thoughts – davelevy.info

There’s no useful half way house

Earlier this month, Michel Barnier made a speech in which he suggested that the European Union would welcome the United Kingdom rejoining the EU even with some of the opt-outs previously negotiated. Barnier is very clear that he is only talking about Schengen and the Euro. The huge problem with the speech and the suggestion that opt-outs remain on the table is this will be interpreted by lukewarm supporters and political weathercocks as permission to haggle on the terms of re-entry.

Michel Barnier – European Parliament cc 2019 BY

The unacceptability of UK opt-outs within the EU, specifically, staying out of Schengen and the Euro, is illustrated in a recent You Gov poll. Unfortunately, for rejoiners, the French and Germans will only accept a UK application if it includes Schengen and the Euro, while support in the UK falls if we do not rejoin on the terms we had. It would be interesting to note what people believe those terms to be, as apart from Schengen and the Euro, they include a partial opt-out from the justice pillar, together with the famous rebate.

I am concerned that while a number of campaigners have been trying to prove their cleverness by suggesting there’s ways to rejoin without agreeing to the Copenhagen Criteria, others have been encouraged to consider EU membership as an a-la-carte process. It is not.

On the question of opt-outs, we, i.e. rejoiners need to show some leadership. Schengen comes with the right to freedom of movement. This is a popular and positive benefit of full membership of the European Union. Politicians, particularly Labour politicians should be showing some leadership. The opt-outs are gone; there may be some technical reasons why Schengen and the Euro will take some time but being a net contributor is one reason why we’re wanted and full membership of the justice pillar gives each citizen access to the Court of Justice of the European Union acting as a backstop against the authoritarian instincts of the British State with judges appointed by the children of opponents of fascism and Stalinism. Being members of the Digital Single Market would have the benefit of defending our democracy against US Oligarchs and Putin.

I want my European citizenship back, I want to vote for MEPs and a Parliament that appoints a Commissioner and Judge, and has a seat on the European Council. And since this is a metaphor in common use, I want it in my lifetime. I also want to participate in improving the democracy of the EU to make it accountable to the views of citizens and residents.

Another reason for pace, is that the EU is about to move on in a big way. Many argue that its changed too much to rejoin anyway; it’s not yet true and just something that Brexiters say but if the industrial policy takes off, it will damage the UK’s ability to export and further damage supply chains. …

On “Stop killing video” games

The ECI “Stop killing video games” was accepted as having reached its one million signature threshold earlier this year. The initiative seeks to prevent the remote disabling of videogames by their publishers. They also say, this prohibition can be met by providing means for the game to continue functioning independent of publisher. This article looks at the Commission response, the campaign’s next steps and questions the Commission’s strategy in responding to ECIs. …

On Labour’s rules on the election of a Leader

A short note on how Labour’s Leadership election rules work.

Rule Ch1.Vii establishes the roles, and delegates the election process to Ch4.II.

This from C1.VII, is quite amusing given the history of the last few years, underling is mine.

The Leader shall, as a member of the NEC, uphold and enforce the constitution, rules and standing orders of the Party and ensure the maintenance and development of an effective political Labour Party in parliament and in the country.

Chapter 4.II defines the nomination and election process. The first clause is the now sadly common rule that claims to establish a principle but actually allows the NEC to vary the process and either bend or break the rules. Any such variation would need to be conformant with Wedensbury reasonableness rules, but this is unlikely to be ever tested in a court.

The rules specify process to be followed in the case of a vacancy, or where no vacancy exists.

To be a valid nominee, a candidate requires nomination from the PLP, CLPs and affiliates. In the case of a vacancy, the rules are silent as to the order these are to be sought.

In the case of a challenge, someone would have needed to have collected the 20% of the PLP supporters, and then others would need to be given the opportunity to do so too. The timing of the making of supporting nominations by CLPs and affiliates is also silent.

The rules state that nominations shall be made by all three classes of nominators.

The election consists of a one member one vote and is designed to include union political levy payers, who are not members of a political party. This I thought interesting,

4.II.C.vii The precise eligibility criteria shall be defined by the NEC and set out in procedural guidelines and in each annual report to conference.

as yet again neither members nor candidates know the rules until after the election has been called and nominations made. See also the Rule Book 2026 and/or My Repo, which holds mirrors …

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 …

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 ...

Political Tech Summit 26, Berlin

These are my notes from Political Tech Summit 26. I have focused on those sessions I attended. The technology support presents what looks like AI written summaries of the sessions which were mainly panel sessions. I have quoted from these summaries and in one case sought to re-summarise using another LLM. I have tried to humanise the text so that the article remains in my voice but also informs you of what happened. For more, see overleaf ...

One down, more to fall

So McSweeney is permitted to resign ‘from government’ and in his apology seeks to constrain his downfall to his support for Mandelson as US ambassador. His departure gives Labour the opportunity to find its heart again as McSweeney did so much to remove it, building a party that as Martin Forde predicted, in his inquiry report, where factional loyalty counted for more than public service.

Clive Lewis writes on Facebook, saying, among other things,

… That mindset hollowed Labour out. It replaced a party rooted in working-class life with a professional political caste fluent in donor networks, private dinners and elite reassurance, while communities were told to accept decline as the price of ‘responsible’ government. Politics became about managing optics and markets, not challenging vested interests or redistributing power.

McSweeney’s departure changes none of that on its own. Unless Labour confronts the culture that rewarded closeness to wealth, blurred ethical lines and treated democratic accountability as an inconvenience, this will amount to little more than damage limitation.

Remove one operator and the system that produced him remains. And unless that system is dismantled, Labour will continue to lose its moral authority, its social base, and ultimately its right to govern, leaving the ground clear for forces far worse to exploit the wreckage.

The whole piece is worth reading.

I agree with Clive, this is an opportunity, one that was always coming, to turn the government and the Party round. The Party bureaucracy and elements of the PLP need clearing out, without it, my Party’s future looks very dim.

Richard Burgon, also says, that this is only a necessary first step. …

The Road not Taken

the sign at the entrance of the DHM in Berlin

I went to an exhibition at the Deutscher Historisches Museum, called the Road not Taken. It examines seven turning points in German history and asks what might have happened if they'd turned out differently. They say, "It brings actual turning points face to face with what might have happened if it if it were not for various factors - prevented by accidents, averted by misfires or other kinds of shortcomings -are explored:" They start in 1989 with the peaceful revolution in the German Democratic Republic and end in the year 1848, when Germany first tried to attempt a democratic awakening.

For more, including an image of the poster and a video of an agamograph, use the "Read More" button ...

A breeze in Downing Street

Are we moving closer to joining the EU? It's been quite an eventful month, culminating in Wes Streeting’s call for the UK to join the EU’s Customs Union. This article looks at the current state of thinking of HMG on negotiations with the EU, comments on the velocity and direction of travel, contrasting the red lines vs the numerous programme adoptions, recent polling evidence that a majority of people in the UK now want to rejoin, the House of Commons vote on rejoining the customs union, and the announcement of the UK’s rejoining Erasmus+, the EU’s student exchange scheme. It concludes looking at a Guardian EB piece questioning if British Politics is fit to survive the current challenges and the Labour Party’s abysmal response. The full article, is overleaf, use the "Read More" to see it ...

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