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janeiro 05, 2005
No stability, no growth, no pact. It is time to confront the Euro disaster zone
Fonte:The Times
No stability, no growth, no pact. It is time to confront the Euro disaster zone
Bill Cash
SCARCELY anyone seriously believes that the European constitution would achieves a “yes” vote in a British referendum. Yet hardly any attention has been given to the necessity, in any event, to renegotiate the existing European treaties embedded in the constitution. Already the boundaries of these treaties are being pushed further forward and European laws are being made, going far beyond what was anticipated.
The European issue affects almost every aspect of our daily lives: who governs us and how we are governed. It is not a theological distraction but a practical question about our democracy and the voters’ right to choose their government and laws in general elections.
It is transparently clear that the European project is failing under the existing treaties, as Wim Kok’s report on the Lisbon agenda amply demonstrates. There is low growth and high unemployment. No stability, no growth, no pact. There is endemic fraud and the Court of Auditors has yet again refused to sign off the European accounts. The immigration and asylum policies under the existing treaties have broken down and social tensions are breaking out. As the President of the CBI indicated, overregulation has become intolerable. The Prime Minister’s own Better Regulation Task Force has said that overregulation is costing British business £100 billion a year — most of this regulation from Europe.
So where do we go? The Conservative Party is the only party with any realistic means of reversing this. Certainly it is committed to rejecting the constitution in principle, but it is on the question of renegotiation that it needs to clarify and explain its position on the existing treaties. Michael Howard has rightly called for renegotiation on the Common Fisheries Policy and publicly stated that if the other member states will not accept renegotiation, we will legislate at Westminster unilaterally. This policy of renegotiation is, however, limited to fisheries, foreign aid and the social chapter, but does not tackle the key question of the wide range of matters that need to be renegotiated, including the political structure of Europe.
Current opinion polls are distinctly depressing for the Conservative Party but could be reversed by seizing the high ground on Europe. It is clear from the ICM poll for the European Foundation in November that 58 per cent of voters, including 68 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds, want the existing treaties reduced to trade and association agreements. Voters assume that there will be a referendum on the constitution and, as with William Hague’s policy on the euro referendum in the 1997 general election, the political marketplace has largely discounted the result. The Economist indicated last June that a policy for associate status could add as much as 8 per cent to the Conservative Party tally in a general election, even before it is fully explained.
The Prime Minister claims that it is impossible to renegotiate without the agreement of every one of the other 24 EU member states. He refuses to accept that the national interest turns on political will and that Westminster, on behalf of its electorate, can legislate at will. If the other member states refuse to listen and to act on our proposals for renegotiation, it is open to us to exercise our political will with a determined threat of withdrawal.
If the EU won’t listen we could pass something in line with my Sovereignty of Parliament Bill which would require judges to give precedence to new British laws over the European Communities Act 1972.
Where, therefore, does this place the Conservative Party? The Conservatives have been faced with at least five similar situations over the past 150 years, which led to splits. These include the Corn Laws, Home Rule, tariff reform, appeasement and the Thatcher trade union reforms. In every case, those who had been in the minority before reality set in have won the day. When Kenneth Clarke on the Queen’s Speech argues for the European constitution and against a referendum, he and his diminutive band demonstrate their irreconcilable divergence from the party’s principles.
In another recent ICM poll 70 per cent of Conservative Party members have suggested that if the party does not toughen its stance on Europe, people “like themselves” could vote for the UK Independence Party. The UKIP policy of unconditional withdrawal requires some form of negotiation. The UKIP cannot achieve its objective without the Conservatives being in power and the Conservatives cannot get into power without winning back those who have deserted to the UKIP. In other words, Eurosceptics face mutually assured destruction, with the Eurofanatic Labour Party and the Lib Dems winning by divide and rule.
There will almost certainly be an election this year. The Conservative Party will succeed if it matches its principles and its policies in line with the great issue of who governs Britain and demonstrates, as can easily be done, the relationship of this to their daily lives. Some 60 per cent of British laws are already spawned by the EU, most of which are unpopular. Yet the focus-group-driven Conservative programme relegates the European issue to relative obscurity.
The European issue is sometimes low in polling priorities only because it has never been properly explained. For example, when Gordon Brown and the Prime Minister taunt the Conservative Party over the high interest rates and high unemployment of the 1990s, why do we not respond that they too were in favour of the ERM and that the main reason why Mr Brown can claim a better economy here than in the eurozone is despite, and not because of, the Government’s commitment to the European economic project?
The European issue is not the only issue before the British people, but it is the most fundamental. Failure to grapple with the existing treaties before the next election would become one of the great political mysteries and failures of our time.
Publicado por esta às janeiro 5, 2005 12:31 PM