutional response to the 'democratic deficit' - the focus of so much EU activity across the last decade often seemed to do rather more harm than good in terms of its own goals and objectives, though it could be legitimately countered that this also partly reflects a parallel failure to politicise the supra-national institutions and spaces in a way that might engage people.

Worth's challenge does raise the useful question of different ways to frame general public discussions about future European policy, particularly aimed at reaching beyond the super-committed in the party, for example in fringe meetings or conferences. The new Fabian Society and FEPS book "Europe's left in the crisis" attempts to address the broader themes, of how social democratic parties which know that 'social democracy in one country' has too little purchase on economic, environmental and security challenges do secure sufficient political consent to both secure power and to pursue an effective multilateral approach.

A related challenge for opposition parties is whether 'Europe' (and 'the international' more generally) is the bolt-on final chapter of a policy review process and manifesto, where everything that is expected is said, or whether one can break the essentially silo-based and segregated frame of "what future for Europe" and Europe as a "foreign policy" issue, and internationalise the approach to the central political and policy challenges - a new political economy, above all. If we don't do this, then the EU debate will be conducted by MEPs and those who strongly self-identify as pro-European as a matter of political identity. And these issues will remain as marginal as they have for the last decade.

In my view, asking "in, out or somewhere in between" can raise a useful set of challenges about the nature and purpose of the EU itself and the UK's engagement within it, which beyond the question of whether we remain members of the club to the nature of our engagement with it.

Firstly, I think a first principles discussion can be useful, both in demanding that we think about how to articulate an engaging foundational case for EU participation, but also in opening the opportunity to interrogate what "out" would mean - a question mostly absent from public debate, despite the prominence of Eurosceptic voices. Imagine, for example, that Britain were to vote to leave the EU and join EFTA. What are the gains and losses - in economics, in political influence, in sovereignty and power? For those who want to leave to "regain sovereignty" would this address the core issues? Or could issues of democratic disconnection be exacerbated - as a non-member state made budget contributions and accepted regulations without voting power or a seat at the table? Are there other forms of "out" in he real world which address these better? Or can advocates of "in" address the issues underpinning.

Secondly, more mysterious still is what "in between" positions are available in the EU we are in. A position which can come to terms with the post-Lisbon status quo but will be sceptical in interrogating future integration prospects is primarily in. By contrast, an approach which demands a fundamental renegotiation of British membership seems to be primarily about seeking a route towards a divorce, or perhaps more amicable separation. The government's EU Bill was intended to sate Eurosceptic appetities, yet has been widely criticised by its intended beneficiaries, who regard its Referendum Lock as meaningless. Bagehot of The Economist suggests it could be rather more potent de facto veto power than the grumpily dissatisfied Eurosceptics think. Labour's Wayne David has noted that the referendum lock proposals could conceivably lead to the odd situation of a large number of referendums on small technical issues, but not on profound strategic issues about the future of the EU: "There would be a referendum on changes to the role of the Advocate-General in the European Union but not on the accession of Turkey to EU membership, which is probably the biggest change to the EU for a generation".

British public opinion is "somewhere in between" - partly because of the hard scepticism of a vocal minority, and partly because most people have mixed and sometimes conflicting views. As YouGov'e polling for the Fabian Society and FEPS shows, we tend to think of the European Union as a bad thing, and too and yet we want its members to work more closely together than at present on all of the issues we care about.

Thirdly, the question of the future development of the EU we are in is changing fast, yet is barely being much discussed in the UK at all outside elite civil service, business or think-tank circles. There. The Economist's David Rennie also writes about this in a Policy Network collection previewing their conference.

Now, however, 2011 could turn out to be the year that a multispeed Europe starts to look more like a two-speed Europe, with an inner core impelled towards closer political and economic union by the need to rescue the single currency.

The UK risks becoming a marginal voice, as European decision making is increasingly centred around the euro area. The French and allies are pushing hard for summits restricted to euro area leaders, who would meet to discuss "European economic government" within their inner core. In plain English that means calls for interventionism and weaker competition rules and an industrial policy to subsidise "European champions". It would mean demands for "social and fiscal harmonisation" (meaning pressure on low-tax, more flexible places like Ireland or many ex-communist countries to raise their costs and stop competing with old Europe).

For a long time, it seemed that German policy would strongly prefer stronger economic integration in a Europe of 27, not a Europe of 17, preferring the balance of liberalisation and integration with the UK and Scandinavian countries involved. Contested Franco-German moves towards greater economic coordination and "economic governance" might herald a major shift in this position.

Both Mandelson and former EU Commissioner Mario Monti, who remains influential in the EU as author of the "new strategy for the single market" paper acknowledged last week that critics of the initial design of the Eurozone were right about the need for much closer economic cooperation to make a single currency work.

"Many said at the time, and they were right but mostly ignored, that EMU needed a much stronger political and policy framework if it was to function in an optimal way", said Mandelson. It was now vital to "reanchor the Euro area in firmer foundations" for the success of all of the EU economies, including those like the UK which were outside the euro, he said, acknowledging the difficulties of doing so given diverse economies with a single interest rate, limited labour mobility, and internal imbalances of trade.

"It was a big mistake of the construct called EMU [Economic and Monetary Union] to pay so much attention to the M of EMU and to leave the E, economic integration, so much in the background". This was the point on which academic critics who had said the Euro would never see the light of day should have been listened to, said Monti.

Britain is outside the Eurozone, and will choose not to take part in the new bailout fund. The domestic political legitimacy challenge looks too great to choose to 'buy' a seat at the table. As the Financial Times reported this week, Nick Clegg and David Cameron have also been engaged in a significant Whitehall argument about whether and how far Britain should engage in the eurozone discussions from outside, where major economic questions

The divergences not just in policy but also between the discourse of British domestic political debate on the EU and the emerging developments in the eurozone perhaps suggest a drearily familiar theme that "somewhere in between" is the European position which British policy habitually gravitates towards.

Europe: in or out? Join Douglas Alexander, Shirley Williams and Nigel Farage to find out

Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander will open a Fabian conference on the future of Britain's role in the European Union, as we challenge both pro-Europeans and Eurosceptics from across the British political spectrum to make their case, and to interrogate rival visions of Britain's future relationships in Europe at the event on Saturday 19th February Britain and Europe: In, out or Somewhere in between?

LibDem peer Shirley Williams, also a former Fabian Chair and General Secretary, will offer her perspective on the politics of Britain and Europe, from the 1975 referendum to the present day, and what we might learn about the future debate today.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage will take part in a session to discuss The sceptic's vision: what would happen if we got out? with Linda McAvan MEP and pollster Ben Shimshon and others, while Claude Moraes MEP, Alexandra Pardal of the Foreign Policy Centre and David Nichols of Amnesty International will join Fabian General Secretary Sunder Katwala in an After the Crisis panel to look at the economic and political challenges facing EU members.

Our Question Time panel will include Mark Reckless, a Conservative MP who thinks Britain would be better off out, Ute Michel of the Green Party and Labour's Shadow Europe Minister Wayne David, chaired by Prospect's David Goodhart.

Tickets are £10 and available from the Fabian website, where you will also find details of more speakers as the line-up is finalised.

The Fabian conference is kindly supported by the European Commission (after a competitive bidding process) and hosted by Amnesty International UK. It is held in association with the Young Fabians, and our media partners The Independent and E!Sharp magazine.

Challenges for the Eurosceptics

Daniel Hannan MEP has established a voice as probably the most articulate advocate of British withdrawal from the European Union, so it is not a great shock that Hannan - blogging at the Telegraph - takes a different view from my boxing day commentary on the YouGov poll findings on attitudes to the European Union, commissioned for a forthcoming FEPS/Fabian Society pamphlet.

The opportunity for Hannan is general disillusion from the EU. He challenges my argument that pro-Europeans might take confiidence from support for closer cooperation than at present among EU members in several major areas of policy. Sceptics don`t oppose friendly cooperation with the neighbours, on an intergovernmental basis, he says.

In what sense, then, do we want “more of it in practice”?

Sunder infers his optimistic interpretation from replies suggesting that most of us want European states to collaborate with each other on climate change, fighting terrorism, stimulating economic growth and so on.

But here’s the thing, Sunder, old chum: no one is arguing against international co-operation. The alternative to Brussels supranationalism is not autarky, but intergovernmentalism.

But I don't see that Hannan's challenge stands up. The contrast between the abstract and the concrete is more significant than he admits - and presents challenges to all sides of this debate.

There are two reasons why it is very difficult to see the poll as offering a resounding endorsement of Hannanism on the EU.

Firstly, poll respondents were offered three options - including 'the current balance is about right' as well as "cooperate more closely" and "loosen their links" in this area (as they were in the general question of more or less cooperation in present - where the "looser links" were chosen by 49%, as an abstract question). So, clearly, respondents did not have to choose closer cooperation than at present if they just wanted to express a view that the issue is an important one, on which governments should cooperate.

Hannan and other Eurosceptics must believe the current arrangements are too sovereignty-suffocatingly close in most or all of these areas. So they have a big persuasion challenge here, across the range of policy, while pro-EU voices would have to show EU action is effective and necessary to win arguments for more integration.

Secondly, what surely clinches this point is that, in two cases, the public were explicitly asked about more specific proposals which would be strongly integrationist: minimum labour standards and minimum business rates across the EU.

On Hannan's interpretation, voters who would want to block closer EU integration - but who are happy with international cooperation - should have been much less favourable to those proposals than to the general idea of closer cooperation on a range of multilateral challenges.

But they weren't. Both were pretty popular.

Minimum business rates were supported by 47% to 34%.

Minimum EU-wide labour standards were even more popular - 55% support to 27%.

That shows that this idea would seem to tap into a broadly held 'fair rules' intuition across parties and different attitudes to the EU. (That 49% of those who think EU membership "a bad thing" overall would support this specific integrationist move with 41% opposed, demonstrating precisely the paradox which my post highlighted).

Respondents were specifically prompted with fair and balanced language, specifically articulating the principal objection to integration: "or should each country be able to make their own decisions about what level of tax is best for their companies?". We received and accepted advice from the pollster as to how to ensure the question was put in a fair way.

Of course, poll findings can never prove what would be a good - or bad - thing as policy. But it would clearly be quite false to claim there is strong public opposition to EU-wide minimum business rates or minimum labour standards. Attitudes could change - in either direction - in response to political advocacy and public campaigining. What we can say that the public would seem clearly open to giving such an argument a hearing, and begin somewhat favourable to it.

I think it is safe to say that Hannanites would be on the minority side of those questions, since the British public do indeed appear to favour greater integration -"more of it in practice" - on these proposals.

***
What do the Eurosceptics want?

I personally would welcome a more engaged debate about the EU, right across the political spectrum. Both advocating British withdrawal from the EU and other forms of Euroscepticism are legitimate democratic perspectives. It is a mistake to suggest that they are not.

That is true in principle - where I think Hannan is right to challenge the debasement of political debate by turning "Nazi" into a thoughtlessly casual slur, whether by UKIP MEPs or social democrats.

This ought to also be an important strategic and tactical consideration for pro-Europeans too, since they have an interest in ensuring the arguments of their opponents are also properly tested and scrutinised. Eurosceptics can prove effective in railing against the status quo (though intelligent pro-Europeanism, such as that of the Centre for European Reform should not be uncritical of EU policies), and often present themselves as something of a persecuted minority to do this. There is much less scrutiny of their alternative policy, or indeed policies.

I would acknowledge that those who would get Britain out - like UKIP or the Hannanite minority in the Tory party - have a clearer answer to these questions than other sceptics. But those who would swap EU membership for EFTA or EEA membership show that there would be a great sovereignty gain? The UK would still have to negotiate a significant contribution to the EU budget, and be bound by EU regulations to have market access. (We would have to persuade EFTA members too that the admission of one of Europe's largest countries would not upset their apple cart).

Much more mysterious is the agenda of what remains the dominant - yet entirely underdefined - strand of Euroscepticism, which would keep the UK in the European Union.

This is the (perhaps nominal) Euroscepticism of David Cameron - which he believes is compatible with wearing cufflinks with the EU flag on them, as Daniel Finkelstein revealed.

It is also the argument made by those who believe that a "fundamental renegotiation" of British membership of the European Union is necessary so we can stay in. But I have very rarely seen any contentful description of what this would entail.

Influential ConservativeHome editor Tim Montgomerie says the test is that Britain's relationship with the EU would not be "fundamentally the same".

If Britain's relationship with the EU is fundamentally the same after five years of Conservative government the internal divisions that ended the last Tory period in government will look like a tea party in comparison.

That leaves only the question of what would be different.

Montgomerie is, like Hannan, ultimately in favour of British withdrawal from the EU. So this "fundamental rengotiation" position might be, for many, the equivalent of what Trotskyists call a "transitional and provisional demand. (Or indeed, a Eurosceptic exercise in Fabian gradualism). There is surely no renegotiation of British membership which would satisfy most 'Better Off Out' Eurosceptics.

But there are many other Eurosceptics who favour Britain staying in - that is the position of many Tory MPs and government ministers, including William Hague, Liam Fox and other key members of the Cabinet, and quite probably a majority of Tory backbenchers. Yet I have never seen a coherent description of the deal which would make them content to also don Mr Cameron's cufflinks, and regard the question of British membership as settled for a generation or more.

So it is not just the Coalition with the Liberal Democrats which means that this government is unable to articulate anything other than a short-term and tactical approach to EU relations.

There are coherent arguments about why Britain should be in the EU - and indeed to get out of it. But we have never heard, in this debate, any substantive argument from the Eurosceptics of the "Tory mainstream" whose argument seems to imply that the UK can be somewhere in between.

If we are to have a serious debate about Britain's EU options, isn't it time for them to speak up too?

New poll reveals what the British really think about the European Union

Is the great British political war over our place in the European Union now ending not with a bang but a whimper?

The European question did much to split political parties and bring down prime ministers and chancellors across a couple of political generations. That this great clash may now be fizzling out would be one possible reading of a fascinating new YouGov poll on British attitudes to the European Union, which is published next month in a new pamphlet 'Europe's Left in the Crisis' from FEPS and the Fabian Society, and which The Observer previews in a news report today: Britons want EU to assert itself on the global stage.

This post sets out below more of the YouGov poll details, showing that the British public are sceptical of the EU as an idea, yet rather in favour of having more of it in practice, along with some initial thoughts on what this could mean for public and political arguments over the future of the EU and Britain's place in it.

YouGov polling for the Fabian Society/FEPS book 'Europe's Left In the Crisis'.

Is Britain's membership of the European Union a good thing or a bad thing for Britain?

Good thing: 22%
Bad thing: 45%
Neither good nor bad: 21%
Don't know: 12%

* This good thing/bad thing question demonstrates a stark class gap in attitudes to the EU. 53% of C2DE voters say British membership of the EU is a bad thing overall, and only 13% a good thing overall (-40), than among ABC1 voters, where the gap closes to -12, with 28% positive and 40% negative.

Narrow pluralities of Labour (35-34) and LibDem (36-27) supporters are positive about the EU, while Conservatives are strongly negative (15-61).

Only 16% of women say the EU is a good thing, compared to 28% of men. But men (48%) are also more likely to say it is a bad thing than women (43%). 23% of women say it is neither a good nor bad thing, while three times as many women (18%) as men say they don't know.

The 27 countries in the European Union work together in different ways. Thinking about Europe as a whole, rather just Britain, what is your view of the level of cooperation between EU countries?

Overall, the EU member states should cooperate more closely so that they can better deal with major international issues: 21%

Overall, the EU member states should loosen their links so they have more flexibility to deal with national issues: 49%

Overall, the current balance between EU cooperation and national action is about right: 9%

Don't know: 20%

* Supporters of all the major political parties prefer looser EU cooperation overall. While 66% of Conservatives favour looser ties, with 15% favouring closer cooperation, the margins in favour of looser ties are narrower among Labour (40-30%) and LibDem (38-33%) voters.

Below are a list of specific areas. For each one please say whether you think countries in Europe should co-operate more closely together, or should loosen their links or if the present balance is about right.

Tackling climate change

EU countries should co-operate more closely on this issue: 55%
EU countries should loosen their links on this issue: 14%
The current balance is about right: 14%
Don't know: 16%

Tackling climate change: Closer climate cooperation has support across all parties, with Conservatives in favour by 50% to 22%, alongside 66-67% of Labour and LibDem voters. Those who say the EU is a bad thing overall want closer cooperation on climate change by 48 to 24%.

Diplomatic relations with non-European countries (such as sharing embassies)

EU countries should co-operate more closely on this issue: 35%
EU countries should loosen their links on this issue: 26%
The current balance is about right: 17%
Don't know: 22%

Fighting terrorism and international crime

EU countries should co-operate more closely on this issue: 71%
EU countries should loosen their links on this issue: 7%
The current balance is about right: 9%
Don't know: 13%

Regulating banks and financial institutions

EU countries should co-operate more closely on this issue: 53%

EU countries should loosen their links on this issue: 25%

The current balance is about right: 6%

Don't know: 15%

Closer cooperation in this area has the backing of Conservatives (45-38) and those who think British membership of the EU is a bad thing (48-37), along with very strong support (74-11) among those who are positive about the EU. There is 54% support from C2DE supporters, along with 53% of ABC1 voters.

Recovering from the recession and financial crisis

EU countries should co-operate more closely on this issue: 45%
EU countries should loosen their links on this issue: 30%
The current balance is about right: 9%
Don't know: 16%

Conservative voters, who oppose closer cooperation by 37-44% disagree with both Labour (59-21) and Liberal Democrat (48-26) supporters on this.

Some people think that the European Union should pass common regulations across the whole of the EU to discourage companies from relocating to other EU countries with lower taxes or fewer regulations. Other people think that countries in the EU should be free to set their own taxes and regulations.

Do you think the European Union should agree minimum levels of levels of workers rights so EU countries cannot undercut each other with cheaper labour or lower regulation, or should each country be able to make their own decisions about what regulations are best for their workers?

The European Union should agree minimum levels of workers rights: 55%
The European Union should not agree minimum levels of workers rights: 27%
Don't know: 17%

* Minimum labour standards across the EU gains equally strong support from ABC1 (56%) and C2DE (54%) voters. It is favoured by Conservatives (48-42) as well as Labour (71-16) and LibDem (66-20) voters. It is also supported by those who think EU membership a bad thing (49-41) or who are neutral about it (54-25) as well as among pro-EU voters (76-15), suggesting this could be an issue which could help to address concerns about the EU.

Do you think the European Union should agree minimum levels of taxation on large businesses so companies cannot relocate to whichever countries offer the lowest tax rates, or should each country be able to make their own decisions about what level of tax is best for their companies?

The European Union should agree minimum levels of tax on large businesses: 47%

The European Union should not agree minimum levels of tax on large businesses: 34%

Don't know: 19%

* Both Labour (59-26) and Liberal Democrat (56-30) voters agree with the proposal for minimum business tax rates, but most Conservatives oppose it (36-52). There is stronger support among C2DE voters (48-30) than among ABC1 voters (46-38).

Thinking about the next 25 years or so, many people have suggested that China will join the United States as a second political and economic Superpower. If that turns out to be true, which of the following is closest to your view.

Britain and other European countries should work more closely together to maximise their voice and influence in the world. 40%
Britain and other European countries should use their own historic international links to try to maximise their own voice and influence: 33%
Neither: 9
Don't know: 18

* Both Labour (54-25) and LibDem voters (55-23) believe the rise of China should see closer EU cooperation, but Conservatives are more likely to disagree (30-47).

YouGov carried out the fieldwork for the poll of 2144 GB adults on 28th-29th November 2010.

***

So what might we make of those findings? They ought to generate debate on all sides of the question. If the British have a reputation for being among the most Eurosceptic of European publics, the poll suggests that the reality is that British Euroscepticism is a very moderate affair and does not present any great barrier to closer EU cooperation in almost every area where a pragmatic argument that cooperating across national boundaries is necessary to make a positive difference can plausibly be made.

Even as 45% of the public think EU membership is a 'bad thing' and 49% supporting the general principle of EU members loosening their ties, this is combined with strong support for closer EU cooperation across most major areas of policy - including climate change, anti-terrorism measures, economic cooperation and foreign policy. The appeal of the idea of fair rules to make a single market works means that, on balance, the public are more likely to support than oppose shared minimum labour standards and common minimum business tax rates - which would of course be highly politically contested areas. Those views are more likely to be held by both LibDem and Labour voters than Conservatives - though large numbers of Tory voters and those who are generally Eurosceptic in all parties in fact support closer cooperation in many specific cases.

The poll shows that Eurosceptics have been politically effective in demonising European institutions, but that they have failed to make their arguments resonate over concrete questions of what we might want the EU to do. Pro-Europeans ought to be better placed than they often think to win these real world debates - as long as they take seriously the need to earn permission for cooperation where it is genuinely necessary, and as long as the EU can demonstrate that it can respond effectively to problems which nations can't tackle on their own.

So the YouGov/Fabian/FEPS poll perhaps helps to explain British Foreign Secretary William Hague's welcome conversion from being a Eurosceptic cheerleader when a party leader from 1997-2001 to pragmatic engagement in government as foreign secretary.

If Hague has disappointed old allies on the European question, he seems to have realised you can't govern on simple slogans, and now seems to lack the stomach for refighting those battles again.

Cameron and Hague's approach to the EU in power has dismayed many Tory Eurosceptics, whose core demand is for a "fundamental renegotiation" of British membership (though it has never been particularly clear what this entails, nor whether it would be compatible with staying in the EU).

Influential activist and blogger Tim Montgomerie, the editor of ConservativeHome put it very starkly before the election, as David Cameron prepared to u-turn on a Lisbon referendum.

If Britain's relationship with the EU is fundamentally the same after five years of Conservative government the internal divisions that ended the last Tory period in government will look like a tea party in comparison.

That now looks more like an empty threat. Wherever there are real reasons to cooperate - from helping Ireland, defence cooperation with France or global climate talks - the Tory right have been unable to get any traction with most of the public, enabling LibDem Business Secretary Vince Cable to claim last week while being 'stung' by the Telegraph that he and other pro-Europeans have won the policy arguments within government on pragmatic grounds.

The poll perhaps helps to show why Vince Cable was right - for now at least. But the detail of the poll also shows why the EU could still prove the great "frozen conflict" within the Coalition government. On the biggest questions about our national future - such as whether we cooperate more closely with European partners in a world where China emerges as a second superpower - Labour and LibDem voters see the world in one way, and Tory voters in another.

That is even more true of MPs and party activists. So any shared Tory-LibDem long-term view of Britain's future still looks very difficult. The conflict has been frozen. With only weak encouragement from leading Tories, the Eurosceptics have retreated to the hills. But both their allies and opponents surely expect them to be back for a final battle.

But this new poll suggests that their opponents might find more confidence than was the case in the last decade to contest the question of which side of the EU argument really resonates with British public opinion.

* The poll is published in 'Europe's Left In The Crisis: How the next left can respond', edited by Sunder Katwala and Ernst Stetter, and to be published by the Foundation of European Progressive Studies FEPS and the Fabian Society. The collection also contains pieces from Jessica Asato; David Coats; Caroline Gennez, leader of the Flemish social democrats; former Austrian chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer; and Roger Liddle of Policy Network on the social democratic response to the political and economic challenges we face at a time when the austerity agenda of the right is in the ascendant across Europe. We'll have more about the pamphlet in the next few weeks.

The crisis of social democracy and the search for the next European left

Former Europe Minister Denis MacShane MP, in a guest post based on his speech to South-East London Fabians on Wednesday, says that Europe's social democratic left has never been short of obituarists but that the next social democracy will need to be more than a national project. (Offers of blogposts in response on the future for the European left are welcome at editor@nextleft.org).

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That there is a crisis of Social Democracy in Europe is not in doubt. The question is whether it is terminal. The symptoms are worrying. In Vienna, home city a century ago to anti-semitic, brownshirt politcs, 27 per cent of voters supported the extremism of the late and unlamented Jorg Haider’s party in autumn elections. For the first time in a century the Swedish social democrats were defeated in two successive elections. The Swedish Democrats Party – a liberal title for a deeply illiberal anti-Muslim party – won 20 seats in the Riksdag, the Swedish parliament.

Nothing seems to work. The Swedish Social Democrats held their nose and entered into a triple alliance with a further left party and the Greens. The party called for higher state spending and support for public employees. The voters turned away.

In Spain and Greece, the socialist governments face strikes and protests as they desperately seek to regain control of public finances. But it is too late. The reforms needed were put off because it meant telling the truth to power in trade unions or professional corporations who traded their votes for the left in exchange for no challenge to their comfort zone agreements on pay and taxes.

Those shut out of the labour market by corporatist protectionism inherited from the Franco years for those who had full-time work have deserted the left en masse. Organised social democratic parties in the new EU member states are weak and marginalised to the point of governing irrelevance.

In the past the left debated the future. Now it debates identity. The de-alignment of class politics into a mush of a monoclass kaleidoscope interest group politics has left the left without a voice. You cannot square anti-nuclear greens and those who believe in industry and the right of citizens to press a switch and get light, heat and power. You cannot square the Muslim-hating right or those who preach “Dutch jobs for Dutch people” with any of the anti-racist liberal traditions that the European left painfully acquired in recent generations.

Wikicapitalism is endlessly morphing and changing. One British Labour MP who could not find an ordinary job after the May defeat has been trading shares on her computer and made a tidy £32,000 in the last six months. Yes, it is casino capitalism but the ways of making money are no longer traceable nor can they be easily reduced to a discreet group the left can appeal to.

There are 14.2 million holders of ISAs (Individual Savings Accounts) in Britain alone. 500,000 social housing council tenants bought their council homes after Labour took power in 1997. Many of these homes are let out to new incomers or to asylum or social cases that local authorities pay for to keep people from sleeping in parks and streets.

From council tenant to rentier landlord without even moving a generation. These are the new capitalism(s) the left has to understand. The three great glue-pots of the 20th century social democratic left – the nation, the working class and its unions, and the creation of the welfare state make less and less sense in the 21st century.

In Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Britain the unitary nation is under threat. Spanish socialists have to make pacts with Catalan socialists but they do not see the Iberian peninsula through the same eyes. Labour after 1979 became heavily influenced by Scottish and Welsh Labour. Labour had a policy for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It had no policy for England.

The great people movement that accelerated after the end of communism’s border controls in 1990 has brought into scores of thousands of settled towns and communities, where a historical social democratic settlement has long reigned, the force-field of new people, new cultures, new religion, and new demands for rights. Asylum seekers who never went home, relatives who demanded the right to settle, and more recently hard-working, skilled, white Catholics from East Europe came in and changed townscapes. In big cities, they were absorbed but when every small town had to absorb the incomers keen to make a new full life the tensions became unbearable and opened the way to the new politics of identity.

For most of Europe's populist nationalist right, Muslims have replaced the pre-war Jews targeted by the right as the new enemy or non-indigenous presence owing external allegiances. The myth of "Eurabia" - the idea that Europe is coming under Muslim control is the new fashion. Geert Wilders, the Dutch Islamaphobe, told a rally in Berlin recently that "Germany full of mosques and veiled women is no longer the Germany of Schiller, Bach and Mendelssohn." This is drivel. Many Muslims in Germany are Turkish fashionistas or third generation Turkish-Germans. In contrast to Wilders’ wild assertions, Germany has re-created a Jewish community with subsidies for synagogues and an open door to any Russian Jew who claims some German ancestry dating back centuries. Despite Wilders’ extreme rants, the Conservatives and Liberals in the Netherlands have accepted Wilder's support to form a coalition government.

In that sense European social democracy has been too successful. The long era of welfare state capitalism with open borders has proved sensationally attractive to those in poorer counties, both among the 47 member states of the Council of Europe (Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan etc) as well to the poor in Africa and Asia and the conflict-ridden oppressions of the Middle East.

The welfare state paid for over generations by local people buckled as it had to support new citizens, and arrivals. Social housing which was social democracy’s great gift to its supporters after 1950 had dried up by 2000. As voters moved from renting to owning and saw little hope for their own children to get rented social housing they wondered if their interests were any longer represented by the left.

Many of these problems and most of these incomers could be absorbed by strongly growing job-creating economies. But social democracy in Europe has shunned the liberalism of dynamic markets because of their unfairness. Gerhard Schröder became Chancellor of Germany in 1998 with four million unemployed and left office in 2005 with four million unemployed. Purchasing power of German workers stagnated under the last social democratic government. The European left has policies for women, for gays, for children, for artists but does it have one for the working class? But what is the working class today? The IG Metall VW worker? Or the Ganz Unten described 20 years ago by Gunter Wallraff?

Unions in all European countries have long given up confronting capitalism. Instead they confront the pubic with strikes that deny the poor access to transport, to council services, or to schooling. The rich drive past the picket lines of public sector union strikes and feel no impact. It is not the fault of unions. The public sector is where recruitment is possible. Which union leader has the organising hunger to get up at three in the morning to try and recruit Lithuanian fruit pickers or greet the new female proletariat coming off the dawn cleaning shift? European social democracy is trapped between a nativist working class which feels heavily taxed and under threat from incomers and the new proletariat of non-unionised minimum wage and part-time workers essential to keep the 7/24 service economy functioning. There are now as many cleaners, nannies, old-age care workers, or Starbucks slaves as there were maids and other domestic servants before 1939. A left-wing intellectual can be easily recognised by his or her habit of outsourcing child care and denouncing American imperialism while simultaneously applying for scholarships or teaching posts in the United States.

There are no commonly read European social democratic thinkers. The German, French or British left intellectual writes for his fellow commentators in his own country.

Whereas the right can unite across borders around a few themes – smaller state, curbs on Muslims, reduction of trade union rights, the left produces long shopping lists of demands and wishes and refuses to create priorities and a running order. The left appears genetically incapable of supporting the compromises of power. In Britain, the main left-liberal papers, the Guardian, began digging Labour’s grave soon after Blair and Brown won power in 1997. By May 2010, the main paper of the left was urging a vote for Liberal Democrats on the eve of that party ditching its principles and purpose to provide a few ministerial salaries for its chieftains. In the United States, the left-liberal commentariat has patiently used its columns and blogs to undermine the tortuous efforts of Obama to get any progressive legislation through the thickets of the US political-legislative system. Now Britain has a Conservative-Liberal government and the US Congress is controlled by the right. Merci, la gauche!

Social democratic party organisation remains national. Tony Blair, Lionel Jospin, Gerhard Schröder, Wim Kok and Massimo d’Alema were all prime ministers along with a cluster of social democratic leaders a decade ago. But this dominance in office was never shaped into a common philosophy or confidence in power. The nationalisms of the indigenous left always trumped the hopes of a common European social democracy.

Pan-European social democracy operates at the lowest common denominator level. In the 2009 socialist manifesto for the European Parliament what was left out was more important than what was put in. The SPD banned any reference to nuclear power. The Swedish social democrats blocked the concept of an EU legal minimum wage. The French socialists prevented calls for a reform of agricultural protectionism. The Labour Party opposed demands for banking and labour regulation. Even the Luxembourg socialists watered down calls for an end to banking secrecy rather than face a challenge to the Luxembourg banking system. Few national parties are willing to concede to the Party of European Socialists the right to individual membership. The PES depends on subsidies from the EU and at times appears simply to be an adjunct of the declining Socialist Group in the European Parliament. At each election to the EP since 1979 the participation has got smaller and smaller. The Lisbon Treaty gives new powers to the European Parliament but MEPs have less and less democratic legitimacy as fewer and fewer voters turn out to support them.

Is it all over? There are plenty of grave-diggers of the left. But for 50 years after the war it was assumed the Christian democratic right would be in permanent power in Italy. Germany and France spent decades under rightist control before Willy Brandt and Francois Mitterrand arrived. Labour spent two decades in the wilderness after 1979.

Change can happen. It will need brave leaders willing to alter the way we see the world. The newly elected Labour leader, Ed Miliband, was right to say that Labour was always at its best when it challenged the conventional wisdom. There is too much conventional wisdom in the higher council of European social democracy. But to challenge this is to take risks. When European social democracy is ready to bury its past myths, it will again be ready to give birth to a new future.

And at the core of this new Europe must be Europe. Yet Europe is too comfortable and too self-satisfied. Great progress has been made. No more fascism, no more communism. Good roads, good schools and good hospitals are to be found everywhere in Europe. But do we now mark time, and gently decline into irrelevance even as we enjoy our present comfortable way of life? Is Europe becoming a new Ottoman empire - big, rich, and arrogant when we need a hungry, leaner Europe ready to take risks and make sacrifices to achieve greatness? Europe cannot borrow its way to a better tomorrow. The bankers have plunged Europe into a crisis as grave as any since the time of Marx. But the bankers are us. They are our savings, insurance and pension funds, and salaries. They are under our democratic control. Social democracy has no effective theory of banking or of money-power.

Finally, after politics and policies comes personalities. Where is the next generation of makers of Europe? Where are the Willy Brandts or Felipe Gonzalez’s ready to challenge the orthodoxies of their parties? Is there a new Monnet or a new Delors somewhere to be found? Can Germany and France overcome their differences and create a new Treaty of the Rhine to relaunch a core Europe based on a real merger of some decisions? Is the Europe of 27, soon maybe 30 or more, too big, becoming like the United Nations, a place of debate not of real decisions? Can Europe handle a Turkey that wants to join the EU? Or will Europe become increasingly hostile to Muslim Europeans — which is unacceptable—and fail to tackle political Islamism with its assault on democratic, media, legal, women and gay rights which have been won by Europeans and are now under threat by religious fundamentalism? What are Europe's enemies? Is not the idea of an external threat what creates unity of purpose in politics? If so, what is the real threat Europe faces?

European social democracy will always be tempted by a fall-back on national solutions. It is tempting and easy to denounce Brussels if the Commission or Council does not conform to social democratic demands. Tempting but wrong. Europe offers a world model of reconciliation between nationalisms and an open economics which allows hope for workers otherwise trapped by stupid nationalist economic models. Europe is both a child of globalisation – indeed the European Community, not EU, was a proto-globalizer avant la lettre – but the EU is also the answer to globalisation with its rules on welfare, labour rights, legally enforceable supranational laws and human rights conventions. Europe, for all its faults, is the only world region where society has (almost) the same status as economics. Money is not yet master in Europe in the way it is in the Americas and Asia.

Therefore, whatever specific national thinking and policy the next generation of European social democrats produce, support for European integration must be at the heart of any 21st century concept of progressive politics.

Denis MacShane is MP for Rotherham and a former Europe minister.