The rEUle of law

The rEUle of law

I once attended a HoC home affairs select committee where I saw that some Tory members were quite shocked that the EU would require guarantees on the rule of law to both accept the European arrest warrant and police co-operation through Europol. By guarantees, they require adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and enforcement/appeal to the EU Court.

Democratic control of state surveillance is a global problem and one about which most of Europe due it its history is much more attuned. The UK’s current legal framework is the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, proposed by Teresa May, and “opposed” by Andy Burnham and Sir Kier Starmer.

The whole of Labour’s ploy is to create something beyond the EU, to offer to share access to weapons & intelligence in exchange for single market opt-outs, a single market for munitions, but not for labour or people.

They probably want to keep the justice pillar opt-outs too, although given the changing politics of the EU and the Labour government, there is little point. The opt-outs were negotiated to protect the British state against the EU court’s potential interference in UK immigration and labour laws. But escaping the CJEU is not enough; it should also be noted that most of the recent ECtHR losses by the British government have been over the administration of justice, not unexpected when one reviews the recent Home Secretary and Justice Secretary incumbents …

More on growth & debt

More on growth & debt

The problem with the Truss mini-budget was not that they had an ‘unfunded’ deficit but that there was no mechanism between the deficit and investment. Rich people tend to save and for the deficit to do any social good, the banks would have to lend to investors i.e. entities looking to buy or make capital goods; which they have never done. Private sector domestic investment has usually been funded by retained earnings!

The lesson here is that the markets were not frightened of the deficit, just its purpose.

See also Growth vs public debt management on this blog. …

Growth vs Public Debt management

Growth vs Public Debt management

You don’t have to be a modern monetarist to believe that the UK has a debt crisis. There are a number of well evidenced and widely believed economic theories that support the use of a Government deficit to induce growth which is the surest way to reduce national debt. Those that argue austerity is a choice are bang on the money.

Debt fetishists need to get this, but so do those who argue that we should fund some desirable programme, be it pensioner’s winter fuel allowances, doctor’s recruitment or student debt forgiveness because we can fund a defence budget. How we use and deploy our military is of course a matter of other priorities but arguing we need to accept austerity by applying the cuts elsewhere is ignorant.

Investment led growth requires expenditure in increasing the productive capacity of the techno-economy, although there is some recent writing and research that traditional industrial policy focused on startups and R&D doesn’t work and that looking at public service outcomes is a more effective growth measure. I’d add that investment in labour force skills is another investment which means that University [& FE] funding and student finance should be considered investement, although none of this seems important to this Government who are prioritising reducing the public debt before investment. Housing is not an investment in productivity; the reason for doing this is social, and not based on macroeconoic policy goals.

You can’t grow the economy while reducing the deficit! It works the otherway round.  …

Democracy is about policy too

Democracy is about policy too

 In a meeting last night, of my Union branch, and we were being spoken to by an MP, who argued that he stood on a Manifesto, and that this represented the Party’s view and its contract with the voters. My problem is that the Manifesto, while agreed by the National Policy Forum was not agreed by the Party and there is little doubt that the Party opposes austerity, wants to rejoin the EU and opposes racism in our immigration policy.

It made decide to redouble my efforts in support of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy and to this time focus on how we make policy, and how we hold a leadership accountable to it. I mean, mandatory re-selection was meant to be part of this, but the 2019 selections and triggers show this may not be enough.

Today’s problem, is that the PLP is representing the leadership to the members and not the other way round. …

Universalism

Universalism

In his latest blog, Phil BC shares that the Labour Government, articulated by Rachel Reeves, want to end the pensioners winter fuel benefit because they oppose universalism. But pensions have been earned through NI contributions. Dealing with wealth, or the wealthy earning subsidies, should be dealt with through income tax, removing the NI taper, inheritance tax, and a new wealth tax. Any such reform needs to take into account housing costs and cost of living. Why is it always the only just successful that get penalised by these schemes, such as occurs with the clawback of personal allowance and child benefit. The frightening thing from Phil’s report is that the state pension is a contributory universal benefit, although so was Unemployment Benefit which the Tories abolished and they also put National Insurance contributions into play. Are Labour really going to play with this and create a huge increment to the WASPI campaigners? Perhaps they think that pensioners vote Tory and die, but there are over 1 million workers over 60, most of whom will be planning when to stop and need some stability in their planning horizon. …

The missing courage of the ICO

The missing courage of the ICO

I note from Jim Killock’s pinned repost of a post by David Erdos on X, that the media and the ICO have issued a report, dated March 2024, on journalistic practices and the Data Protection Act 2018. This was produced as part of response to the Leveson Report, itself, spawned by the Millie Dowler & celebrity phone hacking scandal. Erdos makes the point that the ICO did not make use of its investigatory powers, which he refers to as §17 powers nor that the story was followed by … err! … the Press.

Additionally, over the last week, the ICO announced its report into its investigations into the Labour Party and its compliance with GDPR/DPA. Again, they weren’t asking the big questions and say more about the mitigation actions than the compliance failures. This allows the Guardian to run a headline focusing on the failure to respond to DSARs, in fact the Guardian focuses only on late response, and not on failure and everyone is silent on the refusals.

I would like to know what measures the Party took to ensure that their IT sub-contractors met their obligations as data processors, what measures the Party took to ensure their DPO was qualified[1] according to Article 37 of the GDPR, why no compensation has been offered/mandated to victims of the breach, what measures Labour took to ensure the completeness of any DSARs, what measures the Labour Party took to ensure that only appropriate staff had access to personal data and what measures the Party took to ensure that democratic rights of members weren’t adversely effected by the breach? It would seem the ICO have not asked these questions; this is exceedingly disappointing.

Regulatory capture is a well-studied phenomenon. However, it’s simpler if one is the government rather than a private business or an NGO. It seems pretty clear that the ICO is frightened of the major political parties which since human rights law is designed to protect citizens from governments, rather spoils the point of having one. NB the GDPR has a lot to say about the importance of the independence of both Data Protection Officers and also the national data protection supervisory authority.

[1] The data protection officer shall be designated on the basis of professional qualities and, in particular, expert knowledge of data protection law and practices … n.b. Data Protection practices require an expertise in cyber security. …

Starmer, Berlin, rejoineu and delay

Starmer, Berlin, rejoineu and delay

Even the press and some commentators noticed that Kier Starmer visited Berlin and repeated his Brexit red-lines and yet claimed to want to reduce trade frictions between the two countries.

Germany is not in a position to negotiate this. Trade with 3rd countries is an EU competency. Starmer’s growth mission will be easier if the UK were to rejoin the single market [and customs union]. This involves him changing his mind, and talking to the Commission [FT] to the Commission in Brussels.

The British people would seem to want to rejoin the EU but the Labour Government and too many experts would seem to be still pursuing the chimera of a mercantilist patchwork trade deal which  must be called “Cakeism” in the UK and  will be called cherry-picking  or extrawurst in the EU. This is not available, neither is a swiss style multi-treaty deal.

Starmer’s government seems to think that revamped Anglo-German military treaty will help the cause of reduced friction trade. There are three problems with this. Just as one shouldn’t start trade negotiations in Berlin but in Brussels, military co-operation needs to involve Poland which now has one of the largest armies in the EU. Since the British ambitions are broader i.e. beyond military co-operation  and to include intelligence sharing and cybersecurity but since the UK was kicked out of Europol as part of Brexit because it no longer recognised the EU’s Charter of Fundamental rights, intelligence sharing will need a common recognition of privacy and judicial rights of citizens. The children and grandchildren of fascist and Stalinist societies will not permit their governments to outsource surveillance to an unrestricted and and unaccountable body. The third problem is that suspicious member states will characterise the UK position as wanting freedom of movement for weapons and ammunition, but not of people, and a single market for guns but not for anything else.

As a counterpoint, Richard Bentall writes  in a thread where he states that “the only way to slow it [rejoining the EU] is by saying it’s too difficult”, to which I add that holding out for better opt-outs is merely delaying rejoining. As a reinforcement, Blade of  the Sun argues that rejoining is simple,

  1. You apply to rejoin.
  2. They tell us what you need to do.
  3. You do it.
  4. Rejoin

And it is that simple, no opt-outs, no special deals but I fear that this Government are not yet ready to drop their dreams of a swiss-style/cakeist deal supported by too-clever academics and journalists, who are looking to ‘hack the treaties’. They need to make their mind up, do they want to be seen to be clever, or change the world; too often this is a choice and one that many academics and journalists fail to address or get wrong. …

Austerity is a choice

Austerity is a choice

You don’t have to be a modern monetarist to believe that the UK has a debt crisis. There are a number of well evidenced and widely believed economic theories that support the use of a Government deficit to induce growth which is the surest way to reduce national debt. Those that argue austerity is a choice are bang on the money.

Debt fetishists need to get this, but so do those who argue that we should fund some desirable programme, be it pensioners winter fuel allowances, doctor’s recruitment or student debt forgiveness because we can fund a defence budget. How we use and deploy our military is of course a matter of other priorities but arguing we need to accept austerity but applying the cuts elsewhere is ignorant. …

Power, Influence and Policy in the Labour Party

Power, Influence and Policy in the Labour Party

I have been published on Labour Hub. In the article, I reflect on the powerlessness of Labour’s ordinary members, and look at the long term plans of Labour’s right and PLP starting from Evan’s 1999 report proposing the destruction of membership rights and diminishing of the CLP influence. I look at the introduction of all-member meetings and registered supporters and their later repeal together with the reforms enhancing conference power and their repeal. I also look at Labour's failure to use IT platforms for policy, and underinvestment in supporting staff posts. See overleaf or check out the original article... ...