European Union

The “Remain” Campaign: Wrong On Economics, Cavalier With Democracy

Samuel Hooper3 Comments

EU Democracy - Brexit

The pro-EU lobby is wrong on the economic argument. But their lack of concern for democracy is far worse

Over the past week, a lot of scaremongering warnings and cautionary tales have been flung around by the “Remain” campaign, talking down Britain and painting the risible picture of the UK as a small, insignificant country that would be overwhelmed and destroyed if we tried to follow the examples of Norway, Switzerland, Singapore or any other country (all less powerful and consequential than ourselves) and re-engage with the world as an independent power.

We have seen the Prime Minister travel to Iceland and lie about the Norwegian option, misrepresenting facts and figures to make it seem as though Norway has to pay almost as much per capita for access to the Single Market as Britain, while having no influence over the rules. Both of these claims, of course, are false. Much of Norway’s contribution is voluntary and goes directly to the recent accession countries in eastern Europe, and are in no way a prerequisite for trading with the EU. And Norway has far more of a say over global rules because unlike EU member states, they retain their own, voting seat at the World Trade Organisation and other key global standard-setting forums.

We have seen Michael Froman, the US trade representative, seek to bully the British electorate with equally laughable claims that the United States would not be interested in pursuing a free trade deal with its strongest and closest ally in the event of Brexit. Again, this is pure nonsense – the US may prefer negotiating trade deals with large blocs, but so crucial is UK-US trade to both parties that a free trade agreement could be hammered out in minutes, were it absolutely necessary. Besides which, we need to learn to distinguish between what the US would like us to do and what is actually best for Britain.

And we have seen the CBI continue to misrepresent British business in general and its own membership, claiming that majority want the UK to stay in the EU based on highly selective  and manipulative sampling methods.

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It Is Not Britain’s Job To Save The EU From Its Own Worst Instincts

Samuel Hooper4 Comments

David Cameron - European Union

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They’ve bribed us with cheap international calls, and threatened us with bogus figures about fictitious job losses. Now, the “Remain” campaigners want us to vote to stay in the EU to save Brussels from itself

What to do when the two best weapons at your disposal – bribery and coercion – are not achieving the desired effect?

Well, if you are the “Remain” campaign and you are desperately trying to come up with plausible new arguments to convince the British people to stay shackled to a failed, anti-democratic political union, then it is eventually going to come down to begging, pure and simple.

Cue Mark Field’s latest piece in CapX, which is dedicated not to any of the things that the European Union can offer Britain, but rather to all the reasons why the EU needs Britain to stick around – namely, to save the Brussels machine from its own worst instincts.

Field recounts conversations with some Swedish legislators, who are apparently “terrified” at the prospect of Brexit:

It took some Swedish counterparts to remind me recently just how crucial Britain’s role in the EU is to fellow members who believe in the Anglo-Saxon values of free trade and competition, and share our desire to resist “ever closer union”. The notion of Brexit is terrifying to Northern European allies who look to the UK as an essential bridge between the EU and the English-speaking world, a critical counterweight to the Franco-German axis and the asker of awkward but essential questions over reform. They see an EU which Britain has been instrumental in shaping, citing the expansion eastwards into pro-western countries like Poland, the promotion of the single market, open competition for goods and services, new trade deals and English as the dominant language.

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Debunking BSE’s ‘Brexit Jobs Threat’ Misinformation Campaign

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

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The “Remain” campaign misrepresent and exaggerate every claim about jobs that might possibly be at risk from Brexit, but fall deafeningly silent on the innumerable jobs which are never created in the first place thanks to Britain’s EU membership

Here is Britain Stronger in Europe’s latest attempt to frighten and deceive the British people into thinking that a vote for independence from the EU’s explicitly political union will somehow cost millions of jobs at home and mysteriously devastate the sixth largest economy in the world.

It’s predictable stuff and spans only 30 seconds – any longer and the cracks in BSE’s argument would start to show – but it is worth watching, if only because it reveals a strategy which will be used to pummel the “Leave campaign” every day between now and the EU referendum.

BSE’s video attempts to take the words of Vote Leave campaign chairman, Dominic Cummings, and use them against the Brexit movement. Whatever Cummings’ other flaws may be (and they are well documented), the point he made here was an honest one and in no way injurious to the Brexit cause, though BSE were more than happy to misrepresent him and throw their hand up in mock horror to score a cheap political point.

What more would we expect from an organisation fronted by intellectual firebrands like June Sarpong?

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A Portuguese Coup: How The EU Suppresses Democracy Without Trying

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

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There may be no tanks on the streets, but only because that’s not the EU’s style. The European Union has now mastered the art of the bloodless, self-administered government coup

Television stations continue to broadcast. People continue to work, shop and go to school. In fact, life goes on as normal in nearly every way. But there is still a coup taking place in Portugal today.

At the beginning of October there was a general election in Portugal. The governing centre-right government led by prime minister Passos Coelho lost seventeen seats and their parliamentary majority, and though they remained the largest party they were unable to form a new government. After a few weeks of political horse-trading, the leader of the Socialist Party, Antonio Costa, forged a coalition deal with two other left-wing parties, the Left Bloc and the Communists. Together, they held a wafer-thin majority and could plausibly claim the right to govern.

But unfortunately, some of these left-wing parties held the Wrong Views. They were against the existing “austerity” terms of the bailout provided to Portugal by the European Union. Some of them – quick, fetch the smelling salts – were against the European Union entirely. And for holding these eurosceptic positions – views which were validated by the Portuguese electorate less than a month ago – they were prevented from forming a majority coalition government.

With these chilling words, the Portuguese president openly admitted that which has been an unspoken reality in Europe for some time – that democracy may exist, so long as it does not stand in the way of ever-closer European union:

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The “In” Campaign Reveal Their Best Argument: Cheap International Calls

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

European Union - Mobile Phone Roaming Charges - 2

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It’s official: the leader of the “In” campaign declares that cheap mobile phone calls from the continent are the best reason for Britain to remain a member of the EU

Five months ago, when columnist Mary Riddell revealed that her love of the European Union is based on the fact that open borders allow her to motorbike around eastern Europe with ease, I wrote:

We see this emphasis on narrow self-interest in other areas too, such as the EU’s plan to ban mobile phone operators from charging exorbitant roaming fees for making calls from other member states, as though the ability of predominantly middle class holidaymakers and business travellers to call and text more cheaply somehow makes up for the erosion of our democracy and national sovereignty.

[..] The Left’s anguish over the prospect of British secession from the European Union has nothing to do with any overriding concern about Britain’s future, or the plight of the unemployed or the working poor. No, it’s simply a collective howl of outrage from a cosseted and sheltered middle class clerisy, terrified at the prospect of losing out on a raft of perks which disproportionately benefit themselves at the expense of everyone else.

Little did I know then that the “Remain” campaign would be so intellectually bankrupt, so totally lacking in good ideas or a positive argument for greater European integration, that the cheap gimmick of cheap international phone calls would be raised up as their openly stated chief benefit of staying in the EU.

As if their “youth spokesperson” June Sarpong had not embarrassed the pro-EU side enough with her ambivalent, paint-by-numbers endorsement in the pages of the Telegraph this week, the chairman of Britain Stronger in Europe – nepotism beneficiary Will Straw – has been working his magic in The Mirror:

Here are eight ways that the British economy and British families are stronger in Europe.

1. Cheaper mobile fees

The cost of using your mobile abroad dropped by 73p for every pound between 2005 and 2011 thanks to an agreement on roaming charges .

And they will be scrapped entirely by June 2017 after the EU forced companies to give a fairer deal.

Unimpeded bike rides and cheap mobile phone calls. This, apparently, is the best that the pro-EU side can muster as both sides fire their opening shots of the Brexit referendum. This, together with the gradual re-emergence of left-wing euroscepticism as a noteworthy force in British politics, give me hope that the eurosceptics may yet carry the day.

Brexit campaigner Pete North does an excellent job of pouring cold water on the europhiles’ claim that the EU is nothing more than a beneficent provider of cheap international roaming charges:

[..] with the advent of smartphones and wifi which is free to use, while it’s a marginal benefit to have no roaming charges, I don’t see why this comes to the top of their list of reasons to stay in the EU. It certainly benefits the eurocrats on large salaries jetting off to Brussels and Strasbourg once a month, but I really couldn’t give a tinkers damn.

But then the fact this comes to the top of their list actually tells you something more fundamental about Will Straw and the Remain campaign. I remember well the campaign mounted by the europhiles to get us to join the ill fated euro currency. They pulled the same trick then saying that it would save us all the inconvenience of having to change money when we go on holiday. The message here is that you are an ignorant pleb incapable of understanding the larger ramifications of surrendering our currency and will vote for it on the basis of convenience when we take our package vacations to Spanish seaside resorts. As patronising as it is, is actually shows these misanthropes really do hold us in contempt. Do they really think we’re going to base our vote on whether we can make a cheap phone call?

I’m with Pete. Is this really the best that the pro-EU side can do?

Do Will Straw and the shambolic “Remain” campaign really think that the British people are so stupid that their votes can be bought with the cheap bauble of low cost mobile phone calls? And worse still, if they really mean what they say, are they really willing to barter away British sovereignty – our right to national self determination – over such trinkets as these?

At best, this is an argument for continued European and international competition, and of the importance of removing barriers to trade and competition. But why do we need a European Parliament – a legislature being the quintessential expression of a nation state – to successfully co-operate to bring about cheaper phone calls? Why do we need European Courts which can overrule our own UK Supreme Court on any matter in order to liberalise energy markets?

Is Will Straw really so dense that he cannot see the ulterior motive at play? Does he honestly not see that the warm, fluffy waffle about international co-operation is just a smokescreen for the deliberate construction of a European superstate with all of the functions and institutions of a nation state?

Of course not. Will Straw knows exactly what the EU is now, and what it is very likely to become in ten, twenty, thirty years’ time. But he also knows that the British people would never vote for this vision of Europe – of Britain as nothing more than a small star on the EU’s flag. So Will Straw has to lie about it. He has to pretend that the political union currently in the process of devouring twenty-eight sovereign countries is a happy, friendly creature which does nothing but bring low-cost flights and cheap mobile phone calls.

That’s what the “In” campaign think of the British people and their capacity to grasp what is at stake in this referendum.

Take what you want from that lesson.

European Union - Mobile Phone Roaming Charges

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