Conservative Party Conference Fringe Event: We need to talk about Brussels
By Lucy Thomas
Yesterday evening in Birmingham, Europe minister David Lidington told BNE’s fringe event that “the European Commission tests its success by the volume of legislation it brings forward”, so that the EU needed to get “smarter” about regulation it came up with.
In the last of a series sponsored by Aviva across the party conferences, BNE asked the audience a series of questions to guage their views on Europe, with some interesting results. The event ‘We need to talk about Brussels: is Europe part of the problem or part of the solution?‘ was addressed by David Lidington, Minister for Europe, Dominic Raab MP, founding member of the Conservative Voice project, Vicky Ford MEP and Simon Nixon, Europe Editor of the Wall Street Journal and chaired by BNE’s director Phillip Souta.
As at the Labour and Liberal Democrat conferences, the audience were asked a series of questions before and after the event to gauge their views on Britain’s place in the EU. They were:
1. Is the European Union part of the solution or part of the problem to the UK’s economic and political challenges?
2. Thinking with your HEAD should the UK be in the EU?
3. Thinking with HEART should UK be in EU?
4. Should this party commit to holding a referendum on the UK’s membership of EU in its next manifesto?
5. Do you think Britain will be in the EU in 5 years’ time?
David Lidington opened by saying that “we are where we are in legal and constitutional terms”, so even if the EU structures may be less than ideal, the most important thing for this country is to increase its competitiveness and prosperity as it sees a global economic shift to Asia and Latin America.
“The most alarming thing about the Eurozone crisis” he said, was that Europe became “introverted”, focussing on its own problems rather than seeing challenges from rising powers around the world.
Lidington said that he would like to “use British influence to shift the EU in a direction more supportive of open markets and free trade, and less burdensome regulation” outlining three areas needing attention:
1) The single market, he said, was “one of the EU’s great successes” meaning that Britain “gets a bigger share of foreign direct investment than any other EU member state.” But, he said, it had not been developed far enough: foreign partners needed to be as open to inward investment as Britain was; single digital and energy markets were needed as well as common European consumer protection.
2) The EU needed to get “smarter at adding regulation” which was often “too complicated and onerous.” He said that often “the European Commission tests its success by the volume of legislation it brings forward” and that the rules in this country exempting micro businesses from burdensome regulations could potentially be extended to larger businesses.
3) Free trade with Latin American and Asian countries needed to be boosted, he said, so existing Free Trade Agreements, such as that with South Korea should be repeated with Canada, Singapore and Japan. He said the “EU and US can eliminate tariff barriers and set global standards for trade, so that China would find it hard to offer something else.”
Lidington concluded by saying that in areas such as this the EU with its single voice could be part of the solution.
When asked about a British referendum, David Lidington said that “we need to have much greater clarity about what the choice would be” but with “so many moving parts in Europe” and Britain “being so far from the next election” it would be “very foolish to say now what we would put to the people.” Whatsmore, he said, people in favour of pulling out “need to be clear about what ‘out’ will mean.” People should know, he said, that “the UK walking out of the door would turn Europe into a more inward-looking and protectionist body.”
On a banking union, he said: “My reading of it is that there are two decisions to be made, but neither need referendum as they don’t require treaty change.” In terms of negotiation, “the government sees as a package the EBA regulation (on which we have support from Poland, the Czech republic, Austria, the Netherlands and others) and the idea of a single supervisor in the ECB (which is decided by unanimity). The government sees this as a package, but I don’t want to go any further than that at this stage.”
On the idea of a multiple ‘opt in’ and ‘opt out’, he said that he had “grave scepticism” and given the “roller-coaster” of national elections every six months in the EU, there would be a number of problems with this approach, with all countries seeking to protect their own interests in an unworkable way.
Dominic Raab said that whilst he and his fellow members of the 2010 intake of Conservative MPs seemed as sceptical about Europe as many in the party, for them the issue “is not ideological.”
As a former competition lawyer, he said, ten years ago he would have said that Europe was part of the solution, but that since the Maastricht treaty “Europe has felt less like a dynamic body to interact with and break down barriers” instead it “imposes harmonising and straight jacket legislation” on unnecessary areas such as working hours and weights and measures.
Highlighting what he saw as the dangers presented by European justice policy, Dominic Raab said that a “single criminal justice policy is dangerous for our liberty” and warned that central tenets of British law such as ‘innocent until proven guilty’ were not valued in the same way by some European countries.
On the economy, Dominic Raab said that he was “yet to see any decent empirical evidence to prove that the advantages of the single market outweigh the drawbacks”, so that more work should be done to set this out.
He also warned about “assuming that it is better for the EU to negotiate free trade agreements as a whole” when the EU is “more protectionist in agriculture” that Britain has “more of a trade surplus since joining common market” and that Britain’s “trade with the rest of the world has increased more than it has within the EU.”
Finally, on democracy, Dominic Raab said that whilst 70% of Greek people wanted to stay in the EU, roughly the same proportion were against austerity and it is the austerity which caused them to riot, not EU membership.
A referendum in the UK, he said, looked “increasingly likely” and whilst there may have been a wish to renegotiate, the European Commission had shown “no flexibility on the repatriation of British powers or renegotiation.” Citing a recent Com Res poll result that 54% of Britons would vote to leave the EU if Britain cannot renegotiate its position, Dominic Raab concluded that the EU could be part of solution only ‘if we renegotiate.’
Simon Nixon had three observations about the Eurozone crisis and EU.
Firstly that the UK and the City in particular had been the “big winners from the EU” due to the creation of the single market and corresponding influx of foreign banks and investment to Britain. There were still “vast opportunities” for the UK in a range of sectors as new rules are created, for example in insurance. He said where “Brussels sees itself as the Washington DC of Europe, London has become the New York.”
Secondly, he warned against “blaming Brussels” for Britain’s ills. He said: “Brussels didn’t create our deficit, regulate our banks, spend 50% of our GDP, borrow and spend and if all else fails borrow and print.” He said that “chronically low growth and an old economic model” had caused the economic crisis, which needed a productivity and competitiveness boost to be solved.
Thirdly, he outlined two schools of thought in the conservative press, he said one was that “the Euro is doomed and the EU will go away”, the second that “the Euro is probably doomed and the only way to save it is to pool debt.” But, he said that it “can and probably will survive because the political will is enormous” and it would be “catastrophic if it fell.”
What was needed, he said, was “Thatcherite supply side reform” and that the party of Margaret Thatcher should be there to lead it.
Vicky Ford MEP said that when talking to constituents, three issues came up repeatedly:
1) The EU budget which “we cannot see continuing to increase.”
2) The “continued bailouts” indicating that the the Eurozone “still has not got control” and that Britain “should not be part of the fiscal and banking union.”
3) “Excessive bureaucracy and regulation”, such as “the EU dictating” maternity leave and lower car insurance for women. Although, she said, some of single market had reduced bureaucracy by harmonising some rules for businesses.
She said that international rules on banking and financial services should be made in one place, but in Britain “we are affected the most by bad law” for example “protectionist measures like the Financial Transactions Tax.”
Becoming more like Norway, as advocated by some in her party, she said was a “really dangerous position” as that took away the possibility to negotiate.
She said that Britain “cannot go further into Europe as we see it” nor “further into the euro zone or fiscal union” but to be out of Europe would be “a complete disaster, ending up like Norway”, leaving Britain in an “uncomfortable position.”
Given the “current cry for a referendum”, she said, this issue did have to be addressed, but an ‘In-or-Out’ referendum “is not acceptable.” Instead, Vicky Ford said, there should be a referendum on whether Britain “is in, out, or stays in the single market with renegotiation under a timetable.” The latter would mean a referendum at the beginning, to mandate any renegotiation and one at the end, to ensure the deal that Britain had got was acceptable.
She said that EU members such as Scandinavian countries and Germany “want to keep Britain in the single market so that it doesn’t end up being run by southern European countries.”
To conclude, Vicky Ford appealed to businesspeople in the audience to make the positive case for Europe: “We’re just politicians, we need real businesses to stand up and defend the single market.”
ELECTRONIC VOTING RESULTS
1. Is the European Union part of the solution or part of the problem to the UK’s economic and political challenges?
BEFORE: solution 54% / problem 46%
AFTER: solution 50% / problem 50%
2. Thinking with your HEAD should the UK be in the EU?
BEFORE: yes 68% / no 32%
AFTER: yes 73% / no 27%
3. Thinking with your HEART should the UK be in the EU?
BEFORE: yes 58% / no 42%
AFTER: yes 55% / no 45%
4. Should this party commit to holding a referendum on UK’s membership of EU in its next manifesto?
BEFORE: yes 57% / no 43%
AFTER: yes 66% / no 34%
5. Do you think Britain will be in the EU in 5 years’ time?
BEFORE: in 88% / out 12%
AFTER: in 86% / out 14%
