Nosemonkey's EUtopia

Well, the EU’s expanding tomorrow, so Tony Blair’s done a fluff piece in The Times about how great it all is.

Blair’s points are very valid: “The benefits are obvious, including a stable, united and free Europe. Enlargement heals the divisions of the Cold War and guarantees freedom and democracy in countries which for so long had neither.

“It creates an expanded market of 450 million consumers which will increase prosperity, trade, investment and jobs throughout the enlarged Europe. Britain’s trade with the eight largest new members has already doubled within the past decade. I believe, too, that the accession tomorrow will be a catalyst for change within the EU, helping to give a new push to Britain’s agenda and fresh impetus to priorities which are already in the ascendancy in Europe.”

“We need a Europe ready to change to meet the challenges of globalisation � a Europe with a strong social dimension but not one with rules so rigid that it costs jobs rather than creates them. We need a Europe which can compete globally successfully and fairly, so we need to complete the single market and overhaul the Common Agricultural Policy so that it is better for farmers, consumers, the environment and the developing world.”

Unfortunately, Blair’s really not the best person to be fronting a pro-Europe campaign at the moment. Iain Duncan-Smith’s old catchphrase at PMQ’s is almost true now – “Nobody believes a word the Prime Minister says anymore.”

Today’s “way to state the obvious” award goes to The Washington Post. According to the article, American politics are divided in a sharply bipartisan manner which will ensure that after the Presidential election a sizable chunk of the population will end up pissed off.

It’s actually pretty interesting, despite this, and makes even clearer (should any further clarification be necessary) that if Bush gets a second term everyone in Europe – in fact, everyone in the world – will be well and truly screwed.

“Bush extols “entrepreneurs,” insists on tax cutting and deregulation, and promotes drilling and logging… he professes a born-again faith and appeals to traditional norms on issues such as marriage and cloning… he disdains intellectual subtleties in favor of plain-spoken verities.”

Kerry “embraces environmentalism, labor unionism and regulation… he emphasizes the complexities of issues and urges an internationalist foreign policy… he gives precedence to tolerance over tradition and dissent over conformity.”

Toleration? Environmentalism? Internationalism? Understanding of complexities? – Disgusting pinko nonsense! We want God, big business, pollution, unilateralism and war!

The fact that some people genuinely think like that scares the living hell out of me…

I’d missed this. The Tories have gone mental again. For some reason I thought Michael Howard had more sense: “If the British people were to vote no, a Conservative Government would veto the Constitution: and we would not agree to any new Treaty which establishes a Constitution for the European Union.”

Brilliant idea. Reject ANY constitution for the EU outright, for all time, no matter what any future proposals may say.

Everyone seems to have forgotten that the wording of the current draft has yet to be finalised.

It’s just as well that there’s still the wonderful principle in this country that no parliament is bound by what any previous one has done. Any and all decisions taken can be reversed at any point in the future via due parliamentary process. We can reject the constitution if and when the referendum takes place (and massively weaken our position within Europe in the process), but sign up later on.

Everyone also seems to have forgotten that the current draft of the Constitution actually provides guidelines for withdrawing from the EU, for withdrawing support for the constitution, and for rejoining once the mistake has been realised.

Just because the current draft of the Constitution isn’t perfect doesn’t mean that it’ll never be something that can be acceptable to a majority of the population. It’s only real problem is its length and complexity.

It might also be worth pointing out that the concept of a referendum to decide a specific political issue is even more un-British than is being closely involved in continental affairs. This country is a parliamentary democracy. there’s a Genereal Election coming up in a year’s time – THAT’s when the British people should make their decision. If they want out of Europe, vote for the BNP, UKIP or Tories.

Roy Hattersley: “the campaign has to begin right away. One of the subsidiary advantages of holding a referendum is the pressure it puts on Blair to argue a positive case for Europe – a duty he has disastrously failed to perform for seven years.”

The Guardian, Leader column: “It is nearly a week since Tony Blair called for battle to be joined on the European constitution. These are early days, but there is not much sign of anything of that kind actually happening yet.”

“At the end of this very week, a new form of European Union will come into existence… the new EU can be seen as marking the fulfilment of the war aims of 1939: a secure and independent central Europe living at peace alongside a liberal Germany. By any standards, that makes this a great moment.”

“This new EU will have to be governed according to new rules and new habits that reflect its size, its diversity and changing times. That is why there is a new constitution. That constitution is not yet another Brussels power-grab, as the anti-Europeans would like to pretend. It is, if anything a grab of power from, not by, Brussels. A watershed will be crossed this weekend, and it leads down towards a nation-state based union which is much closer to the kind of Europe with which most people in this country will be at ease. This is insufficiently understood and, in some cases, deliberately ignored.”

Good God, I’m agreeing with Peter Mandelson about something!

Yes, in an article in the Guardian co-written with Alan Milburn and Stephen Byers (Milburn I kind of like for no good reason, Byers I also dislike), Mandelson has helped intelligently to analyse almost all that has been wrong with pro-European tactics in Britain.

This is, naturally, all in response to the Blair Referendum U-turn.

“The forces of anti-Europeanism have been allowed to get away with the most outrageous misrepresentation of the facts without being properly challenged.” Damn straight they have – hence me setting this up over a year ago. (And then, like the rest of the pro-Europeans in this country, neglecting it utterly, assuming that there’s no point as pro-European arguments are so patently sensible as to eventually convince everyone anyway.)

The only trouble is, the article is directed to “Labour pro-Europeans”, not pro-Europeans from other parties (and let’s face it, Labour will need a cross-party alliance to win this one). It also makes public doubts within the Yes Campaign that should probably have been kept behind closed doors. It makes the pro-European cause look in a state of abject disarray, and scared of a near-inevitable defeat. That’ll only bolster the confidence of the Eurosceptics, and prompt even more lies and distortions about the nature of the EU.

Plus, of course, there’s the problem that the article has been penned by two disgraced former ministers, Mandelson and Byers, whom nobody with any kind of political memory can possibly take seriously.

But nonetheless, perhaps through Milburn’s influence, they make a lot of very salient points: “Of course, the European social model needs urgent modernisation and reform.” Why don’t the pro-Europeans admit this more often? If they did, it might convince some of the borderline Eurosceptics that we aren’t all a bunch of Ted Heath idealists, dreaming of some kind of continental Utopia, but are actually astute enough to realise that the current set-up is nonsense, and needs urgent reform – hence the attempt to work out the Constitution in the first place. I mean, this is a bit long-winded, but it does the job:

“The case for Europe does not consist of some misty-eyed vision of European unity but a robust calculation of how we advance our national interest in the modern world, exploiting the economies of scale at our disposal, to the benefit of our businesses and trading potential, to create jobs and boost living standards – as well as maximising our protection and projecting our full continental strength in a world that is threatened by instability and lawlessness.”

It’s also hard to disagree with this one: “unless Europe gets its act together, the chances of America by itself sorting everything out are pretty near zero.” A common European defence force and foreign policy would make a certain amount of sense. It also would have prevented Blair from committing us to invading Iraq despite a million-strong protest march through London last year, and despite the fact that no one sensible in this country wanted anything to do with it.

Unfortunately, at points the article descends to petty, inaccurate party rivalries: “the Conservative party is dominated by neo-liberal, Thatcherite ideologues whose world view is seen through a neo-con lens.” What does that even mean? How can they be neo-liberal and neo-con at the same time?

The final paragraph is typical of politicians, in that it misses the broader picture: “Labour cannot afford to see Europe as of second-order importance. We cannot allow the anti-European press to win an anti-democratic triumph. The party’s political future depends on it. We must unite behind the prime minister to achieve a historic victory.”

This read as follows: “Britain cannot afford to see Europe as of second-order importance. We cannot allow the anti-European press to win an anti-democratic triumph. The country‘s political future depends on it. We must unite behind the prime minister to achieve a historic victory.”

Much as it pains me, and much as I don’t agree with everything in the Constitution in its current draft, we really do have to unite behind Blair on this one. Otherwise the whole European project could go to pot – and then where would we be? An isolated, rainy island, desperately running around after America for scraps of influence in a world that will have become too big for us. A fairly ignominious end for what was once the most powerful nation the world had ever seen…

Aaah! The Murdoch Press!

William Ree-Mogg (aka Baron Rees-Mogg, editor of the Times from 1961-81) has contributed a fantastically superstitious opinion piece about Tony Blair’s “historic” U-turn.

Is this “historic” in the sense that it has demonstrated once and for all that the British people shouldn’t trust their government (following the Labour manifesto promise not to introduce university tuition fees and the promise for “Education, Education, Education”, before introducing tuition fees and then top up fees, then mindlessly altering the A-level system to make those exams even more meaningless)?

No, instead Rees-Mogg claims that April 20th – the date the U-Turn on the Referendum on the European Constitution was announced – has and will have historic resonance thanks to other events that fell on that day in history.

The argument runs like this: Charles I was executed on 30th January; 30th January was the date Hitler came to power. “That is a sinister pair of events.” The event Rees-Mogg comes up with for 20th April is the French declaration of war on Austria in 1792. His interpretation of this event is its most benign – that it marked a period of immense change for Europe and Britain that can still be felt to this day. Not, in other words, that 20th April 1792 marked 23 years of death and destruction, and is thus hardly a date to celebrate. Rees-Mogg also fails to note the most famous thing to happen on an April 20th – the birth of Adolf Hitler in 1889.

“Perhaps,” Rees-Mogg argues, “some future British government will make April 20 a national holiday in honour of Tony Blair?s great U-turn. It could be called a National Day of Independence… The decision… has altogether changed British politics, European politics and the future shape of the European Union.”

Yes, Blair’s decision has ensured that Britain will lose, probably forever, its chance of leading Europe from its heart. It has ruined all the efforts made by everyone who has tried to involve the UK more closely over the last forty years. When the Referendum takes place, and the British Public vote to reject the Constitution, it will be taken by the Eurosceptics as a sign that the UK should withdraw even further. It will constantly be brought up as “proof” that Britain wants nothing to do with the rest of Europe. It will isolate us within our own continent, and push us ever closer to the rambling right-wing behemoth that is the United States. Great. Well done, Tony.

As frequently happens with the Eurosceptics, Rees-Mogg uses the tactic of deliberately misconstruing the aims of the pro-Europeans: “Tony Blair often talks about Britain being at the heart of Europe; a glance at the map shows that we are not, and never have been.” Very clever. By the same logic, Gibraltar belongs to Spain and the Falklands should be renamed the Maldives and given to Argentina – something tells me that most Eurosceptics would not be too happy about that… (This argument also ignores the many centuries during which the English monarch also claimed the title “King/Queen of France”, and during which England ruled large swathes of France, but logic and historical awareness is never as important as sweeping statements, let’s face it.)

By Rees-Mogg’s own superstitious attempt to attribute greater significance to coincidences of dates, April 20th is hardly a particularly auspicious or promising one for Europe. 1792 sees two decades of war; 1889 sees the birth of one of history’s greatest murderers; 2004 sees Tony Blair announce a referendum on the European Constitution, effectively ruling out Britain from closer involvement, and thus ending the prime hope of those who originally planned the European Economic Community following the Second World War that Britain would play a major role.

Rees-Mogg blunders on, making sense in some regards (as should surely only be expected by a former editor of what was, during his tenure, still one of the most respected newspapers in the world) but allowing unadulterated xenophobia to taint the heart of his analysis: “everything in politics has a price. In this case the price is one that people such as myself are not only willing but eager to pay: it is the collapse of Mr Blair’s whole European policy. The referendum cannot be won; therefore the constitution cannot be ratified; therefore the proposed Franco-German bureaucratic integration of Europe will be repudiated by the one power in Europe strong enough to do so.”

For “Franco-German bureaucratic integration of Europe”, read “integration of Europe”. “Bureaucracy” is always considered an evil, but is a necessary part of any political organisation, and the EU is not nearly so bad when it comes to this as is often made out – certainly if one considers how bloated is the bureaucracy of Whitehall. These days, closer European integration is being called for more by the smaller nations – the big three of France, Germany and Britain all have their doubts. France and Germany certainly are highly sceptical about closer integration – hence their continued flaunting of various EU financial agreements.

But to acknowledge that Britain is actually largely in agreement with her most powerful immediate neighbours would be to reject the on-going Eurosceptic myth that the EU is a) a French ploy to get us back for all those times we beat them in wars and stuff ; b) a German attempt to rebuild either the Holy Roman Empire or the Hitler’s Reich ; c) a Catholic conspiracy to undo the Church of England. All patently nonsense, but all still believed by a lot of otherwise very intelligent people.

Well, I’ve neglected this one for a while. It has been over a year since I started it, planning to track my musings in the run-up to EU expansion and the finalisation of the EU Constitution.

The situation has changed a lot. The new member states are now going to join in four days, prompting tabloid tales of a mass of migrants piled up beyond the former iron curtain, desperately waiting to scrabble towards our bounteous benefits system.

However, most worryingly Tony Blair has made a spectacular U-turn by announcing that (despite everything he said before) there will new be a referendum on the Constitution.

Yep, that’s right folks, the “Great British Public” will be entrusted with analysing the details of what is currently about 230 pages of dense legal bumf, and working out what it might mean for the country’s long-term best interests.

The Murdoch press has already come out anti (so that’s the most widely read tabloid and most widely read broadsheet already campaigning against).

Last time I checked, the Telegraph was being surprisingly sensible about the whole thing, but no matter what happens over its ownership in the next few months, it will likely go anti as well.

The Express (a vile rag) has just officially switched allegiance back to the Tories after 10 years supporting Labour and, thanks to recent reports of Richard Desmond’s anti-German tirades last week, I think it’s fairly obvious where that “news”paper’s views on the Constitution are going to lie.

The Mail, let’s face it, has never been a big fan of foreigners, and there’s no reason for it to start now.

So, that leaves the Mirror, Guardian and Independent to fight the corner of the loosely pro-Europe camp – newspapers with a combined daily readership of less than that of the Sun alone.

The Constitution is as good as vetoed already. The “Yes” campaign is in severe trouble. Quite how Blair (or, for that matter, the Liberal Democrats, who are pro, yet have been demanding a referendum for months) reckons he can win this thing, I have no idea.

It will be an interesting time. Europe expanding; the constitution being finalised in June; US Presidential elections in November; British General election in approximately a year’s time. I’ll try and keep this updated. I’ll also try and work out how to change my username – one of the primary reasons I didn’t keep this thing up…

This blog is primarily devoted to international relations from an Anglo-European perspective.

Other than that, do not leap to conclusions. That’s all I ask.

September 2005 addition: This section is probably due for an update, but it mostly still stands. I’ll get round to it when I have a spare moment. For now, this post gives a brief overview of the development of the place, and may be of interest.

The EU:

Yes, I know the strapline to this blog blathers on about “The musings of a non-partisan one-time Eurosceptic turned pro-European”. This does not mean that I am an unthinking, uncritical loyalist drone of the Brussels machine. It does not mean that I cannot see that the European Union has major flaws.

I have retained a number of my Eurosceptic views; I have just come to the conclusion that the EU will be Britain’s best bet in the long run. (Please note, this doesn’t necessarily mean the EU in its current form, current aims, or current structures – and no, I am not a “federalist” in the way it is generally understood).

Feel free to disagree. Feel free to try to convince me otherwise. But – and no offence here, mind – it is unlikely you will succeed. I grew up in a staunchly and vocally Eurosceptic family. I bought the whole anti-EU case for years. I know it inside out.

I have also known – very well – one of this country’s leading Eurosceptic voices (someone you will almost certainly have read and agreed with if you are strongly anti-EU) for my entire life. If anyone is going to convert me back, it will likely be him, not you. He hasn’t succeeded yet.

I changed my mind. It may change back, it may not. Having changed it once, I am not arrogant enough to assume that I now have all the answers.

Political Stance:

Only one of the contributors to this blog is a member of a political party, and we all take the piss out of them for it permanantly. The rest of us are fairly vehemently nonpartisan. I, for one, despise the very concept of the party system of government, and wish it could be abolished without causing abject chaos.

This blog has usually been accused of being left-wing. Most of the contributors would describe themselves as liberals – but in the British, not American sense of the word. I would describe myself as a liberal internationalist one nation Tory royalist European with a hint of Whig and Benthamite utilitarian. (I’m a pretentious arse like that).

Things to remember are that we’re all changing our minds on all the various issues all the time, and that many of the posts on here are written either for rhetorical/stylistic effect (we are all professional writers, after all, and like to experiment with ideas) or to work out our own views on particular matters. No post – in isolation – will provide you adequate information to work out our political views on all issues.

For Americans:

None of the contributors to this blog likes President Bush. At all. That does not, however, mean we don’t like America. Accusations of America-bashing on here will be given short shrift – because it’s lazy and it’s tedious, and because we aren’t really that interested. Bush is President, we have to live with it, that’s fine.

And for all those who seem to care, here – for the record – is Nosemonkey’s stance on Iraq:

Meh… What’s done is done. That doesn’t make it right, but nor does it mean that I care enough to enter into debate about it.

This blog was started on 5th March 2003 in a spare moment, then languished for a year or so, then languished some more. I started contributing to it properly at the end of August 2004.

September 2005 addition: This section is probably due for an update, but it mostly still stands. I’ll get round to it when I have a spare moment. For now, this post gives a brief overview of the development of the place, and may be of interest.

Initial Blog Purpose:

I initially set it up to help prompt some actual brain usage after a period of particularly unstimulating jobs, during a time when I was planning on doing a PhD and so regular brain usage was somewhat necessary to prevent what little academic power I had from stagnating.

I had no idea what might provide enough mental strain to counter my otherwise mindless existence, so opted for the most insanely complex thing I was aware of – the European Union.

The subject might well explain why I gave up so quickly… The EU is, it must be said, mind-numbingly dull.

Blog Revival:

After a couple of attempted revivals in April and May 2004, I decided to start the blog up on a whim while in a quiet period at work, loosely thanks to a few chats with Manic of Bloggerheads on the b3ta messageboards, where I was then spending far too much time. I wanted to look busy while sitting at my desk, remembered I’d started the thing up, found the password, and just started typing one day. This post explains a bit more.

So far, I’ve kept it up fairly successfully, and am rather pleased at%20my committement to the thing – even though it’s a complete waste of time.

Since the Revival:

It�s been doing fairly well. A couple of award nominations (and a respectable showing in the voting), some nice words from other bloggers, and a steadily growing readership. Nothing spectacular, but respectable.

If you are so inclined, you can find out who links to this blog here, here or here. None of these are comprehensive, but they�ll give you an idea, and may lead you to some good blogs.

Feel free to question anything on here � I usually (time permitting) welcome a bit of a challenge, as the whole point of this thing is to test the few opinions I do have and to prompt me to form opinions about those areas I haven�t yet considered. (Don�t always expect a response, however – I have a stupidly bad memory, and often forget.)

Generally speaking, no comments will be deleted unless I get official complaints or they’re spam.

The comments section to this post attracted a rather odious BNP supporter. I indulged him for a while until I got bored. He wasn�t deleted, because he was on topic. Sort of.

This should be ample proof that I couldn’t care less if you disagree with either my actual opinions or what you believe to be my views, and will usually let you state what you think in the comments even if I disagree with you utterly and find your views offensive.

I do, however, tend to get a bit pissed off if you start attacking me for things I haven’t said, or go off on a tangent to the post in which you are commenting to try and get a response on some other issue. I may even start swearing at you. Childish, I know – but it’s my blog and I’ll do what I cunting want with it.

Repeated off-topic postings and unrelated rants about my views (actual or perceived) on other subjects may be subject to deletion � partially to tidy the place up, but largely because these things bore me.

If you want to challenge me on a particular topic or a particular opinion you think I may hold, wait until I post about it. If you�re really keen, email me and ask me to post about it so that we can have an argument. I may indulge you – I like to try and keep readers involved, and generally try to take part in discussions in the comments boxes once they kick off.

Main request?

Be civil. Especially if it�s your first post, be polite � otherwise you�ll probably end up being told to fuck off and then ignored.

In any case, if you have the desire to be rude to me after reading one post, it’s almost certain that you’ve either missed the point or haven’t quite grasped the concept that just because the majority of the internet is filled with abusive morons doesn’t mean it ALL has to be.

But mainly – check out some of the rest of the blog before leaping to conclusions. Cheers.

A collection of useful resources, which I plan to keep expanding – let me know if you’ve found any I’m missing:

Main Official websites

Other EU linkdumps

Useful resources

BBC EU Jargon Glossary

Terminology Examined/Explained

Issues Examined/Explained

EU Constitution

The EU acquis.

(The laws and rules adopted on the basis of the EU’s founding treaties – mostly Rome, Maastricht , Amsterdam and Nice)

EU Agencies