Ideas on Europe Blog

Just last year you advised the British people to vote for Remain, which you said would be in the best interests of the country. Couldn’t agree more.

Unfortunately, by a slim whisker, ‘the people’ rejected your sage advice and voted instead for Leave.
Being pragmatic, you decided to change your advice and follow ‘the will of the people’.

If the people want Brexit, you said, that’s what you’d deliver.

I say, well done!

It’s clear that when you first became our new Prime Minister, you weren’t quite sure what Brexit meant (same as the rest of us, Theresa!)

So, you came out with all sorts of impressive phrases such as, ‘Brexit means Brexit!’ And ‘We’re going to make a success of it!’ and ‘Brexit is red, white and blue!’

I understand. It got you by during a difficult time.

It’s not easy to follow ‘the will of the people’ when nobody really knew what that might be (obviously, you didn’t.)

After all, ‘the people’ only had a choice of providing one-word in answer to that difficult question of whether Britain should stay in the EU.

Many weren’t sure which word to choose, ‘Remain’ or ‘Leave’.

Many didn’t vote for either word because they were so unsure.

Others would like to have voted for one word or the other but were denied the chance.

You voted for ‘Remain’. A sensible choice I think. But slightly more people voted for ‘Leave’.

So, Leave won.

But there was no manifesto for Leave.

Nothing in your Tory manifesto – only that your party wanted the UK to stay in the EU and to expand the Single Market.

There was no clear explanation during the referendum as to what the word ‘Leave’ meant.

Boris went on a bus to tell the country that Leave meant the NHS getting an extra £350 million a week.

‘The people’ loved that!

Recently the Vote Leave campaign director said that promise alone clinched the win for them.

Frankly, I’m not surprised. Who wouldn’t want an extra £350 million a week for our cash-starved NHS?

But now we know that promise can’t be delivered.

Leaving the EU is going to cost us an enormous fortune. It’s likely the NHS will get less money.

Many of those voting for that word Leave said it was because we have too many EU migrants here, taking our jobs, making our country poorer, and causing too much pressure on hospitals and schools.

But last week you wrote an open letter to all those EU migrants – over 3 million of them – saying the country would be poorer without them, and you wanted them to stay.

All of them!

During the referendum, prominent Brexiters said we could leave the EU and stay in the Single Market.

Just like Norway, which isn’t an EU member, but enjoys the benefits of EU membership by being in the Single Market.

You now say that can’t happen. Leave means Leave.

But Theresa, we really didn’t know that before. The word Leave was never properly defined or agreed.

We were only given the opportunity to choose Leave or Remain.

We’ve never been given an opportunity to choose what Leave would mean.

But now we do have a much clearer idea about the Brexit you’re going to deliver to the country.

It seems very hard, Theresa.

You’re deciding for us what Brexit means, and it doesn’t look as attractive as the one we were told about last year.

We now know that after Brexit, trade with our most important customers and suppliers on the mainland of our continent will be costlier and more complicated.

Our cost of living will go up.

Many companies are planning to move to another EU country and jobs here will be lost.

Many EU migrants have left already, and many have decided not to come.

Around 10,000 key EU staff working in our NHS have gone, and it won’t be easy to replace them.

Unpicked food is rotting on our fields because farmers can’t attract EU labour here any more.

And Brexit hasn’t even happened yet.

We don’t even know if you’ll get any deal with the EU that’s worth having.

But we do know for sure now that the deal you’ll get can’t be anywhere near as good as the one we we’ve got, as an EU member.

So, here’s the thing Theresa.

The country is changing its mind.

You said, ‘Brexit means Brexit’.

But now we know what Brexit means, we don’t want it.

The latest opinion polls are increasingly showing that Brexit is no longer ‘the will of the people’.

According to a new opinion poll by BMG published today, most Britons now back Remain over Leave by ten points.

It’s the biggest lead for Remain since the referendum.

And according to other recent polls, almost twice as many think we’ll be worse off after Brexit than better off.

Similarly, nearly twice as many think Brexit will be bad for jobs as those who think it’ll be good for jobs.

In fact, more and more of us think that the UK’s standard of living is going to drop because of Brexit.

Polling by YouGov since June’s General Election shows that the majority in Britain now thinks the Brexit vote was wrong.

You must be delighted, Theresa. The country has come around to your original advice.

Brexit is not the right decision for Britain. You said so last year, and now the country agrees with you at last.

So, Mrs May, will you now follow and deliver on the new ‘will of the people’?

I know you will. After all, you’ve always promised to follow the ‘will of the people’.

It might be best to put it to a vote, just to make it official.

But you and I already know what the result will be, don’t we?

The country doesn’t want Brexit, just as you said we shouldn’t.

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Grischa Fraumann

At any rate, altmetrics, or alternative metrics, are gaining momentum in higher education (Holmberg, 2016). This post is based on my master’s thesis (Fraumann, 2017) that explores the usage of altmetrics with a focus on research funding. Altmetrics track down and count the mentions of scholarly outputs in social media, news sites, policy papers, and social bookmarking sites. Then altmetrics data providers aggregate the number of mentions. This allows an observation of how many times research has been viewed, discussed, followed, shared, and downloaded.

By following this line of thought, one might relate these mentions to impact or attention in the wider public or the society outside of the scientific community. As such, everyone with an internet connection would be able to engage with scholarly outputs online, even if only a fraction of the overall number of users do so. Nevertheless, it is important to note these mentions do not correlate with the quality of a scholarly output, they mostly visualise a community of attention, that is internet users that engage in some or way or the other with a scholarly output, such as a journal article. Altmetrics is an innovation with potential for further development (Bornmann, 2014; CWTS, 2017; Holmberg, 2016; Liu & Adie, 2013; Piwowar, 2013; Priem, Taraborelli, Groth, & Neylon, 2010; Robinson-García, Torres-Salinas, Zahedi, & Costas, 2014; Thelwall, Haustein, Larivière, Sugimoto, & Bornmann, 2013).

Following this development, altmetrics have reached the highest levels in European policy debates, and have been discussed, for instance, during the Open Science Mutual Learning Exercise (MLE) by the Horizon 2020 Policy Support Facility. MLEs are carried out under the Joint Research Centre Research and Innovation Observatory (RIO), and are aimed at providing the best practice examples from European Union (EU) Member States, and Associated Countries (European Commission, 2017b). Further evidence can be found in EU high-level expert groups that advise the European Commission, among others, on science, research, and innovation. From 2016 until 2017, altmetrics have been discussed in several reports of these high-level advisory bodies (European Commission, 2017a).

Key Findings

For this study, representatives of a research funding organisation, and policymakers were first interviewed. Second, reviewers of a research funding organisation and researchers registered with an institutional altmetrics system were invited to take an online survey. Overall, the survey respondents and interviewees were unaware of the usage of altmetrics. The data also suggests a few of respondents are well-aware of the debates on altmetrics. If one closely follows the international debates on the usage of altmetrics, it might come as a surprise that the concept is so widely unused in this sample. It was expected that more respondents would be aware on the usage of altmetrics. In particular, if altmetrics are discussed in high-level policy debates in EU research policy, researchers need to be made aware of it, because this might also affect their academic career to some extent.

Recommendations

As discussed before, altmetrics seems to be on the rise in policy papers and further international initiatives, such as at the level of EU policy. In turn, the findings that could be drawn from this sample of stakeholders suggest that altmetrics are not yet widely spread. In fact, they were unknown to the vast majority of the study participants. Furthermore, findings from the interviews also showed that different organisational types, academic disciplines, and further categories have to be treated differently. As proven in several technical studies, altmetrics are not yet ready for routine use in research evaluations, and several challenges need to be addressed (Erdt, Nagarajan, Sin, & Theng, 2016). Nevertheless, through altmetrics, it is possible to make a certain impact on the society visible or to visualise attention. How this impact is interpreted and set into context is essential.

Additionally, it was suggested by some interviewees that altmetrics might play a larger role in reporting on funded research rather than demonstrating impact in research funding applications. Criticisms were put forward by some respondents on altmetrics. Further, altmetrics should only be seen as a complementary measurement compared to citation counts and, especially, peer review. For instance, the impact of sharing a research data set can be made visible in a timely manner compared to citation counts of a journal article. The context of altmetrics data and aggregated scores needs to be analysed, as suggested by several scholars. As previously mentioned, the study findings for this sample of stakeholders in research funding indicate that altmetrics are mostly unknown. This needs to be considered if and when the usage of altmetrics is proposed by policymakers.  

Grischa Fraumann is a recent graduate of the Master in Research and Innovation in Higher Education (MARIHE) at University of Tampere (Finland) and Danube University Krems (Austria). This blog post is based on his master’s thesis: ‘Valuation of altmetrics in research funding’.

References

Bornmann, L. (2014). Do altmetrics point to the broader impact of research? An overview of benefits and disadvantages of altmetrics. Journal of Informetrics, 8(4), 895–903. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2014.09.005

CWTS. (2017). CWTS Research Line in Altmetrics. Retrieved June 5, 2017, from https://www.cwts.nl/research/working-groups/societal-impact-of-research/altmetrics

Erdt, M., Nagarajan, A., Sin, S. J., & Theng, Y. (2016). Altmetrics: an analysis of the state-of-the-art in measuring research impact on social media. Scientometrics, 109(2), 1117–1166. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-2077-0

European Commission. (2017a). Europe’s future – open innovation, open science, open to the world: reflections of the Research, Innovation and Science Policy Experts (RISE) High Level Group. Brussels.

European Commission. (2017b). Mutual Learning Exercise on Open Science: Altmetrics and Rewards under the Horizon 2020 Policy Support Facility (PSF). Second Workshop on “How to use Altmetrics in a context of Open Science.” Retrieved from https://rio.jrc.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/Agenda MLE Open Science_Meeting 31 May 2017_Helsinki.pdf

Fraumann, G. (2017). Valuation of altmetrics in research funding. Master’s Thesis. University of Tampere.

Holmberg, K. (2016). Altmetrics for information professionals: Past, present and future. Waltham, MA: Chandos Publishing.

Liu, J., & Adie, E. (2013). New perspectives on article-level metrics: Developing ways to assess research uptake and impact online. Insights: The UKSG Journal, 26(2), 153–158. http://doi.org/10.1629/2048-7754.79

Piwowar, H. (2013). Altmetrics: Value all research products. Nature, 493(7431), 159. http://doi.org/10.1038/493159a

Priem, J., Taraborelli, D., Groth, P., & Neylon, C. (2010). altmetrics: a manifesto. Retrieved from http://www.altmetrics.org/manifesto

Robinson-García, N., Torres-Salinas, D., Zahedi, Z., & Costas, R. (2014). New data, new possibilities: exploring the insides of Altmetric.com. El Profesional de La Informacion, 23(4), 359–366. http://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2014.jul.03

Thelwall, M., Haustein, S., Larivière, V., Sugimoto, C. R., & Bornmann, L. (2013). Do Altmetrics Work? Twitter and Ten Other Social Web Services. PLoS ONE, 8(5), e64841. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0064841

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“Eleven Conservative MPs last night voted to give the Commons a ‘meaningful’ vote over any Brexit agreement with the EU, despite government pleas to let ministers retain control.”

The Daily Mail accused those 11 Tory MPs of treachery.

We say they upheld and restored Parliamentary sovereignty at last. 

The Daily Mail called them “11 self-consumed malcontents.”

We say they are 11 brave democrats who did what all MPs should do: recognise that it’s Parliament, not the government, that should have the final say on what happens to Britain.

The Daily Mail says that those MPs who voted for Parliament to have a real say on the Brexit deal betrayed “17.4 million Brexit voters.”

We say Brexit was sold to those voters on the promise that Britain would have more Parliamentary sovereignty, not that it would be so weakened as to make the role of Westminster meaningless.

The 11 Tory MPs who voted against their government last night were Dominic Grieve, Anna Soubry, Ken Clarke, Nicky Morgan, Antoinette Sandbach, Stephen Hammond, Heidi Allen, Bob Neil, Sarah Wollaston, Jonathan Djanogly and Sir Oliver Heald.

They voted with Labour, the LibDems, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party in favour of an amendment to ensure that Parliament takes back some control of Brexit.

The Daily Mail pictures them all on their front page today as if they are criminals and asks, ‘Proud of yourselves?’

We are proud of them, Mr Paul Dacre (editor of the Daily Mail).

But we don’t think you have anything to be proud about.

What kind of doublespeak is it on your front page today that attempts to conflate patriotism with dictatorship?

Since when was denying MPs a vote on something as seismic as Brexit anything to do with democracy or taking back control.

Dominic Grieve’s ‘Amendment 7’ was a perfectly rational Parliamentary proposal to ensure democratic checks and balances against an executive that looks increasingly dictatorial.

By just a majority of four votes, MPs last night backed Mr Grieve’s amendment to ensure that Parliament, and not government ministers, must approve the final Brexit deal before it can go ahead.

If the amendment was lost last night, our headline this morning would have been, ‘Death of Parliament’. We had planned to picture a hearse with the Houses of Parliament in the back.

Fortunately, 11 Tory MPs put their country before their party to prove that Parliamentary democracy is alive and kicking (just) and that it can, and must, assert its authority over the executive when it is in the best interests of us, the people.

Thank you.

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As we await the verdict of tomorrow’s European Council on the move to Phase 2, it’s perhaps useful to reflect on the decision-making style of Theresa May.

Last night provided a vivid illustration of this, with the amendment to the Withdrawal Bill, which provides Parliament with a vote on the final deal. We might discuss on another occasion how meaningful this is as a policy, given the likely political and time constraints, but its value for present purposes lies in the way it came about.

In essence, there are two ways you can make decisions: open or closed.

In an open model, you aim to build a consensus. That means reaching out to different voices and opinions, finding common ground. This makes it slower and more incremental, since you often have to work around specific concerns, but the pay-off is that you have a broader base for embedding the decision in the longer-term. As someone mentioned to me the other day, there’s a value in reaching across the aisle, if you know there’s a chance the other lot might be in power before too long.

The closed model is much more focused on power. You gather enough of it to overcome opposition at veto points (like votes) and you hoard it as much as possible. Because your supporting community is smaller, you can be more agile and are likely to make fewer compromises on the way, but without the inclusivity of the open method: it doesn’t matter if they don’t like, because they have to follow your decision, and they might come round in the end, in a realpolitik kind of way.

I’m putting May firmly in this latter camp, not just on Brexit, but throughout her political career. Perhaps it was a function of her long stint as Home Secretary – the Home Office has never been a place to promote inclusive policy-making – but it is clear that she does not care to share power any more than is necessary.

In the context of Brexit, we see this time and again. As Prime Minister, she has always kept the strategic planning to Number 10, gate-keeping through the (rare) speech and her slogans on the meaning of Brexit. The taking over of the final phases of Article 50 talks in recent weeks points to her desire not let Davis run loose. Her resistance to the High Court challenge from Miller and to Grieve’s amendment last night point to an unwillingness to open up domestic decision-making.

This is all quite understandable. The country faces a severe test of its abilities and intent, and May wants to have as much control as possible to pilot the very rough seas: her whole pitch to the party last summer was centred around her being the steady pair of hands, the calm leader in times of trouble. ‘Trust me’, she was saying, ‘but let me get on with it’.

But this all points to the fundamental weakness of the closed model: it’s brittle.

The point at which May lost control probably came with this year’s general election. It robbed her of her aura of determination and crystallised all those doubts that existed in the minds of others. The abruptness of that shift was all too visible, but it happens in almost every case of closed approaches: the signs are there around David Davis, especially after the fallout from Sunday’s interview with Andrew Marr (something that might still get much worse tomorrow).

Once broken, it’s very hard to repair the closed model, just as it’s hard to shift to an open model: May is temperamental not inclined to such a shift and others might mistrust her new-found openness.

Which leaves us with a question about what happens now.

For some, last night’s Parliamentary rebellion is the marker of a new, open model: Parliament will take the edges off the hardness and build on the latent consensus for a soft Brexit, maybe even ending up with full Single Market and Customs Union membership (rather than just ‘full alignment’). The absence of other credible leaders for the May-ist model might seem to point that way too.

But this risks over-determining last night. It remains far from clear that Labour is now solidly whipping for a particular outcome – as opposed to just making life uncomfortable for the Tories – or that Tory rebels have broad-enough common cause with the other parties.  Much feels as if it is still about opposing May, rather than a more positive project for Brexit.

Of course, negative projects can succeed – witness the EU referendum – but once beyond the thing you dislike, life becomes a lot more problematic – again, witness Brexit.

As long as the UK and British political debate remain stuck in debating why they don’t like things, they will find that – open or closed – they are much more likely to be the recipient than the instigator of meaningful political decisions.

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It’s the first time that government has been defeated on its main Brexit legislation.

MPs voted to back an amendment by the former attorney general, Tory MP backbencher, Dominic Grieve. His ‘Amendment 7’ won by by 309 votes to 305, a majority of just four.

The amendment means Parliament will have to approve the final Brexit deal before it can go ahead. However, the amendment does not give Parliament the power to stop Brexit.

The Independent reported this evening, ‘The setback is a major blow to Mrs May’s political authority, underlining how fragile her parliamentary majority is and also signalling that those who disagree with her Brexit plans are ready to cross a line in opposing their own leader.’

Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, called it a “humiliating” defeat for the Prime Minister. He said:

“This defeat is a humiliating loss of authority for the Government on the eve of the European Council meeting.

“Labour has made the case since the referendum for a meaningful vote in Parliament on the terms of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.

“Theresa May has resisted democratic accountability. Her refusal to listen means she will now have to accept Parliament taking back control.”

Dominic Grieve said he was invoking the spirit of Winston Churchill to put “country before his party”.

Mr Grieve said he had grave concerns over the potential for Theresa May’s flagship Brexit legislation to become a “very worrying tool of executive power”.

His amendment required that any final Brexit deal has to be approved by a separate act of Parliament before it could be implemented.

Mr Grieve sought to change clause nine of the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, which provides the Government with the power to use secondary legislation to implement any Brexit deal.

That would require less scrutiny by MPs which clearly worried just enough Tory backbenchers to defeat their government.

Leave-supporting MPs including Dennis Skinner, Grahame Morris, Ronnie Campbell and John Mann all supported Mr Grieve’s amendment in order to inflict defeat on the government.

Writing for The Guardian, Jessica Elgot reported that one party whip described tonight’s loss for the government as ‘a game-changer for the hung parliament’.

The MP told her:

“It has broken the dam. It will be much, much easier to do it again. Rebelling once gives you a taste for it. The discipline has been broken and it shows actually that if you do risk it and rebel for something you believe in, you can make a difference.”

The Prime Minister is having to travel to Brussels tomorrow to meet her fellow EU leaders with her authority once again put into question.

Newspapers reported tonight that the government will now be under strong pressure to drop its goal to enshrine into law that the UK must leave the EU on 29 March 2019.

It is scheduled to be put to the vote next week, but after tonight’s defeat Theresa May could now conclude that it’s too much of a risk to lose that vote too.

Tonight, Parliament proved that it is alive and kicking – just.

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The biggest petition, which attracted 137,941 signatures, called for another referendum on the ‘final Brexit deal.’

The petition requested a new poll before March 2019 with three options on the ballot paper:

(1) To revoke Article 50, thereby keeping Britain in the EU
(2) To reject the UK-EU deal and leave the EU
(3) To accept the UK-EU deal and leave the EU

The petition was created by Londoner, Tom Holder, who stood for the Liberal Democrats in Castle Point, Essex, in this year’s general election.

He explained:

‘Regardless of whether individuals voted to remain or leave the EU in the June 2016 EU referendum, everyone should have a chance to decide their future based on the final agreement negotiated between the UK and EU.’

But the petitions were rejected. The government gave its standard response:

“On 23 June 2016 the British people voted to leave the European Union. The UK Government is clear that it is now its duty to implement the will of the people and so there will be no second referendum…

“There must be no attempts to remain inside the European Union, no attempts to rejoin it through the back door, and no second referendum. The country voted to leave the European Union, and it is the duty of the Government to make sure we do just that.”

The petitions calling for another referendum were debated in Westminster Hall on Monday.

Brexit minister Robin Walker said there would be no second referendum and Labour spokesman Paul Blomfield said he understood the “frustration” behind the petitions but ruled one out.

Lib Dem MPs, several Labour members and the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas supported another referendum on the final Brexit deal reached between the UK and the EU.

Said Labour’s Paul Flynn:

“Second thoughts are always superior to first thoughts.”

But this was rejected by Conservative MP, Martin Vickers, who said most people who signed the petitions wanted to change the result of the first referendum.

The SNP’s Peter Grant said he would not rule out another Brexit referendum at this stage but added that people had to “live by the results of their decisions”.

Of course, that’s how it works in our own lives, isn’t it?

If you take the wrong job, you can never resign. If you choose the wrong partner, you can never leave. If you go on the wrong journey, you can never turn back.

Yup. Parliament reflects exactly how things work in our own lives. Thank you.

But actually, no thanks.

Nobody gave an informed decision for the UK to leave the EU in last year’s referendum, because we were not adequately informed.

On the contrary, the country was misinformed, in a referendum that was profoundly flawed.

The Leave campaign had to rely entirely on lies, mistruths and false promises to win the referendum.

Furthermore, their win was only by the tiniest of margins.

Many people directly affected by the outcome of the referendum were denied a vote.

And only a minority of registered voters voted for Leave – just 37% of the electorate.

That proportion would not even be sufficient to change the constitution of the Conservative Party, or UKIP.

It would not have been sufficient to allow Theresa May to hold a snap general on 8 June, because that required the permission of at least two-thirds of all MPs.

Nobody knew in last year’s referendum what Brexit meant, and we still don’t know.

But according to our political masters, you’re not allowed to change your minds. Oh no. You’re stuck with what you were told in last year’s referendum, even though what you were told was wrong.

Never mind that voters could not possibly have made the right decision based on the wrong information.

The electorate was wrongly told that £350m was sent every week to the EU and this could instead be used in the NHS; that Turkey was joining soon and we could do nothing about it; that the EU isn’t a democracy; that Britain has open borders and EU migrants could come here without any restrictions.

And there were many more lies besides.

Polticians say that the electorate has to live by the results of its decision because of course it’s the fault of voters that they believed the lies of politicians.

In other words, those politicians got away with it. They sold us a dud product. And now it’s too bad, you can’t question it or reject it or have any further thoughts about it.

Welcome to Britain’s brave new world, where politicians insist decisions can’t be undone.

Even though, it’s the primary function of democracy: to allow previous decisions to be undone, if that’s what voters want.

(Note: giving the electorate another referendum ‘based on the facts’, with an option to ‘exit from Brexit’, is the official policy of the Liberal Democrats).

• Related video: ‘Why the EU referendum was flawed’

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Is there a connection between the rise of right wing parties in Europe and America, and the devaluation of and the debasement of our languages?  Mike Ungersma thinks there may be a link

Words. They are stones shaped to the hand.
Fling them accurately. They are horses.
Bridle them; they’ll run away with you.

Caroline Fisher

“All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.  When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer”  It was April of 1946 and George Orwell was alarmed at the debasement of English.  “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,” he wrote in his still relevant essay, Politics and the English Language.  Three years later, in the futuristic novel 1984, he attempted to show how the very meanings of words can be turned upside down to support a maniacal and repressive police state.  In the essay he went on:

Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Later, in the same work, he adds: “I should expect to find – this is a guess which I have not sufficient knowledge to verify – that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship.”

Is poetry possible after Auschwitz?

Orwell may have felt he lacked the expertise to link what he perceived to be a degrading of these three European languages to the rise of Nazism, Communism and Fascism, but scholars like the cultural historian George Steiner did not.  In a 1960 article for THE REPORTER, Steiner meticulously traces the connection between the rise of Hitler and the alarming and deliberate misuse of the German language:

Make of the words what Hitler and Goebbels and the hundred thousand Untersturmführer made: conveyors of terror and falsehood.  Something will happen to the words.  Something of the lies and sadism will settle in the marrow of the language . . . It will no longer perform quite as well as it used to, its two principal functions: the conveyance of humane order which we call law, and the communication of the quick of the human spirit which we call grace.

Are Orwell and Steiner – and many others – correct? Is there something special about ‘political speech’?  Do the words, the phrases, the repetition, even the rhythm of a politician addressing a crowd – or more likely today, the TV cameras – differ from the speech the rest of us use?  And why do we ridicule them for such speech?  Or accuse them of lying and avoiding the questions put to them?

At their recent joint news conference to announce a ‘breakthrough’ in their negotiations over ‘Brexit,’ the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, and the European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, employed the language we associate with virtually any modern politician.  Vague generalities, vague promises, few details, with much left unanswered and much more open to competing interpretations.

‘Bare ruin’d choirs’

Like a vicar in a Sunday sermon, May and Juncker were employing the vocabulary of aspiration: “We want the world to be different and better,” not what is, but what ought to be.  For them, politics is a process – a never-ending endeavour to create a better tomorrow.  Unlike the vicar who promises eternal life in exchange for an earthly commitment to sinless living, or damnation for ignoring God’s commandments, the politician can make no such bargain.  For him, there can be  no concrete goal, no identifiable end, no resolution beyond continuing and endless effort.  Like the vicar, the politician seeks to convince, not convert.

Religious homilies and political rhetoric have much in common, but the task of both – the vicar and the politician – has been made much more difficult, religion by the relentless march of science, and politics by the devaluation of language.  For religion, the issue seems decided – at least for Christianity.  Hundreds, thousands of churches today are bingo halls or deteriorating, empty shells, what Shakespeare may have had in mind in his sonnet that spoke of ‘bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.’ Church attendance has plummeted.  Those who identify with Christianity are a shrinking minority.  Sunday is just another day in the week, and even Christmas is robbed of its original meaning.

Just as the Renaissance and its successor, the Enlightenment, eroded the authority and foundation of Christianity, careless use of language may now be undermining politics and even democracy.

Walk into any British pub in the 50s, 60s or even as recently as the 1980s, and you found two permanent fixtures on the bar: a charity box for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and another apt to be labelled, ‘Fifty Pence for Each Swear Word.’  Keep up the flow of profanities, and the publican would admonish – “Gentlemen, there are ladies present.”

The RNLI box remains.  The ‘swear box’ and the landlord’s warning are long gone.

A volley of expletives

Nothing quite devalues a word more than its overuse.  The utter pervasiveness of profanity at every level of modern society has rendered words that were intended to shock useless.  What once was a scale of obscenities that could be employed with gradualness to reach a crescendo of emphasis is no longer available to any writer or speaker.  In every walk of life, profanity abounds – in film, music, theatre, social media, TV – and sadly – even in the school yard.

This one example of the debasement of language has yet to creep into political dialogue – but something else, far worse, has.  Restraint, logical argument, efforts to rationally persuade, all are increasingly replaced by rant, bombast and histrionics.  A new and frightening coarseness and total and intentional disregard for the truth has become the lingua franca of much political rhetoric.  When challenged, the politician responds with the charge of ‘fake news’.  The political right relishes the opportunity to use the tactics this trend offers, and it is having an appreciable effect.

Aided by an enabling technology, the internet and its social media, everyone wants to be heard and no one wants to listen.  Can’t be heard? Then just crank up the volume and shower the world with rage.  Will extreme language lead to extreme politics?  The evidence mounts in virtually every democratic country.

More worryingly, it might even lead to the perfected technique of Nazi Germany, where, as George Steiner notes:

Gradually, words lost their meaning and acquired nightmarish definitions.  Jude, Pole, Russe  came to mean two-legged lice, putrid vermin which good Aryans must squash, as a party manual said, “like roaches on a dirty wall.”  “Final solution,” endgültige Loüsng, came to signify the death of six million human beings in gas ovens.

Steiner concludes his article on post-war Germany, The Hollow Miracle, this way:

Everything forgets.  But not a language.  When it has been injected with falsehood, only the most drastic truth can cleanse it.

Mike Ungersma, Benicassim, Spain

December 2017

The post Anything Goes appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

On the other hand, she says we need you all, we’ll be poorer without you, please don’t go.

Can anyone ever believe anything this duplicitous woman says?

In an open letter this week to all EU migrants in the UK, Theresa May wrote:

“I greatly value the depth of the contributions you make – enriching every part of our economy, our society, our culture and our national life. I know our country would be poorer if you left and I want you to stay.”

Oh, don’t give me that forked tongue nonsense Mrs May. For years you have been saying that Britain has too many EU migrants, and we need to bring numbers down to a trickle.

If that had happened, we wouldn’t now have the three million EU migrants you now say the country can’t do without.

People believed you when you said Britain has too many EU migrants. Why do you think they voted for Leave? They voted so those migrants would Leave. They voted because you said you’d bring the numbers down.

Now you’re saying we need them all. There weren’t too many after all. The country will be poorer without them.

Do you really know what you’re doing? You’re messing with people’s heads; and their hearts, and their lives. What you are doing should be a criminal offence.

Oh you closed your letter with:

“I wish you and all your families a great Christmas and a very happy New Year.”

You think you can wave all this away with a Happy Christmas?

For 18 months since the EU referendum result, you have let EU migrants here suffer whilst they have not known whether they can stay here on the same terms as they are here now.

The answer is clearly no. Their rights will not be as good as they’ve got now. (Ditto UK migrants living across the EU).

If you sincerely think that all the hard-working, upstanding, law-abiding, tax-paying EU migrants in the UK are needed and wanted, why didn’t you say so before the EU referendum?

Instead, at the Tory conference immediately prior the referendum, you said the current numbers of EU migrants in the UK are of zero value. Yes, you did.

As Home Secretary, in your speech to the Tory Party faithful in October 2015 you said,

“..at best the net economic and fiscal effect of high immigration is close to zero.”

High immigration to you then represented the three million EU migrants in the UK.

The front-page headline in The Telegraph the next day was your mantra that migration is “harming society”, causing ‘thousands of British people to be forced out of their jobs.’

You said then that, “when immigration is too high, when the pace of change is too fast, it’s impossible to build a cohesive society.”

You added:

“It’s difficult for schools and hospitals and core infrastructure like housing and transport to cope. And we know that for people in low-paid jobs, wages are forced down even further while some people are forced out of work altogether.”

You blamed too many foreign students (how can you possibly call students migrants?) and too many EU migrants.

You said:

“The numbers coming from Europe are unsustainable and the rules have to change.”

You quoted your party’s manifesto, ‘we must work to control immigration and put Britain first’.

(Is it any wonder that President Trump is somewhat confused as to what you support?)

Now you say:

‘As Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, I am proud that more than three million EU citizens have chosen to make your homes and livelihoods here in our country.’

Now you say, ‘I know our country would be poorer if you left and I want you to stay’.

Now you say that those three million EU migrants are welcome here, when you previously made clear that you didn’t want them here.

Now you say you are proud that those three million EU migrants made their homes and livelihoods in our country, when you previously said they were stealing our jobs and putting pressure on our schools, hospitals, homes and wages.

Do you really understand what is true and untrue, Mrs May? Because you cannot have it both ways.

I will tell you the truth, which somewhere nestling in your heart and soul you must surely know, even if it’s a truth you are not principled or honest enough to say.

You know bloody well that the UK needs those three million EU migrants here, even though you and your cohorts made it absolutely obvious that those three million EU migrants weren’t wanted or welcome here.

(That’s why you won Brexit, get it?)

They are needed because Britain has far more jobs than Britons to do them. You know that. That’s why you dare not let those EU migrants leave, even though you previously said you hadn’t wanted them to come here in the first place.

You know that if those EU migrants go (and thousands already have – around 10,000 from our NHS alone in the past year) then we will not have enough Britons to do all the jobs in Britain.

You know that.

You also know that it’s a lie that migrants are stealing jobs, bringing down wages, and putting pressure on schools, homes and hospitals.

EU migrants are not stealing jobs. We have the lowest level of unemployment since 1975. We have more British people at work than ever before.

Yes, we have too many Britons struggling, on unwanted zero-hour contracts, on wages that haven’t gone up in years, on having to use food banks, and only just getting by. But you know, yes you do, that that is not the fault of migrants.

So whose fault is it?

It’s your fault, Mrs May. Yours.

Yours and successive British governments who have miserably failed to invest sufficiently in the infrastructure of our country, to ensure that we have enough homes, hospitals and schools to adequately accommodate ALL the workers the country needs, whatever their nationality.

You know this. That’s why it is so convenient for you to blame someone else. Migrants.

But now the truth is dawning. Because if you act out your nasty, racist, xenophobic rhetoric that we have too many migrants, and they go, our economy will crash. And then Britons will have even fewer jobs, homes, hospitals and schools, and even lower wages.

And then you won’t be able to blame migrants anymore, because they won’t be here, or at least, not in the numbers you previously said were too high, but now magically say are all wanted and needed.

The fact is that migrants are making a massive net contribution to our Treasury and our economy.

Figures released by HM Revenue & Customs show that in the 2014 tax year, EU migrants here paid £14.7 billion in tax and national insurance, but only took £2.6 billion in tax credits and child benefits.

That’s a huge profit for the country, Mrs May; money you should be using to invest in more schools, hospitals and housing.

But like your Brexit Secretary, David Davis, you are not interested in evidence-based politics and policies. If you were, you would take on board the considerable volumes of evidence that EU migrants are a boon, and not a burden to us.

Last year the Centre of Economic Performance, part of the London School of Economics, published extensive research concluding that:

• EU immigrants pay more in taxes than they use public services and therefore they help to reduce the budget deficit.
• The areas of the UK with large increases in EU immigration did not suffer greater falls in the jobs and pay of UK-born workers.
• EU immigrants are more educated, younger, more likely to be in work and less likely to claim benefits than the UK-born.

And a separate study concluded by University College London in 2014 concluded that:

• European immigrants who arrived in the UK since 2000 have contributed more than £20bn to UK public finances between 2001 and 2011.
• Those EU migrants endowed the country with productive human capital that would have cost the UK £6.8bn in spending on education.

And Theresa May’s own office whilst Home Secretary also undertook their own extensive review of the evidence that concluded:

• There is relatively little evidence that migration has caused statistically significant displacement of UK natives from the labour market in periods when the economy is strong.

What’s more, EU migrants – all migrants – enrich our country in so many more ways than just economically.

What’s that, Mrs May? You don’t believe the evidence? Oh, that’s also the common response of Brexiters, who must now be very confused by your welcoming of three million EU migrants that previously you said were unwelcome.

Well get this. I don’t believe anything you say.

You are not fit to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. You are disuniting our country and our people in a most nasty, despicable way, and destroying the reputation of a once fine, tolerant and progressive country.

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Ignorance.

He admits he hasn’t done any in-depth research on the impact of Brexit. He doesn’t believe in it. He just believes in Brexit; it’s a faith for him.

Who needs facts when you’re a self-described “determined optimist”?

But Theresa May will have no such excuse. She’s known all along that Brexit will be bad for Britain. She said so before the referendum when she advised the country to vote against Brexit:

“Remaining inside the European Union does make us more secure, it does make us more prosperous and it does make us more influential beyond our shores.

“I believe the case to remain a member of the European Union is strong.

“I believe it is clearly in our national interest to remain a member of the European Union.”

Mrs May knew then, as she knows today, that the UK cannot get a better deal with the EU than the one we have now.

She knows, and so that makes her far more culpable than David Davis, who knows very little, and cares even less.

What’s more, Theresa May is in charge. She could put a stop to this farce at any time.

Or, if she really had principles, she could resign.

The EU is the world’s largest free trade area.

As a member, we receive huge benefits worth enormously more than the net annual membership fee of £7.1* billion a year (net amount calculated by the UK Statistics Authority) 

As a member, we enjoy free, frictionless trade with our biggest trading partner by far, right on our doorstep, where almost 50% of our exports go to and over 50% of our imports come from. Nowhere else in the world comes close to that.

Prime Minister Theresa is desperate to continue to enjoy similar membership benefits of frictionless trade with the EU after we have ended our membership, because she knows, more than David Davis, that our economy’s survival depends on it.

She has said she wants Britain to continue to enjoy membership benefits as an ex-member, without being part of the EU Single Market or customs union, without agreeing to the rules of the EU and its market, without being subject to the European Court of Justice to oversee those rules, and without paying anything to the EU for access.

She says she aims to achieve this with a new trade agreement with the EU that’s unique to us, that no other country in the world has ever achieved.

It’s never, ever going to happen. And Mrs May knows this.

Before the referendum she said clearly and loudly:

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

And this weekend, EU officials have echoed a similar home truth. They have insisted that a bespoke deal more favourable to the UK than other non-EU nations was out of the question.

If the EU allowed the UK to have a better deal than members and non-members enjoy, it would effectively mean the end of the EU.

Already, non-EU countries are complaining that the UK should not have a better deal with the EU than they have.

This weekend an EU official close to the EU talks told The Guardian:

“We have been approached by a number of [non-member] countries expressing concerns and making it clear that it would constitute a major problem for them if suddenly the UK were to get better terms than they get.”

The official added that once the UK is out of the Single Market and customs union in March 2019, there could be no replication of the terms of the current trading relationship, or anything close to it, and no special treatment.

“It is not just an indication of some strange rigid principle. It is because things won’t work,” he said.

“First and foremost we need to stick to this balance of rights and obligations, otherwise we will be undermining our own customs union and single market. Second, we cannot upset relations with other third countries,” the official said.

“If we were to give the UK a very lopsided deal, then the other partners with whom we have been engaging and who entered into balanced agreements would come back and question those agreements.”

The Guardian also reported that Lord Kerr, the former diplomat who drafted the article 50 process for leaving the EU, said:

“The chances of concluding even a modest deal [like the EU- Canada deal] and getting it ratified in all 27 [EU]countries, during a two-year standstill period, verge on zero. So, the cliff-edge still beckons: the standstill only postpones it.”

The UK is heading for a sheer cliff edge, that will cause us all enormous damage, from which it may take decades to recover.

David Davis isn’t fully aware of this. He simply doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to know.

He’s walking us over the cliff with his eyes wide shut. The ‘determined optimist’ just thinks we’ll all be able to walk on air.

But Theresa May, she knows. She is fully aware of the dangers ahead.

She knows there is not a hope in hell of the UK getting anywhere near as good a deal with the EU as we have now.

She knows that leaving the EU is going to cause her country, our country, incalculable pain. Yet, she is still taking us over the cliff.

May is acting with malice aforethought. Davis is acting without any thought.

If you love our country, it is incumbent upon you to speak up.

There is only one group of people who can bring the nation to its senses, and urgently apply emergency brakes to the terrifying Brexit juggernaut now hurtling at speed towards the sheer cliff edge.

It’s our Members of Parliament. They are the ones who are supposed to represent us. They are the ones who are supposed to act in the best interests of the country.

This coming week the Commons will vote on an amendment to give MPs a “truly meaningful vote” on Brexit.

The “meaningful vote” amendment is the brainchild of former attorney general, Dominic Grieve, and calls for MPs to have a binding vote on the final Brexit deal before ministers can go ahead with Britain’s departure from the EU.

Senior figures from across the Commons told the Observer last night that MPs considering whether or not to support the amendment should “put the national interest, not party politics, first”.

For the love of Britain, please write to your MP today urging him or her to back this amendment (known as Amendment 7 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill).

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But that will be too late. Mr Gove made his comment for an article for The Telegraph because he’s clearly concerned that Theresa May’s Brexit has now gone from hard to soft.

This is about Mr Gove wanting a harder Brexit than Mrs May is now pursuing, and probably more importantly, (to him), he wants to be Prime Minister.

He said that if the May administration proves too cautious, the electorate will be able to demand a more radical split with the European Union at the next general election.

“The British people will be in control. If the British people dislike the agreement that we have negotiated with the EU, the agreement will allow a future government to diverge,” wrote Mr Gove.

But if the British people are really in control, then we should be able to vote on the direction of Brexit now, and not after the deal has been done.

There is confusion and disarray within the Cabinet this weekend as to exactly what Theresa May and her sidekick, David Davis, agreed with the EU’s negotiators.

The thorny issue of avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland after Brexit was completely side-stepped, to be settled at a future date. And if it can’t be settled, the fallback position according to a joint statement by the UK government and the EU Commission will be for the UK to “maintain full alignment” with the rules of the Single Market and Customs Union.

But this option was completely ruled out this morning by cabinet member Andrea Leadsom, leader of the House of Commons, who stated categorically that the UK will be leaving the EU, and its Single Market and Customs Union.

Justice Minister Dominic Raab clearly outlined how unclear everything is when he said on BBC’s Newsnight last night:

“You can call it strategic ambiguity, you can call it constructive ambiguity… what I am admitting to you, very openly, and honestly, is that we have agreed principles, but that the details still need to be ironed out on this very bespoke set of issues around Northern Ireland which can’t be dealt with properly and responsibly outside of the context of the broader negotiation on customs and trade and all of those other things we have said all along.”

According to media reports, the UK will pay a “divorce settlement” of between £35 and £39 billion. But EU officials have indicated that no firm figure has yet been agreed.

Who really knows what’s going on?

Certainly not the Cabinet. According to The Telegraph Mrs May is now facing a ‘Cabinet battle’ over Britain’s future relationship with the EU amid claims that a “very soft” Brexit had now become inevitable.

Certainly not the British people. Nobody knew in last year’s referendum what Brexit really meant, and we still don’t know.

The government has admitted that they haven’t even done any in-depth research on the impact of Brexit.

Everyone is in the dark, and it’s into the darkness that the government is now taking us.

Our political leaders are blindly going ahead with Brexit because, they say, that’s what “the people” told them to do.

But “the people” were only offered the option of a one-word answer to the extremely complicated question of whether the UK should leave the EU.

Slightly more people chose ‘Leave’ as their one-word response rather than ‘Remain’. But it was not an informed response, because the country was not informed. On the contrary, we were misinformed.

When you have an operation, you have to sign a form that says you give ‘informed consent’ for the operation to go ahead.

Nobody gave informed consent for Brexit, and yet it is still going ahead.

It’s now time to properly inform the nation, and then for the nation to have an opportunity to properly inform our political masters of the true ‘will of the people’, based on the facts.

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That on the face of it appears to be the outcome of last night’s frantic talks to reach a phase one agreement between the UK and the European Union. At least, that’s how paragraph 49 of the 15-page agreement is being interpreted.

You see, the thing is, nobody thought that Mrs May could find a magic way to have an open border on the island of Ireland once Britain leaves the EU. And the thing is, she hasn’t.

The issue has been hung in the air, to be resolved later. And if it can’t be resolved, then the only solution available will be to stay in the Single Market and customs union. Something that Theresa May had – foolishly – completely ruled out.

On the question of the Irish border, paragraph 49 of the agreement states:

“In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement.”

Labour MP Chuka Umunna explained what this means on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning regarding the specific issue of avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland:

“Given that there was consensus in the House of Commons not to have special arrangements for one part of the UK… it’s clear that the fallback position is that we would remain in the Customs Union and the Single Market if at the end of this process they haven’t been able to resolve that issue.

“I mean that’s a radical altering of the government’s position to get to the next phase and it’s necessary, I’m not attacking them for that, I just don’t think they should have set those red lines in the first place.”

So, in summary, nothing’s really been settled yet. The hard talks are still to come.

The Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, was right to paraphrase Winston Churchill this morning, “This is not the end, but it is the end of the beginning.”

The Evening Standard reported that, “While opposition politicians questioned whether the deal would satisfy hardline Brexiteers on Conservative benches, UK business leaders said they were “breathing a huge sigh of relief”.

Whether that relief will be short-lived we will see in the difficult days, weeks and months ahead… but not years. There is less than a year to resolve the issues.

All Theresa May has done is to give herself some breathing space… but not much. 

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All except one of Theresa May’s first Brexit Cabinet were in favour of the EU or its Single Market prior to last year’s Referendum.

Now, all her Cabinet are taking the country on the road to Brexit, even though most of them had previously urged that such an action would cause Britain severe economic damage and put our security at risk.

Of course, in a democracy politicians are allowed to change their minds. But none of the facts about the EU and our membership have changed. And Cabinet members, including the Prime Minister, Mrs May, have not provided any explanation for their ‘change of mind’.

Furthermore, even though they have allowed themselves to change their minds, they adamantly will not allow us, the voters, to change our minds. In responses to all enquiries and complaints, Conservative ministers and MPs have been instructed to give voters the following standard response:

“There must be no attempts to remain inside the European Union, no attempts to rejoin it through the back door, and no second referendum.”

That wasn’t the advice or opinion of most of the current Cabinet ministers before the referendum. This is what they said then:

•THERESA MAY, PRIME MINISTER

“I believe it is clearly in our national interest to remain a member of the European Union.”

“Remaining inside the European Union does make us more secure, it does make us more prosperous and it does make us more influential beyond our shores.”

“I believe the case to remain a member of the European Union is strong.”

• PHILIP HAMMOND, CHANCELLOR

“As an historic sceptic about the EU, I believe that, on balance, the benefits of the Single Market with the deal we have got and the unique terms of membership now offered to the UK, mean that we will be safer, stronger and better off if we remain in the EU.”

“So to those who care passionately about Britain’s influence in the world, I say that our voice will be louder and more persuasive if the United Kingdom votes to remain on June 23.”

• AMBER RUDD, HOME SECRETARY

“I passionately believe it is best for us all and our country if we remain a member of the EU – to take advantage of our special status within the Union giving us access to the world’s largest trading bloc.”

“Leading employers are saying investment and jobs are at risk if we leave Europe. That means future generations deprived of opportunities. It means less financial security for British families. It is just not worth the risk.”

• MICHAEL FALLON, DEFENCE SECRETARY (RESIGNED)

“When Russia annexed Crimea, it was only through the EU that we were able to impose sanctions; NATO couldn’t do that. And it is only through British leadership that the EU continues those sanctions today. Make no mistake – a vote to Leave would be payday for Putin.

“Like it or not, the EU is now part of the collective security of the West. If Britain – its largest defence spender – left, the EU would be smaller and weaker. That would undoubtedly be welcomed by Britain’s enemies around the world. No ally, no partner, no Commonwealth country wants us to leave.”

• LIZ TRUSS, CHIEF SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY*

“I don’t want my daughters to grow up in a world where they need a visa or permit to work in Europe; or where they are hampered from growing a business because of extortionate call costs and barriers to trade.”

“Every parent wants their children to grow up in a healthy environment with clean water, fresh air and thriving natural wonders. Being part of the EU helps protect these precious resources and spaces.”

*She attends Cabinet but is no longer a Cabinet minister.

• JEREMY HUNT, HEALTH SECRETARY

“Leaving EU is not ‘taking back control’ it is surrendering control to a huge bloc on our doorstep.”

“I want Britain’s voice to be strong in the world and believe we will be better off and more secure by remaining in the European Union.”

• JUSTINE GREENING, EDUCATION SECRETARY

”Staying in the EU is smart diplomacy and smart economics.

“Smart economics because we keep access to the European free trade area we call the single market. A single market of 500 million people, and we keep a say over the rules of doing business across Europe. That means more jobs, lower prices, and more financial security for British families.

“And it’s smart diplomacy because we can influence more widely by staying within the EU. As President Obama said, this amplifies Britain’s influence.”

• KAREN BRADLEY, CULTURE SECRETARY

“I want a strong UK economy to pay for the public services we all need, and our economy is undoubtedly stronger in the EU. The simple truth is that by leaving the European single market, Britain becomes less attractive to business investment.”

“If you want a stronger, safer, better off Britain, then the positive choice is to vote Remain.”

• DAMIAN GREEN, MINISTER FOR THE CABINET OFFICE

“Those who want to pull us out of Europe and end free movement should be careful what they wish for. We would lose our access to the world’s largest free trade area, the single market, costing us jobs and pushing up prices. We would compromise opportunities for British citizens to work, study, travel, and retire freely in Europe.”

“Plenty of experts agree that being outside the single market would be the main reason why leaving the EU would cause huge economic damage.”

• SAJID JAVID, COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT

“If we leave the EU, small firms are on the front line and that’s a gamble with people’s livelihoods I’m not willing to take. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy. Let’s not break that backbone with a leap into the dark.”

“Inside the single market we can guarantee continued growth in employment, greater opportunities for our young people, higher investment in our public services and new trade agreements with the world’s global powers.”

• JAMES BROKENSHIRE, N. IRELAND SECRETARY

“Our access to the European Arrest Warrant has allowed us to deport 6,500 European criminals since 2010 – that’s 130 times the number of criminals Vote Leave have identified. If we left the EU, we could no longer use the European Arrest Warrant. That’s just one of the reasons we are safer inside the EU.”

• ALUN CAIRNS, WELSH SECRETARY

“The decision we make on June 23 will affect our prospects for years to come. We have a choice between voting Remain to deliver jobs, investment and growth in our economy. Or we can vote Leave and face the very real prospect of recession.”

• DAVID MUNDELL, SCOTTISH SECRETARY

“Our access to the single market of 500 million people reduces costs for Scottish businesses by removing barriers to an export market, currently worth around £11.6 billion. It secures jobs. The Wilson Review of Support for Scottish Exporting, concluded that over 330,000 jobs in Scotland depend on EU trade.”

“The benefits which Scotland and the rest of the UK gains from EU membership are clear. Stepping away from the EU would be a backwards step.”

• PATRICK MCLOUGHLIN, CONSERVATIVE CHAIRMAN

“One of the things that has shocked me is the way in which people have been dismissive of the single market. Several of those who think we should come out [of the EU] have been saying the single market doesn’t matter. It does matter. It is just vast. It has made the United Kingdom a magnet for investment.”

“We are the world’s fifth largest economy. We’ve been in the European Union for the last 35 years so it hasn’t held us back, it’s actually helped us. That’s one of the things that I think are of vital importance.”

• DAVID LIDINGTON, SECRETARY OF STATE FOR JUSTICE

“I shall vote to remain because our country is better off, safer and stronger in the world because of our EU membership.”

“As part of the single market, we’ve attracted the lion’s share of foreign investment into Europe: every day, foreign companies invest £142 million here. American and Japanese companies tell me that if we quit, we cannot expect that investment or those jobs in future.

“Outside the EU, British firms would still have to conform to EU trade rules to do business there. At present we win 9 out of 10 votes on those rules. Leave, and there’ll be no British voice or vote.”

• GREG CLARK, BUSINESS, ENERGY AND INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY

“I believe that we have a brighter future as a leading part of Europe than out of it. For me it comes down to our national interest. We are a trading nation. Nearly half of all our exports go to countries in the European Union – the biggest free-trade zone in the world.”

Even most of those who attend Mrs May’s Cabinet who campaigned for Leave in last year’s Referendum had previously supported membership of the EU Single Market, according to new research published in October by Open Britain.

• BORIS JOHNSON, FOREIGN SECRETARY

Mr Johnson previously said “what most people in this country want is the Single Market”, and he would personally vote to remain a member of it.

He told the BBC Andrew Marr Show in 2012: ″We would like a new relationship. And it’s very simple – what most people in this country want is the Single Market, the Common Market.”

• DAVID DAVIS, BREXIT SECRETARY

In 1995, the Brexit Secretary called the single market “one of our country’s greatest successes” in Parliament, and previously described the European Economic Area (EEA) option as “too good” in a speech 2016.

• LIAM FOX, INTERNATIONAL TRADE SECRETARY

In 1993 the International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox said, “Conservative members believe in the Single Market because we believe profoundly in the importance of free trade and we want Europe to be at the centre of a free-trading world.”

In 2005, he said: “The progress of the single market, albeit at much too slow a pace, has been a step in the right direction.”

• ANDREA LEADSOM, LEADER, HOUSE OF COMMONS*

In 2011 she told MPs: “I am a big fan of an expanded Single Market because I genuinely believe that it is in the interests of all EU member states.”

And in 2012, she said: “The UK has been enormously successful in achieving its strategic aims of enlargement and deepening of the single market.”

*Attends Cabinet but is not a member.

• MICHAEL GOVE, SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE ENVIRONMENT • PRITI PATEL, SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INT. DEVELOPMENT (RESIGNED) • CHRIS GRAYLING, SECRETARY OF STATE FOR TRANSPORT

In 2014 all three of them voted for a Government that stated that it is, “the Government’s view that measures which promote growth and jobs in the EU, including measures towards completing the Single Market, are the top priority.”

• BARONESS EVANS, LEADER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS, is the only politician attending cabinet who is not on record as supporting membership of the Single Market.
__________________________________________________

Of course, politicians can and do change their minds. But if they can change their minds so dramatically, why can’t voters?

Nobody knew what ‘Leave’ truly meant or involved in last year’s Referendum. As we learn more about the consequences of Brexit, why not let ‘the people’ have another vote?

__________________________________________________

• My graphic shows Mrs May’s cabinet after she first became Prime Minister in July last year. Since the election on 8 June, she promoted to her Cabinet Michael Gove as Environment Secretary and David Gauke as Work and Pensions Secretary. Ben Gummer lost his role as Minister of the Cabinet Office when he failed to win back his seat in the general election. Michael Fallon and Priti Patel resigned.

• The following government ministers, who also attend Cabinet meetings but are not members of the Cabinet, campaigned for Britain to remain in the EU: Jeremy Wright, Attorney General; Gavin Williamson, Chief Whip; Damien Hinds, Minister for Employment, and Brandon Lewis, Immigration Minister.

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What does the EU have to do with ‘sport diplomacy’? In a post published on this site fifteen months ago, I reported on the reflections of a high-level group that was set up by Commissioner Tibor Navracsics in 2015 and that produced a report with a series of recommendations in June 2016.

Since then, the idea has gathered an almost surprising momentum. As early as November 2016, the Council formulated very explicit conclusions on what should be understood by ‘sport diplomacy’, and in May 2017, a Work Plan for Sport 2017-2020 fixing priorities was approved.

All this and more was discussed yesterday, 6 December, in a stimulating seminar organized by the Commission’s Sport Unit in Brussels.

Discussing what makes sense in sport diplomacy.

My major personal takeaway is the slow slide into irrelevance of the ‘soft power’ concept, which has been discussed so often in connection to sport mega-events, from the London Olympics to the Brazilian World Cup or the ‘Chinese (football) dream’.

But the European Union does not need to ‘use’ sport for ‘gaining soft power resources’. The power it wields in external relations is soft by definition. And the EU is at its very best when it plays its modest but efficient role as ‘enabler’, stubbornly promoting a set of values that it wishes to stand for.

The times are changing: the future of sport diplomacy does not lie in high-cost, high-risk mega-events with a huge, but ephemeral, mass media echo and a short-term impact on the ‘Nations Brand Index’. It lies in decentralised, low-cost people-to-people actions, in projects on a modest scale that change people’s lives for the better in a sustainable way (not only for the beneficiaries but also for the enablers, by the way!).

Its success will be based on the credibility and coherence with which values like civil society empowerment, volunteering, gender equality, social inclusion in all its forms are embodied and spread. It will be nurtured by the sharing of one’s own (not so distant) learning curve in matters of good governance, sustainable development, or anti-discrimination. It will be implemented but what Europe already does best: facilitating people-to-people dialogue across borders of all kinds.

It is remarkable that even a national endeavour like the Paris Olympics 2024 seems to have intuitively and enthusiastically understood this: if sport is not ‘made for sharing’, as their lovely slogan claims, and does not aim at making a change for others, rather than only for oneself, it’s not worth it.

Against this backdrop, it is only logical that the ERASMUS+ programme has been identified as the most appropriate, almost obvious, tool for enhancing sport diplomacy actions that are carried by federations, associations, higher education institutions or other actors of civil society with the intention to provide help and assistance to those who are in need of it and to engage in intercultural dialogue.

David Blough presenting one of many (very) good practices.

There is no lack of concrete, convincing examples. Preparing young coaches in countries that do not have adequate training structures, bringing school drop-outs back into education, empowering girls through football, facilitating the integration of refugees in their host society, raising awareness on disabilities and creating organization capacity to address them, building capacity for a new generation of young leaders for the sports movement itself – you name it.

After all the shambles and scandals around large international sport bodies and dubious mega events, the EU kind of sport diplomacy has a promising window of opportunity ahead. If promoted in a modest, but sustained and coherent manner, sport diplomacy can become an extremely positive contributor to the European Union’s external relations. Little by little, step by step, a good idea is making its way.

The post EU sport diplomacy gathers momentum, step by step appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Sometimes one has the impression that everyone involved in European politics is a big fan of Douglas Adams: certainly, as far as Article 50 goes, each new day brings absurdity piled upon absurdity.

The last week has made this point better than most, with the sudden rush to agreement on Monday then brutally undercut and a new stasis emerging.

It’s easy to be very negative about it all – confirming as it seemingly does – everything you thought was wrong with everything.

But for once I’d prefer to stress the positives from the latest batch of events, in the spirit of goodwill to all.

The most obvious positive to take away from it all is the capacity of both sides to demonstrate flexibility and movement in their positions.

Prior to the start of last week, there had been little evidence for this. The British government had stuck to its vague pronouncements that didn’t cohere, while the EU seemed to be on a loop in restating its principles and red-lines.

The apparent clarification on finances helped to open this up: the UK committed more clearly to honouring the large bulk of current liabilities, including the RAL (which makes up most of these), which removed one of the biggest blocks in the road. More importantly, the finances was the most fungible of the Phase I issues and the most pressing for most of the EU27, so it set a positive tone for what might come next. The money was thus both important in itself and as a marker of intent, not to mention signalling that the UK might come round much more to the EU’s position than the other way around.

Even if citizens’ rights was still stuck on the role of the CJEU – something that will be coming back before long – the second key development was a consensus among the negotiators that a statement of intent on the Irish border would be enough to move this latter topic on to ‘sufficient progress’.

This matters because the underlying difficulties of resolving the border question remain as stark as ever. The incompatibility of the EU’s single market, the Good Friday Agreement, the common travel area, UK territorial integrity and UK withdrawal from the single market/customs union has no solution in purely formal terms. Even the UK’s vagueness about ‘technical solutions’ couldn’t really address this point, as Dublin had made repeatedly clear.

Importantly, Phase I is the point at which Ireland has the most leverage, especially since the rest of the EU appeared to stand squarely behind it: to let the UK get away with what it had offered previously would be to risk losing any chance to pin it down, as the agenda moved on.

The compromise then was to work on a statement of principles that would apply whatever the outcome – i.e. including a no-deal scenario – to keep the border open and the GFA operative. With some linguistic fancy footwork on ‘regulatory alignment‘, it was possible to carve out a bit of space whereby the EU could claim no regulatory gap – so removing on key arm for needing a hard border – and the UK could claim it had its own regulatory process – albeit one that one have to very closely follow EU rules.

Put differently, the EU moved on form – from a detailed plan to a detailed set of principles – while the UK moved on substance – effectively tying themselves into the EU’s preferences and regulation.

This compromise seemed to work well enough for all the principals to sign off on it, right up to the point that the DUP raised their objections. But this shouldn’t obscure that the movement took place at all. It now sets the agenda for the work going on right now.

And this is the second big positive to take away: everyone’s working very hard for a deal.

Of all the counter-productive language since last June, ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ has been the most problematic (and the one producing the firmest response from experts).

Every since Monday afternoon, when the wheels came off the compromise deal, figures on all sides have been very keen to stress the positives. The May-Juncker press conference was very brief, but couched entirely in such language, while briefings on all sides kept to the script too. While it would have been tempting to stick the boot into the DUP, the Irish government has made repeated positive noises about the chances of salvaging a new text this week or next, and appears determined not to rock the boot for May.

Just as important has been the language in the UK. With Davis distracted by the impact assessments this week – which also says something about the British situation – it was May taking the lead and again pushing the line that agreement was still possible. While it might be understandable, given her position, it was also apparent that most of her party wasn’t trailing the ‘no deal’ line and that Labour was challenging her competence, rather than the substance of what she had negotiated.

Most importantly in all of this is the Douglas Adams point about deadlines. Yesterday had been set by the EU as the last date to get text agreed in time for the EU27 to discuss prior to next week’s European Council. That has now drifted out to at least tomorrow and possibly early next week. Moreover, Leo Varadkar’s statements also open up the possibility of a special European Council early in the new year, should things not pan out, so that Phase II doesn’t have to wait until February.

Taken together, the impression is that Article 50 is still a going concern and that all sides are serious about making it happen. Certainly, the UK still has tremendous problems with its internal politics, but the fact that it could move as it did should give cause for some positivity about it all.

But a final word of caution. This past week also suggests that the outcome of Article 50 is now likely to be only one of two outcomes: either a deal very largely on EU terms, or a complete lack of agreement. The middle path of a more tailored deal looks less and less probably now. That might sound good to some, but the polarisation of outcomes also raises dangers, especially as and when Phase II opens.

The post Brexit silver (dead)lining playbook appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Did you notice her nose grow an inch?

We can’t believe anything this government tells us.

The Brexit negotiations are going disastrously wrong. Did Mrs May fly to Brussels on Monday just for a free lunch? No. It was one of the most expensive lunches in British history.

She went there expecting to announce a deal had been struck with the EU to enable Britain to proceed to discussing a new trade agreement post-Brexit.

Apparently, everything had been resolved: the issue of EU citizens living here, British citizens living there, the amount owing to the EU, and that thorny issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic Ireland.

So, had Mrs May achieved the impossible on the border issue?

Just two days before last year’s referendum, she warned that if Britain voted for Brexit, it was “inconceivable” that there would not be a new hard border with Ireland.
She told the BBC on the eve of the referendum:

“If we are out of the European Union with tariffs on exporting goods into the EU, there would have to be something to recognise that between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

“And if you pulled out of the EU and came out of free movement, then how could you have a situation where there was an open border with a country that was in the EU and had access to free movement?”

How on earth was she going to fix something that only last year Mrs May said was unfixable?

Easy peasy! Just enable ‘regulatory alignment’ between Northern Ireland and the EU.
What does ‘regulatory alignment’ mean? Who knows? Who cares? Clink of glasses. Tuck into the main course.

Oh hold on, the DUP – the small Northern Ireland party that graced Mrs May with the favour of staying in power after last June’s disastrous general election (well for a small consideration of just £1 billion pounds, so easily plucked from Theresa’s famous ‘money tree’) – were having none of it.

With a thunder face, Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, stormed onto our TV screens, with her tiny entourage of MPs, to rule out any move “which separates Northern Ireland economically or politically from the rest of the United Kingdom”.

‘Will you be staying for dessert, Theresa?’ ‘No, Jean-Claude, I had better get home’.
‘But we’ll have to make an announcement to the media’. ‘Ok, but let’s keep it short.’ ‘Will 45 seconds be ok?’ ‘Yes, of course’.

No leading questions from the UK media. Nothing new there.

The DUP now has the real power over the UK’s future relationship with the EU. Mrs May… she just has empty words, and a nose that grows longer by the day.

Did you watch the five o’clock nose (sorry, news)? David Davis the Brexit Secretary, told Parliament that the 58 Brexit impact reports that he’s been boasting about for over a year don’t actually exist.

Like a naughty boy, Mr Davis had been summoned to the Commons Committee for Exiting the European Union to explain why he hadn’t produced full details of the sector-by-sector Brexit impact reports that Parliament had voted he must disclose.

“There is no systematic impact assessment,” Mr Davis replied.

An incredulous Hilary Benn, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, asked Mr Davis if the government had carried out any forecasts on the possible impact of Brexit on the automotive, aerospace or financial services sectors.

“The answer’s going to be no to all of them,” Mr Davis replied.

Asked by Mr Benn whether there had been ANY economic assessment of the impact of leaving the customs union, Mr Davis replied:

“Not a formal, quantitative one.”

Mr Benn said that the Brexit Secretary’s admission was “quite extraordinary”. Mr Davis said it wasn’t (he would say that, wouldn’t he? Does it matter any more what he says?)

In December one year ago Mr Davis told the same committee that:

“We are in the midst of carrying out about 57 sets of analyses, each of which has implications for individual parts of 85% of the economy. Some of those are still to be concluded.”

He added:

“We’ve got a lot to do, but that’s one of the reasons we are taking our time to get prepared on all fronts. That’s why our 57 studies cover 85% of the economy. Everything that’s not affected by international trade.

“So, we are aiming to get ourselves into a position where we can negotiate within the Article 50 process.”

Oh, his nose looked long then. It’s looking longer today.

Mr Davis is not in any position to negotiate anything.

The bottom line is that he and his department have not done any substantial analyses on the impact of Brexit.

He and his Brexit boss and fellow ministers are so intent on getting us out of the EU, that the details matter not one jot to him, or them.

That’s why the government has no vision, no plan, no blueprint, no manifesto for Britain after Brexit. They have not got a clue what Brexit will mean for Britain, and have not bothered to do any meaningful research to find out.

They are running the country blind, because they have blind faith that Brexit is going to be oh, so wonderful.

There are calls now to hold Mr Davis in contempt of Parliament. Surely that’s a mistake?

The entire government should be held in contempt of Parliament. They are running the state whilst being enemies of the state.

The current government is not acting in the best interests of the country.

Brexit was sold to the nation using a pack of lies. And now Brexit is being imposed on the nation using a pack of lies.

I nose that. You nose that. And they nose that.

This government must go. Nothing could be worse than the incompetent, imbecilic, inept gang of charlatans now running Britain to the ground.

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The energy transition known as the “Energiewende” in Germany is key to Europe’s economic success in the future. It is not just about putting up wind farms and solar panels in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: it is also about using energy storage to create smart energy and transport systems, that will no longer be dependent on burning the fossil fuels of coal and oil. The knowledge gained by the implementation of the energy transition in Europe, will itself become an export commodity to countries such as China and India, which are desperate to move away from polluting coal fired power stations, not only to fight climate change, but also to improve the air quality for their own citizens.

There is some resistence to EU environmental protection regulations from those “Bundesländer”, federal states in Germany, that have traditionally depended upon coal for employment. In an article of 22nd August 2017 published on the website of www.tagesschau.de entitled, “Braunkohle-Länder fordern Klage”, which translates as lignite states call for legal action: it was reported that the Minister President of Saxony, Stanislaw Tillich had written a letter to the Minister of Economic Affairs, Brigiite Zypries, of the German federal government complaining about stricter EU regulations limiting the emissions of mercury and nitrogen oxide from lignite burning power stations. Tillich – who was writing on behalf of his own state of Saxony and three other states of Brandenburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony-Anhalt involved in the open-cast mining of lignite and electricity generation from burning lignite – said that to keep to the EU’s regulations would be technically impossible.

However the answer for Germany’s future economic prosperity will not be to fight against the EU’s climate protection and anti-pollution regulations, but rather to phase out the open-cast mining of lignite altogether. In the process new technology will be developed to bring many more local clean energy power sources onto the electricity grid. This will involve retraining and re-employment of management and workers – who previously worked in the fossil fuel energy sector – to implement the energy transition successfully. Instead of resisting the EU’s environmental regulations: politicians, energy companies and unions should now be lobbying the EU institutions for grants to help with these structural changes of energy supply towards renewable energy and storage technology, that will phase out fossil fuels, in order to create a clean and sustainable energy future.

Sources

http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/braunkohle-laender-grenzwerte-101.html

http://jolyongumbrell.ideasoneurope.eu/2016/04/05/renewable-energy-deal-europe/

http://jolyongumbrell.ideasoneurope.eu/2015/11/24/obsolescence-coal-oil/

http://jolyongumbrell.ideasoneurope.eu/2015/03/30/will-britain-left-behind-energy-storage/

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She said then that it was “inconceivable” that there would not be any changes on border arrangements with the Republic of Ireland if Brexit happened.

As home secretary, Mrs May visited County Down on 21 June 2016 and told the BBC:

“If we are out of the European Union with tariffs on exporting goods into the EU, there would have to be something to recognise that between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

“And if you pulled out of the EU and came out of free movement, then how could you have a situation where there was an open border with a country that was in the EU and had access to free movement?”

Now, of course, she is insisting that Brexit will not result in a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland – but she hasn’t been able to find a way to do it, just as she predicted would happen before the referendum.

How can anyone believe this woman ever again? She is not fit to be our Prime Minister.

In a speech in April 2016, Mrs. May spoke firmly against Brexit and in favour of Britain’s continued membership of the EU.

She said then:

“My judgement, as Home Secretary, is that remaining a member of the European Union means we will be more secure from crime and terrorism.”

And as for replacing the trade we do with the EU with other markets, she asserted that this would be a an unrealistic route. She said:

“We export more to Ireland than we do to China, almost twice as much to Belgium as we do to India, and nearly three times as much to Sweden as we do to Brazil. It is not realistic to think we could just replace European trade with these new markets.”

And there were other serious risks too.

“If we do vote to leave the European Union, we risk bringing the development of the single market to a halt, we risk a loss of investors and businesses to remaining EU member states driven by discriminatory EU policies, and we risk going backwards when it comes to international trade.”

And other risks too.

“Outside the EU, for example, we would have no access to the European Arrest Warrant, which has allowed us to extradite more than 5,000 people from Britain to Europe in the last five years, and bring 675 suspected or convicted wanted individuals to Britain to face justice.”

And leaving the EU, she said, could lead to the disintegration of the EU, resulting in “massive instability” with “with real consequences for Britain.”

In addition, Brexit might prove fatal to “the Union between England and Scotland”, which she did not want to happen.

And if Britain left the EU, she argued, we might not be successful in negotiating a successful divorce settlement.

Explained Mrs May:

“In a stand-off between Britain and the EU, 44 per cent of our exports is more important to us than eight per cent of the EU’s exports is to them.”

She added, “The reality is that we do not know on what terms we would win access to the single market.

“We do know that in a negotiation we would need to make concessions in order to access it, and those concessions could well be about accepting EU regulations, over which we would have no say, making financial contributions, just as we do now, accepting free movement rules, just as we do now, or quite possibly all three combined.”

She added:

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

And in summary, Mrs May said:

“Remaining inside the European Union does make us more secure, it does make us more prosperous and it does make us more influential beyond our shores.

“I believe the case to remain a member of the European Union is strong.

“I believe it is clearly in our national interest to remain a member of the European Union.”

Now her tune has changed.

“Brexit means Brexit and we’re going to make a success of it.

“There will be no attempts to remain inside the EU.

“There will be no attempts to re-join it by the back door; no second referendum.

“As Prime Minister I will make sure that we leave the European Union.”

How is it possible for Theresa May to lead Britain in a direction which only last year she advocated was not in the country’s best interests?

Theresa May is a hypocrite. Enough is enough. She has to go.

My vote is for the UK to Remain in the European Union, and for Theresa May – with her hapless band of Brexiters – to leave office.

Now, all we need is a ballot.

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The Union of the United Kingdom consists of four member states: England, Scotland, Wales and the province of Northern Ireland.

In the referendum, two of them voted to remain in the EU: Scotland and Northern Ireland. Yet the UK government is going ahead with Brexit, without the unanimous consent of all the UK’s member states.

That couldn’t happen in the European Union, where all member states of the EU, however large or small, each have an equal vote and a veto on new treaties.

If the UK was run on the same democratic principles as the EU, then the UK could never leave the European Union without the unanimous agreement of all its four members: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

But in last year’s EU referendum, the democratic wishes of Scotland and Northern Ireland were ignored by the UK government, splitting the United Kingdom in two.

Similarly, Gibraltar – a British Overseas Territory which also had a vote in the EU referendum and strongly chose Remain – also saw their objections to Brexit ignored.

Even though Northern Ireland voted for Remain, one party – the pro-Brexit DUP – is being allowed to dictate what future relationship the province will have with the EU (and therefore the entire UK’s relationship with the EU), because it’s only that party that’s keeping the Tories in power.

The EU’s remaining 27 member states will have a greater say and vote on the final Brexit deal than the devolved areas of the UK and the overseas territory of Gibraltar.

Even the European Parliament will have a greater say on Brexit than our Tory government wants to give our Parliament in Westminster.

Brexiters claim that the EU is ‘undemocratic’.

But in reality, the EU is more democratic than our system in the UK, where we still have an unelected second chamber; where the wishes of devolved UK states can be ignored, and where we still have an antiquated voting system of first-past-the-post (MEPs are voted to the European Parliament using a system of proportional representation).

Brexiters tell us that the EU is run by faceless bureaucrats.

But the truth is that all EU laws can only be passed by the democratically elected European Parliament, in concert with the Council of Ministers, that comprise the ministers of democratically elected governments of EU member states.

The European Commission is the servant of the EU, and not its master. The European Parliament elects the Commission President, has to approve each Commissioner, and has the power to dismiss the entire Commission.

If that isn’t democratic, I don’t know what is.

This time last year, Brexiters mocked that a region of Belgium, called Wallonia, had the power to block the new free trade agreement between Canada and the EU.

But that shows how Belgium, a country only a tenth the size of the UK, has a better democracy than ours.

Under Belgium’s constitution, regional parliaments such as the one governing Wallonia, must give their unanimous agreement before Belgium, as an EU member state, can give its consent to any EU Treaty.

The regions of Belgium have much more democratic power than our devolved parliaments of the UK. That’s how Wallonia came to block the EU-Canada agreement, called Ceta.

Eventually, Wallonia sought and received assurances about the Ceta deal, and lifted their objections, so the EU-Canada free trade agreement could go ahead, which it did.

The EU-Canada trade agreement, incidentally, is calculated to be worth an estimated £1.3bn a year to Britain – but of course only whilst we are an EU member.

Last year, whilst the parliaments of Belgium and other EU countries were democratically considering Ceta, the UK’s international trade secretary, Liam Fox, had to apologise to MPs for not allowing our Parliament to have a debate on the Ceta deal.

There’s something else that makes Belgium arguably more democratically accountable than the UK.

Since 1894 voting in Belgium’s elections has been compulsory. Everyone must vote.

Contrast Belgium’s system of compulsory voting with what happened in Britain’s referendum last year, where around 20 million people who could vote, didn’t vote.

That included around 13 million who registered to vote but didn’t, and around a further 7 million who could have registered to vote, but didn’t.

What a difference 20 million voters could have made to the EU referendum result if it had been compulsory for them to vote.

Polls indicate that those 13 million who registered to vote but didn’t would have supported Remain 2-to-1.

So, in summary:

• The Tory government is going ahead with Brexit, without the unanimous consent of all the UK’s countries, and without the consent of our overseas territory, the state of Gibraltar.

• Although Northern Ireland voted for Remain, just one small Northern Ireland party, the pro-Brexit DUP, is being allowed to have the final say on the province’s (and therefore the UK’s) future relationship with the EU, because that party is keeping Mrs May and her Tories in office.

• The Tory government hasn’t allowed Parliament to have a vote on whether Britain should leave the EU, saying the decision was already made by the referendum (even though the Supreme Court ruled that only Parliament could make the decision, as the EU referendum was advisory only).

• The Tory government does not want our Parliament to have a proper vote on the final Brexit deal.

• The Tory government doesn’t want our Parliament to have a say on which EU laws brought into UK law should be kept, amended or scrapped. 

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The post Which is better: UK or EU democracy? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

“..if Brexit isn’t fatal to the European Union, we might find that it is fatal to the Union with Scotland. The SNP have already said that in the event that Britain votes to leave but Scotland votes to remain in the EU, they will press for another Scottish independence referendum.

“And the opinion polls show consistently that the Scottish people are more likely to be in favour of EU membership than the people of England and Wales.

“If the people of Scotland are forced to choose between the United Kingdom and the European Union we do not know what the result would be.

“But only a little more than eighteen months after the referendum that kept the United Kingdom together, I do not want to see the country I love at risk of dismemberment once more.

“I do not want the people of Scotland to think that English Eurosceptics put their dislike of Brussels ahead of our bond with Edinburgh and Glasgow.

“I do not want the European Union to cause the destruction of an older and much more precious Union, the Union between England and Scotland…

“We should remain in the EU.”

• Theresa May’s speech against Brexit – full text 25 April 2016 

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Olivier Bégin-Caouette

In the Europe of Knowledge, there are strong pressures on national governments to increase funding for research; one of Europe 2020’s headline indicators is to increase combined public and private investment in R&D to the equivalent of 3% of the GDP (see graph below). Beyond the amount of resources invested, it appears critical for both scholars and policymakers to question whether funding coming from different sources or taking different forms have a similar impact.

Progress towards investing 3% of GDP in research and development in EU member states. Source: European Commission

Focusing our analysis on four Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), public funding and research produced in academic settings, we have attempted to analyze the impact of four funding streams, according to the perspectives of actors located within different levels of the higher education systems. Complementing studies based on bibliometric data, our actor-centered approach aimed at grasping the multifaceted and complex phenomenon of research production in a holistic manner. Part of a lager study (see also Bégin-Caouette, 2016), our recent article ‘The perceived impact of research funding streams on the level of scientific knowledge production in the Nordic higher education systems’ published in Science and Public Policy (Bégin-Caouette, Kalpazidou Schmidt, and Field, 2017) relied on a MANOVA processed on 456 questionnaires and a thematic analysis processed on 56 interview transcripts to explore how actors perceived the impact of four funding streams, defined as the funding flows at the actor level including various instruments and consisting in an intermediary layer between public authorities and researchers (Lepori et al., 2007): block funding, competitive funding, excellence funding and strategic funding.

The quality, equity and efficiency of funding streams

Analyzing the average survey scores obtained by the four funding streams, we noted that all streams obtained positive scores, but that, in all countries, competitive funding (defined as funding allocated to researchers based on “traditional” a peer-review process) was perceived as having the greatest impact. On the contrary, strategic funding (defined as a stream stimulating research in specific predefined areas) obtained the lowest scores in all countries but Sweden where it tied with excellence funding (defined as long-term peer-reviewed funding to groups of researchers).

Funding arrangements in Nordic countries have for long being characterized by a large block funding, and participants from all countries and at all levels confirmed it contributed to an equitable distribution of funding, and that equity was linked to the quality of the research produce since no funding body can know in advance where groundbreaking discoveries will occur (Öquist and Benner, 2012). Block funding based on performance measures would also increase research production in an efficient way since the small premium would create a signaling effect and generate symbolic capital for high achievers (Bloch and Schneider, 2016).

The competitive stream was perceived positively across countries because it enhanced quality research in an equitable manner since researchers from all institutions and disciplines could apply. It was however also perceived as being increasingly inefficient because of the diminishing acceptance rates, the correlated ‘Matthew Effect’ (Langfeldt et al., 2013) and the burden of writing multiple applications (von Hippel and von Hippel, 2015). Participants made similar comments regarding an excellence stream, which, despite concerns over equity and efficiency, would enhance the quality of the research production by being more stable, facilitating further grant applications (Bloch and Schneider, 2016) and fostering a critical mass of researchers (Bloch and Sorensen, 2015). Whether commenting on the block, competitive or excellence streams, participants made an association between an equitable allocation of resources and efficiency in research production. Strategic funding, although at the core of multiple recent policy initiatives, was still perceived at the periphery of traditional academic research systems, becoming a niche for emerging areas with less academic prestige (Benner and Sörlin, 2007).

Differences between the four Nordic countries

The MANOVA comparing survey scores by countries revealed some small but significant differences. Finnish participants attributed less importance to block funding than their Danish and Swedish counterparts. Swedish participants, for their part, attributed less importance to excellence funding than their Finnish and Norwegian counterparts. Like previously noted by Öquist and Benner (2012), Swedish participants considered research funding as being decentralized, complex and contradictory. In Denmark, actors attributed significantly higher scores to the block stream, which does represent a higher percentage of their country’s HERD than in other countries. Our thematic analysis is consistent with Välimaa’s (2005) observation that Danish policymakers were more concerned about supporting basic research than innovation, and with Öquist and Benner’s (2012) remark that the Danish National Research Foundation had channeled a massive increase of funding into the excellence streams, thus contributing to the increase in publications and citations.

In Norway, the excellence stream mitigated the negative impact of a scattered competitive stream by stabilizing the research system, fostering strong interdisciplinary centers and allowing promising scholars to attract sufficient funding for path-breaking discoveries (Asknes et al., 2012). It is finally interesting to note that, although the strategic stream is particularly important in Finland and could accelerate the innovation process, participants did not think it had a strong positive impact on the level of academic research produced.

Implications

This study provides concrete example of how different funding arrangements intertwine with existing academic traditions and are interpreted differently by actors located in different contexts. Streams’ adequacy to countries’ culture, history, national environment, industrial R&D and military development could have as much impact as the amount of funding or the specificities of the instrument developed. Despite shortcomings regarding national nuances and differences in actors’ perceptions, our article suggests that funding streams are perceived to have the most impact when they are consistent with academic traditions and the norms regarding an open, equitable and meritocratic competition between scholars.

Olivier Bégin-Caouette, former Canada-Vanier Scholar, is a postdoctoral research at the Inter-University Center for Research on Science and Technology (CIRST), based at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM). He also holds a PhD in higher education (comparative, international and development education) from at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on interactions between political-economic structures and academic research production. He also held the position of visiting scholar at HEGOM (University of Helsinki) and the Danish Centre for Studies on Research and Research Policy (Aarhus University).

Evanthia Kalpazidou Schmidt is an associate professor and research director at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark. Kalpazidou Schmidt´s research interests include European science policy and evaluation, science and society studies, higher education studies, and gender equality in science. She has been involved in a number of European Union funded projects and has frequently been engaged as expert in the evaluations of projects funded by the European Union.

Cynthia Field is a doctoral candidate in higher education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include institutional differentiation, academic drift, sessional faculty and the academic profession.

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