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Could the UK pass the Copenhagen criteria?

As Labour turns a corner and begins to address if it should seek to lead the country into a closer relationship with the European Union, I found a thread on bluesky which questions if the UK is sufficiently democratic, and ready to adopt the complete acquis. I thought I’d reply, and this is what I say!

On Democracy

Is the UK sufficiently democratic to join the EU. The two key organisations that measure ‘democraciness’ both argue that the UK is a democracy. Its score in the EIU Index in 2024, is 8.34/10.00, its 11^th out of 20 in Western Europe, and above France, Italy, Spain and three other countries. France and Italy it considers “Flawed democracies”.

I have some difficulty with the EIU methodology, as while its open and accessible, I find it hard to replicate and comng from the Economist scores defences of liberal economics highly vs the pursuit of social rights. I looked at this in 2018, where I categorised the Economist’s weaknesses in the UK’s democracy. Amnesty International says that the UK’s treatment of refugees and asylum seekers is inadequate and that it fails to comply with its international obligations, including to ensure the rights to food, housing and adequate social security.

One issue raised in the thread is that the UK does not honour its devolution agreements. This will not impact the Copenhagen criteria; the EU treaties are an agreement between member states, and subsidiarity is an agreement between the EU and the member states. Subsidiarity ensures that “decisions should be made at the closest possible level to the citizen”. It would benefit all the citizens of the EU, and the UK, if the treaties required member states to have internal subsidiarity contracts with their people and that the Committee of Regions was accountable to the citizens of the regions and not appointed by member state governments.

On the Acquis

All the opt-outs are gone. The Brexiteers gave them away.

If the UK were to seek to rejoin the EU, it would need to agree to the EU’s freedom of movement laws. In fact all the opt-outs have gone and so while politically difficult for UK campaigners, freedom of movement is a benefit for which campaigners should argue and it is becoming more popular amongst young people.

The UK will also need to recognise that its Justice Pillar opt-outs have also gone, as everyone decent should want as they were designed, by a Labour Government, to allow the UK to have more illiberal immigration and trade union laws.

On the Euro, the UK should come to an agreement to adopt the Euro, i.e. supporters of rejoining need to be more explicit that both freedom of movement and the Euro are benefits and we should want them.

With respect to the Euro, I am still concerned about the Stability and Growth Pact as I don’t think macro-economic planning should be frozen in a treaty. I also think the quantitive money theory baked into the treaties are wrong and cause misery and poverty,. …

AI’s black hole

People are interested in what they’re interested in and it seems that I can’t put copyright down. I was at in conference on artificial intelligence over the weekend, organised by global justice now (GJN).

The question I want to ask though is, that if AI, is meant to be so clever, how does it acquire all the science, social science and humanities white papers currently held behind copyright enforced paywalls or on DNS blocked repos.

It seems they don’t, unless they have “Partnership agreements” with the copyright holders for which they pay.

I’m concerned about this hole in human knowledge that is unavailable to the LLMs. Are we really betting all this money on only part of what we know?

The general intellect it is not! …

Is Labour about to ‘press reset’ again

I reviewed “Pressing Reset” , the recent Fabian pamphlet on the state of play within the mainstream of the Parliamentary Labour Party on relations with the EU. This was published on the Chartist Magazine’s website. I conclude that the Parliamentary Labour Party is still not ready to abandon cherry-picking, and abandon Starmer’s red lines.

In my review, I highlight Stella Creasy’s contribution where she makes a cogent argument for a Swiss style deal, made easier by the EU having recently updated the Swiss agreement. She recognises that to make progress, the UK is going to have to give something on freedom of movement. Liam Byrne makes an argument for an Economic Security Union, which he claims is definitely not just the single market renamed. It is in fact more comprehensive than the single market . In the review, I say, “Byrne argues that a broader agenda will make agreement easier and that the UK must stop asking for favours and offer a true partnership.”. This is a contribution from a heavy weight to be welcomed.

The final two chapters look at what’s happening in the EU. Jannike Wachowiak of UKICE writes about what the EU wants. He starts by saying that, “Brits spend an inordinate amount of time discussing what they want from the EU. They spend far less, however, pondering what the EU and its member states might want from them.” In the review, I say, “Wachowiak argues that the consensus within the EU is that the TCA works well for them. He also argues that the EU still maintains an opposition to cherry-picking, and while there is some evidence that this is not as strong as it once was, it is clear that the EU will not agree to a better deal for an ex-member than that offered to other members and members of the EEA. Again, he argues the UK needs to put more on the table, and it needs to be what the EU and its member states want.”

As part of my conclusion, I say,

From reading the pamphlet, I have heard that some argue that we can’t rejoin, because the EU has changed. This is true, but it seems we haven’t. We are still acting like a nation of shopkeepers, and unless we raise our ambitions, the EU is planning in further changes which will make it even harder to participate as a partner 3^rd country or even as members unless we decide that membership of these programmes is more beneficial than a Scrooge-like analysis of the costs and benefits of each programme.

Also,

… the biggest disappointment in the pamphlet. If Labour doesn’t lead [opinion] and drop its red lines, the cost of Brexit will increase, and the relationship will stagnate as the EU concentrates on other things.

Jannike Wachowiak and Jude Kirton Darling’s articles make it clear that we need to put more on the table and see the EU as a coalition of values and culture rather than exclusively a trade club or a defence market.

Despite all this, starting conversations about contributing to the cohesion fund and HMG’s commitment to legislate to allow dynamic alignment are hopeful.

However, without pressure, this government may make verbal compromises with its red lines but express no desire to genuinely commit to the European Union and thus the EU may just move on, addressing the issues that are more important to them. …

On defence sovereignty

James Schneider is in the ‘Statesman writing on Defence. This article is published with a tag line of, “Military insiders are trying to bully the government into dependency on an erratic United States”. I comment on the his arguments, and look at views expressed by other military commentators as to the sense of the UK’s US centric procurement policies and look at Kaldor and Cooper’s paper arguing that social resilience is a defence policy too.

Schneider argues correctly, but not with originality, that expenditure targets are not a strategy. A strategy must consider purpose, weapons and their source. He points out that George Robertson, a recent critic of the financial targets, is connected to and a long time supporter of the US Military Industrial complex. While Defence Secretary, he established the now bi-partisan position that the UK would develop an expeditionary capability designed to work in the context of “allies” i.e. a US led NATO. Robertson then went on to serve as NATO’s General Secretary. His criticisms of the Labour Government’s defence policies and appetite to fund them is repeated in an article in the Spectator written by John Foreman, who was formerly Britain’s defence attaché in Moscow and before that, Britain’s defence attaché in Kyiv.

The problem is that under Trump, the US is clearly an unreliable ally to the UK & Europe.

This opinion is the major assumption in Kaldor & Cooper’s paper, Organised Irresponsibility, where they argue that the Strategic Defence Review, is based on the assumption that NATO is the cornerstone of UK defence policy and that it double down on using the US as its major supplier focusing on expensive weapon systems which have been shown to be extremely vulnerable in Ukraine.

Does the reliance in US weapons systems and infrastructure jeopardise the UK’s defence capability. Schneider questions the availability of both the F35s, used on the aircraft carriers and for European operations and that of the nuclear deterrent. Further evidence is obliquely provided by Perun, an open source intelligence commentator, in a video entitled, “Arming Europe Without US Weapons?“, where he suggests in his imaginary European military, by their omission, that the UK’s exquisite weapons are all too US dependent.

Kaldor and Cooper make two additional arguments. The first that the SDR’s arguments and the government adoption of buying more US weapons limits European Co-operation, and they sub-title their conclusion, “Welfare is Resilience”.

I was reminded at a seminar yesterday, that some defence thinkers are trying to prepare the UK for the view that modern wars are between societies and that everyone needs to contribute. The SDR recognises, and observing Ukraine’s resistance, shows that, yet again, modern wars are likely to be conducted by the whole of society. Additionally, the new cold war is conducted in the grey zone, to which the best defence is a well informed and committed society.

A country at the end of fourteen years of austerity, with a corrupt media, and a public social wage commitment the lowest in Europe is not going to support enhanced defence expenditure at the expense of increased wages and diminishing social security. The second part of Robertson’s statement is that the welfare bill is too high and that It needs to be cut in order to fund defence; this was days before we discover that the HMG undershot its borrowing projections by £700m.

The UK can’t have an impoverished people and a well funded military, even if the current weapons procurement proposals made sense. A defence policy/strategy needs to be about purpose, then weapons and their cost. The country also needs that its population thinks its worth defending.

Social justice & equality are defence projects too. …

Only full membership works!

Rafael Behr writes a trenchant statement about the weakness of Labour's "Fix Brexit" policy. It's titled, "The Brexit delusion is dead – so now Keir Starmer doesn’t need to pretend any more" with a tag line, "To rebuild relations with Europe in a dangerous world, the prime minister needs to win big arguments, not hide behind outdated red lines".

He criticises the timidity of the manifesto, Starmer's apolitical approach to dealing with Europe, and everything really, points out that cherry-picking can never succeed and that membership is the best answer even for the economic questions.

Today's debate amongst Labour's leadership, is whether its possible to pursue a sector-by-sector negotiation without compromising the red lines. It is not! Unless the UK gets on the train, the next tranche of EU reforms will make it harder for an incrementalist approach to succeed. Furthermore the EU are not going to give better terms to an ex-member than to current or acceding states. Also the five year review is due to start, there is no reason why the EU will want to put more on the table, and Behr's eloquent statement, that the only model that truly works is membership is now obviously true, made more so by the changing geo-political circumstances. I would add, that until we begin to talk about the need for mutual social solidarity with the peoples of the European Union, again progress will be slow.

To me, this is a great article which you should read yourself, for those short of time, I have book marked the article in diigo, and made the following notes. These can be seen overleaf, by using the "Read More" button ...

Checks and balances in Poland?

I attended the Citidem seminar, on Poland. It was addressed by Professor Maciej Kisilowski, who has authored a book/paper collecting his thoughts. The paper is called , Introduction: A Polarized Country in Need of a New Social Contract, Let’s Agree on Poland. A Case Study in Strategic Constitutional Design. The paper is available at the University of Warsaw site. The seminar is available on youtube.

I made a contribution, here are my notes.

Professor Kisilowski spoke of the centripetal forces in Poland and argues that to combat these forces there needs to be new foci of power. He proposes Mayors, who will also meet in a national senate. He described the mayors as guardians of the constitution which reminded me of Labour’s proposals, for a basic law, enforced by a reformed upper house, in the Brown Commission, a topic on which I blogged, and on which little progress has been made.

The problem with populist politics is the winner take all nature of the liberal democracies and their parties. Electoral systems that reinforce the winner take all culture do not serve democracy. In elections of Presidents and Mayors, there can only be one winner which reinforces the anti-democratic tendencies of politicians and weakens ‘loser’s consent’. One counter model is found in Switzerland, but parliaments and committees can and have to negotiate in the open and often they will find more acceptable solutions from the various stakeholders second and third choice preferences. I question whether directly elected presidents and mayors are the superior democratic answer to government.

It was argued that the EU could act as a guarantor or underwriter of human rights law, although it may be that there are those who oppose human rights law, and certainly human rights laws written by foreigners. This is certainly the case in the UK. I can see a role for the EU in this role and have supported the opposition and implementation of measures that the UK parliament would have wanted or not. The EU is operating its own agenda of centralisation which if desirable needs changes in governance rules.

Within the Aquis of the EU, subsidiarity is a relationship between the Union and the States. We, the people, need that subsidiarity to become a right; and that decisions are taken as close to the people it effects as possible.

Devolution is hard to implement because it means the meaningful transfer of power. If devolution is a gift, then it can always be taken back. We can see imperfect implementations of devolution in the UK in Scotland and Wales and in Spain in Catalunya & the Basque country, but also in Italy, Belgium and Finland.

On writing this piece, I add this as a conclusion. The arguments about a new constitution and the necessary conflict resolution mechanisms raises the issue of the freezing of inter-community dialogue and the embedding of the cultural polarisation. This can be seen in a number of places in the world, including Northern Ireland, Belgium, the Lebanon and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In Northern Ireland, which I know better than the other locations, the power-sharing has led firstly to increased polarisation as the Unionists moved from Official Unionists to the DUP, and latterly, a structural inhibition on building cross-community parties.

My conclusion is that constitutions needs both flexibility and boundaries and that representative parliaments/councils are superior to presidents and mayors.

Featured Image: The Polish Sejm by Polish MFA cc-by-nd-2011 via flickr; w750 …

How important is profit for software projects?

I have just posted on LinkedIn, “Does AI actually impact the bottom line in a good way?”. I look at an article from the Register based on a Gartner report which reports that in their survey AI projects “sucess rates were “only 28 percent of use cases fully succeed and offer return on investment (ROI).”

I look at at arguments from Perez’s Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital and remember a late 20th century paradox that while many IS projects had poor and even negative ROIs, firms that didn’t invest failed.

…

EU-UK reset and the electricity market

I was informed by the European Movement on threads, that the EU Council has approved talks between the EU & UK on electricity market integration and cohesion. While electricity was on the cards and was signposted in last years May Summit, the cohesion talks are a major departure. Whether this is the EU ensuring that the UK pays its way into the single market, or a genuine attempt to broaden the conversation about what the UK adopts/rejoins is to me unclear.

It may be some surprising good news, perhaps more evidence that Labour’s tanker is turning.

I was surprised at the cohesion fund announcement and so asked Gemini if the UK would be a net contributor to the fund. They suggest that it is unlikely that the UK would be able to claim from the fund as the UK’s GDP per capita is too high and its purpose is now targeted at poorer member states and not smaller localities. Gemini’s full reply is at https://share.google/aimode/R99jBkDkHT8Qd5Y2E

It seems they think the UK paying into the cohesion fund is to contribute to single market costs of joining the electricity single market. Under current rules the UK is unlikely to claim against the cohesion fund, despite having numerous European poverty areas. …

A fracturing internet

I wrote a medium length blog on linkedin and medium about three US court cases on internet system service provider liability to consumers and non-consenting suppliers. The big tech companies lost two, on harm caused which they’ll appeal, and won one on carrier immunity.

I also look at Russia’s recent measures to cut Russian users from the world, and mention the UK’s expressed concern about internet harms. …

Labour’s Brexit tanker is turning

On the Great Reset with the EU, things continue to move, if not between the EU & UK, at least inside the Labour Government. I look at the important events over the first quarter of 2026, including new deals, the Foreign Affairs committee report, the EU Commissions reaction to the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, the reactions of some of Labour's Mayors, Reeves' Mais lecture 26 and reactions to it, finishing with a report on Sir John Curtice's views on voting & opinion.. For more, use the "Read More" button ...

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