BNE Blog

Labour Party Conference LIVE Blog: Is the rise of anti-immigration parties inevitable in an open Europe?

By Phillip Souta

This morning in Liverpool at Labour Party Conference, Business for New Europe, along with Policy Network and the Barrow Cadbury Trust asked the question, ‘Is the rise of anti-immigration parties inevitable in an open Europe?’.  On the panel, we were joined by Lord Maurice Glasman, Margaret Hodge MP, Sunder Katwala, former General Secretary of the Fabian Society, Lilianne Ploumen, Chairwoman of the Dutch Labour Party and Phillip Souta, Director of Business for New Europe.

Sunder Katwala, Lilianne Ploumen, Olaf Cramme, Margaret Hodge, Phillip Souta

Olaf Cramme began the discussion by introducing the panellists and by stating that the debate on immigration has lead to two polarising views.  On one side, people see labour mobility as a positive thing, helping an individual to fulfil his or her ambition and improve quality of life.  On the other side, others see that labour mobility works to the advantage of businesses, becoming the new wage policy and will exploit those at the bottom of the labour market.  The aim of today’s discussion is to find where Social Democrats, across Europe, should stand on this issue.

Maurice Glasman

Maurice Glasman began the debate by saying that commidification was against social democratic principles.  He continued by asking how does one conceptualise economic space.  According to Glasman, thinking that Eastern Europe being in the same economic space as the UK is a mistake.  This will lead to exploitation where Eastern European countries are not able to develop as wages are five times as high in Western Europe.  Glasman does not think that far right parties are necessarily inevitable due to immigration, but would emerge if people were not allowed to debate and protect places they hold dear by common democratic action.  Glasman said that no speech leads to a sense of powerlessness, ultimately leading to rage.  He sees terrible competition at the low end of society, with no common institutions and a lack of a link between immigrants and trade unions.

Glasman said that in a public debate, it is much too technical to talk about the EU freedom of movement of people and it is extremely difficult to organise labour in such a very liberal environment.  He called for the strengthening of local institutions and that unfortunately, the openness of labour has become perverted.

Margaret Hodge started her remarks by saying that she would like to take a completely different approach from the last speaker in regards to this subject.  With living standards falling and economic stagnation, Hodge said that immigration is bound to be an issue and if mainstream political parties do not respond to this issue, there will undoubtedly be a shift to the right.  Hodge believes that the approach to immigration by mainstream parties throughout her political lifetime by trying to control it has been a false premise.  According to Hodge, immigration is a feature of globalisation and if one pretends to control it, one will fail. If we fail, government loses the trust of the people who are threatened economically and turn to fascist parties on the left.

Hodge continued by giving an example of an immigration policy failure by saying that in the UK, we started to control the number of asylum seekers entering the country only then to see the number of foreign students go up.  According to Hodge, if you close one door, people will open another one as the UK is an attractive destination.  Hodge believes that mainstream parties need to deal with immigration straight on.  The question to this however, is how?  Hodge answered by saying that we need to have an honest debate in this country about immigration.  Her experience with dealing with Nick Griffin is that you have to have an honest discourse on the balance of public goods and that this debate should not be seeped in racism.  As housing is a limited social good, white working class communities feel that the situation is unfair.  They feel that individuals should contribute to society before benefitting from it.

Hodge called for the need to build on this to burst the bubble of immigration.  She said that we should pretending that we can control numbers and look at the perceived unfairness in local communities in order to stop the rise of extreme parties.  In her own constituency of Barking, Hodge has tried to reconnect with this disillusioned community by letting them voice their local concerns.  Hodge believes that delivering at a grass roots level establishes trust and only then can we have an open conversation about immigration.  Hodge called for a change of discourse to one of fairness.

Phillip Souta started his contribution by saying that Business for New Europe finds migration a hugely important topic and that he is supportive of migration on a European level.  He called for honesty in the debate, however, as people believe that the current situation is unfair and that anti immigration parties are preying on this.  Souta said that there is little evidence of ‘queue jumping’, or migrants disproportionately benefiting.  It is however, according to Souta, for politicians to make this argument in the current political landscape.

Souta referred to Lord Glasman’s remarks and said Glasman advocated barriers and protectionism as a result of immigration.  Souta then rebutted with the idea of ‘factor price equalisation’.  This premise, according to Souta, stated that foreign workers (wherever in the world) are just as much likely to depress wages.   Souta called for the UK to refrain from establishing barriers but instead, challenge and explain.  According to Souta, migration and immigration have huge benefits, including millions of Britons living in Europe and that it can help toaddress demographic problems.  Souta hoped the government would talk less about ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ and instead talk about ‘We’re all in this together’.  Souta thinks that the UK has a good track record on integration compared to many of its European neighbours and we should bring a more positive tone to the debate.

Bringing a Dutch perspective to the debate following the rise of the far right party in the Netherlands, the PVV, Lilianne Ploumen said that the debate is not about ‘it’s the economy, stupid’.  Rather, it is about discomfort and the feeling of loss amongst people in the Netherlands over the past decades.  People feel that there is a loss of what has been common to them.  Ploumen agreed with Hodges that most of these issues need to be tackled on a local level.  Ploumen said that in the Netherlands, due to immigration, neighbourhoods have changed and that people are not able to communicate with each other anymore.  She said that the Partij van de Arbied (the Dutch Labour Party) has been too late in acknowledging the problem and instead focusing on being ‘tolerant’, by focusing solely on jobs, housing and education and by being arrogant in terms of not acknowledging people who feel this discomfort.  Ploumen said that acknowledgement should be the first step in addressing this issue and that it takes a lot of courage to do so.  In 2009, Ploumen drafted a new programme entitled ‘Divided Past, Shared Future’ for her party on immigration bringing a huge debate within the party and throughout the country, which ultimately lead to international coverage.  The resolution was passed by the party.  Ploumen said that one positive thing to come out of this was that it enabled people to talk about their discomfort and say that ‘I am not a racist, but I am not happy with the way my neighbourhood is developing’.

According to Ploumen, the following are the key points of her programme and she advocates that Social Democrats should consider this:

1. Recognise pain and discomfort in large parts of society.  Old manners and customs are no longer widely shared and that there is a feeling that society is not as safe as it used to be.  There is a terrible feeling of loss and disappointment to both native Dutch people and the incoming immigrant.

2. We must lay out a prospect for the future.  Ploumen said that integration demands most from the new comers.  She called on new comers to adjust to their new country whilst bringing their own values and beliefs.  The newcomer should take the first step, however.

3. Renew the Dutch tradition of tolerance by bringing people together, enforcing the rule of law to everyone and have a dialogue with people from different sets of beliefs to try and understand them.

Sunder Katwala who recently left the Fabian Society announced that he would be Director of the newly established group, British Future.  The mission of the group is to deepen the public conversation around identity, immigration, integration and fairness.  The group will launch later in 2011.

Katwala said that a good slogan for Social Democrats should be ‘Tough on extremism, tough on the causes of extremism.’  To uphold this, Katwala said that we need to recognise the consequences of immigration, but to not exaggerate them.  He said in order to combat them, we need to link extremisms, both those of the native population and those of the immigrants.

Katwala called for more public discussion and engagement on the issue as people feel that they cannot speak and are afraid of being called a racist.  It is also important, according to Katwala, to differentiate the concerns of what can and cannot be addressed and engage with reasonable sceptics.

He believes that border control is not a simple answer to the issue and that immigration is a two-way street with learning the English language as essential for immigrants.  He said that the Labour Party has been ambivalent in this debate.

Finally, Katwala wanted to make the case for politics being of collective decisions and discussions.  People would therefore need to make trade-offs.  Katwala also called for more leadership from think-tanks on the issue and for politicians to stop making promises that they cannot keep, such as the renegotiation of the free movement of labour.

Following the discussion, a questions and answer session followed, moderated by Olaf Cramme.  Questions and topics discussed included:

the exploitation of newcomers in rental arrangements, employment and entitlements;

- the exploitation of newcomers in rental arrangements, employment and entitlements;

- structural discrimination (such as white male privileges);

- multiculturalism vs integration;

- the need to use democracy as tool to this issue;

- huge inequalities when it comes to race;

- the need to argue for a social Europe, not lining up with the right to stop European integration;

- the use of European level regulation (such as the Posted Worker Directive);

- the need for politicians to say what they believe, consistently;

- the difficulty of attracting eastern European immigrants into politics in the UK;

The debate was also joined by Victor Ponta, leader of the Social Democrats in Romania, who discussed the topic of brain drain in his country, with many of his smartest citizens leaving Romania looking for a better life abroad.  He said that immigrants are simply looking for a better life.

September 27th, 2011 | Posted in Live Blog - Party Conferences 2011, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Lib Dem Party Conference LIVE Event Blog – Will the EU’s ageing population bankrupt Europe?

By admin

At an event organised by BNE and CentreForum in partnership with Aviva, an eminent panel spoke to a packed room of experts and party activists on the challenges of Europe’s ageing demographic.

Sir Graham Watson MEP, Prof Steve Webb MP, Paul O'Hagan, James Lloyd, Dr Tim Leunig

Dr Tim Leunig, chief economist of CentreForm opened the discussion.  He started by asking whether Europe had any political will whatsoever.  He answered that it looked like not.  “They will struggle on until there is a direct pensions crisis”, he said, which had two components.  First, people are living longer, secondly not enough young people are being born.

He said that the first was something to celebrate.  One in four girls born this year are expected to live to 100.  He noted that this was an amazing opportunity.  The lower birthrate was a different question however, requiring different solutions.  He noted that ratio or old people to working age people has increased.

Dr Leunig said that there were three choices in the long term.  Work longer – increase retirement age.  Second, be poorer and third, allow people to immigrate – “draw in people from eastern Europe and elsewhere to replace the children we should be having.”

He suggested that we should consider having an “automatic rule” to upgrade the pension age – a month every three or four months or so, with review every three or four years.

He went on to say that “we need to think about inequality – mainly of life expectancy.  What are we doing to change that?  We can’t have a retirement age that the typical person in Hull never gets to retire.  So we could have a variable pension age, or other mechanisms.”

It was clear, he finished that “we need to face up to inequality in genders.  Men die before women, mainly because they make stupid life choices.”  He said that what Steve Webb, the pensions minister was doing was “strongly progressive.”

The next speaker, James Lloyd, was Director of the Strategic Society Centre.  He said that the euro crisis has changed everything.  In the UK, in terms of public sector pensions reform, we have “kept the crisis separate from ageing as a cause.”  He noted that the crisis also made it far harder to plan ahead.  If the eurozone breaks up the affordability of the state pension will have to be revisited.  People will find it much harder to save, and the value of their pension pots will be affected.

He suggested that public spending on health, care and support, and “myriad other entitlements” have got to be looked at.  He also said that society will also have to invest in adapting the public space to our ageing population.

There were other indicators for preparedness according to James Lloyd – for example, adapting workplaces to help older workers.

He also said that it was instructive to note the differences in countries across the EU.  Each country will approach the question in their own unique way.  The UK is in a relatively strong position he said, adding that “there’s a case to say that every country in the EU needs an Adair Turner.”  At least on the fundamental point of the pension age, he said, there is agreement, noting that “in France there is no such unity of purpose.”

James Lloyd went on to talk about social care.  This, he said, was the “really worrying thing.”  There are disparate responses across European countries.  ”Social care is the issue where you can see how far countries are progressing – Germany is doing well, the UK is still in the starting blocks.”

He said he believed that “the best strategy is to ring fence and protect some areas of spending, rather than renegotiate on all.  By default we are doing that in the UK, the state pension is being set up as a protected pillar going forward, as is the NHS.  Other things like social care, winter fuel payments, etc., are liable to be reviewed over the next decades.”

He concluded by saying that “we worry about population ageing in the UK, and despite this, the biggest asset of most older households is completely untaxed,” asking “is that tenable?”

Sir Graham Watson, (MEP for the South West of England), Vice President of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, started by saying that “no continent has a higher proportion of people than Europe.  One in five of Italian and German citizens are over 65.  That combined with the decline of reproduction rates gives us a serious problem.”

He went on to say that “in three years, the number of people of working age on the continent will begin to decline.”

He spoke of a meeting between Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier and Jose Barroso, the head of the European Commission, where Wen said to Barroso that “Europe will become a theme park, full of elderly people, relying on tourism.”  Watson said that the USA and others have managed this problem by welcoming migration, noting that “for most of the last 300 years we have been a continent of net emigration, and only one of net immigration over the last 30 years.”  That, he said, was a massive cultural shift.

He went on to that we need greater tolerance of immigrants and that Europe needs to specialise in high skilled jobs and accept that low skilled jobs will go east, and that we “need a commitment to life long learning.”

In terms of what the EU could do, he noted that it did not have any power in this area, however that the EU was “looking at common work in various areas like social cohesion and healthcare.”

He concluded by saying that the biggest problem was one of economic prosperity.  He said that we already have a “labour shortage economy” and that by 2050 the working population of Italy and Germany combined will have fallen by 45%, the UK and France will have fallen by 20%, but that the USA’s would – on current and predicted trends – be up by over 40%, saying that “some estimate that over half of our economic growth comes from population growth.”

The last speaker was Steve Webb MP, the Pensions Minister.  He started by talking about life expectancy in Portugal.  Improvement in life expectancy at birth between 1993 and 2009 life went up from 71 to 76.5 for men.  The UK was pretty similar, having gone up four years over 16 years.

Sir Graham Watson MEP, Prof Steve Webb MP, Paul O'Hagan

He said that a typical EU man draws a pension for 17 years and a woman for 20, noting that “we are ageing like an express train.”  He said that Britain has already legislated to raise the pension age to 68 by the mid 2040s, but that this was still not high enough.  It showed, in his view, the scale of the challenge facing society.

He said that the challenge in terms of politics was that people “want notice” but government wants to keep decisions “as late as possible.”  He also said that until April of 2011, it was a crime to sack a person just for being 65.  The retirement age had been 65 for a century he noted.

Compared to the UK, France found it difficult to go from 60 to 62 he said.  He also observed that most state pensions systems are unfunded – so that today’s pensioners are paid for by today’s workers.

He ended by saying that times had moved on since the Beatles sang “will you still need me, will you still feed me, when i’m 64.”  Our attitudes to older people had to change, and people were staying active for far longer, concluded by saying that “giving older workers jobs do not take away from job opportunities for younger people.”

During the discussion, Steve Webb noted that it is perfectly possible to have phased retirement.  A representative from Action on Hearing Loss asked about prevention and Steve Webb agreed that it was an important point.  He went on to say that the lack of discussion in the media was often related to the relative youth of the producers on the programmes.

Tim Leunig made the point that the wage rate is relevant; we should accept that as people get older, it isn’t necessarily true that wages should go up.  Also, it is unfortunately true that ageing – like for example mental health – is not as glamourous as youth.  Great Ormond Street Hospital finds it extremely easy to fundraise, but organisations that deal with those other areas find it extremely difficult, for example.

Graham Watson said that one of the things that the EU did best was the exchange of best practice.  Steve Webb noted that older workers tend to be more reliable and less likely to move after a short period of time.

Steve Webb noted that the average age that people become grandparents is 49.

The debate was moderated by Paul O’Hagan, Deputy Director of BNE.

September 19th, 2011 | Posted in Live Blog - Party Conferences 2011 | No Comments »

Lib Dem Party Conference LIVE Event Blog – Will the euro crisis split the EU?

By admin

Business for New Europe and the Centre for European Reform in partnership with Citi and Linklaters brought together an eminent panel of experts to discuss the developing situation in the eurozone yesterday at the Liberal Democrat Party Conference in Birmingham. Michael Moore, Secretary of State for Scotland, Sharon Bowles MEP and chair of the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, Baroness Shirley Williams and Jeremy Browne, Foreign and Commonwealth Office minister joined the discussion. The event was chaired by Simon Tilford, chief economist of the CER.

Jeremy Browne, Shirley Williams and Simon Tilford

Months ago, when BNE and the CER initially decided to organise this panel discussion, we could not have predicted how timely this debate would actually be. The discourse within the EU, has progressed from bailouts of peripheral member states to the splitting of the eurozone or even worse, the full disintegration of the common currency. At the panel discussion, all speakers were eager to stress the implications of the crisis for the United Kingdom to a full room of around ninety delegates.

Sharon Bowles, who recently attended a meeting of finance ministers in Poland, said that if there were a disastrous event within the eurozone, the UK would be just as much dragged in as if we were not. Many have said that the UK’s exposure to Greece is manageable should Greece default, however, Bowles stressed that the crisis was no longer contained to Greece and that contagion was a real problem to the UK, citing the figure that the UK has a £2 trillion exposure to France. Bowles welcomed George Osborne’s intervention last week calling for greater integration within the eurozone as she believes that a banking crisis within the eurozone will undoubtedly lead to a banking crisis within the UK.

On the meeting in Poland, which was attended by Tim Geithner, US Secretary of the Treasury, Bowles said that European finance ministers had not lost an opportunity to make things worse with constant internal squabbling proving the point that politics rules over the markets. Bowles said that there needs to be greater integration within the eurozone, while dealing with moral hazard, and that there is no chance of the rescue fund being made larger as it would potentially put the German credit rating at risk.

Turning to the UK, Bowles said that closer integration within the eurozone could present big dangers for Britain. Bowles recognises that the actions of the 17 members of the eurozone in dealing with the crisis will have spill-over effects on the 10 countries outside. She predicts that there will be temptation to decide single market issues within the 17 therefore disenfranchising other member states, including the UK. In any new framework, France and Germany envision themselves as the core, based on a ‘markozy’ line. Bowles stressed that the EU ‘brand’ is based on the 27 together and many of the non-eurozone countries are very important globally.

Simon Tilford, Sharon Bowles and Michael Moore

Bowles points out that many of the non-eurozone members of the EU, including the UK, have been the biggest advocates of the single market’s advantages on a global level. Many of the eurozone countries, however, are more concerned with the internal market, looking inwards. In that context, it is useful to the UK that the euro plus pact referenced the single market.

Bowles also went on to say that the discussions amongst eurosceptic Conservatives about repatriation of powers from the EU in this time of crisis is the worst thing possible for the health of the City of London. With approximately forty legislative bills in front of Sharon Bowles in the European Parliament, all with incredible importance to the UK and the City of London, it was not helpful to have this talk in the backdrop. Bowles claims that this talk could lead to awful ramifications.

Jeremy Browne then continued by saying that in all three of the party conferences over the next few weeks, there will of course be discussions on important national issues but the shadow of the eurozone crisis may one day render these internal discussions redundant. He therefore told attendees that they had come to the ‘right’ fringe meeting.

Initially, Browne was sceptical of the UK joining the euro. Whilst seeing the benefits of a single currency to the Single Market, he was not fully convinced. Browne said that the loss of monetary policy was problematic for him and that many countries that did join the common currency were not ready and should not have been allowed to do so. Browne said that he can understand German worries of profligate Greeks and that governments of creditor countries, including Germany, must command the consent of their populations to take the necessary decisions.

Browne stressed that he does not want the euro to break up and that its success was in our national interest. He wants Britain to take an active part in the EU, despite being a non-eurozone country. The UK has always tried to avoid the prospect of a two speed Europe and should continue to do so despite it becoming extremely difficult with further economic governance emerging within the eurozone. As one of the ‘Big 3’ within the EU, the UK has an interest in demonstrating leadership. Examples of this can be seen in free trade discussions, most recently with the FTA with South Korea being an effective lever for a further FTA with Japan. If the UK were not in the EU, we would not have the same bargaining power on the global stage. He went on to say that the EU is a force for moral good, as an aid donor for example. He also said that the present Government has been keen to use the EU as a political device in foreign policy. This has been seen in Syria, for example, where the UK has pushed for a common EU position.

Browne concluded that the Europe which will emerge from this crisis will be a new Europe, and it is important that the UK takes a leading role in it.

Michael Moore started by saying that whether or not people agree with the Coalition on tackling the deficit, one just needs to look at Greece, Portugal and Ireland to see that they are necessary. The globe realises the importance of this crisis and Tim Geithner’s attendance in Poland was an example. Moore paid tribute to Sharon Bowles’ work in the European Parliament and was happy to see a Liberal Democrat at the heart of this.

Moore said that the euro crisis effects the UK terribly and we must be engaged and cannot enjoy the geographical luxury of being at the side of Europe. In addition to our banks and pensions being effected, our growth would also be compromised. While seeing the inevitability of fiscal integration in the eurozone and always being a proponent of the euro, the danger for the UK is that we may see internal cliques to emerge, where we will be excluded. Moore continued by stating that it would be bad for Europe and bad for the UK if we were marginalised. Our priorities are that we should engage, we should use the extensive financial expertise within the UK to assist eurozone countries, and we also lift our heads slightly looking at how we look at European growth. The EU needs to look at how we can get the single market working more effectively and the idea of repatriation of powers is very damaging.

Baroness Williams concluded the discussion by saying that the UK has hurt itself with the passage of the European Union Bill, calling the bill ‘micro-management to the utmost’. She continued by saying that Ministers within the government have been making some thoughtful remarks, but these do not have the same weight as acts of Parliament.

As to emerging from the crisis, Baroness Williams said that some sort of fiscal integration, where tax harmonisation takes effect and that there is a dangerous situation within the EU of a lack of real leadership. Baroness Williams was also critical of the Liberal Democrats’ sister party in Germany, the FDP, who have made it very tough for Chancellor Merket to find solutions.

Baroness Williams continued by saying that the UK could be just as damaging with its talk of repatriation of powers should a treaty change be required. For one of the ‘Big 3’ stepping in, stopping the other two from doing what is necessary to save the euro is unconscionable.

Williams concludes that Europhobe conservatives see this crisis as the greatest opportunity to repatriate powers from the EU, or even leave the EU altogether. She fears that the UK will be even more detached than we already are. For Liberal Democrats, this is extremely dangerous, when important issues such as climate change and human rights can only be effectively championed on the EU level.

Following the opening remarks by all four of the panellists, Simon Tilford from the CER moderated a question and answer session. Discussion topics included the need for an EU finance minister should there be a fiscal union; the need for detailed communication from governments was paramount when dealing with the markets; the unlikely prospect of a return to growth in Europe; the effects of the referendum lock in Parliament; the diminished role of the European Commission in an increasingly intergovernmental approach to the crisis; lack of leadership throughout Europe; the importance of the EU safeguarding peace in Europe following the Second World War; and that the crisis is not just a crisis of the eurozone, but a crisis of capitalism.

September 18th, 2011 | Posted in Eurozone, Live Blog - Party Conferences 2011 | No Comments »

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