Tag: Nick Clegg

Is this the Eurosceptics’ Moscow moment?

Nearly 200 years ago, in September 1812, Napoleon reached the maximum limit of his nominal power when he entered Moscow with his army drawn from right across Europe.  His empire covered France, Germany, Poland, Italy, much of Spain (his lieutenants were in the process of driving back an advance by Anglo-Spanish forces that had temporarily liberated Madrid) and now much of Russia, including its Asiatic capital.  But he could not hold it; by the year’s end he had been forced to abandon Russia altogether, his army destroyed, and he was completely crushed within a year and a half.  For the Russians 1812 had proved a time of incessant retreat, as they avoided battle until just before Moscow (at Borodino), where they lost and were forced to abandon Moscow without a fight, but ultimately a year of triumph.

Is this a fair metaphor for the British Eurosceptics in their moment of victory at the British veto at last week’s EU summit?  Certainly their triumphalism is unbearable.  Bill Cash was described by one of our outraged local Lib Dem members as “the cat that got the cream.”  This follows one long process of retreat by British Europhiles as they conceded the political initiative to the sceptics, practically without a fight, time and again.

But the initial reaction of leading Lib Dems was strangely sanguine.  Nick Clegg was initially quite supportive of David Cameron.  On Friday night the deputy parliamentary leader, Simon Hughes, painted a positive picture to party members at a social event which I was attending.  Mr Clegg has changed his tune today, of course.  Whether that is because of the sceptics’ reaction, or because further details of what actually happened at the summit have emerged (for a flavour of this read the Economist’s Bagehot blog) I cannot say.

But the initial relief at the summit result shown by Mr Hughes has some logic behind it.  A treaty would have required ratification by the UK parliament, and demand for a referendum.  This sort of battle plays to the sceptics’ strengths – strong support by the press and a widespread wariness of extra EU power.  A referendum on a treaty change is the battle the europhiles least want to fight.  The sceptics can deploy a “have your cake and eat it” argument for a no vote – a vote not against the Union as such, but to protest against “Brussels”.  There will be no such battles now.  If there is a referendum it will be about whether we stay in the EU at all.

Instead the sceptics’ position might start to come under the sort of scrutiny that it has hitherto lacked, and be shown to be no more tenable than Napoleon’s hold on Moscow.  The summit has started that exposure process.  The sceptics’ armchair negotiators have said that we can use the British veto to negotiate major concessions, the “repatriation of powers”; but Mr Cameron proved unable to do this.  It has also been said that we were not isolated in the EU, and we could lead a gang of pro-market non-Euro members.  This against has been shown to be a hollow idea, as Germany has greater influence over these potential allies than we do.  Indeed a horrible spectre emerges, that the British blocking tactics make many of the EU’s institutions irrelevant while the other countries set up alternatives over which the British have no say.  The sceptics often complain about Britain shackling its fortunes to a corpse – but the corpse could be the official EU structures, rather than the European project itself…and that would be an outcome entirely of our own making.

And further eurosceptic fantasies will soon be exposed.  Their aim is to set up some sort of free-rider relationship to the Union, where British products enjoy free access without to European markets without our businesses having to comply with those pesky social regulations.  Some think the country can do this within the EU, using opt-outs, others that it can be done outside it, in the European Economic area (like Norway, Iceland and Switzerland).  But this requires the other 26 countries to agree with it.  All of them.  Why should they?

Just as the Eurozone optimists are having their ideas tested to destruction in a gruelling series of financial crises, so the eurosceptics might find themselves on the wrong side of the argument.  In both cases it is clear that the only tolerable escape route involves further European integration, not less.  Perhaps, like Napoleon’s collapse in 1812, it will happen quicker than we think.

Time the British woke up to the crisis in Europe

It is a commonplace for Britain’s politicos to sadly shake their heads and complain that the Euro crisis demonstrates a woeful lack of political leadership.  Regardless of the fairness of this charge in respect of Angela Merkel, say, it clearly has resonance for Britain’s own leaders.  There seem to be two camps: ravingly impractical Eurosceptics, and sheer paralysis from everybody else.  The mood amongst Europhiles (as I witnessed at fringe meeting at the Lib Dem conference) is akin to deep depression.  It is time for this to change.

To be fair some key players have been showing something less than paralysis – George Osborne and Nick Clegg have both been conspicuous in raising the seriousness of the situation with their international colleagues – but their pronouncements are hardly more helpful than anybody else’s.  They aren’t bringing anything to the party and they aren’t trying bring our own public alongside.

The first point is that the Euro crisis has serious implications for Britain, much though most people seem to think it is happening to somebody else.  This is for two main reasons.  First is that this country would be caught up in any financial disaster.  Our oversized banks are deep in the mess; Euro zone countries are vital trading partners for a country very dependent on trade – especially given that international financial services are so important to us.  Our fragile attempts at recovery risk being completely blown off course.  Forget Plan B if this lot breaks.

The second reason it matters to Britain is that resolution of the crisis could take the European Union in a direction that is against our interests.  Britain leads the single market wing of the union: the chief Euro zone countries are more protectionist in their instincts.  We risk being shut out of the design of critical architecture – much as the Common Agriculture Policy was put together in our absence.

How to proceed?  We need to tackle the dark spectre head on: the best resolution of the crisis involves changes to the European treaties.  To change the treaties will require a referendum here (let’s not weasel out of it this time).  If we face up to that challenge now, it will show real courage, and help get things moving.

But, of course, we would need to see something in return.  Changes to the treaties that would further our interests.  These need to be to promote the single market, to protect London (and Edinburgh) as centres for financial infrastructure, and to reduce unsightly bureaucracy and/or operating costs of the Union (the siting of the European Parliamnet at Strasbourg needs to go on the table, at least).  Given our understanding of finance, we might well have useful things to say on the Eurozone architecture too – even though we clearly can’t be part of it.

To do this our leaders (the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister in the lead) need to build two sets of alliances.  The first is within the British body politic, so that the referendum can be won.  This needs to cover Tory pragmatists (David Cameron, George Osborne and William Hague), the Labour leadership and, preferably, the SNP.  The Lib Dems have an important role in making this hold together since, by and large, they understand the Union the best.  Mr Clegg’s experience of deal-making in the European parliament counts for a lot.  The next set of alliances is within the Union itself, to create a Single Market bloc.  The obvious candidates are the Nordic countries, Ireland and the Netherlands, together with many of the newer members in central and eastern Europe.

This will be very difficult.  That’s the point, almost.  The reward is a stabler EU, constructed more to our taste, even if we must concede some powers to an inner core of Euro area countries.  Everybody wins.  And by taking on the wilder Eurosceptic fringe, including their newspaper backers, it will cheer all right-thinking people up.  It’s time we stopped being paralysed by fear and came out fighting.

The strange cohesion of the Liberal Democrats

I was at the Liberal Democrat conference in Sheffield last weekend.  The most striking thing about it was how upbeat it was.  Disagreements were downplayed; discussion was civilised; people didn’t seem to be spooked by the polls, still less the demonstrators outside the conference hall.  And yet the party has lost half its popular support, performed atrociously at the Barnsley by-election, and comes under daily attack for supporting what are seen as vicious Tory policies. “You’re shafted,” a (perfectly friendly) local member of the public told me when I was walking between venues.  What’s all this about?

The obvious explanations don’t seem to be strong enough.  The novelty of being in government has certainly not worn off; and attack, especially of the vitriolic sort we saw on display by the demonstrators, tends to induce solidarity.  But a lot of members and activists are genuinely unhappy about the policies of the coalition government; it is often said that policy has been captured by an unrepresentative rightwing clique surrounding Nick Clegg.

The party’s democratic constitution helps.  To many political pros no doubt these processes look like weakness, conceded to encourage people to join and stay as members.  But they give countless opportunities for members and activists to feel consulted and involved.

The party’s leadership deserves some real credit here.  The party’s internal machinery for policy making has been generally respected, in contrast to Paddy Ashdown’s leadership in the 1990s.  Many critics have been co-opted in the policy formation process.  Predictions that party conference would quickly be made irrelevant have proved unfounded (I remember Mark Littlewood, former director of communications, almost gloating about this in the coalition’s early days).

The leadership’s sensitivity to criticism, and wish to avoid needless confrontation from within the party was on display at Sheffield.  The biggest issue faced by the conference was the NHS reforms.  These are radical, controversial, and seem to go well beyond the coalition agreement.  A rather defensive motion was put before the conference by the leadership, and an amendment submitted that was highly critical of the direction of government policy.  The leadership quickly conceded defeat.  Previously Paul Burstow, the health minister, who proposed the main motion, had been highly supportive of coalition policy.  But he quickly said that he was in listening mode and accepted the amendment.  At an earlier consultative session, Norman Lamb, part of Nick Clegg’s inner circle, appeared to admit that mistakes had been made over health policy, among other things.  What the consequences of all this are for coalition policy in health and elsewhere is unclear, but we are expecting changes.

The leadership’s basic narrative is not seriously contested.  The Liberal Democrats had no alternative to the coalition that would not have done even more damage.  If they had declined the opportunity, the party would have “bottled it” and suffered disastrously at a rapidly called second election that the Tories would have won outright.  And the Lib Dems have won a lot of concessions, and are managing to turn a lot of party policy into law.  You only have to look at what the Tory right is saying.  All this is difficult to translate into a clear message for the public, but it helps instill a degree of confidence among activists.  The feeling is palpable that things will turn the party’s way in due course, and party’s critics will be confounded.  Again.