Negotiate but only when you agree with us

A major riff throughout, Remainers have said, has been the UK's failure to specify what it wants, to make explicit proposals etc. El Grundia reports:

This is the last call to lay the cards on the table,” Tusk said, of the EU’s call for a workable plan.The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said: “There is a clear message in this respect – we can no longer wait...“I cannot speculate as to the possibility of an agreement. I would like an agreement now but it is not in our hands ...

What this really means has become clear:

the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, told [May] that unless the final document presented a departure from the UK government’s thinking over the last two years, it would be dead on arrival...Brexit can only happen in compliance with our values...The red lines set by the UK are globally incompatible with the fundamental principles of the EU

The consequences are obvious:  “If that principle were to be conceded there would be Eurosceptics and right-wing populist parties in every second country of Europe who would say cannot we have the same deal."

Heaven forbid that the Guardian might question or pursue  these absurd threats as in proper journalism, but at least we might all know where we stand now -- the failure to provide explicit proposals means failure to agree that it is pointless to try to leave the EU on any terms except theirs.The EU has failed to provide any workable or realistic proposals except to repeat their own stance. Their only position is to hope that somehow Brexit will be reversed or postponed -- they still don't get it, they are still in bereavement mode. They cannot be pragmatic about Brexit, but have to stick by their absurd and apparently eternal and sacred 'principles', because they are afraid the whole game will be up with Eurosceptics elsewhere in Europe -- so the 'principles' and 'freedoms' are obviously partisan. It is therefore not really a negotiating process at all, but is, at best, a game of bluff, at least in public.

It seems obvious that any negotiation will occur only at the last minute in crisis management mode, in a kind of macho stand-off at high noon. What will the Remainers do then, poor things?

News by press release

Nearly back to old Guardina habits today with a Barnier press statement appearing as news, although it is actually attributed this time, which makes a change. Some detail is given to yet another solemn Barnier warning, mostly about their last straw, the Irish border. May's complaint that excluding the UK from European security arrangements would cost lives was also mentioned right at the end (and given more space in a separate item), but was 'baanced' by reporting EU leaders' jeering at May's split Cabinet (not split enough to prevent the EU WIthdrawal Act though)

Misleading symptoms

Guardian coverage of Brexit today resumed its familiar form. Some gropup is complaining that Brexit will upset their plans, usually involving cheap labour from Europe to do low paid jobs. Not fruit pickers or au pairs this time,but the British Medical Association.

Under the rather dubious headline:

Brexit is bad for Britain’s health, doctors say 

there is a report of a motion carried at the BMA in support of the people's vote [ more Midnight's Children have evidently telepathed]. The mover 'said the EU was better for the NHS, public health, research, science, universities, access to pharmaceuticals and international cooperation in research'. There are 'severe problems in staff recruitment and retention.', 'cuts and closures as the NHS loses staff and struggles with budgets that are limited by the Brexit economic squeeze' argued another.

Strangely, el Gurandino did not investigate these claims, contest them or demand evidence. It might have been a kind of argument by authority, I suppose -- if doctors say it it must be right?

In another piece, we find the old techniques again. First a shouty headline:

Brexit: bank contracts worth trillions at risk, says finance watchdog 

then qualifications for those who wish to read on. However, the qualifications appeared this time in the subheading: 

The Bank of England warns EU officials that new rules must be devised for banks 

So there are some signs of improvement in the direction of  journalism: normally, the Graun would have just repeated the EU press release, but this time it is the Bank of England who goes first, and they are critical about EU delaying tactics, 'Brussels’ failure to implement protective legislation.'. There seem to be two sides to this argument!

EBA [EuropeanBanking Authority] officials said there was little preparation by the UK authorities and individual banks for life outside the EU...

[But -- and even more of a but, the Guardian reported that] The FPC [Bank of England's Finance Policy Committee] hit back, saying the Treasury was well advanced in its efforts to bridge the gap between banks in London and those on the continent, but Brussels had made little obvious effort to support its own financial institutions.

So farewell then...

To a more or less complete whimper, what I have been calling the Great Repeal Bill (technically the EU (Withdrawal) Bill) passed into law with the royal assent yesterday (26th June 2018). I assume this is the starting gun for serious negotiations at last, after all the 'show' (see blog below) from the EU with its finger-wagging press releases and sad metaphors about gentlemen's clubs and divorce bills. I would welcome some of the EU's famed 'pragmatism', probably from national governments, instead of the overblown sense of hurt from Barnier and Juncker. 

I have no doubt that the usual horse-trading beloved of 'business' has gone on behind the scenes already, but the show must go on, and the Cabinet are to discuss a plan for some sort of customs agreement soon. The press, already anticipating the silly season, are avid for anything to report, like minor politicians quitting minor posts (leader of Welsh conservatives) so they can speak out fearlessly for a soft Brexit, businesses possibly threatening to revise investment decisions,some trades unionists joining in softbrexitery. Soon the usual summer moral panics will take over -- baby battering, mourning rituals for victims of terrorism or other anniversaries, Grenfell, maybe plastic in the oceans if it still has legs. Shorter term, the Guardian has discovered that football can be quite interesting, especially if it can be rendered as multicultural.

She was only pining for the fjords...

Great news! P Toynbee seems to have regained consciousness! She managed to write a whole story about health policy without mentioning, let alone blaming,Brexit!   No worries that the supply of syringe drivers will dry up after Brexit or that supplies of diamorphine will be held up at Dover. A sound argument as well. I am delighted she is on the mend.

R Behr, by contrast, shows the usual frustrating case of Durgiand analysis struggling with ludicrous pro-EU sentiment -- and losing. He notices that politics these days is often about apeparances rather than solid policies, 'performance', 'entertainment', 'show', a 'cult of political celebrity'. It's a bit late (my copy of The Society of the Spectacle has an inch of dust on it), but better than never.

But then -- who is to be the main target for this insightful account?  Boris Johnson (specifically over his hypocrisy over the vote to extend the runway at Heathrow), and, of course, the Brexiteers. As an aside,the public change of mind when D Grieve voted against his own amendment is forgiven as 'legal fastidiousness' and 'lawyerly concern'.

The main example turns on the same rather sad (for Remainers) collapse of the last attempt to stop the progress of the Great Repeal Bill by trying to insist  that Parliament should have a 'meaningful vote' (so there are meaningless votes?) on the final agreed settlement. For Behr: 

...remainers never get any traction with one of their favourite arguments: they accuse leavers of hypocrisy for not wanting parliament to have a stronger say in Brexit. After all, wasn’t parliamentary sovereignty the great cause of Euroscepticism? Yet this isn’t the great “Gotcha!” that pro-Europeans think it is. The charge is logical but Brexit was never a promise of analytical rigour. Johnson and Nigel Farage aren’t shamed by inconsistency. They measure success in laughter and applause. The leave campaign was a show, not a lecture (which helps to explain why it won).

So the Remain case was simply logical. So was the Remain side in the silly and hypocritical politicians' spat over who was the best representative of Parliamentary sovereignty. Probably neither side really cared a stuff about Parliamentary sovereignty as an abstract issue -- Behr admites the context was the struggle over opposing Brexit. One side suggested sovereignty lay in the ultimate power of Parliament to pass a vote of no confidence in the Government, while the other argued for a more detailed kind of sovereignty involving the ability to intervene in detail during negotiations. Both scenarios are abstract and unlikely, but the argument here is about the sovereignty of the whole House of Commons vis a vis the Government. A different dimension is involved when one side wants  (only legal) UK Parliamentary sovereignty in opposition to the unelected institutions of the EU. Remainers are usually silent about this issue. Perhaps Remainer spokespersons, incuding Behr, were hoping the poor old dim electorate would confuse the two?

The leave campaign was a show -- but not the Remain campaign, Project Fear, all the early hype about the money the EU gave us, the accusations of racism, the big march last week, the endless tide of sentimental waffle and partisanship on the BBC and in the Grauniad. As I have argued before, this sort of blatant favourtism and activism convinces no-one, and probably makes people suspect that journalism is a show as well.

Remain! Remain in the dying of the light

Only mysterious signs and portents so far, but the endgame, and the start of real negotiations might be in sight at last. It looks as if the Great Repeal Bill is about to be signed, transporting all EU legislation into the UK Parliament, and thus finally signalling a determination to actually leave. Even the illusions and hallucinations of the EU Commissioners will surely have to give way, and they will have to start serious negotiations at last?  

The signs and portents began with the Government defeating the rebel amendment to delay Brexit. The actual wording turned on giving Parliament a 'meaningful vote' to prevent leaving after no deal. Technically, Parliament already has a meaningful vote, of course, in that they can overturn a Government with a vote of no-confidence, but, presumably, Tory Remainers would not want to rebel that much, and there is no real sign that the electorate would sweep Remainers to power afterwards. 

We could see the writing was on the wall, when the oleaginous gossip–monger N Watt of BBC Newsnight said that after his confidential enquiries, the rebels were confident that they could master enough votes to carry the amendment. As it turned out, even the proposer of the amendment, a certain D Grieve, voted against.  As a number of BBC Remainers noted, mournfully, there is now no obstacle to the passage of the Repeal Bill. What seems to be left is some spite, some sulking, and some rehearsal of the old failed arguments one more time. 

The latter included a rerun of the Great British Strawberry Lament in the Guradniad [there are pages and pages of links]. This one reports that 'The government’s latest ruse is to try and encourage unemployed Brits they are missing out on picking jobs, which can pay up to £675 a week'. Marvellously, there is also an item on how to use up surplus strawberries (which includes how to make them into a facemask).  

The other great spokesperson of remaining on Newsnight (well, actually, they nearly all support Remain), one E Davis clutched at a straw and waved it in the face of P Bone, the Brexiteer MP, and about the only one who has any stamina left to put up with Davis's tantrums. The pretext was an announcement by Airbus, a 'Franco – German company' today's Observer reminds us, that they would be forced to re-view their investment decisions and consider moving their substantial production plant from the UK to either China or the USA. Apparently, they were afraid that the production of their wings would no longer meet European standards of safety once the UK left the EU, presumably predicting some tantrum on the part of EU commissioners to pretend that they do not have the standards of safety already. Big European companies revise their investment plans all the time, of course, but perhaps this was not a coincidence, given the imminence of a meeting of the European Council with the British Prime Minister, where she will be able to plunk down on the table what will then be the Great Repeal Act, suggested Bone.  It was nothing like that for Davis, of course. The decision by Airbus represented nothing other than a total condemnation of the government's plans by 'industry'. He could not and would not accept that this was really a political intervention. For Davis, this was 'business' offering their unassailable and totally objective wisdom against the ridiculous notions of politicians. Classically, the Airbus spokesperson was in the studio, while Bone was interviewed outside somewhere on the grass (you don't have to be much of a semiologist to work that one out). In a typical Davis performance, Airbus was given rather more time than Bone, Bone's last words were drowned out by a Davis heckle, and, just in case we had somehow missed it, Davies permitted himself a last word, when he summarised the argument by saying that business had made a case based on what they actually knew.  

Without much irony at all, W Hutton makes an almost identical case in today's Observer. Apparently, it is the EU that has raised standards and without them, we would fail to do so. So globalization has a good side after all? The only answer is to press for another referendum.  A substantial march in London yesterday (also in the Observer) demanded a new referendum, couched in the PR terms of a 'People's Vote', another example of what I have called elsewhere the 'Midnights Children' syndrome, where magically, all sorts of people suddenly seem to have come to the same conclusion. 

I perused the coverage in search of answers to my own eternal question — what is it about the EU that causes such passionate loyalty — but only found a few of the usual answers.  Some long-term residents from the EU felt insecure. 'Many' said 'freedom of movement defined their lives.',and one felt forced to apply for British citizenship! Some people felt they had been lied to and betrayed during the campaign, but, strangely, only by Leave. Some wanted just to demonstrate their 'anger and frustration' both at the decision and at the confusion afterwards. There were former Thatcherites and disgruntled Labour supporters. Some worried about further cuts and austerity. The Green Party co-leader spoke of what a 'precious gift it is to be able to travel and to work and to study and to live and to love in 27 other countries' (some sort of plea for sex tourism to be protected from tariffs?). T Robninson, an acttor said he was furious that patriotism had been hijacked by toffs in Parliament. Ed de Mesquita, a Tory Remainer, said he could hardly read the Telegraph any more. “Very often I find it difficult to get through an article. Even when Airbus says it’s threatening to close down some of its operations, they say you are moaning. This is the phony war. [Brexit] hasn’t happened. We haven’t left the EU yet. When it gets close the City, many manufacturers are going to leave..“It’s not going to be OK. I tell you what is the worst thing, it’s the legacy we are going to leave the young people.”

More voices included a marcher who felt 'they' had been sold a lie about the NHS, and that the Leave campaign seemed 'very racially motivated'; an 86-year old said she had wanted to prevent war and that nobody had said anything good about the EU during the campaign; a 73 year-old lliked cheap peaches [oh God! No cheap peaches either?], and said “It’s also the idea of Europe: I studied languages, I have friends in Germany and other places in Europe." [who will presumably now be disconnected?]; an 11-year-old said said her 'dad’s arguments had convinced her'; a Glaswegian said a people's vote was needed to resolve the issue [some chance!], that people had been sold a lie, and that no two Brexit voters had the same reason for leaving [unlike the unanimity of this crowd]; an acdemic said it was hard to explain to his 5 year-old [a surrogate for a Guardian journalist?] what the EU was, but reported that his parents were of mixed nationality [so--what follows exactly?]; the funding for youth work would get worse; a teacher worried about not getting work in Germany,and also said the No vote in the Scottish referndum had lied about EU membership; and 'I think, really, we are a genuinely good-hearted, multicultural, generous people, and I think we are showing ourselves up'. Hutton said they had marched to warn that time is running out [never heard that warning before].


Luckily,some right-wing groups had also turned up and the Observer was able to contrast the Remainers with them.

Guardian calms down a bit

As predicted a couple of blogs ago, the issue of the possible savings from Brexit has reappeared in a nasty form for Remainers. The PM has claimed that the savings on EU annual payments will after all help to finance a growth in spending on the NHS. This is a terrible heresy and betrayal for guardinaistas everywhere, of course, because the claim has been seen as a straightforward  major lie, somehow crucial in persuading the gullible majority to vote for Brexit. Well, that and racism. The claim is further contaminated by being cited by B Johnson on the side of a bus, although there, I continue to insist, it is offered as something that only 'could' happen. In my view, a Tory Government was unlikely to actually spend the money as if ring-fenced, for the NHS, but I was never particularly offended by this, one of a constant stream of politicians' glosses we all take with a pinch of salt.

For the Graum editorial, it is still an easy matter -- the PM has lied (although the lie apparently mostly concerns implying Brexit savings are the major impulse for increased NHS spending). Lower down,some actual speech is recorded, which waters it down a bit:

the essential deception nevertheless endured. “Some of the extra funding” will come from money that now goes to the EU, she said at London’s Royal Free Hospital, “but the commitment I am making goes beyond that Brexit dividend.” That is true with bells on, since the NHS pledge dwarves any future savings on the UK’s Brexit payments.

 A lie becomes 'truth with bells on' in the wacky world of Guardinaland. A widely-cited tweet (sic) by the Head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies is also cited:

Extra spending can't be funded by Brexit dividend. 1) Govt has accepted Brexit will *weaken* public finances by £15bn pa 2) Financial settlement with EU plus commitments to replace EU funding already uses up all of our EU contributions in 2022 There is no Brexit dividend

This is also adding a few 'bells', of course. We don't know how long the weakening will last, and the financial settlement with the EU is a one-off.

Guardina writers are being  a little less hysterical, though. M D'Ancona bleats about the 'emotionally cunning' wording on the bus as ever (nasty proles who voted for Brexit are easily fooled by this). He notes May's strategic use of the new spending to get Brexiteer MPs on board, but then rightly calls for a serious debate on financing the NHS. Unfortunately the rational tone does not last to the end, where he revisits the basic Remainer hysteria by referring to 'the big red bus of magical thinking, hurtling toward the unknown'. . I tire of repeating that remaining in the EU would also bring an unknown, and probably npt entirely golden, future of course.

The Blessed P Toynbee spits ritually at B Johnson's 'bogus Brexit bus' but then launches a useful and critical discussion of NHS funding. She may be nearly back to normal, thank goodness!

However, the downright silly Z Williams makes much of a new petititon by Momentum trying to square the circle of a left-wing agenda with Remaining in  the EU. Williams pursues the argument -- both hard and soft Brexits are inadequate. The Tory version is 'thinly veiled racism vying with colonialist fantasy to see which can insist more trenchantly that the complicated is simple, a deficit is a dividend, black is white.' Even Labour's position 'serves the interests of capital while casually letting go of the European Union institutions that protected the individual – the only thing the EU has going for it'.

Honestly, where do you start with this luvvie stream of consciousness stuff? The ONLY advantage of membership of the EU is that it protects THE individual?  Think of the fascist individual mentioned elsewhere and you immediately get problems with the kind of abstract non-discrimination policies the EU pursues, so well criticised by the founders of the Full Brexit  (see earlier posts).  What about the other things mentioned a few inches above in the same column? 'workers’ rights...the environment ... solidarity with the European left ... the defence and enhancement of public services [and ] ' the fact we need the closest possible left-European alliance to defeat the fascism that is plainly on the rise.' None of these conflict with EU policies 'in the interests of capital'?  The Williams vision lurks in the background -- capitalists just go away with racists and fascists while individuals enjoy cheap strawberries in the summer -- or raspberries if they wish: it is the Guardinaists' Fifth Freedom to choose your soft fruit.

Meanwhile, what should a Momentum supporter do? 'Plenty of us would be savagely critical of the EU, but with the aim of reforming it, not abandoning it'. The 'left-European alliance' will solve our problems, where the well-organized, theoretically sophisticated and popular Communist Parties in France and Italy failed (I voted to join the EEC as it was in 1975 when those organizations looked as if they really would reform the system). While waiting for the alliance to form up somehwere,we can soothe our consciences with dishes of strawberries while we listen to Grime, and while the au pair bathes the children?

Another reason to Remain...

According to this fortnight's Private Eye (1472) , the second most popular view on the Graun's website concerned an anti-Brexit item. It reported a possible shortage of au pairs (who, as PE pointed out 'are not entitled to the minimum wage and don't pay taxes but work for lodging and pocket-money for middle class families', p. 6). They are increasingly going elsewhere and there is a new camopaiugn to  'counter this shortage'. Not just expensive British strawberries during Wimbledon then...

Meanwhile -- it  is good to see The Full Brexit up and running with a detailed refutation of a Remainer piece about the Irish border.

Noises off, left

The Graudian,in its endless quest to identify threatened minorities, seems to have discovered left-wing Brexiteers at last. They published a letter from the crew who wrote the Staggers piece (2 entries down), which also announced contact details for their organization -- The Full Brexit. Puzzlingly, the Founding Statement doesn't seem to mention Muslim terrorists, hatred for black people or the need to re-establish the Empire at all!

Of course, there are foaming Remain pieces by P Toynbee and R Behr as well, just in case people enjoyed an alternative to the deafening din, but these are so predictable and bitter that they can be lightly skimmed.

Inside,the Guadinarianistas' fearless probing team of researchers took a break from reporting queer fashionistas, lifestyle guides, misery memoirs and vegan hairdressers to note the existence of a group of left Labour MPs likely to support Brexit :

Labour re-leavers

Starmer’s main argument against backing the EEA amendment [the UK to join the EEA] is the significant number of Labour MPs, many in seats that backed leave, are highly uncomfortable with it. Many MPs who initially backed remain, such as Caroline Flint, Kevan Jones and Jenny Chapman, have repeatedly said that Labour cannot be seen to back a deal that commits the UK to continue being subject to EU rules, including freedom of movement. They, and most of the rest of the parliamentary Labour party, are likely to vote with the Labour whip to abstain on the EEA amendment.

Labour Brexiters

There is a small but significant number of Labour Brexiters whose votes will be crucial. Leave-supporting MPs such as Graham Stringer and Dennis Skinner were persuaded in December to back the amendment on the parliamentary vote [a 'meaningful vote' by Parliament on the final deal before signing the agreement], helping to defeat the government. Labour whips argued that the amendment would not obstruct Brexit and would deliver a damaging blow to the Tories. The success of any amendment will depend on whether those MPs are convinced by that argument again.

 

Guardian reporters even summarized some of the correpondence from Labour MPs explaining their problems with soggy Remainer K Starmer, inevitably headlined as a 'rift' or 'Labour divisions'.

It is getting a bit better though -- maybe the Graun is worried about its evermore declining readership after Brexit and wants to hedge its bets slightly?  There can't be that many fans of Polly willing to buy the paper when it is all over?

 

Dennis Skinner.

There is a small but significant number of Labour Brexiters whose votes will be crucial. Leave-supporting MPs such as Graham Stringer and Dennis Skinner were persuaded in December to back the amendment on the parliamentary vote, helping to defeat the government. Labour whips argued that the amendment would not obstruct Brexit and would deliver a damaging blow to the Tories. The success of any amendment will depend on whether those MPs are convinced by that argument again

Inthis piece they summarised some correspondence from left-Brexiteers, inevitably under headline s of 'rift' and 'Labour divisions'

Gurdiana teeters on the balance

Following up on the Staggers piece (below), the Guardian has added its twopenn'eth ( never sure where the apostrophe goes). It has allowed the Blessed Larry Elliott to write a piece on the difficulties in the way of reforming the EU, should we accept the proposals of now desperate Remainers to stay and negotiate reform ( funny--the EU was perfect before). Elliott addresses some myths of the EU:

There is the EU as it exists in the minds of its most avid supporters: fast-growing, a defender of progressive values, fighting the good fight against Thatcherism, and marching steadfastly towards greater integration.
Then there is the EU as it really is: struggling economically; wedded to an aggressive form of neoliberal economics; insistent that there is no alternative to a top-down, ever-closer union; and spawning anti-elite parties across the continent.

The EU does need reform:

The EU is saddled with a single currency that doesn’t work but unable to admit it. It has forced its weaker members to suffer the consequences of the euro’s design weaknesses with austerity policies; it has told those who complain about low growth and high unemployment to sort out their own problems through structural reforms (wage cuts and privatisation); and it has failed to comprehend the anger felt at mass immigration, which has increased the pool of readily available cheap labour.

 Some lefties predicted this ( including Corbyn supporters), but their argument now is to stay and reform. However:

[that] 'the best way to help those who voted for Brexit is a reformed UK in a reformed EU glides over the fact that they rarely come up with any ideas for what these reforms might look like or how they might come about. That, of course, is because they have no plan other than to return Britain to its blissful prelapsarian state before the referendum.'One exception is G.Brown's plea to address the causes of Brexit (how does he know?): 'low wages, the sense of being cast adrift, the pressures from migration, the loss of sovereignty and concerns about the NHS'.

Elliott then reviews some options for reform,including those popular in France and Italy, but 'all would meet with strong opposition from Angela Merkel.'. In what must be a piss-take, Elliott recommends instead that 'By far the best option would be for Germany to take the initiative and announce that it was leaving the single currency, taking a small group of northern European countries with it.'. He admits that 'As things stand, this is just as big a fantasy' as the other options.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that this piece was placed in my print edition opposite a pro-EU picee by J Freeland rebuking Labour for not lining up behind the proposal to join the European Economic Area after Brexit ( ie stay in the Customs Union) recently carried as an amendment in the Lords. The usual Freeland stuff ensued: 

single market membership is crucial to Britain’s economic health, and is surely the only way to deliver the “jobs-first Brexit” that Jeremy Corbyn has promised. Also, given that the referendum two years ago was so close, the EEA position would seem a fair reflection of the will of the people.

It's all down to those closet racists that voted Brexit:

[Labour MPs] worry that EEA membership would entail free movement of people, and several worry that their constituents, in leave-voting seats such as Darlington or Don Valley, won’t stomach that. Indeed a briefing note to MPs explaining the decision explicitly mentions freedom of movement as a problem with the EEA...It would be interesting to hear Corbyn explain to some of his younger supporters – who are both pro-remain and relatively relaxed about migration – that he passed up the chance to soften Brexit because Labour wants to keep out immigrants.

Citing G Brown's proposals, Freeland says  reforming immigration cold be addressed:

by a series of measures – from ensuring local people have a chance to apply for every job to registering migrants on arrival in the UK – that are all permitted under EU rules. Indeed, they include steps already implemented by that most European of EU members, Belgium.

My point here is to offer faint praise to El Garundino by running both pieces side by side, in a literal demonstration of presenting both sides of an argument. Other Remain pieces remain unanswered, but this is a good start at last. Have they got a new member of staff with GCSE Journalism?

Staggering...

A nice little piece in the New Statesman 2 days ago which I saw on Facebook (see--it's not all bad). It sets out to demolish the myth of the EU as held by left British Remainers and thus contributes to my long-term project of trying to find out just what is so bloody wonderful about the EU  for these people.

The myth addressed is that the EU operates in a 'European social democratic sea', contrasting with a still-Thatcherite Britain. The authors say this is 'a romanticised and outdated view', ignoring the major neoliberal changes in recent times which include a new and growing precariate. In Germany, the 'Harz-Vier' reforms have brought the usual 'flexibility and more part-timeworking',and, 'For years job creation in France has been via fixed-term contracts, often ofless than one month long', in contrast to the better-known examples  of 35 hour weeks and decent holidays. Capitalist growth has also produced low wage growth for German workers, and 'declining levels of social cohesion' in France.

The EU is a 'serious impediment' to any policies of reform (such as 'state action, institutional constraints and new models of corporate governance'). Although the EU itself did not dismantle social democracy ('national governments and companies' were to blame), it provided the institutional context' and now underpins the system with legal guarantees, the famous 'four freedoms'. These cannot be changed 'without a comprehensive renegotiation, in which each country would have a veto', and, meanwhile 'the judges of the European Court of Justic determine policy'.

In strict legal terms, the EU is agnostic as to whether economic activity is carried out by the state directly or by the private sector. In practice, the EU’s development since the mid-1980s has had to privilege market competition as the desired framework for all economic activities, simply because the four freedoms define the single market as an arena of free competition...Market integration is central to the existence of the EU. It is not for member states

As an example:

Take the famous Cassis de Dijon case of 1978. This was a dispute between a German importer of the French liquor and the German government, who sought to restrict the drink's sale on grounds of public safety. The German authorities argued that this liquor fell below the requirements on alcohol content designed to limit the spread of low alcohol drinks in Germany. The ECJ decided that such public safety arguments amounted to an unjustified form of protectionism. As long as a good had been lawfully marketed in one member state – in this case, France – it could be sold without restriction in another member state. 

 More centrally:

Were the UK to create a regional investment bank in an effort to tackle the massive over-concentration of capital in the City of London, there would be a clear impact on the free movement of capital within the single market. Indeed, that would be the whole point of the exercise: a regional bank of this kind would provide loans only if certain conditions related to boosting the regional economy were met. But such overt political control over the movement of capital would also make it likely that such a policy would be in violation of the state aid rules....Something similar would occur with a policy to nationalise the railways: EU rules would not prevent nationalisation as such but they would require that any newly constituted public service comply with the requirements of market competition that are the bedrock of the EU’s legal framework. This makes the goals of nationalisation – such as the creation of decent public sector jobs with good wages and defined benefit pensions, or the rolling out of a rail network determined by need, instead of just profitability – almost impossible to achieve. 

The EU's own regional development initiatives are feeble compared to what an independent radical national government could do (if only we can get one!), and can actually inhibit development as with the newer members.

Some social democratic elements remain and 'Europe still leads the way in terms of social equality, mainly thanks to its social democratic heritage and the development of national welfare states.', but the problem lies in the particualr notion of social equality embraced by the EU -- neoliberal abstract non-discrimination.This serves both to expand markets and to create some kind minimal social protection at the European level, and it will oppose any attempts to redress inequality more radically since this would count as discrimination.

Overall:

What is, therefore, at stake in the Brexit negotiations is the balance between politics and markets in a post-Brexit United Kingdom. The question at the heart of it all is whether a democracy has the power to shape its political economy. The EU acts as the principal constraint on the exercise of that power if the democracy chooses to depart from the commitment to reducing barriers to the movement of goods, services, labour and capital. There is little evidence that something can be put in place at the European level that would replace the reduced capacities of the national state...Leaving the EU is not a quixotic project pursued by utopians. It is a necessary step in building a national growth model that benefits a majority of citizens through democratic decision.

Pie in the sky if we stay in...

A number of last-minute projects to persuade people (or MPs) to stay in the EU have appeared recently. The two major ones -- promoted by G Soros on the one hand and W Hutton and Lord  A Adonis onthe other, propose that we stay in an EU which will somehow magically be transformed to be more democratic, and less dominated by finance capital. But if the land of milk and honey promised by some (only some) Brexiteers is fatuous, so is this alternative vision -- there seems not the slightest prospect of the whole EU reforming in this way nor any strategy that would produce this result ( to be fair, I am reading only the press coverage of the pubications).

Soros is an interesting person, sanctified by G Miller in the Grudian. HIs decision to fund a new initiative via the group Best for Britain suggests a campaign to win over MPs first, to press for a 'meaningful' vote on the final negotiations (already partly successful he claims) and then to move to some sort of new popular referendum (Graun). However, he admits the EU is hardly an attractive option at the moment,with a looming financial crisis (he is very good at predicting those). There is an '“addiction to austerity” at the heart of Europe',and the EU should reform:

First, it would clearly distinguish between the European Union and the eurozone. Second, it would recognise that the euro has many unresolved problems and they must not be allowed to destroy the European Union.... Simply put, the EU needs to reinvent itself,” he said'.

Soros has gone on to urge the EU not to bully the new Italian Government (a coalition of left-and right-wing 'populists' who are both sceptical about the EU): 'George Soros has called for the EU to compensate Italy for migrants landing there' (Guardian). A german financier ominously warned initially 'In an interview with the German news network Deutsche Welle, aired on Tuesday night, [Oettinger said]: “My concern and my expectation is that the coming weeks will show that markets, that government bonds, that Italy’s economic development could be so drastic that this could be a possible signal to voters not to choose populists from left and right.”. Worried by reports that the EU is telling the Italians how to vote [heaven forbid! they never did that to British voters!]  Juncker has been more conciliatory. However:

Jean-Claude Juncker has said Italians need to work harder, be less corrupt and stop looking to the EU to rescue the country’s poor regions, in comments unlikely to ease the fraught political battle over Italy’s future relationship with Brussels. ( Guran)

and when it comes to responsibity for chaos and corruption, unbelievably, the Great European has said: 'A country is a country, a nation is a nation. Countries first, Europe second.”'

Turning to the Hutton/Adonis proposal, the Gurdianan reports that:

The economic warnings are there for those prepared to see them. Inward investment has collapsed by some £130bn over the last 12 months. The car industry fears “Carmageddon”. There is no open-skies deal with the US. Being frozen out of the Galileo project endangers our space industry. Universities fear being cut out of EU research budgets. It is the same in sector after sector.

Hutton/Adonis also argue that economic and social chaos 'could even begin the day after Brexit next year, with widespread shortages of medicines, fuel and food as the port of Dover collapses with no Brexit deal – according to Whitehall departments’ risk assessments leaked and paraded in the Sunday Times yesterday'.


Today's Guardian also offers a more 'balanced 'account, reporting Brexiteer scepticism about this leak. It reports  'spokesmen' for Whitehall: 'the port of Dover will collapse on day one. The supermarkets of Cornwall and Scotland will run out of food within a couple of days, and hospitals will run out of medicines within two weeks,” a source told the paper.' On the other hand: 'A spokesman for the Department for Exiting the European Union dismissed the reports, saying: “These claims are completely false.' Guardian 'balance' is completed by blaming the May Government for its indecisvenes

Back to Hutton/Adonis, on the social front:

The 30 social mobility “coldspots” identified by the Social Mobility Commission all voted Brexit. So did areas where property prices were stuck, where life expectancy was falling, where antidepressants were widely prescribed and where life chances were thin. In too much of the UK beyond London and the south-east, economic performance is mediocre or downright bad. The social contract has become for many people effectively nonexistent. Unemployment may be at a 40-year low, but so are savings to maintain living standards: insecure, poorly paid work is at a record high. Real wages are 7% lower than they were at the time of the financial crisis – an unprecedented squeeze.

The answer is to reject austerity, a renewed Thactherism,and isolationism. We need to build a Britain: 

populated with repurposed businesses, motivated by a desire to produce goods and services that better humanity. New technology needs to be mobilised for the public good, while great institutions that serve the mass of people – such as trade unions, public-benefit companies to run utilities and building societies – must be reinvigorated and reshaped...A refashioned social contract should invest public money where desperately needed and raise the necessary taxes fairly...A Great Charter for Modern Britain would hand power from Westminster to the cities, towns and counties of Britain so as to transform their localities, represented in a senate to replace the House of Lords, located in the north of England. This should be the foundation of a fully fledged written constitution...It is the Labour party – firmly pro-European and credible in its commitment to social reform – that could rally the country.

However, somehow, all this requires us to remain in the EU. The EU has at the very least presided over the dreadful effects of UK austerity if not encouraged or led them. Nonetheless, Brexit will only bring further economic decline. When it comes to the benefits of EU membership, though, there is no confident assertion that EU economics will halt the decline. Following Juncker's unexpected conversion to nationalism, the UK Government still has reponsibility.  The British electorate still have to reject austerity and Thatcherism by electing some idealised Labour Party who, this time, really will modernise and democratise Britain. If we can do that anyway, why remain in the EU? We need symbolic and cultural reasons, NOT just economic ones:

Europe’s achievements have not been driven solely by an economic calculus: they belonged to a bigger, nobler cause of representing European values, rooted in democracy. This is why any form of Brexit is a mistake. We want to share a continent where Europeans don’t fight each other, don’t prevent trade and where we allow its people to live and work wherever they like across their region. Never has Europe been so peaceful, democratic and prosperous as in the era of the EU.

Whether the economic calculus might contradict the drive towards the noble values, and, if so, how we decide between them is not discussed: at hteorganizational level it is just assumed that the actual EU apparatus can stand for noble. 'Europe'.Hutton and Adonis are real traitorous clerks here -- they both have argued elsewhere that expansionist economic policies weaken precisely those noble values of solidarity

Let's not worry. Let's wave a wand and assume the economic decline has been halted by a solid reforming Labour Government who are also able magically to pursue the noble values inside the EU. OK, there are small problems of getting that first, but leave that to one side --perhaps the idea is to persuade the left behind on the grounds of economic reform then to work on the economically secure metropolitan elite with cultural stuff?.