Changes in Europe?

I am writing this in the week following the declaration of the results in the election of members of the European Parliament. For the pro-european establishment, it was a disaster. In the UK, as was, perhaps, widely expected, the United Kingdom Independence Party [UKIP] came top of the polls almost everywhere. Labour and the Tories each collected about 24% of the vote while UKIP amassed over 29%. Their result in Scotland was more limited but, nevertheless, UKIP gained their first MEP in Scotland — a fact which has much annoyed Alex Salmond who has been arguing that UKIP were an irrelevance in Scotland; now they cannot be ignored. The achievement of UKIP has been astonishing. It is the first time in well over 100years that one of the major political parties has not topped an election poll. I would include the Liberal Democrats in “major parties”; they did well until after the First World War. But the Lib-Dems have been virtually annihilated in these European elections. A few days earlier, on 22^nd May, they did badly in the local elections, losing nearly half of all of their council seats up for election.  But in the European Parliament, they have lost all but one single MEP in the whole of England and Wales.  All the major parties have areas where they are strong and others where they are weak. Labour are strong in the north of England — and, of course, in Scotland. But, apart from in London, they still have very few seats in the UK parliament anywhere south of the famous line from Bristol to the Humber. The Tories are solid in the prosperous south east but have only one seat in Scotland. The Liberal Democrats have, traditionally been strong in the Celtic fringes of Devon, Cornwall, Wales and Northern Scotland. But in these elections they have been hammered in the south west. I wonder if this absolutely, obsessively pro-Europe party will read into this anything other than the standard excuse of every party that does badly; a failure to get their message across. The reality is that people in the south west — not the richest part of England — have been profoundly Euro-sceptic for years as they have seen their industries strangled and squashed by EU legislation.

All across Europe, in many countries, Euro-sceptic parties have been elected. In the old well-established member states there has been a considerable vote against the EU and the political establishment — except perhaps in Germany, the country that gets most benefit from the union and the euro. The new EU members have, on the whole, followed instructions and voted for centrist parties that will keep the present system ticking over. This is quite understandable because many of them see the EU as a guarantee of some sort of democracy but, more important, as a bulwark against Russia. But, in contrast, the countries that have been members for many years are concerned about the undemocratic nature of EU institutions, inefficiency, waste, incompetence, corruption, immigration and the mess that is the euro. Nowhere was the Euroscepticism more intense than in France — one of the founding six members of the Common Market. The establishment parties of the government and the centre all lost seats and there were gains for all the Eurosecptic parties of left and right but particularly the fairly extreme party the National Front, lead by Marine Le Pen. Some of the elected members represent groups that wish to withdraw completely from the EU but most of the increasingly Eurosceptic countries, even if they want to keep the EU, want more national control and an ability to manage their own affairs without constant interference from Brussels — and these sentiments will only increase in resilience unless Europe changes. There is precious little sign of that. The parties elected represent all shades of political opinion from fascist parties of the extreme right that are little more or less than Nazi parties, to groups on the extreme left that want something akin to communism. What they have in common is an opposition to the EU as it exists today. The monster of the European Union has stagnated for some years, partly because of the financial crisis but also because making any changes has become an increasingly monumental task, requiring the agreement of 28 nations and precipitating certain countries to hold referendums before their governments can approve the changes. The general feeling in the European corridors of power has been that in these uncertain times, referendums result in electorates likely to keep saying “No!” In the past, it has been traditional that if any country said “No!” they should be asked the same question again and again until they said “Yes!” I think there is a belief in the corridors of Brussels that asking the same question over and over again will no longer change the answer.

About half the European Parliament is now made up of MEPs who do not want to be there at all. They will contribute little to the running of the day-to-day activities of the parliament and will oppose almost all legislation. But as things stand, it doesn't matter. The EU Parliament serves almost no purpose whatsoever and the unelected Euro politicians and bureaucrats will carry on as though nothing had happened, generating utterly pointless legislation, spending our money and providing more jobs for the boys. And, God, how they spend money. This parliament is incapable of even achieving something on matters that it does control. After all these years, they still cannot agree to stop trecking from Brussels to Strasbourg for four days every month in order to meet on French soil. Every trip involves carting juggernaut loads of paper — printed in 22 languages — on a journey of 265 miles each way, plus all the Eurocrats and MEPs that want to make the journey, to put them up in quite expensive hotels and pay all their travelling expenses. The exercise is utterly pointless and costs at least £165 million every year — or about £14 million per trip. I assume that absolutely no-one is in favour of this nonsense except the French.

I have long argued that the whole of the EU is an organisation that if it did not exist we would not need to invent it. The last time we were allowed a meaningful vote on Europe was in 1975 when I, and most other people in the UK, believed that we were voting in favour of membership of a common market, a large trading group that would operate with no obstructions to trade and would allow easy movement between countries. Our ideas were based on EFTA — the European Free Trade Association — which had worked very well for a good number of years without need for any great bureaucracy or Europe-wide useless parliament. At that time there were only nine members of the Common Market. Since then the number of member states has increased to twenty eight and steps have been taken to form an economic and political union with the parliaments of member states having less and less power. In addition there has been the formation of a currency union with Britain not a member — at least we can thank Gordon Brown for that. This euro area was always an absurd idea. It was OK for strong economies [ie Germany] but not much good for anyone else and inevitably it is now in serious trouble. Problems were triggered by Greece, approaching bankruptcy. Greece only succeeded in joining the EU when her finances proved she was ready. In reality she was not ready and the books were the result of some creative accounting by Goldmann Sachs — who were paid, I understand, a sum adjacent to $300 million for their expertise in cooking the books. But in order for Europe to get out of trouble, the ministers and eurocrats want more of the same — further integration and abrogation of powers to Brussels — and few of the voters in any country want that.

Following these EU elections, the heads of governments of all 28 members — plus their entourages of bureaucrats and hangers-on, all gathered in Brussels to discuss what they should do about the voters unhelpful attitude to their project. After a very short meeting — by EU standards — it was agreed that they needed to look again at their structures. The fact that they came out with this statement in a matter of hours indicates that the statement will be virtually meaningless and capable of taking on any interpretation that any eurocrat wants to put on it. This is simple euro-code for doing nothing at all or more of the same and, in the process, making the EU less susceptible to upset by electorates. Although it is difficult to see what they could do to achieve this other than removing the veneer of democracy by scrapping the European Parliament all together. In order to advance down the road examining their structures, they need, by-the-way, an extra £3.5 billion per annum. Fine! How can we fail to believe in the sincerity of their intentions.

In the last week senior members of all three major parties have come out with suggestions of how they can improve their communications with the electorate, how they can get their message across, refusing to accept that either the EU or immigration is a problem. Nigel Farage and UKIP understand now that if they are to become a serious part with a substantial number of seats in the Westminster parliament and the potential power to ease us out of the EU, they need to come out with a proper manifesto and policies on the major issues that trouble people in this country. On Thursday, 5^th June, UKIP will attempt to wrest Newark from the Tories in a parliamentary by-election. I think the Tories will win because they have an existing 16,000 majority and that will need some overturning. Dave Cameron has visited the constituency four times and sent many cabinet ministers up there to help. But Nigel Farage needs to do well if UKIP are to look like a serious contender to build up a potential for next year's general election.

Europe has serious problems but it is so atrociously undemocratic yet politicians will do everything possible to keep it as it is in order to keep open an unending supply of highly paid non-jobs for them when their political careers come to an end. Look at Neil Kinnock and his wife, who between them as a commissioner [Neil] and an MEP [Glynis] collected about £400,000 per annum for many years. I have nothing against either of them but if they had disappeared in a puff of smoke on their way to or from Brussels it would have mattered, in political terms, not one jot.

As if things in Europe were not bad enough, we have had the spectre of Tony Blair telling us that the EU has to proceed and it is unacceptable to think of Britain leaving. Blair was an appalling prime minister, whose sanctimonious whining and arrogance we thought we had lost but now it is suggested that he wants the job of President of the European Council — a post currently filled by Mr Herman van Rumpuy. Could there be anything more likely to persuade that Britain would be better outs die the EU, than Tony Blair appointed to a high office — I will not say an important office.

David Cameron is talking of re-negotiating the terms of Britain's membership of the EU and then putting his proposals to the electorate via a simple In/Out referendum. I don't think he will get very far in changing the terms of our membership unless another large country like France or Italy starts pressing for serious changes on the same basis. It may have some effect if Cameron makes it clear that without changes he will recommend withdrawing. This will be welcomed by large sections of the Tory Party and UKIP.

I don't know what will come of these election results but I suspect that I and many others will remain supremely pessimistic that anything will change. Europeis short of great leaders in every country; everywhere we have political apparatchiks who are staggeringly unimpressive. Where is there a Churchill or an Attlee to take us into a prosperous and independent future?

#