#Lab25 will get to debate rejoining the EU

Labour Conference 2019 from the balcony

At the General Committee of Lewisham North last night we agreed to send a motion calling for the abolition of the two child benefit cap, and also proposed a reference back of the NPF report. I intiallly proposed the words in a blog article posted last week. This article repeats some of the text of the reference back and my notes for my moving speech, and right of reply, as it was opposed by both those who think that being outside the EU is a good thing, and those who fear Farage and think the time is wrong.

The crux of the reference back is,

Conference calls on the NPF to look beyond the ’24 manifesto commitments with respect to the EU relationship and to press for faster re-alignment with the EU single market within this parliament and to examine the possibility of rejoining  the European Union being a manifesto promise for the next general election.

Here are my notes, in moving the proposal,

The NPF report talks of much progress but draws little conclusions. It makes much of the UK-EU summit in May, which itself was inconclusive. No agreements were made. Not even on the softest of targets, Defence.

This reference back calls for the NPF to consider looking beyond the ’24 manifesto commitments with respect to the EU relationship and to press for faster re-alignment with the EU single market, within this parliament, and to examine the possibility of rejoining the European Union being a manifesto promise for the next general election.

In addition to its lack of ambition, the report fails to mention the reset meetings requirements that the UK must fully implement its commitments under the “withdrawal agreement”, the Windsor framework and the “Trade and cooperation agreement” and that, as said, it failed to conclude any improvement in the formal relationships between the United Kingdom and the European Union, including on youth mobility.

The OBR estimates that exit from the single market has cost the economy 4% of its value, this is not something that a growth mission driven government should leave on the table.

The fundamental reason for the UK’s poor economic performance is a lack of investment. Rejoining the single market would ease the entry of European capital into the UK investment market, and help to remediate the unpatriotic and global nature of the shrinking London capital markets which leaves the primary source of domestic investment to retained profits. It would also make the housing market goals easier to achieve as in order to build more houses the UK needs skills, effort and bricks from abroad.

A changed mood disguised by Brexit adjacent red-lines are not enough and chasing the dying Brexiteer vote is not a strategy for success.

But when making policy, we need to consider what’s right and not just what’s popular.

Please send this to Conference so it is at least debated and visible.

And my notes of my right of reply,

The referendum decision was taken three elections and 9 years ago. It is a dead and failed mandate.

For those of you who hang onto your line from the seventies, you were wrong in 79, wrong in 2016 and wrong today; for those that argue it’s a barrier to a socialist government may I remind you of the author of  the doctrine of “Socialism in one country”.

For those that fear giving Farage space, you can’t fight him by agreeing with him. He’s wrong on Europe and wrong on immigration and we need to say so.

For those who fear Reform’s reaction, when making policy and making promises, at least those we mean to keep, we should consider what’s right and not what’s popular with people who will never vote for us.

Our Spanish comrade suggested this is premature, he argues the Party needs an agreement about how to rejoin and that will take us time. I say what  better way to start the conversation than by taking it to Labour Conference.

 …

Thoughts on Labour’s NPF Report ’25

Thoughts on Labour’s NPF Report ’25

This article looks at the development of Labour's Policy as its annual Conference approaches. It looks at the rules commitment to "voting in parts", and reproduces an NPF report reference back motion on the subject of the relationship with the EU that I shall take to my local party. My motion calls to rejoin the single market immediately and to promise to rejoin the EU in the next manifesto. To read the whole article, use the "Read More" button ...

Second thoughts on the Euro-summit

Kier Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen in a conference room

It is my view that Starmer wants a Swiss style deal with the European Union. The reason I consider the summit to be a draw, albeit a score draw, is that neither of the end goals of rejoining nor staying out with a Swiss style agreement are closed off. But also, neither is the end result of the EU saying we’re too busy to spend this time “dot & comma-ing” with you.

There is no inexorability in rejoining from that agreement as I believe is implied by John Palmer’s Chartist piece. Perhaps, John  believes that Trump will drive even Starmer away from NATO but I believe they will try very hard not to make the choice. In fact, I believe the proposal for a defence/security agreement is deliberately made to allow trade-offs against the single market acquis and to try to exclude security which includes border control co-operation from the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the EU Court of Justice’s jurisdiction.  

I also believe much of Labour’s defence positioning is designed for internal party combat and learnt from simplistic board games.

However, ihis article, entitled “EU officially retires its ‘no cherry-picking’ Brexit line” may show that the new Commission (and maybe even the Council), are happier with a deal with opt-outs; even then, I am not sure I’d want to start from the withdrawal agreement.

I believe that those of us who believe that it’s a better world with a democratic EU still need to seek to influence the Labour Party and Government.

Image Credit: from flickr, Keir Starmer’s feed, CC 2024 BY-NC-ND …

Brexit, reset or stall?

the staircase at Lancaster House

Last week, the UK and the EU met at the most senior levels in what the labour government has described as a reset of EU relations. As usual, the conclusions are best documented on the EU website where they published a joint communique. Certainly the results of the negotiations have changed few minds. While I consider that the best result would be if both sides walked out thinking they’d won, my feeling is that this was a draw, although no major breakthroughs occurred and a huge opportunity wasted, primarily due to the lack of vision and ambition on the part of the Labour government.

The words on defence co-operation are the most concrete, although further negotiations are required and while UK companies will be able to bid for work from the EU, HMG will have to contribute to the budget.

The relegation of words by recasting youth mobility as youth experience, illustrates the stubborn recidivism of the labour government and the fact is, that there has been no movement by the EU on creative workers’ freedom of movement.

The two sides have agreed to continue to talk about an agricultural deal, and greater cooperation in the electricity, carbon and energy markets. The agricultural deal is crucial so reducing paperwork checks both between Great Britain and the European Union and also between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

There are several paragraphs on internal security and judicial co-operation which mention Europol but not the issue of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The UK has for decades, under both Tory and Labour governments been reluctant to engage with the Charter and it seems remains so; the children of fascist and Stalinist societies put more faith in a basic law than parliamentary sovereignty. I am unclear that these paragraphs are anything more than aspirational.

The press release/communique makes clear that its consequential programmes and agreements build on the Withdrawal Agreement, including the Windsor Framework, and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement and require their “full, timely, and faithful implementation”. The UK still has some work to do there as the Commission are pursuing eight infringements by the UK government of the existing agreements. This is a critical red-line for the EU.

I am interested how the closer to reality and the single market the proposals are the stronger the UK commitments to dynamic alignment, the CJEU and financial contribution are; it would seem we really are joining one agency/pillar at a time.

As many commentators, not least the UK Government observe, Starmer’s redlines have not been breached but little more progress could have been expected without some compromise and £140bn worth of GDP is at stake.

If we are to consider this as a football match, it’s probably a draw. The EU have ensured the current treaties are confirmed and that any entrance to the single market includes dynamic alignment, CJEU judicial authority and financial contributions, in exchange, the UK have obtained agreement that the Commission will engage in pre-legislative consultation. This is an important breakthrough. The defence agreement is necessary, but as noted the British government will need to contribute to the European Union’s defence budget to bid for arms contracts. The rest of the agreement are statements of ambition. The section on borders and judicial cooperation, I need to read again as I am unclear of the direction all future negotiations. Any agreement satisfactory to the UK Home Office and the European Union equivalent is not likely to be satisfactory for those of us who believe that racism fuels much of the immigration control debate.

The Tories and reform claim the agreement is a betrayal of the nine year old mandate, rejoin campaigners close to the Labour leadership such as Best for Britain, the European Movement, the LME and Sadiq Khan claim it’s a step in the right direction, the FT say and I agree that,

Labour arguably wasted some of the post-election goodwill it enjoyed last year in Brussels, through the paucity of its own ambition and its manifesto red lines insisting on no return to the EU single market, customs union or freedom of movement. Its new reset at least attempts to push up to the limits of some of those red lines.

The FT EB

The Economist also state that more is needed. [Also at archive.ph.]

It’s a better result than last time when the EU told the UK to do better.

The problem is that the UK wants a Swiss style deal where they can focus on those areas of maximum benefit to the UK economy. The EU want commitment to the full acquis. Squaring this circle is probably impossible just as fixing Brexit is.

Does it make rejoining more or less likely? I suggest neither, but the problem is the current Labour leadership and its stubborn and failed pursuit of the dying Brexit voter. …

Labour’s new deal for Europe

ec-london

This is a comment on A new deal with the EU is exactly what Britain needs. Here’s how Labour will achieve it | Nick Thomas-Symonds | The Guardian  – www.theguardian.com, I have made it with the help of diigo, where the headline comment on my bookmark, part generated and part selected from the article says, ‘via Comment is free | guardian.co.uk, subtitled, nonsensically, “This isn’t about politics – it’s about pragmatism. Working with our allies will make British people safer, more secure and more prosperous.”‘.

The article says nothing new and repeats the isolationist nonsense fantasies of Labour’s triangulators that Brexit can be fixed. It includes the phrase “honour the referendum” despite the fact that it was nearly nine years ago, and we’ve had three general elections since then.

Quotes and comments

We are equally confident in what the UK can offer in return. It is a politically stable country, and the government has a huge mandate, with more than four years left to deliver our policies. This stability has already inspired the confidence of businesses across the world, unlocking tens of billions of pounds of long-term investment.

  • The statistics aren’t in yet to substantiate investment numbers,

Labour is rising to meet the challenges in this new era of global instability.

This is not about ideology or returning to the divisions of the past, but about ruthless pragmatism and what works in the national interest.

When it comes to security, Nato is the cornerstone of our defence.

  • Really? A fantasy of the Labour Right, NATO’s gone, for at least four years, but Trump’s isolationism has not come out of the blue.

All of this will be framed by the very clear red lines we set out at the election. We won’t return to the arguments of the past: there will be no return to the single market, the customs union or freedom of movement.

  • Well, it won’t work then. There isn’t a deal in which the UK wins at the expense of the EU. If only because, the queue of member states asking for their own opt-outs would be 25 long.

We will only agree an EU deal that meets the needs of the British people and respects the 2016 referendum result.

You can’t do both if you believe honouring the referendum means staying out of the EU but the referendum mandate was dishonestly won and is now nearly nine years old; I estimate that about 4½ million voters have died since then. …

Best for Britain on Trumps trade war

Best for Britain logo

I subscribe to Best for Britain’s news letter and they sent me the following. I can’t find it on their web site and so I have posted it here. Their front page has a comprehensive response to Trump’s trade war and is worth a look. Unlike me they are not focusing on the need for the single market to access the protection of the EU’s Digital Services Act and in fact are fundamentally in the “Fix Brexit” campaign, but what they say is interesting.

quote

As you’ll no doubt have seen, the UK joins Brazil, Australia, and the uninhabited Heard Island – along with almost every other country in the world – in being slapped with a 10% tariff on all imports to the US. The EU has fared even worse, as they stare down the prospect of a 20% tariff. Unaddressed, this unprovoked and punitive move by Trump could wipe out all efforts to grow our economies, both here in the UK and in the EU.

We knew this was coming. Which is why we asked Frontier Economics to model how a better UK-EU trade deal could minimise the impact of Trump tariffs. The results should spur a simultaneous sigh of relief across Whitehall.

Not only would a common sense deal between the EU and UK cancel out the economic hit to the UK from Trump’s tariffs, it could also grow our economy by up to 1.5%. And those areas hit hardest by tariffs – manufacturing hubs like the Midlands and North East England – would see the greatest benefit. A deal that includes deep alignment between the UK and EU on goods and services would also shield the EU, reducing the impact of tariffs on the bloc by around a third. 

Those sighs of relief should ripple around the Cabinet table too when you add in the results of our latest polling. Three times as many people think we should increase trade with the EU in response to Trump’s tariffs, compared to just 14% who say we should be sucking up to Trump in the hope of an exemption.

If there was any doubt, Trump is no friend of the UK. His unprovoked trade war will be felt by ordinary people across the country, in our pockets and in cuts to public spending. Anyone seeking to spin this slap in the face as a ‘Brexit win’ should remember the thousands now at risk of losing their jobs, and that Brexit itself has caused far more economic damage than Trump’s tariffs ever could.

But if we tear down barriers to UK-EU trade, we can gain significantly more from our largest trading partner than we stand to lose as a result of back-of-the-envelope calculations made in Washington.

In these choppy geopolitical waters, we’ll keep pushing the government to make the right decision and seek stability for us, and for our EU neighbours. Thank you for your support in helping us do it. …

Starmer’s choice

I wrote something on JD Vance’s speech to the Munich security conference. This was part of the series of policy repositioning for the trump administration. My article was published on labour hub, in it I reference Vance’s speech to the Munich Security conference, i note the oligarch’s hypocritical and fascistic agenda, the foreshadowing of the crippling of NATO, and talk of the UK’s alternatives pointing out that we seem to be re-joining the EU one agency at a time.

The plum pudding in danger via wikipedia
The return of great power politics via wikipedia

I reference reports of J D Vance’s speech to the Munich security conference, where he criticised the EU and member state governments for suppressing free speech, failing to halt illegal migration and running in fear from voters’ true beliefs. He refused to meet the German Chancellor and yet met, during an election, with the leader of the far right AfD (Alternative for Germany).

I note his arguments on free speech are partisan; US oligarchs want American rich people’s voices to be heard and amplified by privately-owned social media companies and fear Europe’s regulation of them being based on a demand for truth. We also note the hypocrisy of the US free speech advocates’ attacks on ideas, books and teachers in schools, universities and libraries in the US. His comments on not relying on foreign technology providers by which he meant China, may come to haunt him as Europe examines its defence supply chains.  

Trump’s call for European NATO to increase their defence budgets to 5% of GDP is a naked attempt to build budgets for the US arms industry, just as the UK’s requests to have a side treaty on defence and security with the EU is also at least partially based on the economic interests of BAe.

Trump’s arguments about what does his money, that is, the arms shipments to Ukraine, buy, has a moral vacancy but it is clear that the view that ‘the business of America is business’ has returned to the White House. The crudity with which Trump pursues his views of US fiscal and commercial interests is echoed by the UK Labour Government in positioning its ‘EU reset’, arguing for changes in agreements which only benefit Britian from their limited, primarily electoral, point of view. 

In the Labour Hub article I suggest, the choices facing the Starmer administration are bleak while Starmer seems to be seeking to avoid Trump’s tariff increases, on defence the choice is stark. The UK can either continue to act as a vassal state of the United States or develop more effective partnerships with the European Union. It should be noted that Vance has questioned the need for NATO joint command. Labour’s foundational commitment to NATO, is looking weaker than it once was.

Starmer’s ambition on EU cooperation is limited, I have argued that the UK should use the withdrawal agreement review clauses to re-enter the customs union and the single market. The suspicion is that for the Starmer Administration, the single market is a step too far because of its requirements for a free movement of labour and Labour’s fear of the Tories and Reform UK.

Today’s military questions and the need for ‘security of supply’ strongly imply that the UK should join the European Space Agency and possibly the European defence agency.

The proposed military and security side treaty is looking less and less attractive to both sides because in order to protect our democracy against the attacks from US social media companies and US owned AI search engines, the UK needs the umbrella of the EU’s competition & digital regulators, this needs membership of the single market. We have already rejoined Horizon (the R&D programme) and the Euro HPC joint undertaking, and Northern Ireland is still part of the single market. At what point do we say, we need our MEPs, Judges, Commissioners and Council seats back or will we just be rejoining the EU an agency at a time. …

The pan-European Mediterranean convention and EU/UK relations

The pan-European Mediterranean convention and EU/UK relations

This blog article comments on the reactions to Marco Sefcovic's suggestion that the UK as part of the negotiations to improve relations between the UK and the EU should consider joining the pan European Mediterranean convention (PEM); . Sefcovic is the commissioner responsible for trade. The rest of the article looks at HMG's lukewarm response and looks to explain what the PEM is. For more, press the button ...