Leaders' stale old debate on the EU

The part of last night's second TV debate between the party leaders devoted to discussing the European Union proved mostly a stale rehash of the same old inaccurate lines - particularly from Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown.

As ever, they moved to shut down any focussed debate about the realities of the EU with a combination of smearing David Cameron's choice of political allies and of asserting that legitimate questions about the extent of the EU's powers indicated a wish not even to work with other European countries at all.

As if the only possible form of co-operation between countries is an EU-style transfer of political decisions to unaccountable, central institutions.

It's a low grade tactic that's deployed time and again by the EU lobby to subvert an honest debate about the true goals of the EU and the nature of Britain's relationship with it.

Everyone agrees with the need for co-operation between countries on the issues that affect us all. But the EU is entirely about political integration and the real debate is about how far it has gone, whether centralised decisions in EU institutions is a practical or democratic way to govern a group of very diverse countries, and what should be done about this problem.

But neither Clegg nor Brown want to engage in that debate because they know their unswerving ideological support for giving the EU ever more powers at the expense of our democratic national institutions is both unjustifiable and completely out of step with public opinion.

Why else would the pair of them have expended so much political energy wriggling out of promises made at the last election to give people a referendum on the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty if not to prevent the public blocking their plans? They knew we would, given the chance.

From their point of view, any debate about the EU must be quickly diverted and frustrated by the setting up of false dichotomies, distractions and plain old name-calling.

Brown's 'Big Lie'

Typifying this approach, Gordon Brown resorted to his favourite Big Lie on the issue, asserting that 3 million jobs depend on Britain's 'membership of the EU'.

In reality, the 3 million jobs figure comes from a National Institute for Economic and Social Research study into the impact of UK-EU trade.

But given that trade with European countries isn't dependent solely on EU membership, and trade would clearly not halt if we changed our relationship with the EU, it is not honest to suggest as Brown did that 3 million jobs would be at risk.

Clegg chimed in with the idea that you can only change the rules of clubs you're a member of by 'getting stuck in'.

But the truth is neither he nor Brown intend to 'get stuck in' at all, as their behaviour over the Lisbon Treaty showed. If Brown truly tried to change the EU's rules or goals during the negotiations that resulted in the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty, you wouldn't notice it from the long list of extra EU powers to which he agreed.

Lib Dem dishonesty

Clegg also tried to distract from how he broke his promise made at the last election to support a referendum on the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty, by saying he would give people a say on the 'real question' - whether we should be 'in or out' of the EU.

However a glance at the Lib Dem manifesto confirms that the pledge is only for an in or out referendum "the next time the British government signs up for fundamental change in the relationship between Britain and the EU".

Lib Dem 'small print' that provokes several further questions about the pledge's value.

First, what is a "fundamental change" if the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty wasn't and, given how the Lib Dems wriggled out of their last EU referendum promise on the grounds that even the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty did not present such a change, what's the betting they will wriggle out of this new referendum pledge by claiming exactly the same about the next EU treaty?

Second, why is it necessary to wait until the next treaty change is proposed before holding this 'in or out' referendum? In practice, we could terminate our EU relationship at any time we choose. So might this stipulation be there because, having battled for eight years against French, Dutch and Irish public opposition to get the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty ratified, there's little prospect of another EU treaty for many years to come. And, consequently, such a stipulation means little prospect of the Lib Dems having to deliver such a referendum?

Far from Clegg's glib TV comments, reading the small print of the new Lib Dem referendum promise reveals all. They won't pledge to hold that 'in / out' referendum immediately, because they clearly still want to avoid giving people any say on the EU at all.

Cameron's contribution

The responses of both Clegg and Brown to questions on the EU issue during the TV debate can each respectively be described in one word: dishonest and distraction.

In contrast, David Cameron's recognition that powers should not be transferred to the EU without people being asked directly, and his proposals to get powers back from the EU, have merit as a start to securing the change we need.

But he clearly wasn't able to resist a bit of stale mantra-reciting of his own.

A disappointment from among his own comments was the re-emergence of the lame old Tory 'In Europe, not run by Europe' line. It's a ridiculous idea because, as anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the way the EU works will know, you can't be in the EU but not run by the EU.

Steadily taking over the running its member states, in the place of national governments, is the EU's fundamental mission and goal.

Prize, however, for most ridiculous line of the night must still go to Nick Clegg, who probably thought he was being clever in defending the EU by saying that "the weather doesn't stop at the cliffs of Dover".

In fact, it rebounded on him quite badly by sounding so narrow-minded. Of course, the weather doesn't stop at the Polish border or Mediterranean coast either.

Final judgement

What was clear overall was that only one leader on the TV stage - David Cameron - was criticising the extent of the EU's powers and proposing to seek some reversal of that situation.

Whereas both Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown were defending the undemocratic status quo and showed no indication they wouldn't sign even more powers over to the EU given the chance in office.

But the most fundamental problem with the TV event was the short amount of time devoted to debating an organisation that membership of which will next year alone cost Britain £7.6 billion (net), that even so hasn't been able to get its accounts fully approved by auditors for 14 years in a row, and which according to German government estimates may now be behind as many as 80% of our new laws.

Is that all the high profile time that such an important issue gets during this election campaign, and how can its many and full implications possibly be explored in such a short period of discussion?

In fact, the EU problem deserves a 90 minute leaders' debate all of its own.

Lib Dems guilty of major breach of trust

For Nick Clegg to attempt today to don the mantle of trust and honesty in British politics is the most laughable idea that has yet been put forward during this election campaign.

This man seems to think he can say one thing and be believed, despite having so recently and so conspicuously behaved in a completely different way.

The dangerous game he is playing with such a strategy is that anyone with a memory will see that he is trying to treat voters like fools and, in doing so, only discrediting himself.

Dishonesty

At the last general election, the Liberal Democrats promised to support a referendum on the EU Constitution. "Ratification", they said in their 2005 manifesto, "must be subject to a referendum of the British people."

But when, in March 2008, the opportunity came to vote in the House of Commons in support such a referendum - the EU Constitution having been revived and re-named as the Lisbon Treaty - Nick Clegg instructed his party to abstain.

Despite the influential House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee - whose job it is to scrutinise EU legislation on behalf of MPs - confirming that the Lisbon Treaty was "substantially equivalent" to the EU Constitution, Nick Clegg and other leading Lib Dems conducted a charade claiming that the two documents were completely different.

The chairman of that committee, Labour MP Michael Connarty, said during a debate in the House of Commons: "Every provision of the Constitutional Treaty, apart from the flags, mottos and anthems, is to be found in the Reform Treaty. We think that they are fundamentally the same, and the Government have not produced a table to contradict our position."

This view was backed up by a second cross-party group of MPs - the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee - which concluded that "there is no material difference between the provisions on foreign affairs in the Constitutional Treaty which the Government made subject to approval in a referendum and those in the Lisbon Treaty on which a referendum is being denied."

And at the time there was a cacophony of other European leaders claiming that the EU Constitution had been preserved in all but name.

They said it

Valery Giscard d'Estaing, chief architect of the original EU Constitution, writing in Le Monde, said of the Lisbon Treaty: "Looking at the content, the result is that the institutional proposals of the constitutional treaty … are found complete in the Lisbon Treaty, only in a different order and inserted in former treaties ... Above all, it is to avoid having referendum thanks to the fact that the articles are spread out and constitutional vocabulary has been removed."

Hans-Gert Poettering, then president of the European 'parliament', said in a letter to M. Giscard d'Estaing: "I had the feeling that the voice of the European Parliament had been heard and that the essentials had been saved, even if we had to give up calling it 'a European Constitution' ... "

German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, said: "The fundamentals of the Constitution have been maintained in large part… We have renounced everything that makes people think of a state, like the flag and the national anthem."

Jose Zapatero, the Spanish Prime Minister, said: "A great part of the content of the European Constitution is captured in the new treaties"

Bertie Ahern, then Irish PM, said: "They haven't changed the substance - 90 per cent of it is still there."

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, confirmed: "The good thing is...that all the symbolic elements are gone, and that which really matters – the core – is left."

Flip-flopping

Either the Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems thought they knew better than all these European leaders and, somehow, believed that the Lisbon Treaty was in fact 'completely different'.

Or, blinkered by their evident long-term fanaticism for passing ever more powers from our elected parliament to the European Union, they knew the truth but set out to deceive the public and deny us the say we had been promised.

Worse, having abstained in the House of Commons to ensure the treaty passed, the Lib Dems then voted against a referendum in the House of Lords - flip-flopping to vote whichever way it took to ensure the anti-democratic treaty became law without people being given the say we were promised at the last election.

Deceit

The whole process of how the EU Constitution was revived after the French and Dutch 'no' votes and re-presented in order to avoid further public votes was a blatant deceit, endorsed by Gordon Brown and in which the Liberal Democrats - led by Nick Clegg, Chris Huhne and Ed Davey - actively participated.

Clegg and many in his party behaved in a deeply hypocritical and dishonest way, saying one thing and doing another.

They betrayed promises given at the last election and such behaviour should not be rewarded with votes at this election if we are to have a chance of achieving in the future the quality of democracy that we deserve.

Last gasp for the Lib Dems?

UPDATE (Wednesday 11 June, 21:09): The House of Lords has rejected a referendum proposal by 280 votes to 218.

As expected, Lib Dem peers voted against a referendum, which would have been approved if they had abstained in accordance with Nick Clegg's policy in the Commons.

So will Nick Clegg have the integrity to take responsibility for his party's damaging multiple U-turns, ending up acting completely in contradiction to a popular manifesto promise? Or will he admit he has lost control of his party? It's one or the other, surely ...

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Tomorrow there will be a key vote in the House of Lords on the question of whether there should be a referendum on the re-named EU Constitution - now called the Lisbon Treaty.

Due to the different make-up of the House of Lords, with a large number of 'crossbench' peers not linked to any party holding the balance of power, a referendum amendment would very likely be approved if the 76 Liberal Democrat peers obeyed Nick Clegg's policy to abstain on the question.

However, the leader of the Lib Dem peers Lord McNally has already made clear that he and his colleagues will not be abstaining like the party's MPs.

The new instruction is to vote with the government, against a referendum.

The question is - on whose instructions? Either Nick Clegg has performed yet another policy U-turn, and told Lib Dem peers to vote with the government rather than abstain.

Or the peers are doing as they please and just plain ignoring him.

So Clegg must either take responsibility for the fact that his repeated U-turns on the popular referendum promise his party made at the last election are haemorhagging both credibility and popular support. Or admit he has lost control of his party.

Lib Dem voters back referendum

Back in March an ICM poll conducted for the Iwantareferendum campaign found that Liberal Democrat voters supported a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty by more than two to one.

67% said that “Voters should decide in a referendum” while only 30% thought that “MPs should decide in Parliament.”

Shortly afterwards, most Lib Dem MPs having abstained on the issue in the key Commons vote, the party performed terribly in the local elections, failing to capitalise on the flow of voters away from Labour. Particularly in areas where their promise-breaking stance on a treaty referendum was highlighted the most intensely.

A matter of trust

The potency of the treaty referendum at the ballot box has been grossly underestimated by the government and the Liberal Democrats.

Noting that the European Union comes low down the list of voters' concerns, they schemed that they could confront the evident strong public support for a treaty referendum and get away with it.

However, typically of today's political class, they gave scant regard to the 'small' matter of their manifesto promises.

The promise-breaking nature of their actions has caused the referendum issue to transcend into a matter of trust. And the high profile failure to deliver a clear and popular promise made at the last election - almost regardless of the issue itself - is a much bigger electoral liability.

From that point on, nothing a promise-breaking MP says can be believed - a distasteful trait the memory of which also lingers far longer than the details of the act that confirmed it. Hardly a good basis for an MP to request support.

So this issue is not so much about the referendum itself anymore. It has become a matter of trust. And MPs who have appeared to hold trust - much more so than voters' concerns about any single issue - so cheaply are far more likely to pay a heavy price at the ballot box.

Last gasp

In this context, if Lib Dem peers block any chance for the party's MPs to redeem themselves, tomorrow's Lords vote could be the last event standing between the Lib Dems and meltdown at the next general election.

With a high proportion of the party's MPs in marginal seats, the Lords' actions will place over 30 of their parliamentary colleagues and the future leadership prospects of Nick Clegg firmly in the firing line.

The only way back from their predicament is for the party's MPs to be given a new opportunity to support the referendum that they promised at the last election.

So when they vote today, those peers must either vote for a referendum as the party promised at the last election, or at least vote in line with their party leader's policy and abstain.

Clegg's hypocrisy over weakness of Parliament

Writing in The Independent today, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg returns to the theme of the quality of our democratic system, in particular the weakness of Parliament to hold the government to account.

Clegg argues that Parliament has been 'castrated' and is virtually powerless to influence government decisions, pointing out that "in 11 years, there have been only three defeats for the Government in votes by MPs."

Talking of this being "the record of a system in crisis" in which "the legislature dances to the tune of the executive", Clegg laments "a spineless abdication of scrutiny and accountability at the heart of our Government."

"The mother of all Parliaments has become the eunuch of all Parliaments," he concludes.

Important themes indeed. And in many ways what he says is true. But coming from Nick Clegg, such complaints amount to massive hypocrisy.

Accountability squandered

A mere two months ago, Clegg had an opportunity to defeat a government plan to ditch their clear manifesto promise of a referendum on the EU Constitution - recently revived and re-named as the Lisbon Treaty.

By voting in Parliament in support of a referendum along with the Conservatives, and ensuring Parliament held the government to their manifesto promise, Clegg would also have been upholding an identical promise made at the last election by his own party.

So did he take this opportunity? No. In fact, he deliberately fluffed it.

Instructing his MPs to abtain at the crucial vote on the question of a referendum, he allowed the government to get away with it.

Despite apparently being concerned that voters are losing faith with a system that doesn't represent them, he didn't just fail to represent those who voted for his own party, but also those Labour voters whose expectations of a referendum were being thwarted by the government.

And now that the treaty has moved on to the House of Lords, Lib Dem peers are actually planning to vote with the government against the referendum that both parties promised.

Taking people for fools

So who does Nick Clegg now think he's fooling by rather tragically trying to re-invent himself and his party as a champion of Parliament and of holding the government to account?

One of the biggest problems afflicting faith in our democracy today arises from politicians imagining that people have no memory beyond what they happen to be saying that particular day.

Hypocrisy - taking people for fools - is fast becoming the norm, whether politicians are talking about post offices, NHS service closures or the EU. Just like The Independent in their accompanying report about Clegg's article, the national media seem almost too embarrassed to point out the increasingly glaring inconsistencies between the words and actions of our politicians.

Or if the media's problem is not embarrassment, then it is more serious - one of competence.

If actions really do speak louder than words, then far from being likely to offer a solution, Nick Clegg has so recently and so clearly shown himself to be one of the main causes of the problem.

Nick Clegg's troubles deepen

The faltering start of new Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg seems to go from bad to worse.

It all began with a major loss of face over a referendum of the Lisbon Treaty, when nearly a quarter of his MPs defied his instructions to abstain on whether there should be a public vote, and three of his frontbenchers quit to join the rebellion.

A second slap in the face over the issue from his own party came when Lib Dem peers said they were going to ignore his troubled abstention policy and vote against a referendum when the matter comes to be debated in the Lords. A stance that apparently hasn't gone down at all well with those of their fellow party MPs trying to defend marginal seats.

A matter of days later, his much longed-for 'man of principle' image took another knock when he dodged a question tabled by a Spectator reader as to whether his position in favour of an in-out referendum on the EU (rather than one on the Lisbon Treaty) was going to be in the party's next election manifesto.

A reaction that seems to indicate that the allegedly "principled" policy has already been dropped, fuelling suspicions that it was only ever a lame ploy to get the Lib Dems out of their election promise to support a referendum on the renamed EU Constitution Treaty.

Facing accusations of a feeble first 100 days, next came Clegg's ill-judged claim that he had slept with "up to 30 women", during a discussion of his sexual history with GQ magazine.

And now, according to a report in the Independent on Sunday, it has emerged that after all his woes, poor Nikki Clegg may not be the real leader of the Lib Dems after all!

Hundreds of postal votes, arriving late due to the Christmas post, would apparently have meant Chris Huhne in fact won the race to succeed Menzies Campbell.

Mr Clegg beat his rival by just 511 votes out of more than 41,000 party members in one of the closest-run races in political history.

Yet as many as 1,300 postal votes arrived after the deadline of 15 December – and an unofficial check of the papers showed that Mr Huhne had enough of a majority among them to hand him victory.

Whatever next for 'Calamity Clegg'?