Cameron’s gamble

customs posts at Gretna Green. Nobody can see that as an attractive prospect (well, possibly Alec Salmond).)

No, that’s something he’s repeatedly said he doesn’t want and would be bad for Scotland.

With regard to the UK’s other region, the referendum also poses a challenge for parties Northern Ireland, which would like step out of the EU (whatever that comes to mean) alongside England and Wales. Of our permanent coalition, the DUP is on the face of it all for a referendum while Sinn Féin, which has taken a Eurosceptic position in the Republic of Ireland’s referendums, faces a huge challenge with the threat of having the UK step out while Ireland flounders within. This at a time when they are busily lobbying for a referendum on a united Ireland (one they would most likely lose). Ho hum.

Much of the resentment against the EU in the UK seems to stem from two sources: i) the free movement of labour within the EU and the resultant migration to the UK that has brought from Eastern Europe; ii) perceived ECHR ‘interference’ with how we treat our prisoners, suspects and others; iii) perceived (and often phantom) ‘crazy’ EU regulations. None of these is remotely likely to be remedied by the negotiations the Conservatives are seeking

Indeed, the ECHR has nothing to do with the European Union. The migration from eastern Europe wasn’t imposed by the EU either; the UK had the option of imposing migration limits on new member states in 2004 (as every other member state did) but rejected it (unlike every other member state except, IIRC, Ireland).
Ed Balls reckons this was a mistake:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/06/ed-balls-europe-immigration-labour

There are few things that bug me more (on a small scale, I’m being a pedant level) than the consistent conflation of “Europe”, meaning the ECHR, and “Europe” meaning the EU. And I said small scale, and pedantic, but I’ve heard plenty of people do it who should know better, and are clearly trying to muddy the waters and take advantage of people’s ignorance.

For example, a Tory MP on Radio 4 recently complaining that “Europe” shouldn’t be telling “us” whether Christian’s should be able to wear crosses and/or discriminate on the basis of being (religious) bigots. These were ECHR decisions, but he was clearly trying to disingenuously create the impression that this was something to do with the EU. It’s maddening.

There’s an interesting article in the last LRB by Helena Kennedy and Philippe Sands, recording their minority opinion on the commission set up to talk about the possibility of a UK Bill of Rights. They make the point that consultations showed very little public dissatisfaction with the ECHR and HRA, with quite a substantial groundswell of support for them – all the more so as the consultations got further from London and the political/media classes. I think, when push comes to shove, the number of people who would actually support the repeal of the HRA – let alone repudiation of the ECHR – is pretty similar to the number who seriously intend to vote UKIP at the next general election, i.e. 10% tops.

Makes you think, though. All this time I’ve been telling students that the death penalty’s never coming back, because it’s outlawed by the ECHR and while some ECHR rights are derogable that particular one isn’t, and we can’t just ignore the ECHR because of the HRA, and even if the HRA wasn’t there we’ve got treaty obligations, and we can’t ignore them because it would basically mean leaving the EU, end of argument. Take away that backstop – or get the idea of taking it away into the spectrum of political possibility, which is the position that Cameron’s just conceded – and all sorts of things start to seem possible, or less definitively impossible. Cheers, Dave.

Ah, I see @Phil beat me to it!

Paul Hebden in #10: “I think the UK signed up to the convention back in the 60s.” The UK signed the day it was adopted (4 November 1950) and ratified on 8 April 1951. Not surprising, as the UK delegates (including the Tory lawyer and Nuremberg prosecutor David Maxwell Fyfe) wrote much of it, starting with the Universal Declaration and throwing out the rights that weren’t justiciable.

“The first thing is that this is entirely driven by domestic politics and, indeed, largely by the internal politics of the Tory Party”

As opposed to what? It’s not unusual for government decisions to be driven by the internal politics of the governing party (coalition notwithstanding).

The Tories are opposed to the pooling of sovereignty inherent in the “ever closer” European Union. They now wish to establish whether or not the “ever closer” union will continue, in which case they want out, or if a looser union can be established without disproportionately disadvantaging those who use their opt-outs, in which case they’ll stay. In other words, they’re in favour of the EU insofar as the EU reflects their concerns, which is pretty much equally true of the Labour party.

Should we understand this to imply that Cameron himself has given up hope of improving the economy through austerity and wants to distract people? Is the ruling government destroying the British economy just because it refuses to do something else for ideological reasons?

I’m rather surprised that Labour hasn’t cleaned their clocks on the economy already and it is nice to see them refusing to go along with the referendum.

Steve LaBonne @ 18

From across the Atlantic, they don’t appear to have developed a coherent set of views on pretty much anything.

Well, once the Tories got reorganized enough to come along and say, “We’d like our agenda of privatization of public goods, education ‘reform’, licking the financial sector’s bum, and kicking the working class in the teeth back, now,” what did New Labour have left?

A more interesting question is not whether and how the referendum would help the Tories, but whether and how it would help UK and/or the rest of Europe.

ECHR isn’t a product of the EU but both ECHR and EU are products of similar ideas / circumstances (IMHO, IANAL…)

Hmm, sort of, but not really. The ECHR came alongside the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was written by, amongst others, a couple of UK conservatives. It was specifically about human rights, and about the relationship of individual and state. The UK, being one of the major architects, signed up on day one.

The EU – ESCS, EEC and EC as was – came about around the same time, yes, but its origins and intentions are quite different. It was, and still is to a large extent, about trade. It started out as a basic customs union, but the intention right from the start was to regulate states’ dealings with each other to avoid war. The relevant parties saw hitching themselves to each others’ wagons – making themselves truly and inextricably interdependent – as the best way to do this.

Over the years its scope has expanded considerably, to cover some of the same ground as the ECHR in, for example, areas such as employment discrimination. And yes, in order to get to be a member of the EU, you have to be a member of the ECHR, but still, the EU is now, and in prior incarnations, has always been a much more ambitious, and state based, project.

Fair enough – and thanks for the information. Having been born in 1976 my memory of 1970’s Euro-politics is, erm, fuzzy.

I do not think this is a strategic decision by Cameron. It is merely tactical. That is, he has not considered his own long term interests, still less those of his party or country. This is about dealing with immediate threats. It is effective in that. The long term problems he has created are clear but they must be of negligible significance to him. I doubt he thinks of himself as the Prime Minister of 2017

Is there a good analysis of the implications of a British exit? Among the questions that occur to me:

What would Scotland do?
Would it be a genuine exit, or some kind of peripheral status like that of Switzerland?
Likely effects on UK financial markets

I’d like to follow up on John Quiggin’s question, as I’m an American and not up on the intricacies of British politics. What implications would a British exit have for the Eurozone? Would it make the Euro more likely to break down as a common currency, or less likely? And perhaps most important, what would a British exit due to the struggling countries like Greece on the periphery of the Eurozone?

And does a British exit increase or decrease the likelihood of fixing the inability of individual countries to float their currencies so as to deal with chronic deficits? (Yes, I know that as long as the Euro remains a common currency it is nominally impossible for the individual member states to revalue their currencies, but as many economists have pointed out, this is such a devastating problem for the entire Eurozone that some way will eventually have to be found for individual member states to revalue their currencies relative to the Euro in effect in order to avoid the death spiral that countries like Greece and Spain and currently undergoing. And until some mechanism for allowing this is put in place, the Eurozone will remain unstable and the future of the Euro as a common currency will remain in doubt.)

John Q – there’s already a question of whether the Democratic Republic of Scotland would automatically be in the EU.

Peripheral status ala Switzerland needs to be considered in the context of the guillotine clause.

As it stands, the Swiss pay into the EU budget and have to abide by most of their rules, but get little say in the creation of those rules. I doubt Tories will like that idea.

Support for Scottish independence, as of last poll, is very low. But that would very likely change dramatically in the face of a UK that was doing something stupid like leaving the EU, and potentially the EHCR.

EWNI is no name for a country, so Wales leaves too, and the Troubles restart in NI, mainly stoked by whatever unionists rebrand themselves as. The pound is then a currency union between multiple politically hostile countries, one of which is having a low grade civil war. So Wales and Scotland join the euro, which leads to full on border and immigration controls, tariffs, etc. Net loss of GDP since the pre-recession peak hits 30%.

Or maybe things will be ok – who knows?

JQ@31:

There’s no end of discussion about what the implications of a British exit would be (e.g. this from the BBC news) but anything further that that is really all guesswork – the only territory to have left the EU is Greenland, which isn’t exactly comparable, and as what would happen isn’t set out by any treaty but would have to be negotiated at the time, it really comes down to speculation about what the remaining EU states would choose to do.

Likewise, would it be a genuine exit seems to be equally open to debate. We’d still be 34 km from France, and nobody seems to have any idea of who would trade more with us out of the EU than in it, but being a major trading partner with the EU means accepting almost all of the EU rules without having any influence in writing them, like Switzerland or Norway.

It’s not clear that the EU is going to tolerate Switzerland having a status like Switzerland for much longer – they are under a lot of pressure regarding banking secrecy laws and so on – but even if there is a role for Switzerland, Switzerland seem to already have taken it.

Interesting looking at the pro-side on the BBC news. They seem to imagine that Britain can pick the terms of its exit, keeping all the good stuff, while giving Europe the middle finger.

But, as djr@63 says, the EU gets to dictate the terms of any continued relationship. There’s no obvious reason, for example, why they need to allow Britain to retain its existing optouts from EU rules, let alone grant new ones.

I think Alison P has it right — this is purely a tactical move. On those grounds I have to wonder, though, that if the Conservatives win the next election if Cameron would really carry through with the referendum. The push-back by business interests would be pretty strong.

“Thus these member nations have put the ca-bosh on ‘revolt from current country / join EU’.”

Still, the optics are different if a majority in England vote to leave the EU, and a majority in Scotland votes to stay: Scotland can plausibly argue that they were forced into secession; really, it’s England trying to drag them out; etc.

For the rest of the EU, the British exit would be a net positive. The British mainly stand in the way of others and do not make any meaningful contributions to any aspect of the Union.

This is the same kind of spectacularly ignorant nonsense generally peddled by UKIP types, from the other side of the looking glass.

The UK has benefited massively from, and has massively benefited, the EU. The UK has been one of the biggest drivers and supporters of the EU’s moves towards free trade (internal and external), freedom of movement, and expansion.

What does “stand in the way of others” even mean in this context? “Sometimes blocks things that aren’t in its interests, just as France and Germany do?”

It seems to me that Cameron’s move, which I analyze broadly as James @40, could backfire, as pointed out by Chris in the original post. I don’t see who are supposed to be the political allies of Cameron within the political class in the EU and the populations probably won’t care that much. Considering how symbolically apart UK has been since at least 20 years, my impression is that the spectrum of reaction from the general public is between “UK’s leaving? Oh, too bad” and engels @23. So all in all, I don’t expect Cameron to follow through.

“What implications would a British exit have for the Eurozone?”

A lot IMHO. What makes the Eurozone weak is that there is a disconnect between political governance and the Euro. It is difficult now to have parliamentary/democratic oversight because the European parliament consists of non-Euro countries. Without the UK, the list of non-Euro countries dwindles, and the list of important non-Euro countries would go to zero. Sweden and similar countries will find itself in a very, very difficult position, with basically three choices: 1) leave the EU itself; 2) join the euro; 3) or (most probably) let the Eurozone remake the rules of the EU game so that the Eurozone can use the political apparatus of the EU. So, if the UK leaves the EU, it is positive for a longer existence of the euro. On the way, while the rules are changed (scenario 3), the opportunity might be taken to give Greece the boot.

#48 Austerity has been a disaster, but the disaster will be in the past. Think Reagan’s “Morning in America” re-election campaign – the fact that he was the one responsible for the dark night preceding it just didn’t register.

There’s not really a comparison. The recession in the US was caused by an unelected and (to most people) invisible technocrat. The one in the UK has been caused by the very visible (and disliked) chancellor. This has been so obviously self-inflicted (when even your plumber mentions this, clearly there’s some awareness beyond the chattering classes) that he can’t escape responsibility. There’s been huge criticism of it from economists, the opposition and even the bloody IMF. Osbourne has made promises that have not just been missed, but spectacularly so in some cases. And when he keeps just repeating that he’ll stick to the plan, no matter what, he comes across as a man totally out of his depth.

What the Tories have done, and this really is typical of their incompetent administration, is to own the recession/depression. By the election people will largely have forgotten Labour’s involvement in the crash, but will still remember it as a more optimistic and prosperous time.

The 2015 election plan was to engineer a frothy bubble of unsustainable tax cuts just before polling. The narrative would be ‘you lived through the pain, now enjoy the rewards’. It’s quite a good plan for the Tories. My guess is that Osborne has messed up so badly that they can’t get there.

The other strategy was boundary review which they privately said would put them into permanent govt. The backbenchers messed that up by antagonising the Lib Dems who would otherwise have co-operated in this project.

So Cameron’s options are reducing rapidly.

The EU has long since firmly announced that if any member country breaks up, the seceding part(s) will have to reapply for EU membership (if they still want it). This is because many member nations (Spain, France, Belgium, Italy) have secession movements, but in every case those countries’ MEPs are on the opposing side.

Thus an independent Scotland within the EU doesn’t appear to be an option. If Scotland votes for independence they are voting to leave the EU. This may be the reason it will pass! The Scots don’t especially want to forgo the net tax subsidy they now get from England, but it may be worth it if they can cut themselves loose from the Greeks, Italians, Irish, and Spanish before those countries drag down the economies of every country that stays in the lifeboat with them.

Then again — one has to wonder how much anything in the EU’s various treaties can be expected to matter any more. Maastricht (the treaty that set up the Euro) promised that no member would be asked to bail out another; we know what’s happening there. On the other hand, somebody might still want to use the “ever closer Union” pledge in the Treaty of Rome to forbid any country leaving.

But I predict that we’re within a year of the next World War, which will mean all these things cease to matter, and the decisions that last will be made after the peace.

I enjoyed the way that the final sentence of JD Galt’s comment saved me from having to think about whether the prior sentences made any sense.

Yes to 59, but it’s a shame he didn’t put it at the top to save me from having to read it.

Someone actually reads the comments from top to bottom? What next – someone who reads the post before they comment?