Tag Archives: UK

London elections – my vote, for those interested

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Due to hating the party system, today I shall take great pleasure in not voting based on the colour of the rosettes – not least because the Lib Dems have inexplicably adopted UKIP’s colour scheme of yellow and purple, making things both aesthetically repulsive and slightly confusing – but on individual candidates’ policies, personalities and potential.

This entertainingly means that I will end up voting for the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems all on the same day.

Huzzah for elections where I get four votes! (Boo, however, for party list systems, which means my fourth vote is going to be very difficult to allocate – hence not having voted yet… I may even say sod it and go for the Greens, just so I can vote for four parties at once…)

In other news: Congrats to the BBC’s Alan Little, who won last night’s UACES-Reuters Reporting Europe Award, like wot I was up for. I ended up with a shiny award anyway, though, with a Jury’s Commendation, which was nice. I can also report that Reuters lay on very drinkable wine, and that Mark Mardell makes for good company at the dinner table. Ta to all involved, etc.

Edit: Oh, and sorry for the lack of posts recently. Still very busy – but there’s still a rather fun discussion going on in the comments to that democratic deficit post, though. One to which I will return soon. I hope.

Cameron, the Tories’ confusing EU politics, and a chance for reform

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So, today’s the last chance for the referendumites, and all thanks to the Tories (yep, the self-same Tories who would have had several more seats in the Commons right now if it weren’t for the splintering of their vote by the likes of UKIP at the last general election – if the referendum bid fails by 19 votes, I’ll be giggling rather a lot…).

But the real question is, why is Cameron still backing a referendum? It naturally made sense after Labour had foolishly promised one on the old constitution – the Tories could do nothing but offer the same, or risk re-opening old eurosceptic divisions within the party. But once Labour and the Lib Dems backed down after the shift from being a constitution to a reforming treaty with more or less the same effect – likely the only way it could get past the decidedly misinformed British public* – what was Cameron’s thinking in continuing to back a referendum?

Cameron: Hunting for a coherent EU policy?Initially, I thought it was obvious – he reckoned there was no chance of a referendum being granted, so it would have been a great bit of anti-Labour propaganda to throw out to the primarily eurosceptic party faithful. But now I’m not so sure it’s that simple.

You see, if Cameron had any sense of international realpolitik, he’d realise that he needs to maintain good relations with as many EU political leaders as he possibly can if he’s going to have any hope of doing deals in Brussels when he becomes Prime Minister. It’s basic diplomacy – act nice towards people, they’re more likely to accommodate your wishes. (And this applies just as much, if not more, if you want to pull out of the EU – if you’re an EU withdrawalist, make the case to the people at home, don’t piss off our European cousins. Because they’re the people you’re going to have to end up making all those lovely bilateral trade agreements with when you get your successful pull-out, and you surely want to ensure you get the best deals for your newly “independent” Britain by not pissing them all off.)

Yet since becoming Tory leader all Cameron’s done, on the rare occasions he’s ventured into the field of EU policy, is indicate he’s all up for antagonism. First he started going on about pulling Tory MEPs out of the huge centre-right EPP group in the European Parliament (meaning, as far as I can tell, that they’d be able to have even less impact on proceedings and lose a number of committee posts), now he seems to have been going all out to get an amendment in today’s vote on the Lisbon Treaty to secure that blasted referendum again.

This all plays great to the eurosceptic crowd at home, no doubt (though not great enough to gain a great many prodigal UKIPers to return to the fold, it would seem), but pisses off everyone on the continent – even those who are sympathetic to Tory doubts over the current direction of the EU. If/when Cameron becomes PM, he’s going to have even fewer friends on the continent than Gordon Brown – who at least our European cousins have a certain amount of respect for, while distrusting him, considering him supremely arrogant, and being annoyed with his lack of participation in EU affairs.

But now, the day of the crunch vote, there is apparently a genuine chance that the sums could just add up and that Cameron could get enough bodies behind him (with Labour and Lim Dem defections and abstentions) to get the referendum amendment passed after all. (For the record: I think this is still unlikely, but with Lib Dems openly rebelling and a number of Labourites likely to vote with the Tories as well, you never know…)

This makes little sense to me. The EU is not a contentious enough issue to get real votes behind it at general elections – if it were, William Hague would have won back in 2001 with his “Seven Days to Save the Pound” scaremongering nonsense. This little fight over a referendum was a great idea for a bit of domestic political propaganda when there was no chance of winning, but Cameron seems to be genuinely trying to get this amendment passed.

If he succeeds, three things will happen:

1) The UK will not be able to pass the Lisbon Treaty, setting the EU back another 2-7 years (it took two years to renegotiate the old constitution into the Lisbon Treaty, and that was in any case the result of five years of negotiations following the failure that was the Treaty of Nice back in 2001, which was meant to sort out all the problems the Lisbon Treaty is only now tackling)

2) The rest of the EU will be mortally pissed off with the UK in general, and Cameron in particular

3) There will still not be any procedure in place for an EU member state to leave the Union

The last of these is the most important in trying to work out what Cameron’s all about. After all, he’s allowed William Hague to spout off about how any future Tory government would hold a referendum on not just the Lisbon Treaty, but any subsequent EU treaty. That, surely, should have been enough?

But, of course, EU referenda are a slippery slope. Have one on a treaty, the next thing you know you’ll be having ones on membership – just as the likes of Jimmy Goldsmith’s old Referendum Party and their longer-lasting rivals UKIP have been pushing towards for over a decade, and as the pro-EU Lib Dems under Nick Clegg are now calling for in the hope a (likely) victory for the pro-membership lobby will shut up the sceptics once and for all.

Cameron’s cranking up of the rhetoric over the EU (not actually saying he’s against the Lisbon Treaty, you’ll note, but not saying anything in its favour in the full knowledge that the entire Tory press is against the thing) has been keeping the referendum campaign the most high-profile it’s been for years. Yet, unlike during the referendum campaigns in France and the Netherlands, there has not been a concurrent increase in public debate about the EU itself, or of public knowledge about the thing the referendum is meant to be about.

It’s all about the referendum itself – the casting of votes. The illusion of participation. It’s populism, plain and simple. The thing the referendum is about doesn’t matter in the slightest.

But wait – what if he succeeds and the referendum is called? The likely result is a big “no” to the Lisbon Treaty, based on brainwashing and/or misinformation by the eurosceptic – and euroignorant – press (see * below again) combined with the public’s lack of real interest in the EU.

And therein lies the cunning plan. Because that would enable Cameron to draw out the whole populist process for years with countless follow-up referenda. It would also provide a handy buffer against the withdrawalists by taking away the Lisbon Treaty’s introduction of procedures by which a member state can quit the EU**, meaning he can safely play around without the threat of having to take the EU-bashing to the logical extreme and giving up membership.

Of course, this would still piss off all the other EU member states no end. Cameron would position himself as the pariah of Europe, pissing everyone off by his obstructionism and stalling EU reform yet further.

But this could, in itself, be a good thing. Back when the Lisbon Treaty was still called (and still was) a constitution, from time to time I would hope that the thing got completely rejected time and again, forcing the EU’s bigwigs to take a step back and start again from scratch – preferably building some kind of multi-speed or multi-tier union in its place.

And although Cameron’s barely said a word about his real thinking on the EU, he did drop a few hints that he was after radical reform a year ago – albeit very vague hints that met with almost no response bar criticism, except from the usual suspects.

Cameron’s approach even at the time struck me as (almost) an advocation of a multi-tier Europe – exactly what I’d like – and his obstructionism over the Lisbon Treaty (and all subsequent EU treaties) could be just what we need to get real reform.

Because for the last decade or more, the debate over EU reform has been dominated by one goal – how to make the existing EU structures work after the expansion to 27 member states? This has always been the wrong question. It shouldn’t have been “how do we get what we’ve got to work?”, but “is what we’ve got the right option?” – and I’ve long been of the opinion that it’s not. I am, after all, pro-EU – but not pro-this EU. The only trouble is, no one with any influence has been advocating such an approach, and everyone with any power has apparently been happy to just go with the EU flow – muddling along and making do.

Of course, this is reading far too much into what Cameron’s been up to. He’s not a chap to make his aims clear, as anyone who’s been trying to keep tabs of mostly nonexistent Tory policy over the last year or so will be more than aware. But sod what’s best for Britain, a British referendum – and a no vote in that referendum – could well be the best thing for the EU…

* Not elitism (for a change) – the old constitution was 250-odd pages of complex legal jargon that was almost impossible to follow; the Lisbon treaty is a similar number of short paragraphs referring to numbered sub-clauses in umpteen previous European treaties in order to amend them, and thus even more difficult to comprehend. Plus, of course, the dishonesty of the eurosceptic press and hyperbole of eurosceptic campaigners is hardly making life easier.

** Despite the eurosceptic attacks on Nick Clegg over his calls for a vote on EU membership, after the Lisbon Treaty is ratified this would give them their first ever chance to get what they want. Their lack of enthusiasm for his plan is, I reckon, largely because they know that they can’t win that battle just yet…

EU-apathy

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“Not enough people care enough”.

Thus spake arch-eurosceptic Richard North of EU Referendum yesterday with regards to the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and the distinct lack of any significant public outrage. It hits the nail right on the head, but don’t expect too much resignation from that quarter just yet.

As I’ve argued in more detail elsewhere, no one cares about the EU. Sure, if you go up to them and chuck half truths like the classic “80% of our laws come from Brussels” or “EU regulations cost us £66 billion” then they may get temporarily miffed that Johnny foreigner has some say over how our country is run. But the annoyance is fleeting – not least because even the most credulous person will be aware that self-confessed eurosceptics and withdrawalists are hardly the most impartial source for EU statistics, and that – thanks to a combination of the EU’s complexity and abysmal record-keeping – there’s no way of verifying such claims.

But the overwhelming EU-apathy (rather than EU-scepticism or EU-philia) of the majority of the population is not through mere laziness. Being apathetic is an entirely rational choice. Because the major concern for the average person is not sovereignty, the place laws come from, or where their tax money goes. All these are, effectively, abstract notions that affect their lives not a jot. What matters to them is their daily lives – and on this, to most people, the EU appears to have little impact.

“So a chunk of my tax is going to the EU – so what?”, they think (or would if they could be bothered). “It’s not like if we pulled out I’d be paying any less – the government would just waste it elsewhere. Westminster or Brussels, what’s the real difference? I’m highly unlikely to have voted for the person who takes the final decision in any case – and the vast majority of all laws are drawn up by unelected civil servants no matter where they stem from.”

Because of this, the general attitude is a resounding “don’t know, don’t care” – and it’s an entirely rational ignorance.

Of course, pointing to the ignorance of the population is no justification for anything. That way lies the rationalisation of dictatorship, slavery, wife-beating, whatever – it’s the age-old reasoning behind every bit of oppression in history (it’s for their own good, you know…).

But, of course, the people DO care about things. Just not the EU.

Instead, what matters most to the people (at least in the UK) is, apparently immigration (43%), crime (41%), health (36%), defence and terrorism (22%), with Europe scoring a paltry 4%. On immigration, EU membership enables far closer co-ordination with our neighbours to prevent illegal immigration than would be possible with a series of bilateral agreements. The European arrest warrant and moves for closer co-operation between EU police forces should soon (hopefully) make all these scares about foreign criminals a thing of the past, as well as enable swifter justice for offenders who flee to the continent. Health policy is barely affected by EU membership, though through the EU’s influence we will shortly all be able to use the health services of all other member states, should we so wish (and the UK’s odd policy of allowing foreign non-taxpayers to use the NHS for free is nothing to do with the EU, if you were wondering). Finally, though the EU has little to no say in the UK’s defence policy, EU-wide anti-terror legislation and coordination has led to far speedier crackdowns than any individual member state could have managed on their own (remember the 21st July wannabe London bomber arrested in Rome? Just one of many…)

The thing is, in a democracy you need to get people to back your position in large numbers. This is something the anti-EU brigade have singularly failed to do at election after election, during which time all three major parties have become more or less pro-EU membership. The EU could well be the worst thing that’s ever happened to this country but the people, it would seem, are still not sufficiently against it to say enough is enough despite decades of anti-Brussels propaganda in every major newspaper in the land (Sun, Times, Telegraph, Mail, Express, News of the World, and occasionally the Mirror). Hence UKIP leader Nigel Farage’s failure to support the Lib Dems’ call for a referendum on EU membership, despite that being precisely what UKIP is supposedly aiming for down the line.

Plus, of course, getting people to vote for a radical change is very hard indeed. The status quo is pretty much always preferred, up to the point that either our daily lives are adversely affected or the alternative seems just so damned wonderful as to be irresistible. At the moment, although the EU does affect our daily lives, for the most part this impact is unnoticed and for the most part more or less beneficial; the idea of an ex-EU Britain, meanwhile, remains vague and worrying. Who would vote to be the unpopular kid at school who has to play on his own when they could be part of the clique?

So yes, by misrepresentation of what the Lisbon Treaty is and does you can briefly get up some anger and excitement from the general population – hence all the calls for a referendum a few months back. But for most people it’s hard to stay angry for long, especially about the EU – after a while, they tend to realise that they don’t really know that much about what it is they’re getting angry about and start to lose interest. (Everyone thinks they know what they’re talking about when it comes to immigration, crime, health, terrorism and the like, because we’ve all got more or less direct experience of them all – while most people are more or less aware that they know nothing of the workings of the European Union, because it’s simply too vast, complex and packed with jargon to make sense of.)

Plus, of course, the EU is simply not interesting enough to be worthy of anyone’s attention – which is precisely why it only ever makes the papers when there’s some new scare over a (usually misread) bit of EU legislation. Bureaucracy is boring, and the EU is nothing if not a bureaucracy – albeit a far smaller bureaucracy than many assume (around 25,000 people work for the European Commission – less than a fifth of the number who work for the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions…)

Of course, the pro-EU camp has precisely the same problem. “There’s a democratic deficit!”, they’re told. “The EU doesn’t listen to the people!”

There’s only one problem with this: based on the atrocious turn-out at pretty much every EU election ever (accompanied by a steady decline), the people have nothing to say.

Iraqi employees update

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This post is from Dan Hardie:

Do you like reading fine words? Here is the Prime Minister on the subject of Iraqi ex-employees of the British Government, speaking in the House of Commons on October 9th, 2007: ‘I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of our civilian and locally employed staff in Iraq, many of whom have worked in extremely difficult circumstances, exposing themselves and their families to danger. I am pleased therefore to announce today a new policy which more fully recognises the contribution made by our local Iraqi staff, who work for our armed forces and civilian missions in what we know are uniquely difficult circumstances.’

Fine words. What about deeds? Continue reading →

Calls for a national DNA database… rejected?

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Yes, that’s right. The police have asked that every single last one of us has our DNA sampled just in case we commit a heinous crime. And the government are AGAINST it.

Hang on. Was there a coup d’etat overnight or something? Where’s the REAL government?

The Home Office said a mandatory database “would raise significant practical and ethical issues”

It’s a veritable Damascene conversion! I eagerly await the now surely inevitable announcement of the abandonment of the equally impractical and ethically suspect ID database.

Home Office minister Tony McNulty told BBC that a national database was not a “silver bullet” and that it would raise practical as well as civil liberties issues.

Yes, that’s THE Tony McNulty. Him of blind loyalty to the ID scheme fame.

“How to maintain the security of a database with 4.5m people on it is one thing,” he said.

“Doing that for 60m people is another.”

Hurrah! Does this mean they’ve seen the light?

Hint: almost certainly not.

We are ruled by criminals

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So the British government has admitted that they’ve twice been in breach of the UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances over extraordinary rendition flights. And Foreign Secretary David Miliband has – bless him – said sorry for the “accidental” misinformation.

Not, of course, sorry to the people being extraordinarily rendered, whoever they might be – nor for breaking international law…

And our dear Prime Minister has also weighed in, eloquence personified (is he getting lessons from Donald Rumsfeld?)

It is unfortunate that this was not known and it was unfortunate it happened without us knowing that it had happened but it’s important to put in procedures [to ensure] this will not happen again… We share the disappointment that everybody has about what’s actually happened

But admitting a couple of flights landing in transit on the remote UK territory of Diego Garcia is somewhat different to the main accusation – that the UK itself was used as a stop-off point. What about the 73 to 200 other flights that our current beleaguered Chancellor – as Transport Secretary – and the National Air Traffic Service noted had been identified by campaigners as having potentially been used for rendition back in March 2006?

The question asked two years ago by Lib Dem MP Michael Moore (no relation), and quoted in that last linked piece, remains entirely pertinent:

A fundamental question remains unanswered. Has the UK government actually asked the United States how many individuals have been rendered through Britain? If this hasn’t been asked, then why on earth not?

Saying sorry for a couple of accidental (honest, m’lud) breaches of international law is all very well and good. But what about the other 200 potential rendition flights via the UK itself?

As I noted a year and a bit back, the UN regulations on “enforced disappearances” (aka state kidnappings), explicitly state that:

Acts constituting enforced disappearance shall be considered a continuing offence as long as the perpetrators continue to conceal the fate and the whereabouts of persons who have disappeared and these facts remain unclarified [emphasis mine]

Now that the British government has admitted that it hasn’t got a clue what’s going on, can we expect a full and thorough independent inquiry? Because not to investigate further having admitted incompetence on this issue would, surely, be to stick two fingers up at the UN by refusing to clarify the issue, and thus to deliberately stay in breach of international law.

Plus, as the EU’s investigation into extraordinary renditionnoted:

It is implausible, on the basis of the testimonies and documents received, that certain European governments were not aware of the activities linked to extraordinary rendition on their territory

Yet this appears to be precisely what David Miliband is claiming to be the case.

And so another question must be asked: if a foreign power can land an illegal cargo on British territory without the British government’s knowledge – as appears to be the excuse here – that flagrant lapse in security is in itself surely worthy of immediate, urgent investigation? Isn’t that an indication of criminal incompetence at a time of heightened threats from foreign sources? Shouldn’t heads roll?

I await the announcement of an inquiry with baited breath… (And precisely no expectation of one coming…)

Update: This. Spot on, from the really rather good Obsolete.

Better off out?

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After the news that non-EU European country Iceland has been looking in to the possibility of joining the Eurozone, another example of how just because you’re not a member of the EU it’s still likely to have a major impact, courtesy of Liechtenstein.

This particular example, however, is somewhat more timely, following Kosovo’s independence. Because Liechtenstein is one of Europe’s smallest countries, with a population of just 35,000 (compared to Kosovo’s 2 million) – yet has a very healthy economy indeed. For why? Well, like any sensible mini-state (see, for example, Monaco, Andorra and semi-states the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands), it’s become a tax haven – one of the best possible ways for a tiny country to lure in vast amounts of cash. (Supposedly Liechtenstein has more registered companies than people.)

But wait – hold up Kosovo! Before you get all excited about the possibility of becoming the Liechtenstein of the Balkans, be warned…

Because tax havens occasionally end up having problems – such as the current German financial scandal. Here, Germany has gained access – through some well-placed payments to known criminals, it would seem – to Liechtenstein’s records in order to hunt down a bunch of German citizens it wants to prosecute for tax evasion.

Liechtenstein is, naturally, not best pleased that the German state has deliberately accessed its confidential commercial and financial files. It’s hard, really, not to sympathise with Crown Prince Alois when he berates Germany for acting illegally (even if he does slip into hyperbole from time to time). Their country, their rules – and their sovereignty should be respected, right?

Well, not if you’re the EU, it would seem – because the European Union is not only backing Germany’s actions, but is now joining in the anti-Liechtenstein rhetoric:

Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said in Berlin Tuesday that Germany’s controversial tax dragnet is likely to put tax evasion on the agenda of the next meeting of the European Union finance ministers.

Juncker, head of the Eurogroup of 15 countries sharing the euro currency, called on Liechtenstein to “plug its existing tax loop holes.”

…German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck says Germany will now push for a pan-European solution to tax evasion…

The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, a policy forum for industrialized countries, weighed in to identify European tax havens Leichtenstein, Andorra and Monaco as effectively providing a basis for illegal tax evasion.

And so the pressure mounts. Are we about to see a concerted EU-backed effort to force even more sovereign states to abide by EU rules? It rather looks like it – and it’s really nothing new.

Because if you want to trade with the EU, you pretty much have to abide by the EU’s rules and regulations – something to which both Switzerland and Norway can attest, in case you’re thinking that this could only happen to smaller countries. For European countries, with external trade fairly naturally dominated by their near neighbours, doing what the EU says is pretty much the only option – unless you follow the Belarus route and suck up to Russia instead.

Is the EU using its dominance of the European market to bully its non-member neighbours into doing what it wants? Yep – of course it is. It’s acting as would any sensible economic power – it’s trying to ensure that everything runs to its own best advantage. And it will continue to do so, it it’s got any sense.

Which is precisely why the UK is far better off in.

State-sanctioned mob justice, don’t you just love it?

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Pensioner, 83, notches up ASBO:

“Police said Mr Hughes, of Vane Lane, Coggeshall, Essex, had not been convicted of any child sex offence. But magistrates had decided to use civil anti-social behaviour laws after police received a number of complaints about him.”

Welcome to Britain in the 21st century. To be branded a paedophile, and to have both your name and the street on which you live broadcast across the newswires, all you need is for your neighbours not to like you very much. No kiddie-fiddling required – but torch-wielding lynchmobs almost guaranteed.

And here we all are complaining about the insanity of the Sudanese courts…

So, are the Tories going to have the guts to offer up a policy overturning the glorious summary “justice” of ASBOs and, you know, perhaps going back to the traditions of innocent until proven guilty and the rule of law that used to be taken for granted prior to the Blair years? We’ve had some promising rhetoric from Cameron on ID Cards (though not so much, that I’m aware of, on the database state) – what are they going to do about the other Labour-introduced injustices of modern Britain? Or are they doing too well in the polls to care any more?

25 million benefit records lost? Roll on ID cards!

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What more can you say? That’s a cock up involving almost half the UK population’s confidential financial details. The names, children’s names, addresses, national insurance numbers and bank details of 25 million people not just compromised, but lost without a trace.

Christ alive… That takes some kind of genuine, extra-special genius.

Just how crap is this country? Can’t we do anything competently any more?

Update: On a related note, I forgot, from earlier -

GPs’ fears over medical records database: “Six out of 10 family doctors are reluctant to upload patients’ medical records on to a national electronic database… GPs said they feared medical records would not remain confidential if they were put on to the database”

MoD system: ‘unmitigated disaster’: “It’s behind schedule; there are claims that much of it doesn’t work and there are questions too over whether the tax-payer is getting value for money”

And, most entertainingly considering the government’s latest cock-up – GPs to face £5,000 fine if laptop stolen: “GPs face the prospect of being fined up to £5,000 if their laptops containing confidential patient care records are stolen from their vehicles… Leaving laptops with patient data in their cars was tantamount to breaking data protection principles and should attract criminal punishment, an influential parliamentary body was told”

Brown, Miliband and the EU

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Well, he may have ignored it for months, but now it’s finally taking shape – although it hardly seems to be overly well thought-out.

So, was Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s choice of Bruges to deliver his first EU policy speech symbolic? It is, after all, the scene of the moment when Maggie Thatcher allowed her (entirely understandable) irritation with the then EEC to bubble over into hyperbole and hysteria back in 1988, inspiring the formation of the staunchly anti-EU thinktank the Bruges Group in the process.

Well, considering Miliband quoted the Iron Lady at length in a subsection to his speech headed “Twenty Years on from the Bruges Speech”, you can be certain that he was at least aware of the potential symbolism. But how different is his language, his approach?
Continue reading →

On foreign policy speeches, the elephant in the room, and a slight shift in focus

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For a largely foreign policy-focussed blog, Gordon Brown’s offered little of any interest since becoming Prime Minister. He simply doesn’t seem to have much interest in the rest of the world, happily ignoring both the EU and the US for weeks on end, and seemingly making little effort to make friends on the international stage.

Sod his speech the other day. It struck me as too full of platitudes to be of any use (“the first duty of government [is] the protection of the British national interest”, “global challenges need global solutions” etc.), with all kinds of oddness piled on top:

“I want to play my part in helping the European Union move away from its past preoccupation with inward looking institutional reform and I will work with others to propose a comprehensive agenda for a Global Europe – a Europe that is outward looking, open, internationalist, able to effectively respond both through internal reform and external action to the economic, security and environmental imperatives of globalisation.”

Does Brown not get that further institutional reform of the EU – including reforms beyond the vague compromises of the reform treaty – is vital for it to continue to function, or is he simply hoping to avoid any more of it, and thus further irritating spats about referenda?

Either way, it matters not a jot – because Gordon Brown is far too weak to have any significant impact on European (let alone global) relations at the moment. It looks like he’s already buggered his chances of getting in with Bush, and with the race to succeed old George still too close to call, he’s got no idea which candidates to start sucking up to for the post-November 2008 period, by which time Brown will, in any case, be gearing up for an election of his own.

Having failed to call an election this autumn, Brown finds himself with two years to make an impact on the international scene at the very worst time, with the US presidency in transition – and, more importantly, an insanely secure and charismatic internationalist French president charging around making friends with everyone. Barely at the start of his first term as president, still hugely popular, with a big parliamentary majority to back him up – he’s secure, will be around for a long time, and seems to have a knack for becoming best buddies with whichever world leader he happens to be with at the time.

With Angela Merkel’s coalition on the verge of collapse in Germany, Prodi again embroiled in the type of controversy that can always end the inevitably short-lived governments of Italy, and Zapatero looking weak in Spain after this year’s tight local elections (and a general election due next year), and Brown rocking backwards and forwards singing to himself with his eyes closed and fingers in his ears whenever anyone mentions the EU, it is again to France – Sarkozy – that Europe must look for leadership.

So, ignore Gordon Brown’s speech, and instead look to Sarkozy’s speech at the European Parliament the other day and speech to the US Congress a week or so ago if you want to get an idea of where foreign policy is really going to be focussed.

Brown can ramble on about Iran as much as he likes, but it’s what happens in Europe, not the middle east, that will have the most impact on Britain in the next few years – if he’s serious about protecting the British national interest (whatever that may be…), he’d do well to get in with Sarkozy sharpish to head off any problematic reforms and foreign policy objectives before France manages to get them so secure on the agenda that they’re impossible to remove. Making friends with Sarkozy is also essential to start shaping the inevitable additional changes within the EU before they really start to form, in the wake of the reform treaty’s bad compromises. All Brown’s done so far is bury his head in the sand and hope all the various EU-related problems somehow go away.

But, of course, what everyone’s really ignoring – and Sarkozy is, at least publicly, as guilty of this as anyone – is Russia. Sod the middle east, sod institutional reform, sod further expansion and sod terrorism – Russia is Europe’s single biggest problem. Be it cyber-warfare against Estonia, cutting off gas supplies to Ukraine, killing people on the streets of London, or threatening countries willing to do a deal with the US on missile defence, Russia is throwing its weight around big style – and something needs to be done to calm the bear.

Sarkozy is in a very good position to do this – capitalising on his nascent friendship with Putin (who is bound to maintain influence even after the presidential elections in the spring) as well as the long friendship between France and Russia. Brown’s government, meanwhile, has merely escalated the post-Litvinenko tensions by chucking out diplomats and rattling sabres – which helps precisely no one, and has got us precisely nowhere.

If one thing is a given, it’s that keeping Russia on board is vital not just for Europe’s energy future but also for the stability of the countries on the European fringe (both new EU member states and those that may become such in a few years). With energy supplies likely to become ever more of a central issue over the next few years as the middle east remains unstable, Russia’s dominance of the Asian oil and gas fields, and ability to control pretty much all supply lines in to Europe from the east (see map – PDF), means that Moscow/Putin has more ability to influence Europe than pretty much anyone else. Until Turkey and Georgia are sufficiently stabilised and, ideally, brought in to the EU (allowing an alternate route, via the Caspian Sea, for the oil and gas of Central Asia without having to pass through Russia or the middle east at all), maintaining friendly relations with Russia is vital.

So, expect more on Sarkozy here over the next few months – as well as rather more on Russia-EU relations in the run-up to the Presidential elections in March, and the Duma elections on 2nd December. Sarkozy is likely to dominate the EU for at least another four years, and Russia’s impact is only going to increase as oil and gas supplies dwindle – it would be foolish for anyone trying to take the broad view of EU affairs to ignore this any longer.

Labour and Tory EU attitude shifts

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It’s hard not to find the idea that the EU could be moving in to the old Tory Smith Square HQ quite amusing, considering the decided shift against Europe in the party during the last thirty years.

The Tories moved in to number 32 Smith Square back in 1958 – the year after the EU was founded – before moving round the corner onto Millbank earlier this year. It was the time of Macmillan, the chap the Tories brought in to sort out the messy legacy of Churchill and Eden. Macmillan, the chap who first attempted to get Britain into the then EEC after Eden singularly failed to take any interest in the new alliance, and Churchill – despite being one of the prime instigators of the idea of European integration – deliberately ignored the new developments. Macmillan, the man who tasked Edward Heath with the job of buttering up our European cousins – a task Heath kept up with dogged determination for more than a decade until he finally managed to usher us in to the union in 1973.

It’s still quite bizarre to think that it used to be the Tories who were the party of Europe. But it was only with the onset of the rebate dispute from 1979 – with Maggie taking the then fair enough position that Britain was contributing too much to the EEC’s coffers – that the Tory love affair with Europe began to sour. Even then, the party remained largely keen on membership right up until the late 1980s (the EEC after all – and unlike the UN or USA – gave Britain its full, official support during the Falklands war), when Maggie set out her stall opposing further integration. It’s been downhill ever since, the Tories seemingly having given up any hope of the EEC/EU returning to the relatively simple customs and trading union they always wanted it to be.

Labour, meanwhile, though now painted as rabidly pro-European by the majority of anti-EU types, were constantly opposed to membership throughout the first 25 years or more of the EEC’s existence – campaigning for a “no” vote in the 1975 referendum, for Britain to leave during the 1983 general election, and for the rejection of Maastricht in 1992.

The Tories’ shift to opposition to the EU is, for me, entirely understandable. Its seemingly ever-expanding powers and swelling budget, not to mention the various aspects of the EU which have stifled free trade over the years, have increasingly begun to make it look like everything conservatives dislike – big, protectionist government.

But why have Labour shifted towards supporting the EU, having been so massively opposed to it for so many years? The rest of the radical policy changes the party’s gone through during the last twenty years make perfect sense – they’ve increased Labour’s electoral viability. But support for the EU is – rightly or wrongly – an electoral liability in the UK.

If you take the usual line that the shift from old to New Labour was designed to bring the party closer in line with the thinking of the country at large, jettisoning unpolpular socialist rhetoric in the process, how to explain the shift to favouring the EU, when the EU is supposedly so unpopular with the public? It’s something I’ve never quite understood.

Iraqi employees

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Dan Hardie has the latest, following recent (rather odd) newspaper rumours of a change in government policy on the UK’s attitude to those who have worked for the British army in Iraq, and who now face torture and death as a result.

As David Cameron has (literally) just said in the Commons, “people who have risked their lives for Britain should never be let down by Britain”. The thing to remember, however, is that it’s not just the interpreters who have risked their lives, but every Iraqi who has done any kind of job for the army out there. They should not be let down either.

Oh, and the venue for tomorrow’s meeting’s had to change at the last minute.

Brown’s only error:

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Not ruling out an election sooner.

This insane hyperbole (“humiliating retreat”? “cling to office”? “extraordinary indecision and extraordinary weakness”? You what?) shows just how worried the Tories still are. Yes, Cameron made a storming speech at the conference the other day, and yes they’ve had a big boost in the polls over the last week or so.

But the one question the advocates of an autumn general election have singularly failed to answer is: “why?”

There are two reasons to have a general election: 1) The government is coming to the end of its legally-limited five year term in office, and 2) The government no longer has a sufficient majority to see legislation through the House of Commons. That’s it.

Brown has a large Commons majority and a good two and a half years left before he legally has to call an election. So why the hell should he? Because the party leader, and therefore Prime Minister, has changed mid-term? So why no elections in 1990, 1976, 1963, 1957, 1955, 1940, etc. etc. etc.? It’s a nonsense.

Yes, Brown could have called an election to get a re-affirmed mandate for his government. But the time to do that was the moment he took over from Blair. Calling one three months later – after riding high in the polls all summer following a series of moderately well-handled crises and a succession of Tory cock-ups – would smack of dangerous opportunism. For what’s to stop any government from repeatedly calling snap elections when they’re temporarily doing well once that precedent’s set?

Brown should have said more forcefully on taking over that he was going to serve the full term (but you can understand why he didn’t – after all, Labour were elected on the promise that Blair was soon to be going). That he didn’t is most likely because he didn’t think the Tories were so desperate as to keep up the election calls all summer, because – excluding the last two weeks of Tory bounceback – an election at any point in the last four months would have seen yet another Labour landslide.

And as for the electorate? Less than two-thirds bothered to show for the election two years ago – what makes anyone think they could be bothered now?

It’s too soon after Brown’s takeover to see just how similar or different he is from Blair, and I doubt if anyone could tell you what David Cameron stands for. (Hell, I’m more than averagely politically aware, and I genuinely haven’t got a clue about either of them… In fact, I’m not even sure where my constituency’s boundary lies any more, since the re-jig a year or so back…) We all need at least another year of Brown in charge to see the real him, preferably two. And Cameron, lest we forget, is still so new that Brown had already been Chancellor for four years by the time young Dave entered parliament…

A snap, three week election campaign would merely ensure that the public is even more uncertain about which of these two slightly mysterious, little-known figures would be best to lead the country. And uncertainty in politics breeds both apathy and resentment far more than does a Prime Minister deciding not to bow to pressure from the opposition and launch an expensive and unnecessary mid-term election.