Tag: EU

UKIP ARE A PLAYER,SO HOW WOULD WE VOTE ON EUROPE?

As we’ve seen in the local elections, UKIP don’t have to win masses of seats to have a big effect on British politics.

 

Tory backbenchers are terrified of them and now want the European in/out referendum before the next election. They want legislation to trigger the vote in next week’s Queen’s Speech. Mr Cameron had tried to appease the Euro sceptics with a promise to put a renegotiated terms package to the people by 2017.

 

But there is no appeasing these anti EU fanatics, they will take the concessions and move on to the next demand.

 

How will the nation vote when actually faced with the consequences of coming out?

 

This week Downtown Liverpool held a debate and vote on this very subject. While it would be absurd to suggest the result is scientifically representative, nevertheless I think 17 for coming out of the EU, 21 against with a substantial 14 saying they don’t know feels as if it might be where public opinion is at the moment. In other words there is substantial support for withdrawal and a large number of votes to play for amongst people who choose not to obsess about Europe every day.

 

It was a lively debate, to be repeated in Manchester soon. I led off trying to cram too much into my allocated 5 minutes. I expressed my fear that Ed Miliband will be pressurised into supporting an in/out referendum, that the renegotiation will be unsuccessful, that nevertheless the three main parties will urge a vote to stay in and the British people will be swayed by the Murdoch press into voting to come out. I then foresaw a very difficult process of withdrawal with no guarantee that we could negotiate the same trade arrangements from outside the EU.

 

Dougal Paver, head of PaverSmith Communications Agency disagreed saying that it would not be in the EU’s interest to put tariffs on British goods. He also said that most of our trade was with the rest of the world now. He loved visiting Europe but didn’t want to be shackled by EU regulations on small businesses.

 

Kevin Doran is hoping to be elected as a Labour Euro MP next year and firmly wants to stay in the EU. He said David Cameron’s promise of a referendum had created uncertainty among long term potential investors in Britain. He also said it was unclear which powers Mr Cameron wanted to claw back from Europe.

 

The final speaker was Scott Fletcher, MD of ANS Group, who said the British people agreed to a European trade deal not the all singing, all dancing EU that we have got now. He said the way the EU was governed bore similarities to the old Soviet Union in terms of its unaccountability.

 

The vote was more or less a three way split and if that is where the UK is at the moment, pro Europeans are going to have their work cut out to prevent a disastrous no vote in 2017 whoever is in power.

CAMERON’S RECKLESS GAMBLE

This week France and Germany celebrated the 50th anniversary of their reconciliation after a century of war and carnage. Britain, which shed much blood to make peace possible, signalled that it didn’t want to retain its place in the triumvirate shaping the destiny of Europe. David Cameron prefers us to have a role yapping ineffectively on the sidelines.

 

The Prime Minister knows that he has unleashed a process that could do the most profound damage to Britain’s economy. He’s done it to appease his party that has become obsessed with the issue. It will do him no good. If he wins the next election, he will attempt to undertake a major renegotiation of our membership terms. He will substantially fail despite the German Chancellor’s conciliatory tone at the moment. However Cameron will pretend that the scraps that he gets are a good enough reason to vote yes in the referendum. He will be ridiculed by UKIP and half the Tory Party who will campaign manically for their once in a lifetime chance of getting a no vote. They will be egged on by the Murdoch press and I fear the British people will vote to come out.

 

Long before 2018 and the start of the vast and messy task of disentangling ourselves from the EU, the damage will already be done. Indeed it is probably starting today. In some boardroom in Europe or Asia a company will be putting on hold a long term decision to invest in or trade with Britain. They will be doing this because there is total uncertainty about what Britain’s business environment will be like by 2020, detached from Europe.

 

Great uncertainty surrounds Cameron’s shopping list but we can get a hint from looking at the demands of the influential Tory “Fresh Start” group. It includes the directives on working time, temporary workers, transfer of undertakings, health and safety, rights to information, parental leave, employment protection for part time workers and equal pay.

 

There are two big problems with that list. Firstly they are at the heart of the Single Market. They ensure that all members of the EU compete fairly. There is not a cat in hell’s chance that our partners are going to allow us to employ cheap labour on short term contracts to gain an advantage for British goods.

 

The second problem is this. Do you want Britain to return to a situation where hospital doctors work a hundred hours a week, you lose your job when one firm takes over another, where corners are cut on health and safety, where parental leave may be cut, where bosses are free to discriminate against women over pay and part time workers are exploited?

 

That’s often what is meant when people vaguely talk about “Brussels red tape”. What they really want is to return to the days when workers could be rampantly exploited. They cry that employers are reluctant to take on staff because of all this “red tape”. Really? Have you noticed this week’s employment figures?

Bosses seem to have weathered the recession and lived “the red tape” without unemployment going over three million.

 

I am not misty eyed about Europe. There is a lot that needs changing in the Common Agricultural Policy, fishing quotas, and strengthening the European Parliament. If Cameron wants to be really macho he should get tough on the ridiculous nonsense of the MEP s traipsing off to Strasbourg once a month.

 

The Tory Party will go quiet for a while on Europe, but UKIP will still offer the clearer path to leaving. The Lib Dems have offered an in/out referendum in the past but I can’t see them backing Cameron’s approach.

 

Labour worry me deeply on this issue. The pressure on Ed Miliband to offer an in/out referendum in 2015 will be intense. The confusion this week after Cameron’s speech was not good. The party should have the courage to say that while it will constantly look for reform, it would only offer a referendum if it was proposed to transfer new powers to Brussels. That legislation is already on the statute book.

 

It is clear David Cameron knows we need to stay in the EU but he is attempting to appease people who will never be satisfied until we are out.

 

It would now be best for Labour to win the next election and for the Tory Party to reform itself in opposition. The Eurosecpticshould join UKIP and the rest form a modern Conservative Party prepared to govern Britain playing its full part in the EU and eventually the Euro zone too.

WELL DONE EUROPE!

Congratulations to the European Union on winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Amid all the bile that is hurled at the EU, we should never forget that its founding purpose was to prevent general European war after two devastating conflicts that had ripped the continent apart.

 

However I sometimes feel that relying on that justification to support the EU is a bit desperate, the last refuge of a pro-European who has run out of other arguments. So let’s look at much more up to date evidence that the EU is doing a good job whilst most British politicians are engaged in a pathetic race to prove their Euroscepticism to a deluded British public.

 

Let’s take the Home Secretary’s announcement that she is considering pulling the UK out of European police and justice co-operation. The European arrest warrant is at the heart of this with Euro sceptics claiming that we are in danger of being lifted off the streets at the whim of some Belgian or Bulgarian policeman and left to languish in a foreign jail for years.

 

How the warrant works may need looking at but it, along with a whole range of other measures have been highly successful in breaking up paedophile rings, arresting terrorists, deporting dangerous criminals and catching fraudsters who thought they were safe from British justice as the sunned themselves on the Costa del Crime.

 

Those pressing for this grand assertion of British independence from the grip of Europe should ponder the successes of the warrant in arresting Hussein Osman one of the failed 21/7 London bombers or more recently the arrest of Jeremy Forrester the teacher wanted for alleged child abduction having run off with a 15 year old pupil.

 

We need to work wholeheartedly within the European Union and stop this ridiculous half in half out nonsense. Take the current discussions on bank regulation. Do we suppose that just because we are not in the Euro zone, our banks won’t be affected. They trade in Euros all the time. Our voice must be heard to make a difference.

 

Despite this Tory and Labour politicians grow increasingly frightened of UKIP. David Cameron and Ed Miliband both know withdrawal from the EU would be disastrous for Britain but fear that is what would happen if the public was offered an in/out referendum.

 

So examine the Prime Minister’s remarks on a referendum very carefully. What he is likely to offer is a referendum on what concessions he can get on social and employment law, probably after the General Election.

 

You can predict that he will get very little from the other 26 countries on the basis that we all have to abide by the same rules in a free market. The press will criticise the package, the voters will vote to reject Cameron’s package……and then what?

 

It is a disgraceful con and shame on Labour for flirting with the possibility of offering a similar referendum.

 

We are in the EU, let’s use our influence to reform it and away with this endless boring argument about leaving.

 

ALF MORRIS

 

I went to the memorial service for Lord Alf Morris who died this summer. Born into Manchester poverty he was Wythenshawe’s MP for over thirty years. His crowning achievement was the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act which has transformed the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Few politicians make a real difference, Alf was one.

 

 

A SWING TO THE RIGHT

 

A SWING TO THE RIGHT.

 

How long will the Lib Dem grass roots allow Nick Clegg to stay in a coalition where right wing Tory backbenchers call all the shots? David Cameron has had to placate them this week and his Lib Dem partners just look on in dismay.

 

I don’t think enough has been said about the sacking of Ken Clarke, for that is what it is. I know he can still attend Cabinet as Minister Without Portfolio. Without power or influence more like. I’m surprised he didn’t resign outright. For a man who has been Chancellor and Home Secretary to hang on in this way is undignified. It gives a cloak of respectability to what has really happened.

 

The last Tory with a sane view on our relations with the European Union (and prison policy) has been removed. So now the decks are clear for the vicious circle to accelerate. The anti EU press will continue to mislead the public about Europe, the politicians will respond and before we know it we will be having an in-out referendum. The nation will vote to come out of the EU, then stand by for an economic slump that will make this one look like prosperity.

 

But back to the reshuffle and further evidence of a swing to the right. The new Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has been brought in to smooth the way for a third runway at Heathrow which will ignore the strong case to develop our regional airports. Promises of this being the greenest government yet were already withering, and that’s set to continue with Owen Paterson in charge at Environment. By the way hard luck to Liverpool’s Peter Cranie on not getting the leadership of the Green Party this week.

 

Sayeeda Warsi is another Cabinet Minister who should have made a clean break. The former Tory Chairman has taken a minor job at the Foreign Office. It’s a blow for ethnic minority representation in the government. I liked her down to earth approach and she impressed a gathering of Tory grass roots members meeting in Liverpool recently. It’s a shame.

 

Tory talent in the North West has been almost totally overlooked by the Prime Minister with the exception of the spiky and talented Esther McVey. The Wirral West MP is a rare asset for the Conservative Party. A media savvy business woman from Merseyside she’s got an interesting first job in government. She’s a Minister at Work and Pensions. The Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith refused to move and will fight to implement his universal credit benefit system. The Treasury is worried about the new system’s dependence on a vast computer network. We know from past experience that central government and big computer systems mean a big price tag and almost certain failure.

 

McVey is the only North West promotion. What about Pendle’s Andrew Stephenson, Preston North’s Ben Wallace and Lancaster’s Eric Ollerenshaw. He’s an older politician with good local government experience. Instead Eric Pickles is rewarded for his abolition of the North West Development Agency and more seriously the Audit Commission with an extension of his term. I suppose his value is as a bit of northern rough among the southern posh boys.