Whatever arrangement with the EU has been renegotiated to the satisfaction of David Cameron will be horrendous from the point of view of British workers and the users of British public services.
But then, the economic, social, cultural and political power of the British working class, whether broadly or narrowly defined, cannot exactly be said to have increased since 1973. Any more than Britain has fought no further wars since joining a body as successful as NATO or nuclear weapons when it comes to keeping the peace.
We had full employment before we joined the EU. We have never had it since. No job in the real economy is dependent on our membership. Or were trade with, and travel to, the Continent unheard of, because impossible, before our accession to the EU?
Not for nothing did Margaret Thatcher support that accession, oppose withdrawal in the 1975 referendum, and go on, as Prime Minister, to sign an act of integration so large that it could never be equalled, a position from which she never wavered until the tragically public playing out of the early stages of her dementia.
Not for nothing did Margaret Thatcher support that accession, oppose withdrawal in the 1975 referendum, and go on, as Prime Minister, to sign an act of integration so large that it could never be equalled, a position from which she never wavered until the tragically public playing out of the early stages of her dementia.
In anticipation of Cameron's Single European Act on speed, Labour needs to get its retaliation in first. All of the candidates for Leader and Deputy Leader need to demand immediate legislation.
First, restoring the supremacy of United Kingdom over European Union law, using that provision to repatriate industrial and regional policy as Labour has advocated for some time, using it to repatriate agricultural policy (farm subsidies go back to the War, 30 years before we joined the EU, and they are a good idea in themselves, whereas the Common Agricultural Policy most certainly is not), and using it to restore the United Kingdom's historic fishing rights of 200 miles or to the median line.
Secondly, requiring that all EU legislation, in order to have any effect in this country, be enacted by both Houses of Parliament as if it had originated in one or the other of them. Thirdly, requiring that British Ministers adopt the show-stopping Empty Chair Policy until such time as the Council of Ministers meets in public and publishes an Official Report akin to Hansard.
Fourthly, disapplying in the United Kingdom any ruling of the European Court of Justice or of the European Court of Human Rights unless confirmed by a resolution of the House of Commons, the High Court of Parliament. That would also deal with whatever the problem was supposed to be with the Human Rights Act.
Fifthly, disapplying in the United Kingdom anything passed by the European Parliament but not by the majority of those MEPs who had been certified as politically acceptable by one or more seat-taking members of the House of Commons.
Thus, we should no longer be subject to the legislative will of Stalinists and Trotskyists, of neo-Fascists and neo-Nazis, of members of Eastern Europe's kleptomaniac nomenklatura, of people who believed the Provisional Army Council to be the sovereign body throughout Ireland, and of Dutch ultra-Calvinists who would not have women candidates.
And sixthly, giving effect to the express will of the House of Commons, for which every Labour MP voted, that the British contribution to the EU Budget be reduced in real terms.
All before Cameron even set off for his renegotiation, never mind held a referendum on that renegotiation's outcome.
After all, which privatisation did the EU prevent? Which dock, factory, shipyard, steelworks or mine did it save? If we needed the EU for the employment law that, since we do not have it, the EU is obviously powerless to deliver, then there would be no point or purpose to the British Labour Movement.
Far from preventing wars, the EU has done nothing to prevent numerous on the part of, at some point, most of its member-states, not least this member-state. It was a key player in, and it has been a major beneficiary of, the destruction of Yugoslavia, a process that events in Macedonia more than suggest is ongoing even after all these years.
The EU is now a key player in, and it seeks to be a major beneficiary of, the war in Ukraine, which is the worst on the European Continent since 1945, and which is a direct consequence of the EU's expansionist desire to prise a vital buffer state out of neutrality and into the NATO from which the EU is practically indistinguishable.
It has taken the United States Senate, of all bodies, to kill off the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. If it has succeeded in doing so. The EU was right behind the wretched thing, and quite possibly it still is.
Emboldened by those Senators' example, however, let the House of Commons also pre-emptively reassert itself. Where are our Elizabeth Warren and our Sherrod Brown?
Fourthly, disapplying in the United Kingdom any ruling of the European Court of Justice or of the European Court of Human Rights unless confirmed by a resolution of the House of Commons, the High Court of Parliament. That would also deal with whatever the problem was supposed to be with the Human Rights Act.
Fifthly, disapplying in the United Kingdom anything passed by the European Parliament but not by the majority of those MEPs who had been certified as politically acceptable by one or more seat-taking members of the House of Commons.
Thus, we should no longer be subject to the legislative will of Stalinists and Trotskyists, of neo-Fascists and neo-Nazis, of members of Eastern Europe's kleptomaniac nomenklatura, of people who believed the Provisional Army Council to be the sovereign body throughout Ireland, and of Dutch ultra-Calvinists who would not have women candidates.
And sixthly, giving effect to the express will of the House of Commons, for which every Labour MP voted, that the British contribution to the EU Budget be reduced in real terms.
All before Cameron even set off for his renegotiation, never mind held a referendum on that renegotiation's outcome.
After all, which privatisation did the EU prevent? Which dock, factory, shipyard, steelworks or mine did it save? If we needed the EU for the employment law that, since we do not have it, the EU is obviously powerless to deliver, then there would be no point or purpose to the British Labour Movement.
Far from preventing wars, the EU has done nothing to prevent numerous on the part of, at some point, most of its member-states, not least this member-state. It was a key player in, and it has been a major beneficiary of, the destruction of Yugoslavia, a process that events in Macedonia more than suggest is ongoing even after all these years.
The EU is now a key player in, and it seeks to be a major beneficiary of, the war in Ukraine, which is the worst on the European Continent since 1945, and which is a direct consequence of the EU's expansionist desire to prise a vital buffer state out of neutrality and into the NATO from which the EU is practically indistinguishable.
It has taken the United States Senate, of all bodies, to kill off the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. If it has succeeded in doing so. The EU was right behind the wretched thing, and quite possibly it still is.
Emboldened by those Senators' example, however, let the House of Commons also pre-emptively reassert itself. Where are our Elizabeth Warren and our Sherrod Brown?
People recognised at the time that the No, No, No outburst, which wasn't even a planned speech, showed that Thatcher's mind was going. Wilson took himself off when he realised what was happening to him so nobody knew. In Thatcher's case she had to be carried away by the men in grey suits like the men in white coats.
ReplyDeleteShe went on to express views that would have kept her put of her own governments, the media knew what was going on but cruelly reported her anyway as a figure of fun.
This post is brilliant, you are on great form at the moment, if you had been an MP like you should have been you would be a leadership candidate right now. The spiteful local troglodytes have a lot to answer for.
After all, which privatisation did the EU prevent? Which dock, factory, shipyard, steelworks or mine did it save? If we needed the EU for the employment law that, since we do not have it, the EU is obviously powerless to deliver, then there would be no point or purpose to the British Labour Movement.
ReplyDeleteFar from preventing wars, the EU has done nothing to prevent numerous on the part of, at some point, most of its member-states, not least this member-state. It was a key player in, and it has been a major beneficiary of, the destruction of Yugoslavia, a process that events in Macedonia more than suggest is ongoing even after all these years.
The EU is now a key player in, and it seeks to be a major beneficiary of, the war in Ukraine, which is the worst on the European Continent since 1945, and which is a direct consequence of the EU's expansionist desire to prise a vital buffer state out of neutrality and into the NATO from which the EU is practically indistinguishable.
One hundred per cent spot on. As you have written elsewhere the Kippers have been ground into the dust by this Election. The future belongs to the people who always saw what the EU was about and have therefore opposed it all the way. They are on the left, we are on the left.
Where are our Elizabeth Warren and our Sherrod Brown? One of them is holed up in Lanchester when he should be at Westminster.
ReplyDeleteYou are beating them around the houses on this over on Comment is Free, you are a real breath of fresh air. Favourite lines so far:
ReplyDelete"The EU's minimum standards must be very minimal indeed. We are not exactly over-blessed with the protection of workers, consumers or communities. In any case, if we needed the EU in order to be so, then there would be no point or purpose to our own Labour Movement within and through the Parliament of the United Kingdom."
And on the idea that the EU has more of a sense of corporate responsibility than Anglo-Saxon capitalism does:
"And that difference, in practice, is what, exactly? I mean, at EU level and thus throughout the EU, rather than culturally in particular countries on the Continent (and "Old Europe" at that)? This is pure myth-making, and it ultimately amounts to nothing more than, "Isn't Tuscany maaaarvellous, darling?""
One last thing, it is not a coincidence the only newspaper consistently opposed to EU membership is the Morning Star and it has always advocated a Labour vote at General Elections unlike the Guardian never mind the Mail or the Telegraph.
ReplyDeleteYou are of course right that membership itself is academic, it is what we make of it by our own domestic legislation. I remember you saying there obviously wasn't complete freedom of movement or there could never have been the original restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians that Labour secured but the Tories chose to scrap.
All states have restrictions of one sort or another, it is up to them, it is up to us, if Cameron doesn't enact them it's because he doesn't want to whereas Brown did. This is all so obvious once somebody says it out loud.