Give more power to elected bodies and all will be well

Or so we are told by a number of people who seem to think that what people do is less important than how they get there and of all the ways of appointing anyone is by some kind of a ballot. This blog is not against elections or elected legislators but it also considers that constitutional accountability is a higher priority and even elected legislators need to be subjected to some sort of checks in order to have those balances. It is no secret that this blog opposes the idea of an elected House of Lords. Apart from a slightly mystical (and misty-eyed) belief in the absolute goodness of a more or less popular vote no rational argument has been advanced in favour of such a system.

However, all that is for another posting. What concerns us here is the European Parliament a.k.a. the Toy Parliament, which is a huge drain on all our resources for no particular purpose as it does not even have primary legislative powers.

We have all heard the arguments, have we not? The European Parliament, unlike the European Commission (the sole initiator of European legislation), is an elected body and represents the people of Europe, however you may define them. So, in order to breach that democracy deficit we need to give them more powers and that is what recent treaties have done. You would expect the people of Europe to be so delighted by this development that they would rush out in ever increasing number to vote for their European representatives.

Not so but far from it. With every new acquisition of powers, in every European election, fewer people bother to vote.

The sad news is that the turn-out for the 2014 European elections was lower even than for the 2009 ones, in itself lower than anything before. In fact, the turn-out was the lowest since the Toy Parliament had become a directly elected body in 1979.

Voter turnout in May´s European elections was the lowest ever, according to newly-released figures which contradict earlier claims of historic participation.

The 2014 turnout figure of 43.09 per cent, based on exit polls, has now been revised down half a percentage point - putting it lower than the 43 per cent turnout in 2009.

Turnout has steadily dropped from 62 per cent in 1979 and the 2014 figures marks a new low point in voter participation.

Senior EU figures had hailed the initial turnout as "historic" and evidence of the EU successfully bridging a "democratic deficit" with citizens.

Former Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt, now an MEP, said the "increase" in turnout, albeit tiny, was “an endorsement of the European project” and EU commissioner Viviane Reding hailed the apparent reversal of the ever-downward trend in voter participation in the EU-wide poll as a "game changer."

However, the 43.09 per cent figure was based on exit polls so was preliminary and it has taken over two months to establish the real figures.

While voter turnout has dropped in every single European election since 1979, the Parliament´s powers have consistently increased and its choice for the next European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, was rubberstamped by member states.

There follows a lot of blah about the need to introduce reforms or something from Open Europe. If readers feel so inclined, they can read it.

It is very satisfying to be able to say that the turn-out in the UK was well under the average at 33.7 per cent, which makes me think that the only lesson the Prime Minister can learn from the European Elections is that the majority of the population cares not a fig for that institution and has no particular preference in the question of whose snouts should be in the trough. And if he does not that yet he must have been hiding in a hut in Outer Mongolia all this time.

Of course, we cannot compete with Slovakia where the turn-out was 13 per cent and in the Czech Republic 18.2 per cent. That was announced on Sunday night. Both figures might have been revised down since then.  

Was it an earthquake or simply a shock?

Reading about all those earthquakes (the fully expected UKIP triumph in Britain and that of the Front National in France as well as a few London boroughs swinging back to Labour) I, naturally thought of the Cole Porter lyrics:

Is it an earthquake, or simply a shock?
Is it the good turtle soup, or merely the mock?
Is it a cocktail, this feeling of joy?
Or is what I feel the real McCoy?
Is it for all time, or simply a lark?
Is it Granada I see or only Asbury Park?
Is it a fancy not worth thinking of?
Or is it at long last love?

Who but Cole Porter would or, indeed, could put together a song whose lyrics were made up entirely of questions?

Anyway, back to politics or what passes for it in the European Union. So, was it an earthquake, a peasants' revolt, a "victory of European democracy" despite the low turn-out, a "warning to Europe" whatever that might mean or a fascist coup, it being axiomatic among some commentators that anything that is against the EU must be "fascist"? You, the reader, must decide. But, since like our masters in Brussels and Strasbourg, I do not think readers can be left to their own decisions, I shall be writing my own version though it might take a few hours and might appear somewhere else first. In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves.

Are we there yet?

The day of the most hysterically hyped unimportant election in living memory has dawned. It is all nearly over. We shall have the local election results tonight or tomorrow morning and the Euro results on Sunday evening when this blog will be open for business (as will EURef be, I expect).

The Boss and I have spoken this morning and agreed on many things (which is not, by any means, a given in the history of our working relationship). Above all, we are both pleased that this frenetic farce is coming to an end and serious work can be resumed. We also agree, unsurprisingly for those who read both blogs even casually, that UKIP and the media have managed to set back the eurosceptic cause by several years.

After years of hard work we managed to bring the discussion to a serious political level to lose it all in the space of a couple of month - thanks to UKIP and its allies in the media we are back to euroscepticism being equated with anti-immigration, xenophobia and racism. All else has disappeared. How the europhiliacs and the higher echelon of the political establishment must be laughing.

As I was saying

Ever nearer draws that election day and as people around me, wherever I go in what is laughingly known as real life remain underwhelmed by its importance, the debate on various other fora hots up. If you read some blogs (guilty as charged) and follow discussions on such sites as Twitter or Facebook, you might be forgiven for thinking that what will happen this Thursday will be of the slightest importance. Not so but far otherwise, at least as far as the European elections are concerned.

This is what I said on yet another discussion on Facebook that was about UKIP leading in the ComRes Poll (though there appears to be some debate about the accuracy of that prediction):

Well, really, if UKIP, having come second last time, cannot come first in the euros this time, they can just pack up. Of course, it will make no difference to anything as very few people care one way or another about the Euro elections. Facebook discussions give a false impression of their importance. The great thing about the Euros is that nobody actually wins since that is not how the European Parliament is structured and its role in the EU is very different from what a parliament is supposed to be but, at the same time, everybody wins because of the list system. Well, almost everybody.

Given the probable turn-out and the lack of any achievement by UKIP or any other MEPs that is inevitable under the structure and position of the Toy Parliament and given the list system one can only compare the European elections to the prize giving after the Caucus Race in Alice in Wonderland.

That campaign so far

Eight days to go to the European and local elections and I imagine that all readers of this blog have been overwhelmed by the glossy and meaningless literature that seems to be what election campaigns consist of these days. There is something to be said for abolishing that right to free postage so that parties start considering a little more carefully what they send out to stupefy the electorate. Of course, they can always hire cheap immigrant labour to deliver leaflets but they will not have that free post.

This year's crop has been outstandingly dire in both content and design. The first Labour leaflet I received had a big picture of Ed Miliband looking solemn and the message: "Only Labour will tackle the cost-of-living crisis". Reading this and glancing through the other items: NHS, "free" childcare, housing crisis and soaring energy bills, I could not help wondering whether the party in question had the first idea of which particular elections were coming up. For Mr Miliband's information, none of that can be solved in the European Parliament and very little at the local level.

Actually, tucked away in a corner there was a reference to MEPs who are fighting for jobs and growth (mostly their own jobs and the growth of their waistlines) because, forsooth, we would lose 3.5 million jobs if we left the EU. It seems quite extraordinary that anyone should come up with that particular chestnut still or to think that Britain's membership of the EU somehow depends on the MEPs.

Since then I have also received the Labour leaflet for the local election in which they promise to cut taxes (having clearly forgotten that when they controlled the council, our local tax rate was among the highest in London) and to protect the NHS or the local hospitals or something like that. Nobody, I may add, has been able to explain precisely what the plans are about local hospitals and what alternatives there might be to the projected rearrangements, known by some campaigners and the Labour party as cuts. Nevertheless, it is a bad sign for the Labour party that all they can campaign on is the NHS.

I was not altogether surprised to read that they are now behind the Conservatives in opinion polls, a most unusual situation at this stage of the electoral cycle. It made me recall the 1992 General Election, the first in which UKIP's predecessor, the Anti-Federalist League campaigned. (Yes, it has been around that long.) The day I realized that Labour would lose was when I was accosted by some supporter of theirs who solemnly argued that the real power in the land was the Monday Club. I put my money where my mouth was and eventually won £10 from a friend. Still, Labour can comfort themselves with the thought that opinion polls matter less than the actual election. At least, they might be able to comfort themselves with that thought until next Thursday.

Let's get the unimportant ones out of the way. I have not had any Lib-Dim literature but I gather that they are calling on all of us to re-elect the egregious Sarah Ludford, as ghastly a euro-weenie as I have ever come across and much given to hyperventilation. At one debate she became quite hysterical about people she described as climate deniers. I asked her whether these people actually denied that there was such a thing as a climate. She just gobbled.

The Greens are calling on me to re-elect Jean Lambert but for some reason all the policies are out and out socialist ones, thus proving that saying about watermelons.

Then there is something called the Communities United Party who desperately need a proof-reader to get rid of the inappropriate capitals in their leaflet though I hope they keep the fierce eagle. I am not altogether sure what they are campaigning about as they seem to think all sorts of issues can be solved in the European Parliament and I am not certain that their slogan, Strength in Unity, is entirely appropriate. Reminds me of all those fly-by-night parties that used to appear just before European elections with much fanfare, putting forward "real people" as candidates who invariably demonstrated their reality by knowing nothing about the European Parliament for which they were standing. Mind you, I think that the Communities United Party is against Britain's withdrawal from the European Union though I am not sure I can quite work out their argument.

So we come to the Conservatives, whose local election leaflet does not mention Charing Cross Hospital, possibly because that has more to do with the near-bankrupt Imperial College Healthcare than the local council or possibly because they have some guilty secrets there. They have a certain advantage over the Labour candidates in that they can actually point to a reduction in Council Tax and in debt plus a few achievements that are almost impossible to check. What does 25% reduction in crime mean? Are there really 44 extra police officers in the borough and what do they do? Still, I am reasonably pleased with the 6 new free schools, assuming they have actually opened and the 1,000 affordable homes to buy, assuming they do actually exist.

The more general communication that is aimed at the European Election proves without any doubt that the Conservatives are also using the campaign to fight next year's General Election. On the cover, a picture of their leader, our Prime Minister, the Boy-King himself, speaking rather than looking solemn. Well, looking solemn as he is speaking. What is he offering? A stronger economy at home, renewed respect abroad, real change in Europe. Two out of three are so vague as to be incomprehensible. How do you define renewed respect or real change. Experience with "Europe" tells us that the only real change we ever see is movement towards greater integration.

Moving on into the leaflet, I find out that these are the most important European Elections in a generation as for the "first time since the Eurozone crisis you get to have your say on Britain's relationship with Europe". I am not sure where to start in analyzing that particular piece of nonsense. We get our say on our relationship with Europe by voting for a certain party to send its members to the European Parliament, an institution of the European Union, of which we are a member? Just writing that sentence makes my head spin. Later on we are told that they are fighting to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the EU which makes about as much sense as people fighting to renegotiate Herefordshire's relationship with the United Kingdom.

Apparently, if we send in the Conservatives, fundamental changes will take place in the EU. Just to prove that we have a pretty picture of the London team with the Leader. Well, to be fair, the Conservatives are the only ones who have a picture of the whole team, regardless of whether they are likely to get in or not. (I doubt if numbers 6, Sheila Lawlor, or 7, Glyn Chambers, will.)

I left UKIP to last, partly because from the point of the view of this blog that could be said to be the most important party and the biggest missed opportunity and partly because it is still possible that they will come top. The great thing about the European Elections is that, because of the list system, nobody really wins but almost everybody does. So, UKIP coming top in the Euros will not produce a political revolution in this country any more than them coming second last time did. In fact, it will do very little unless they can parlay that into some seats in the General Election next year or one or two by-elections before that, of which there is no chance.

So, first things first, the news that Gerard Batten's home was attacked in the early hours of this morning is completely outrageous, regardless of what one thinks of the party. If, indeed, this is part of an organized campaign to intimidate UKIP (just as there was an organized campaign to intimidate the BNP) then it is also incredibly stupid. Do these people really not understand that this sort of violence merely gives their target group extra support? No, I don't suppose they do. At present, the police are investigating the attack so any other comments from me would be superfluous and quite probably factually wrong. (Here is another article that concentrates on Farage and his fears.)

Back to UKIP election literature of which there is more than from any other party. Either they have had another influx of money or what we are seeing is the well-known Farage strategy of throwing everything at one aim and to hell with the future.

To date, I have had two glossy and one newspaper-type leaflets. Mostly they say the same thing over and over again: there are people coming into this country to take away jobs, accommodation and the country in general. That is the main message with all other issues, including actual membership of the EU, becoming subordinate. That is something of a risky strategy: what if, despite being worried about mass immigration, the electorate of this country reacts badly to this kind of naked fear-mongering and hatred of the outsider?

One glossy leaflet had a big picture of the Great Leader on one side and a much smaller picture of Gerard Batten, the London MEP, on the other. It is, of course, important not to have a bigger picture of yourself than that of the Leader, not to have one above that of the Leader and not to look as if you were taller than the Leader.

On the Batten side (small photograph) we have a good deal about "4,000 people a week" coming to live in Britain from the EU and the cost in British jobs, pushed down wages and pressure on schools, health, welfare. I presume that means that people coming from outside the EU do not have that effect. What, I wonder, about the large number of French people who tend to get jobs in the higher ranks of the economy? Not all. Plenty of French work in catering as do plenty of Poles, Spanish (highly incompetent) and others. Also many Brits and Antipodeans. But, undoubtedly, there are pressures on school, health and welfare, all of which need root and branch reform, strongly opposed .... by .... yes, you guessed it, UKIP.

On the Farage side (big picture) we get a paragraph about immigration and then one that makes me think that UKIP could do with some editors:

We have no control over our borders, but we also have no control over who we trade with, how much we pay to heat our homes and feed our families or how we just get on with our lives. 

To think that Mr Farage attended Dulwich College, the alma mater of two of the best twentieth century stylists: P. G. Wodehouse and Raymond Chandler.

The other glossy leaflet concentrated on UKIP's image as the radical, non-political party (just as their Leader is a non-political politician who is really rather a good bloke). Another picture of Nigel Farage inviting us all to join his team and informing us that "we are all going UKIP this year" because of Labour failure on immigration, Tory failure on planning (not strict enough), Liberal (ahem!) sell out to the EU and Green energy price hikes. Note, please, that the EU as a whole comes in third and is attributed only to the Lib-Dims. At least, I assume they do not mean the Liberal Party that is still in existence and is furiously opposed to the European project.

Examples of the "all" are shown by 18 small photos on either side of the Leader, implying that these are people who have seen the light. A quick look through and I recognized about a third as members, activists, candidates and employees of UKIP of long standing, including Sanya-Jeet Thandi who has since left the party. Ah well. Can't win them all.

So, UKIP is not entirely honest in its election literature. So what? Is any party? No, of course not and I think I have made that reasonably clear above. The point is not that UKIP is no worse than anyone else, despite the prevalence of troglodytes among the members, but that their USP, apart from the fear of incomers, is that they are different: not political, not corrupt, not dishonest. Not like the other parties, in other words. That is why it is so damaging when they behave exactly like the other parties and politicians.

Similarly, it would not be a newsworthy item that UKIP employed Latvians at what one assumes were rock bottom wages to deliver their leaflets if their campaign had not concentrated on the subject of immigrant workers taking British jobs and depressing British wages.

Finally, there is the UKIP News, the newspaper-style leaflet, that covers a few issues, the biggest one of which, the one that has the huge main headline: Britain Faces Fresh Wave of Immigrants. Everything else, effect on the City, the European Arrest Warrant, scandalous waste of EU aid projects (as if foreign aid that we give directly was not scandalously wasted and misused), all pale into insignificance.

Do I think this is racist? No. Furthermore, the cries of racism help UKIP in that they can preen themselves as people who are unjustly attacked by demented lefties. As a consequence, they never really have to explain their policies or their statements or how has a party that is supposedly a free-market, vaguely libertarian entity become protectionist, big statist (just read what they say about planning) and backward looking to a rose-coloured view of that tiresome decade, the fifties.

They are prepared (maybe)

EurActiv reports reactions from the various parliamentary groups to the possible threat of eurosceptic parties in next year's elections. Needless to say, those parties are described as populist, which is clearly a very bad thing, also far-right, which is so hard to define that they do not even bother.

First off, here are the socialists:

Countering euroscepticism will be a central topic of the European socialist party’s campaign, according to Massimo D'Alema, the president of the the left-wing foundation FEPS, who worries about the surge of populist and extreme parties at next year's European election.

Speaking to EurActiv, the president of the Foundation for European Policy Studies (FEPS) says that “the only way to counter such euroscepticism isn’t to defend Europe as it now exists."

“The socialist slogan of this campaign should be: ‘we want to change Europe’. We are not defending the current form of the EU,” he adds.

D’Alema is a former prime minister of Italy, who led two successive governments from 1998 to 2000. He now leads the foundation of the socialist political family on the European level, FEPS, which is involved in drafting the text that will serve as European common manifesto for the socialists' campaign.

“We cannot ignore what the eurosceptics are saying,” he says. “We must take it into account. But the problem is how to answer to their arguments; how to offer an answer – including technical solutions. This is our duty as traditional political parties. Populists don’t offer such answers.”

A winner that: let's make the EU more socialist, less viable economically and give more power to the bureaucracy at the centre, then all those nasty populists will just turn into a little hoop and roll away.

The EPP, the supposedly Centre-Right grouping is concerned but sees no reason to panic:

These worries are shared by the centre-right European People's party (EPP). At a recent event in the European Parliament, the deputy director of the European Peoples Party's political foundation the Centre for European Studies, Roland Freudenstein, addressed these alarmist calls, stressing that “there is reason to worry" but "no reason to panic".

“Populists are problem seekers, not problem solvers. This means we should not shy away from addressing the topics they address,” he said. “The worse reaction would be to cry out: ‘Help, the Barbarians are at the gate; we have to team up’.”

Presumably, the knowledge that turn-out for European elections falls every five years gives these worried but not panicky people heart: they will get back to the trough as most people will not be bothered to vote for anybody.

We shall have to wait till February and March of next year to see what the various manifestos say. Meanwhile, there is a slight tinge of worry among some:

There is a risk that the upcoming campaign becomes a battle of pro-EU politicians versus anti-EU politicians. “This will benefit the Eurosceptics, and not the pro-Europe camp,” argues Paul Taggart, who studies Eurosceptic parties from across Europe at the University of Essex.

It also distorts a debate on policy, Taggart says: “A normal [political] debate would be to have a range of different opinions. If politicians discuss the welfare state, you don’t hear a debate on whether you should have one or not; you hear a variety of positions.”

When I read comments like that with the clear lack of understanding of how the whole principle of the EU differs from simple policy making I take heart. These people cannot win an IN/OUT referendum. Then I remember that there are many on that side who are smarter than this denizen of the University of Essex. Also I look at our side and read their comments. Then I despair.

Is that a yes or a no?

Well, it is both, if you are David Cameron. He was on the Andrew Marr Show this week-end but I did not watch it for two reasons: the sun being out I went for a long walk along the New River, London's first aqueduct that brought fresh water to the City (well, Islington, just north of it) in 1613; plus I do not have a TV set. (Yes, that's right, the BBC gets no tax from me.)

However, helpful friends have sent me various links and excerpts from the interview, all concentrating not on the "expenses scandal" but on that slippery promise to have a referendum on the Constitutional Lisbon Treaty. Will the Conservative have a referendum? Well, it depends. Here is the video of the exchange:



And here is the text of David Cameron's promise:

DAVID CAMERON:Well what we've said is that we support a referendum, we want a referendum. We want that referendum to happen now. It can happen now because the Treaty is still being discussed and debated elsewhere in Europe. It hasn't been signed and ratified by everybody. And the more people who vote Conservative on June 4th, the greater the pressure there will be on Gordon Brown to hold that referendum that he promised. And if we get the early election …

ANDREW MARR:(over) It sounds like UKIP are right.

DAVID CAMERON: Well no, if we get the early election that I'm asking for - either in July or in September, the Treaty's still there - we could have a referendum before Christmas. So that is what we should have.

ANDREW MARR:But you know it's likely that Gordon Brown will hang on and won't call an early election. And if the Irish then vote for the Treaty and it's ratified, we will be in the position that UKIP talk about, which is that if you get a Conservative government afterwards, it will have been ratified. What I'm asking is in those conditions, will you hold a referendum?

DAVID CAMERON:Well there are awful lot of ifs.

ANDREW MARR:Yes.

DAVID CAMERON:That's if we don't have an early election; if the Irish vote yes when last time they voted no; if the …

ANDREW MARR:(over) They're quite likely ifs.

DAVID CAMERON: … if the Czechs and others all actually put the Constitution through. If all of these things happen, then what happens?

ANDREW MARR:Yes.

DAVID CAMERON:What I've said there is we will not let matters rest. We think that too much power will have been passed from Westminster to Brussels and we'll want some of those powers back. Now at that moment, I will come on your programme and explain exactly what we'll do. Right now, I don't want to let Gordon Brown off the hook. He made a promise to hold that referendum and I'm going to try and hold him to that promise. And if I'm elected as Prime Minister while this Treaty is still alive, I will have a referendum very, very quickly. I will recommend to people that we vote no because I don't support the European Constitution. I think we've already passed too many powers from Westminster to Brussels and we should be trying to build a different sort of European Union. And if people, you know if people are angry with the major parties and they want to vote UKIP as a result, what they'll be doing is actually letting Gordon Brown off the hook. He will be able to sit back in Downing Street and think you know
I've got away with it again. I've got away with breaking my promise on holding this referendum, which was in their manifesto. And do you know this is why
…

ANDREW MARR:(over) It does sound … I think it'll sound to a lot of people watching as if you do not intend to hold a referendum in the circumstances, the not unlikely circumstances that I've outlined to you.

DAVID CAMERON:But this is exactly what Gordon Brown and those wanting to get away with it want, which is for the Conservatives to answer a whole string of hypothetical questions about what might happen in the future. I want to maximise the pressure for a referendum right now.

Just for the record, since the Boy-King of the Conservative Party sounds a little confused: the Czech Parliament has voted the treaty through and all that is left is the president's signature; the same applies to Poland; in Germany, however, the Constitutional Court still has to make a decision on whether this treaty is constitutionally acceptable.

It is highly unlikely that Gordon Brown will call an early election. From the day he became Prime Minister it was clear that he would go to the wire. Voting Conservative on June 4 will not achieve that. Therefore, the oft-heard argument that voting UKIP will merely be letting Brown or Labour off the hook is rubbish. Voting UKIP (or, for that matter BNP, much as I dislike that party) will show that there are people out there who do not like the Labour Party but are not exactly overwhelmed by the non-promises made by the Conservatives.