Now EU chiefs are struggling to remedy the defects in that project, and they have produced a report explaining what they want to do. It is called the “Five Presidents’ Report”, and it came out last year and got rather buried in the aftermath of the general election. History teaches us that we would be mad to ignore this text. The five presidents in question are those of the European Commission, the Council, the European Parliament, the European Central Bank and a body called the “European Stability Mechanism”. They want to prop up the euro by creating an all-out economic government of Europe.
The EU referendum – in numbers
They want a euro-area treasury, with further pooling of tax and budgetary policy. They want to harmonise insolvency law, company law, property rights, social security systems – and there is no way the UK can be unaffected by this process. As the Five Presidents put it: “Much can be already achieved through a deepening of the Single Market, which is important for all 28 EU member states.” So even though Britain is out of the euro, there is nothing we can do to stop our friends from using “single market” legislation to push forward centralising measures that will help prop up the euro (or so they imagine), by aligning EU economic, social and fiscal policies.
Insofar as the recent “UK Agreement” has any force, it expressly allows these measures to be pursued, and agrees the UK will not attempt to exercise a veto. In other words we will find ourselves dragged along willy-nilly, in spite of all protestations to the contrary. So-called “Single Market” measures affect us as much as they affect the eurozone – and the question therefore is what we mean by “Single Market”. The answer is a mystery – because the single market has changed beyond recognition.
Twenty years ago there was a clear conceptual difference in the EEC between things that were done at an intergovernmental level – between member states, without the Commission, the Euro-parliament and the Court of Justice – and things that were part of the “single market”. Foreign and defence co-operation was done intergovernmentally, and so was anything to do with police, or justice, or borders, or home affairs, or asylum, or immigration, or anything to do with human rights. Then there were all the fields of EEC competence: the common trade policies, the common agricultural policy, the competition policy, environment policy, and so on.
Since Maastricht, that has all changed. Successive treaties have vastly expanded the areas in which the EU bodies operate so that there is virtually no aspect of public policy that is untouched. The EU now takes an interest in energy policy, in humanitarian aid, in education, in health, and in human rights of all kinds. There is a common European space policy. All of these policy areas involve the European Commission, the parliament, and above all the European Court of Justice. And remember – as soon as something enters within the EU’s field of competence, the Luxembourg Court of Justice becomes the supreme judicial body; and every time that happens, power is sucked away from this country.
We have seen recently how the Home Secretary has lost the power to deport murderers, or to conduct surveillance of would-be terrorists, because that might put the UK in breach of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. What has that got to do with the “Single Market”, you may ask, and the answer is nothing at all. But any clever lawyer can easily blur the boundaries: it is a short hop from a common policy on free movement of workers to a common policy on deporting terrorists.
The idea of the Single Market has become so capacious that it is a cloak for full-scale political and economic union. We now have up to half our law coming from the EU (some say two thirds); and if the Five Presidents get their way, the process of centralisation will simply continue – much of it in the name of the “Single Market”. It’s time we learnt the lesson. The federalists do mean it when they sketch out these programmes. The ratchet is clicking forwards. When you come to vote, the status quo is not on offer.
I have just read the actual text of Cameron’s “Agreement” with the EU makes it clear that it, the EU, may end derogations, IMHO it is an utterly worthless Agreement from the UK opt-out (reform) perspective, but it is invaluable to the EU as a clear statement of what the EU is all about, and will be used ruthlessly by the EU if we vote to remain, since they will claim that the people approved it. Leaving is now very important or we will be in the Euro powerless and broke, before you know it.
This Agreement is the opposite of what it purports to be
Article 50 termination question. The two year deadline is triggered only when the government “notify” the EC. Why not take our time to make alternative trading arrangements and delay notification until we are ready which may take several years, so what? Is there some legal aspect I am missing here?
If I am correct why are you and your colleagues not explaining how you will take time to negotiate and not have to rush to meet a two year deadline?
Regards Ernie Cochrane
Sent from my iPad
Response to a request for a donation of £20 from conservative party HQ
I am afraid that I have completely lost faith in David Cameron after the way in which he has failed to improve Britain’s rights within the EU and is now trying to shore up his position by scaring people about leaving the Union. It is scandalous that he is using visits to businesses around the country in his role of PM to promulgate propaganda against those wishing to leave and the constraints being imposed on colleagues who are of a different view..
Many years ago, I and many others voted to be part of a European free trade area – not to become part of a federal state, governed by bureaucratic Brussels with its insatiable thirst for more British taxpayers money. I have a house in France and, when I am there, am quite happy to be governed by French rules, but would hate to have to do so back here in the UK. We bought the house long before Britain joined the EU, in the days of the Franc, and experienced no difficulties in purchasing the house, spending time there or getting into or out of the country. Consequently, if we revert to that position, I cannot see how the PM’s dire prognosis relates to reality and feel convinced that we can prosper even more outside the EU, which will make us even more welcome there. My wife and I have often observed that, without British ex-pats and tourists bringing money into the country (and especially in our region of the Dordogne), France would have gone bankrupt long ago. Many local improvements have been made on the back of the money spent by our people over the 27 years that we have had our house. The French would be ‘cutting off their noses to spite their faces’ if they started discriminating against us and I am sure they are aware of this. In fact, many French people in our part of France despise their own politicians and other Parisian establishments and often say how they prefer British neighbours to the second home owners from Paris also living there.
As I fear that a significant proportion of the £20 for which you are appealing is likely to go to supporting the ‘stay’ campaign, I do not feel in the least inclined to subscribe to this campaign.
I only hope that the British people are not fooled by the negative approach to freedom being taken by the ‘stay’ campaign, as it attempts to suppress any but its own viewpoint.
Following the referendum, if the vote is in favour of leaving and, taking account of his determined opposition to leaving, I should, of course, expect the PM to make way for another figure within the party who has greater belief in Britain and its people than he apparently has.