Nosemonkey's EUtopia

January 13, 2011
by Nosemonkey
50 Comments

The European Union and British Sovereignty

UK and EU flags The European Union Bill is one of those strange populist beasts announced by the Conservative Party in the run-up to last year’s general election, aimed squarely at keeping Britain’s eurosceptic right from abandoning them for the UK Independence Party (following David Cameron’s admission that he was not planning to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty after it had already entered into force, despite what many eurosceptics had hoped/expected).

In short, this new bill promises to force the government to hold a nationwide referendum on any future transfer of sovereignty from Britain to the European Union – trying to put a referendum lock in place so that no future government could sign the UK up to a treaty like Lisbon (an act that caused much outrage among eurosceptics – not least because all three main parties had promised a referendum on the old European Constitution, on which the Lisbon Treaty was heavily based).

Of course, as no parliament can bind another, all any future British government that wanted to avoid a referendum would have to do is revoke this Act – if the Bill passes into law.

On top of that, the current government has realised that to hold referenda on *every* transfer of power to the EU – no matter how small – would be cripplingly expensive and inefficient, and so has opted to leave it up to ministerial discretion whether or not a transfer of power from Westminster to Brussels is significant enough to warrant a referendum. This, unsurprisingly, has greatly angered many hard eurosceptics.

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December 31, 2010
by Nosemonkey
2 Comments

The EU in the UK media: Event videos

Sorry – no time to write up yet, so beneath the fold are the videos of the event I spoke at earlier this month, looking at how the EU is portrayed in the British media and blogs.

The first panel (on which I sat) looked at the EU in the media, and was rather spoiled by David Rennie of the Economist (erstwhile Charlemagne, now Bagehot) having to leave early, leaving me stuck by default as the sole “pro-EU” voice – a role I wasn’t keen to accept. We then also got into the Eurozone crisis – areas I hoped David would be able to field, due to my lack of comfort with fiscal/economic policy debates – along with plenty of other sidetracks.

The second panel, focusing on the UK in British blogs, was a lot tighter and more focused – but probably of less interest to the general EU geek, rather than EU blogging geeks. There doesn’t appear to be video of that yet.

Short version of my take:

– Journalists are lazy
– Journalists are ignorant
– Journalists rarely bother to do their research
– Journalists are arrogant enough to assume they’re right without checking
– Journalists have too little space/time to satisfactorily explain complex issues to a general audience
– Too few newspapers employ decent sub-editors to fact-check

(And I say all this as a journalist, of sorts, who’s earned his living from writing, subbing and editing for more than a decade.)

Plus:

– The EU is boring
– The EU is incredibly complicated
– The EU rarely does anything newsworthy

All this combines to give the likes of UKIP and other anti-EU groups plenty of scope for sexing up non-stories, lies and distortions to suit their agenda. People like Nigel Farage are entertaining, which is why they get airtime. People like Dan Hannan make the EU sound important and immediate, so they get listened to.

Even shorter version: If the EU *isn’t* getting reported in the media (because this isn’t a problem that’s exclusively British), that’s because it’s doing its job properly. If there’s nothing to report, that means there’s nothing to complain about.

But at the same time, I think it’s a genuine disgrace that the media – so often so proud of its role as the body that keeps an eye on the politicians for the public – pays so little attention to the EU when EU laws affect so many parts of our lives. This is largely due to ignorance and laziness on the part of the press – not helped by the EU being so very, very boring.

Not sure if I got that across or not. The videos are below – judge for yourself…

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December 3, 2010
by Nosemonkey
3 Comments

Nosemonkey speaks: The EU in the UK media (and blogs)

As long-time readers will know, one of this blog’s lasting obsessions is the portrayal of the EU in the British media. Hell, the rampant bias and distortions (from both the pro- and the anti- camps) were pretty much what got me interested in the EU in the first place. Indeed, the reason this blog’s title was originally “Europhobia” was because I started out aiming to focus on what makes us Brits so inherently eurosceptic.

So my participation in a panel discussion / mini-conference this time next week (organised by Bloggingportal.eu) may be of interest to some London-based readers – though I can’t pretend to be as comfortable forming coherent arguments off the cuff while speaking in public as I am jotting my thoughts down in a more considered manner on the interweb. Details as follows:

WHEN: 10th December 2010 – 13:00 – 18:00

WHERE: Europe House, 32 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3EU

WHAT: A non-partisan event exploring the different ways bloggers and journalists can cover the EU in Britain

HASHTAG: #EUuk

EVENT PROGRAMME

13:00 – EVENT START / REGISTRATION / SANDWICH LUNCH

13:45 to 15:15 – FIRST PANEL – “The EU in the British Media”

We’ll be asking our panelists about the coverage of the EU in the British press. Do the media generally do a good job of “keeping tabs” on the EU? Is it true that British euroscepticism is driven by the media, or are the media just following public opinion?

PANELISTS:
David Rennie – Political Editor and Bagehot Columnist, The Economist, Bagehot’s Notebook
Paul Staines – Blogger, Guido Fawkes
Mats Persson – Director, Open Europe
J Clive Matthews – Blogger, Nosemonkey’s EUtopia

15:15 – COFFEE BREAK

15:45 to 17:45 – SECOND PANEL – “The EU in the British Blogosphere”

In this panel, we’ll be turning a critical eye on the British blogosphere. Do bloggers have any advantages over mainstream journalists when writing about the EU? Are bloggers better informed and freer to say what everybody is really thinking? Unconstrained by deadlines and editorial oversight, can they delve deeper into a story? Or are they just under less pressure to maintain levels of accuracy and ethical behaviour?

PANELISTS:

Bruno Waterfield – Brussels Correspondent, The Daily Telegraph, Europe not EU
Gawain Towler – UKIP / Europe of Freedom and Democracy Press Officer and Blogger, England Expects
Antonia Mochan – Head of Media, EU Commission Representative in the UK, Talking About the EU
Jon Worth – Blogger, Jon Worth’s Euroblog

Both panels will be moderated discussions, including time for questions from the audience. There will be wifi provision and a charging station for laptops/mobile phones etc. There are still a couple of places available, so please let us know by e-mail (at info bloggingportal eu) if you are interested in attending. Entry is free.

—

You may also have noticed that the blog now has a new look. Hopefully a bit more readable than the traditional light text on a dark background – I’d been meaning to change it for years…

There’s still a few bugs in the system (the categories aren’t displaying properly, for starters – and I need to get a few more images in here to make it look prettier), but I’m hoping to get them fixed soon.

Many thanks to Jon Worth for helping me out by fixing as many as he has done already.

November 7, 2010
by Nosemonkey
54 Comments

UK trade, the EU, and the Rotterdam Effect

As many of you know, I spend far too much of my (increasingly limited) spare time arguing with eurosceptics on the internet. Some are professional eurosceptics (recent discussions have included ones with Declan Ganley, founder of anti-Lisbon Treaty party Libertas, Nigel Farage of UKIP, and someone from American neocon thinktank the Heritage Foundation), others merely passing concerned citizens.

Most of the time, I can point them to a post on this blog where I’ve already covered their concerns in detail. Sometimes I haven’t covered it yet. In a recent discussion with @ArnieEtc, I asked for suggestions of pro-EU myths. He responded with a classic eurosceptic complaint about a perennial pro-EU claim – one that I frequently make myself, but one which I’ve never explored or justified in any detail:

@ArnieEtc, 3rd Nov 2010: “The favourite [pro-EU myth] of mine is where europhiles insist that 70% of our trade is with the EU, so it’d be suicide to leave. This is a myth for two reasons – firstly, you can have free trade with the EU without being a member (EEA). But more fundamentally, it’s a deliberate manipulation of statistics – a lot of our world wide trade goes via Holland, as you get very good shipping links there. But because that involves goods being moved from the UK, to Holland (even though they only stay there for a few days), some pro-EU commentators use that to bulk up EU trade figures, and make it look like there’s more genuine intra-EU trade than there really is.”

I’ll come back to the EEA in another post, as it’s a far more complicated situation to explain – first, let’s take this claim that official statistics over-inflate the UK’s trade with other EU member states.

Is there any truth in it? Well, as with all the best euromyths, yes. Some.

Continue Reading →

October 16, 2010
by Nosemonkey
12 Comments

So, I’ve won the internet category of the European Parliament Prize for Journalism

And here’s a nice report from Journalism.co.uk.

European Parliament Prize for Journalism I may well be posting some more detailed thoughts here at some point soon – no doubt musing on the concept of a political institution giving journalists money for doing their job in a manner the politicians like (or, indeed, of giving journalists any money whatsoever), the state of political blogging, journalism and EU coverage in general.

For now, however, here’s an updated version of the acceptance speech that I decided on the day that I wouldn’t use (mostly due to not having had the time to formulate it in my head after hearing why I’d won…)

—-

Although I’m flattered, I genuinely *don’t* think that my post on the percentage of laws that come from the EU [which won me the 5,000 euro prize] deserves to be described as “extraordinary research work”.

“Informative and interesting”, perhaps. “Understandable and convincing”, I hope. Written “with a sense of humour”, I’d like to think. But “extraordinary research work”?

The research that went into that post was less than I would have done on an undergraduate history essay while at university. It was just a tiny fraction of what I would have needed to do for a postgraduate level essay. Compared to a PhD or a book? It’s nothing.

I’ve not done a PhD, but do have an MA in history, have written two books and edited several others – I don’t know what “extraordinary” research is, but I’ve got a good idea of what counts as *proper* research.

You want proper research on the percentage of laws that comes from the EU? Check out this 59-page PDF research paper from the (politically independent) House of Commons Library – amusingly published the very same day that I was in Brussels being handed an award for my supposedly “extraordinary research work” on the very same topic. My post looks like *nothing* in comparison (though – sweetly – it is referenced in the footnotes).

I did my MA before the internet had really taken off as a research tool, when to find things out one had to sit in libraries for weeks, months on end, inhaling the dust of generations of pasty students. When to get to the *really* interesting stuff, one had to hop on a train – perhaps even a plane – to go to the documents, rather than have the documents delivered to you, direct to your laptop. When to uncover something new, one might have to spend years studying a new language to enable the decryption of a document that no one had read for hundreds of years.

We don’t realise how lucky we are. Thanks to the internet, we’re utterly spoiled.

Had I been working ten years ago, that post would have taken me a good couple of days – perhaps as long as a week – to dig out all the information. As it was, it took me a little over an hour and a half.

That’s not “extraordinary research work”. That’s being aware of this thing called Google, and understanding how to use the web to uncover information. Something that *every* journalist or blogger worthy of the name should know how to do.

I’ll accept that I may have compiled that information in an accessible way – hell, I’ve been a professional writer/editor for over a decade so I bloody ought to be able to – but research? That was nothing. And if anyone thinks it is, that says more about the dire state of the general, accepted standard of research that goes into articles about the EU (and most other subjects these days) than it does about my own abilities.

I’m flattered, but let’s be realistic here…

—

For those who are interested, a report and some interviews with yours truly – I like the last the best:

Journalists following the dodo?: Interview w/Nosemonkey
Uploaded by tuulitoivanen. – Up-to-the minute news videos.

September 15, 2010
by Nosemonkey
20 Comments

France, the Roma, and the Divine Right of States

In the 17th century, Britain fought a civil war over the principle that no one – not even the King – should be above the law. This conflict resulted in the destruction of the concept of divine right in Britain and the gradual emergence of the system of constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy that has formed the basis of so many constitutions ever since (yes, even some of those without monarchs involved).

But at its heart, the English Civil War laid down the concept of the rule of law. This was such a good principle that pretty much the entire world runs on it now, in one form or another.

This idea that no one should be above the law was the first principle of the emancipation of the people. Without this fundamental concept, the subsequent developments in Western ideas of liberty and democracy (primarily via the French and American Revolutions, both partially inspired by aspects of England’s Civil War rhetoric) could never have progressed – for without the rule of law, we are nothing. We survive merely upon the whim of others. All we have and all we are can be taken away in an instant, and there is nothing we can do about it.

In 21st century France, all the Roma have is being taken. Systematically. By the state. Which in turn pleads that it is merely supporting the rule of law, because “they” are in the country illegally. Even though, in most cases, the French state has no idea precisely who “they” are, because “they” don’t deserve to be tried on a case-by-case basis to determine who is and who is not in France illegally. “They” don’t deserve to be presumed innocent. “They” are just a group of undesirables. “They” don’t have names, or rights. “They” are automatically guilty, merely by being of a particular ethnicity. “They” merely need to be removed.

And yet France has the gall to complain when the European Union’s Justice Commissioner points out the similarities between their current actions towards the Roma and the ethnic persecutions of the Second World War?

In 17th century Britain and 18th century France and America, the call was for no monarch to be above the law. In the 21st century the call should be that no government – or, to be precise, no state – should be above the law.

I’ve long argued that this is one of my key reasons for favouring some form of supranational governmental structure:

I for one would welcome legal restrictions on the ability of the state to interfere in our lives through unjust laws. I would like there to be lines in the sand, over which no government can step.

The Economist’s new Charlemagne has the best overview of the background to the current crisis over France’s explusion of the Roma, while The European Citizen has the best overview of the implications of French treatment of Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding’s strongly-worded speech:

Meanwhile, France is hitting back in a manner that only further underlines the fundamental problem – the French government’s belief in the divine right of states: “That is not how you talk to a large state,” says the French Europe minister.

In the old days, no. No it wasn’t. Because if you talked to a large state in a manner they disliked, they were likely to vent their anger through force, just as the monarchs of old did before them. And look how well that turned out for France, back in 1870-71, 1914-18 and 1939-45…

This is why the English Civil War was fought. It’s why the French Revolution started. It’s why the American Revolution happened. “The rule of law” isn’t just about words written in some dusty textbook – it’s about core, fundamental principles. It always has been. It’s about the rights of man – hence Thomas Paine’s use of that phrase as the title of his most famous work. In another, Common Sense, he likewise noted “in America, the law is King”.

This is a principle that the EU has been trying to bring to Europe, a mere two centuries late.

How big does a state have to be to be above the rule of law – laws that France has signed up to, lest we forget? Laws that this very French government recently reaffirmed through the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty? Principles that every member of the UN and Council of Europe has signed up to via the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and European Convention on Human Rights (both of which exist independently of the EU, in parallel to its own rules, so important are these principles considered)?

If France can get away with breaking internationally-agreed laws designed to protect not just ethnic minorities but individuals of any race, colour or creed just because she’s large, can an even bigger country get away with breaking laws designed to protect France? A bigger country like, say, Germany? Remember how that went, France? The Nazis also won an election – does that mean they had the right to invade?

Just as one of the prime motivators of the English Civil War, French Revolution and American Revolution was to escape the oppression of kings, so one of the prime motivators for the formation of what has now become the EU was to protect Europe’s many peoples from the oppression of states, from governments who believe they have some kind of divine right to do what they like because they’ve got the largest army, but also – in the modern world – because they received more votes in an election.

Sorry, chaps – but the rule of law is not trumped by who has the most votes, just as it isn’t trumped by who has the most soldiers, or the biggest stick. Being voted into office doesn’t mean you can do what you like any more than being king means you can do what you like. We’ve progressed beyond that stage.

Or, at least, I thought we had.

September 3, 2010
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on We are experiencing technical difficulties

We are experiencing technical difficulties

I’m currently being migrated to a new server / hosting company, and upgrading to the latest version of Wordpress at the same time – it appears that this is causing a few issues along the way. Apparently the RSS feed has gone weird, a few images are missing, and so are a few pages.

Hopefully this should all fix itself soon – and once it’s back up and running, I’ll be giving the site’s design a quick overhaul to make it a touch more readable, then cracking on with the promised EU reading list.

Back soon…

August 28, 2010
by Nosemonkey
21 Comments

Starting an EU reading list

After nearly ten years of putting up with me blathering on about it, and just as I’ve started to find the whole thing more tedious than ever, the missus is starting to get interested in the EU. (Poor woman…)

As such – and further inspired by Eurogoblin’s excellent recent post on the history of European integration (very similar to something I’ve been meaning to write for years but have never got around to), Ralf Grahn’s follow-up, suggesting some of his favourite Italian books about the concept, and the fact that numerous people (not just the wife) have asked me to recommend books over the years – I reckoned it was finally time to get started on compiling a list of some of the best books on the EU and Europe, both for those starting out in EU affairs for the first time and those who want to learn more.

So, this is the first in what I hope will become a new series in which I’ll start compiling an EU reading list. But I won’t confine myself just to dusty political / historical text books. Instead, I’ll also explore some of the best magazines, articles, websites, blog posts, films, documentaries, novels, paintings, sculptures, music and whatever else springs to mind that can aid understanding both of the European Union as political project, and the concept of Europe itself. Hell, the strapline of this blog has been “in search of a European identity” for years now, and I’ve still not quite got around to exploring the concept.

Added advantage? It can help sate my bibliophilia, and give purpose to my reading / re-reading.

Suggestions for inclusions welcome – though I’ve got enough chunky tomes piled high in the flat to keep me going for a fair while yet…

Note to publishers: Yes, I will gladly accept review copies. But don’t expect a favourable review, just because you bung me a freebie. I’ve reviewed books professionally for several years now, including for the Times Literary Supplement, and have my (modest) reputation to consider… If you have a book (or DVD, or whatever) you think should be included in the list, get in touch via info {at} jcm.org.uk

August 27, 2010
by Nosemonkey
Comments Off on Not dead – just tweeting

Not dead – just tweeting

Horrifically busy in the real world, hence the longest break in blogging on this site in more than six years. I am, however, still commenting away about the EU (among other things) in 140 characters or less on Twitter on a daily basis – that’s the best place to find me these days. You can get an RSS feed of my Twitter ramblings here – just be warned that it’s not all politics related, some of it’s personal, some of it’s very silly, and some of it’s very sweary.

Twitter has a wonderful ability to suddenly introduce you to new people – a 140 character limit meaning that you can read hundreds of different people’s opinions every day in a way that simply isn’t possible in long-form. If also means I’ve been coming across more ridiculous nonsense than I have in several years, as I keep getting alerted to stories and blog posts from sources I’d never normally come across by myself.

When these are EU-related, they’re normally incredibly familiar – the usual stories that get repeated year after year. Having, as I do, fairly extensive archives, I keep finding myself using old posts to rebut “new” stories – be it over the EU budget, the EU’s role in guaranteeing British freedom, the concept of an EU superstate. Along the way, I’ve got into arguments with anti-EU campaigners from the Taxpayers’ Alliance, the Bruges Group, OpenEurope and more.

It’s all great fun. A bit like blogging in the good old days, when I actually had time to read and comment on other blogs.

Having said that, I’m planning to start blogging again soon. I’m writing less and less in the day job these days (unless you count innumerable emails, Powerpoint presentations and planning documents), and am starting to get rusty.

There’s still a question of precisely what to write *about*, though. I’ve covered many of the broad EU issues – often several times. I have no time for party politics or the “personalities” of the Brussels bubble (something I’ve never been a part of anyway). I usually haven’t got the time – or expertise – for detailed policy analysis. And as entertaining as arguing with eurosceptics can be on Twitter, I prefer to keep the blog for considered argument and polite debate – turning the focus back to pointing out the flaws of eurosceptic arguments tends to attract the kind of responses I have no interest in dealing with.

And in any case, these days there are plenty of other EU bloggers to do that sort of thing – you can find them via Bloggingportal. (I remember when this here EUblogosphere were all fields – just me, EU Referendum (sadly increasingly shrill in its anti-EU vehemence these days), A Fistful of Euros, and a handful of others, now long since departed.)

So, back properly soon. Hopefully. At which point I’ll hopefully also find time to give this place a spring clean – some of the site’s code has broken, and a redesign is long overdue to make the text more readable. The only trouble is I’ve lost my FTP details, so can’t get in to change anything…

July 2, 2010
by Nosemonkey
16 Comments

Best anti-EU comment ever?

More egg nonsense, I’m afraid, but this was too good not to share. From the comments to inexplicably popular UK political blogger Iain Dale’s “you couldn’t make it up” post about the made-up story about the EU banning the selling of eggs by number:

“At June 29, 2010 10:45 AM, Roger Thornhill said…

@Douglas “The weight needs to be displayed. That is all.”

Replace “weight” with “yellow star” and the penny might just drop for you.

Yes, that’s right – someone whose chosen online pseudonym is the name of Cary Grant’s falsely-persecuted everyman in Hitchcock’s conspiracy thriller classic North by Northwest is comparing a regulation asking for food packaging to include an indication of the product’s weight to the start of the Holocaust.

First they came for the egg boxes, and I did not complain, for I was not an egg box…

As I say, sometimes it can be very hard to take eurosceptics seriously… This is now my new favourite stupid anti-EU comment of all time, swiftly overtaking one-time sensible anti-EU blogger Tim Worstall’s bizarre allegation that I simply *must* be in on the grand EU conspiracy – how else to explain someone saying that europhobic bullshit is, erm… europhobic bullshit? (Though to be fair on Tim, he’s only the latest in a long line of ranting maniacs to flatter my ego with suggestions that people might find me worth bribing.)

I do love writing about the EU sometimes – it has a wonderful tendency to bring out the very maddest in people.

July 1, 2010
by Nosemonkey
10 Comments

The Food Standards Agency responds over their EU banning selling eggs by number quote

Following the nonsense over the EU banning selling eggs by number, many have seized on the anonymous Food Standards Agency spokeswoman quoted by the Mail on Sunday as saying “This proposal would disallow selling by numbers. Retailers would not be allowed to put “Six eggs” on the front of the box. If it was a bag of rolls, it would say “500g” instead of six rolls.”

I asked the FSA for a clarification: At no point in the document is there any mention of labelling being forbidden in the way that your unnamed spokesperson claims. Yet this quote is now being used in numerous follow-up articles to justify outrage over a move that isn’t even being proposed… I would be most grateful for a statement to clarify the situation. Is it actually the FSA’s stated belief that the EU is planning to make labelling a box of six eggs with “Six Eggs” illegal, or was the unnamed spokesperson speaking out of turn?

I received the following response:

Since the report over the weekend in the Mail on Sunday re: FIR selling by number proposals, the FSA has now updated its position. I hope this makes things clear:

Consumers are used to buying some products such as eggs by number and we want to ensure this continues.

We will continue to press in Europe for the ability to sell food by number, ensuring it appears on the face of the proposals. This will provide clarity for both consumers and industry.

Not quite good enough, I thought, so I went back to them: Does the FSA still believe that the proposed legislation would disallow selling by numbers? A simple yes or no would be much appreciated. Their reply:

apologies if we appeared not to be answering your question. But it’s not a case of a yes or no answer. The draft regulation specifies the ways in which net quantity may be expressed, which does not include number [their emphasis]. The draft regulation does include a mechanism through which the Commission could allow some deviation from selling by weight or volume but we do not think this is clear enough.

We will continue to press for provisions in the regulation which would clearly enable food to be sold by number.

Please note “we do not think this is clear enough“. In my books, that’s not the same as the categorical “would“s of the original Mail quote.

They are, of course, technically correct. The draft legislation doesn’t make explicit mention of allowing eggs (or other foodstuffs) to be sold by number. But that is not the same as a ban – not by a long stretch. It seems the FSA has now realised this – but is reluctant to fully admit its schoolboy error.

(And yes, I am aware of the meme popular in certain anti-EU circles about Napoleonic Law versus Common Law and how the EU uses the former which only permits things explictly stated while the latter allows everything *except* things explicitly stated. It’s a load of ahistorical abject bollocks made popular by people who haven’t got the first clue about how EU Law actually works. In any case, it matters not a jot in this instance, as Britain (or, at any rate, England, Wales and Northern Ireland) still has its Common Law, and would therefore not be obliged to stop eggs being labelled by number even if the final version of this proposed legislation forgot to include an explicit opt-out.)

July 1, 2010
by Nosemonkey
4 Comments

Britain’s new foreign policy approach

As regular readers of this blog will know, my single biggest worry about the Conservative party taking office in the UK was the prospect of arch-eurosceptic William Hague taking over the Foreign Office (the man who, as leader of the party back in 2001, ran a last-ditch general election campaign on the slogan “7 days to save the pound”).

Hague has repeatedly rattled his sabre in the direction of the EU, making numerous references to “repatriating” powers from “Brussels”, and often seeming to believe numerous Europhobic myths about the way the EU operates.

After 13 years of a supposedly pro-EU government which repeatedly refused to constructively engage with our continental partners, my fear has been that the incoming Conservative government (even with the tempering effect of their more pro-EU Liberal Democrat partners, led by former Commission official and ex-MEP Nick Clegg) would pull the UK even further from Europe’s heart. This, I am certain, would be disastrous – both for Britain and for the EU itself, but mostly for Britain.

Today, Hague is giving his first major speech since becoming Foreign Secretary. So let’s have a quick look at some of the highlights – especially in relation to Britain’s future policy towards the EU. It must be said, there were a few pleasant surprises…

Continue Reading →

June 29, 2010
by Nosemonkey
27 Comments

You COULD make it up: On abolishing eggs by the dozen

Eggs So, the EU is apparently planning to make it illegal to sell eggs by the dozen – or indeed to sell any products at all by number, instead forcing producers and retailers alike to sell only by weight.

“Utter madness!”, you cry. “How could anyone possibly be so stupid? It’s ridiculous!”

Yes. Yes it is ridiculous.

The story started (as far as I can tell*) in the europhobic Mail (over 1000 outraged comments and counting), before spreading to the usual suspects of the anti-EU blogs and the knee-jerk eurosceptics of Tory blogland – the latter starting with the classic cliche “You really couldn’t make it up”.

By the end of Monday, 28th June, the story had even spread to the BBC where, as of 10pm, it was ranking as the second most popular story on the site.

Shamefully for the BBC – supposedly a bastion of responsible journalism – this is a story made up entirely of quotes from supposed experts who evidently don’t know what they’re talking about, with “A UK minister” and an unnamed spokesman from the UK Federation of Bakers being added to the anonymous source that started the hysteria rolling, the “FSA spokeswoman” quoted by the Mail, who says:

“This proposal would disallow selling by numbers. Retailers would not be allowed to put “Six eggs” on the front of the box. If it was a bag of rolls, it would say “500g” instead of six rolls.”

This statement is utterly false.

Indeed, all you have to do is read the proposed regulation itself (warning: PDF) – which makes precisely no mention of outlawing selling by numbers.

In fact, quite the opposite – Annex VIII makes explicit exceptions for foods “which are sold by number”. (This only slightly amended in the final version, despite the apparent claim in the BBC article that such a get-out had been rejected.)

John Band – formerly something of an expert in the food industry in the real world – has already successfully demolished all claims that selling by numbers will be outlawed. He also helpfully points out that

eggs are already graded by weight – e.g. a ‘large’ egg weighs 63-73g – which requires them to be weighed

Of course, the *existing* legislation requiring eggs to be weighed is just one part of a vast array of rules and regulations that cover food packaging – none of which, it would appear, most of the supposed experts quoted in all the media coverage of this non-story know anything about.

Indeed, back in April, Compassion in World Farming was complaining about the very same proposed bit of legislation – because it threatens to *reduce* the amount of information currently required (under rules brought in a decade ago).

And please note, from that September 2000 article, this:

“To date, it has been mandatory to put the following indications on packs of eggs: the name of the trader, the number of the packing centre, quality and weight grading, number of eggs, date of minimum durability and appropriate storage, recommendations, particulars as to refrigeration/preservation in the case of grade B eggs (refrigerated or preserved eggs), packing date for eggs of other grades and for imported eggs”

Where this has been turned by the Mail and the rest of the anti-EU crowd into a story about Brussels bureaucrats’ mad over-regulation, the truth of the matter is *precisely* the opposite – these new rules are instead entirely and explicitly about deregulation, as anyone who read the original document would be able to see in a second.

The aim is not to force food producers to include *more* unnecessary information on their packaging, but to remove the existing requirements to include insane levels of detail about (for example) farming conditions, nutritional information, etc. etc. etc. As the proposal itself states:

“The emphasis is on simplifying the regulatory process, thus reducing the administrative burden and improving the competitiveness of the European food industry”

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should never believe anything you read in the British press. All it takes is one hack staff writer on a paper with a political agenda to get something wrong, and soon everyone else is following the story up – not by going back to the supposed source of the outcry, but by phoning various rent-a-quotes and asking them their opinion on something they almost certainly know even less about than the journalist who started the whole thing rolling:

Hack journalist: “Hi, it’s Christopher Leake from the Mail on Sunday. What do you think about the EU’s proposals to ban selling eggs by the dozen?”

Anonymous spokesperson: “Eh? They’re proposing what? That’s ridiculous! [Insert ill-informed rant]”

Hack journalist following up initial bullshit story: “Hi, it’s Laurence Peter from the BBC. I just wanted to get your opinion on this story about the EU banning the selling of eggs by the dozen.”

First MEP to pick up the phone (in this case Glenis Willmott): “Oh, the BBC? Right… Erm… (Shit! I can’t let on that I don’t know what I’m talking about… Erm…) Well… [Insert off-the-cuff vaguely plausible explanation of why legislation that doesn’t actually exist might possibly be considered sensible, plus vague assurances that there are normally get-outs for this sort of thing, thus lending even more credence to the story even though there’s nothing actually going on.]“

And thus another Euromyth is born. It’s all strangely familiar – once again, EU deregulation is presented as over-regulation thanks to the seemingly wilful ignorance of the anti-EU press, and the poor journalistic standards of the rest of the media. Even though this story is utter bollocks, expect it to be trotted out for years to come. Just like with those straight bananas…

UPDATE: A categorical rejection of this story from the European Parliament itself:

The European Parliament’s rapporteur on the food labelling regulation, Renate Sommer (Germany, EPP group) responded today: “In principle, there will be no changes to selling foods by quantity. Selling eggs by the dozen, for example, will not be banned”.

UPDATE – 1st July: The Food Standards Agency has responded to my request for a clarification of their position, following their anonymous spokesperson’s misleading quote in the Mail.

UPDATE 2: Just came across this, via the Scottish Executive. A handy summary of existing EU egg labelling regulations. Please note:

“Minimum standards of quality and weight grading…

“The regulations apply to hen eggs marketed within the Community. They do not apply to eggs sold direct by producers to the final consumer at the farm gate, in local public markets (with the exception of auction markets), or by door-to-door selling. “

Please note also that there is already a requirement to own “a machine for grading the eggs by weight”.

There. Is that categorical enough for you?

* I very much doubt the story actually originated at the Mail – they don’t have the resources to trawl through reams of EU legislation looking for things that they can turn into stories, because the vast majority of EU legislation is deeply boring and innocuous. I’d imagine that they got the tip-off from some anti-EU campaign group, think tank or party, probably in the form of a press release, and that the Mail also didn’t bother to look at the original text but just leapt straight onto the phones looking for quotes to pad the story out a bit. But I don’t know this for certain and so – unlike the Mail – I’m not going to state it as fact.

June 24, 2010
by Nosemonkey
6 Comments

On increasing the number of MEPs

The European Parliament is getting bigger – 18 new MEPs joining (thanks to the Lisbon Treaty), taking the total to 754.

Cue the predictable outrage from the usual suspects about the “cost” of these new MEPs, rent-a-quote eurosceptic think tank Open Europe telling the eurosceptic Telegraph:

“It’s strange that the EU sees it fit to go through a complicated process of treaty reform just to provide for more jobs in the European Parliament – at a time when virtually every country in Europe is cutting back… This says a lot about the EU’s priorities. If anything, the EU’s institutions should be slimmed down.

To start, let’s ignore the fact that this wilfully ignores that the additional MEPs were agreed years back, before the credit crunch hit, and that EU decision-making takes so bloody long that agreeing to change this hard-fought (but minor) amendment would be a logistical nightmare that would cost far more than the £28 million quoted as the cost over the next four years.

Instead, how about we look at the claim “If anything, the EU’s institutions should be slimmed down”. Why? Well, the implication is because they should cost less.

But, of course, the EU’s budget is a paltry €142.6 billion for 2011 – a tiny, tiny fraction of the total UK budget (about the same as the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions, in fact – and rather less than the UK government’s 2009 borrowing of £154.7 billion).

Cutting the EU’s budget is about as effective as those headline-grabbing, but drop-in-the-ocean, pay cuts for ministers. Cutting the Prime Minister’s salary by a few thousand a year when the budget deficit is running to the tens of billion is nothing but a PR ploy, and anyone with any sense knows it. The same goes for Open Europe’s knee-jerk calls for EU cutbacks. They’re a nonsense.

In fact, what anyone who really wants to see European governments save money *should* be doing is calling for *more* decision-making and legislating to be pooled at a European level.

Because if decisions are being taken at an EU level, this is because several EU member states want to do roughly the same thing. Therefore pretty much *every* decision taken at EU level is saving money.

(Sorry for the absence of late, by the way – *immensely* busy with the day job…)