Ideas on Europe Blog

The next EU budgetary framework period starts at the beginning of 2021. It is none too early for a serious debate about what should be the priorities. The only suggestion that has received publicity so far is President Macron’s proposal for a euro zone budget. This could be a good idea but not for the reasons given by him or most others. The euro has lasted for almost two decades without a budget of its own and can continue to do so. One country, Greece, needs debt relief. Other countries may need help with crucial public services and investments at a time when their own constraints, including their debt, make these difficult to afford. But suggestions that stronger economies should help weaker economies for no other reason than that they are stronger will always be resisted by the stronger economies, given that they are already making significant net contributions.

The purposes of EU budgetary spending need to be re-examined from first principles. Most spending over the last 30 years other than agricultural support has been on helping poorer countries improve their transport and communications infrastructure, based on the proposition that this is a condition for economic growth. Most EU countries now have fairly good infrastructure of this kind and there is little reason that its further expansion is necessary.

New priorities: migration

There are however major priorities that have recently emerged. The most obvious is the handling of migration pressures, which are not likely to go away. One priority should be for EU countries to make a contribution, along with other countries from Lebanon to Uganda, in receiving migrants fleeing wars in Syria, Sudan and elsewhere. Many of the newer EU member states do not want to make such a contribution. That should be respected as their right but given that this issue is now one of the major ones confronting the world including the EU, the EU budget should be accordingly re-oriented to helping those countries that are willing to take in refugees. Given that the new member states may resist that – and budgets require unanimity—the only answer may be to have a euro zone budget because it is primarily euro zone countries that are –whether voluntarily or involuntarily—taking in refugees from war, as well as other migrants.

Funding is specially needed for the handling of the migration flows coming across the Mediterranean. Many of those coming from sub-Saharan Africa can possibly be returned. For example, while there is war and terrorism in parts of Nigeria, other parts are peaceful so those fleeing the unstable parts of the country should be able to go to the more stable parts. But it is clear that this can only be managed in a way which respects human rights, if Nigeria is helped financially and in other ways to absorb internal migrants while for those who reach Europe sorting those who clearly have refugee rights under the Geneva Convention from those who can be returned is itself an expensive and demanding process which countries like Italy and Greece struggle to afford. The idea that there is a clear division between refugees and economic migrants that can easily be identified is a myth. Between those clearly one or the other is a very large grey area, including those mentioned above from countries where some regions are in conflict.

And environment

Another priority area which has come to the fore since the EU’s current budgetary policy was formulated when Jacques Delors was Commission president is the wide range of environmental challenges facing EU member states and the world as a whole. The terrible and lethal fires both sides of Athens in July are only the latest example of increasing damage to the environment and human life from such forest fires affecting all south European countries and more recently also north European countries. Research and action is needed for example through breaks in forests to halt or reduce the spread of such fires but there is also a need for more investment and current spending on fire-fighting services, that budgetary constraints in Greece and elsewhere have instead reduced. Such spending should be another priority of EU budgets in both the short and medium term.

The EU budget effectively limited to 1% of GDP is very small in relation to the public expenditure controlled by member states and it is unrealistic to suppose that this is going to be changed in the foreseeable future. But some items of spending should be reduced and others increased. Moreover, there should no longer be a bias in favour of capital over current spending given that current spending for example on migration is an urgent priority. There may well be a case for reducing EU-wide spending, if agreement on priorities cannot be reached. A significant euro zone budget could then be initiated without necessarily increasing the total for euro zone members of the EU plus the euro zone budget above the present 1% of GDP.

 

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Professor Amelia Hadfield and Chris Logie:

© luzitanija / Adobe Stock

Tune in for another episode of ‘Make America Great Again!’ You’ll remember June’s episodes saw President Trump scupper the Canadian G7, cozy up to Kim Jong-Un and instigate wide-ranging steel and aluminium tariffs against the EU, Canada and Mexico.

De-sensitized as we’ve become to Trumpian geopolitics, we were unprepared for the untrammeled lunacy of July. Pissing off the Canadians was clearly just the beginning.

July 2018 highlights included a stormy NATO summit, followed by a non-State visit to Britain where Trump continued to confuse bilateral with bipolar by criticizing British PM Theresa May’s Brexit plan and then not. The episode reached its agonizing conclusion in Helsinki where Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin, publicly savaged the reputation of US intelligence and security agencies by denying Russian interference in the 2016 US election, then suggesting to an outraged Washington caucus that he simply misspoke.

Trump followed his lackluster retraction with the edifying suggestion that there are “a lot of people out there.” It’s an interesting idea. Let’s therefore examine the folk comprising Europe’s security order to see what transpired during the initial NATO Summit in Brussels, before the inevitable diplomatic cataclysms of August.

Prior to the NATO summit, European allies were reportedly “scared s***less” at the possibility of Trump trashing NATO before cozying up to Putin in Helsinki. This produced superbly dramatic headlines including “How Trump and Putin could kill NATO”[6] or “Can Nato survive US President Donald Trump?”. In analyzing the summit, the real question therefore is the separation of predictable official business from the truly unexpected.

 

It’s Not Unusual

The American refrain of increased defence spending was top of the list. Underlying this demand is the American suspicion that European NATO members persist in paying little into NATO, while receiving a hefty, permanent dividend of protection under the US security umbrella. Accordingly, US defence secretaries and presidents alike have routinely demanded that NATO members contribute more. In 2011 for instance, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates warned that NATO faced “a dim if not dismal future”should NATO members fail to raise defence spending. President Obama however succeeded in formally committing NATO members to the goal of 2% national GDP at the 2014 NATO summit in Wales, to be reached within a decade.

Critics could argue that European defence remains largely aspirational in both spending and strategy. Supporters meanwhile point to dramatic uptakes in defence governance within both NATO and EU structures, with NATO members approaching the 2% target, making Europe the “fastest-growing region in real-terms defence spending” in 2017.

Against this background, Trump’s limited grasp of NATO’s modus operandi and transactional view of international relations produced a predictable tirade on spending thresholds. By the end of Day 1, Trump’s plain views had been made plainer still. Trump repeated the same message On Day 2 in increasingly hysterical tones, with accusations of Europeans enjoying a free lunch on the US, followed by meretricious attacks on Germany, Spain and the Benelux. At the emergency meeting hastily convened to contain further outbursts, Trump then fired off a trio of demands. First, he demanded the 2% spending timetable be brought forward; second that “after 2 percent, we’ll start talking about going higher… I think 4 percent is the right number”, and third, that in the absence of European cooperation on defence spending, the US could ultimately “go it alone.”

The first claim demand is not entirely unreasonable, but currently unmanageable for most. The second claim can be dismissed as ‘rounding up’ on the basis of Trump’s false claim that US defence spending now exceeds 4% (it’s closer to 3.5%). Overall, the summit’s arithmetic arguably produced “a new sense of urgency due to President Trump’s strong leadership on defence spending”, in the words of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. However, this does not equate to the summit breakthrough that Trump subsequently credited himself with, claiming that NATO allies have “stepped up like they’ve never stepped up before”. Indeed, the $30 to $40 billion of ‘new’ defence spending touted by Trump is not new money, but the trajectory of increased spending that NATO members committed under the far defter work of President Obama, as members confirmed at the summit’s conclusion.

 

The Twilight Zone

Trump’s third argument – to abandon NATO entirely – tipped the summit from punchy to imperiled, and brought into question key assumptions underlying European security. Trump’s differential worldview has been evident for some time. But by censuring Germany for its Russian natural gas imports, shirking the role of Article V to defend a threatened NATO member, and finally threatening a US-free NATO, Trump has seriously diminished America’s existing commitments to Europe.

Why? Is Trump genuinely intent on weakening, even demolishing NATO, or is he merely in a permanent state of campaigning: spouting abroad what plays well at home? From a short-term perspective, I agree with Judy Dempsey and Tomáš Valášek that “the drama that Trump creates” makes a difference to his home base as “it shows him as resolute. He’s causing crises for the sake of crises” because “what matters is whether he is seen as getting things done”. The problem, as I’ll argue in my next blog, is the consequences of such behavior, particularly when they backfire in multilateral settings.

For NATO, Trump’s temper tantrums over defence jeopardizes the broader structure of European deterrence. Threatening to pull the US out of NATO is a not only a dangerous, but treacherous option. It calls into question the very rationale of the post-war east-west balance that NATO represents, and suggests that new NATO initiatives – including the July agreement in Brussels “to reinforce eastern allies in a crisis” is mere saber-rattling. At best, it leaves NATO profoundly skeptical of American support while Trump remains in office. At worst, it could embolden Russian activity on a variety of fronts.

 

Parting Shots

In terms of key relationships, the damage is done. Trump took aim at Germany over its Russian gas imports, followed by a breathtakingly venal display in front of Russian President Putin at the Helsinki summit less than a week later. Trump named the EU a foe while threatening to withdraw the US from NATO. He demanded defence increases blithely unaware of Permanent Enhanced Cooperation (PESCO), the new European Intervention Initiative or increased funding for the European Defence Agency, recent developments, all of which catalyze European defence spending.

But Trump’s post-summit on Montenegro (NATO’s newest member) takes the cake. Displaying a catastrophic lack of regional awareness, including NATO’s own efforts to cultivate delicate relationships in the Balkans between Greece and renamed North Macedonia, Trump suggested Montenegrins are “very strong people, they’re very aggressive people. They may get aggressive and, congratulations, you’re in World War Three”. Laying to waste members old, new and prospective, as well as questioning the foundations of the current alliance, Trump’s abrasive and reckless approach has now made the entirety of NATO’s goals harder to achieve.

Under any US President, NATO would be reckoned a good bet, with rising member spending, new members and widening commitments in Europe and beyond. Indeed, in budgetary terms, the US’ material commitment to Europe continues to increases, with its planned European Defence Initiative set to receive $6.5 billion in funding in 2019 (up from $4.8 billion in 2018 and $3.4 billion in 2017). Unfortunately, the Brussels summit did not achieve “a tremendous amount of progress” because Trump focused solely on money, sowed discord among Western allies and ignored the cardinal tenets of collective defence. Instead, “money was the issue, not protecting shared values; not projecting security; not deepening solidarity in an alliance that the United States founded”.

Unsurprisingly, the summit takeaway is that the US cannot currently be relied upon as a reliable global partner. Is it any wonder that there are now “genuine fears that a second Trump term could leave Nato marginalised and its transatlantic spine deeply damaged”?

 

 

About the Authors

Professor Amelia Hadfield is the Director of the Centre for European Studies at Canterbury Christ Church University. 

Chris Logie is the CEFEUS 2018 UG Research Assistant.

Professor Hadfield is participating in the plenary session at UACES 2018 in Bath on “Transatlanticism in the Times of Trump and the UK’s Withdrawal from the EU” (4 September 2018). 

 

[1] Trump alleged Germany was “totally controlled by Russia” both because of its current consumption of Russian gas, and support for the controversial Nordstream 2 Baltic Sea gas pipeline designed to increase the Russian gas supply to Europe. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-44793764/trump-germany-is-totally-controlled-by-russia. Trump further incorrectly asserted that 60 to 70% of German energy came from Russia: it is actually less than 20% of Germany’s energy mix and half its gas consumption. 

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The EU and Japan have just signed an unprecedented free trade agreement which will create one of the world’s largest trading blocs.

The EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) is the largest trade deal ever negotiated by the EU. It will create a trade zone covering 600 million people and nearly a third of global GDP.

It is of course good news for the EU and Japan, but not for Britain if we leave the EU. We won’t benefit from the EU-Japan trade agreement after Brexit.

And the UK is never likely to get a free trade agreement with Japan – or any other country – anywhere near as good as the one achieved by the EU.

But Brexiters have quickly responded:

If Japan can get this, then why can’t we?

Doing the rounds following the signing of the agreement were these comments by  Brexit campaigners:

Does Japan have to sign up to:

– Freedom of movement? NO
– Single Market? NO
– Customs Union? NO
– European Court of Justice? NO
– The EU’s “common rulebook”? NO
– Paying £40 Billion? NO

…so why should we?

But these Brexit comments reveal a serious misunderstanding about the EU and how its Single Market and Customs Union operates.

Free trade is not the same as frictionless trade.

The EU has already told the UK that it can have a trade deal with the EU “along the same lines” as the ones the EU has now concluded with Japan, Canada and South Korea.

So, yes, we can have that.

The problem is that the UK’s economy, to continue to thrive, needs much more than these types of free trade deals can offer us.

We need completely frictionless trade on ALL trade, and on ALL exports and imports with the EU, which is an entirely different matter.

The EU Japan free-trade liberalises the bilateral goods trade, primarily agricultural exports. For instance, tariffs on EU beef and pork will be reduced, and for EU cheese, the tariffs are eliminated altogether.

But the agreement does not cover anywhere near the amount and range of trade that the UK does with the EU – which is by far our biggest, most important trading partner.

And the trade agreement does not cover services, which forms around 80% of Britain’s economy.

The difference between the EU free-trade agreements with Japan, Canada and South Korea and the EU’s Single Market and customs union is immense.

The goods tariffs under these various deals are reduced or sometimes eliminated, but in the EU Single Market and customs union they disappear entirely as a matter of law.

Shipments to the EU from Japan, South Korea and Canada all have to be (and will continue to be) checked by EU customs authorities to ensure they are actually from those countries and that they conform to local safety rules, even if no tariffs are due.

But within the EU customs union, ALL goods cross borders without any checks at all. That’s the fundamental difference.

Single market membership also entails the rights for EU citizens from any country to work in any other country as a right. This freedom of movement does not exist (and will not exist) for EU citizens as regards access to the Canadian, Japanese and South Korean labour markets.

So, in essence, the EU-Japan free trade agreement does not offer frictionless trade, and that’s what the UK needs to ensure that our economy does not crash, that jobs are not lost, and that there is no hard border on the island of Ireland.

Of course, such frictionless EU trade needs to be governed by laws democratically agreed by its members, and those laws overseen by a court, with one judge from each EU member country. (And what’s wrong with that?)

Ironically, frictionless trade is what we have now in the EU. So, why leave? I still cannot find even one valid or validated reason, despite years of searching.

As for paying £40 billion, this is what the UK agreed to pay the EU whilst a member. That’s a different issue. Japan, I am sure, would not renege on paying its bills.

• Photo: Rotterdam, the EU’s number one port, with a cargo throughput of over 467 million tonnes a year. 

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Our Prime Minister, Theresa May, has urged the public not to be “worried” by her government’s plans to stockpile food and medicine to prepare for a no-deal Brexit.

She is taking us all for fools.

Gary Lineker got it right when he responded:

“A wealthy nation putting itself in a position where it has to stockpile food, medicine, etc., in times of peace is utter madness. What Are We Doing?”

‘Utter madness’ is the appropriate description of what’s going on.

When a former football player can say what’s happening but our political leaders cannot, you can tell that the country is in deep, deep trouble.

Theresa May has tried to play down the impact of the impending disaster that a no-deal Brexit means for Britain.

Ms May confirmed that plans for stocking up on essential goods are underway – in case imports from the EU are cut off by clogged ports, or regulatory disputes.

But, asked if it was “alarming” for people, the Prime Minister responded:

“Far from being worried about preparations that we are making, I would say that people should take reassurance and comfort from the fact that the government is saying we are in a negotiation, we are working for a good deal.

“I believe we can get a good deal, but, it’s right that we say – because we don’t know what the outcome is going to be – let’s prepare for every eventuality.”

She added:

“This is not just about stockpiling. That concept, what it is, is about making sure that we will be able to continue to do the things that are necessary once we have left the European Union, if we leave without a deal.”

Read her words carefully. She is giving the country reasons to panic, and at the same time telling us not to panic.

We may not have enough food. Don’t panic!

We may run out of medicines. Don’t panic!

The ship is about to hit the rocks. Don’t panic!

The ship is sinking. Don’t panic!

Stockpiling food and medicines, says Mrs May, is about “making sure that we will be able to continue to do the things that are necessary once we have left the European Union…”

Continuing to do the things that are necessary?

Such as being able to eat food to enable us to live?

Such as being able to get the medicines many of us need to stay alive or stay well?

Mrs May says we should take “reassurance and comfort” from the government’s plans to save the country from a no-Brexit deal by ensuring we have enough food and medicines.

The Prime Minister hasn’t a clue about offering “reassurance and comfort”.

She was the Home Secretary who warned the country that Brexit was not in the country’s best interests.

Then she volunteered to be the Prime Minister to do to the country what she previously said would be bad for the country.

The only way to provide Britain with “reassurance and comfort” is to stop Brexit.

It should be obvious by now that Brexit is doing huge damage to Britain before it’s even gone ahead.

And if it is allowed to go ahead, it will inflict grievous injuries to our nation state and its inhabitants for years and decades to come.

The workers at Honda and Airbus who voted for Leave are now learning that ‘Leave really means Leave’.

Yes, those companies and many others are now preparing to leave Britain as a direct consequence of Brexit.

Our economy needs frictionless access with our most important, most vital, and most profitable international market place – the EU.

Without that, many of our most successful businesses in the UK cannot be profitable. They cannot survive here.

Brexit cannot give Britain frictionless trade with the EU. How many times do we have to repeat that before it sinks in?

Forgive the voters. They could not have had any real idea that voting for Brexit would mean losing their jobs and result in shortages of food and medicines and the basics of life.

Blame the politicians who sold the damned lies of Leave, and not the voters who unwittingly fell for them.

But now we must wake up.

We can’t trust those politicians who told us that Brexit would lead us to the promised land, only to take us on a journey to a barren Britain that’s impoverished, depleted and demeaned.

Here, we warned the nation to see that Brexit would bring us pain.

But now, we can all feel the pain – and feeling is believing.

The only way to stop the pain of Brexit is to stop Brexit.

Speak up. Squeal. Shout. Scream. Brexit is avoidable. But very soon – very, very soon – it will be too late.

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It is a poor reflection of the pro-Remain campaign that even two years after the referendum, much of Britain is still basking in shocking ignorance about how the EU functions, the reason it exists, and how it is a democracy run by its members for the benefit of its members.

We are leaving the EU based entirely on a misunderstanding and worse, a pack of lies.

There is probably less than a 10% chance of another referendum, and if there is another referendum, currently only a 50-50 chance of Remain winning.

Unfortunately, the Remain campaign, starting from May 2015 up until now, has been entirely inept, disorganised, and without a dynamic and effective strategy.

It could have been very different.

We should have won the 2016 referendum without much difficulty. But the Remain side was smug, and not at all prepared for the panzer warfare launched with such brilliant effect by the Leave campaign, albeit all based on lies, deceits and false promises.

Remainers lost forty years of opportunities at awareness raising since winning the 1975 referendum. We let the likes of the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the small UKIP party pollute the nation with misinformation about the EU and EU migrants.

For most of the forty years it didn’t seem to matter. Leaving the EU was not a mainstream call or promise of the main parties. There were grumblings, but these were on the sidelines of politics, occupied by a few diehard Eurosceptics.

Complacency ruled. If there was another referendum, of course the status quo would win. David Cameron banked his prime ministership on it. But he lost, and left.

It was a huge shock that Leave won the referendum – a shock to Remainers, and a shock to Leavers.

Few expected Brexit to win. It’s rare indeed for a referendum to go against the advice of the government, of Parliament, of the main parties and, dare I say it, of most experts.

The official ‘Stronger In’ campaign lacked panache, flair and any sense of direction. Their strategy was no match for the Leave campaign.

Trying to scare voters into opting for Remain was no way to win. The Remain campaign spent precious little time or energy explaining to the nation how the EU works, how it is a democracy, and how Britain has greatly benefited from its membership.

Fear, not facts, ruled the day. Or so the Remain strategists thought.

But when the day came, fear lost.

We should have learnt. The British don’t like to be scared or cowed into doing something. They react the opposite way.

That should have been known from the stoical reaction of the Brits to the Blitz, when the Nazis thought they could frighten Blighty into submission. How wrong they were.

And how wrong was Stronger In. Their strategy didn’t work.

They lost the Referendum, but they also lost the arguments. The Leave lies about the EU won, and there was little in the way of an effective counter attack, using the only antidote known to work against lies: the truth.

Well, that was two years ago. What of the truth now?

Unfortunately, misinformation about the EU still prevails. And there is still no effective counter-attack.

There is no national, prominent, brilliant and well-funded ongoing awareness raising campaign by any pro-EU, anti-Brexit group to undo the lies of Leave.

(Yes, there are many smaller groups trying, often valiantly, but nothing that is anywhere close to a dazzling, nation-wide, compelling campaign that’s needed to undo the lies of Leave politicians).

Across the country, enormous numbers of people still believe that the EU is a dictatorship run by unelected, faceless bureaucrats.

They still believe that the EU rules over us, without us having any real say.

They still think that the EU annual membership fee represents poor value for money, which would be better spent on something else.

They still believe that we have uncontrolled borders, with too many citizens from the rest of the EU coming here, without any restrictions.

They still think we’ll get our country back as soon as we’ve left the EU.

They even still believe that the EU accounts are a sham that the auditors refuse to sign off.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

All these beliefs are based on myths; on misinformation that has been carefully and successfully imbued into the nation’s psyche and mindset over many years.

And they could all be undone by a proper explanation to the nation of the truth. Because when properly explained, truth outshines lies, at least eventually.

We know this from many awareness raising campaigns of the past, whether it’s a campaign to explain that smoking causes cancer; the campaign to demonstrate that wearing a seatbelt saves lives; the five-a-day campaign to eat more fruit and veg; the NHS FAST campaign to help people recognise strokes.; the campaign to boycott products from apartheid South Africa…

All these successful campaigns and many others were based on getting facts and the truth out to the public in an effective, believable, emotive and memorable way.

It’s something the pro-Remain movement has not done well. It’s hardly done it at all.

The focus currently is getting a new referendum – coined the ‘people’s vote’. But there will be no point getting a new vote unless we can decisively win that vote.

Not just a reversal of the last vote: 52%-48%. But a conclusive vote of 60%-40% or more, to see this matter settled for at least a generation.

But that’s not going to be achievable if large parts of the country still believe the lies that won the 2016 referendum – lies that would be used again if there is another referendum.

There’s an old saying: look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves.

The nation needs a compelling reason to have another vote. Demolish the lies that led to Brexit, and the call for a new vote will look after itself. And be truly winnable.

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  New article forthcoming (in 2018) in History of Humanities and posted to SSRN: Democracy and the Vernacular Imagination in Vico’s Plebian Philology

Abstract:

This essay examines Giambattista Vico’s philology as a contribution to democratic legitimacy. I outline three steps in Vico’s account of the historical and political development of philological knowledge. First, his merger of philosophy and philology, and the effects of that merge on the relative claims of reason and authority. Second, his use of antiquarian knowledge to supersede historicist accounts of change in time and to position the plebian social class as the true arbiters of language. Third, his understanding of philological knowledge as an instrument of political change, and a foundational element in the establishment of democracy. By treating the philological imagination as a tool for bringing about political change, Vico’s plebian philology is radically democratic, and a crucial instrument in the struggle against the elite, from antiquity to the present.

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The Berlin Wall, constructed in 1961 to separate East and West Berlin during the Cold War, is a cause and consequence of a plethora of historical events and processes. It is also a symbol for artificial separation of peoples and ideas behind artificially created borders. In this respect it can serve as a perfect proxy, which allows to draw parallels to the EU-Ukrainian boundaries and their surmounting.

The Berlin Wall serves as a popular motive for various notions, often contradictory, like much in human life, such as free will, its suppression, activism and passivity, opposition and unity, migration and border control. But it is also a symbol for the break with the whole epoch of the Cold War and global confrontation.

The Soviet Block portrayed the Wall as a protection from Western fascist elements who conspired to circumvent the “democratic will of the people”.  This strain of reasoning is clearly and logically manifested in the continuity of today´s Russia aggressive policy against Ukraine. Russia occupied and annexed Crimea and Eastern Ukraine in 2014, disguising it under the same false pretenses of “protection against fascism” – the democratic Ukraine and the West in this case.

 

A GDR-built Trabant car, produced almost unchanged from 1957 to 1990, is a popular mention of the Communist era, stifling not only creativity and innovation but any human desires. Graffiti on the wall of the East Side Gallery.

The line of the original wall, chipped away by hoards of tourists.

A picture of a preserved 70-metre section of the former border strip, photographed from the roof of the Berlin Wall Memorial, located at the historic site on the Bernauer Strasse.

Berlin Wall graffiti art: lifting of borders as an overarching theme.

The motifs are numerous, like that of a fleeing man.

The world-famous Checkpoint Charlie booth, the Berlin Wall crossing point, transferred from its original stand in 1990 to the Allied Museum, which was inaugurated in 1998.

The Berlin Wall is an integral part of the public exhibition at the Topography of Terror history museum, located  on the site of the former Main Security Office of the Nazi Germany.

A watchtower, one of the last relics from the GDR era, can be found north of central train station. It is named in memory of Günter Litfin, who was the first victim to be killed by East German border troops. A memorial, established in 1992 on the initiative of his younger brother, is located in the watchtower.

This notorious painting, called “My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love”, was created in 1990. It depicts Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker in a fraternal kiss, a mimicry of a photograph that captured the moment in 1979.

Division and unity, when put in a broader context. Another piece of graffiti art on the Berlin Wall.

 

Photos and copyright: Alexander Svetlov

 

 

 

 

 

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Berlin, as a site and a backdrop of many epochal events, used to play a central role during the East-West confrontations in the 20th century. Nowadays the city turned into coulisse for many historical events, commemorations and discourses. As the past conditions our present, Berlin as a spot is also seen pertinent to the generally and specifically “european” interactions with Ukraine. Common history, as surveyed bellow, connects Ukraine as geographic and socio-political entity with Western Europe, personified by Berlin.

Berlin city plan, as presented at the Berliner Stadt-Modelle (Mitte).

Diorama of the Siege of the Berlin Reichstag by the Soviet Army in 1945 at the Deutsch-Russisches Museum Berlin-Karlshorst.

View from the Flak tower at Humbolthain.

Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam, south of Berlin. It is the last palace built by the House of Hohenzollern that ruled the German Empire until the end of World War I. In 1990 it became part of the UNESCO World Heritage. The palace was used for a summit by the G8 foreign ministers in May 2007.

But first it was the location of the Potsdam Conference in 1945, in which the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States made decisions affecting the  post World War II time. The red star was planted by the Soviets well in advance of the meeting to imply the dominating position.

Negotiation table of the Potsdam Conference.

The view from the second floor.

The Soviet War Memorial in Tiergarten, erected in 1945, within a few months of the capture of the city.

The memorial is a place of active commemoration and a popular tourist attraction.  It is a site of pilgrimage for war veterans from the countries of the former Soviet Union, whereby wreath-laying ceremonies are held at the memorial. The site and adjacent cemetery are maintained by the City of Berlin.

Soviet tanks are renowned, and these constitute an inevitable piece of every WWII commemorative scene.

T-34 model, as built after 1944, at the pedestal at the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, which is the historical venue of the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht on 8 May 1945.

Airplanes, like tanks, are also impressive artifacts. This Handley Page Hastings transport plane deployed by the Royal Air Force is placed at the Allied Museum  museum, which was inaugurated in 1998, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Berlin airlift.

The US Air Force Douglas C-47B “Raisin Bomber” on the roof of the German Museum of Technology.

Tempelhof was one of Europe’s first airports, and its 1 km long main building was once among the top 20 largest buildings on earth.  The whole complex was designed to resemble a flying eagle with semicircular hangars forming the bird’s spread wings. It acquired an iconic status as the centre of the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49. Tempelhof Airport closed all operations in 2008, and the airfield has been subsequently used as a recreational space known as “Tempelhofer Feld”.

First air jets of the early 1950-s, as displayed at the former Royal Air Force Station Gatow (now Bundeswehr Museum of Military History): a Soviet jet…

… and a “Western” jet.

A West-German NATO propagating poster “His comrades are our allies” (Bundeswehr Museum of Military History).

A Soviet officer training an East-German pilot – a monument of the GDR-times. A clear connotation for the younger brother relations within one family, subtly and cunningly propagated in the Communist Bloc. (Bundeswehr Museum of Military History).

One of the cipher machines from the exhibition over the history of espionage and secret services at the Spy Museum, opened in 2015.

The KGB Prison in Potsdam near Berlin, situated in the command quarters of the KGB for Germany, was a detention centre run by the Soviet counter-intelligence. Soviet soldiers,  accused of desertion, espionage or close contact with the population, were imprisoned here until the mid-1980s. Until 1955 Germans were also interned here. The memorial site was opened in 2009.

A ward´s peephole in the cell´s wall.

GDR Museum, the 11th most visited museum in Berlin, is located in the former governmental district of East Germany. Opened in 2006 as a private museum, its exhibition depicts life in the GDR in a direct “hands-on” manner, as it does not focus on every single individual exhibit (of which there are thousands), but rather on the overall atmosphere.

Jewish Museum, opened in 2001, is the largest Jewish museum in Europe. Its modern building is erected in deconstructivist style, which gives the impression of the fragmentation, unpredictability, absence of harmony or symmetry.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe consists of a 19,000 m2 site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs, arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field next to the Brandenburg Gate.

 

Photos and copyright: Alexander Svetlov

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The post The East-West history discourses in the Berlin´s context appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

At a time when the EU is undergoing a number of crises, some seen as existential and provoking an upsurge in theorising on the disintegration of the EU, Luis Bouza and Alvaro Oleart offer intriguing reasons for suggesting there is room for more optimism. In a succinct summary of their larger article, recently published in JCER, Bouza and Oleart here outline their argument that we are witnessing the normalisation of the EU as a polity, such that we can speak of an “empowering’ rather than “constraining” dissensus.

Depiction of TTIP with US and EU flags © Sangoiri / Adobe Stock

EU affairs have been only rarely controversial in Spain. This is an expression of the ‘permissive consensus’ on EU affairs that has been characteristic of many European societies. The campaign for the ‘no’ ahead of the 2005 Spanish EU Constitutional Treaty referendum illustrates the weakness of such debates, since in this case it was only driven by a few alter-globalisation groups such as Ecologistas en Acción (EeA) or ATTAC. Most leading civil society organisations, such as the trade unions CCOO and UGT or ADICAE (a consumer organisation), actively supported the ‘yes’ vote, as well as the political party in Government (PSOE) and the leader of the Opposition (PP).

In stark contrast, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations saw the development of a transnational campaign that gained momentum in various countries in parallel, including in Spain.

The driving forces of the Spanish anti-TTIP campaign are largely the same actors as those active in the 2005 Spanish ‘no’ vote campaign referendum, but this time they reached far beyond their traditional allies. Gaining some salience among media, civil society, trade unions and political parties, in 2016 the manifesto of the Spanish anti-TTIP campaign was signed by 340 organisations, including political parties such as Podemos and institutionalised civil society organisations such as CCOO and Greenpeace. The headline of the manifesto resembled strongly the frames used in the ‘no’ vote campaign: ‘People, the environment and democracy before profits and the rights of corporations’.

It was precisely this conundrum, i.e. why TTIP became a controversial issue in Spain, considering the generally ‘permissive consensus’ stance of Spanish civil society, that drove our most recent research project, the results of which were recently published in JCER.

In that article, we argue that the change of positions of Spanish civil society actors in relation to the EU in the case of TTIP can be explained by a change in the field of European affairs in Spain, a highly suggestive notion considering the degree of continuity in the identity of the entrepreneurs of the anti-TTIP campaign in relation to past EU-critical mobilisations.

Whereas during the 2000s the field of EU affairs in Spain was characterised by the involvement of only a few professionalised organisations along with some alter-globalisation activists, the STOP TTIP mobilisation constituted a turning point. Two streams of civil society activists that do not often mobilise together, institutionalised actors (such as CCOO or anti-poverty networks) and protest actors (EeA or ATTAC), combined their efforts to contest TTIP in what constituted the largest EU-critical mobilisation to date in Spain.

Even more notably, organisations not usually involved in political protest, such as professional associations of judges and taxi drivers, joined the network.

Figure 1 Network of the Spanish anti-TTIP campaign

Through a combination of methods, using semi-structured interviews and network analysis, we show that the Spanish anti-TTIP campaign has engendered a new type of resource in the Spanish civil society field vis-à-vis EU affairs: the ability to mobilise citizens on EU issues at the national level. We have also published an article on this subject, about how different actors have so far used the European Citizens’ Initiative.

Figure 1 represents the network of actors involved in the Spanish anti-TTIP campaign. This figure is a one-mode network (all members are actors except the central node, which represents the Spanish anti-TTIP campaign) representing the national campaign against TTIP. It includes organisations that have no European connections and were not involved in previous EU debates, such as associations of taxi drivers or public health workers.

The different colours represent different types of relationships: the turquoise links imply contacts in the context of the campaign in the form of engagement in debates and other informal exchanges. The yellow links imply formal membership in a coalition, whereas the red imply strategic collective action such as shared resources, coordinated action or leadership in the organisation of a coalition.

Our empirical analysis confirms that a small group of cause entrepreneurs (essentially led by EeA) managed to bring along powerful actors towards their EU-critical anti-TTIP campaign. Such a significant change can largely be explained by the increasing politicisation of Spanish civil society vis-à-vis the EU, induced initially by the 2011 Indignados movement.

Later, the politicisation of the EU was expanded by the anti-TTIP coalition, led by EU-critical cause entrepreneurs (ATTAC Spain and EeA), that amplified the movement’s frames of protest towards the EU. Spanish civil society actors increasingly see and treat the EU as a normal polity rather than as a benevolent entity. As a result, it is possible to challenge its policies without being labelled as ‘Eurosceptic’.

There is a body of literature that argues that the politicisation of EU issues will lead from a ‘permissive consensus’ to a national ‘constraining dissensus’ in terms of an increased political cost of EU decision making.

Instead, we argue that the introduction of EU-critical ideas can lead to an ‘empowering dissensus’. Dissensus is in our view empowering actors at the national level to influence EU policies, because the ability to mobilise citizens on EU issues – a rare resource for most Brussels-based organisations – acquires a renewed importance. The politicisation of EU policies at the national level would then be a symptom of the normalisation of the EU as a playing field. Rather than ‘constraining’ EU decision-making by the lack of consensus, dissensus can enlarge the field beyond the national political arena and ‘empower’ European issues to be considered matters worth discussing at the national level.

This introduction of political conflict over EU issues at the national level normalises the EU as a polity, and is therefore good news for European democracy.

This article is based on the authors’ article in the Journal of Contemporary European Studies (JCER) Vol 14 No 2. 

Please note that this article represents the views of the author(s) and not those of the UACES Graduate Forum, JCER or UACES.

Comments and Site Policy

Shortlink for this article: http://bit.ly/2Nxv9b8

Luis Bouza | @luisbouzagarcia
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Luis Bouza is an assistant professor in Political Science at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. His main field of interest is the emergence of European debates in the public sphere. He is the author of ‘Participatory Democracy Civil Society in the EU: Agenda-Setting and Institutionalisation’ (Palgrave Macmillan).

Alvaro Oleart | @alvarooleart
Université Libre de Bruxelles (IEE-ULB)

Alvaro Oleart is a PhD researcher in political communication at the Institute for European Studies of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (IEE-ULB). His main field of interest is the European public sphere and the role of civil society in the EU policy-making.

 

The post From 2005’s ‘Permissive Consensus’ to TTIP’s ‘Empowering Dissensus’: The EU as a Playing Field for Spanish Civil Society appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

This week Prime Minister, Theresa May, told the House of Commons Liaison Committee that the UK could have frictionless trade with the EU, without being in the Single Market or the EU customs union.

SNP MP, Angus Brendan MacNeil, told the Prime Minister that her plans were “pie in the sky”. Not only is he right, but Theresa May knows her Brexit plans are pie in the sky.

Before the referendum Mrs May said clearly and persuasively:

“It is not clear why other EU member states would give Britain a better deal than they themselves enjoy.”

Yet that’s exactly what Mrs May now wants. She says she aims to achieve a new trade agreement with the EU that’s unique to us, that no other country in the world has ever achieved.

Of course, it’s not going to happen.

What’s the point of a club if you are going to allow non-members to enjoy the same or better benefits as members? What club allows that?

The EU most certainly will not accept Mrs May’s pie in the sky proposals.

So here’s the bottom line. Britain needs frictionless trade with the EU. We need free movement of goods, services, capital and people for our country not just to survive, but to thrive.

We need to continue with the status quo: the arrangement we have now.

Has this sunk in yet?

We’re leaving all the benefits of the EU, only to desperately try and get back as many of those benefits as we can after we’ve left.

We’re going to pay around £40 billion (the so-called ‘divorce settlement’) – money that will come from us, you and me – to try and achieve what we’ve got, but less of it, and on considerably inferior terms.

This is complete and utter madness. It will be much better to just keep the current arrangement. It will be cheaper, and we will all be better off.

• As an EU member:

① We have a say and votes in the running, rules and future direction of our continent. ② We have full and free access to the world’s largest free marketplace. ③ We enjoy the right to live, work, study or retire across a huge expanse of our continent. ④ We enjoy state healthcare and education when living and working in any other EU country. ⑤ We enjoy free or low-cost health care when visiting any EU nation. ⑥ We are protected by continent-wide rights that protect us at work, when shopping and travelling. ⑦ We benefit from laws that protect our environment (and have, for example, directly resulted in Britain’s beaches being cleaned up). ⑧ We enjoy excellent EU trade agreements with around 60 countries, with more on the way, on advantageous terms that Britain is unlikely ever to replicate.

So, we’re going to throw that all away, just so we can get an inferior arrangement with the EU, in which we’d still have to agree to the rules of EU trade (over which we’d have no say) and we’d have less access to our most vital customers and suppliers outside of our home market.

We are leaving for no good reason, not one. We are paying around £40 billion (money the UK has agreed we owe to the EU) to settle our debts with the EU, to enable us to have an inferior deal.

We will be poorer, and with less sovereignty, fewer rights and protections, restricted trade, and diminished power after we’ve left.

What’s the point? There’s no point.

There is no pie. There is no cake. There is no Brexit dividend. There is no Brexit that can work.

________________________________________________________

• Follow my journalism page on Facebook: Jon Danzig writes
• Follow my Stop Brexit campaign on Facebook: Reasons2Remain

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Pie in the sky Brexit

→ Brexit won't work. Get it? – Please sharePIE IN THE SKY BREXIT – Video and articleThis week Prime Minister, Theresa May, told the House of Commons Liaison Committee that the UK could have frictionless trade with the EU, without being in the Single Market or the EU customs union.SNP MP, Angus Brendan MacNeil, told the Prime Minister that her plans were "pie in the sky". Not only is he right, but Theresa May knows her Brexit plans are pie in the sky. Before the referendum Mrs May said clearly and persuasively:“It is not clear why other EU member states would give Britain a better deal than they themselves enjoy.”Yet that’s exactly what Mrs May now wants. She says she aims to achieve a new trade agreement with the EU that’s unique to us, that no other country in the world has ever achieved.Of course, it’s not going to happen.What’s the point of a club if you are going to allow non-members to enjoy the same or better benefits as members? What club allows that?The EU most certainly will not accept Mrs May's pie in the sky proposals.So here’s the bottom line. Britain needs frictionless trade with the EU. We need free movement of goods, services, capital and people for our country not just to survive, but to thrive.We need to continue with the status quo: the arrangement we have now.Has this sunk in yet?We’re leaving all the benefits of the EU, only to desperately try and get back as many of those benefits as we can after we’ve left.We’re going to pay around £40 billion (the so-called ‘divorce settlement’) – money that will come from us, you and me – to try and achieve what we’ve got, but less of it, and on considerably inferior terms.This is complete and utter madness. It will be much better to just keep the current arrangement. It will be cheaper, and we will all be better off.As an EU member:① We have a say and votes in the running, rules and future direction of our continent.② We have full and free access to the world’s largest free marketplace.③ We enjoy the right to live, work, study or retire across a huge expanse of our continent.④ We enjoy state healthcare and education when living and working in any other EU country.⑤ We enjoy free or low-cost health care when visiting any EU nation.⑥ We are protected by continent-wide rights that protect us at work, when shopping and travelling.⑦ We benefit from laws that protect our environment (and have, for example, directly resulted in Britain’s beaches being cleaned up).⑧ We enjoy excellent EU trade agreements with around 60 countries, with more on the way, on advantageous terms that Britain is unlikely ever to replicate.So, we’re going to throw that all away, just so we can get an inferior arrangement with the EU, in which we’d still have to agree to the rules of EU trade (over which we’d have no say) and we’d have less access to our most vital customers and suppliers outside of our home market.We are leaving for no good reason, not one. We are paying around £40 billion (money the UK has agreed we owe to the EU) to settle our debts with the EU, to enable us to have an inferior deal.We will be poorer, and with less sovereignty, fewer rights and protections, restricted trade, and diminished power after we’ve left.What’s the point? There’s no point.There is no pie. There is no cake. There is no Brexit dividend. There is no Brexit that can work.• Words and video by Jon Danzig• Please re-Tweet, and follow Reasons2Remain on Twitter.twitter.com/Reasons2Remain/status/1020200409347100672********************************************► Watch Jon Danzig's 50-minute video: 'Can Britain Stop Brexit?' Go to CanBritainStopBrexit.com********************************************• To follow and support Reasons2Remain just ‘like’ the page, and please invite all your friends to like the page. Instructions to ensure you get notifications of all our stories:1. Click on the ‘Following’ button under the Reasons2Remain banner2. Change the ‘Default’ setting by clicking ‘See first’.********************************************• Please rate Reasons2Remain out of 5 stars. Here's the link: facebook.com/Reasons2Remain/reviews/********************************************• Follow Reasons2Remain on Twitter: twitter.com/reasons2remain and Instagram: instagram.com/reasons2remain/********************************************• Explore our unique Reasons2Remain gallery of over 1,000 graphics and articles: reasons2remain.co.uk********************************************• Reasons2Remain is an entirely unfunded community campaign, unaffiliated with any other group or political party, and is run entirely by volunteers. If you'd like to help, please send us a private message.********************************************• © Reasons2Remain 2018. All our articles and graphics are the copyright of Reasons2Remain. We only allow sharing using the Facebook share button. Any other use requires our advance permission in writing.#STOPBREXIT #EXITBREXIT #PEOPLESVOTE

Posted by Reasons2Remain on Thursday, 19 July 2018

The post Pie in the sky Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Let’s suppose my university likes talking about the future. They might do fancy powerpoint presentations, with artists’ impressions of shiny buildings and other infrastructure, together with charts showing How It’s All Going To Be Great.

Looks wonderful, I might think. But how do we get there, I might also think.

And then it might turn out that between here and there is a period of optimising and belt-tightening, doing better to get more. That kind of thing.

Ah, I might think. And, indeed, oh.

And so it is with Brexit. And no ‘might’ about it, now.

The fine words split on both sides about building a constructive and meaningful relationship post-membership are legion. Last week’s White Paper was simply the latest iteration of this.

In all the argument about whether the White Paper vision can be realised in the face of determined domestic divisions, very little attention has been given to the more practical aspects of getting from here to there, practicalities that will exist whatever ‘there’ turns out to be.

Now, after some discussions with officials and other academics, I feel I understand the matter well enough to have a stab at lying it out for you.

The pitch

This all makes more sense if we work from the end backwards.

The White Paper envisages a series of legal documents, bound by a framework agreement that will encompass a wide range of policy areas. There seems to be a suggestion that this series will not be concluded simultaneously, but rather as they are ready: that makes sense, as a convoy approach might cause big delays for a relatively minor issue.

Moreover, the document also mentions an implementation period, directly in relation to auditing, and indirectly in relation to the famously-unexplainable Facilitated Customs Arrangement (FCA), which will have a phased introduction. However, there’s no more detail available about that implementation period.

Together, these things point to a situation where the end of the Withdrawal Agreement’s transition period at the end of December 2020 will not see the immediate and complete introduction and enforcement of a new end-state.

Instead, there might be some agreements in place – including, presumably, the framework text that contains the management, implementation and infringement architecture – with some of those agreements not being fully operational until a later date.

The questions

Which raises some questions.

The most obvious one is how long will this situation last? When does the end-state actually come into being?

In essence, you have one of two options on this front. Either you define the process by time or by conditions.

The time model (“we’ll have an agreement in place on this date”) is the one we’ve seen so far (on Article 50, and on transition), which offers a clear endpoint and stronger incentives to make progress, especially if interim arrangements lapse at that point.

The conditions-based model (“we’ll have an agreement in place as soon as we can satisfy our basic requirements”) is much less certain on timespan, but does ensure parties’ interests are better protected.

Either way, much would depend on the hierarchy of needs on both sides and the perceived distance of opening positions. However, such disaggregation does point to a period of years, rather than months, to get towards something approaching the end-state.

Of course, part of that will depend on the second key question: what happens in the meantime?

As matters stand, the transition ends in December 2020, and with it the entirety of the current arrangements. As I’ve discussed before, this cliff-edge is much more problematic to resolve than the March 2019 one, for both legal and political reasons.

Again, we have a limited number of options.

The first is to let the transition arrangements lapse and then build up to the end-state from scratch. Some of the EU’s current position on matters such as internal security implicitly use this view, treating the UK as a third country rather than as an ex-member state. Obviously that makes the cliff-edge at the end of 2020 very real, although it might incentivise getting more done sooner, to reduce its effect.

The second is to avoid the cliff-edge and extend the transition arrangements into the implementation period. In effect, you’d be keeping things the same until you knew what they were changing to. This is the principle behind the transition period and means only one adaptation process for operators (and citizens) to undertake.

The third would be to build some kind of new settlement for the implementation period; not nothing, but also no as close as in transition. This phased approach would allow all shapes to mark some progress and to spread the adaptation costs, but with the problem that it requires the most negotiation now to realise.

The problem

None of these options is cost-free and none is simple. And if you think they are, then remember that the Irish dimension is profoundly tied up in all of this too.

But perhaps just as importantly, none is being discussed at this stage.

I have yet to meet anyone who seriously believes that the transition period is long enough to negotiate and ratify a complete end-state agreement between the UK and EU. Likewise, I have yet to meet anyone with a detailed plan for a non-backstop resolution to Northern Ireland.

Amortising the problem across time might be one key way of managing these issues. By holding some parts steady, while focusing on others, it may be possible to break matters down into more manageable and less contentious chunks.

But that comes with challenges of its own; challenges that have barely registered so far in a political landscape that resembles – in the UK at least – nothing so much as the trenches of World War One: muddy, lethal and not getting anywhere fast.

Perhaps the key is to remember that the process will matter as much as the end-state: mutually agreeing a practical operationalisation for the strategy on getting to that deep and special relationship will make it more likely that all sides stick with the programme and get to turn those fine words into something like a reality.

The post Getting to an end-state appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

In September 2017, when we took over the position of editors for the JCMS Annual Review, we came in with a vision to address the challenges facing the discipline of EU studies more broadly.

2017 was certainly an eventful year on all aspects of politics, economics and society and represented a critical moment for all of us studying the EU and its politics. This juncture is both exciting and equally daunting in EU history, not least because of the complexity of global challenges, be those addressed at the national, European or transnational levels. One of those grand challenges is precisely the outcome of the process of the departure of the UK from the European Union, following the 2016 EU Referendum.

To solve that puzzle, we invited Prof. Simon Hix (LSE) to deliver the JCMS Annual Review Lecture, addressing the state of play of the UK-EU relations post-Brexit. Prof. Hix was on board immediately and delivered a very engaging lecture at Portcullis House, in the heart of Westminster, where the majority of debates around Brexit take place. The lecture was a public event, attracting audience from all walks of life including practitioners, academics, students and engaged citizens.

In his lecture, which is published as a contribution to the JCMS Annual Review, Prof. Hix addressed the key positions of the UK and the EU in the negotiations one year into the process. Following a game theoretical process of ranking the outcomes of the type of relationship between the UK and the EU, Prof. Hix argued that the basic outcomes have been well-known in terms of a ‘soft’ or a ‘hard’ form of Brexit or a ‘no deal’ outcome. The UK has started to explore the possibilities of a ‘Canada plus plus plus’ agreement and this is certainly reflected in the way that negotiations have proceeded.

Having solved the bargaining game, Prof. Hix concludes that the likely deal between the UK and the EU27 will have the form of a a basic free trade agreement, mainly covering trade in goods with not much on trade in services. Certainly, current events at Chequers confirmed Prof. Hix’s position. In his words, “a basic free trade agreement would not be the end of the process.” The UK will have to negotiate additional agreements with the EU, occasions which are likely to be highly-salient events in domestic politics.

If the UK has to repeatedly fold in its position, then the EU will acquire an even more negative image in the UK, which will make opposition to closer cooperation much stronger. Prof. Hix concluded that in that case, the UK may be stuck with that basic free trade deal for a long time.

• Read the lecture here.
• Listen to an interview with Simon Hix about the lecture here.
• Listen to a recording of the lecture here.

Credit (all photos): Simon Usherwood

 

Dr. Theofanis Exadaktylos

Prof. Roberta Guerrina

Dr. Emanuele Massetti

Co-editors, JCMS Annual Review

University of Surrey

 

 

The post The JCMS Annual Review Lecture 2018 – Prof. Simon Hix on the future UK-EU relationship appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

There are now calls for the EU referendum to be scrapped and run again. It follows the Electoral Commission’s ruling that Vote Leave, the official Brexit campaign group, significantly broke spending limit rules during the referendum.

The group has been fined £61,000 by the electoral watchdog, which has also called for a criminal investigation.

Former Tory minister, Sir Nicholas Soames, said in the Commons today that the referendum, “needs to be blown up and started all over again.”

Senior Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston said there should be a re-run of the vote because, “we cannot have confidence that this referendum was secure”.  She added, “We are talking about deliberate cheating.”

Labour former minister David Lammy called on ministers to declare the referendum result “void”.

He said:

“Can the government declare this referendum void on the basis of the evidence that we’ve been provided by the Electoral Commission, and if not, given this was an advisory referendum by this parliament, can she bring forward the vote in this parliament to declare this referendum void?”

Labour’s Chuka Umunna described the Electoral Commission’s findings as “shocking”, telling MPs the actions of Vote Leave represented an “affront to our democracy”.

He said:

“Given there was a 4% gap between Leave and Remain, and Vote Leave overspent by just under 8%, does the minister agree with me that we cannot say with confidence that this foul play did not impact on the result?”

But the government was not supportive of this view, and Mrs May has already announced this week that another referendum was “out of the question.”

In addition to the fine, the Electoral Commission has referred David Halsall, the “responsible person” for Vote Leave, to the Metropolitan Police for making false declarations of campaign spending.

Darren Grimes, the head of a separate Brexit youth group called BeLeave – which received a £675,000 donation from Vote leave – has also been referred to the police and fined £20,000 by the Electoral Commission.

Bob Posner, Electoral Commission director of political finance, said that what happened represented “serious breaches of the laws put in place by Parliament to ensure fairness and transparency at elections and referendums.”

Under the rules of the referendum, Vote Leave was supposed to have stuck to a £7m spending limit while campaigning.

But the Electoral Commission ruled that Vote Leave secretly went nearly £500,000 over its limit when it made the undeclared £675,000 donation to Mr Grimes’ BeLeave group.

This comes after the Electoral Commission last May also fined Leave.EU, another pro-Brexit campaign group, the maximum £70,000 for multiple breaches of electoral rules.

The organisation is backed by Nigel Farage and funded by Arron Banks, and played a key role in campaigning for Brexit in the referendum.

The group failed to reveal “at least” £77,380 in its spending following the referendum vote, meaning it exceeded the legal spending limits for the referendum, as laid down by law.

The Electoral Commission has also referred a key figure in Leave.EU’s management team, Liz Bilney, to the Metropolitan Police due to “reasonable grounds to suspect” that criminal offences have occurred.

Both Vote Leave and Leave.EU have strongly denied the allegations.

Last May Mr Posner was also critical of Leave.EU for breaking electoral rules for the referendum.

Mr Posner said then:

“The rules we enforce were put in place by Parliament to ensure transparency and public confidence in our democratic processes. It is therefore disappointing that Leave.EU, a key player in the EU referendum, was unable to abide by these rules.

“Leave.EU exceeded its spending limit and failed to declare its funding and its spending correctly. These are serious offences. The level of fine we have imposed has been constrained by the cap on the Commission’s fines.”

The watchdog found the group had exceeded the spending limit for non-party registered campaigners by at least 10 per cent and said that the unlawful over-spend “may well have been considerably higher”.

A spokeswoman for Scotland Yard told The Independent:

“We can confirm that the Electoral Commission has referred a potential criminal offence under section 123(4) of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

“This matter will be subject to assessment by officers from the Special Enquiry Team.”

The Electoral Commission’s investigation also uncovered that Leave.EU did not properly report the receipt of three loans from Mr Banks, totalling £6m, with dates around the transaction and the related interest rate incorrectly reported.

Because the EU referendum was advisory only, the safeguards that allow for legally binding elections to be re-run in the event of rule breaches do not apply.

This prompted Jolyon Maugham QC, the director of the Good Law Project, which launched the judicial review that arguably prompted the Electoral Commission into renewing its investigation into Vote Leave spending, to tell The Independent:

“Legally this ruling doesn’t mean anything for the country. Politically, it should be decisive.”

He explained that the referendum was no more than a “glorified opinion poll” in the eyes of the law.

Subsequently, “The normal safeguards that govern elections that give rise to legally binding outcomes were cut out from the referendum. It is unchallengeable. There is no recourse in law. There is no legal mechanism for overturning the result of this referendum.”

Mr Maugham and others, however, argue that the “cheating” and “very substantial” Vote Leave overspending ruled upon by the Electoral Commission should oblige MPs to disregard the referendum result.

Mr Maugham said:

“The referendum should no longer be pretended to provide any mandate for Brexit. It is now up to MPs to do their jobs and ask themselves whether a referendum that took place against a background of Vote Leave cheating can safely be said to represent the will of the people.”

But he also admitted: “If MPs allow cheats to prosper then we don’t have any democracy left, but, ultimately, if that is what they are prepared to do, there is nothing I or any other lawyer can do about it.”

According to ‘The Code of Good Practice on Referendums’ issued by the Venice Commission, if the cap on spending is exceeded in a referendum by a significant amount, “the vote must be annulled.”

The Code, which is a non-binding guideline, was adopted by the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission in 2006/2007.

The UK is a member of the Council of Europe and has signed up to the Venice Commission.

Their Code of Good Practice on Referendums states under clause 3.3. on referendum funding:

‘National rules on both public and private funding of political parties and election campaigns must be applicable to referendum campaigns.

‘As in the case of elections, funding must be transparent, particularly when it comes to campaign accounts.

‘In the event of a failure to abide by the statutory requirements, for instance if the cap on spending is exceeded by a significant margin, the vote must be annulled.

‘It should be pointed out that the principle of equality of opportunity applies to public funding; equality should be ensured between a proposal’s supporters and opponents.’

The Code is a guide only, and not legally binding.

However, it’s now becoming clearer by the day that the referendum campaign was seriously flawed.

There was significant overspending by both Vote Leave, and Leave.EU, that broke election law, in addition to allegations of criminality and data breaches.

And on top of all the lies and mistruths that the Leave campaigns had to rely upon to win the referendum, there are allegations of possible interference by Russia.

Anyone who believes in democracy, whether a Leave or Remain supporter, should now be seriously concerned about the validity of the result of the EU referendum of 23 June 2016.

________________________________________________________

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Pauline Ravinet ad Meng-Hsuan Chou

On 9 and 10 July 2018, Meng-Hsuan Chou (NTU Singapore) hosted three seminars on higher education issues at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Speaking on ‘What does comparative regionalism offer to higher education research?’, Pauline Ravinet (University of Lille) and Meng-Hsuan Chou introduced the concept of ‘higher education regionalism’, a heuristic framework to examine regional cooperation in the higher education policy domain, and empirically compared and analysed two instances of higher education regionalisms (Europe and Southeast Asia). In so doing, this talk engaged with and challenged the diffusion argument common in both European higher education studies and new comparative regionalism. The empirical case comparisons used publicly accessible documents from regional bodies active in higher education policy coordination, and more than 50 semi-structured interviews with key policy actors involved in these developments. Specifically, the empirical application identified and traced the policy ideas of European and Southeast Asia higher education regionalisms, and considered whether the extant models of regional cooperation and knowledge discourse affected their evolution. Their findings revealed that the so-called ‘Bologna Process export thesis’ and the diffusion assumptions of comparative regionalism were too simplistic and somewhat misleading. Indeed, they concluded that an interdependent perspective offered more traction to understanding the emergence and evolution of higher education intra- and inter-regionalisms.

 

Andrea Gideon and Meng-Hsuan Chou

In ‘What is the role of the EU in the global market for higher education and research?’, Andrea Gideon (University of Liverpool) and Meng-Hsuan Chou discussed the influences that the European Union (EU) exerts globally in the areas of research and higher education from political science and legal perspectives. At first glance, it is not obvious that a regional organisation would have any role beyond coordinative support in sensitive policy domains such as higher education and scientific research. However, they described how the EU has been playing a role since the very early years of integration; this role has been expanding since the 1990s with new initiatives being increasingly developed and centralised at the supranational level. They then discussed the emergence of a potential EU model with regards to higher education and research, and considered whether and how this model could be promoted and defended within and beyond the European territorial borders.

 

Jens Jungblut

Presenting on ‘What determines membership in meta-organisations? The case of higher education and the international association of universities’, Jens Jungblut (Stanford University / University of Oslo) identified what determined membership in the International Association of Universities (IAU) – the only global meta-organisation in higher education. Barriers to IAU membership are low and yet, at the same time, not all universities are members. Using multi-level regression analysis on data from the World Higher Education Database, he tested multiple predictors. The findings suggested that younger private institutions from peripheral areas and those with high status ranks were more likely to be IAU members. International offices, membership in regional university associations and international curricula were also strong predictors, which suggest that members are of a particular type—the internationally-oriented university. He concluded that meta-organisational membership is a complex process involving multiple factors, while being conditioned by the degree of fragmentation and stratification in an organisational field.

 

The post Higher education: regional, global and international appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The argument should not be about whether there should be a hard Brexit or a soft Brexit, because Brexit is a fraud and the loss of EU membership for the United Kingdom will mean not only that the country is disconnected from Europe, but also the rest of the world. Likewise it will mean loss of environmental, consumer, and worker protections in the UK, and also loss of the freedom for British citizens to easily travel, live and work in an EU member state. Australia will probably have a far better trade deal with the EU than the UK after Brexit, so why should the UK as a former EU member state on its own get preferential treatment? Brexit is a coup against civilization and the British citizens themselves will lose most of their rights as a result of it.

With regard to the Brexit fraud and the lies peddled to the British public during the EU referendum of 2016 – eg: £350 million would go to the NHS per week once the UK leaves the EU – it is worth making a comparision with a dodgy sales company making cold calls to an elderly relative. Your elderly relative or relatives – perhaps your parents or grandparents – are being told by a charismatic salesman, or perhaps grandad has been targeted by a charismatic saleswoman, that they have just won £350,000. The charming sales person says that they are unable to pay your elderly relative the prize money immediately, but will get back to them in the near future. When they get back to your elderly relative they say that the prize money cannot be paid by cheque, but requires not just the grandparent’s sort code and account number, but also the debit card number and the security number on the back of the card.

You have tried to persuade your elderly relative that they have been approached by fraudsters, but granny or grandad just won’t believe you, because they have been blinded to reason by a spiv or dodgy sales person. You realize that once your relative gives their bank card number and security code to the individual at the other end of the phone, instead of receiving a prize payment of £350, 000, they will have their life savings taken out of their bank account. In these circumstances it is your duty to tell your relatives that they have been the victims of of confidence trick.

For Brexiteers the result of the 2016 EU referendum is written in stone: 52 percent of those who voted in the referendum, voted for the UK to leave the EU, therefore according to the Brexiteers the “will of the people must be followed”. But if the people have not made an informed choice, then the result of the referendum cannot be “the will of the people”. When people voted for the UK to leave the European Union it was similar to the elderly relative who gives their bank card details to the fraudster at the other end of the phone line. They believed they would get a prize, but in reality all they would get is loss and misery.

©Jolyon Gumbrell 2018

The post Deconstructing the Brexit fraud appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

More of Britain’s exports and imports go to and come from the EU Single Market than any other area in the world. It’s our most important, most lucrative, most vital international market for transacting business, upon which our country’s wealth depends.

Nearly half of our exports go to the EU Single Market, and just over half of our imports come from the EU Single Market. Nowhere else in the world comes anywhere close to that. Nowhere else in the world can get anywhere close to that.

① Brexiters claim we should abandon EU membership so we can trade with the rest of the world. But that’s nonsense.

We trade with the rest of the world now. The EU does not stop us.

② Brexiters claim we should abandon EU membership because other areas in the world are growing faster than the EU. But that’s nonsense.

We trade now with faster growing economies. The EU does not stop us.

③ Brexiters claim we should abandon EU membership so that we can strike our own trade deals with other countries. But that’s nonsense. 

Through the EU, we benefit from the best trade deals, because the EU as a club of 28 countries has the size, the muscle and the clout to negotiate the best trade deals for its members.

On its own, the UK won’t be able to strike deals anywhere near as good as, let alone better than, the ones we already have now through the EU. It will take us many years to replace excellent EU trade agreements with inferior ones.

④ Brexiters claim we should abandon EU membership because we don’t need free movement of goods, services and capital across the EU. But that’s nonsense. 

Easy, borderless, tariff-free trade across our continent is vital for British businesses and British jobs. If we lose frictionless access to our biggest and best customers and suppliers across our continent, our economy will seriously suffer.

⑤ Brexiters claim we should abandon EU membership because they particularly don’t like free movement of people. But that’s nonsense. 

Without free movement of people across the EU’s Single Market, our services industry, upon which 80% of the UK’s economy depends, will slump.

Without free movement of people, British businesses will lose easy access to workers across our continent, to do the jobs that Britain simply doesn’t have enough Britons to do.

What’s more, our workers will lose easy access to the world’s biggest and best jobs market. And Britons will lose the right to live in other countries across the EU on preferential terms.

⑥ Brexiters claim we should abandon EU membership because they don’t like EU rules that govern trade across the EU. But that’s nonsense. 

Without a common rule book covering safety, quality, guaranteed standards and business practices, chaos would ensue between businesses across our continent. Vital protections of workers and consumers in Europe would be lost. The safety of our continent’s people and environment would be put in jeopardy.

⑦ Brexiters claim we should abandon EU membership because they want the UK to make its own laws and rules. But that’s nonsense. 

Most laws for our country are already made in our country.

But rules and laws covering how we transact business across our continent need to be agreed by countries across our continent.

In the EU, the UK has a say and votes on those rules and laws. Outside the EU, we’ll have no say and no votes on those rules and laws, but we’ll still be subject to them, and just as affected by them. 

CONSIDER THIS: The UK currently benefits from two single markets. Our country’s single market. And our continent’s single market. They both operate in the same way and on the same principles.

Free movement of people, goods, services and capital between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland form the basis of our union of the four countries of the United Kingdom. It’s our single market. It’s the glue that keeps us together.

Enabling people, goods, services and money to move without borders or restrictions across the United Kingdom is what makes us a functioning unity. It’s helped to make the UK one of the world’s richest and most successful countries, with common standards, values and history.

Free movement of people, goods, services and capital work together. They cannot be separated without causing discord and disorder across our nation.

Mess with just one of the four freedoms and our union of the UK would come undone. Not only business and employment would be affected, but peace and stability would be put at risk if we could not have the freedom to move, to do business, to trade, to send money, without friction, across and between our four countries of the UK.

It’s the same with EU. The EU functions as a cohesive single market of 28 countries, just as the UK functions as a cohesive single market of four counties. 

The EU Single Market is the glue that keeps European nations together. It has helped to make Europe the richest and most successful continent on the planet, with common standards, values and history.

The UK’s Single Market, and the EU’s Single Market, both represent significant achievements. They work. 

But there’s one vital difference.

Free trade between the four countries of the UK is vital to our smooth functioning as a nation. But doing business with each other doesn’t make the UK significantly richer.

To do that, we need the UK to export our goods and services (and we export far more services than goods).

Doing frictionless trade with other EU countries makes Britain richer. Exports to the EU bring us prosperity. 

If we lose borderless, lowest-cost trade with our most important customers and suppliers right on our doorstop, Britain – and Britons – will be poorer.

Our exports to the rest of Europe bring us wealth. Yes, exports to countries outside the EU also bring us wealth.

We need both. In the EU, we have both.

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Britain needs the EU Single Market

→ Why leave & lose when we can stay & win? – Please shareBRITAIN NEEDS THE EU SINGLE MARKET – VIDEO & ARTICLEBy far, more of Britain’s exports and imports go to and come from the EU Single Market than any other area in the world. It’s our most important, most lucrative, most vital area for transacting business, upon which our country’s wealth depends.Nearly half of our exports go to the EU Single Market, and just over half of our imports come from the EU Single Market. Nowhere else in the world comes anywhere close to that. Nowhere else in the world can get anywhere close to that.① Brexiters claim we should abandon EU membership so we can trade with the rest of the world. But that’s nonsense. We trade with the rest of the world now. The EU does not stop us. ② Brexiters claim we should abandon EU membership because other areas in the world are growing faster than the EU. But that’s nonsense. We trade now with faster growing economies. The EU does not stop us.③ Brexiters claim we should abandon EU membership so that we can strike our own trade deals with other countries. But that’s nonsense. Through the EU, we benefit from the best trade deals, because the EU as a club of 28 countries has the size, the muscle and the clout to negotiate the best trade deals for its members.On its own, the UK won’t be able to strike deals anywhere near as good as, let alone better than, the ones we already have now through the EU. It will take us many years to replace excellent EU trade agreements with inferior ones. ④ Brexiters claim we should abandon EU membership because we don’t need free movement of goods, services and capital across the EU. But that’s nonsense. Easy, borderless, tariff-free trade across our continent is vital for British businesses and British jobs. If we lose frictionless access to our biggest and best customers and suppliers across our continent, our economy will seriously suffer. ⑤ Brexiters claim we should abandon EU membership because they particularly don’t like free movement of people. But that’s nonsense. Without free movement of people across the EU’s Single Market, our services industry, upon which 80% of the UK’s economy depends, will slump. Without free movement of people, British businesses will lose easy access to workers across our continent, to do the jobs that Britain simply doesn’t have enough Britons to do. What’s more, our workers will lose easy access to the world’s biggest and best jobs market. And Britons will lose the right to live in other countries across the EU on preferential terms. ⑥ Brexiters claim we should abandon EU membership because they don’t like EU rules that govern trade across the EU. But that’s nonsense. Without a common rule book covering safety, quality, guaranteed standards and business practices, chaos would ensue between businesses across our continent. Vital protections of workers and consumers in Europe would be lost. The safety of our continent’s people and environment would be put in jeopardy. ⑦ Brexiters claim we should abandon EU membership because they want the UK to make its own laws and rules. But that’s nonsense. Most laws for our country are already made in our country. But rules and laws covering how we transact business across our continent need to be agreed by countries across our continent. In the EU, the UK has a say and votes on those rules and laws. Outside the EU, we’ll have no say and no votes on those rules and laws, but we’ll still be subject to them, and just as affected by them. CONSIDER THIS:The UK currently benefits from two single markets. Our country’s single market. And our continent’s single market. They both operate in the same way and on the same principles.Free movement of people, goods, services and capital between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland form the basis of our union of the four countries of the United Kingdom. It’s our single market. It’s the glue that keeps us together.Enabling people, goods, services and money to move without borders or restrictions across the United Kingdom is what makes us a functioning unity. It’s helped to make the UK one of the world’s richest and most successful countries, with common standards, values and history.Free movement of people, goods, services and capital work together. They cannot be separated without causing discord and disorder across our nation.Mess with just one of the four freedoms and our union of the UK would come undone. Not only business and employment would be affected, but peace and stability would be put at risk if we could not have the freedom to move, to do business, to trade, to send money, without friction, across and between our four countries of the UK.It’s the same with EU. The EU functions as a cohesive single market of 28 countries, just as the UK functions as a cohesive single market of four counties. The EU Single Market is the glue that keeps European nations together. It has helped to make Europe the richest and most successful continent on the planet, with common standards, values and history. The UK’s Single Market, and the EU’s Single Market, both represent significant achievements. They work. But there’s one vital difference.Free trade between the four countries of the UK is vital to our smooth functioning as a nation. But doing business with each other doesn’t make the UK significantly richer. To do that, we need the UK to export our goods and services (and we export far more services than goods).Doing frictionless trade with other EU countries makes Britain richer. Exports to the EU bring us prosperity. If we lose borderless, lowest-cost trade with our most important customers and suppliers right on our doorstop, Britain – and Britons – will be poorer. Our exports to the rest of Europe bring us wealth. Yes, exports to countries outside the EU also bring us wealth. We need both. In the EU, we have both. • Words and video compilation by Jon Danzig. Video by the European Parliament.• Please re-Tweet, and follow Reasons2Remain on Twitter.twitter.com/Reasons2Remain/status/1017491541949059073********************************************► Watch Jon Danzig's 50-minute video: 'Can Britain Stop Brexit?' Go to CanBritainStopBrexit.com********************************************• To follow and support Reasons2Remain just ‘like’ the page, and please invite all your friends to like the page. Instructions to ensure you get notifications of all our stories:1. Click on the ‘Following’ button under the Reasons2Remain banner2. Change the ‘Default’ setting by clicking ‘See first’.********************************************• Please rate Reasons2Remain out of 5 stars. Here's the link: facebook.com/Reasons2Remain/reviews/********************************************• Follow Reasons2Remain on Twitter: twitter.com/reasons2remain and Instagram: instagram.com/reasons2remain/********************************************• Explore our unique Reasons2Remain gallery of over 1,000 graphics and articles: reasons2remain.co.uk********************************************• Reasons2Remain is an entirely unfunded community campaign, unaffiliated with any other group or political party, and is run entirely by volunteers. If you'd like to help, please send us a private message.********************************************• © Reasons2Remain 2018. All our articles and graphics are the copyright of Reasons2Remain. We only allow sharing using the Facebook share button. Any other use requires our advance permission in writing.#STOPBREXIT #EXITBREXIT #PEOPLESVOTE

Posted by Reasons2Remain on Thursday, 12 July 2018

The post Britain needs the EU Single Market – article and video appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

You do what you can, but that doesn’t mean success

At times this week it’s been hard to tell whether the flapping sound one can hear is that of England trying to avoid the build-up of excessive expectations, or of hard Brexiters fanning the flames of their ire.*

Since Friday’s Chequers meeting, numerous individuals have been working themselves up into states of apoplexy about things that have been rather self-evident for many months.

Probably the most emblematic comment came from Maria Caulfield in an interview with her local radio station yesterday, where she announced that a key reason for resigning as Vice-Chair of the Conservatives was that it has become apparent that Chequers was not the final deal, but merely a gambit in the Article 50 negotiations.

Given that no one had pretended otherwise, the biggest question is why this took four days to filter through.

Since I continue to dislike explanations that centre on stupidity, the best argument is that Caulfield’s move was part of a bigger programme of resistance within the party.

My view is that David Davis’ resignation on Monday wasn’t part of that resistance, at least not in the sense of being coordinated. He’d waited over the weekend, to allow many Cabinet colleagues to dip their hands in the blood of the deal, via op-eds and interviews, and his media activity on the day pointed to a desire to limit damage, be positioning himself as unable to support a deal that had Cabinet support.

If he’d really wanted to go to town on this, then he’d have walked down the Chequers driveway on Friday and stuck multiple knives into May, right there.

For Davis, this was probably the last realistic moment from him to step aside on a principled basis, given the apparent direction of travel: the explicit reaffirmation of collective responsibility on Friday was just as important as the text itself.

Once Davis left, Johnson had to make a quick decision about whether to follow. As many noted at the time, he wouldn’t look great whatever he chose (stay and look weak-willed; leave and look opportunistic), but given that his diminished base rests on his triumph in the referendum, departure was always going to be on the cards.

For now, Johnson is keeping his powder dry – either for today’s White Paper, or for a longer-term assault from the backbench later in the year, a la Churchill [sic] – which has meant that immediate scope for further Cabinet resignations is minimal, especially with Fox being brought onside with vague commitments on his department having a purpose.

Indeed, this week has underlined the strength and the weakness of resigning. If you play it right (think Howe), then you can make a huge impact; play it wrong and nothing really happens, except you’re now on the outside.

With Cabinet more locked down, attention moved to other positions of responsibility: this was the point where Caulfield and Ben Bradley moved to hand in their notices. That played to the internal party gallery, but outside has been of minimal interest. Plus, you can only resign once, so this was never going to be a long-term strategy.

Instead, the focus has now moved once more to where the hard Brexit grouping has most power: the chamber.

Last night saw the coordination of Tory and Labour MPs to move amendments to the Customs Bill. The aim is to find language that Labour will find attractive enough to support together with Tory rebels** that would either severely limit or even collapse the Chequers model.

While this approach has the merit of a more substantial base, it runs into several problems.

The first is that Labour might not play ball. The party’s position on whether or not to support the government through Article 50 changes daily, so it would be a foolish politician that sought to put any great stock in any one of those positions.

Secondly, defeat might simply underline the limits to hard Brexiters’ power within the Commons, and even within the Conservatives. Failure on this front of the campaign might risk exposing the ERG as a paper tiger.

And finally, even if successful, the effect of the amendments might be different to that intended. Kate Hoey’s amendment to prohibit any border in the Irish Sea might be meant to stop the backstop arrangements applying across the entire UK, but it also opens a door to a much softer form of Brexit based around an EEA model. Which isn’t what she wants.

All of this is symptomatic of where we now are in the Article 50 process.

The difficult decisions and compromises that have very obviously been needed are now actually starting to be made: that’s why some of the noises off this week have been so heart-felt. May’s approach of ambiguity and vagueness had some value in keeping people on-board, but ultimately it had to see some resolution down to a more fixed and partisan structure, not least because that will be essential in getting to an agreement within Article 50.

Thus today’s White Paper will be essential in that move.

And there is no doubt that we will hear much more flapping in the days to come.

* Flames of Ire will be the name of my death metal band, by the way, when I get around to setting one up.

** Not the same kind of rebels so bitterly castigated by hard Brexiters last time around, when they worked with Labour on amendments to the Withdrawal Bill.

The post It’s coming home to roost appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Every day Brexiters tell us Remainers that we are undermining democracy by campaigning to reverse Brexit.

‘Are you going to campaign until you get the result you want?’ they ask us, with disdain.

‘Yes,’ is our answer. ‘That’s how democracy works.’

Our aim is not to undermine democracy, but to use the democratic process to achieve the change we seek, which is a reversal of Brexit.

What many don’t seem to understand is that any vote in a democracy can be undone by a new vote.

That’s always how our democracy has worked.

In a democracy, no result is permanently binding, as any democratic decision can be undone by a new democratic decision. If that were not the case, it would not be a democracy.

In a democracy, we can campaign for whatever we believe in, even after losing a vote.

That’s always how our democracy has worked.

But we can only ever win if the majority agrees with us at the next democratic opportunity to cast a vote.

That’s always how our democracy has worked.

So, we are campaigning for a new and legitimate democratic opportunity to reconsider our membership of the European Union.

After all, that’s exactly what ardent Eurosceptics campaigned for immediately after the first referendum in 1975, which voted for Britain to remain a member of the European Community.

Eurosceptics didn’t like that result, and wanted to reverse it in a new referendum.

If they could campaign for a new referendum, why can’t we?

It took Eurosceptics 40 years to win their ‘next referendum’. So, some Brexiters say, Remainers will have to wait just as long to get our ‘next referendum’. But that’s not comparing like with like.

The 1975 referendum resulted in an enormous margin of 34.5% for remaining a member of the European Community – a truly decisive result. There was no mass campaign or mainstream call for another referendum for most of the next 40 years of our membership that followed.

But that hasn’t been the same for the 2016 referendum, when the margin for leaving the European Community was a meagre 3.8% – a truly divisive result.

Two years later, we still haven’t left the EU, and voters across the country increasingly believe that Brexit is a mistake. Polls show that around 2,500 Leave voters are changing their minds every day.

And unlike after the 1975 referendum, there is now a mass campaign and mainstream call for another referendum on Brexit, to take place before it actually happens.

A recent poll by Survation showed that 48 per cent of voters want a new referendum on the final Brexit deal, compared with just 25% who disagree.

The poll also indicated that over a third of Leave voters now want another referendum.

There is nothing undemocratic about having a new vote on Brexit when we know the actual details of Brexit. Another vote on Brexit means more democracy, not less.

Why are so many Brexiters apparently wary of a new vote on Brexit? For how long can they rely on a vote that took place over two years ago, and which poll after poll now indicates no longer represents today’s ‘will of the people’?

If the final details of Brexit are so good, and better than our continued membership of the EU, then Britain will surely vote for it. What have Brexiters got to worry about?

But if Brexiters have so little confidence in Brexit that they dare not let ‘the people’ have any further say about it, we should all be suspicious.

Then, we can say, it’s not us, but them, who are undermining democracy.

Nobody knew what Brexit meant in the referendum, and we still don’t know. Not even our government can agree what Brexit means, and this week several Cabinet members resigned because they disagree with the latest proposals for Brexit.

Brexit is not yet agreed. And nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. So, nothing is agreed. Brexit is not yet a done deal.

Only those who are against democracy disagree. And only those who are against the democratic process want us to stop campaigning for what we believe in.

________________________________________________________

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The resignations of Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, and Brexit Secretary, David Davis, along with other government ministers, show that there is no real consensus on what Brexit means.

There is a jagged oozing fissure right through the Conservative government and party, just as there is across the country, because Brexit is as enigmatic as ever.

And if the politicians, and the country, can’t agree on what Brexit means today, then how could voters have known what it meant in the referendum of over two years ago?

So, here’s the simple truth: Nobody gave ‘informed consent’ for Brexit. They could not have done, because in the 2016 referendum, nobody was sufficiently informed about Brexit.

On the contrary, the country was entirely misinformed.

There was no blueprint, plan, proposal or manifesto for Brexit. Just a lot of fairy-tale claims and promises that have all turned out to be false.

If the details of Brexit had been agreed, we’d have voted on those details on 23 June 2016. But we didn’t have any details.

Over two years later, Theresa May can pretend there is harmony in her Cabinet on the type of Brexit Britain will get, but even as she speaks, it’s all falling apart.

How can anyone claim that the country knew what it was voting for in June 2016 when it’s taken until July 2018 for the government to work out a plan for Brexit?

And then for that plan to result in Cabinet resignations, because that’s not the Brexit they had in mind?

And then for that Brexit plan to be undeliverable – because the plan relies on the EU allowing Britain to break its own rules, which they won’t do. Why should they?

Brexit is entirely undeliverable. It was never anything more than an illusion.

It appealed to people who were fed-up with a host of issues, that had nothing to do with the EU, but it seemed that Brexit was the magic word that could fix everything.

But Brexit won’t fix anything. It will break us apart. It is already.

The government keeps going with their daft Brexit plans because they say that’s the will of the people. They think that’s what Britain wants.

But that’s an illusion too. Britain – and Britons – don’t want this. How could this mess be the will of anyone?

We are witnessing our country being dismantled, destroyed, and our international reputation disintegrated.

Nobody can want this.

Nobody would have voted for this if they had known the truth two years ago.

More and more of us can see that Brexit has no clothes. It stands naked, forlorn and shivering before us, dying and gasping for breath, with nothing to offer the nation but years and decades of misery.

If our political masters are truly interested in ‘the will of the people’ they should have no hesitation in asking us what is our will today.

They dare not because they know our answer would be: bury Brexit now.

We want our country back pre-23 June 2016. It wasn’t so bad after all.

And we want our continent back. Europe is where we belong. At the centre, in the heart of it, and not languishing on the periphery.

________________________________________________________

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The post It’s time to bury Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

First published by UK in a Changing Europe, 27 June 2018

Downing Street, Westminster, London

In the classic American musical, Guys and Dolls, the cast sang the praises of Nathan Detroit, the man who ran The Oldest Established Floating Crap Game in the City of New York. The game produced winners and losers with one exception: Nathan Detroit was always a winner. As long as, that is, he could keep the crap game going.

Faced with a choice between splitting her Cabinet into winners and losers, Theresa May has sought to keep the Brexit crap game going. She does this by avoiding betting on either a hard or soft Brexit.

The cost of doing so has been a steady reduction in her political capital, which has been spent in buying off her divided Cabinet ministers. This has involved issuing ambiguous statements that each side can then interpret as giving them what they want.

The Prime Minister’s strategy can work if both sides are willing to keep playing the Westminster game, in the hopes that in the end they can walk away with a lion’s share of the Brexit stakes. If she took the dice away now, the stakes would change. With Number 10 at stake, knives would come out for a street fight. Back-stabbing would end and she would face a full-frontal challenge of a confidence vote by Tory MPs.

The Prime Minister cannot emulate Nathan Detroit by keeping her Brexit game going by floating from one side to the other. Nathan Detroit could do so because of the readiness of New York City police to take his weekly pay-off in return for letting him break anti-gambling laws.

Michel Barnier is the opposite of a New York City street-corner cop. His job is to enforce EU laws that put a strict time limit on the current Westminster crap game. Article 50 stipulates that two years after a national government notifies its intention to withdraw, it will cease to be a member-state.

When Theresa May triggered Article 50, March 29 became the date at which the UK ceases to be a member of the European Union. Doing so mollified pro-Brexit Tory MPs distrustful of her position because she had bet her Cabinet post under David Cameron by voting to remain in the EU.

In the months ahead Theresa May will have to wager her political future, not to mention the future of the United Kingdom, by playing by the EU’s rules in the Brexit negotiations. These offer a very limited choice of alternatives. The soft Brexit option, chosen by Norway and Switzerland, would give the UK customs and single-market benefits. However, it would require the UK to make financial contributions to the EU budget and accept EU rules regulating markets and enforced by the European Court of Justice without a voice and vote in deciding what these rules are.

This is consistent with the EU’s political decision that a state that withdraws must suffer a net loss in benefits. Rather than, in Boris Johnson’s word, having its cake and eating it too.
Hard Brexiters denounce EU terms on offer as vassalage. Theresa May has been keeping her Westminster crap game going by proposing measures that the EU has rejected as violating its red-line conditions for relations with non-member states. If no agreement can be reached on post-Brexit relations, the alternative is no deal.

This is acceptable to the EU and to the hardest of hardline Tory Brexiters but no deal is feared by enough Tory MPs to threaten defeat in the House of Commons.
At the beginning of October the EU will play the role of a tough cop. It will blow a whistle warning that the current Westminster crap game will have to end in less than six months time.

At this point, Theresa May will have to stake her political future by betting on one form of Brexit. A soft Brexit choice would keep some of the economic benefits that member states enjoy in exchange for political conditions that the EU will accept. This is sure to start a bloody knife fight with hard Brexiters and only gain parliamentary endorsement if enough MPs think that the conditions are a lesser evil. .

The alternative is no deal. This will scatter MPs, businesses, and foreign residents to look after themselves. The crap game that Theresa May has been playing will be replaced by a kind of Alice in Wonderland Caucus race. But instead of everyone who plays having prizes, everyone involved would have losses, and the finger of blame will point straight at the Prime Minister.

By Professor Richard Rose FBA, Professor of politics at University of Strathclyde.

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