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| Dealing with 5 new EU realities |
So the new European Parliament is taking shape, and the stories of results night in the UK were as follows:
- Labour third nationally at 16%;
- BNP get two MEPs elected;
- Greens biggest winners in SW and SE (2 MEPs on relatively low % of vote);
- UKIP share of vote increases by less than 1% since 2005;
- Tories biggest winners of the night.
(thanks to Liberal Conspiracy for a neat summary!)
But what happens now?
Inevitably in the UK the question immediately turns back to the domestic political implications - whether the Prime Minister has lost enough authority that his cabinet will Thatcher him, whether the election of BNP county councillors and MEPs will mean that they can use this as a platform to spread their message further.
David Cameron is in Cardiff (the pictures of him on the steps of the Assembly cleared up one mystery for us - we were in Cardiff bay at the weekend and thought that building was the assmebly building but there didin't seem to be any signage!) to celebrate the Conservatives overtaking the Labour Party to be the most popular party in Wales for the first time since 1918.
And the journalist reporting it said: "even though these are only European elections..."
We don't learn - has anyone ever tried to teach us?
The presence of my toddler stopped me throwing anything at the screen.
Throwing teddies isn't that satisfying and he'd only try to copy me in any case.
But honestly, people, "only European elections?" Don't you realise? It's not pro-European to vote in the elections to choose your representatives in the European Parliament, it's to realise the value of democracy!
But as I've tried to point out before the public in the UK seem to take just this attitude.
Trying to explain what the decision-making process is for European legislation seems just to make people's eyes glaze over, if they hear just a little they seem to decide it "a bad thing" and vote to the right. In the increasingly globalised world it seems to be those advocating pulling up the drawbridge that can actually get their voters to turn out.
So, here's a challenge: let's get the truth out there. I'm not talking a pro- or anti-EU "version" I'm talking about an honest discussion of what decisions are made where and how, from parish council to UN, encompassing councils, Westminster and yes, EU.
Because that's the problem here, isn't it?
I mean, I've got a pretty good idea but then I used to teach what's effectively constitutional politics (not that that seems to make a different to the newly elected BNP MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber who was described on the news as a politics lecturer but says that he aims to free the UK from the EU dictatorship which suggests less of a grasp of some political concepts than I would be happy with a politics lecturer possessing?). but actually even some of my highly intelligent friends actually don't understand the different levels of governance, the way that decisions affecting their lives actually take place.
We actually need the constitutional debate that would come with the exercise of trying to produce a written constitution, not because having everything in one place of itself helps a state to function, but because most of us over the age of about 25 have never really had anything in the way of a civic or political education and therefore don't "get" what our voting is actually doing.
Of course, a lot of people don't care, not just for lack of knowledge but because the goings on in Corrie, the Peter-and-Jordan divorce, fashion and the minutae of daily life are fulfilling enough, thanks. Every so often something motivates us, like MPs expenses, but then the story becomes boring and the fact that Jordan's hired Paul McCartney's lawyer for her divorce seems really important again. I guess that's the freedom democracy gives you - the right to not be interested...
But my grandparents' generation fought fascism and as a woman I'm very aware of the Pankhursts and the other suffragettes that fought to get me the right to express my wishes in the democratic process - I owe them enough to take an interest.
Ok, back to reality for a second... Let's take a look at five new EU realities, things that people need to think about - any EU blogging geek could've told them really but who'd've listened or cared:
1) the BNP will get public money via its elected representatives in the European Parliament that it can then spend on raising its profile and campaigning in more seats and with more materials.
If as Nigel Farage says its very easy to amass over £2m over a term in the EP to spend on these things and running a constituency office, then we as a country need to think about the amount of money that we've just put into the hands of our whites-only nationalists.
Oops. That's quite an outcome from what so many people said was just a protest vote;
2) The UK is going to be without representation in the main centre-right bloc in the EP, the EPP which will be the biggest bloc in the EP.
This is the bloc that will contain the MEPs from the parties of Merckel (Germany) and Sarkozy (France) - biggest in terms of number and still the most influential centre-right European players despite EU enlargement.
The size of the Conservative group from the UK would have made it a substantial player within the biggest bloc, which if allied to others of similar views within the bloc would have been able to direct the general direction of the overall group while also gaining key committee chiairmanships and key subject rapporteurships.
Is there likely to be a practical disadvantage to the UK of there being no representation within this group? Well, here's a thought: given the tide of regulation to come from the EU aimed at the City, by losing UK representation from the EPP, UK business could lose out because the risk is that in lobbying MEPs that have no link to them their concerns risk seeming like a parochial UK issue (or a great opportunity to benefit the in-Euro Frankfurt at the cost of the City of London?).
3) Some commentators are suggesting that setting up a new centre-right Eurosceptic group will give the Conservatives a new influential role within the EP.
This might be the case if each of the six other new partner parties in the group brought a significant number of MEPs and the group were therefore able to secure a high number of the committee chairmanships and rapporteurships (the routes to power in the EP).
If they don't, then it basically means that they'll be needing to try to strike deals on the issues of most importance to them - and accepting that there will be an overt price elsewhere too.
Forming a new and separate group also brings interesting implications for intergovernmental relations when, and it is surely a case of when, the Conservatives become the next UK government. Relations within the EP are not divorced from the positions and partnerships that parties can make out there between governments. The European political groups do actually meet up outside the EP, party to party to discuss things. It's how the political groups are able to produce common manifestos for the European elections, but it goes a lot deeper that into shared thinking through of ideas.
Forming a separate group effectively declares that you have more differences than commonalities and that you are perhaps not the automatic allies that you might otherwise have been.
Of course governments from different parts of the political spectrum do form effective alliances, they have to. But to start from that position when you are ostensibly from the same part of the political spectrum could well be a disadvantage you might not otherwise have expected?
4) Dennis McShane (former UK Europe minister and talking head of choice on Europe issues on UK TV) has noted that only 1/3 of British MEPs will be part of influential groups in the Parliament (that's the Lib Dems - with UK MEP Graham Watson potentially the most powerful Brit in the EP as head of the EP's liberal grouping, and the Labour Party sitting in the party of European Socialists). that's going to be a ral difficulty when dealing with e.g. social issues from a UK perspective.
As I pointed out in another posting, we've now voted ourselves into a position where a substantial number of our representatives will not be fully engaging in the processes of the EP in a way that enhances the interest of the UK on the subjects at hand (although I suspect UKIP would say that while not engaging on the subjects they were representing their constituents overall wish that there not be EU-level discussion on the issues at hand).
5) Is UK representation in the EP about to become a self-fulfilling prophesy?
If you send people who believe that taking part in EP committees is useless, then their participation is unlikely to be of the highest quality, meaning less satisfactory legislation in that the UK point of view is not adequately represented, meaning that from a UK perspective the work of the committee is pretty useless. Oops. Self-fulfilling prophesy.
My fear is that if we follow this through, in 5 years time UK parties will legitimately be saying that the EP is not producing anything of benefit to the UK... but it'll be our fault for electing people that helped that to be the case! It's so frustrating!
Just as a postscript, last year, the Lib Dems in the UK said that they would not support a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon but would do so on the UK in or out of the EU.
I thought this was barking - not because I don't think the question needs asking but because the quality of debate and knowledge on EU politics in the UK is so infantile.
But yet it is also so arrogant because it assumes that there's no need to know anything and yet assume that it must be "a bad thing" or something we'd handle better as a floating player in the world with other alliances etc.(and yes I'm well aware that if you disagree with me you are probably thinking writing this is arrogant!)
I have a policy of saying that if I get to a point of wondering "why isn't someone doing something about X?" then I need to finish that sentence "and that someone is me". So I've started to challenge things if I see something that would benefit from challenge and explanation, like the EP committee comments.
Partly because I enjoy doing it.
But also because I fear that these European elections show where we are slowly sleepwalking, uninterested, unaware - not into a European superstate because realistically that's not on the agenda - it's a paper tiger to make us frightened of foreigners - but out of a strategic partnership that brings us huge benefits at the cost of having to agree with others how we do some things.
And if only we'd embrace it we could lead the way - but we're now at risk of ending up trying to do so with the equivalent of one arm tied behind our back whilst hopping. Why did we do this to ourselves? Can it really be that we just didn't know any better?
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Posted by rose22 on 2009-06-09 12:37:53 | Rating: | Views: 126
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