At a public meeting in the Forest last week the audience, in exasperation, demanded from me ‘the unbiased facts’, with which they could make up their own minds about the EU. In equal exasperation, I replied that there simply is no repository of unbiased information to be had. What facts there are, we interpret differently according to our point of view.

‘Helpful facts’ will be emphasised and ‘unhelpful’ ones will be ignored. This is a debate between partisans who hold their opinions with a passion that moulds any facts to suit their argument, and I am not immune – but at least I am honest enough to recognise it. I told my audience that they had to wake-up, and invest a serious effort in thinking for themselves about the subject before reaching a decision.

To cap it all, facts change: the world is changing, and the EU is changing dramatically too. None of us can predict what it will be like to remain in a changing EU, any more than we can predict what it will be like as an independent nation in a changing world. There are risks with either course of action. The key difference is that as an independent nation we will be able to decide how to respond to risks and inevitable change in our own national interest, rather than have those responses determined for us in Brussels.

 

Last week we recorded a dismal anniversary: 5 years of war in Syria. It is difficult to find anything to say that can lift the human spirit about a time during which we have witnessed scenes of barbarity that nobody should expect to see except perhaps in the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. These visions of Hell have escaped both his imagination and the borders of Syria and are now visible on the beaches of Lesbos, Lampedusa, border posts in the Balkans, and even 20 miles from our own shores in Calais.

We will each have our own image that crystalizes the conflict in our minds. Mine is of a barefoot young girl carrying her even younger brother. She is standing watching as the rest of the family struggle to clear the snow off their fragile shelter before it collapses under the weight. There are some brighter spots however. First, countless individuals and charities has risen to the demands of the crisis, raising money and delivering relief. Second, the world has not forgotten, and ‘donor fatigue’ has not set in: in February London hosted the 4^th donor conference and raised $11 billion in a single day, more than such a conference has ever raised before.

This commitment to long term finance will enable us to ensure that there is no ‘lost generation’ and that all Syrian Refugee children can receive an education. Finally, our own leadership as the World’s second largest donor, has continued: at over £2 billion we have committed more to this endeavour than to any other humanitarian disaster ever. Hope springs eternal.

 

After scores of emails demanding that the personal independence payments be protected from the Chancellor’s cuts – including some individuals who had clearly been repeatedly emailing throughout the night, I awoke to the news of Ian Duncan-Smith’s resignation. Notwithstanding my admiration for all that he has achieved, I stand by the original proposal and, frankly, I can’t see what all the fuss was about.

The budget for disabled payments is enormous at £50 billion per year (for comparison, our entire defence budget is £34 billion).  As I see it, the problem is that some people need more than they currently are getting in order to cope with everyday life. Whilst others are taking the rest of us for a ride. We need to concentrate resources on those who really need them.

One difficulty is that a qualifying criterion for the payments is reliance on an ‘aid’ or ‘appliance’ (which might be something as simple as a bed or a chair – even one supplied by the NHS), which mightn’t actually add anything to one’s weekly cost of living. Over the last 18 months claims for payments based solely on reliance on aids and appliances have tripled. Of the cases reviewed, 96% have indicated that there are no – or very little – additional living costs arising.
I am persuaded that there remains plenty of scope for reform.

 

 

 

One of the recurrent complaints constituents make to me is that they were deceived during the referendum campaign of 1975 with respect to the consequences for national sovereignty of remaining in the Common Market. They say that they were explicitly told that no decision could be made in Brussels without the agreement of a British minister responsible to Parliament. Were they lied to, as they believe? They were not: what they were told was true – at that time.

The fact is that the European Union is a continuously evolving institution. The rules changed: British ministers no longer enjoy such power to prevent decisions which they judge to be against our national interest, and they are over-ruled. The choice in the referendum is being presented as one of sticking with the certainties of the EU, against the unpredictable consequences of leaving. This is a false prospectus: there is no certainty about what the EU will evolve into next.

The only certainty is that we have been offered an opportunity to reclaim the ability to govern ourselves, or to leave increasing power in the hands of Brussels.

The Archbishop’s assurance that expressing concern about immigration has nothing whatsoever to do with racial prejudice, is welcome. I recall the way that expression of such concern was derided by the ‘establishment’ over the last decade. During the 2001 election campaign there were howls of anguish and indignation, indeed there was even a walk-out, when I raised the subject at a hustings organised by a New Forest church.

Now that we have the leave of the Archbishop to discuss it, I can say that – overwhelmingly – immigration has been the subject most often raised with me by constituents over the last 19 years. It has been their top concern, where their dislike of the EU has been way down the list by comparison.

The two are intimately connected however, to put it bluntly, we can’t control immigration because of our membership of the EU. Most of our immigrants come from the EU and the terms of our membership require that they be given free movement into our country, and the same employment rights as British subjects. So, when governments announce honest intentions to reduce immigration, they fail because they have absolutely no way of limiting the greater part of the source of immigrants.

We are often told that immigration is good for us and promotes prosperity and economic growth. It is true that foreign entrepreneurs bring their skills, enterprise and investment here. In the end however, it comes down to a question of numbers and a balance of advantage: 70% of EU migrant workers in the UK claim in-work social security benefits, at the same time they consume public services and acquire a pension liability; The notion that this is all economic gain is fanciful.

Clearly, the Government recognises this, and that is why we tried to create levers to control the flow of EU migrants. We failed: the re-negotiation has come up only with an ‘emergency brake’ which requires the consent of the EU Commission if we wish to operate it. The brake consists of nothing more than a temporary diminution in amount of benefit payable. It is certainly better than nothing, but it does not amount to control of our borders and I do not believe that it will diminish the numbers of migrants.

This brings us to a key principle underlying the whole EU debate: Control. Pundits demand that both sides paint a picture of what the future holds inside, or outside the EU. Of course, neither of us can with any certainty, because we live in an unpredictable world and we are not clairvoyants. The real issue therefore, is that we are likely to fare far better in this unpredictable world, if we have control of our own affairs to pursue our national interest, rather than that control should reside in Brussels.

What a farrago of nonsense we’ve had, as ‘project fear’ cranked-up a notch on the hysteria scale.

The irony is that so many of my constituents complain that they were duped in the 1975 referendum into thinking that it was all about free trade, but it turned out to be all about political integration. Well, yes, it is all about political integration (and – I hate to rub it in – but you were warned), how anyone ever thought this was ever about free trade however, is just bizarre, because the reverse was always the case.

The EU, the EEC, the EC, the Common Market, or the ECSC – as it was originally called, is not, and never has been a free trade area. On the contrary, it is a club, a full customs union: imposing a common external tariff against its non-members. This means that when you join, you get free trade with the other members, but tariff and other barriers are erected to disadvantage your trade with non-members. This is exactly why, as a trading nation – and most of our trade being with the non-EU world – it never was in our economic interests to join it in the first place, and it remains in our economic interests to get out of it as fast as we can.

When we leave however, we would not wish to see our trade with the EU disadvantaged. So, the main effort of our departure negotiations must be to secure it. I cannot predict how that will turn out, neither can ‘Vote Remain’, but their assumption that the terms will be a disaster is both implausible and wrong.  The EU exports more to us than we do to it, clearly it will not want to ‘cut off its nose to spite its face’.
We are warned that Norway and Switzerland have had to pay handsomely for their access to the EU single marked, accept free movement of migrants, and abide by all the rules but have no influence over their making. This is all true. The UK is not however, a tiny economy with a very small population. We are the 5^th largest economy in the world, and the ending of our EU membership on less than harmonious and mutually beneficial terms would present an existential threat to the survival of the EU itself.  So, In am confident that we can drive a much better bargain.

In any event, I would not sacrifice the advantages of our escape, and free trade with the rest of the world, for access to the EU single market. In the worst case we could just trade according to the World Trade Organisation rules with an average 2.5 % tariff. The USA does so, and its trade with the EU is growing faster than ours.

 

Don’t be bullied by Project Fear

 

 

It was a busy week on the referendum front, I wonder if public interest can sustain this until 23 June.

Lord Howard of Lympne came out in favour of leaving the EU. I was his parliamentary private secretary when he was leader of the Opposition, then when David Cameron took over I became his parliamentary private secretary for the next seven years. There is a growing spat over the question of a second referendum arising from a better EU ‘offer’ prompted by a ‘No’ vote in the initial referendum. Personally, I only want one vote in one referendum: Out! I am confident that we can amicably agree the details subsequently without another vote.

There are risks that will arise from leaving the EU, including a possible economic shock, but there are risks too from staying. I hope that leaving will prove quite as shocking and as economically liberating as Konrad Adenauer’s withdrawal from the stifling regulatory regime imposed on post war Germany, and the abandonment of which gave rise to the ‘Wirtschaftswunder’ – their economic miracle.

Just think of the shock of not paying £billions to the EU; the shock of being released from £billions worth of regulatory burdens; I could go on, -and what is truly shocking is that we’ve put up with it for so long.

 

 

I had a rush of emails over the weekend prompted by the campaigning website 38 degrees. Correspondents tell me that the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Treaty between the EU and the USA presents an existential threat to our NHS. This is based on a legal opinion secured by a trade union from a leading Queen’s Counsel. Frankly, I am deeply sceptical. The proposed treaty specifically excludes healthcare. I have always rather suspected that one can secure the legal opinion that you want, if you are prepared to pay for it. In any event –by definition- 50% of legal opinions will be proven incorrect if they are tested in court.

Personally I am in favour of free trade and support the proposed treaty -as regular readers of this column may recall. (My earlier article can be found at:
http://www.desmondswayne.com/blogs/4588303273/Transatlantic-Trade-and-Investment—17th-January-2015/9549237 )

We gave up our right to negotiate trade treaties when we joined the Common Market. It is the EU parliament that will ratify the treaty and not our own at Westminster.

Constituents who really are troubled by the proposed treaty and its alleged threat to the NHS however, should focus on the fact that it is to be a treaty between the EU and the USA.  They can draw the obvious conclusion and vote accordingly in the Referendum on 23 June!

 

 

The Prime Minister has a good record on the EU: he is the only PM ever to have brought a power back to the UK which had been previously ceded to the EU; he is the only leader ever to secure a cut in the EU budget; and the only one to veto an EU treaty. Furthermore, the only reason that we are having a referendum at all, is because David Cameron campaigned on the basis of a manifesto commitment to do so at the last election.

A number of my Eurosceptic colleagues have been very critical of the package that the PM has renegotiated. I believe that he has secured a significant change: the removal of the UK from the treaty obligation to ‘ever closer union’ is an important marker for the future when this legally binding change is incorporated into the next EU treaty. In its effect it will give us a new and different status within the EU. Were we to vote to remain in the EU we would do so under more favourable terms than we have at present.

EU migrant access to UK benefits was one of the areas where the PM was not as successful in the renegotiation as he originally hoped. He has improved the situation, but the new agreement does not match his original ambition. My fundamental problem is that he had to ask at all. The rules that govern the receipt of benefits in the UK, funded by the UK exchequer, ought to be the exclusive prerogative of our own UK Parliament, and not a matter for horse trading at the EU Council.

All sorts of terrors will be threatened in an attempt to persuade us to stay. In the long term however, our prosperity will depend on our competitiveness, and I am confident that outside the EU we have the ability to deliver greater competitiveness than we can within it. Of course, there are risks about leaving, but I believe that the risks are greater if we stay.

This is not a new position that I have arrived at. Regular readers of this column will know that I voted to leave the Common Market in 1975. So many of my constituents complain that back then they were duped: that they thought that it was just about trade, and they only discovered later that it was a political project that, amongst other things, would rob us of the power to decide who can live in the UK and claim benefits here. Nobody can legitimately claim ignorance this time around.

The PM urged Members of Parliament to decide the issue on the basis of their conscience and not to be swayed by party activists, and I will certainly obey him in that respect. Fundamentally I want to live in an independent country that can reach its own decisions, and control its own borders. We cannot do so in important respects so long as we remain in the EU. I will be voting to leave. Hopefully, second time lucky.

The proof that Einstein was right when – a century ago – he produced his theory of general relativity, predicting – amongst other things – the existence of gravitational waves, is unlikely to change our outlook on the week ahead, or the one just passed, but ought it to?

Certainly, the physicists are not understating its significance as the biggest scientific discovery of the century. One professor has likened it to watching only one channel on the TV and then discovering that there were others with completely different programmes. Another said that it will give humanity a new “sixth sense”.

What we do now know is that 1.3 billion light years away (and a light year is 6 trillion miles, so we are looking at a distance of 6 000,000,000,000 x 1,030, 000,000,000  = 7, 800, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 miles) two massive objects spiralled into one another causing a storm in space, the waves from which  just reached Earth after travelling, – by my reckoning – 1.4 billion years at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second).

Frankly, the numbers are just too big to comprehend, but that is the point: We ought to stop and wonder at our lack of comprehension, and consider our place in the universe, and – by comparison – how trivial some of our preoccupations might seem. It puts me in mind of that great favourite among hymns:

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder Consider the works thy hands hath made, I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy power throughout the universe displayed Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to thee: How great thou art!

Similarly, when I was at School, above the science block entrance, were inscribed the words from the book of the prophet Micah “there are many things yet hid, for we have seen but a few of his works”.

This awe ought to arrest us and give us a proper sense of proportion. It did to me last week. I was giving a speech to a City audience about economic growth and I was agreeing with the Growth Commission which had said “economic growth can relieve humanity en masse from drudgery and poverty, nothing else ever has”. When, of course, it occurred to me that spiritual values like awesome wonder had often achieved exactly that. The Book of Common Prayer, for donkeys’ years was, and is, a relief from drudgery.

I’m not sure what the City economists and accountants made of it.