Politicians, like generals, always fight the previous war, or, to be more precise, the winners stick with successful tactics and the losers look for better ones. Being against the European Union, or its predecessor the European Economic Community, was seen as a major reason for Labour’s unpopularity and electoral failure during the 1980s. Consequently the party changed tactics and decided it wanted to be at the heart of Europe.
This change was mirrored in the trade union movement after the president of the European Commission Jacques Delors promised the TUC in 1988 that the EU could protect the rights and benefits of their members against the ravages of Thatcherism. The TUC changed from hostility to the EU to support on the spot.
Electoral success followed and these pragmatic changes have become an article of faith that, for electoral success, Labour has to be pro-European.
This is no longer a tenable position. The EU of Delors promising prosperity, social progress and democracy has now transmogrified into a body for destroying jobs and the position of elected politicians. Some people have argued that although the EU is now extremely unpopular with the electorate this will not affect the outcome of the election because people vote on the ‘economy stupid’, not on constitutional matters. This might have been true but the eurozone crisis has now irrevocably linked the economy with European constitutional matters.
Ever closer union and the creation of the euro have inevitably led to youth unemployment of over 50 per cent and adult unemployment of over 20 per cent in many so-called Club Med countries. Labour’s current position of supporting more Europe not less is irrational. More integration in Europe will not stop the crazy competitive deflation that is inherent in the current structure of the EU and the euro. A deflating Eurozone not only damages the eurozone countries but also the UK’s economy as there is less cash in our largest market to buy our goods.
Put simply, the pragmatic social, economic and electoral reasons our party had for changing its policies on Europe more than 20 years ago have all now reversed. These changes alone should be enough for a deep rethink on our attitude toward Europe, but there are also fundamental democratic principles that need debating. Extraordinarily after the passion and brutality of the debate around Europe in the 1970s and 1980s the move to a pro-EU position was arrived at in almost grudging silence, with little debate. We need that debate now and the following key questions, among many others, need answering.
Should we be part of an organisation that decides a majority of our laws, when these laws can only be initiated by unelected European commissioners? How can this be squared with any notion of democracy? This question is made particularly acute by the ‘let them eat cake’ attitude of the commission which wants a seven per cent increase in its budget and salaries while pursuing public service-destroying policies in southern Europe.
Is the Europe of the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy and the incredibly expensive and inefficient Regional Policy reformable? And if so, how? If it is not (the last government and this one have an abysmal record of failure when it comes to reform) do we get out? Should we stay with qualified majority voting, which effectively means that countries in net receipt of European grants can vote to increase their European grants at our expense?
My view is simple: the EU has failed the vision, and it was a genuine vision, of its founders. It is unreformable and therefore dangerous to prosperity, democracy and, in the end, peace. Ed Miliband showed he had the bottle to take on Murdoch; he now needs to show he has the cojones to take on the European debate and the courage to let the people decide in a referendum.
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Graham Stringer is MP for Blackley and Broughton
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Finally! Fantastic piece. You speak the truth.
I find it hard to believe that a Labour MP can be so slapdash.
Graham has a lot to learn about the EU. It just won’t do for an MP to read the first page of the EU’s website and then spout his half-baked opinions, imagining that he is contributing anything to public understanding or debate.
Laws, he says, ” can only be initiated by unelected European commissioners” . But he omits to mention that laws can only be agreed by elected governments and elected MEPs. He omits to mention that initiation starts through consultation. These omissions suggest a mind closed to serious debate. Shame on you.
Forget about the “vision of the EU’s founders” – they no longer have any relevance today. The global financial crisis we are presently enduring has become a ‘slap in the face’ for the market economy of the EU and a challenge for European political leaders. Unfortunately, the politicians (and I include yourself, Graham) are more concerned with ‘structure’ rather than ‘outcome’. You blame high levels of youth unemployment on the creation of the euro but in reality the euro has been a successful currency. Unemployment across Europe is a direct consequence of austerity measures enacted by North European leaders (with generally docile populations) and forced on Southern European leaders with (understandably) disgruntled populations. Imposing financial sanctions on certain countries is equivalent to caning a child who has been naughty in class – it may have a short-term ‘shock’ effect but it fails to address future behaviour. We need less ‘rules’ (so favoured by Merkel, Osborne and Legarde) and more ‘support’. In other words, a flexible EU as opposed to the present ‘pound of flesh’ rigidity.
Should the way the EU does business change? Of course: it has to continually adapt to changing economic and social challenges. If there is a major criticism of EU policy over the decades it must be the failure to appreciate the importance of nationality and individuality. Freedom of movement across borders might be tolerated by populations during times of high enployment and low unemployment but become highly emotive and controversial during hardships like the present. The ‘rules and regulations’ of the EU need to be flexible enough to allow limited cross-border movement etc. to allow individual member states to tweak their obligations to protect their economies.
It isn’t the EU that is at fault – it’s the politicians that run it!
The Labour Party should not lurch from one extreme to another on this issue. The problem is that the Euro effectively forces ‘euro-med’ countries into an unrealistic exchange rate, and they do not have the political courage either to extricate themselves from the Euro or to carry out the massive reforms and changes necessary to stay in on a sensible basis. This is very unsatisfactory, but there is little we can do about this. Our position, inside the EU but outside the Euro, is clearly the best option for the UK at present, and there seems little purpose in trying to change this.
Very good and honest article, the EU is unreformable and we should leave if we are to remain a democratic country
Good piece, i really think the tide is turning against this failing experiment . The only problem seems that although most people think the euro is doomed , followed inevitably soon after by the EU institutions , the Camerons and Millibands of this world are afraid to put their head above the parapet and state the bleedin obvious . Purely because when it does implode , those EU nobodies will be looking for scapegoats , and the merest words of dissent from those in power in the UK would be blameworthy enough for them.