From The Daily Mail:
David Cameron's flagship promise to hold a referendum on Britain leaving the EU would not be legally binding, officials have warned.
The Prime Minister last night lashed out at Lib Dems and Labour for refusing to back Tory legislation on staging an in-out vote by 2017. But House of Commons analysis says that even if the Bill is passed, more votes by MPs and peers would be needed after the 2015 general election before a referendum could take place.
Yup. No Parliament can bind a future Parliament, we already knew this, but I don't see why we need to argue so heatedly over the timing and the wording and so on, because we already have a system and a timetable in place for this...
Every five years, there are elections to the EU Parliament (more or less simultaneously in all Member States) and it can't be too difficult just to add a further option on the ballot paper at the end of the list of parties/candidates which says "I would like the UK to leave the EU".
The Tories can just announce right now that this will apply at the next EU Parliament election, which is due in May 2014 (when they will still be in government). I can't see who could possibly be opposed to this* and so the other parties would be stampeded into supporting/accepting it.
[Consider: if you are a member of any voluntary organisation, there is usually a system of elections for leader, chairman, treasurer, captain etc, and maybe your chosen candidates are not up for election or they are, but don't win - you always have a further option which is not expressly on the ballot paper - which is simply to leave that organisation. And you can always change your mind later on and rejoin again later, provided you didn't kick up too much of a stink when you left.]
So at each EU Parliament election people will be able to choose who they'd like as an MEP if they want to stay in, or whether they don't want an MEP at all, sorted. And if we did leave, there's no harm in having a further referendum every five years to decide whether we want to rejoin. You never know, do you?
* No doubt the Lib Dems and the Green Party will gamble on not losing any votes - the only people who stand to lose votes are the Tories, who have the largest number of EU-sceptic voters. The Labour Party will be probably heartily indifferent and it will place UKIP in an interesting quandary - do they want to be on the ballot paper to stay on the EU gravy train and thereby implicitly support our continuing membership, or will they abstain in the hope that enough people vote for us to leave? I would imagine that there are a fair few people who would like to leave the EU who do not like UKIP, and that these people simply don't bother voting at EU elections.
That went well
6 hours ago
14 comments:
The main thing is that Cameron isn't going to win the next election. The decline of the Lib Dems is going to mean that many of the seats that used to be won by an LD/Lab split are more likely to go Labour and the Conservative candidate will be defeated. Even if UKIP weren't around, that would ensure a Conservative loss.
All Cam's really doing is stopping a backbench rebellion, because some seats will be protected. My guess, not as many as they think. I don't think they've spotted the LD thing and also, the UKIP vote is about a lot more than just Europe.
TS, I'm not talking about the next UK General Election.
If Cam had the nerve to add the "out" option to the 2014 EU elections, surely that will count in his favour a year later?
Most people will probably vote to stay in and that is the end of that for the next five years - there is no longer a need for the Tory Party to "tear itself apart over Europe" during the GE campaign.
And the UKIP vote at the EU elections is ALL about the EU, albeit indirectly, because what people seem to hate is not the EU but the Eastern European immigrants.
The Lib Dems would never agree to having a referendum. Although they have previously hinted they might like referenda, they are now explicitly on record as being against. So actually Cameron would never get your proposal through parliament.
But in any case, remember that Cameron himself DOES NOT WANT A REFERENDUM. He is on record as saying so. The current debate is purely an electoral stunt by the Tories, who are terrified of UKIP. If by some miracle Cameron is PM after the election, he will find a way to wriggle out of the referendum or to fix the result.
You are underestimating the depth of the cynicism of our politicians, which is not something I see you do often!
AC, you are understimating here.
I also sorely doubt whether Cam wants a referendum, but surely best to get it over with with as little fuss as possible before the next GE?
Clearly, with an "out" option, UKIP wouldn't be on the ballot paper at all (if they have any principles), the Tories would lose some votes to "out" but they'll have to gamble on a majority voting to stay "in", so pro rata, they will end up with more MEPs*, and the other parties definitely will.
* Assuming 40% vote "out" and Tories' vote share falls to 20% of all votes, hey presto, the Tories would get a third of all "in" votes, which is more than 20%.
Mark,
If Cam had the nerve to add the "out" option to the 2014 EU elections, surely that will count in his favour a year later?
He's in a bit of a pickle. Having agreed to an LD thing about fixed term parliaments, he can't just call an election now. And I'm not sure how it affects the coalition agreement.
But I'm also not sure he has the nerve to try it, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure that now would be the best time for the pro-EU parties to have a referendum.
TS, are you confusing the EU Parliament Elections, due to be held in 2014 (five years after the last one in 2009) and the next UK General Election, due to be held in 2015 (five years after the last one)?
I'm assuming that both elections take place as planned, the EU one in 2014 (which could include an "out" option) and the UK GE in 2015.
This would be an astute move for a Europhile party.
Any party vote is a vote to stay in. Only a vote to explicitly leave is actually so. This would indeed make no difference to Lib Dems and Greens. The clever part is how it would split Eurosceptics. They would be required to decide whether to vote to leave at the risk of leaving a majority of pro-EU MEPs. In reality the vote must split to some degree.
If there was a landslide majority against EU membership, this proposal would not work, but if the majority was small enough then enough sceptics would split their votes to undermine their own cause.
Of course elections of this sort allow STV between candidates but not onto the "reopen nominations". I presume to be completely Machiavellian you would do the same. If you could vote UKIP first and "leave" second or vice versa it would undermine your idea.
JM, I like your thinking, but I'm not sure what you mean by this:
"If there was a landslide majority against EU membership, this proposal would not work."
If there were, then a majority would vote to leave and that is the end of that, it would work perfectly well. And to be honest, I'd vote to leave (even if I knew that only a minority would do so).
Then five years after that we can have a referendum on whether to rejoin AFAIAC, by which time I might have changed my mind again.
Mark,
My general feeling about the EU is that despite being a generally broken idea, it kinda worked in its early days. Not interfering in much, opened up a lot of trade. And at the time, Europe was where a huge amount of our trade was, and where it was growing.
You get past the 70s, and Japan opens up, Eastern Europe opens up, South America sorts itself out, China opens up. India ditches the communist economics of Gandhi and goes more free market. You've got Africa growing and trading.
Having a group based on Europe doesn't really make that much sense now. Something like the WTO.
TS, yeah sure, agreed, but that's all ancient history. You have not committed to saying whether having an "out" option at the next EU elections is a good idea or a bad idea.
Yes, it is a good idea.
JM, I like your thinking, but I'm not sure what you mean by this:
"If there was a landslide majority against EU membership, this proposal would not work."
If there were, then a majority would vote to leave and that is the end of that, it would work perfectly well. And to be honest, I'd vote to leave (even if I knew that only a minority would do so).
Sorry to be obscure. It struck me that you were playing Devil's Advocate.
When faced with defeat, the best strategy is to divide the opposition. In this case the opposition is divided between some who vote to leave and some who judge they will lose and so vote for the least worst candidate who wishes to stay. In other words you have proposed a strategy that will almost certainly fail to result in Britain leaving the EU.
That struck me as very Machiavellian.
JM: " In other words you have proposed a strategy that will almost certainly fail to result in Britain leaving the EU. That struck me as very Machiavellian."
There are two different levels to this -
a) whether voters are given a 'fair' choice, and
b) whether voters make the 'correct' choice.
I think a 'fair choice' includes the 'out' option, so that's limb a) dealt with.
There is no point us arguing over whether 'out' is the 'correct' choice b) because that is shrouded in the mists of propaganda.
However, if there are genuinely people who believe that who their MEP is makes the slightest scintilla of difference to anything whatsoever (good or bad), then they seriously need their heads examining.
TS, thanks.
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