Dear Andrew,
Let me try to kick off in a spirit of agreement. In 2014 you wrote a very good piece on the LSE blog, in which you proposed that the EU create a form of Associate Membership. Such a status, you said, would be open to the UK, Turkey, the EFTA countries and possibly others. It would provide for states to be associated with the EU without having to adopt all its common policies. And, conversely, it would allow the EU to pursue federalism without impediment.
I strongly agreed with you then, and I still do. I had hoped that the current renegotiation might have allowed a development along these lines. It initially looked as if David Cameron might be inclining in this direction. He had promised to opt out of EU employment laws and social policies; to repatriate control of criminal justice; to curb the European Court; to disapply the Charter of Fundamental Rights; to recover control of who could settle in the UK. All these aims have now been dropped for the sake of a snap a referendum on the basis of what I think you’ll be honest enough to allow are essentially optical changes.
So, is there any hope for the Duff Plan? Might Associate Membership still be on offer? Plainly not if the UK votes to remain. If we vote to leave, though, my guess is that something of this sort will be the Plan B on both sides. Most British Eurosceptics want free trade and cordial relations with our European allies - a feeling that is, I think, broadly reciprocated. Once the model of Associate Membership had been established, I suspect other states - the EFTA countries, Turkey, perhaps one or two current member states, perhaps some Balkan and Caucasian nations - might sign up for the same terms. Wouldn’t that potentially leave everyone happier?
Best wishes,
Daniel
Dear Daniel,
There were two elements of the Prime Minister’s Bloomberg speech with which I agreed. One was that the Brexit negotiation should be part of a general EU reform, of benefit to all; the other was that the referendum would be timed to coincide with a settlement of Europe’s constitutional problems when we would all know what kind of EU would be voting to stay in or leave. Later, and disastrously, Cameron went back on both points, and the opportunity to craft a serious form of associate membership was lost.
We are now facing a mini ‘renegotiation’ that, nevertheless, if successful on Cameron’s own terms will loosen the ties of British membership and compound the EU’s problems of governance. I don’t agree with you that the Brexit adventure is merely ‘optical’: on the contrary, breaching the UK’s existing terms of membership, jeopardising free movement, giving national parliaments more veto powers and ditching the historic mission of ‘ever closer union’ will add to disgruntlement and widen division.
In the Giscard Convention I argued for the inclusion of a secession clause in the new treaty on the grounds that no democratic state should be trapped into making the qualitative leap from confederation towards federal union. Article 50 of Lisbon is the result. I failed to carry the argument for a new form of associate membership which I saw as the logical place to park an existing member state that baulked at political union but wished to preserve solid lines of engagement with the EU. I hoped that in Britain’s case, if it came to association, the parking would be short and not long stay. (You and I differ there.)
Doubtless the idea of association will come back in some form. But as I now despair of Brexit as a catalyst for serious reform, it’s left to the eurozone to push forward fast to fiscal and political union. That will create the gap between the UK and the rest which you argue for so zealously. I have published a new eurozone treaty this week, and will wing you a copy.
Best wishes
Andrew
Dear Andrew,
Thanks for your reply. I’m glad we agree that the chance to negotiate a workable associate status has been lost. The question now, therefore, is what are the consequences of the binary choice we face at the referendum. It seems clear enough. Voting to stay means remaining part of common policies on agriculture, fisheries, foreign affairs, immigration, criminal justice, citizenship and all the rest. Voting to leave means trade and intergovernmental collaboration instead.
I prefer the second option for three reasons. First, because it recognises the way the world is changing. Every region is now experiencing economic growth except the EU. While Africa, Asia and the Americas surge ahead, the eurozone economy is - incredibly - no larger than in 2008. Britain is the only EU state that exports more to non-EU than to EU markets, and that disparity grows with every passing month. We need to find a status that reflects our global links.
Second, because it would be more democratic. I want decisions made by elected representatives in parliaments that have earned their legitimacy. There is no European demos. Very few people feel European in the same sense that someone might feel Hungarian, Swedish or Portuguese. Take the demos out of democracy and you’re left only with the kratos - the power of a system that must compel by law what it cannot ask in the name of patriotism.
Third, because I can think of better things to do with our gross contribution of £350m a week. We could, for example, give the entire country a two thirds rebate on their council tax. Inside or outside the Brussels institutions, we will retain close and friendly links with our European allies. But we needn’t compromise our independence in order to do so.
Best wishes,
Daniel
Dear Daniel,
You insist that there is somewhere else, outside Europe, that suits the British people better. The UK may be rather special, but I don’t regret some loss of independence as the price of EU membership. Indeed, our new interdependence with other European states has not impaired Britain’s role in international or commercial affairs. An isolated Britain would be meaner, narrower and altogether less modern.
I would warn against either side trading arbitrary figures about jobs or money in the referendum campaign. If we do, we will find the audience has left by the side door. And the Leavers should not forget that without the EU budget there would be new calls on HM Treasury, not least in paying farmers, as well as fees for some residual EU connection. The famous demos argument leaves me fairly cold. Federalists are not trying to create a European nation state with all the trappings but, rather, a federal union that is a workable and efficient representative democracy. EU citizens have an increasing affinity with one another. Let’s not turn the clock back.
So the question is, how should we vote? If Cameron comes back, admits defeat and campaigns to leave the EU I will fight like blazes against him and hope that a new centre left force emerges out of a joyful referendum campaign from the wreckage of the Liberal Democrat and Labour parties. If he comes back having succeeded substantially in weakening the ties that bind the UK to the European Union and having damaged the rest of the EU in the process, I will join you and vote for secession negotiations under Article 50.
However, as we suspect is likely, Cameron fails hopelessly in his ‘renegotiation’ but claims otherwise, we both have a difficulty. Blustering abroad and caving in at home ill befits a Tory party leader, let alone a prime minister. You say there is a binary choice. In fact, there are three: vote Yes, vote No, or use the ballot paper to write an improving message to the returning officer. Mine would be ‘Federal Union Now’.
Aux Urnes.
Andrew