Today’s vote on the EU referendum will pit the concept of plebiscites against parliament deciding key political decisions. But ahead of the debate here are ten myths about Europe which need to be quietly buried in order to allow a debate based on facts not propaganda.
Myth 1: The British people have not been consulted for 37 years.
Truth : At nearly every election since 1979 there have been well resourced parties (UKIP, Referendum Party, BNP, Labour in 1983) offering an EU referendum. Voters have said No at the ballot box regularly to parties pledging a referendum.
Myth 2: The EU dictates our laws.
Truth: The House of Commons Library has produced a detailed report showing that fewer than 7 per cent of UK primary legislation comes from Europe.
Myth 3: The EU takes £9 billion from the taxpayer.
Truth: Most of it comes back in agricultural support payments which would go up if the UK taxpayer alone was responsible. Most British regions get EU help. Poland is the fourth biggest contributor to the UK rebate even as George Osborne seeks to block future help to Poland. The UK has given £10 billion to the IMF for re-cycling to the Eurozone without fuss.
Myth 4: The EU is controlled by undemocratic bureaucrats in Brussels.
Truth: All EU decisions are taken by the Council of Ministers at which democratically mandated ministers from national governments decide on Commission proposals. Elected MEPs have more power and are accountable to voters. National parliaments should get involved in EU decision making but the Commons is not interested.
Myth 5: EU regulations impose an intolerable burden on business.
Truth: The CBI and multinationals run giant lobbying operations in Brussels and help write thousands of rules to promote the single market. Most EU rules like banning asbestos or poisonous compounds in industry would have been adopted as sensible national laws. Despite social legislation, British trade union rights are amongst the weakest in the OECD.
Myth 6: The European Court of Human Rights imposes its ideology on parliament and the courts.
Truth: It is British judges interpreting the British Human Rights Act that provoke tabloid ire. The ECHR has ruled on gay rights and protected children from abuse but in line usually with public opinion. Leaving the EU would not impact on Britain as a Treaty signatory of the ECHR.
Myth 7: Britain should look to the Brics and Commonwealth for trade.
Truth: Canada and Australia banned British beef while the European Court of Justice ruled it was safe to export to Europe. We export more to Ireland than all the Brics combined. The $16 trillion EU market is open to Britain unlike protectionist India or China.
Myth 8: Britain could have Switzerland’s ‘go-it-alone’ status.
Truth: Most Swiss laws now have to be EU compliant and Switzerland pays one billion Swiss francs a year to Brussels for solidarity payments to new EU members in Eastern Europe. The Swiss have abolished border controls. Norway also obeys EU internal market rules.
Myth 9: An in-out referendum would settle the matter.
Truth : After the two-thirds Yes vote in 1975, the Labour Party was taken over by Eurosceptics similar to Tory backbenchers today. They forced Labour to fight the 1983 election on a Quit Europe manifesto. Far from the 1975 referendum settling the Europe question it exacerbated the issue as a major dividing line within as well as between parties similar to the bitter divides over Corn Law reform or the Irish question in the 19th century, or imperial preference and 1930s isolationism in the 20th century
Myth 10: Renegotiation is an alternative.
Truth: 26 other EU member states are not interested in David Cameron’s internal political difficulties. Each would like a different EU. France would like to see all Euro-denominated bond trades to be carried out in the Eurozone. This would cripple London’s financial industry and is why George Osborne has taken the matter to the European Court of Justice to try and block the move. Yet the City is main source of finance for the EU myth-making machine. Thus in the promotion of myths about Europe, the hedge funds and other donors to the Eurosceptic cause may be digging their own grave.
Denis MacShane is MP for Rotherham and was minister for Europe.
Photo: Margaret Shear
Hi Denis: Keep busting those myths! Here are a couple of comments:
Myth 3: The EU takes £9 billion from the taxpayer.
Here’s another line of argument
[a] the UK spends £10bn on development in non-EU countries far away. It spends half that (£5.4bn) on support via the EU for our poorest EU neighbours like Romania or Slovakia.
[b] the EU gives us €6.7 billion every year. And we get easy term loans… only last week the European Investment Bank lent Greater Manchester £0.5 bn to develop its tram network… repayable over 30 years.
Eurosceptic irrationality
Overwhelmingly, eurosceptics are an indigenous English tribe who want out of the EU. And, overwhelmingly, anglosceptics are an indigenous Scottish tribe who want out of the UK.
So why are eurosceptics not anglosceptics? Why are they anglophiles? It’s because they believe that the UK has helped ensure harmony among, economic sustainability of and international clout for its four member nations.
In other words, the cost to England of its membership of the UK is a price worth paying as well as a moral obligation to the UK’s poorer parts.
Eurosceptics see the value in keeping the United Kingdom. It’s the same value – harmony, sustainability and clout – that arises for the UK from EU membership. To deny this is just plain irrational.
Firstly the myths have been busted see the “eurosceptic” rebuttal.
I am in not irrational in my Euroscepticism, I have a degree in politics and I now what I am talking about. I think the uk should decide on it’s eu membership and Scotland should decide on it’s membership of the uk. Further you use of the word “tribe” has a considerable whif of bigotry about it.
Typo in first line I meant haven’t been answered
Hi eurosceptic
You say you have a degree. I guess it’s from a UK university. One of the advantages of EU membership is that its members are working toward mutual recognition of those degrees through agreements on minimum standards. This is driven not so much by the hundreds of universities (each of which believes it has a unique offering) as by the needs of the professions and of industry. These sectors need portable degrees – and not just first degrees. An EU citizen needs to know that the degree they get is sufficient for a job anywhere in the EU. An EU company needs to know that the training it gets for staff in one Member State is equivalent to that for similar staff in another Member State.
So, I am glad you feel you know what you are talking about. The important thing though is that your potential employers – based in the UK or Germany or France or wherever – should feel the same way.
PS My use of the word “tribe” does not have a “whiff of bigotry about it”. Quite the reverse. I am, in fact, condemning tribalism: the confused notion that my attachment to one group trumps my attachments to all other groups.
PPS Are you an anglosceptic as well as a eurosceptic?
I’m unclear why it is not possible and desirable for the United Kingdom to make and alter its own laws, while continuing to do normal business with the European trading group to which we signed.
We trade with many groups of countries, and as far as I know, none of them has jurisdiction in our country.
Hi Liberanos
You are “unclear why it is not possible and desirable for the United Kingdom to make and alter its own laws, while continuing to do normal business with the European trading group to which we signed”.
Well, the point is that is just the way it used to seem to be. Britannia ruled the waves, made its laws and traded as it pleased. In practise Britannia also waived the rules i.e. its gunboat diplomacy set the rules for others. There just had to be rules to govern relations between this sceptr’d isle and the lesser breeds of men. Rules to permit slavery, child labour, hanging. Rules to outlaw opponents.
What you are bemoaning is that many rules today are agreed in our EU by majority, not by force majeure. It just so happens that the majority in the EU favour maternity leave, paternity leave and a measure of job protection for all. And the EU ensures that you have the right to campaign peacefully against those evils.
“It just so happens that the majority in the EU favour maternity leave, paternity leave and a measure of job protection for all. And the EU ensures that you have the right to campaign peacefully against those evils. ”
LOL
I have quite a lot of disagreements with this article and have given a rebuttal.
“Myth 1” is true. Most political scientists agree that there are no “European elections”. National elections are fought on national issues and EP elections are “second order national elections” as voters make their preference on the basis of national parties. It is fundamentally correct that the UK public has not been consulted on the EU and the EU has been an elite driven project.
Myth 2: the proportion of laws that comes from Brussels is disputed Dunlevy estimates that up to 70% of legislation comes from Europe, others estimate it is around 20%. Further Mr Macshane omits to mention that ECJ judgements means that the EU is now the “higher law of land” above national law.
Myth 3: Mr MacShane omits the fact that we are a net contributor to the EU i.e. we give more than we get back. If we left the EU we could continue to support agriculture and regions whilst having more money to spend on things in the UK such as the EMA.
Myth 4: Mr Macshane omits to mention that the Commission is in all areas (except police cooperation) a monopoly agenda setter. No other democratic country in the world has an unelected commission as the only organisation that can initiate legislation.
On Myth 5 the head of the CBI was on the Daily Politics today saying that EU regulation is impeding growth and jobs creation.
Concerning Myth 6: “Leaving the EU would not impact on Britain as a Treaty signatory of the ECHR”. I am not convinced this is true. The EU is trying to become a member of the ECHR it is own right which may affect our ability to leave the ECHR (I have spoken to former senior member of the judiciary about this in the course of my academic research.
Myth 7: An omission here is that Switzerland does more trade per capita with the EU than we do. Leaving the EU does not mean not trading with the EU.
Myth 8: A billion Swiss Francs is only 700 million pounds which is substantially less than what we contribute towards the EU. To my knowledge Switzerland does not have to contribute to the bailout and ECJ does not have jurisdiction over Switzerland to my knowledge.
Myth 9: Of course an in/out referendum will not settle the issue. Politics is never settled look at the devolution issue there was a referendum in 1979 and one in 1998, neither of these referendums produced a final outcome on issue. The EU is constantly changing and it is democratically right that the public should have a say on the UK relationship with it rather than it simply being determined by political elites.
Myth 10: Renegotiation would be an option if there was another treaty change. Britain would be a “veto player” and would able to block any new treaty unless the EU gave it concessions.
Myth 11: The European Union is so corrupt that its accounts haven’t been signed off for a decade and a half. Oh, that’s not a myth…
Myth 12: Anyone who attempts to blow the whistle on this corruption gets hounded out of their job. Ah, I’m so bad at this myth stuff, ‘cos that one’s true too…
Dear Nobeerbelly
Where in the world is there no corruption? And if the accounts had been signed off, would you not still have your suspicions?
Aren’t you being a tad unrealistic?
Hi eurosceptic
Too much to deal with here I’m afraid.
Let me just pick you up on one point.
You say the UK contributes more money than it gets back. The same can be said for our 0.7% GDP contribution to international development. When HMG supports development in an African state, for example, does HMG get its money back? Absolutely not. HMG does it because the British people take a moral stance. HMG does it because there has been long-term market failure in private enterprise investment in the poorest countries i.e. HMG does it for long-term benefits to the UK.
The same goes for the EU. All the wealthy Member States (not just the UK) are net contributors to the EU. All the poorest Member States are net recipients. The rich are helping the poor. Are you really against that principle?
I find this line a bit rich: “here are ten myths about Europe which need to be quietly buried in order to allow a debate based on facts not propaganda”, especially in relation to Myth 3. It is not a ‘fact’ that all decisions of the EU are perfectly democratically accountable. Democracy is surely a relative concept – and there are parts of the UK parliamentary system that are questionable according to some. I find it a big concern that the only institution with the ability to initiate legislation is not democratically elected. Saying that something which is clearly a live area of debate is a ‘fact’ which needs to be ‘buried’ in order to allow a debate is disingenuous.
I also wish people could be pro-EU whilst admitting it’s not perfect – and indeed that people could be anti-EU whilst admitting it’s not all bad.
And my main area of concern is your comment about the ECHR. Surely the better way to resolve that would be to point out that, actually, the ECHR and the court which enforce it have absolutely nothing to do with the EU. Getting some basic facts straight might have been a good idea. The UK is not a party to the EU agreement on human rights. You are right that the UKSC are implementing the ECHR in line with the HRA, but the ECHR is a completely separate issue, that doesn’t have a place in a discussion about the EU.
I find this line a bit rich: “here are ten myths about Europe which need to be quietly buried in order to allow a debate based on facts not propaganda”, especially in relation to Myth 3. It is not a ‘fact’ that all decisions of the EU are perfectly democratically accountable. Democracy is surely a relative concept – and there are parts of the UK parliamentary system that are questionable according to some. I find it a big concern that the only institution with the ability to initiate legislation is not democratically elected. Saying that something which is clearly a live area of debate is a ‘fact’ which needs to be ‘buried’ in order to allow a debate is disingenuous.
I also wish people could be pro-EU whilst admitting it’s not perfect – and indeed that people could be anti-EU whilst admitting it’s not all bad.
And my main area of concern is your comment about the ECHR. Surely the better way to resolve that would be to point out that, actually, the ECHR and the court which enforce it have absolutely nothing to do with the EU. Getting some basic facts straight might have been a good idea. The UK is not a party to the EU agreement on human rights. You are right that the UKSC are implementing the ECHR in line with the HRA, but the ECHR is a completely separate issue, that doesn’t have a place in a discussion about the EU.
Anybody would think that we have no say in any EU decisionmaking. The fact is and has always been and will always be that decisions are reached by consensus. I have always believed, having experienced the off-the-wall thinking and constant mythmaking(aided by the Murdoch press) over the years that Euroscepticism has more to do with xenophobia mixed with a feeling of superiority over “Johnny Foreigner” and “we are forever at war with the French and Germans.”