I don’t like the European Parliament or the In campaign. The EU is flawed. But I’m voting to remain

by Robin Thorpe

The EU referendum is not really a Left-Right issue; it instead seems to separate groups of people on their age and level of education.

But membership of the EU does accord with one of the core beliefs  of the Labour movement: that we achieve more by working together than we do alone. Indeed the Labour Party rule book explicitly states that Labour is committed to co-operating in European institutions as well as the UN, the Commonwealth and other international bodies to secure peace, freedom, democracy, economic security and environmental protection for all. These are things that can only be achieved by international co-operation.

However, the Labour Party rule book (2013) also states that Labour works for “an open democracy, in which government is held to account by the people; decision are taken as far as practicable by the communities they affect; and where fundamental human rights are guaranteed”.  The current European Parliament does not correlate with these expectations. I can therefore understand why some Labour supporters may also wish to leave the EU.

David Cameron’s negotiations, although largely insignificant, had one major outcome: that the UK would not be obliged to be a part of “ever closer union”. But for me this misses the fundamental choice that faces not just the citizens of the UK but all of the peoples of Europe.

Do we truly want a common market across Europe, or do we want to remain as independent nations. Because to normalise both access to the market and quality of goods and services across Europe then we will need a common approach to much more than just fishing quotas and standard paper sizes. In my opinion we should either accept that a truly successful European Union would look like a United States of Europe, or we accept that it is flawed and make the best of a bad thing. Which is why I think that Cameron’s negotations were a failure. They didn’t just achieve nothing of use, they focused the purpose of the referendum on immigration.

If the EU referendum is presented as a choice on immigration then I fear that the vote will be decided by a portion of the electorate who are, although not explicitly racist, opposed to the influx of migrant workers. This cohort of voters is generally over 60 and are more likely to vote in large numbers. The great shame of this is that the ones who bear the burden of any negative consequences of Brexit are less likely to vote. Most people over 60 that I have spoken to are in favour of leaving the EU.

They dislike the wasteful nature of European Parliament, they dislike being told what to do by the French (who they perceive as ignoring all of the EU rules and regulations) and they dislike the quantity of ‘foreign’ workers who they perceive as preventing British workers from finding jobs and ‘clogging up’ vital services. The truth of the matter is not relevant to them. It is their perception. So to combat this Mr Cameron chose to negotiate on whether EU workers can access benefits in the first four years. This both higlights that immigration is a ‘problem’ (even though it is a net benefit) and achieves nothing, as most EU workers are here to work.

I will be voting to stay in the EU; I think that the EU is a good thing to be a part of. But I don’t like the European Parliament. It is opaque, probably corrupt and almost certainly serves the interests of corporations over individuals. But that is because we have allowed this to happen.

We vote in tiny numbers in European elections and we vote in blockheads that are opposed to the system and don’t even turn up to parliament let alone make a difference.

The leadership of all UK parties at best ignore their MEPs and at worst ignore national interest in order to score tribal points. If Cameron wanted to make a difference in his renegotiations he should have tried to streamline the Brussels juggernaut and make it both more accessible and more relevant to all the peoples of Europe.

He should have emphasised the need to support a strong health service in the UK and not permitted treaties to destabilise the NHS. He should have brokered an agreement that facilitates strong local government including provisions for local authorities to insist on the use of local labour force. These are not issues that merely affect the affluent south of England, but are strategic issues across Europe.

With things as they are I think the outcome of the referendum is finely balanced. I don’t think that leaving the EU would be as quite a big a catastrophe as some make out, but it would probably result in short-term instability that manifests as yet another recession.

Leaving the EU will, in my opinion, adversely affect finance, manufacturing and construction. Probably not so much that they can’t recover, and some parts of the economy may prove to be marginally better off in the long-run; but in the short-term this will result in cancelled contracts, delayed development and yet more under-investment in innovation. This will further damage the economic prospects of all but the cosseted baby boomers  and any younger people are who are fortunate enough to be financially independent.

The Millenial generation who have already been saddled with student debt, higher rents and lower pay will have even further to climb to reach the quality of life that the over 60s take for granted. If we leave the EU then the pensioner cohort will have voted to save their sovereignty, at the expense of their children and grand-children.

People may decry so-called project fear and to some extent I agree. We need a positive message to encourage younger people to vote. Unfortunately the positive message is distinctly unsexy; a vote for Remain is a vote for stability. A vote to Leave is a vote for independence and sovereignty. Perhaps there is still time to frame a positive campaign around a future promise to reform the European Parliament and for UK politicians to give more credence to European elections, with more well-known politicans standing for election as MEP. But who will lead this campaign? Can Alan Johnson turn on the charm and reach out to the younger voters? I hope so.

Robin Thorpe is a consulting engineer for a small practice on the south coast


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13 Responses to “I don’t like the European Parliament or the In campaign. The EU is flawed. But I’m voting to remain”

  1. Tafia says:

    But membership of the EU does accord with one of the core beliefs of the Labour movement

    That is a blatant lie and a re-writing of history. Wilson required the Tories to keep the UK in the EU because the core Labour vote, the Trades Unions, the Labour supporting press and a substantial chunk of the PLP were anti.

    Indeed, the very ethosof the EU is contradictory to the spiri of the Labour party and as Keir Hardy said of migration

    “used to reduce the already too low wages earned by the workmen”

    “The employment of foreigners by British employers should be prohibited, unless they were political exiles or had fled from religious persecution or if they came from countries where the wage rates were the same as in Britain.”

    And there’s loads more not just from Hardy but from all the founders of the Labour Party. They were men (and women) of honour who believed the protection of British jobs from cheap imported labour was paramount for the protection of the British worker.

  2. Tafia says:

    The Millenial generation who have already been saddled with student debt, higher rents and lower pay

    These are core Blairist/New Labour policies.

  3. Tafia says:

    The Millenial generation who have already been saddled with student debt, higher rents and lower pay These are core Blairist/New Labour policies.

    a vote for Remain is a vote for stability No it isn’t. Are you saying Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Portugal etc are stable? A vote to Remain is a vote to keep things as they are and everythiong running the way it is. A vote to remain is an endorsement of the system as is – nothing more, nothing less.

  4. jane says:

    I’ve no idea what the Remain team are wanting and what `Remain` looks like.

    They set up these straw man binary arguments ie internationalism only happens through the EU forgetting that we could be just as internationalist by leaving the EU.

    It’s as if we can’t stand up for ourselves on the world stage. Supporting Leave is a centre-left position. It’s about taking a dynamic and revolutionary attitude to our future throwing off static attitudes and thinking laterally.

    Remain needs to sort out one crucial existential argument: on the one hand they say `we need to pool our sovereignty` with our partners and friends in Europe. Next they say that if we don’t they’ll threaten us with all sorts of `consequences`.

    Well let’s test that out! A leave result will accelerate this new attitude. We don’t need to clobber the lowest paid with unlimited free movement of people – a leave vote would allow us to become an associate member with us telling them what to do.

    The new politics is about creating new realities not glacial fights for reform with recalcitrant `friends`.

  5. Mike Stallard says:

    Robin, I totally understand your wanting to maintain your livelihood. I totally understand that you are concerned that if we leave the EU, there will be serious disruption of your business which is the very basis of your life. I am not belittling that at all.
    I am over 60.
    Now then – to business!
    We are currently members of the EEA (aka Common Market) we must nail this down and make sure we stay there for the time being.
    We are no longer members of the EFTA with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. We should join now or at the very latest on 24th June whichever way it goes. Not forever, but while we are negotiating.
    The EU completely understands that Britain is different. It completely understands that, in their words (Spinelli) we need Associate Membership. EEA and EFTA membership provide exactly that. And they do not threaten the EU at all. Neither do they threaten your company at all.
    Once all this has been decided (temporarily) we need to get negotiating. The EU is very concerned about immigration. We need to talk about that with them. It is very concerned about unemployment and the general slowdown. We need to talk about that too. There are a lot of NTBs too that need discussion.
    And eventually – not on 24th June 2016, we need to leave, slowly, carefully and without rocking the boat.
    That is why you can safely vote LEAVE on 23rd June.

  6. Jean-Claude Juncker says:

    Robin, I totally understand your wanting to maintain your livelihood. I totally understand that you are concerned that if we leave the EU, there will be serious disruption of your business which is the very basis of your life. I am not belittling that at all.
    I am over 60.
    Now then – to business!
    We are currently members of the EEA (aka Common Market) we must nail this down and make sure we stay there for the time being.
    We are no longer members of the EFTA with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. We should join now or at the very latest on 24th June whichever way it goes. Not forever, but while we are negotiating.
    The EU completely understands that Britain is different. It completely understands that, in their words (Spinelli) we need Associate Membership. EEA and EFTA membership provide exactly that. And they do not threaten the EU at all. Neither do they threaten your company at all.
    Once all this has been decided (temporarily) we need to get negotiating. The EU is very concerned about immigration. We need to talk about that with them. It is very concerned about unemployment and the general slowdown. We need to talk about that too. There are a lot of NTBs too that need discussion.
    And eventually – not on 24th June 2016, we need to leave, slowly, carefully and without rocking the boat.
    That is why you can safely vote LEAVE on 23rd June.

  7. Touchstone says:

    One day there will be a United States of Europe. The choice facing us is: do we want to be
    California or Mexico?

  8. Anthony says:

    This is a very interesting article. It confirms my suspicion that for a lot of people (well, Robin is just one but I’m going to assume he’s representative of many) being in the EU is an expression of a world view that says: being in the EU is about defining ourselves in terms of the solidarity we show with others. I suspect this is what underlies, say, chuka umunna’s view. It also explains why so often, even people who are trying to be honest and reasonable in this debate (as robin is) talk past one another. That is because people like me ask questions about whether the EU is effective in achieving Britain’s goals. You can take the view that it is (although robin does not), but if you decide that it isn’t, you’ll vote out. But this doesn’t cut it for robin, leaving people of my persuasion scratching our heads. But the reason is right up there in the beginning of the article: robin wants to stay in, essentially because he wants to. It’s irreducible. It just is. And that’s fair enough. (Sovereignty is an irreducible feeling on the other side of the argument).

    Meanwhile, I think he’s bang on in his analysis of the risks of leaving. There are risks, they’re not that big a deal if appropriately managed. Mike Stallard is bang on in his assessment too. If the risks are managed appropriately, with a gentle, methodical evolution away from the EU via the EEA, say, on the way to a more long term solution (which the EEA is not) that suits our needs better. That way, although it may take time to deal with leaving the EU, we will be doing it in a stable fashion that will not adversely affect business.

  9. Dadad says:

    Robin, we do not have to be in the EU to have access to the single market, which in Europe alone consists of 50+ countries, not just 28. Any politician who says you can’t do that is a liar, and I am sorry, but not surprised, to say that there are many of them. Both Heath and Wilson lied to me, and although it was a long time ago I haven’t forgotten it: Camoron and the others are no better.

    But that is not the most important issue, although it is very significant. If I don’t like the UK government I can elect another one; I cannot do that to Brussels. I cannot throw them out and get some others which I might like to vote for. The MEPs are just a rubber stamp for the decisions taken elsewhere, and for there to be one MEP for more than a million citizens is a joke in itself.

    I demand that I have the right to vote for the people who rule me, until I change my mind for whatever reason and throw them out to get some others. I can’t do that while we are ruled from Brussels.

    So the bottom line has to be LEAVE.

  10. Peter says:

    Well said Tafia, at the moment 70% of labour supporters want to stay in, but labour is on 24% in the polls,and needs 16% more to win a election, where will those votes come from, they can’t all be LibDems, they will gave to be EU sceptic one nation Tories who like Michael gove or Ukip supporters
    If 75% of the 16% more labour needs(12%) of the electorate are anti the EU,it would mean that half of labours support would be anti the EU, and I think the additional vote labour needs from Ukip, etc would be anti the EU

  11. Rallan says:

    What about democracy?

  12. John P Reid says:

    Touchstone, are you sure we’d be California, the South Central part of LA from the 1992 riots maybe

  13. M. Carlisle says:

    I am very disappointed in the labour party and Jeremy Corbyn. I doubt that I will ever support or vote for the labour party again after this referendum. Corbyn has been one of the most severe critics of the EU throughout his career to date. Now, he has in my opinion betrayed his integrity and many people in this country by aligning himself and his party with the Tories and the remainers. Whatever happened to labour being a real alternative?

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