Cameron is wrong about the European referendum – and by making it an issue he’s hauling up the white flag for the next General Election
Conservatives, Europe August 3, 2007As regular readers of this blog know, I am passionately committed, almost to the point of obsession, about accountability and democracy, for example in local health services.
So why do I find myself opposed to a referendum on the European Reform Treaty? It seems rather a counter-intuitive, anti-democratic and an unpopular view to take so I think it needs a bit of explanation.
Referendums are clearly initially very appealing. It seems quite simple: if you believe in democracy, then you should be prepared to ask the public anything and everything, and get them to make the decision.
This seems fine until we look at the actual experience of what actually happens when you do put something to a referendum. And the general (if not universal) experience is that when voters go to the polls, they don’t actually vote about the question on the ballot paper - but instead treat it as a poll on how they think the government of the day is doing generally.
Referendums
The European issue itself provides some good examples of this. In 1992 France held a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty. It was approved by a very very small margin - but it was universally recognised that the reason approval hadn’t been much greater was almost nothing to do with its content, but to do with general public discontent at President Mitterrand and the policies he had been pursuing.
In 2001 Ireland held a referendum on the Nice Treaty. This time it was defeated - but again it was widely recognised that this was nothing to do with people’s views on the Nice Treaty itself - I believe some polling at the time showed the Irish people were overwhelmingly supportive of it - but because they wanted to take the opportunity to express their displeasure with their government generally.
But the greatest example of all was the French referendum on the constitutional treaty in 2005. French people voted not because they were opposed to the constitution, but because they opposed developments identified with the ’services directive’, which was seen in France as part of an anglo-saxon takeover of the EU (why don’t the British newspapers see it like that!). This was at least generally related to the issue of Europe, which was not the case in the two previous examples - but they did still answer a different question to the one on the ballot paper.
Obviously I am strongly in favour of the public holding their politicians to account, and being able to send them a message when they are dissatisfied about the way things are going - but answering a different question in a referendum isn’t a very helpful way of doing that, not least because it usually doesn’t actually achieve what those voting want it to. For example in the case of the Irish 2001 referendum all the ‘no’ vote did was to threaten (temporarily, as it turned out) the development of the European Union, which the Irish people supported possibly more overwhelmingly than any other country in the Union.
So the first reason I am against referendums is because people tend not to vote on the actual question on the ballot paper, but on something else, usually what they think of their government generally. (Where referendums are routinely held frequently, as in Switzerland, this applies far less, but the UK is not in that position).
And I think this position is clear enough from these recent examples without going into some of the more extreme examples. It does however remain the case that, for example, referenda are in fact still actually illegal in modern Germany, because of the way they were misused by the Nazi regime.
Necessary improvements
A second reason why a referendum on this treaty would be a bad idea is that most of its proposals are in fact relatively technical. Bluntly, the EU, now with 27 members compared to its original 6, or 15 when its most recent relatively modest reforms were made, needs to operate more effectively - and this treaty makes those changes.
A good example is the European Commission: when there were six members it was possible for each country to nominate a Commissioner, the larger countries two, and still have a reasonably-sized committee. Now there are 27, the same rules would imply a committee of almost 40, which is obviously nonsense (even as it is the poor Romanian commissioner has a Cabinet-level portfolio that amounts to little more than responsibility for the EU’s translation services)
Another very good example is the proposal to have a European ‘foreign minister’. This proposal is one of those most-widely quoted, because it is one of the most easily understood - people are familiar with the concept of a foreign minister so it’s relatively easy to latch on to.
Except that actually what’s proposed is not a familiar role of national foreign minister - so in fact it is one of the proposals most easily misunderstood.
There is no suggestion whatsoever that the new post would be a single foreign minister replacing existing foreign ministers, speaking solely on behalf of the whole of the EU - or indeed that there will be any reduction in national governments’ or foreign ministers’ ability to decide their own foreign policy and speak for it.
The new post would simply be rather clearer than an existing post (the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and Secretary General of the Council of the European Union - do you see what I mean about the need to clarify it with a simpler title?) in having someone, when European governments had decided to agree on a particular issue, and speak together on it, who could do that.
It is effectively the answer to Henry Kissinger’s question, when US Secretary of State, about what phone number he should ring when he wanted to know Europe’s view on something. The current arrangement, whereby a different country’s government speaks for Europe every six months, hardly makes for consistency or long-term planning negotiations on major international problems which usually take years, and frequently decades, to solve.
Technicalities are what we elect politicians for
But the new system would still very clearly leave the European governments in the driving seat. Is that entirely clear from the simple phrase ‘European Foreign Minister’? No - which seems to underline the point that therefore giving people who have not followed this debate and who are - let’s be honest - not in the least bit interested in it, the final say on it, is just bizarre.
I have heard my erstwhile opponent Ken Clarke make the case very eloquently that the people who elect him do so in order to leave detailed decisions on politics to him. The intricacies of how the EU operates are exactly that kind of issue, and, he says, businessmen in his constituency for example would think him mad if he went back to them asking for their views on which issues the EU should decide by the co-decision method, and precisely where the qualified majority voting system should operate and what its voting weightings should be. A proposal to change a spokesman’s job title, and give him a greater ability to speak for those he works for - along with most of the reform treaty - would seem to fall into the same category.
I’m happy to accept that the change of title from ‘foreign minister’ (in the Constitution) to ‘High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy’ (in the reform treaty) post is quite cosmetic - but then I never supported having a referendum on the original constitutional treaty in the first place, for all the reasons set out above. And indeed it’s worth remembering that the only reason we ever were going to have one is because Blair was effectively blackmailed into holding one by one of the most powerful anti-Europeans of all, Rupert Murdoch, who told him that his support in the next General Election depended on it.
Consequences
So if the British were asked to vote on the referendum, what might happen? Well, it seems pretty clear that if asked a question along the lines of “Should the UK agree to the proposed European Reform Treaty”, most voters, who are not really very interested in Europe, and certainly not in the details of the Treaty, would think a bit about what they thought of the government that had brought them this question, and whether they liked it or not; they might, in some cases, think about what they think of Europe generally; they might, if we’re lucky, perhaps alight on the word ‘reform’ and think that they agree Europe needs to be reformed; and decide on the basis of all that whether to put their cross in the Yes or No box.
They will not, except in relatively few cases (it would be astonishing if it’s as high as 10%) be interested in researching the issue and trying to understand exactly what the treaty would mean for, for example, the role of the EU foreign minister, or the changes to qualified majority voting, and vote on the basis of that.
If after doing all that he majority of the British public vote no, then they would potentially stop in its tracks a treaty which is actually designed to make the EU work more efficiently, less wastefully and more effectively - all things that the British public say that they want the EU to do.
The Conservatives
It’s possible, of course, that they might vote Yes.
But one of the striking things is that the push for there to be a referendum, is being almost exclusively driven by people who are opposed to this treaty, and to the EU generally. They are doing this quite clearly because, given the chance, they believe that Britain will vote no. There are a small number of relatively obscure campaigners who have made a principled argument in favour of referendums generally - but the Conservative party has not, for example, argued for a referendum on the normal range of political issues, some of which it is for and some of which it is against. When it opposed holding a referendum on Scottish and Welsh devolution in 1997, for example, the halls of TV studios did not ring to Tory cries of “let the people decide!”.
And in fact in many ways I think the fact that the Conservatives are choosing to make this their summer campaign, is the most interesting thing of all. We know, of course, that the Conservative Party and David Cameron and William Hague are hostile to the EU, and at one level promoting a referendum on it is a perfectly predictable way of them trying to oppose it.
But what’s interesting is that they’re choosing to campaign on it now. Hearing William Hague on the Today programme yesterday morning sounding off tremendously articulately about how generally iniquitous the EU is, took me straight back to the days of the 2001 General Election campaign, when I listened to him on the radio as I drove around Ken Clarke’s Nottinghamshire constituency campaigning. Hague’s campaign at the 2001 election effectively was about Europe.
As I’ve argued before, one of the lessons that Cameron had learnt from Hague, and from Iain Duncan Smith, was that like capital punishment, the British public might disagree with the political elite on Europe - but they would always see a party which made it their principal policy, as extreme, and make them unsuitable for government. If Cameron wants to win over the moderate middle England voters that he needs, then he needs not to appear obsessed with Europe.
For his first eighteen months as leader, he understood this well. Since IDS, Tory leaders have said as little as possible about Europe.
But what’s interesting is that over the last few months, and now since the Ealing byelection, that approach seems to be in reverse. Cameron is clearly rattled and so he now feels the need to do something which will play well with his own traditional supporters, even at the expense of coming across as acceptable to the broader electorate. I’ve argued before that if wants to win a General Election then he can’t do that, and he needs to hold his nerve.
So to that extent Cameron sending out Hague to promote the referendum - if it really is, as Chris Tarrant would say, his final answer - marks the hauling up of the white flag for the next General Election.
As it happens I don’t believe all Brown’s heavy whispers about an autumn election, and I’ve said before that Cameron will be able to write off much of the summer of 2007 as an unusual period, following Brown’s accession - so unlike Hague in 2001, Cameron is not yet on the final straight before polling day. He may have time to recover from his European obsession and put other more moderate messages into the public’s mind before they vote. But his support for the referendum does seem to be the latest element in what is now not so much trend as a consistent policy direction away from the early leadership days of ‘Dave the liberal conservative’.
Cameron’s hole still has a ladder out of it, but it’s just got yet another shovel’s-worth deeper.
August 3rd, 2007 at 11:33
How about a referendum on “In or out” then with pretty much the same question as in the 70s - in or out on the basis of these terms.
Why? The new treaty on its own does not need one the combined treaties since 76 do. We should gave had one on SEA and Maastricht. Everything else had been a midl stroll forward compared to those 100 dashes. Basically the EC we joined in the 70s bears no relation to the EU we inhabit now and its about time we asked people whether they want to remain part of it or not. The Constitutional; changed happen decades ago except we didn’t ask the people then.
all lib dems would be on the same side
in or out is winnable
MPs would get their electoral shield
pro-europeans would get their campaigning sword
August 3rd, 2007 at 11:34
oh and Tories would be split from top to bottom
August 4th, 2007 at 0:44
Hi, I am Italian so I lack information on how is the actual situation among British people, so I will speak as an outsider maybe with a distorted view.
From what I can see on some European blogs (Wallstrom’s one for example) there is a very huge opposition at a popular level to the EU in the UK. There is nothing comparable to this in Italy or Germany… France voted no, but the problem for French people was that the Constitution was not enough, they wanted more (social) EU than the Constitution will have given them…
Anyway in France, Germany, Italy the problem will never be in or out! It will be only “Do we do United States of Europe today or tomorrow? And we want them to be Social, Liberal or Christian?”.
So it is clear in the main countries on the continent that the direction we are going is a federal direction even if the idea is to reach it step by step (but not too little or indefinitely slow steps!)
In the UK the idea is completely different, the problem is “Do we want to be in or out?”… with people asking for leaving the EU while joining NAFTA!
Could you imagine Germans asking to get out of EU and joining NAFTA or some kind of free trade exchange area with Russia?
I think, as an European, that this radical difference in the debate brings problems to the whole EU. I think that it would be useful for all of us to reach some kind of clarification about “Do British want to remain or to go?”. It would be good to all of us to know that.
I am not saying I don’t want UK in the EU. I like very much the UK, I learned your language and studied your literature__not only because I like it but also because in our Italian schools we MUST study English language (since primary school) and English literature (since high school)!!!
What I am trying to say is that it seems to me that you need to choose, I mean British people need to be allowed to choose if they want to remain in EU that is clearly and definitely committed to become a federal State or if they prefer to get out and just keep some kind of good agreement of cooperation, maybe as Norway that is just part of the EFTA and nothing more.
I hope they will vote yes, we remain. But even if they cote no, at least we will have clarified the situation.
August 4th, 2007 at 12:31
I certainly agree with Giacomo. We should have a referendum on whether we want to be part of the EU or not. What was voted for long ago was a free trade area not a European government. If that had been proposed at the time I’d think it would have been defeated.
Give us a vote on the EU and if it was yes, I would accept it, although I would not like it.
I can only quote Sir Winston Churchill who said:-
“We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not comprised. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed”.
August 6th, 2007 at 11:02
Thanks for all the comments.
There are of course long-running arguments between anti-Europeans and pro-Europeans over both the position of Winston Churchill, and whether it was clear in 1975 what Britain was really signing up for.
Churchill launched the 1948 Congress of Europe which really launched the whole process of European integration, but he did also at times say various things, positive and negative, about British involvement in it all (but then he also believed passionately that Britain should rule India, so I am never quite sure why both sides are so keen to claim him!).
On what people signed up for in 1975, of course by then the Treaty people were signing up to already included the famous aim, the “ever closer union of the peoples of Europe”, as well as clear supremacy of European law (it could hardly be any other way - are there are any other clubs where every individual member is responsible for making the rules, rather than the club as a whole?). Yes campaigners from 1975 are passionate about how clear they were about the aim of the whole thing. And politicians from other European countries could certainly hardly be accused of being silent about it.
It has always seemed to me that the economic aspect is the one element that people can hardly claim they were in the dark about (as they were joining the European Economic Community…). Working together on foreign policy was certainly less prominent then, but interestingly the idea that Europe should punch its weight together on the world stage doesn’t seem to be an aspect that the public are actually particularly concerned about (the silly spat about the nomenclature of the CFSP High Rep/”Foreign Minister” aside).
I think the idea of a straight Yes/No referendum on EU membership is an interesting one. It seems to me that no mainstream UK politician would actually be willing to argue that Britain should leave the EU (in fact I’ve argued elsewhere that this is basically true for every European country) which I think tells us something about how realistic or wise a prospect for Britain’s future it really us. It therefore seems to me not really worth having, and it is also difficult to see how it would really lance the boil and allow the British public to have their say (as I have argued elsewhere, I think the French no in 2005 to some extent vicariously did that for the British public).
The only reason I can see anyone going for it is that it would help Gordon Brown hugely, but posing David Cameron a very difficult question. He would certainly not want to support a No vote, as that really would spell the end of his attempts to portray himself as modernised and moderate - but he would also be very reluctant to support a Yes, both because it would grate hugely with him personally, and because his anti-European supporters would be furious, to the extent that it’s not too difficult to see it splitting the Conservative Party.
That’s obviously in many ways a very appealing prospect - but I still find it difficult to see how a referendum on EU membership is justified. Yes, the EU has developed since 1975 (though as I have said I think in not wholly unpredictable directions) - but so have lots of things. The House of Lords is completely different now - should we have a referendum on that. Perhaps even more fundamentally, the virtually constitutional role of the trades unions has been transformed since the 1970s - should we have a referendum on that? NATO too has been totally transformed, for example - probably even more than the EU/EC.
It seems to me the answer is that in our system we have elections in which parties stand on platforms, and we vote on that. I don’t really see how the European issue is so different from some of those other clearly important issues.
August 15th, 2007 at 17:04
Re Jeremy’s comment in the last paragraph of his commentary there is a simple reason why this particular European issue is different from the other issues that he mentions. Parties do indeed stand on platforms to be voted on at general elections and the labour party stood on a clear platform of holding a referendum on the EU constitution.
Therefore, having promised this in their manifesto they should carry out this promise. To claim that the “treaty” is anything other than the old failed constitution repackaged is a blatant lie.
Whilst I agree that constantly having referendums on different issues is not necessary, the express promise of a referendum on this particular issue means that Brown must back down and hold a referendum. The only reason he is failing to do so is that he knows that, given the chance, the public would undoubtedly vote “no”.
August 15th, 2007 at 19:29
“It seems to me the answer is that in our system we have elections in which parties stand on platforms, and we vote on that. I don’t really see how the European issue is so different from some of those other clearly important issues.”
Well, that said, we SHOULD have a referendum on the ‘reform treaty’, it was in Labours manifesto…
August 15th, 2007 at 20:32
This article has now been linked to from an article on the EUReferendum site and as a result has had quite a lot of traffic from people who presumably have a generally different view of Europe to my own (given that the EUReferendum site refers to this article amiably as ‘a look at the dark side’!).
However the point that Labour committed at the last General Election to holding a referendum on the Constitution, and that therefore they remain committed to doing so, seems a fair one. I have not attempted to argue that the reform treaty is in substance very different from the Constitution (or at least substantially enough to affect this question).
This does not of course change my own view that a referendum on this is the wrong thing to do, for the reasons set out above.
Blair’s original agreement to holding one seemed strange at the time – indeed in the context of the tortuous mess that the proposed referendum on the single currency had already got him into with Gordon Brown, bizarre. I have regularly been critical of Blair’s decision to agree to it, and his apparent belief that he could win such a referendum on the basis of an extremely short campaign.
Blair’s decision seems explicable to me only in the context of Murdoch effectively blackmailing him into it in return for support at the next General Election. Although in a democracy this way of working is at one level legitimate, it does not seem to me to be entirely healthy, and one if which the issue were a different one, would excite quite a lot of outrage.
August 15th, 2007 at 20:45
We never gave any British politicians a mandate to hand over parts of sovereignty to what is essentially the rule of a foreign power. Therefore there must be a referendum. First on this treaty thing, and later one on membership of the Reich itself. Both my votes would be NO.
Referendums about the house of ‘lords’ or NATO are nonsensical because they are not about supranationalism. The Reich (EU) IS about supranationalism and many powers have been given away by Westminster without you lot having a mandate to do so.
I do not want any foreign politicians to have legislative powers over the UK. Nor do I want foreign judges to have jurisdiction over the UK.
Sovereignty now!
Oh and one more thing: we are not anti-Europe, we are anti-EU.
You are anti Europe because you support the Reich. The Reich (EU) is bad for Europe, all its socalled benefits we would still have if the Reich didn’t exist.
August 15th, 2007 at 22:12
I will vote No.
1, Europe does NOT keep the peace, free people do not fight each other, democracy keeps the peace
2, the EU does not make us more wealthy, Australia and Canada both falsify this theory, what we want is free trade we can achieve that thru the WTO and bilateral agreements, and by just setting a good example.
3, The EU is nothing more than politicos mass centralisation of power, Empires historically have to look inwards to keep themselves together, China is a good example, the EU will be exactly the same, inward looking old and dying.
4, The EU is not just a bad idea for the UK but its a bad idea for Europe, the EU will evolve into a mirror of Putins Russia, they have already made a good start with the dismissal of the Dutch and French referendums
5, Without a direct mandate for the re-constitution I will find myself in a sort of state of war with my own government as I regard it as having no legal authority to press ahead without express permission from the British people. I will pack up my family, and take by business and skills to a country that still believes in governing itself, with great regret and sadness.
I wish our European friends well, and I hope I am wrong, but thanks but No thanks.
August 15th, 2007 at 22:24
Jeremy, I see where you are coming from, and respect the arguments you put forward (well written).
Do you think (assuming we had a well informed debate about this - wishful thinking indeed) that the majority of Britains would be in favour of a federal EU structure in which Britain was a part of?
You could say that the media (Murdoch) will influence the debate, and it would be a good point, but considering the BBC is broadly pro-EU (and receives funding from the EU) and is watched (and is trusted) by far more people, why are we still a EU-sceptic country? (I draw a distinction between EU and Europe, because they are not the same thing).
You are right that there are several arguements about the 1975 referendum and what it meant at the time, and what it means now. From a personal perspective, my mother and father voted FOR the referendum, but now complain that where we are today is certainly not what they said yes to (they were told that this was purely economic). Anyone under the age of 50ish have never directly had a chance to vote on the EU membership… do you not think that this may be an issue for a lot of people?
Yes, you argue that we do this indirectly through a parlimentary system, but what we are talking about here is a large transfer of power from a sovereign nation into a supranational organisation… if that does not justify a referendum, then what does?
I would be very interested in hearing your opinions on the following: -
Do you think that Scottish people should be given a referendum on whether to be an independent nation from the UK or not?
If the government was very anti-EU, but the people were (by a large majority) pro-EU, would you want a referendum? Do you consider this democratic?
August 16th, 2007 at 0:22
I was thinking earlier that despite all the traffic here from EUReferendum the comments so far were quite sane and sensible, and then I saw some of the more recent ones! I think we can probably take it that most people here have already reached a view, one way or the other, about whether they think the EU really is ‘the Reich’ so I don’t think I’m going to follow up that line of discussion and similar any further. Suffice to say that anyone who has read carefully what I have written above (which it seems may not be everyone…) will know that I don’t agree with some of the views expressed!
Saxon Sage – some interesting questions and points which I think among others illustrate the very different perspectives of people on different sides of the debate.
I would obviously really welcome a ‘well informed debate’ about all this, but (sorry to sound pedantic) I think it does depend on we mean by this phrase. If the concept of a ‘federal Europe’ were outlined in the sense that the people who actually do advocate a federal Europe mean by that phrase, then I think the British people might support it. (For example for a British view on this, see Federal Union.) All it really means is different powers existing at different levels , in many ways very similar to ‘subsidiarity’, albeit within a unified structure. Despite the colourful views of some of the commenters above, this really is the most that any real politician in the more Euro-enthusiastic countries such as for example Belgium or Italy, is advocating.
However if a ‘federal Europe’ is taken as a synonym for a ‘centralised EU’, which is how I think it is more generally understood in the UK, then I guess the answer is that British people would not support it. Their number would include me!
The perception of the BBC is very interesting. It is very very definitely not my view that the BBC is pro-European! In general it has seemed to me, particularly some key programmes such as (most of all) Today, irrationally hostile and unbalanced in its reporting of Europe. I would say that this has improved somewhat since the BBC Governors report on this a couple of years ago, which resulted in other things, the appointment of Mark Mardell as Europe Editor or whatever his title is. (The report is quite interesting and worth looking at).
I suppose to some extent our different perceptions show the difficulty of the job that the BBC has in balancing its coverage, but please believe me that the pro-Europeans would most definitely not accept the BBC as their mouthpiece in any referendum! (If anything I think the Independent would come closer, though it has no actual links with pro-European campaigners beyond holding a similar view).
You ask a very good question about why Britain is now broadly a Eurosceptic country and if you don’t mind me referring you to another article, my answer is in the article here.
On your final questions, on Scotland I would personally not support a referendum, but it seems to me where they have got to on this is that they voted in an SNP government and so the SNP should implement the position they stood on on this. I have to confess I slightly lost track of where they ended up on this by polling day, as I think their pledge on a referendum seemed to go through a process of watering down.
My answer to your second question is the same as I said in previous comments – I think we have a Parliamentary system of government, based on general elections – for all its faults (and as Winston Churchill said – him again!) it does seem to be the worst system apart from all the others. And while I’m certainly not saying that they all lead to this, referendums do have their dangers – we should probably not forget that the real Reich started with a referendum.
August 16th, 2007 at 8:33
Ths Eu is based on the French Napoleonic version of government. centralised and technocratic.
Historically we work on a opposite model, where everything is legal until illegal thru law, this is why the endless directives from the opposite model infuriate us brits so much.
We can live without the Eu quite comfortably, the Europhiles keep telling us about destiny and our place to be a part of the great euro plan, But this is just plain historicism, the basis for both National and International Socialism, the most discredited idea in human history, both historically and scientifically.
The third Reich started with the falisifaction of Marxism try reading Hyacks road to serfdom, and the socialist roots of Nazism chapter.