Nosemonkey's EUtopia

In search of a European identity

June 3, 2009
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments

European Elections 2009: Online resources to help you cast an informed vote

The first thing to note is that European elections (in the UK at least – though the rest of this post will apply EU-wide) have a stupidly complicated voting system. This video should explain how it works. (Likewise, a lot of us are unclear on just how the EU works and what it is that the European Parliament does – this video should explain quickly and easily.)

To make matters more complicated, political parties also tend to work slightly differently when it comes to European issues – not least thanks to the political Groups in the European Parliament.

As such, it’s worth finding out how your own opinions tally with the party you’re thinking of voting for. I’d suggest checking out both VoteMatch.eu (alternatively VoteMatch.co.uk) and EUprofiler.eu – answer their short series of policy questions, and they should give you a good indication of where you stand in relation to the parties and political groups. (Assuming they’re working – both are coming under heavy traffic at the moment, and are going down a lot under the strain.) A discussion of the pros and cons of both sites by the Telegraph can be found here.

If you’re UK based and want to check out a party’s policies in more details, check out this handy list of links to the manifestos of ALL the UK parties standing. The BBC also has a handy overview of all the UK parties on offer.

However, don’t forget that all the UK political parties (bar the Conservatives and – if they get a seat – the BNP) will be part of a political Group in the European Parliament, and each of these Groups (effectively a coalition) will also have its own policy objectives. A handy roundup of the Group manifestos can be found at the handy EurActiv EU news and policy site.

To find out who your current MEPs are (multi-member constituencies, you see – you have more than one), and how they’ve performed in the job, try MiCandidate.eu or VoteWatch.eu – which has the added benefit of a ranking system, by which we can see how MEPs compare to each other based on attendance to votes, questions asked, speeches made, and so on. Both sites also – if you have a poke around – have some handy resources for checking out the policy platforms of the various political parties and groups EU-wide.

Finally, a passionate explanation of why your vote is important, and why you should care – no matter what your political opinions.

June 2, 2009
by Nosemonkey
141 Comments

What percentage of laws come from the EU?

Last week on the BBC’s Question Time, eurosceptic Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan mentioned 84%; UKIP leader Nigel Farrage said it was 75%, the figure most often mentioned by anti-EU types (such as French National Front leader Jean Marie Le Pen or the Libertas Party) is that 80% of our laws come from the EU, while in a speech elsewhere last week, Conservative leader David Cameron said that “Almost half of all the regulations affecting our businesses come from the EU”.

These figures (or, at least, figures in this rough ballpark) are widely accepted, with everyone from universities to charities seeming to accept them at face value.

But are any of them actually true? And which is it? 84%? 80%? 75%? 50%? Or some other figure? Because they can’t ALL be right.

Daniel Hannan: 84% of all laws come from the EU

Let’s take the biggest figure first. If 84% sounds ridiculously high, that’s because it is. Even eurosceptic thinktank Open Europe have dismissed this claim as unrealistic – explaining in detail where the calculation originated.

In short, it comes from a reply by the Parliamentary Undersecretary of the German Parliament, Alfred Hartenbach, given on 29 April 2005 – relating specifically (and exclusively) to Germany, where he stated that from 1998 until 2004, 18,187 EU regulations and 750 EU directives were adopted in Germany. During the same period the German Parliament passed in total 1,195 laws (as well as 3,055 “Rechtsverordnungen” – which are like Primary and Secondary legislation). This was seized on by former German President Roman Herzog and Luder Gurken of the Centrum für Europäische Politik, who used these figures to work out 84% of all German laws originate in Brussels. As Open Europe explains:

750 (directives) + 18,187 (regulations) = 18,917 EU legislative acts
1,195 (Gesetze) + 3,055 (Verordnungen) – 750 (directives) = 3,500 German legislative acts
= 84%.

The 750 directives were substracted as they require seperate implementing laws in Germany (assuming a directive/implementing law ratio of 1:1).

Open Europe goes on to explain why this figure is, at best, misleading. And remember, Open Europe is a eurosceptic thinktank:

to conclude that 4 out 5 laws originate in Brussels is probably a step too far. Germany, for instance, is a federal system, meaning that the individual Lander has substantial powers to legislate autonomously. The many laws adopted on the Lander-level would have to be included in any all laws count, which isn’t the case here. In addition, this count says nothing about the nature of the laws.

It’s also important to keep in mind that the EU’s powers are mainly regulatory, as opposed to budgetary. This means that most issues that relate to spending and taxation (health bills, crime bills, educational reform, pensions, welfare, etc) – the “wallet” issues if you will – are mostly beyond the realm of the EU, but must also be included in any count that includes all laws.

So, the 84% figure is based on a calculation about German laws (and is therefore not directly transferable to Britain, as Hannan and others would like us to believe), and that calculation in any case left out a huge chunk of German legislation, rendering the final figure utterly obsolete.

So the 84% figure can safely be discounted.

UKIP: 75% of all laws come from the EU

Next up, the second highest figure. Where did UKIP get their 75% claim from? Well, handily they provide a video on YouTube which shows it comes from Hans-Gert Pottering, EPP MEP and President of the European Parliament from January 2007 to June 2009:

“If we were not that influential,” the subtitles show Pottering as saying, “then we would not be the legislator of 75% of all laws in Europe.”

But where it suits UKIP’s purpose to interpret this as literally meaning that, EU-wide, 75% of ALL laws stem from the EU, had they included more of Pottering’s speech the context – and therefore the meaning – would have become far more apparent. For what Pottering was actually saying was that the European Parliament (not the EU) legislates on 75% of laws *passed by the European Union*. Not passed by EU member states – just by the EU itself, at EU level. Because the European Parliament has little say in something like 20-25% of EU legislation (something the Lisbon Treaty would rectify, but that’s for another day). German speakers will also be able to confirm that the subtitles on UKIP’s video of Pottering are not 100% accurate.

So the 75% figure does not apply to the percentage of laws in individual member states that stem from the EU, but the percentage of laws that stem from the EU that the European Parliament has a say in. That’s an entirely different kettle of fish – and so the 75% figure can safely be dismissed as based on a (deliberate?) misunderstanding.

David Cameron: “Almost half”

It is worth noting again here that Cameron says “almost half of all regulations affecting our businesses come from the EU”. Some laws may be regulations, but not all regulations are laws, so we need to tread a little more carefully here. Where did Cameron get his figure from? I genuinely have no idea. I can’t track down an original source for it anywhere – though it is a claim made on the website of the Institute of Directors – albeit with the qualification that “estimates vary”, something Cameron neglected to mention.

But what is the real figure? How much say does the EU have in business regulations? Well, handily enough, last month the British Chambers of Commerce produced a report (PDF) investigating precisely this issue, “Worlds Apart: The British and EU Regulatory Systems” – their seventh annual report into the subject, and the fifth comparing the British and EU systems. Their conclusion?

In terms of the number of regulations, the EU this year accounted for only 20%. The reduction from the previous EU level of about 30% is the primary reason for the overall decline in 2007/8.

Hmmm… Only 20%, you say? And the proportion of EU regulations is declining, you say? So where did Cameron get his “almost half” from?

The House of Commons Library’s 9.1% claim

Also on Question Time last week was Europe Minister Caroline Flint, who trotted out the usual defence against the above eurosceptic claims about the EU’s influence that just 9.1% of UK laws stem from the EU. the report in question can be found as a PDF in the depths of the UK Parliament site.

The study was conducted by the (politically independent) House of Commons Library between 1998 and 2005, based on the statutory instruments passed with references to European legislation, because “The vast majority of EC legislation is enacted by statutory instruments under section 2 (2) of the European Communities Act.” It also helpfully breaks these laws down by department – the most affected of which are Defra – which deals with the Common Agricultural and Common Fisheries Policies, so no surprises there – and the Department of Trade and Industry – hardly surprising with the Common Market and all. Both departments saw about 50% of their legislation having some kind of EU origin – which could, via the DTI, be where Cameron got his “almost half” figure from, perhaps?

But is the 9.1% figure accurate? Is just looking at statutory instruments fair, when this means that normal legislation, via parliament itself, can be left out? Open Europe (in the same post where they discussed and dismissed the 84% claim) make four key points:

1) They do not seperate between budgetary and regulatory legislation, therefore comparing apples and oranges.
2) They also compare apples and oranges in another respect: Directives are usually far-reaching measures with a big impact on the economy. SIs, in contrast, can cover a variety of issues, including public administration – for example a road closure or changing arrangements for parish elections.
3) EU Regulations (as opposed to Directives) usually don’t give rise to a new UK law but are directly applicable. Therefore, most EU Regulations are not included in the 9% figure.
4) One Directive does not mean one SI. The Motor Vehicles Regulations in 2007 implemented four different Directives, for instance, making a one-for-one comparison tricky.

On point 1), of course, the EU has no say in the British budget and has no revenue-raising powers, so I’m not sure what they’re trying to say. On point 2) they have a point – but how do you measure the “far-reaching” implications and economic impact of a directive, exactly? On point 3) they also have a point – which might explain why the British Chambers of Commerce have a higher estimate of 20%. Point 4), if we’re hunting down the percentage of British laws that have an EU origin, is irrelevant.

But considering that we’re looking for a percentage of the *number* of laws that stem from the EU, it is worth bearing in mind that Statutory Instruments make up the bulk of all UK legislation, with an average of around 3,500 passed every year for much of the last two decades. In 2008, 3,389 Statutory Instruments were passed, while the UK Statute Law Database lists 2,414 results for the same year. With no study (that I’m aware of) having been conducted on how many of those have an EU origin, it is hard to tell the percentage.

However, with Statutory Instruments making up the bulk of UK legislation, and with most EU legislation brought into force via this method (having already been passed at EU level, there’s generally no need for EU legislation to then be re-enacted at national level, after all), it’s no great leap to suggest that the final percentage wouldn’t be that much higher than 9%. Indeed, Labour MEP Richard Corbett has noted other studies in other EU member states:

6.3 percent according to the Swedish parliament, 12 percent according to the Finnish parliament and between 12 and 19 percent according to the Lithuanian parliament

This would suggest that something in the region of 10-20% would be a fair guess for the UK as well (a range that has the added benefit of being backed up by the British Chambers of Commerce’s recent study of regulations).

Bonus: How much does the EU cost us?

I’ve already discussed the actual costs of EU membership based on the UK’s annual contribution, showing that the net cost is around £4 billion a year. But what about the cost to business and to the economy?

This is, of course, a hugely complex issue. How to estimate the impact of legislation on an entire country’s economy? It’s practically impossible, as without a control sample we can’t tell how beneficial or detrimental any individual piece of legislation may be – let alone the impact of other pieces of legislation that may affect the same general area.

Nonetheless, the more enthusiastic among you may have noted, in the Open Europe piece quoted above, that the same post also gives Open Europe’s own estimate that “72% of the cost of regulation is EU derived”. Is this fair? Well, it’s only an estimate, and I haven’t seen their workings, so it’s hard to tell.

However, let’s return to that British Chambers of Commerce report, also linked above. What do they have to say about the costs of EU regulation?

By value, EU legislation was only responsible for about 0.1% (£1.9m) of regulatory net costs in 2007/8 and virtually all business burdening regulatory activity can be attributed to Whitehall.

Oh… would you look at that?

Conclusion

No one agrees on how much legislation and regulation stems from the EU. The 9.1% figure stated by the House of Commons Library is too low, as it only covers Statutory Instruments, not ALL laws; the higher figures of 84%, 75% and even 50% claimed by the likes of Hannan, Farrage and Cameron are based on miscalculations, misunderstandings, or sources unknown, and often derive from parts of the EU other than just the UK – and so with no hard evidence to support them must be dismissed as either too high or inapplicable to the British situation.

What is the true figure? No one knows. So any claims that state hard and fast percentages should – if we’re being intellectually honest – be treated with equal suspicion.

Not that any of this is likely to change the opinions of those eurosceptics convinced of the malicious and all-pervading influence of the EU on our daily lives, of course. But still. I’ve looked for the evidence, and this is what I’ve tracked down. If you know different, please do let me know – I’m interested in the truth of the situation, as without total transparency, such misinformation, misunderstandings and resentments are only going to grow.

Update, October 2010:

The House of Commons Library has published a new, much more comprehensive study of the percentage of UK laws that originate from the EU. It is freely available as a PDF and despite running to 59 pages I’d strongly recommend reading it in full.

Its conclusion? The true figure is around 15%.

(Rather sweetly it also references this post in the footnotes.)

Update, June 2012: A new German study has revisited this topic, focusing on Germany, the UK, Denmark, France, Austria and Finland. Its onclusions can be found in more detail here. Short version:

UK – 15.5%
Denmark – 14%
Austria – 10.6%
France – between 3% and 26%
Finland – between 1 and 24%
Germany – 39.1%

But note the qualifier: “Do these numbers tell us that the impact of European policy making is by and large minimal, while at the same time there are some interesting variations between member states? No – in fact, these figures can tell us very little about the impact of EU-policy-making.”

If you’re interested in this topic, you may also be interested in these old posts:

– What are the economic costs of the EU?
– UKIP’s £40 million a day claim vs the REAL costs of EU membership
– The dishonesty of the EU debate
– Why legislating and regulating at an EU level is almost always a good thing

June 1, 2009
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments

How the European Union works: A very simple introduction

The EU is the most complicated political organisation the world has ever seen, with countless confusing interrelationships and institutions – of which the European Parliament, which EU citizens get to vote for this week, just one part of a vast organisation. Little wonder, then, that hardly anyone understands how the damned thing works.

The following video is certainly simplistic, but is nonetheless a handy introduction to how the various parts of the EU fit together, who does what, where our elected representatives in the European Parliament (and, of course, in the Council) fit in to the equation, and even some of the problems of the current system for the scrutiny of EU legislation. If you’re unsure of why the European Parliament matters, this is well worth a few minutes of your time:

May 31, 2009
by Nosemonkey
23 Comments

Is there a UKIP / BNP partnership?

Buried away in the middle of an article about UKIP’s efforts to win over middle-England in today’s Sunday Telegraph:

Accusations of racism are nothing new for Ukip. Last November a pro-BNP group stormed into a meeting of the party’s national executive and offered an alliance in which the BNP would concentrate on the north of the country and Ukip the south.

Mr Farage told the delegation to leave but the impression persists that there is common ground between them.

Nothing new there, I know. But in the following paragraph comes a fascinating pair of statistics that I hadn’t seen before:

It may not be an official pact, but the BNP is free from a Ukip challenge in 80 per cent of the seats it is contesting, while Ukip has no BNP challenger in 85 per cent of the seats in which it is standing.

That’s a mighty odd coincidence, wouldn’t you say?

So, has UKIP teamed up with the fascists? They may not agree on economic policy, but they do both want out of the EU, and they’re both strongly anti-immigration. UKIP may not have an overtly racist constitution, but the two parties share two key policy aims, and know that they are both competing for much the same relatively small fringe of discontented anti-EU, anti-immigration voters.

It would make strong strategic sense for the two main anti-EU, anti-immigration parties not to split their already limited potential vote by avoiding competing directly against each other – but is this a formal agreement, something more back room, or have the two parties’ election strategists simply ended up coming to the same conclusions about which party has the best hope in 8 out of every 10 electoral contests, and entirely independently decided to target their resources elsewhere?

I’m not much of a one for conspiracy theories, but an 80% correlation seems a tad too much of a coincidence to merely be coincidence. Then again, I’m also no statistician, and haven’t seen the figures for myself – it is possible that there’s an entirely innocent explanation. But if UKIP want to maximise their votes, a secret team-up with the BNP would be a good way to go about it. As long as the team-up remained secret, of course…

Update: In the interest of fairness, see the comments below. Given the relatively small number of seats the two parties are standing in out of the total being contested, it rather looks like this isn’t statistically significant. Coincidence or conspiracy? Quite possibly neither.

May 28, 2009
by Nosemonkey
10 Comments

Nosemonkey on the telly

Check me out – BBC World News Today earlier (broadcast c.7pm UK time on BBC4 and BBC World), discussing the EU Elections – I’m a regular media whore.

If you’re based in the UK, you can get my slightly nervous pearls of off-the-cuff wisdom (and check out the unflattering profile view) here for the next week or so. It’s on the BBC’s iPlayer, so non-UK Nosemonkey-watchers are out of luck, I’m afraid. (Unless you happen to know the dark arts of setting up UK proxy servers to get around the geographic block, that is. *ahem*)

Websites name-dropped for finding out more about how to come up with a considered vote were EUprofiler.eu and VoteMatch.eu – both very much worth checking out.

I’ll be back discussing the result a week on Monday, by the sound of things.

Update: Below the fold, my handsome visage. (I need to lose some weight…) And – for I don’t know how long – a non-geographically-specific video thingie
Continue Reading →

May 28, 2009
by Nosemonkey
8 Comments

Britain and the “unaccountable” EU

A must-read piece by The Economist’s Charlemagne – more usually a columnist who leans towards the eurosceptic side – explaining very neatly why populist anti-EU rhetoric about democratic deficits and the EU being unaccountable is ignorant at best, and is poisoning British political debate:

“does he [David Cameron] really want British voters to believe that he believes that the EU is ‘completely unaccountable to the people of Britain’? I am not about to turn rabid federalist on you, but there are British ministers in EU meetings, British MEPs in the European Parliament, and British diplomats in every working group. They are not powerless: Britain is one of three Big Beasts, along with France and Germany, that wield serious clout in the EU. And they are all, at least last time I checked, accountable to the British people.

“He also says that when the EU does something, it is being taken out of “the realm of democratic politics”. Regular readers of this blog, or the column, will know I am not a swooning fan of the European Parliament. But the parliament does have say on quite a lot of European legislation. And though there is a great deal wrong with the way that MEPs are elected, I am not sure that laws approved by the EP have had no contact whatsoever with the realm of democratic politics.

If all coverage and commentary on EU affairs was like this, the world would be a much better place. Do read the whole thing.

May 27, 2009
by Nosemonkey
15 Comments

European elections without Europe

A really rather good rant about the lack of any discussion of the actual issues in the UK’s EU election campaigns. Many good points made.

Meanwhile, I’ve still not received any election material from Labour, the Conservatives or the Lib Dems (or the Greens, for that matter, but the part of London I live in is a Tory/Lib Dem area, so I guess they reckon there’s not much point – still, that didn’t stop the BNP, UKIP, NO2EU or the Christian People’s Alliance from bunging their more or less anti-EU literature through the letterbox…)

There’s also still hardly anything on the EU elections in the mainstream media, except for the occasional “think” piece about the likely impact poor results will have on the domestic fortunes of the major parties. The last thing anyone (press or politician) wants to discuss is the serious *European* issues that these elections are meant to be about – I’ve yet to decide if this is through fear or ignorance, but am leaning heavily towards the latter. I simply don’t think anyone in the press or any of the big names in Westminster politics understands the significance of the EU and European Parliament well enough to try and explain it to a cynical, politics-hating public.

May 26, 2009
by Nosemonkey
1 Comment

European Elections: Prospects and Projections – the vote

From a conference I’m attending today organised by Brunel University’s Magna Carta Institute. First speaker, Peter Kellner, from polling agency YouGov. Hastily-typed notes follow:

“I’ve never been so uncertain about an election that’s only nine days away than I am today”

Last time, more people voted for a party other than Labour/Conservative than Labour and Conservatives combined

Lib Dems seem to do worse in Proportional Representation elections than First Past The Post

The expenses scandal’s effect on the polls seems to have stabilised, but could be more twists

Current projections (as of the morning of 26th May, so likely to shift)

Tories – 26-28% (roughly the same as 2004) – a month ago would have been 35% at least

Labour – c.20-22%, though wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up on 18-19%
(If turnout = 35-40%, that means only c.8% of the electorate voting for the governing party)

Lib Dems – 15% last time, and likely to be there or there abouts this time – maybe 16-17%

UKIP – 16% last time; at the moment looks like they’re slightly up (17-19%) – but 3 weeks ago = 7% (Telegraph expenses stories boosted them to 19% in a week); “the key thing we find is that UKIP voters are the most determined of all the supporters to say they are going to vote”; BUT: “past evidence shows ‘certain’ voters aren’t certain at all”

Greens – 9% – last time = 6% and got two seats, but largely due to London and the South East having most MEPs, so a lower threshold – wouldn’t have got seats in any other region. 1-2 more seats maximum, depending on how close the fight is for the last seat in other regions – benefiting from the expenses scandal

BNP – last time got 5%, but no seats (their strong regions have a higher percentage threshold for election due to fewer MEPs); this time it’s possible they may get to 8-9% in London and get a seat; North West (Nick Griffin); Yorkshire and Humberside; West Midlands
Note 1:– it’s a tiny margin between getting NO seats and getting FOUR seats for the BNP
Note 2: latest YouGov poll puts them at 7%; ICN poll in the Guardian on Saturday put them at 1% – probably due to reluctance to admit to BNP over the phone; YouGov = online, so possibly more anonymous and honest

SNP / Plaid Cymru – will probably keep the same number of MEPs and similar share of the vote

Northern Ireland – different electoral system – single transferable vote, so likely to be similar in outcome to 2004, though likely with Sinn Fein with the largest share of the vote

Turnout – this was c.25% 1999, but there were no local elections; in 2004 it went up to 35% last time (almost certainly due to local elections – there were no local elections in Scotland in 2004 and turnout was only 30%)
Note: Because county elections are taking place the same time as EU ones this time around, turnout is likely to be above 30% again
Possible party effect: Local elections this year are mostly in Conservative areas (countryside not cities); Tory areas tend to have higher turnout than Labour anyway – so Tories may end up doing slightly better thanks to local election turnout boost

May 25, 2009
by Nosemonkey
10 Comments

A quick guide to the British voting system for the EU elections

The really short version? It’s utterly rubbish. But this is how it works, courtesy of a short film by the Green Party:

Note: This is not an endorsement of the Green Party. But their logic for preventing BNP leader Nick Griffin from getting a seat does have its merits. I’d prefer it if you researched the parties and their candidates and cast your vote based on who tallies most with your views, but if you must protest vote, with a likely low turnout at the upcoming elections we’re in a situation where votes for the Greens and UKIP are more likely to be the clinchers that will help prevent the fascists from getting a seat than ones for the Tories, Labour or the Lib Dems. (Yes, I think UKIP are more or less a joke party with ill-thought-out policies and some unpleasant undertones to much of their rhetoric, but at least they aren’t Nazis.)

May 23, 2009
by Nosemonkey
39 Comments

Why voting for a eurosceptic party is a good thing for the EU

I’ve done a lot of UKIP bashing on this blog over the last six years. I’ve ridiculed and attempted to debunk numerous eurosceptic claims. After all, I think that the idea of European Union (in its broadest possible sense) is a good thing, and I firmly believe that as long as some form of European economic/political organisation exists it is in Britain’s (and every European country’s) best interest to be a part of it. I also hope that, down the line, such international/supranational cooperation can be expanded far beyond Europe’s borders. Nationalism is, for me, an outmoded way of doing business, and detrimental to the best interests of the people of all nations – just as are all exclusionary ideologies, be they racist, sexist, homophobic or whatever. I am an internationalist and a humanist – again, both in their broadest possible sense – and so cannot support what I see as the parochialism of the nationalist/”patriotic” parties of right or left.

However, despite my dislike of UKIP, the BNP and other withdrawalist/anti-EU parties (of which these are the principle two in the UK), anti-EU and eurosceptic voices have a vital role to play.

The makeup of the European Parliament during the last five years has been sorely unrepresentative. Its racial makeup is nowhere close to mirroring that of Europe as a whole, with groups with sizable minorities left with nothing like the percentages of MEPs that one would expect, were the EP to mirror European society. Women are, as in most democratic societies, still hugely under-represented at EU level; there are few openly gay MEPs; few Muslims; only one Roma MEP despite this group being one of the largest and most persecuted of Europe’s minorities.

Eurosceptics – using the term in its broadest sense – are also sorely under-represented. The no votes in France, the Netherlands and Ireland are proof that there is a groundswell of discontent with the present EU system, and this discontent sorely needs to be aired more frequently in the European Parliament. Do a trawl of the blogs and you’ll soon see that even the most pro-EU bloggers will often violently criticise all kinds of aspects of the way the EU currently runs, from the obvious travesties – like the Common Agricultural and Common Fisheries Policies – through to issues of democratic representation (it takes 800,000 Germans to elect one MEP as opposed to just 80,000 Maltese, for example). With the EU still seriously under-reported in almost every member state, and with so few sceptical voices around to form an opposition – one of the most essential elements of any healthy democratic system – little wonder that there is so much public frustration. The worries of the people are not, in the eyes of the people, being addressed.

The EU is currently in a period of crisis. The failure of the 2001 Treaty of Nice to resolve the transition to a union of 25 rather than 15 was followed by the failure of the Constitution and Lisbon Treaty to mop up the mess, yet now the Union is of 27, with yet more queueing up to join. The EU is now a Union of half a billion people, one of the largest and most powerful economic blocs in the world, and yet is working on mechanisms designed for a much, much smaller organisation. Resentment has been building for years – not just among the people, but also among the governments that head up the member states. The Treaty of Nice, the Constitution, the Lisbon Treaty – these were all meant to resolve these tensions, and all have failed.

Even if the Lisbon Treaty does end up coming into force, still countless problems remain unsolved. There are still some member states that long for closer political union, while others desire little more than a trading bloc based on the Common Market; the current system of budget contributions still sees relatively wealthy western European member states receive far more funding than the struggling post-communist newcomers of the East. France, one of the richest member states, still receives a hugely disproportionate chunk of Common Agricultural Policy money, while farmers in Romania struggle by on little more than a subsistence level. And all the while, there remains no consensus on where the EU is heading – on what the EU is actually for.

Over the next five years – Lisbon Treaty or no Lisbon Treaty – these problems are all going to have to be addressed, and it is the MEPs who we are meant to be electing in a couple of weeks’ time who are going to have to scrutinise the plans and proposals that are put forward to resolve them. If the European Parliament is made up of a majority of unthinking europhiles, of fervent internationalists, then this scrutiny is not going to be intensive enough. Imagine a House of Commons made up of 80% Labour or Conservative MPs. That would not be healthy for democracy, but more importantly it would not be the kind of check that is necessary to prevent bad legislation and bad constitutional reforms from being passed. But with the lack of eurosceptic voices in the European Parliament, that is effectively the situation we have at the moment.

We sorely need more critical voices if the EU is ever going to become the kind of genuinely positive force that it could – and should – be. We need more MEPs like Danish eurosceptic Jens-Peter Bonde (now sadly retired, though still active in the field of EU politics), and even like UKIP leader Nigel Farage – intelligent, sharp critics of the project who can home in on flaws and highlight things that the EU is doing wrong. Yes, they may have a tendency to over-egg the pudding, to play to the gallery, and to blow things out of all proportion to make petty political points – but they also highlight genuine concerns and, often, genuine problems.

If we don’t know the problems – and if these problems are not brought into the light – then abuses and mistakes will simply continue unnoticed. Until, that is – as British MPs have found during the last few weeks of the expenses scandal – something happens that shows just how bad the problem has got, and brings the entire system to the brink of collapse.

If you don’t listen to criticism, you deserve to fail. So though I may not agree with the anti-EU brigade, and though I will continue to mock them when they make mistakes and call them when they make unjustifiable claims, they have an essential part to play. They are the EU’s opposition, and in any respectable political system a vocal opposition is something to be encouraged, not suppressed. Even if they are wrong.

May 22, 2009
by Nosemonkey
76 Comments

UKIP’s “Britain paying the EU £40 million a day” claim vs the REAL costs of UK EU membership

This has been on various UKIP election leaflets, so it’s evidently a claim they’re proud of – but does it stand up?

Simple maths tells us that Britain paying £40 million a day to the EU would mean an annual contribution of £14.6 billion. However, the most recent Treasury Report on the UK’s EU budget contributions (PDF) shows the following GROSS figures:

2005 – £12.5 billion
2006 – £12.4 billion
2007 – £12.5 billion
2008 – £13.7 billion (estimated)

£13.7 billion divided by 365 = £37.5 million, so UKIP are, at the very least, rounding up by £2.5 million a day. Not much to round up by? That works out as £912,500,000 a year – I hope UKIP won’t be that out with their sums if they ever get near power…

But what about the rebate? What about the EU funds that are paid back to the UK in the form of things like the European Regional Development Fund, European Social Fund and the like? What’s the NET contribution? (Again from the most recent Treasury report)

2005 – £3.6 billion
2006 – £3.9 billion
2007 – £4.6 billion
2008 – £3.6 billion (estimate)

UKIP deliberately using gross rather than net to make the situation seem worse is to be expected, of course, but still – let’s be generous and take the highest figure of £4.6 billion – that’s still a lot of money, right? It may only work out as £12.6 million a day, but that’s still a lot of money.

Well, yes. But big figures are nothing without context, so let’s see how much the UK government spends on other things:UK government expenditure breakdown, shamelessly leeched from Wikipedia

Would you look at that? The UK may be forking out a net figure of around £4 billion a year for EU membership, but at the same time we’re having to pay £31 billion a year merely to service the INTEREST on our debt. That’s not *pay off* our debt – just keep up with the interest. Christ!

In other words, the EU costs us 7.75 times LESS than it does to keep the international bailiffs from the door. (And that £31 billion was BEFORE the most recent round of government borrowing, and before the collapse of sterling, both of which will have hugely escalated the figure for this year, as and when it’s released.)

So, £31 billion in interest payments, for which we see no return whatsoever, versus £4 billion in payments to the EU, from which even its harshest critics must admit that we get *some* benefits – even if they will only admit to cheaper mobile phone charges or ease of travel. I don’t know about you, but I’d say that’s not too bad a deal, in comparison.

Update, October 2010:

If you’re interested in this post, you may also be interested in:

– What are the economic costs of the EU?
– What percentage of laws come from the EU?
– Why legislating and regulating at EU level is almost always a good thing
– The dishonesty of the EU debate

May 12, 2009
by Nosemonkey
29 Comments

MP expenses, political corruption and the European elections

Corruption starts here by Flickr user IntangibleArts (CC)(Alternate post title: Westminster MPs: Not as corrupt as UKIP MEPs…)

The last few days of revelations about Westminster MPs’ taking advantage of lax expenses rules – many of the allegations decidedly sexed-up, a number of them mistaken, but nonetheless indicative of a long-running problem with the way politics is conducted in the UK and elsewhere – have unsurprisingly been hitting the opinion polls hard.

As such, old predictions of UK voting intentions at the European Parliamentary elections, now just three weeks away, should now be entirely discounted. The latest polls shows both Tories and Labour taking a -4% hit (and that was conducted a few days ago – since when a whole bunch of new stories have appeared about alleged Conservative abuses).

The only likely impact of this constant stream of stories about Westminster MPs seemingly being on the make – especially coming as it does so soon before an election – is a major boost for the smaller parties, both through reduced turnout with a public now even more disillusioned with politics than they were before, and through misguided protest votes. Hell, even old Tory grandee (and bogeyman of the British left) Norman Tebbit has explicitly warned right-wingers not to vote for his party at the European elections to register their disgust.

This is, of course, entirely missing the point that if you want to punish the actual transgressors in this expenses scandal then to vote out MEPs is rather like spanking your niece because your nephew stole your wallet. “Ha! I’m punishing someone who’s got nothing to do with the wrong that’s been committed! THAT’ll learn them!”

Most likely beneficiaries of all this? Well, disgruntled Labour voters are likely to shunt either to the BNP or to the Greens, while disgruntled Tories are more likely to head to the other major centre-right eurosceptic party – often a leech on Tory votes in European polls in any case – UKIP. A party its hard not to see the strongly anti-EU Tebbit having a great deal of sympathy for in any case, and which was – until this little furore – likely to lose a good number of MEPs at the upcoming elections thanks to a combination of David Cameron (largely at the behest of Shadow Foreign Secretary and ex-Tory leader William Hague) taking the Tories in a more eurosceptic direction again and the loss of the Kilroy-Silk factor, which so boosted their media coverage and vote in the 2004 elections.

Ashley Mote and Tom WiseBut, lest we forget, UKIP is a party with only one competent elected politician – its articulately populist, platitude-spouting leader Nigel Farrage. It also has a tendency to pick candidates, like MEPs Ashley “convicted benefit fraudster” Mote and Tom “charged with money laundering and false accounting” Wise, who put even the worst Westminster politicians to shame. (And that’s not to mention the on-going infighting that has plagued the party since its inception, including ongoing allegations of seemingly institutional corruption.)

Yep, UKIP’s pound symbol logo does seem rather appropriate…

Then again, to be fair, a vote for the Tories in the European elections is a wasted one anyway. Having pulled out of the EPP, the largest centre-right group in the European Parliament, in order to have any influence at all in Brussels and Strasbourg they need to join another political group (as without EP group membership, securing the all-important committee places where all the real work goes on, Tory MEPs will be effectively powerless). The only other viable existing centre-right EP group? Independence/Democracy – leader? One Nigel Farrage… Which means the Tories won’t be able to join it, which means they’re stuck on the fringes with other outcasts like the former members of the right-wing Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty Group – such charmers as Jean-Marie Le Pen, Alessandra Mussolini and assorted other fascists.

The simple solution? Check out Votematch.co.uk to get an idea of which parties have policies you might like (as these are often rather different at European level), then check your local candidates for the European Parliament, visit the invaluable Votewatch.eu to check the performance of your local sitting MEPs, and cast your vote based on the character, policies and dedication the of candidates the parties are putting up.

No, you can’t vote for an individual candidate in the European elections (an horrific flaw in the system that needs rapid alteration), but you can make a moderately informed choice about the likely value those on offer are going to provide to their constituents. Have a poor attendance record, like UKIP MEPs Godfrey Bloom, Trevor Coleman and John Whittaker, the Lib Dems’ Baroness Nicholson, the Tories’ Jonathan Evans and Caroline Jackson or Labour’s Eluned Morgan? Think hard about whether they’re worth your vote.

Me? As ever, I’m not endorsing any party. In fact I’m still sorely tempted not to vote at all, thanks purely to the British electoral system for EP elections preventing me from endorsing an individual candidate whose jib I like the cut of. But that way, thanks again to the awfulness of the party list proportional representation system that the UK uses for these things, lies more seats for the likes of UKIP and even (possibly) the BNP. With the Tories out of the EPP, to vote for some sensible MEPs to represent the UK is essential lest the country become a laughing stock. The question now is how to play the system. And for that, the greater the turnout, the less the chance of the smaller, more extremist parties getting representation. I may not like the bigger parties either, but at least they’re (usually) not as mad.

In short: No matter what your political outlook, your vote is important. But your vote is for the next five years, not the last five days. Don’t let short-term disgust with an unpleasant scandal affect which box you tick when that vote is for members of an institution who have nothing to do with the scandal in question. Base your vote instead on the performance of those politicians and what you want to see happen at that institution – because the European Parliament, no matter how much national politicians like to use it as proof of their domestic support, is a very different beast to that in Westminster. Want to punish corrupt Westminster MPs? There’s a general election less than a year away. You’ll have your chance then. That’s the way democracy works.

/stating what should be the obvious…

April 23, 2009
by Nosemonkey
13 Comments

A quick bleg for work

The perils of being a freelance writer/editor/sub in the current economic climate have finally started to hit home, and as from May I’m set to be about £1.5k a month down on my current earnings – not a nice situation for anyone, I’m sure you’ll agree.

As such, I’m actively on the lookout for new gigs: Writing, editing, sub-editing, in print or online, on pretty much any subject-matter – I have worked professionally on everything from book reviews for the academically-inclined Times Literary Supplement to write-ups of Big Brother, with a strong background in film and travel, and specialise in structural editing, fast but accurate subbing* and translating content from print to the web.

I have a good ten years’ professional experience across print and the web, ranging from large-circulation glossy consumer magazines through ISP portals with several million visits a day, and am competent in Photoshop, Quark, InDesign, and across a range of content management systems.

Companies worked for include AOL UK, Archant, BBC Worldwide, Gibson Square Books, Haymarket, the House of Commons, the Law Society, News International, openDemocracy, Pageant Media, Publicis-Blueprint, Virgin Publishing and Visual Imagination.

Publications my work has appeared in include The Belfast Telegraph, The Big Issue, Britain magazine, The Camden New Journal, The Dublin Informer, The Ham & High, The English Garden, Heritage, Heritage Cities Planner, The Irish News, London Planner, The Manchester Evening News, The Metro, Pink News, The Press Gazette, Realm, The South London Press, Starburst, The Sunday Telegraph, Wales on Sunday, The Western Daily Press, and The Yorkshire Post.

A basic CV can be found here for those that may be interested, and references can be sourced on request.

If anyone has anything coming up that I may be able to help out on, please do get in touch via nosemonkey [@] gmail.com or info [@] jcm.org.uk – I can offer competitive rates, and all offers will be gratefully considered. (I also have a tendency to be far too honest and am a bit of a perfectionist, so I won’t take anything on if I don’t think I can do a good job.)

Bleg ends. Normal service (or lack thereof) will resume shortly…

* Note: My professional subbing/editing skills may not be too apparent on this blog, as most posts are first drafts. I’m not getting paid for it, you see…