Parliamentary scrutiny of the Brexit process

The House of Lords European Union Committee has produced a report that is for information only about the necessary parliamentary scrutiny of the forthcoming Brexit process. In Scrutinising Brexit: the role of Parliament they refer back to their previous report, The Process of Withdrawing from the European Union, in which the committee had made two very important points. Firstly, the withdrawal negotiations should be conducted in parallel with the negotiations on the future relationship between the UK and the EU (once we are out, that phrase will become accurate) and, secondly, Parliament must be able to scrutinize every stage of the proceedings whether through Ministerial statements, debates or committee enquiries. The latest report, published on July 22 is the first of the reports dedicated to that task. It is for information only but there are several important proposals.

We emphasise that the substance of what is under discussion, rather than the formal stage in the withdrawal process, should be reflected in an appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny. Effective scrutiny, if it is to achieve the objectives we have described, will be essential at all stages, including:

during informal discussions prior to notification under Article 50, should they take place;

during formal withdrawal negotiations conducted in accordance with Article 50; and

during any negotiations on a new relationship, whether these take place before or after the completion of UK withdrawal.

At the same time

We acknowledge that certain elements of the forthcoming negotiations, particularly those relating to trade, may have to be conducted confidentially. We would expect parliamentary scrutiny of the negotiations to strike an appropriate balance between transparency and confidentiality, while achieving the overarching objective of holding the Government effectively to account.

There will have to be some flexibility and some discretion and to that end the report suggests that scrutiny through committee enquiries and reports may well be the best way forward, though ministerial statements and debates will be essential. Committees are more flexible and more used to separating matters, which are necessarily confidential from those that the government simply wants to keep quiet.

The House of Commons departmental Select Committees will probably go through some rearrangements in the near future to allow for the new, vitally important Department for Exiting the European Union and for scrutinizing the process.

We are also aware of suggestions that a Joint Committee might be established to scrutinise the withdrawal negotiations, though we do not believe that such a Joint Committee is necessary. In committee scrutiny, as in the scrutiny of primary legislation, there is a distinct role for the House of Lords as a revising chamber. The House of Lords could bring significant added value, not only through the expertise of many of its Members, but as a result of its long tradition of politically impartial, thoughtful committee scrutiny.

This is eminently sensible and indicates quite clearly the difference between the two Chambers, their separate roles and their different approach.

We believe that the House of Lords can best contribute to effective parliamentary oversight of the forthcoming negotiations by charging the European Union Committee with explicit responsibility for scrutinising the negotiations. This will require revised terms of reference for the European Union Committee, possibly underpinned by a new scrutiny reserve resolution. We look forward to engaging with the Leader of the House and with domestic committees in developing more detailed proposals in coming weeks.

Withdrawal from the EU is arguably the most complex, demanding and important administrative and diplomatic task that the Government has undertaken since the Second World War. Parliament, if it is to undertake its scrutiny role effectively, will need additional resources that are proportionate to the scale of the challenge. We invite the domestic committees of the House to address the question of resourcing as a matter of urgency.

In the meantime, the Committee proposes to carry on with its work of scrutinizing EU documents though with attention to the withdrawal process and to produce a number of short reports on the various subjects that will be negotiated on. These are promised for the near future, even before the actual negotiations begin.

More Brexit discussion

This time it is about fisheries, a subject of some importance and one that this blog will be covering. The House of Commons Library has produced a short Briefing Paper under the title Brexit: What next for UK fisheries?. A friend called my attention to it and described the paper as "pusillanimous". Slightly more politely, I would call it "careful", which is not necessarily a bad thing at this stage but one would like to see a little more emphasis on countries that are outside the EU, run their own fisheries and do, somehow, manage to be successful at it and at negotiations with the EU.

Yes, dear readers, Norway and Iceland negotiate themselves both with the EU and at international level, like big grown up countries. The implication in the paper is that the UK is going to find that rather difficult and may well lose access to the European market, which, as it happens, buys fish from what will, we assume, be designated UK waters because it wants to not because it is forced.

Usually, these briefing papers are well produced but there is some sign of haste with this one. Several times whole sentences and paragraphs are repeated either because nobody had edited or proof-read the paper or because the author thinks that its readers have the memory of a goldfish. (Oh look, another piece of sea weed. Doesn't it look just like the last one.) Also, for some reason George Eustice, Minister of State at DEFRA, is called George Eustace in the text though given his correct moniker in the notes.

Some things do become clear. According to the 1976 international agreements home waters are 200 nautical miles from shore and it was a certain sleight of hand that enabled the EU to announce that actually it was all their waters. Negotiations should focus on that.

The much vaunted reforms of the Common Fisheries Policy have not gone all that far and, in any case, would not have been needed if the the Policy had not been such an economic and ecological disaster. Those discards, which are still happening, could have been stopped many years ago through various technical methods, such a mesh size but that is hard to achieve with the political structure of the CFP. That can be resolved if we disentangle ourselves from that pernicious structure.

Finally, what of co-operation with other countries once the fisheries are under British control? Well, oddly enough, that is not an impossibility:

The UK would need to cooperate with the EU after Brexit on quota setting. Cooperation on sharing stocks is required as many fish stocks are migratory and therefore cross EEZ boundaries. Fish populations could be damaged if countries failed to coordinate on fishing effort.

Such cooperation is enshrined in international law. The UN Agreement on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 199628 require cooperation on the conservation and management of fish stocks that straddle national jurisdictions. The UK has ratified these agreements.

Such cooperation is currently seen in Norway and other non-EU European countries. Around 90% of Norway’s fisheries are shared with other countries29, even though it is much more geographically isolated than the UK. The Norwegians set fish quotas and management strategies for important fish stocks in negotiation with other countries, including the EU and Russia. Norway and the EU have developed management strategies for several joint stocks including cod, haddock and herring.

The EU cooperates and negotiates with non-EU countries on behalf of Member States. The outcome of negotiations on one stock may be influenced by negotiations on another.

Following Brexit the UK will have to:

• maintain a close working relationship with the EU to enable the effective management of fisheries;

• agree a mechanism for agreeing quotas and management measures with the EU and other countries. This could be a bilateral mechanism between the UK and EU “in the case of stocks that are shared only between the EU and UK”, or through the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) for stocks shared with other countries “as is currently the case with mackerel, which is negotiated between the EU, Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands”.

Perhaps. Or perhaps other structures will have to be created though there is much to be said for using the ones already in existence. The point is that these are all soluble problems.

We need to create another policy that will include our intentions towards other countries and towards the fishing industry in this one.

Brexit debates begin

Parliament has risen for the summer and the silly season is upon us. That is the only explanation I can give to the extraordinary hissing and screaming about the resignation honours' list. Prime Minister names his friends and allies in his last honours list - shock! There are no objective criteria for political honours so whoever is on the list there will be a great deal of hissing and screaming. The only way to solve the problem is to abolish the whole system of honours. Would the hacks and others who are getting all worked up at the moment agree with that? I doubt it. For one thing every hack nurtures a largely unrealistic hope of being on that list one day. (Incidentally, and completely off the subject, something similar is the only solution to the drug problem in the Olympics - call an end to that farce.)

Meanwhile, in another corner of the hippy-hoppy fields just outside the village of Loose Chipping dwindling bands of Remainers are still munching away on the hippy-hoppy grass and calling with decreasing assurance for a second referendum, for a way to stop the Brexit process and for a way to punish the revolting peasants, if needs be by destroying the economy (unlikely to happen but if your are a Remainer Munchkin you can go on hoping). They are also wailing about the misleading information that had come from the Leave campaign and are strangely coy about more than misleading information from the Remain campaign. I assume this will just go on and on and on until the last Remainer Munchkin gets bored.

Elsewhere, people are beginning to discuss what should be discussed in those negotiations. There will be many issues and some of them are going to be quite difficult though not necessarily as difficult as they are made out at the moment.

The House of Lords European Union Committee, source of some excellent (and some not so good) reports has produced its Third Report of the 2016 - 17 Session in which it enumerated its activity of the previous, 2015 - 16 one. Worth glancing through, in my opinion and the various publications can be read for free on line. In the Summary there is a brief outline of the work of the Committee and how it is likely to change over the coming months.

The European Union Committee of the House of Lords scrutinises the UK Government’s policies and actions in respect of the EU; considers and seeks to influence the development of policies and draft laws proposed by the EU institutions; and represents the House of Lords in its dealings with the EU institutions and other Member States.

Following the decision of UK citizens to vote to leave the EU at the 23 June 2016 referendum, the focus of the Committee’s work will shift in the coming months, from scrutiny of EU documents to examination of the Government’s objectives in achieving the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and in building a new and lasting relationship.

Given that all through those negotiations we shall still be members of the European Union, I hope the committee and the various sub-committees will not abandon completely the scrutiny of EU documents.

The House of Lords debate about post-Brexit agriculture, problems and possibilities is not very long and is well worth reading. Britain's food production is a thriving industry and the chances of not having any markets inside and outside the country are slim (though there were odd problems with the EU or its member states banning such things as British beef long after FMD had been dealt with, though no thanks to DEFRA). Lord Gardiner of Kimble, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment and Rural Affairs gave some figures in his reply:

Some 70% of UK land is agricultural. We have a world-class food and farming industry that generates over £100 billion a year for our economy.

Our Great British Food Unit is promoting great British produce at home and abroad, boosting the £18 billion in food and drink that we sold across the world in 2015, and cementing Britain’s reputation as a global food nation. From Welsh lamb and Northern Irish beef to Scotch whisky and English wines—I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, will not mind me saying that I do not think any of us would consider those to be niche—we should be proud of the UK industry’s world renown for the quality of its produce and its high standards of animal welfare. I am very conscious of what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans said about the importance of high standards and, indeed, what was said about procurement.

We know that there is great global demand for quality British dairy products. For example, the Wensleydale Creamery now exports Yorkshire Wensleydale cheese around the world, which accounts for 14% of its business. I was delighted that my noble friend Lady McIntosh also referred to her favourite Yorkshire cheese. The UK dairy industry exported to 138 countries last year, totalling £1.2 billion. Dairy exports to China have increased by more than three-quarters in value compared with 2014.

Several things bothered noble peers: access to the Single Market after Brexit, the presence of casual workers on whom farmers and food producers rely and, above all, subsidies or, as Lord Gardiner put it, support. Well, what's in a name?

The assumption is that there will be less in the kitty by way of subsidy or support for the farmers than they were getting from the EU but is that necessarily a bad thing? Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer led the debate for the Lib-Dems and, after listing the various problems that might hit agriculture after Brexit she said:

However, it is not all doom and gloom. There could be a new settlement for farmers and for our environment. It will require a total redesign of both the legislation around the environment—80% of it has come from the EU, and it has helped to preserve much of the fabric of rural Britain to date—and a new rural settlement with farmers. Quite rightly, the British taxpaying public will expect to see much more for their money. Gone will be the days of subsidies based on landholding size, no matter how few public benefits that land produces or, worse, how many long-term costs occur—for example, in soil degradation, biodiversity loss or water pollution.

Given what a relatively small and densely populated island we are, we really cannot afford to separate agriculture from wildlife and landscape. That is the first real challenge to Defra in considering what strategies it should be employing for a post-Brexit scenario. So far it has produced separate strategies for food, farming and biodiversity. That is not going to be acceptable; it is going to have to produce a whole rural Britain strategy.

The CAP did a lot of good in enabling family farms to survive. That will be another big challenge for Defra: to ensure that the sort of incentives it produces in future will encourage young entrants into farming and enable them to access the finance in order to share some of the machinery and capital investments necessary, particularly for some of those smaller family farms. We cannot expect farmers to manage, say, footpaths, dry stone walls and hedges for nothing. The public enjoy the benefits of the countryside and they will want to continue, so we must pay our land managers—the farmers—properly for that.

This blog will do its best to follow as many of the forthcoming debates as possible.

Circling round the subject

There seems to be far too much ink (metaphorically speaking) spilled on matters to do with the Brexit referendum but occasionally there might be something to add even by this blog. For example, there is the question of what is to be done (as both Chernyshevsky and Lenin asked in their day) with the leaflet so thoughtfully sent out by HMG to every household in which the said households were being chided to do the right thing and vote to remain in the European Union.

It so happens that I was discussing that very point with a friend on the phone when the postman hove into view and delivered my copy of it. I suppose before I do anything I ought to have a look at it but, somehow, the mood is not upon me. 

Is this actually legal I ask. After all, MPs and Councillors are not allowed to use official facilities to conduct election campaigns and HMG is not allowed to send out leaflets telling the benighted voters to vote for them because they are so wonderful though, clearly, a government in place has certain advantages over the opposition in matters electoral. Why are they allowed to use official facilities and, thus, taxpayers' money to tell us which way to vote in a referendum? 

Anyway, everything has been said on that subject as well so the only question that remains is what is one to do with this document. I am afraid the paper is a little too shiny for my cats' litter tray (they don't like it); Nigel Farage's advice, as usual, is of no use as it is not in an envelope and, therefore, cannot simply be returned to sender; I have no desire to spend money on the postage. 

I could put it in an envelope, address it the Rt Hon. David Cameron, 10, Downing Street etc and put no stamps on it or stamps that add up to some minimal tiny amount, thus forcing the flunkeys to pay for the postage. If a few hundred thousand of us did it, there would be a great deal of dissatisfaction in Number 10. Or, perhaps, one of the organizations, say Vote Leave or Grassroots Out (GO), could issue a call to collect as many of these leaflets as possible and then deliver them to the gates of Downing Street in a van or lorry. I have not heard of such an initiative so I have to make some kind of a decision myself. 

Meanwhile, we have had a great deal of excitement about the Dutch Referendum that rejected the Ukraine-European Union treaty and the highly predictable fact that the EU is going to ignore it. To be fair, it is hard to see what the EU can do about this. Even as far as the Dutch government is concerned a referendum in that country is advisory but it would be a foolish Dutch politician who ignored it. As far as the EU is concerned 32 per cent of the Dutch electorate is not of any real importance. Nor is it of importance from a democratic point of view. They are a tiny minority of the EU's population and even 64 per cent of that tiny minority does not amount to much. Exactly whom do they represent? Slightly more people than the Eurocrats do but not by much. One cannot have a referendum about something those who are asked are not in control of.

All this shows the dangers of direct as opposed to representative democracy. Those who whine about "not being represented" by our elected representatives had better consider the possibilities of major decisions being taken in the wake of completely unrepresentative direct plebiscites. 

Of course, it is unpleasant to have any section of the people saying NO to whatever they are told is good for them. Does this show growing euroscepticism in Holland or a general fed-upness with yet more migrants from Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, the figures tell you nothing. But it is worth noting that 68 per cent may not have turned out to vote against the agreement but neither did they turn out to vote for it. So, perhaps, dissatisfaction is genuinely growing. 

"Will this calm the out camp down?" Certainly not

Reporting on the changes in the Vote.Leave campaign Isabel Hardman asks "will this calm the out camp down?". The answer has to be, certainly not. The changes are not enormous but look a little like surrender to pressure: Lord Lawson takes over the chairmanship; he is already President of Conservatives for Britain and one of that organization's Vice-Presidents, Lord Forsyth, also joins the Vote.Leave board.

John Mills, the previous Chairman, becomes the Vice-Chairman (reportedly, he is satisfied with that arrangement) and intends to concentrate on Labour support for Brexit. John Mills was he Campaign Manager in 1975 for the ill-fated Out campaign.

The board now becomes non-executive with Matthew Elliott, the Chief Executive, Dominic Cummings, Campaign Director and Victoria Woodcock, Company Secretary, stepping down from it thought they will remain in their positions and will be able to attend board meetings.

Where does that leave Arron Banks, Leave.eu and the proposed merger between the two groups? We have not yet heard anything about it but as news come in I shall update this blog.

Declaration of neutrality

It is not often that this blog declares neutrality on any subject but I feel that there is no alternative. No, it is not neutral on whether Britain should exit the EU, which is really what matters, but it is hard to work up enthusiasm for any of the Brexit organizations (and I mean any) who are competing for the trophy of being acknowledged by the Electoral Commission as the leader and for all that lovely money.

The news that yet another cross-party, grassroots organization, supported by Kate Hoey, Liam Fox and Nigel Farage has been launched (actually, I knew it was coming) left me neither shaken nor stirred but rather depressed. It's not that I mind different eurosceptic organizations; I have written often enough about the advantage of guerrilla warfare. Having a Conservative and a Labour group for Brexit, or Historians for Britain or Better Off Out who do a good deal of campaigning around the country and have restarted (after a fashion) the Save Britain's Fish campaign that I was involved with some years ago is, I think, a good idea: people can concentrate on their own work. Nor do I find anything wrong with Get Britain Out, which is campaigning specifically among the younger electorate, though they share my view on whether 16 and 17 year olds should be given the vote. There are various others and I shall link to them in future postings. They all have their role to play and we all need to work together while concentrating on our own patch. (I shall also try to catch up with the opposition groups but I do wish at least some of them would admit that they are campaigning for Britain to stay in the European Union not in Europe. One wonders why they cannot bring themselves to do so.)

What causes problems is the proliferation that is likely to continue of the overall Brexit campaigns, each one of which claims purity of vision and decries its rivals as being heretics at best and The Real Enemy at worst. I shall say it before anyone else: yes, the small and ever fissile left wing groups are like that. Mostly this does not matter but at present we do have an important issue at hand and a highly important referendum to win.

So whom do we have? This will go over some well known material but I think it might be useful to have a kind of a summary of where we are. While we are on the subject here is a somewhat inadequate but quite amusing article in the Grauniad that mentions Month Python (no!), leaves out several groups and manages to fit in Nigel Farage (complete with a pint) as a group or something of the kind.

Well, there is Leave,eu founded a little while ago by former UKIP donor Arron Banks. It has an exhausting website (but so many of them are these days because they let all those techie whizz kids run riot), the usual set of semi-accurate facts and an unfortunate image of being linked to UKIP and its campaign that concentrates on one subject: immigration. Being linked to UKIP or perceived to be so will mean that they will not be designated as the lead campaign.

It also means, alas and alack, that the other Brexit campaign, VoteLeave, wants to have nothing to do with it. VoteLeave has a slightly less frenetic website (could someone have been controlling those whizz kids?) and a greater emphasis on people joining the campaign. I presume they use material supplied by Business for Britain.

Here is Guido's first summary of the fight between those two organizations and here is a more recent account (that, necessarily, leaves out the juicier bits) of that feud. And so it has been going on, as many of us know: more heat and ammunition spent on fighting each other than the enemy. It often is like that in politics, especially in campaigning, but this is becoming an embarrassment.

The feuding has now become internal to VoteLeave. I trust everyone who, being a complete geek, follows these matters, noted the attempt to unseat Dominic Cummungs, Campaign Director of VoteLeave and Matthew Elliott, its Chief Executive by a cabal of Tory MPs (egged on by others who stayed nameless for the time being), led by Bernard Jenkin (who thinks that President Putin is not such a bad chap really and was only trying to help the Ukrainians), which seems to have failed. At present Messrs Cummings and Elliott are in place, Mr Jenkin is not returning calls and a still unnamed board members is about to tender his resignation. Things may change by the time I finish writing this blog in which case I shall update it all.

Then we have Grassroots Out (GO), alluded to above as the new kid on the block. They will, incidentally, be having a public meeting in Manchester in February 5; some of this blog's readers might like to go along. Can't do any harm. Here it is being advertised n Twitter and I do hope the link takes you to the right place. They are on Facebook as well.

What is its aim? Well, rather bored with the infighting (and who can blame them) a few MPs (and Nigel Farage who is merely an MEP) got together and decided to form a purely campaigning organization with the intention of doing so constituency by constituency, which is not such a bad idea. Fifty MPs of various parties (not, I presume, the SNP or the Lib-Dims) signed up immediately and there are hopes of more joining. They assure us all (yes, I did talk to the founders) that they have no desire to supplant any of the other organizations, no intention at present to produce their own material but use what the other groups produce and co-ordinate campaigning activity at the grassroots level.

ConHome is supporting them though their first love is VoteLeave, as you would expect.

So is that it? Well, not quite. Another Brexit organization is lurking in the grass somewhere and is ready to be launched soon. They call themselves the Independent Leave-the-EU Alliance and, at present, they are not supported by any MPs because they are also hoping to get some independent ones into Parliament.Or so it would seem but their website is still under construction so one cannot tell for certain.

Where does all this and, possibly, more to come leave this blog? For once in the neutral position or maybe even sitting on the fence. It seems to me to be a waste of time to get involved in all the fighting. I am prepared to work with and for any, some or all of these organizations. Given the shortage of women anywhere near the top of them they ought to welcome that offer but, somehow, I do not think they will. So the blog will go on and will fight its corner despite .....

Um, no it doesn't

EurActiv quotes Norway’s minister for EEA and EU Affairs, Vidar Helgesen, on the subject of Brexit and the debates around them.

Three things need to be said before we look at what Mr Helgesen said. Firstly, the country he represents is not a member of the EU because its people have consistently voted against that membership; secondly, the country has remained an active player on the international scene; and thirdly, despite what the article says, Brexit has not been "high on the British election campaign agenda" precisely because David Cameron promised "an in/out referendum on the UK's EU membership if he is re-elected". What was relatively high on the agenda was the referendum and whether one should be held. The question of Brexit itself was neatly shelved for the time being.

Nevertheless, it seems that Mr Helgesen is sufficiently worried to issue a warning.

But Helgesen says there are some important aspects of EU membership that have been left out of the British debate so far.

For example, a British exist - or 'Brexit' - could leave the UK out of the comprehensive trade agreement being negotiated with the United States.

'Brexit' would also leave the UK out of important EU foreign ministers meetings addressing the standoff with Russia over Ukraine.

“Leaving that position of influence… I have a hard time seeing that. I don’t think it would serve Europe, but ultimately that is the British people who should determine that,” he said.

I am not sure what of the debate Mr Helgesen has been reading but the questions of defence, security and foreign policy have come up a few times and discussed from various angles.

As for the position of influence (I am aware that I have not completed my discussion of that subject), one has to say that within the EU's common foreign policy Britain has about zero, unlike the influence and, indeed, the choice of action it has within NATO.

Still it is good of Mr Helgesen to admit that it is the British people who should determine that. Just as the Norwegian people have determined twice that this was not for them.

Back home

Back in Britain I find that not only nothing much has changed - the same dull election campaign going on in the same dull fashion - but we seem to have regressed. Open Europe tells us

The latest British Chambers of Commerce EU barometer found that 63% of the 3,800 businesses surveyed said that withdrawing from the EU would have a negative impact, while 12% and 11% said it would have a positive impact or no impact respectively. The poll also found that 55% of businesses felt that remaining inside the EU but with specific powers transferred from Brussels back to Westminster would be a positive scenario compared to 10% who felt it would be negative.

That's good. Has anyone told those businesses or their representatives who were packed off to answer the survey, that there really is very little possibility of specific powers coming back to Westminster in the circumstances as they are? Probably not.

After all, the Director of Open Europe has the following to contribute:

I think the Conservatives could reclaim some powers, strengthen the role of the UK Parliament and have more of a Common Market-style membership. That’s what the UK joined for in the first place.

Not exactly Mr Persson. What the UK joined and what a number of people thought they joined are two different things. That appears to be the problem to this day.

Sometimes one finds out things in the House of Lords

Lord Stoddart of Swindon has been busy again (and a good thing, too). He asked HMG

what was the value of United Kingdom overseas aid administered by the European Union in 2013; and what they expect the figure to be in 2014.

This blog would argue that it matters little who administers overseas aid as it is likely to lead to waste and corruption in any case and is unlikely to lead to economic development. But I digress.

HMG in the shape of Baroness Northover replied:

In 2013, the UK share of official development assistance funded from the EU budget was £813 million. UK’s contribution to the European Development Fund (EDF), a Member States voluntary fund not financed from the EU budget but also administered by the Commission, was £407 million. Estimates for the UK share of official development assistance funded from the EU budget in 2014 will be published in April 2015 as part of the provisional ODA: GNI statistics publication for 2014. The UK’s contribution to the EDF in 2014 is currently estimated to be £328 million.

That is quite a lot of money that is wasted or used to shore up corrupt and oppressive governments and organizations. Let us not forget that the UK gives money to these directly as well as through the EU and through the UN. So, we give overseas aid several times over.

One of the organizations we give aid to directly as well as part of the EU is the unspeakable UNRWA, whose purpose is to keep Palestinians in refugee camps and refugee status. It so happens that I went to a presentation on the subject a couple of days ago and intend to write about it in detail quite soon.

Back to Lord Stoddart. He also asked:

whether they will now answer the question originally asked namely, “whether they will consider recommending withdrawal from the European Union if their objectives cannot be met through negotiations”.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns replied:

The Government’s position remains the same: the European Union must reform to become more competitive, democratically accountable and fair for those inside and outside the Eurozone. The need for reform is widely acknowledged amongst the EU Institutions and other Member States.

The UK’s membership of the EU brings many benefits to the UK, including jobs and investment; a strong collective voice to negotiate free trade agreements; and greater international influence on global threats such as climate change and Ebola.

This was demonstrated at the recent European Council last October where EU leaders agreed to the 2030 climate and energy policy framework—the world’s most ambitious targets so far—as well as agreeing to increase EU financial help to fight Ebola to €1 billion.

I take it that is a no.

Fun and games with UKIP

[Health warning: yes, this is another posting about UKIP but it is not entirely critical of that benighted organization or, at least, it is hightly critical of those who have attacked it recently. UKIP-bots take note.]

UKIP have managed to get themselves into the news again on two accounts, neither of which has anything to do with their policies (and that might be just as well). Both stories have caused a great deal of indignation and a certain amount of amusements. I plead guilty to the second attitude.

The first story, as British readers of this blog probably know, is about that ridiculous calypso that was written by former BBC DJ Mike Read (no, I've never heard of him before this either) and performed with a mock-Caribbean accents at some fringe event, went on YouTube and was attacked as being racist. At first, Read said that he considered the accusations preposterous and the Dear Leader called on the faithful to get the calypso to No 1 in the pop charts.

After that things became a little difficult. For one thing the words of the song were published and turned out to be astonishingly stupid. For another, people who are not completely obsessed with UKIP either pro or con (I expect I shall be accused of being one of those by some UKIP-bots but I do not think the amount of time I have spent on them over the years of writing this blog or being co-editor of EURef warrants that accusation), wondered why they should have picked on the calypso as a particularly cool, up-to-date and funky kind of music.

As it happens, I have a much loved LP (or vinyl as they are called now, having become rather fashionable again) of Harry Belafonte singing calypsos in a mock Caribbean accent, Belafonte's own accent being pure American. So far as I know there were no problems with that but I don't know for sure. The LP (vinyl) was inherited by me from my father who acquired it in the 1950s, possibly on one of his two trips to London from Budapest where we lived at the time. Does that throw any light on the strange UKIP decision? Well, yes, I think it does. This is all part and parcel of their nostalgia for that rather unpleasant decade.

The faux-outrage over the racism of the song has achieved its aim and former DJ Mike Read "has apologised for his Ukip-supporting calypso song and asked for it to be withdrawn from sale following criticism that it was racist". Stupid the idea may have been but the idea that somebody must always apologize and something must always be suppressed if anybody is offended and, particularly, if the word racist can be bandied round, is turning British politics into a specie of blancmange.

The story is not over.

Read’s song just failed to make the top 20 in the midweek rundown of the official singles chart, debuting at number 21 according to the list published on Wednesday. A spokesman said sales of the song to date would continue to contribute to the official top 40, despite Read’s decision to withdraw it.

It could mean another dilemma for the BBC over whether to include the song in its official top 40 programme on Radio 1 on Sunday, in a potential echo of the row over the anti-Thatcher protest song, Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead.

That, of course, was not withdrawn from sale as it was not racist and offended only in the matter of good taste. But it did not get to No 1 either.

Here, by the way, is UKIP's Culture Spokesman, Peter Whittle, attacking the attackers. It is not clear whether he actually liked the song but his political point is a very reasonable one. [Full disclosure: Peter is a good friend.] I would say that the faux outrage has not exactly harmed UKIP while an understanding of the silliness would have done. As it is, they can proclaim that they are victims of the modern mania for censorship of anything that can be described as racist.

Let us now turn to the other story, that of their new ally in the European Parliament. The Toy Parliament does not run on the basis of parties but groups and there are rules about how many parties and countries have to be represented in each group in order to be able to claim the handsome hand-outs for the MEPs' entertainment hard work. For a while it looked like Nigel Farage had managed to put his Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD)group together (no, I don't know what that title means either but they had to think of something and the others are not much better). Then potential disaster struck: the Latvian MEP Iveta Grigule (more here) decided to leave the group, thus making it untenable in Toy Parliament terms.

As ever, we heard accusations and counter-accusations. Nigel Farage "has accused the president of the European parliament, Martin Schulz, of "effectively blackmailing" Grigule by offering her the leadership of an overseas delegation in a deliberate attempt to silence Ukip and the eurosceptic EFDD".

Ms Grigule retaliated by saying that if she had been susceptible to "blackmail" she would have taken Mr Farage up on his offer of the group's Vice-Presidency and, anyway, she had already managed to fall out with the Dear Leader over his working methods that she characterized as being rude. Nor was she impressed by the rest of the UKIP MEPs.

"In July this year I already suggested to Nigel Farage that he should change his working style. The fact that he did not take my suggestion into account this whole time is not right," she said.

"I do not find it acceptable that MEP’s turn their backs on the European anthem or the flags of member states. I do not find shouting or rude remarks acceptable during plenary sessions, or that the majority of colleagues from Great Britain do not take part in the work of committees. I warned Farage, that if nothing changes in this attitude, I will leave the group.

"Of course, this style of working may be beneficial to Farage as his popularity in Britain grows, but to other group delegations this isolationism from the other Parliamentary groups disrupts the ability to work. This was a road leading to nowhere."

The only thing I can add to that story is that it would seem that neither Mr Farage nor Ms Grigule know the difference in meaning between blackmail and bribery.

As it happens, there are always odd MEPs hanging around the Toy Parliament who can be bribed or blackmailed, depending on your use of the English language, to join a group and the Dear Leader found one: he is the Polish MEP Robert Iwaszkiewicz (more here) of the Congress of the New Right and a man who has distinguished himself by being a Holocaust denier and a supporter of domestic violence. Not a particularly prepossessing chap and neither is his party.

Korwin-Mikke [the party's leader], whose party has two remaining MEPs and received 7.5% support in Poland during May’s European parliamentary elections, is one of the most outspoken figures within the far-right groupings of parliament.

In July, he declared in English that the minimum wage should be “destroyed” and said that “four million niggers” lost their jobs in the US as a result of President John F Kennedy signing a bill on the minimum wage in 1961. He went on to claim that 20 million young Europeans were being treated as “negroes” as a result of the minimum wage. He refused to apologise and was fined 10 days of allowances for his comments.

Korwin-Mikke has also called for the vote to be taken away from women, has claimed that the difference between rape and consensual sex is “very subtle” and said that Adolf Hitler was “probably not aware that Jews were being exterminated”.

Of course, saying that Hitler was not aware that Jews were being exterminated, stupid though that is, does not constitute Holocaust denials but we can say with some certainty that the Polish party, its members and its leader are not people one wants to have much to do with partly because of their opinions and, even more, because of their level of intelligence.

The problem is that as long as we are in the EU and send members to the Toy Parliament (on a very low vote, it is true) we have to deal with people like Mr Iwaszkiewicz and Mr Korwin-Mikke, as well as people who either deny the extent of Communist crimes or consider the gulags to have been quite a good idea. We do not elect these people but others do.

The outrage over a perfectly ordinary if slightly shoddy political transaction has been deafening. I have even seen demands that UKIP should be banned in Britain. A party that has received a fair number of votes should be banned, I asked. That is your democratic suggestion? I got a lot of huffing and puffing in return and reminders that the British Union of Fascists was banned and Sinn Fein was kept off the airwaves for some years. The BUF was banned durign the war, I replied, as they were seen with some (though not total) justification as aiding and abetting the enemy. Incidentally, I added, the CPGB that was doing the same between the autumn of 1939 and June 22, 1941, actively inciting members of the armed forces to desert, was not banned. And Sinn Fein was not actually banned, merely not allowed to speak on air because they were and are closely linked to a terrorist organization, the IRA. UKIP has merely done something many of us find distasteful. It is not illegal and it cannot be described as aiding and abetting the enemy. Should all those British parties who sit in groups with well known members of Communist parties be banned? There was more huffing and puffing and, in one case, a highly ironic denial that anybody denies the gulags. There was no reference to the victims of collectivization.

But I digress.

Will the second story help UKIP? Not as much as the first one, as Mr Iwaszkiewicz, the latest addition to the EFDD group is rather unsavoury and a good many UKIPers, not to mention their supporters and quasi-supporters are embarrassed by the story. Does it matter electorally? Probably not. I have no doubt the story will be rehashed during the electoral campaign next year but there are plenty of embarrassments to be brought up against all parties in the Toy Parliament. The truth is that the overwhelming majority in this country does not care about that institution.

A far more serious story is the one produced by the Evening Standard yesterday:

Britons have turned against the idea of quitting the European Union despite the rise of Ukip, exclusive new polling reveals today.

It found that a clear majority would vote to stay in the EU in a referendum — marking a dramatic turnaround from two years ago. The findings suggest Ukip’s surge this year has less to do with anti-EU sentiment and more to do with anxieties about immigration or disenchantment with the bigger parties.

Fifty-six per cent of people said they would vote to stay in if there were a re-ferendum now, while just 36 per cent would vote to leave, according to the Ipsos MORI poll. Excluding “don’t knows”, that amounts to a clear divide of 61 to 39 per cent.

In November 2012, the same question found that 44 per cent wanted to stay and 48 wanted to get out. At the time, support for Nigel Farage’s party stood at a mere three per cent, compared with the current level of 16 per cent — a record figure for an Ipsos MORI poll. But while support for Ukip has risen by 13 percentage points over the two-year period, support for quitting the EU has dropped by 12 points.

Backing for EU membership is at its highest since 1991 — before the Maastricht Treaty which increased integration and created the European Union out of the European Community.

The turn-around is not as dramatic as all that and is probably temporary. Opinion on the subject tends to be volatile but it has never reached the sort of support for Brexit that would indicate a victory in the referendum. Whether that is despite or because of the rise of UKIP is arguable. This blog has argued for some time that the present-day UKIP is a hindrance to the cause of British exit. It has certainly not been a help.

Another conclusion that ought to be drawn but probably will not be by people obsessed with the idea of a referendum is that we are certain to lose it and should turn our attention more widely (yes, I know the Boss has been working on it) to the question of how we can win it, should it ever come about.

Useful links

No, I have not done my analysis of the European elections and what they might mean for the future of this country's or the EU's politics (precious little in most cases). The reasons are: laziness, stultifying boredom with the subject and too much time wasted in arguing with people that not all anti-EU parties, even if they are right-wing, are fascist even if you assume that fascist means right-wing.

We live in an age of endless and freely available information or so we are told by people who either like the idea or hate it. There is much talk about information overload. Yeah, right. My own experience is that the number of people who ignore information, stick to about two sources and repeat well known mantras may well have grown in this age of information. Perhaps, they are scared of having to think for themselves.

In the meantime, here are two links to very useful articles dealing with necessary issues and making it unnecessary for me to do so.

First up is the Boss of EURef who gives a very cogent analysis of Peter Kellner's article in the Grauniad about UKIP and its polling.

Secondly, The Boiling Frog has done us all a favour by analyzing and debunking the latest canard that is making its round in eurosceptic or quasi-eurosceptic circles: that the new rules on QMV about to come into force will allow the EU to disallow either an IN/OUT referendum or Brexit. Take your pick. It really depends on which eurosceptic or quasi-eurosceptic you are listening to.

It’s true that from the 1st November many areas are changing to “Lisbon Treaty QMV rules”. The main effect of this is to change to QMV those clauses which required unanimity according to the Nice Treaty. Yet, and what is often overlooked, is this doesn't apply to withdrawal because crucially Article 50 wasn't in the Nice Treaty. Instead it is an innovation of Lisbon and is listed as a "new item". As such it began life already under QMV rules, alongside other "new items" such as the election of the President of the European Council. This is made clear by Article 50 (2) (my emphasis):

In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

Article 50 therefore has never been under a unanimity decision, it has always been subjected to QMV rules. All that happens is that Article 50 will change from “Nice QMV rules” to “Lisbon QMV Rules” "in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union."

And so on. Read the whole piece. Undoubtedly, however, I shall have to produce my own opinions on that very small, barely noticeable earthquake that took place last month.