The EU debate must step up a notch
Jonathan Lindsell, 10 June 2013
Too many EU commentators just preach to their respective choirs
The fact, timeline and nature of Britain’s membership of the European Union looks set to be a major political issue for the foreseeable future – certainly through the European elections (22-25 May 2014) and the next general election, quite possibly up to a referendum. James Wharton MP’s private member’s bill proposing a 2017 referendum is soon to begin. Experts from both sides need to start seriously engaging in their opponents’ arguments and deploying well-researched facts rather than vague assertions and tired truisms.
Both sides are guilty. Nigel Lawson’s headline-grabbing Times article (£) explaining his support for EU exit is almost devoid of statistics. UKIP, with its clanky candidate-recruitment mechanism, sometimes makes arguments that push logic and belief. Michael Gove offered virtually no reasons for his ‘Brexit’ preference. More column-words were devoted directives controlling olive oil packaging, in an admittedly barmy turn (£), than weightier issues such as sovereignty.
Recent articles suggest the Europhiles’ problem is as bad, or worse. Pieces by Polly Toynbee, Sir Andrew Cahn (Nomura) and Frances O’Grady (TUC) all exhibit the same fallacies. Each uses the ‘straw man’ argument when addressing Euroscepticism, characterising the ‘out’ camp as racist, isolationist, and so ignorantly blinkered as to ‘blame Europe for all of Britain’s ills’ (O’Grady).
This belies reality – Euroscepticism encapsulates groups 1) supporting renegotiation, 2) supporting a referendum and 3) supporting an exit. Within them, the model for a renegotiation or ‘Brexit’ varies widely. Even the extreme, what Cahn scorns as ‘splendid isolation’, is in fact the world norm and the position currently held by America, China and Japan – hardly international pariahs.
By focusing on the most radical wing of Euroscepticism, such comments present a false dichotomy between the ‘swivel eyed loons’ and the sensible left – obscuring the fact that leftists including Owen Jones, John Cruddas and Labour’s largest individual donor, John Mills, support the referendum.
The writers assert, a priori, that Brexit would ruin our economy, international standing and even continental peace. Cahn argues that the EU alone has stopped intra-European conflict, ignoring NATO, GATT/WTO, the UN, the Council of Europe and the Cold War. He and Toynbee both make the broken-record argument that an independent Britain will be unable to win trade agreements like the American Trade and Investment Partnership. The TTIP is unlikely to happen in any case – and Britain alone would be more able to negotiate such deals, not less.
To end on a positive note, O’Grady concludes “It’s up to us as citizens to demand a say over what goes on in boardrooms and at the workplace, in trade negotiations and our health service.”
That’s exactly what Eurosceptics are saying too!
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