by Baroness Quin, House of Lords; Council Member of the Federal Trust

4th August 2015

This article first appeared on the European Movement website.

One of the biggest myths about the circumstances in which Britain joined the EEC (as it was then) in 1972 was that what we were being offered was simply a trading arrangement which did not involve pooling or loss of sovereignty. Those propagating this myth therefore claim repeatedly that the British people were sold a dishonest prospectus about what European membership involved.

Continue reading Debate about Europe must be based on fact, not myth →

Removing regulatory burdens to make the EU more user-friendly

By Richard Seebohm, former Representative in Brussels of the Quaker Council for European Affairs

June 2015

As Samuel Johnson once said, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. I wonder if the term sovereignty is not tarred with the same brush. The debate on EU membership is conducted at times on the broad concept that it is wrong for us to let foreigners tell us what to do. What could or should matter rather more to us ‘hard working people’ is the outcome rather than the power – exactly what the foreigners are telling us to do.

Continue reading Removing regulatory burdens to make the EU more user-friendly →

by Brendan Donnelly

This article first appeared on euroblog, the Blog of the European Movement: http://euromove.blogactiv.eu/

During the referendum on voting reform in 2011, it was sometimes claimed by advocates of the present British electoral system, misleadingly known as “first past the post,” that it tended to produce definite outcomes, with clear Parliamentary majorities for the winning party. This claim may well have been true in the days when the Conservative and Labour Parties between them accounted for three quarters or more of the total votes cast. The growing fragmentation of British political allegiances has now however turned our electoral system into a statistical lottery, which will be painfully demonstrated in the General Election. No party is likely to have a majority, and the overall result will be disfigured by a range of anomalies. The Liberal Democrats will almost certainly obtain many more seats than will the Greens or UKIP, although they may well receive fewer votes nationally than each of these other parties, perhaps significantly fewer in the case of UKIP. Although  the SNP will receive a substantially smaller share of the national vote than either the Greens, the Liberal Democrats or UKIP, it may well end up with as many seats in Parliament as those three parties combined. All observers of British elections know that for any given percentage of the national vote accruing to Labour or the Conservatives, Labour will obtain more seats from that percentage than will the Conservatives.   If by any chance Labour or the Conservatives did achieve an absolute majority, it would be with the support of just over one third of those voting.

Continue reading The only certainty is uncertainty →

A Personal View from Brendan Donnelly

It is sometimes said that David Cameron regards Tony Blair as his political model. The European policies of the two Prime Ministers may appear superficially very different. Mr. Blair presented himself as fundamentally favourable to the European Union, and Mr. Cameron is at best unenthusiastically and conditionally acquiescent in continued British membership of the Union. But the underlying similarities of their approach to the Union, both in public presentation and in long term outcomes are undeniable. Both have framed their European policies almost exclusively in terms of a tactically convenient “triangulation” between two rejected extremes of European policy. In both cases this contentless “triangulation” led to an inevitably unstable European policy, tending remorselessly towards greater British hostility towards the European Union.

Continue reading Blair and Cameron: Two Peas in a European Pod →

Review by Brendan Donnelly

Much of this short book by Professor Jan Zielonka of Oxford University is rightly devoted to the euro. It is on the success or failure of the single European currency that the answer to the question of the book’s title “Is the EU doomed?” will essentially depend. Zielonka’s belief that the EU may well be doomed is summarized in the words “interdependence no longer generates integration but instead prompts disintegration.” On this analysis, the single European currency will prove to have been an error of historic proportions, achieving precisely the opposite of what its founders intended.

Continue reading Book Review: “Is the EU Doomed?” by Jan Zielonka →

by Brendan Donnelly

A number of lessons can be learned from the diplomatic reverse suffered by the British government in its attempts to prevent Mr. Juncker from becoming President of the European Commission.

1. British governments are prone grossly to exaggerate the extent of support they enjoy for their political attitudes and choices within the European Union. In this respect, Mr. Cameron’s attempt to thwart Mr. Juncker’s candidature was entirely similar to his unsuccessful attempt to prevent the adoption of the Fiscal Compact in 2011. British diplomats and politicians are altogether too willing to interpret vague expressions of goodwill from their European colleagues as firm endorsement of idiosyncratic British views about the Union and its future. This over-interpretation of what is often little more than conventional politeness leads British officials and politicians to misperception of the real alignment of forces within the Union and unseemly petulance toward their colleagues when this misperception is later revealed in its full futility.

Continue reading Learning Through Suffering: European Lessons for the British Government →

by Brendan Donnelly

If Jean-Claude Juncker becomes the next President of the European Commission, it will mark an important development in the democratic life of the European Union. Millions of voters in the recent European Elections will see their favoured candidate take on one of the most important posts in the Union. Millions of other voters who preferred unsuccessful candidates such as Mr. Schulz and Mr. Verhofstadt will be aware that they have participated in a transparent and democratic election, in which their views have not prevailed on this occasion, but may well do so at the next European Elections. It is a strange paradox that precisely in this country, where criticism of the European Union’s supposed democratic inadequacies is widespread, politicians and commentators have been so reluctant to recognize this qualitative change for the democratic betterment of the Union. It has long been a reasonable complaint about the European Elections that the electors did not know for what they were voting. The linking of the European Elections of 2014 to the Presidency of the Commission was a powerful response to this criticism.

Continue reading Three Cheers for European Democracy →

Continue reading What do the European Election results really mean? →

by Brendan Donnelly

First published on the European Movement Blog

The European Elections are sometimes described by academics and other observers as “secondary” elections, in which the electorate take little notice of the European policies or claimed achievements of those standing for election, but simply express their (often unfavourable) judgements on the domestic policies of the parties contesting the European Elections. That may well be an accurate description of the frame of mind in which many British electors approach the Elections. But this year’s European Elections will nevertheless have considerable implications for the way in which the European Union will be governed over the next five years; and similarly important implications for British domestic politics.

Continue reading There may be trouble ahead →

by Brendan Donnelly

Until shortly before Christmas, the Prime Minister would have been entitled to congratulate himself on the success of his important speech about Europe on 23^rd January 2013 in quieting Conservative controversy and divisions on this subject. The compromise he proposed in it, of a radical renegotiation in the next Parliament of the terms of British membership of the European Union, followed by a referendum, was one which seemed to have satisfied all wings of his fractious party. It was not unreasonable to believe that this truce would last at least until the European Elections of May 2014 and possibly beyond.

Continue reading The Wheels Fall Off →