If we leave the EU just where do we go?

We've been members of the EEC/EC/EU for forty years now and yet Euroscepticism is rampant in this country. I suspect we will get a referendum on membership sooner rather than later. But if we do then withdrawalists need a clear and consistent answer to the following question:

Which European institutions should the United Kingdom be a member of?

(Thanks to Wikipedia: File:Supranational European Bodies.png.)

The above diagram shows the various European bodies and the precise combinations of memberships. Several points stand out but the big one is that Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and Russia all have different arrangements and the differences between them could be a splintering point.

Daniel Hannan addresses some of this in Switzerland is a more attractive model than Norway, but Britain could do better than either, but Hannan is not the sole voice of Euroscepticism. He claims "Our preferred model – with some adjustments – is Switzerland", but I'm not convinced all Eurosceptics have delved so deeply into this issue. Many just say "Get out of Europe".

Nor is it clear that the UK would automatically become a member of the European Free Trade Association upon leaving the EU. I'm not even sure if our memberships of the European Economic Area or the EU Customs Union are separately applied for or part & parcel of EU membership and would have to be negotiated anew from outside.

And this is crucial in the debate about access to markets and regulations, and ultimately about jobs. If there isn't a firm answer as to just what the state of things would be the day after the UK left the EU then there will be fear, uncertainty and doubt - the very ingredients that boost the status quo in referendums. And membership of the EU is the status quo...

Labour's first BME MP

My previous post BME Conservative MPs - the pioneers has attracted some interest and I know that several people have been surprised to learn that the first non-white Conservative MP was elected as long ago as 1895.

But what is also surprising is that Labour's first BME MP has equally been forgotten in some quarters. This week Diane Abbott wrote a piece for The Times entitled Labour democracy is strangled by these unfair rules: There will not be a single woman on the ballot paper in which she stated "We elected our first ethnic minority MPs more than 20 years ago." My attention was drawn to this by Daniel Hannan's Daily Telegraph blog post "The case for Diane Abbott" in which he highlighted the comment (and countered with "We elected our first ethnic minority MP 115 years ago" but I'll leave it to others to go into bat alongside Hannan). Abbott has overlooked one of the more interesting characters from her party's history but this may be deliberate. However I'm often one to bust the odd myth in the media and so here goes.

Shapurji Saklatvala managed the astounding feat of sitting in Parliament for no less than three parties simultaneously. Until the 1930s the Independent Labour Party was a "party within a party" within the Labour movement and it was not unusual for Labour MPs to also be members of the ILP. However Saklatvala was also a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, at a time when the Labour Party allowed dual membership. It was not until 1924 that the Labour Party introduced rules barring both dual membership and the endorsement of Communist candidates. In the meantime Saklatvala (who was born in Bombay in 1874 but came to the UK in 1905 to train as a barrister) was first elected for Battersea North in 1922 as a Communist endorsed by Labour. (Battersea was for a long time thought to have been the first place in the UK to have had a black Mayor, John Archer in 1913, but he is now known to have been preceded by Allan Glaisyer Minns in Thetford, Norfolk, in 1904.) He lost the seat in the 1923 election but won it back in 1924 without a Labour opponent. Finally in 1929 Labour fielded an opposing candidate and Saklatvala was beaten into third place; a final candidacy in 1931 produced much the same result. General histories tend only to mention Saklatvala's initial victory as one of the first Communist MPs but virtually nothing else of his Commons career - A.J.P. Taylor comments "he never made much mark" (English History 1914-1945 p.200) and otherwise mentions only that the atheist Communist rallied to the Protestant cause in the Prayer Book debate (p.259). Sunder Katwala's piece in Total Politics: A journey towards equal representation has little more to say beyond Saklatvala's "local popularity in the Independent Labour Party and trade union circles" that enabled his unusual candidacy in the first place. The Communist International's tribute upon his death in 1936, In Memoriam—Comrade Shapurji Saklatvala, offers a bit more, noting how Saklatvala was part of the Indian Nationalist movement and was denied entry to the US, Egypt and India, as well as being briefly jailed for activities during the General Strike. In addition he undertook many speaking tours. I am reminded of George Galloway and other hard left MPs over the years who have made a much greater impact outside the Commons than within it.

Given the complexity of his label, not to mention the Labour Party's desire to first cut all Communist links and then airbrush them from history, it is understandable that Saklatvala has slipped through the net of Labour history. He occupied an ambiguous border area in left wing politics, and when the borders were tightened up he was left outside it so it's understandable if people assume that was always the case.

Daniel Hannan has resigned

Two months ago the seemingly impossible happened. Daniel Hannan finally started to actually do something in the European Parliament when he became the Conservatives' front bench legal affairs spokesperson.

It could never last. Hannan has spent all his political career as a shouter not a doer, rabble rousing rather than negotiating. (If ever one wanted an argument for restricting leadership elections to parliamentarians, the fact that Hannan would win an activists' ballot for leader of the MEPs despite being utterly unsuited to the task is one.) And today the inevitable happened and Hannan has resigned. (Evening Standard - Paul Waugh: Cam's "EU-turn" backed by 1922..but not ConHome)

I'll post my thoughts on the new Conservative policy later, but for now I'll just say that Hannan will not be missed from the front bench. And I doubt he will have much influence on party policy either, after the mess he dragged the party into in the European Parliament. He will just have to rant in the wilderness.

The dangers of knee-jerk constitutional change

So far I think Tom Harris has made the best suggestion about how to respond to the expenses scandal - you can see his brilliant idea at And another thing...: The only possible response to the expenses scandal.

I'm afraid I can't come up with anything quite so spectacular but here's one that would change politics as we know it and that I know many people would be glad to see: Outlaw the Liberal Democrats. That will restore faith in democracy and end the scandal I'm sure!

More seriously there are numerous wild suggestions for constitutional change flying around, some of which seem to have been given no more thought than a brief contemplation in the pub. They are then advocated with an aggressive "any idiot can see this is a good idea" type of reasoning, often with pejorative terms like "reform" and "democracy" used as though they magically validate everything, with those who dare to question just how it will solve the problem at hand bluntly dismissed.

This is in no way a sensible approach to constitutional change. It needs to be carefully thought through, with the knock-on effects considered and with a more permanent basis of support than heat of the moment desires. There are many changes being advocated at the moment which are getting support in the opinion polls, but will people really be happy if they're implemented?

For example one proposal flying around is a standards board that would have the power to suspend or even sack MPs for misconduct. It sounds like a no-brainer doesn't it? Indeed a similar standards board exists for local government. But remember when that board suspended Ken Livingstone from office as Mayor of London? (It was overturned before the suspension took place.) The reaction was against the standards board for seemingly overriding the democratic choice of the people.

The idea of recall elections is taking off. Leaving aside the need to ensure that such a tool is not abused for mere partisan gain, has anyone advocating this ever actually knocked on voters' doors during a parliamentary by-election? I have and to put it mildly voters are not exactly happy that they've had yet another election land on them. Next time there's a by-election on, remember to ask the voters if they want more elections inflicted upon them!

Or there's the simultaneous demands for fixed term parliaments and a snap general election. But the whole point of fixed term parliaments is that you can't have a snap election!

(And fixed term parliaments don't exactly work well either. Germany supposedly has them but this hasn't stopped successive German Chancellors from manipulating the system to call an election whenever they want to. If people want to create the desired effect they need to change the political & popular culture to the point that a Prime Minister calling an early election for political advantage will risk displeasure being felt in the ballot box. But why bother trying to be effective when you can just pass tokenistic ineffective constitutional changes that make you feel good?)

I've also heard calls for more demands for referendums, including ones that the voters can initiate. Direct democracy - it sounds so wonderful doesn't it? But is it always the best thing? Referendums have been used to impose values upon people. In California the courts have just upheld that a referendum can take away basic rights, in this case the right of people to marry. Is direct democracy automatically the best thing if it can be used to deny people their rights?

Then on another level we have suggestions that the whole question of MPs' salaries and expenses should be handled by an independent review body. But one of the reasons why the expenses culture developed the way it did is because MPs did not wish to be seen to be accepting the full salary increases recommended by past reviews and instead an entire culture developed that allowances and expenses were meant to be generous to make up for the wages not being as high as they "should" have been.

And of course the usual suspects have once again pounced on every little thing to demand proportional representation. Apparently this will make it easier to get rid of MPs the public don't like.

So can someone tell me how the majority of voters of London can get rid of Richard Barnbrook from the London Assembly? He was elected by proportional representation after all. Or how are the majority of voters of South East England able to reject Daniel Hannan if they want to, when he is at the top of the list most likely to win the most votes in the proportional representation election on Thursday? Or, if we're taking the single transferable vote, how are the majority of voters of Northern Ireland to reject Bairbre de Brún if they wish? There's no alternative Sinn Féin candidate to choose instead. The harsh reality is that "safe seats" exist not because of magic but because a lot of people vote for political parties regardless of who the individual candidates are, and there's not much that can be done to change that.

Now a lot of this is critical and it's meant to be. I don't believe that there is a set of changes that will act as a magic wand to suddenly transform British politics and end all the expenses issues. Indeed one poll has found that two-thirds of voters agree that there is "nothing fundamentally wrong with Britain's constitution providing that MPs are honest and competent". (Daily Telegraph: MPs expenses: Six in ten voters want autumn general election)

But whilst "if it ain't broke don't fix it" suffices most of the time, it clearly doesn't at the moment. So here are some ideas, no more, no less, to throw into the discussion on ways forward:

* Initiate prosecutions against MPs who have committed criminal offences. If found guilty send them to jail and automatically vacate their seat.

* A standards board with the power to dismiss MPs. Yes this would be a trampling on democratic choice, but frankly there are times when the needs of the country as a whole should override the decision of one individual constituency. The principle has already been conceded at local government level, even if it took the Livingstone case to bring it up.

* That good old standby of an independent review body for MPs' salaries & expenses. However I would give it the power to actually set salaries not merely make recommendations that are politically difficult for MPs to vote in. That may not be popular in the short term but it would be better than the current mess. For oversight I would have the Lords as the chamber in control of the review body.

* For MPs who need a second home in London, instead of giving them the money to rent or buy one, perhaps the Commons should buy the home instead and the MPs only live there for the duration. This is an adaptation of the "hall of residence" idea often floated but repeatedly shot down on security concerns.

* Consider the constitution in a calmer state of affairs - that will produce better results than knee-jerk changes that just jump on the bandwagon.

A lot of this isn't sexy, it isn't dynamic and it isn't radical. But it's targeted at the problem itself, it isn't seeking to exploit the crisis for ends that have nothing to do with it and it isn't proposing the shake up the country. Calm reflection is always better than instant reaction.

How long before we're back in the European People's Party?

Yesterday came the announcement that the Conservatives have formally informed the European People's Party of our intention to cease caucusing with them the end of the current Parliament and seek to create a new grouping of Eurosceptic Conservative parties. (ConservativeHome: Tory Diary - The Conservative Party's exit from the EPP would seem a step closer) This issue has excited a few, bored many and bewildered more for years now but I'll make a couple of prediction - the new group will not succeed and the Conservatives will return to caucusing with the EPP before too long.

The first thing that gets overlooked is that groupings in the European Parliament tend to be very broad churches because the member parties come from quite disparate political circumstances. The groupings are largely vehicles of convenience designed to strengthen the individual parties' position and enable them to do more than they could achieve in isolation. So individual parties are frequently able to put up with a lot of ideological disagreement without taking themselves into the wilderness.

It's also worth noting, as Nicholas Whyte does in his good post From the Heart of Europe: Fianna Fáil and the liberals, that being in a grouping confers potential benefits beyond the Parliament itself:

In addition, the growing importance of the pan-European parties as political vehicles is starting to rub. At the height of his powers, Bertie Ahern was being talked about for one of the top EU jobs. Although that prospect seems much less likely today, the fact is that the internal dynamics of EU politics meant that no FF candidate could ever be a serious runner in the first place. FF's current political grouping is fourth in the pecking order, a long way behind the Liberals, who themselves are not exactly snapping at the heels of the Socialists or the EPP.

Nicholas's full post is worth a good read as it traces the history of a major conservative~ish party (in so far as Fianna Fáil has any core ideology) sitting outside the European People's Party (in their case because Fine Gael blocked entry) and having to make alliances with either the products of temporary divisions in other country's rights (e.g. the French Gaullists or Forza Italia) or the flotsam and jetsam of politics, the latter of whom are not exactly the best bedfellows:

It was all very well to be in with the Gaullists, but times have changed; when the two largest delegations in your group are the Italian post-fascists [Alleanza Nazionale] and the Kaczyński twins [the Polish Prawo i Sprawiedliwość - Law and Justice], you may want to start thinking about moving.

Fianna Fáil has finally managed to join the Liberals, despite not being a liberal party. (Once again this is partially down to the repercussions of the domestic politics of a country - in this case Ireland's liberal party, the Progressive Democrats, have just collapsed and so removed the main veto wielder on Fianna Fáil's application.)

Now whilst Fianna Fáil itself has always been a very unlikely candidate for this proposed Eurosceptic Conservative grouping, its problems are indicative of the calculations that many parties make when choosing their grouping, invariably gravitating towards the largest blocks who offer influence and jobs. Tiny groups on the fringe offer only ideological purity or a temporary berth whilst waiting to get into a larger group. This does not bode well for any attempt to lure other parties out of the European People's Party.

And British-style conservatism is not that popular in Europe - the Czech Civic Democrats are a very rare example of a major party who truly are a mirror image of us. In most countries the main centre-right option is Christian Democracy, and it is the differences between Christian Democracy and British-style Conservatism that are at the root not only of our long term uneasy relationship with the EPP (remember that some two decades ago it was the EPP who were sceptical about our caucusing with them, not the other way round) but indeed with the EU project as a whole, a project that is very much a Christian Democrat one. The result is that there are very few natural allies for the Conservatives in a separate grouping, a problem compounded by the requirement to have members from at least six or seven different member states, and several of the parties already in smaller groups are not exactly comfortable bedfellows.

So I predict that this proposed new grouping will struggle to get the numbers needed to be a recognised party and that once more attention is focused on the flotsam and jetsam that is the only alternative then the entire project will collapse. This leaves only two options, only one of them viable, for the Conservatives in the European Parliament.

One theoretical option is to not sit as any party as all but to sit as independent "non-inscrits". The idea that a serious major party of government in any member state would sit totally in isolation in the European Parliament is laughable. Much is made by Conservative critics of sitting with the EPP of the position of Roger Helmer and Daniel Hannan in sitting as non-inscrits after being expelled from the EPP. But can anyone tell me what either has actually achieved? I don't mean what speeches they've been able to make, I mean what difference have they made to the output of the European Parliament from their position?

(Tumbleweed rolls.)

And so this will leave only one realistic option - begrudgingly return to sitting with the European People's Party, with all the previous measures negotiated to give even a fig leaf of separation (the whole notional "European Democrats" grouping) lost.

Now frankly there's been far too much time spent in the party rowing about this issue. But the situation is far more complicated than many of the extremists have claimed it is, and so the outcome is not going to be the most optimum one. And rowing about it even more is not going to make the slightest difference.