Perhaps I am stupid but I never really understand what David Cameron means when he says he is going to renegotiate our relationship with Europe before having an in-out referendum. I get the referendum bit but am less clear on the renegotiation. I suspect Cameron is too, especially as the free movement of people, which is one of the things he wants to change, is fundamental to the principles of the European Union and any attempt to change it would be blocked.
But as David Charter points out in his book Europe In or Out, Cameron’s Bloomberg speech, which laid out this approach, was forced on Cameron by his Eurosceptic MPs and by the rise of the United Kingdom Independence party.
And it is the referendum question Charter, who is a former Brussels correspondent for the Times, concentrates on. What are the pros and cons of Britain being in the EU? Charter says he is a Eurosceptic because he is suspicious of the big state. The book nonetheless makes as convincing a case as any for staying in.
By the time I had finished I reckoned that Britain got a pretty good deal out of Europe. Our foreign policy has been rather successful. We have managed to keep out of the euro, but still retain the financial pre-eminence of the City of London and our close ties with the United States.
We have many of the trade advantages of the EU while resisting much of the drive to further integration, and indeed we have made sure the EU has rapidly expanded.
The EU has also afforded us rights including the working time directive – though Charter suggests this is bad because it costs the NHS money in agency staff.
The biggest argument running through the book, which is conveniently laid out in thematic chapters with the ‘in’ and ‘out’ arguments summarised in a few lines at the beginning, is that even if we left the EU we would still have to negotiate trade treaties with our European neighbours. In doing so, we would need to abide by a lot of European law.
Norway and Switzerland do, and even have to pay contributions towards poor eastern EU states to smooth access to the single market.
And the ‘advantages’ (though most of us in the Labour party would not argue that these were advantages) of not having to meet renewable energy targets, or abide by employment rights, do not outweigh the financial risks and uncertainty of leaving, nor the loss of influence in European policy making.
The idea that the Commonwealth might somehow replace Europe as a trading partner is not fully explored because, I suspect, it is so unrealistic.
The most salient point made in the book is that Britain leaving might be catastrophic for the European project itself. Britain is important in the task of keeping France and Germany from each other’s throats and ensuring peace on the continent – perhaps Anglo-Saxon ‘common sense’ and shopkeeper mentality provides the grit in the oyster for the more ideologically minded continental Europeans and keeps the project on the road.
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Sally Gimson is a journalist, a Labour councillor, and reviews PMQs on Progress
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Europe: In or Out Everything You Need to Know
David Charter
BiteBack Publishing | 288pp | £8.99
You are probably too young to remember the attempts made in the early 1960 with “The Seven” to counter “The Six” which were the original members of the Common Market. This failed miserably and in 1961 we applied for membership of the EEC. This also failed and we tried again in 1970. On both occasions we successfully negotiated special arrangements for the Commonwealth. The “Working Time Directive” prevents the NHS forcing hospital doctors to work for 80 hours a week and often being “on call” for another 30 hours, so any additional cost for Agency Staff is justified.
Cameron cannot state what he requires out of the renegotiation as it would be rejected by half his party and provide endless opportunities for his MP’s to undermine his position.