Theresa May

Honeyball’s Weekly Round-Up

Labour Party

Tensions ran high this week after Gabor Vona, leader of far-right Hungarian political party Jobbik, came to the UK to speak at a central London rally.  Despite 14,000 signatures being added to a petition to Theresa May calling for Vona to be banned, the leader of Hungary’s third-party was eventually permitted to speak. In a letter to May London Assembly member and former Labour MP Andrew Dismore wrote, “I think it’s very important to send the message that we won’t have hatred spread on our streets”, and as I wrote for Shifting Grounds earlier in the week, I believe we should not have allowed him to come.

Jobbik’s visit to the UK was designed to woo the 50,000 Hungarians currently living here. With elections approaching, Vona – whose party have 43 seats in the parliament there – is looking to win the absentee votes of Hungarian ex-pats. Jobbik’s policies are highly controversial, echoing the language and rhetoric of Fascist movements in the 1930s and 1940s. Travellers and Jewish people come under particular attack: “The integration of gypsies has failed. In most cases, segregation would be the most effective way of educating these people,” Vona is on record as saying.

In the end Vona’s speech, which had been scheduled to be held in Holborn on Sunday, had to be relocated after Unite Against Fascism (UAF) gathered there and prevented his supporters from leaving the station. UAF’s Sabby Dhalu said Jobbik’s views “had no place in a modern society”, adding that “Wherever fascists have a presence, racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic attacks increase”. Vona eventually managed to find a platform in Hyde Park, where he spoke for around an hour, addressing the crowd in his native Hungarian.

It is easy to associate Jobbik with a strain of Fascistic Eastern European politics which has no equivalent here in the UK. The BNP, after all, is a faded force which has never won a single parliamentary seat, let alone 43, and the EDL appear to have lost support. Yet we must not be complacent. The widespread scaremongering over Christmas about a Roma ‘invasion’ is just one illustration of how, in straitened times, dangerous myths can gain traction. With the issue of Europe acting as a lightening rod, those who oppose the EU and want a more insular Britain often play into people’s worst fears.

Vona himself eschews the traditional left-right perspective on politics, saying “The true division is between those who want globalisation and those who do not”. Just as UKIP are seeking electoral success off the back of an unholy coalition of white collar Eurosceptic Tories and blue collar voters worried about immigration, Jobbik have garnered their support from both ends of the political spectrum.

This is not to compare UKIP with Jobbik – although it is worth noting the number of UKIP representatives who have flirted with right-wing politics – but rather to point out the danger of allowing populist narratives to take hold. In a European Election year those of us on the left must engage with voters who feel alienated by globalisation, and make a positive case for why Britain does better by working with its neighbours.

Earlier this week, meanwhile, the trial of footballers Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema began in France. The two players, who are accused of having sex with an Algerian-born prostitute while she was under 18, face prison sentences if found guilty. In a week where my prostitution report (which recommends the Swedish Model) went through the parliament, the Ribery-Benzema case illustrates the need for a change in how we tackle prostitution. The sad fact is that, had the woman in question been a year or so older, it would have been perfectly legal for two multimillionaire footballers in their late twenties to buy her body for sex.

Honeyball’s Weekly Round-Up

Labour Party

This week saw the synod, the Church of England’s decision-making body, vote in favour of female bishops. Having at first been narrowly outvoted in November 2012, plans to allow women to rise to the top level of the clergy were passed overwhelmingly on Wednesday, with only a rump of ultra-traditionalists opposing or abstaining.

The outcome was described as “miraculous” by Reverend Christopher Chessun, Bishop of Southwark. It will now go to a second vote in February 2014, at which it must get a two thirds majority. If passed it could come into effect as early as July, with implementation overseen by an independent regulator.

The vote endorses the ‘simplest possible’ model for women becoming bishops. This represents an advance on last year’s proposals, which had included ‘safeguards’ – such as men overseeing women candidates – to placate traditionalists. That the new, more progressive measures were passed this week has been attributed to a more cooperative climate in the church.

Although I am a humanist myself, I welcome wholeheartedly diversity at the top of the Church of England. Hopefully we will start to see women bishops ordained sooner rather than later.

At present the episcopacy lags behind other institutions. Unlike the boardroom and the front bench, which – in theory, at least – are open to women candidates, the so-called ‘stained glass ceiling’ remains legally reinforced. If the Church of England is to have any chance of being relevant to national life it must change this once and for all in February. As the worlds of business and politics have learnt the hard way, you can no longer connect with people unless you shed the ‘male, pale and stale’ outlook which has for so long dominated the British establishment.

This week also marked Silvio Berlusconi’s appeal case and the ongoing fight for political survival of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

Berlusconi’s appeal brought to the surface further details of the ‘bunga bunga’ parties at which he is alleged to have had sex with under-age prostitute Karima El Mahroug. The three-time Italian Prime Minister was sentenced to seven years in June, although he has still not surrendered his political position and many remain sceptical about whether he will serve his time.

Ford, meanwhile, continues to hold onto his role despite allegations of sexual harassment and prostitute use, as well as admitting to taking crack. This week he body-checked a woman to the floor while trying to attack a heckler, yet bizarrely his poll ratings have remained steady.

With political disaffection becoming more common in parts of the developed world, dangerous buffoons like Berlusconi and Ford are often able to sidetrack the political process. We must fight robustly in the UK against their way of doing things – starting with more detailed cross-examinations of UKIP, the current clown prince elect of British post-austerity politics.

Finally, this week saw the revelation that three South London women, aged 69, 57 and 30, have finally been released from 30 years of slavery at the hands of a Lambeth couple. Many of the details are yet to come out, but this is clearly a desperately sad case. The sense of wasted life is hard to believe.

Frank Field has called the story the “tip of the iceberg” and Theresa May says prostitution is “all around us”. For me this issue transcends party politics. We must unite to ensure victims are supported and culprits put to justice.

The issue of Modern Slavery exposes Conservative policy at its most flawed

Labour Party

John Major’s attack on Euro-sceptics as living in “fantasy land” hits on an uneasy fault line. There is a fissure within the Conservative Party, between an aspiration to again be ‘the natural party of government’, and a temptation to fall back on knee-jerk, Tea Party style approaches which win quick votes. At its core this remains a 1980s distinction, between high-handed ‘wets’ and the visceral politics of Thatcherism. This is perhaps why Major’s experiences remain so relevant 16 years on – nothing really has changed. The Conservatives are still torn between rhyme and reason.

This schism is brought into sharp relief by today’s European parliament vote on trafficking and organised crime. MEPs from across the member states have overwhelmingly endorsed recommendations by the Organised Crime committee, following a new report on trafficking networks. The report advocates tougher sanctions and renewed emphasis on improving labour conditions. It also asks for a pan-European public prosecutor’s office, and has drawn calls from trafficking NGOs for a more proactive Europol.

How the Conservatives respond to this will be fascinating. On the one hand Theresa May has made a clear and commendable pledge to end Modern Slavery; on the other she has persistently sought to repatriate judicial and policing powers from Europe and talk tough on immigration. These two approaches are wholly contradictory. They are two dogs, lashed together, which will simply never run in the same direction.

According to the committee’s report there are currently 880,000 enslaved people in Europe – 270,000 of whom work in the sex industry. I know from my own efforts to address sex trafficking that acting unilaterally just isn’t an option when faced with the fluid challenges posed by globalised crime. As the National Crime Agency’s Keith Bristow says, organised crime now operates “in an interconnected world where international borders are much less significant.”

On top of this – as the 2004 Morecambe Bay disaster showed – the groups most vulnerable to trafficking are refugees and migrant workers. These individuals need more help from the UK government. Instead, as Walk Free’s Global Trafficking Index reports, the UK’s vulnerability to trafficking is exacerbated by the “incredibly precarious living situation” our asylum system creates for people going through it.

The Conservatives’ hostility to the European Arrest Warrant, Europol, Eurojust, and the European Bill of Human Rights – not to mention their aggressive stance on asylum seekers – therefore fly in the face of all serious attempts to tackle trafficking. Moreover they undermine the party’s self-styled toughness on crime, and make a mockery of any designs their MPs have on becoming ‘the natural party of government’.

In July of this year the Conservatives grudgingly agreed to ‘opt back into’ 35 of the 130 EU Law and Order measures which they had previously withdrawn from, meaning Britain will now, thankfully, retain our involvement in Europol and the European Arrest Warrant.

But we need to go much further. As Anti-Slavery International’s Klara Skrivankova puts it, “The tools are there, but we don’t use them enough. Europol is still seen as a supplementary force – it should be more proactive.” To genuinely take on the scourge of trafficking we must not just pay lip service to Europe, but throw our full weight behind the solutions it can provide. On the issue of trafficking – if on nothing else – we really do need an ‘ever closer union’.

I would therefore urge Theresa May, if she wants to show she is genuine about tackling modern slavery, to set aside her party’s gut impulses for a moment and focus on the real problems the modern world faces. The alternative for the Tories is to succumb to incoherence and allow the brawnier, stupider of the two animals lashed together to lead Britain down an isolationist course which ultimately makes us more vulnerable.

Honeyball’s Weekly Round-Up

Labour Party

This week saw Football Association board member Heather Rabbatts – along with the government’s Sports and Equalities Minister Helen Grant – speak out against the lack of diversity on the new commission into the future of the English football team. The body was initially made up of eight members chosen to rejuvenate the national side. It was all-white and all-male, with an average age of 57.

Rabbatts, the only female or non-white person currently on the FA board, questioned the selection process for the new commission at the weekend. She described it as “particularly ironic”, given the number of black players in the England set-up, that there is “absolutely no representation from…ethnic minority communities”.

The FA have previously been criticised for their handling of the John Terry and Luis Suarez racial abuse cases, and yesterday anti-racism organisations – including Kick It Out and Football Against Racism in Europe – questioned the selection process for the new body.

FA Chairman Greg Dyke pointed out on Sunday that steps had been taken to find ethnic minority representation (albeit without success), and then, at the eleventh hour, it was announced that Manchester United’s mixed-race defender Rio Ferdinand would join the panel.

Given how important promoting diversity will be to the new commission’s work, the initial lack of black faces does look like an oversight. It is also worrying that Rabbatts – a talented women who has helped modernise Millwall FC as well as several local authorities – had to go public to get her voice heard.

Much of the current debate around diversity at the top focuses on business and politics, but we must not ignore sport and the arts. The FA, in particular, is an organisation often accused of being out of touch with the increasingly fast-moving and globalised sport which it governs. To shake of its ‘gaffe prone’, blazer-clad image, a commitment to diversity is vital – not for cosmetic reasons, but to make it more effective as an organisation.

Earlier in the week, meanwhile, Theresa May used international Anti-Slavery Day, which took place on Friday, to announce her forthcoming Modern Slavery Bill. In order to send out the “strongest possible message” that the UK will not tolerate slavery, she said the bill will include a maximum life sentence for trafficking. The UK currently has around 4,600 enslaved people according to Walk Free’s Global Slavery Index, and a recent report suggests big increases in trafficking from Albania, Lithuania and Poland.

There were suggestions from some that May’s proposals overlook victims. Klara Skrivankova, from the charity Anti-Slavery International, said “Unless the protection of victims is put on a statutory footing, we’re unlikely to see more prosecutions”, and David Hanson MP, Labour’s shadow immigration minister, pointed out that 60% of the UK’s trafficked children go missing after being identified by authorities.

Walk Free also say that the UK’s vulnerability to trafficking is exacerbated by the “incredibly precarious living situation” our asylum system creates for refugees, and others have pointed out the difficulty of tackling trafficking while looking to withdraw from organisations like Europol or the EU Arrest Warrant.

I applaud May’s commitment to ending modern slavery, but would ask her to avoid letting Tory prejudices on immigration and Europe undermine these efforts.

Sky’s knife-edge poll shows people want a reformed EU but repatriation of powers still remains impossible

Labour Party

Fifty-one per cent would vote to leave the European Union while 49 per cent prefer the status quo. Today’s poll broadcast by Sky News must give us all pause for thought.

 That being said, the results of the survey come with a significant health warning from Survation, the company who carried out the work, who state:

“A great deal of this opinion, however, is subject to change. 61% of ‘OUT’ voters would reconsider if certain key policy areas were renegotiated for the UK. Meanwhile 80% of current ‘IN’ voters would consider leaving if certain aspects of potential future EU integration were forced on the UK, being made to join the Euro chief among them.”

“Part of the uncertainty almost certainly stems from a lack of awareness of the EU and what exactly it means for the UK. Only 17% and 13% of respondents recognised a picture of the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy respectively, compared to 71% who recognised German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Clearly awareness of the EU’s institutions is very low in the UK, when compared with awareness of the politics of other prominent European countries.”

“Similarly only 37% of respondents correctly guessed from 6 options that there were 27 countries in the EU, which suggests only around 25%, actually knew the correct response rather than guessing. 12% of respondents thought that there were as many as 36 countries in the EU. Meanwhile, of people who were not sure how they would vote in a referendum, the most common reason given was that they were “not sure what an ‘out’ vote would actually mean for the UK in terms of our new relationship with Europe”.

The EU debate more than almost anything else I have encountered over many years of political activism suffers from lack of clarity and lack of knowledge. For instance, voters do not really know what powers David Cameron seeks to repatriate. Even the debate on the 130 odd justice and home affairs measures which led the headlines not so long ago seems to have now disappeared into the long grass, possibly a deliberate ploy by Home Secretary Theresa May.

David Cameron is tellingly very quiet on other repatriation possibilities, mainly because they are just that – possibilities. As regular readers of this blog will know, I have long believed that unilateral repatriation is a complete non-starter. Why on earth would the 26 other EU member states agree to something demanded by only one of their number? 26:1 seems to me improbably long odds.

However, we should not rule out meaningful reform of the EU and its institutions. Reform from the inside is the only way Britain can go, though I concede that progress is often painfully slow. However, change does happen. The Common Fisheries Policy has been amended to do away with the ludicrous demand that certain fish be discarded and thrown back into the sea. As far as the European Parliament is concerned, we now have powers to co-legislate along with the EU member states. There is a long list of treaties from Maastrich to Lisbon which have amended the way the EU operates. This is how reform will happen, not by David Cameron having a hissy fit and taking his bat home, and we need to be there to protect our national interest.

The Labour Party is committed to a hard headed and patriotic case for EU reform. First out of the starting blocks will be a call for restraint and reform of the EU budget together with measures to stimulate growth and jobs across the continent. To this end Labour will look for agreement to appoint an EU Commissioner for Growth.

Since immigration is the number one public concern regarding the European Union, Labour will put in train talks to reform the transitional arrangements setting the terms for immigration from the new member states while at the same time seeking to reform the payment of family related benefits to EU migrants. There will also be a demand that the EU collect data on EU migration flows.

And Labour will also work to abolish the Strasbourg circus, whereby MEPs traipse to the Alsatian capital twelve times a year amid much expense and disruption.

The Survation survey shows an extremely low level of knowledge about the EU across the population of the United Kingdom. I passionately believe we as a nation need to address this. Ignorance is never blissful and, whatever your point of view on the EU, I do not believe anyone can defend the current situation whereby people don’t have the tools to actually know what is happening in an institution this country has belonged to for 40 years.

Lords Committee slams May’s repatriation plans

Labour Party

 

The House of Lords EU committee said ministers have “failed to make a convincing case to repatriate powers.” That was their verdict after the government presented plans to opt out of 130 European Union Police and Criminal Justice measures. Their claim is that staying in would weaken the UK’s ability to fight crime – but in reality the opposite is true.

The most powerful part of the measures is the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) which came into force in 2004 and it has meant It can take as little as 14-17 days to extradite a suspect in some cases. And in cases where there are objections to an extradition it could take up to a year to resolve; now it can be sorted in approximately 48 days.

The effect of the EAW  is best illustrated by the rapid extradition of  those wanted in connection with the attempted London bombings in 2005 following the 7/7 bombings, a point made before on this blog.

Why then, the Government wish to out of such an important, package is to put it mildly, bewildering. They believe the UK does not need to be bound by them – but rather it can negotiate itself back into individual measures where it is in the national interest to do so.

But as the House of Lords Committee said, this is not a convincing argument and any opt out would include leaving the EAW. But other important measures will also be lost such as the speed with which DNA profiles and fingerprints are shared, along with joint work in several areas like terrorism, human trafficking and football hooliganism.

By opting out of these measures and attempting to re-join or ‘cherry pick’ those which it wishes to be part of is irresponsible, it will be an expensive exercise – to change something which is already effective, not to say an extremely complicated process.

Here is the summary of the committee, it sums it up completely:: “In light of the evidence we have received, we conclude that the government have not made a convincing case for exercising the opt-out and that opting out would have significant adverse negative repercussions for the internal security of the UK and the administration of criminal justice in the UK, as well as reducing its influence over this area of EU policy.”

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper called this a “shameful dereliction” of Theresa May’s duty in an attempt to appease Conservative Eurosceptics.

And there was a typically weak response from Liberal Democrat cabinet minister Danny Alexander who said: “I am are clear that any final package will have to ensure the UK’s continued participation in all the key measures which are important for public safety.”

 

 

Honeyball’s Weekly Round-Up

Labour Party

This has been a bad week for George Osborne with attacks on his austerity measures coming from all sides. It has become clear that a majority of people believe that government’s economic policies are damaging the economy rather than helping, a new poll reveals, as the coalition government begins an internal war over how to stimulate growth.

George Osborne has ten days until he delivers his crucial fourth budget, and an Opinion/Observer poll shows almost three times as many voters (58%) believe the austerity drive is harming the economy as those who think it is working (20%).

The findings will add to pressure on Osborne to change course as the UK hovers on the brink of a triple-dip recession. Given Osborne’s form when it comes to changing his mind in the face of overwhelming evidence, I don’t have much hope that he’ll do what needs to be done.

The independent Office for Budget Responsibility rebutted claims by the prime minister that the government’s deficit-cutting strategy was not responsible for choking off growth, stating that austerity had knocked 1.4% off GDP in the past two years.

In the first two years of the coalition, most polls showed solid support for the government’s hard line on the spending cuts, though the Tory lead over Labour on economic competence has narrowed in recent weeks.

The stark poll findings come as home secretary Theresa May appeared to make a pitch for the leadership of the Tory party, arguing in a speech to a ConservativeHome conference that the Tories must govern for the whole country, not just sectional interests. May said: “We’re at our strongest when anyone and everyone can feel that the Conservative party is for them.” The speech, resembling a leader’s party conference delivery in its scope and tone, was seen as an attempt to raise her profile at a time when many Tories are losing faith in Cameron’s ability to remain as leader beyond the next election.

On top of this, a key plank of the chancellor’s plans to reform Britain’s banks in the wake of the financial crisis and the Libor rate-fixing scandal is “wholly inadequate”, MPs have warned as they reopened the debate on breaking up the banks.

The parliamentary commission on banking standards said the government’s proposal for the regulator, the Financial Policy Committee (FPC), to review the strength of the ringfence between high street and riskier investment banks was little more than the regulator “marking its own examination paper”. It said the government should include a specific provision to consider a full, industry-wide split-up of the banks if the ringfence was judged to be failing.

So the Tories look like they are singularly failing to do anything right when it comes to the economy.  And with senior Conservatives stepping forward with not so subtle hints that they might challenge Cameron for the leadership, we might be on the brink of political civil war, where the only real losers will be the British public.

Law Society urges the Government not to opt out of EU crime measures

Labour Party

We have yet another interesting twist to the repatriation of powers debate. No less an institution than the Law Society wants the Tory-led coalition to remain opted into the 130 EU crime and policing measures currently under threat from Theresa May.

In a letter to the The Times’ Editor of 28 January, the Law Society urged the Government to “reconsider its position” over the proposal to opt out of over 130 EU crime and policing measures. The Chairs of two Law Society committees, Richard Atkinson QC and Mark Clough QC, warn that “the implications if the UK chooses to opt out … are of great concern. The proposal … (announced with no public consultation) is likely to create significant unnecessary cost for the UK at a time of major cutbacks, not least across all areas of our criminal justice system.”

Two of this country’s most senior lawyers recognise that “many of the measures are vital to address cross-border crime” and that none of them “have been demonstrated to be harmful to the way our criminal justice system operates”. Withdrawing from the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) could lead to “suspects being held in pre-trial detention for longer periods with the resultant extra costs”. Instead “the UK should be working with its EU partners to improve the EAW and the procedural rights of suspects and victims”.

Clegg’s instincts are right but his bid to assert himself just looks desperate

Labour Party

Repatriation of powers from the European Union to Britain remains a thorn in David Cameron’s side. The movement for “Europe Light” initially dreamt up, I believe, by William Hague back in the mists of time, is really causing the Prime Minister a lot of problems, Nick Clegg being the latest.

The issue is creating difficulty principally because it is a total non-starter. The EU treaties, to which successive British governments have given their assent, are designed to be treaties, international agreements to which all parties adhere. This is an age-old idea universally recognised in more or less its present form for at least 2000 years. Once you have decided to be in, any changes require the agreement of all parties. Unilateral tinkering with the EU by the UK on its own is quite simply not on the agenda. Whatever Britain wants will have to be agreed by the other 26 member states.

Nick Clegg has now finally joined the growing ranks of those who see sense. It is just sad that it took him so long given his background in the EU as both an MEP and as a member of staff in the cabinet of a European Commissioner. Clegg seems to be ruling out trying to use the forthcoming revision of the Lisbon Treaty to make an attempt to repatriate powers, maybe because he is catching up with the idea that other EU member states may just tell Britain to get real. No-one wants to be associated with failure, least of all a struggling leader of Britain’s third political party on the verge of annihilation.

Repatriation of powers is pure smoke and mirrors as you read here a long time ago. Theresa May’s cack-handed approach to taking back 130 justice and home affairs powers with a view to renegotiating opting back into some of them later bears all the hall marks of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. It would be laughably pathetic if it weren’t so serious.

Meanwhile poor Nick Clegg is trying to inject some common sense into the coalition, now driven by a clique of feral Tories to whom being anti-EU with withdrawal top of the agenda is a raw and terrifying religion. These are the people who secured the leadership of the Conservative Party for David Cameron, and it’s now pay back time.

It is deeply tragic that the future of our country is in the hands of very small bunch of nutters. There are, of course, things in the EU which need change and reform – it would be foolish to pretend otherwise. However, it’s the same with any body politic wherever it may be. No-one seriously thinks Britain is all sweetness and light and that everything is perfect.

If Clegg were stronger and the Liberal-Democrats less excited by power, the relationship with the EU could well be the issue that tears the coalition apart. Yet that’s not the way it’s going. The coalition is much more likely to be destroyed by a visceral and seemingly unresolvable conflict between the Tory Eurosceptic zealots and the forces of government both in the UK and the EU.

Ten myths about the European Union

Labour Party

These 10 myths about the European Union were posted on Progress Online by Denis MacShane MP in August this year. Since Denis’ excellent piece didn’t get much coverage at the time, I think it’s worth giving it another airing.

Debunking the myths is, of course, becoming increasingly important as Tory anti-EU mania reaches worrying proportions.

Home Secretary Theresa May is seeking to opt out of 130 Justice and Home Affairs measures only, apparently, to then try and opt back into some of them.

Meanwhile Michael Gove and, seemingly, nine members of the Cabinet want a referendum on the EU.

As someone once said, we live in interesting times. Chaotic may be a better word.

Myth 1

The euro causes mass unemployment So how come unemployment is much lower in Germany, or the Netherlands than in Britain? Spanish unemployment was around 25 per cent well into the 1990s. In fact, the only time unemployment in Spain came below 10 per cent was when the euro replaced the peseta. It is government policy that determines economic success not the EU or the single currency per se.

Myth 2

Youth unemployment has surged under the euro Can anyone in Britain, with one in four 16-24-year-olds without work, make this claim with a straight face? Corrupt, clientalist politics in Spain and Greece have refused reform of the youth labour market to give young people a job but if the euro is responsible should we blame the pound for Britain’s lost generation of school and university leavers?

Myth 3

The EU makes all our laws. Sorry, but the House of Commons researches this every year and can never find more than about seven per cent of UK primary legislation which stems from Brussels. Just think of the rows over legislation in the Commons since 2010 – student fees, tax cuts for millionaires, NHS ‘reform’. Gove’s free schools, attacks on disabled people, five-year parliaments, cuts in local government provision – all these are made-in-Britain laws and have nothing to do with Europe.

Myth 4

The euro was badly designed and Greece should not have entered Agreed. But if Greece is forced out there will be a massive run on banks. It is not the single currency that allowed such lax regulation of banking in recent years. That began in America with Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan who removed all the rules in place since the 1930s to make banks behave responsibly. Britain (I would rather not mention which government) awarded an honorary knighthood to ‘Sir’ Alan Greenspan and his bust still stands in the Treasury. If we worship false gods of greed first we should not be surprised when they destroy us. The dollar is no more responsible for the Greenspan-Rubin tragedy of errors than the euro is for bad policy in the EU.

Myth 5

Devaluation is the way forward. So how come the British economy has been belly-up since the major devaluation of the pound four years ago. The pound lost about 25 per cent of its value against the euro. Did this lead to an export boom? UK balance of trade has never been worse. Belgium exports more to India than Britain. One day perhaps China will allow British exports to get a foothold – maybe when the Chinese have stopped killing British businessmen like Neil Heywood – but all the Commonwealth countries have various forms of protectionism in place – just ask anyone who tries to trade with India.

Myth 6

The EU is run by technocrats with no democratic oversight. Actually all the decisions taken in Europe are approved by democratically elected ministers responsible and accountable to their parliaments and public opinions. Decisions are slow and tortuous and are often so late in becoming policy they may be no longer relevant. The number of EU commissioners should come down from 27 to 10 but will the UK give up having a commissioner? Ask Nick Clegg.

Myth 7

The euro has caused riots and the rise of extremist parties That’s for Nick Griffin and the other BNP MEP to answer. Europe has always had extremist politics hovering at its fringe. The French communist party was xenophobic and supported one of the world’s great tyrannies for decades. Long before the euro existed there were ultra-nationalist and racist politicians elected under PR systems to different national and regional parliaments. Jean-Marie Le Pen’s glory days were when France used the franc. The biggest riots in Europe since the world capitalist crisis began in 2008 happened in London last year. Unlike the riots of Athens which were largely confined to its main square, the London riots spreads across the nation, turned into mass arson and looting with five deaths and huge damage caused. Last time anyone checked, Britain was not using the euro so is the pound to blame for the August 2011 riots? No and it is just as silly to blame the euro for social unrest and extremist political parties.

Myth 8

The EU imposes terrible burdens on British business This whine from the right has been a constant ever since the concept of social Europe was promoted. Tory MPs want to repatriate all rules from Europe that give some modest protection to workers and unions. For the left to act as bag carriers for this attack on social justice is bizarre. In fact, if you look at the nations that are best surviving the current crisis from Finland to Austria they are all based on EU social partnership systems which are anathema to Conservatives. And they all use the euro.

Myth 9

Housing bubbles were caused by the euro Again, it is national governments (including Labour) which did not put in clear rules insisting on minimum deposits and have a solid programme of social house building. Labour allowed 500,000 social housing units to be sold under Thatcher’s right-to-buy legislation. Ireland, Spain and Greece allowed unlimited credit well beyond the repayment capabilities for borrowers. That has nothing to do with the single currency but with bad government policy.

Myth 10

The euro is creating a European super-state. Please. Ten years ago the EU budget was roughly 1.2 per cent of Europe’s collection GDP. It is now down to one per cent. Of that one per cent, 85 per cent is returned to governments to pay for agricultural subsidies and regional investment. A BAP (British Agricultural Policy and payments system) would be more costly than the CAP. The EU gets many things wrong just as all governments do. But with an income of just one per cent of Europe’s total annual income the idea this is a new super-state is just silly propaganda.