UKIP member’s strange behaviour in the chamber

You may have already seen this on the Political Scrapbook blog.  It’s so good, I am repeating it for all my European readers who may not have caught it first time round.

The Ryder Cup and Solheim Cups were on display at the European Parliament last week as part  of “Golf: A European Success”.  Both cups are in European hands after respective victories over the United States at Medinah, Chicago, last September and Killeen Castle, Ireland, the previous year.

Golf is unique as the only major sport represented by European teams – men, women and amateurs. While success on the field of play represents the pinnacle in a sporting context, golf’s success can be felt far and wide throughout Europe.

From an economic perspective the golf industry contributes €15 billion to the European economy annually; from a social perspective 7.9 million Europeans play golf annually; and environmentally there are more than 6,000 courses in Europe, up to 70% of the area of which can be used for habitat creation.

Organised by the European Golf Association Golf Course Committee – a partnership of bodies across the golf industry including the European Golf Association, The R&A, The European Tour, European Golf Course Owners Association, PGAs of Europe, European Institute of Golf Course Architects, Federation of European Golf Greenkeepers Associations, Club Managers Association of Europe – the exhibition showcased golf’s sustainability.

Alison Nicholas, Solheim Cup European captain, with the Solheim and Ryder Cups at the European Parliament

Today I came across this piece on Guardian Comment is Free. Talking about support for the EU among young people, the article’s author Selina Nwulu could have read my mind.

Selina tells us that a recent report from the Fabian Society shows that the majority of the 18- to 34-year-olds surveyed claimed they would vote yes to EU membership in a referendum. The report revealed that  most young people, despite economic instability and the burgeoning Eurozone crisis, still feel positive about the UK’s involvement within the EU.

I totally agree with Selina’s conclusion that there is a discrepancy between UKIP’s and the Tories’ anti-Europe rhetoric and the views of the pro-European majority among the younger UK generation. As politicians we should never dismiss young people’s views simply because they are less likely to vote than the older members of our society. Their voice is valuable and deserves to be both heard and acted on.

Selina also make a very good point when she asks that given the fact that many young people in the UK are currently facing limited opportunities, why is shrinking them further by UK withdrawal being discussed?

She goes on to say, “As youth unemployment rises and hideous terms like, “benefit scrounger” and “Neet” bounce around current day vernacular, youth engagement within the EU presents a mass of opportunity. EU schemes such as the Leonardo Da Vinci programme and the European Voluntary Service allow young people to work and live abroad as well as encouraging young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to apply. It’s crucial that the chances for young people are widened, not limited.”

Selina ends her article by saying it’s time the David Cameron and his Tory MPs listened. While there are those who feel overburdened by EU regulation, there are also many people who have benefitted from the EU in various ways – the educational programmes Selina mentions, the EU structural funds, grants to creative industries, equalities legislation and environmental protection, to name but a few.

Enter the torrid and seemingly endless Tory debate on Europe. Begun in earnest under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, the Conservatives remain in utter disarray over whether or not Britain should remain in the European Union. As Janan Ganesh  of the Financial Times succintly put it, the Tory Party is suffering from “a single-issue neuralgia that knows no equivalent in any major party in the west”.

And nobody except professional politicians actually cares. Opinion polls consistently show that whether or not Britain remains a member of the European Union is not central to people’s lives. According to YouGov they are far more concerned about jobs and prices, schools and hospitals. Although it pains me as an MEP to say it, EU membership is little more than peripheral in terms of voters’ priorities.

All of which leads to the inevitable conclusion that those Tories who fight in such a relentless and unremitting way to get Britain out of the European Union are not answering any question asked by those who voted for them. Instead they are reinforcing their own strange view of the world whereby the EU is seen as the source of almost all that is wrong with Britain and we would all be massively better off without johnny foreigner telling us what to do.

This could be understood and forgiven if it were just a few misguided backbenchers banging the drum. While this may have been the case prior to William Hague’s disastrous four years as Conservative leader from 1997 to 2001, the Tory tide most definitely turned during the first years of the 1997 Labour Government. Local Conservative Associations selected ever more anti-EU candidates while those already in Parliament gained ground. The only comparable episode in recent British politics was the Labour Party during the 1980s when Labour lurched to the left espousing causes such a unilateral nuclear disarmament which the majority of the British people did not want.

Yet the Tories in 2013 are very different position on EU membership. While Labour was in opposition in 1983 when the party wrote “the longest suicide note in history”, the Conservatives are in government, albeit in a coalition, the other part of which, incidentally, does not share their EU phobia. It’s one thing not to listen to the people when the only damage will be that the opposition party does not get elected. It’s quite another not to listen when in government and the party can make a difference to people’s lives.

David Cameron’s unseemly haste to publish the EU Referendum Bill surely indicates that he, the Prime Minister, is not listening to the people. Instead he is putting what he perceives as his Party’s interest first, both internal – pacifying his rabid Eurosceptic backbenchers and external – doing something about UKIP. Cameron is running scared yet in incapable of showing leadership. He appears more like a headless chicken in a mire-filled farmyard than the world statesman he wanted to present during his visit to the United States and meeting with President Obama.

Tragically for David Cameron his strategy of appeasement – appease UKIP and they will not take any more Tory votes and appease the anti-EU backbenchers so that they will pipe down – is patently not working. He is our Prime Minister and as such he would do well to learn basic lessons. Appeasement does not work. Cameron should listen to the people rather than try and maintain an impossible position on something a large majority of the population does not rate as a priority.

The difficult weekend followed a difficult week after members of his own party tried to vote through an amendment to the Queens speech, regretting the absence of an in/out referendum on Britain’s EU membership.

But it was two members of his own cabinet who have caused him most grief. The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, controversially confirmed for the first time that if the UK was to leave the EU there would be “certain advantages”. Meanwhile Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond made equally damaging remarks when he said he “would vote to leave if he was asked to endorse the EU “exactly as it is today”.

Containing members of his own party is proving somewhat difficult for the Prime Minister, who also suffered a knock last week when respected conservative politicians, Lord Lawson and Michael Portillo, called for Britain to leave Europe.

This week the Prime Minister is preparing to endorse an EU trade deal, which will be negotiated with the US by the EU as a whole, which could see an estimated £10bn worth of annual trade reach the UK. This whole episode is embarrassing for him but also embarrassing for the country.

Clearly frustrated by members of his own cabinet making such remarks, party officials claimed Gove had been “unhelpful” in saying what he did. You can read more on this here.

In a further chaotic episode, it was reported last week that, in an unprecedented move, David Cameron may support a vote in parliament to condemn his own government’s Queen’s speech for failing to include a bill advocating a referendum on EU membership.

Labour’s response was, rightly, to stress this is yet more evidence of the chaos within No 10 over Europe. It is, the party said “meant to appease an increasingly nervous parliamentary Tory party following the strong showing of the anti-EU UK Independence party in last week’s local elections. Cameron is wandering into unchartered political waters by accepting or even voting for, an amendment to a Queen’s speech.”

Social networking site, Facebook named Nicola Mendelsohn vice president of its European arm last week. The announcement may not have coveted such news if a man had been placed in the same position, in addition she is also doing the role four days a week. It’s this kind of flexible working which can help many working mothers. Last week the Telegraph did a list of the 10 most powerful women who are working part time. You can read the list in full here. And there is more on Nicola Mendelsohn’s appointment here.

Finally there was more woeful news for the Coalition over the weekend. The Mirror reported over the weekend that Nick Clegg could be forced out as Lib Dem leader before 2015 election as party is forecast to win just 24 seats. Senior Lib Dems are concerned after the party’s drubbing in the local elections earlier this month. You can read more on this here.

Farage Taken to Task for Lack of Work

Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgium Prime Minister and current leader of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), took Nigel Farage to task today for his lack of work in the parliament.  Mr Verhofstadt pointed out to Mr Farage that it his salary was the greatest waste of tax payers money as he has failed to attend a singe sitting of his committee (the fisheries committee) in two years.

Today is Europe Day, held every year to mark a speech that Robert Schuman made on 9 May 1950, the Schuman Declaration. This invited all European countries to manage their coal and steel industries jointly and democratically in Europe’s first supranational community. A year later six founder members signed the treaty that set up the European Coal and Steel Community, the forerunner to the European Union.

Robert Schuman was a man of many cultures. Born in Luxembourg, he obtained his law degree in Germany, fought for the French Resistance in the Second World War, and rose in 1947 to become Prime Minister and later Foreign Minister of France. He was also instrumental in creating NATO.

A deeply religious man, he trained in law, economics, political philosophy, theology and statistics. He was a strongly independent thinker, and having experienced at first hand the atrocities of war, his vision was to create “an organisation putting an end to war and guaranteeing an eternal peace”, drawing on the “ingenious and generous” thinkings of “audacious minds” such as Dante, Erasmus, Abbé de St Pierre, Rousseau, Kant and Proudhon, and avoiding impractical systems as outlined by Thomas More in Utopia, “itself a work of genius”. “The European spirit signifies being conscious of belonging to a cultural family and to have a willingness to serve that community in the spirit of total mutuality, without any hidden motives of hegemony or the selfish exploitation of others”. (Quotes from a speech he made on 16 May 1949)

To mark the day the European Parliament opened its doors to the public on Saturday 4 May. Over 20,000 visitors were able to experience the Parliament’s electronic voting system, see an exhibition about the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and a debate between MEPs about a citizens’ Europe.

An international pro-choice group has even gone as far as to say that the new legislation is offensive and misogynistic when it comes to dealing with women seeking terminations because those concerned are suicidal.

Under the proposed legislation, three consultants reviewing the case of a woman with suicidal thoughts while pregnant must all agree that a termination should proceed. There is provision for an appeal by the woman to three further consultants if the first trio does not approve the abortion. The appeal panel must also be unanimous in approval for a termination to be granted under law.

But Johanna Westeson, regional director for Europe at the Centre for Reproductive Rights criticised that part of the bill, saying: “Imposing different standards for assessing threats to life for mental health reasons and threats to life for physical ailments runs contradictory to international medical standards and human rights norms. To suggest that women would fake suicidal tendencies to access abortion is not only deeply offensive and misogynistic, but also in stark violation of women’s human right to be treated with dignity.

The more barriers Ireland creates for women seeking legal abortion, the more likely women in crisis situations will opt to travel abroad than subject themselves to this humiliating process that the bill sets forth. This means that Ireland will continue to be in violation of its human rights obligation to make legal abortion accessible in practice.

Last Wednesday the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, insisted at a government press briefing that the laws on abortion would not be fundamentally altered if the bill passes the Irish parliament.

Kenny said: “The law on abortion in Ireland is not being changed. Our country will continue to be one of the safest places in the world for childbirth.

“And the regulation and the clarity that will now become evident through the protection of maternal life bill will continue within the law, to assert the restrictions on abortion that have applied in Ireland and will apply in the future.”

The Irish premier added that he was determined to reform the law on abortion without dividing the country. There are concerns within the main coalition party, Fine Gael, that any changes to the law risk splitting the party.

A number of Fine Gael backbenchers, particularly those from more conservative, rural constituencies have expressed disquiet about abortion law reform. Fine Gael has come under sustained pressure from anti-abortion groups who have targeted the party reminding many of them that they pledged to be “pro-life” and defend the rights of unborn children before the 2011 general election.

The Tory knee-jerk reaction to UKIP’s gains makes interesting viewing for those of us not directly in the firing line. With 60% of UKIP’s local election support coming from ex-Tory voters and only 7% ex-Labour, according to ex-MP and electoral reform campaigner Martin Linton, it’s the Conservatives who should be (and clearly are) truly worried.    

Hence the intervention in today’s Times by Nigel Lawson, Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor for six years and a Tory grandee of considerable standing. In common with most of the Conservatives who have spoken out in the UKIP debate, Lawson has decided he doesn’t like the EU. Maybe this is just the prevailing fashion in Tory circles, maybe these anti-EU Conservatives really believe the way to tackle Farage etc is to fight UKIP on their own territory by being more UKIP than UKIP.

The Tories are clearly running scared. Flawed logic, in this instance, the way to combat UKIP is to provide a Tory version of more of the same, is often a response to such fear. The Tories now have it in spades. They didn’t win the 2010 general election and they are now very firmly on course to fail again in 2015.  

 I think it’s rather sad that Lord Lawson has joined the anti-EU cheerleaders, not least because his main arguments are nonsense. Lawson “strongly” suspects there would be a “positive economic advantage to the UK in leaving the single market”, claiming you do not have to be in the single market to export to the European Union. Lawson strategically omits to say that the EU single market helps to bring down barriers, create more jobs and increase overall prosperity in the EU.  It’s also worth noting that he was Chancellor of the Exchequer when the UK signed up to the Single European Act in 1986.

Predictably Lawson also claimed that withdrawing from the EU would save the City of London from a “frenzy of regulatory activism”. It is really quite extraordinary how Tories defend bankers and by definition the huge bonuses which have done so much harm to the financial industry. The main reason they object to EU regulations is that it will hit the bankers where it really hurts – in their pockets.

The noble lord is, however, right on one matter, namely that any repatriation of powers secured by David Cameron will be inconsequential. He can at least see that clearly.

The answer is not to withdraw from the EU all together, as Tories scared of UKIP and, of course, UKIP themselves maintain. That would be madness, a huge national fit of pique cutting off a very large nose to spite a face not yet out of joint. The UK would lose the valuable and irreplaceable European single market and we would no longer be part of cross border initiatives to cut crime and improve the environment, to name but two major areas where EU action is very beneficial.

The answer is to get fully stuck in and reform the EU from within, not by attempting to repatriate powers in the teeth of opposition from nearly all the other member states, but by playing a constructive and active role at the top table. The huge waste that is the Strasbourg seat of the European Parliament would be a good place to start followed by a concerted effort on the Common Agricultural Policy where the latest round of reform has failed to deliver anything very meaningful. There is much to do. It’s just a huge shame that Prime Minister Cameron is so involved in batting off his own backbenchers that he can’t see the wood for the trees, let alone act in a responsible and statesmanlike fashion.

Gerard Batten is Best, Forget the Rest