Tuesday, 2 May 2017

Come on Labour - what are you waiting for?


Caroline Lucas is not happy with Labour. Neither am I.

It’s all here: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/02/labour-block-on-tory-limiting-alliance-a-betrayal-says-lucas-green

I am not talking about local Labour activists here in Shipley or in the wider Bradford area. I have the highest regard for the way Labour colleagues on Bradford Council have done their best to protect our District’s public services from hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts in central government funding.

I am referring, specifically, to the Labour ‘high command’ and Jeremy Corbyn in particular. At this vital moment, when so much is at stake in this election, Labour are resisting a broad-based progressive pact with like-minded parties. They are determined to stand candidates in every constituency regardless of local circumstances. Corbyn and his key party colleagues have not yet grasped this golden opportunity to reset British politics on a better path for us all.

Unfortunately, I fear that the result of their blanket refusal to build bridges with other progressives will allow Theresa May and her Tory MPs to wriggle off the hook once more. In Shipley, Philip Davies faces a group of opponents who will queue up to criticise his track record and Tory policies but then lose to him for a fourth time on 8 June. Labour have not won here since 2001 and Philip has now been Shipley’s MP for twelve years. In fact, the Tories have only lost two elections in Shipley since 1945.

Local Labour folk tell us that their party has changed radically since Jeremy Corbyn became leader in 2015. They say they have many more activists than ever before willing to stand up and be counted on the doorsteps and plenty of additional resources to match. I applaud their optimism, determination and chutzpah.

But the hard fact remains that they have a mountain to climb locally.

First, they would have to achieve a monumental swing in the vote to unseat Philip, who bagged half the vote in 2015 and cruised home with a very comfortable 10,000 vote majority.

Second, Labour remain miles behind in national opinion polls – the latest Guardian/ICM poll puts Labour 19 points adrift and all recent polling confirms that the Tories hold a strong lead over Labour nationally.

Third, their leader is unpopular. Corbyn appeals to the party faithful, not to mention many of us on the environmental left as well, but has not successfully engaged the wider electorate. Twice as many voters feel that he is running a poor campaign compared to those who think he is campaigning well. Amazingly, even Theresa May is more respected and popular as a party leader despite her abysmal campaign outing over the weekend on the Andrew Marr show, and her apparent inability to relax and eat a bag of chips at the same time (#milibandbaconsandwich #osbornepasty).

All of this is wearyingly familiar. My point is simply that Labour’s leaders need to reach out to the other progressive parties in British politics on a national level and strike a UK-wide deal that would enable their activists on the ground to work with other parties in places like Shipley.

It is fair to say that Philip Davies has cultivated a unique reputation over the years in his relentless opposition to progressive politics. Indeed, he would probably be the first to celebrate that statement! In these circumstances, therefore, the Green Party has chosen to endorse Sophie Walker and the Women’s Equality Party. Sophie has a proven track record engaging with voters, is passionate and committed to progressive politics and has already demonstrated her party’s determination to reboot the way we do politics by reaching out to the Greens. If Sophie and her colleagues can do this with Caroline Lucas and other leading members of my party, there is no reason why Labour and the Liberal Democrats cannot do the same, and we should start that progressive fightback against reactionary politics here in Shipley.
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Monday, 1 May 2017

Why the Green Party is backing Sophie Walker and the Women's Equality Party in Shipley on 8th June.

Two days ago, I received a letter from a local resident whom I have known for nearly twenty years. She supports the Greens here in Shipley, and votes Conservative in the general elections. She is a wonderful member of our community.

She wrote to me on this occasion, however, to complain about the decision of the Green Party in Shipley to support Sophie Walker of the Women's Equality Party against Philip Davies in the upcoming election on 8th June.

I thought it might be of interest for me to share my response, simply to lay to rest any puzzlement that other residents here in Shipley may have about our decision to back Sophie.

In the meantime, I very much hope that local Labour and Lib Dem activists will also take this opportunity to stand aside, back Sophie and campaign for a progressive MP for Shipley.

-----

My reply reads as follows.

Dear X,

Green Party support for Sophie Walker in the general election in Shipley

Thank you very much for your letter regarding your support for Philip Davies in the upcoming general election. Thank you as well for your very positive feedback about the work that we do locally as Green councillors.

I am writing, of course, to explain our decision to support Sophie Walker of the Women’s Equality Party.

As you rightly say, Philip has worked hard for Shipley since he was elected in 2005. He is very responsive to resident concerns and has supported the local councillors on a number of issues over the years. We have a good working relationship with him and I have nothing against him personally.

I also readily acknowledge the fact that, on some national issues, he has done well. I am thinking, for example, of his brave opposition to the tripling of university tuition fees in 2010 and his steadfast refusal to support the ruinously expensive and unnecessary High Speed 2 rail project.

Unfortunately, from my political perspective, Philip sits in the House of Commons as a Conservative MP. I therefore disagree profoundly with the way he votes on my behalf in that chamber on a very wide range of issues. I outline why in detail below. This is why I stood against him as the Green Party candidate in 2010 and 2015, and why Bradford District Green Party is supporting Sophie Walker’s Women’s Equality Party candidacy against Philip in this general election. In addition, I should stress, Sophie is a very impressive individual who would do a fantastic job representing the people of Shipley in Parliament and, of course, her party shares the same broadly progressive agenda that the Green Party stands for.

Our decision here in Shipley to back Sophie Walker is, fundamentally, a matter of electoral arithmetic. If the Green Party, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats ALL field candidates against Philip in this election, the progressive vote will split and the Conservatives will win. Even if the Labour Party ALONE runs against Philip, with the backing of the others and without Sophie in the field, Philip will win. Labour cannot provide the kind of broad cross-party progressive platform that will bring enough Shipley residents on board to win the day on the 8th of June. Quite simply, the only possible way to win Shipley back for the progressive politics that I believe in is for everyone to unite behind Sophie and her campaign. That is why I will be voting for her and why the local Green Party is not fielding a candidate on this occasion.

As I mentioned above, I have profound concerns about the way in which Philip uses his position as my MP to back policies I disagree with. In this regard, of course, and despite his track record as a serial ‘rebel’, Philip has on the whole backed Tory policies which I regard as a disaster for the country. These policies have also undermined the quality of life of many Shipley residents.

Philip and his fellow Tory MPs have voted repeatedly for cuts in government spending and investment that have undermined the quality of life for Shipley residents. He has supported budgets that have cut hundreds of millions of pounds from Bradford Council’s services since 2011. These excessive cuts in government spending, for which Philip has voted, have also undermined frontline policing in Shipley and local crime is currently increasing partly as a result.

Philip has repeatedly voted for cuts in welfare support for the poor and vulnerable, including many of the people he represents in Shipley - he has voted at least 49 times to cut welfare spending in the Commons. Here are some examples. He voted to abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance in 2011 – you will be aware that the EMA had encouraged many Shipley young people to stay in post-16 education. He supported the introduction of the bedroom tax in 2011.[1] He voted against excluding child benefit from the welfare cap in 2012.[2] He voted to cut local support for people in financial need who struggle to pay their Council tax in 2012.[3] He has repeatedly opposed increases in welfare payments that would have kept them in line with the rise in prices.[4] I disagree with him on all these decisions.

Philip has voted in defence of private health care and in favour of the marketisation, fragmentation and creeping privatisation of the NHS since 2011. He supported the coalition’s top-down NHS reforms in 2012.[5] I would strongly prefer our health care system to be properly managed by the government and fully funded.

Philip has repeatedly voted in support of measures to give schools greater autonomy from local authority control, including the establishment of Free Schools, and has even voted against requiring teachers to be either qualified or working towards a teaching qualification.[6] As a teacher and parent of school-age children myself, I am horrified at the way in which our education system is becoming even more fragmented and am concerned as well at the funding squeeze that is eroding the quality of our education provision.

Philip has repeatedly opposed the imposition of higher taxes on the wealthy. Indeed, in 2012, he supported the reduction in the top rate of income tax from 50% to 45% on incomes over £150,000.[7] He has repeatedly voted against proposals for an additional tax on bankers’ bonuses.[8] He has repeatedly voted against proposals for a ‘mansion tax’.[9] He has repeatedly voted in support of cuts in corporation tax.[10] I believe that the better off should pay their fair share in tax to provide all of us with the high quality public services that we expect for ourselves, our parents and our children, and I want to live in a more equal society – more equal in terms of outcomes as well as opportunity.

Philip has campaigned against increases in fuel duty. He therefore shares responsibility, along with his Tory colleagues, for the worsening air pollution produced by our over-reliance on car use. As a result, Shipley residents are suffering the health consequences of illegal levels of air pollution across parts of the constituency.[11]

Philip voted against the smoking ban in 2006 despite the huge health benefits that this has delivered for Shipley residents in the decade since this ban was introduced. Since then, he has repeatedly tried to block further measures intended to protect people from the harmful exposure to tobacco smoke.[12] My view is that government action in this area of policy has led to healthier lives and has been entirely reasonable and justified.

Philip has campaigned for a more flexible minimum wage, to allow employers to pay people with disabilities less – including, by definition, disabled residents of Shipley. He has done so despite of the fact that this would create a situation where some employers will pressurise potential (or existing) employees into accepting a contract that pays them below minimum wage.[13] I worry about any watering down in employment protection for our more vulnerable citizens.

Philip has, of course, always been one of the leading Tory backbenchers who eventually forced David Cameron to promise an EU referendum in January 2013 in order to hold the Conservative Party together. He subsequently campaigned hard for a LEAVE vote in 2016. In doing so, he has ignored the views of thousands of Shipley residents who support EU membership, including myself, and continues to deny the mounting evidence that Brexit will damage the UK economy and undermine our social and environmental protections. My view is that the decision to leave the EU is the worst public policy decision made by any government in my lifetime. My only consolation is that I hold an Irish passport and have recently acquired Irish citizenship for my children, thereby ensuring that all of us will continue to have access to the many advantages of EU citizenship.

Philip was one of only five MPs who voted against the Climate Change Act in 2008, and has consistently spoken out and voted against the need for ambitious government action that would enable us to make the transition to a low carbon economy.[14] He has therefore undermined the long-term environmental security of Shipley residents. He also voted in favour of the forest sell-off in 2011 that was later abandoned by the Conservatives in the face of a huge public outcry.[15] He also voted in favour of the badger cull in 2013 (although he subsequently changed his mind in 2014 for some reason).[16]

Philip has consistently supported the renewal of the UK strategic nuclear deterrent and voted repeatedly for this in the House of Commons.[17] He has done so despite the fact that most countries do not regard nuclear weapons as necessary for their security (France is the only other EU member state with a nuclear arsenal) and despite the huge cost of these weapons of mass destruction (it is anticipated that renewing Trident will cost the UK at least £100 billion over the next 30+ years).

Philip supports the restoration of the death penalty in the UK. In my view, judicial killing of this sort is barbaric, unnecessary and therefore immoral, and I find it hard to understand why any Shipley resident shares Philip’s view. Reintroducing the death penalty would also necessitate the UK withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights and the Council of Europe, something else that would be a huge step backwards for our country. Indeed, Philip has campaigned and voted for the repeal of the 1998 Human Rights Act and supports its replacement with a so-called ‘British bill of rights. This would undermine existing human rights protections for Shipley residents and I profoundly disagree with Philip on this issue.

Philip was one of many Conservatives (a majority of Conservative MPs, astonishingly) who tried in vain to block same sex marriage in 2013. Apparently he did so on the ludicrous basis that he was “in favour of equality”.[18] Fortunately, the UK has moved on and Shipley’s gay residents are now able to marry in spite of Philip’s views on this matter.

As you probably know, Philip has repeatedly filibustered private member bills in order to block their progress in the Commons. These include: protection against eviction for tenants requesting that their landlord carry out property repairs; reducing UK international aid; tighter regulation of payday lenders and reducing hospital parking charges.[19] Most recently, in December 2016, he tried in vain to block a bill proposing better protection for women against domestic violence.[20] I wish he would spend his valuable time presenting his own legislation rather than blocking decent bills brought to the Commons by other MPs.

Philip is, of course, notorious for his impatience with ‘political correctness’. For example, he spoke at the August 2016 International Conference on Men’s Issues, organised by the Justice for Men and Boys Party. His comments there revealed his deeply dismissive approach towards making further progress on women’s equality.[21] Another illustration of this is his criticism of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, on which he serves in the Commons.[22] Why he wastes his time in this way is simply beyond me, considering the huge range of economic and environmental challenges facing the country that he ought to be concentrating on instead.

In addition to supporting cuts in fuel duty, despite the pressing need to cut road congestion and traffic pollution, Philip has opposed nationalisation of the UK rail network. [23] He has also voted in favour of higher rail fares.[24] He voted against allowing Councils greater control over local bus services.[25] In contrast, I want an MP who will work to deliver a high quality, publicly-run rail network and decent, well-funded and managed bus networks that meet our increasing need for low carbon and affordable travel.

Finally, Philip has repeatedly opposed the kind of progressive constitutional reforms that I would like to see in this country. He has voted against electoral reform for the House of Commons; voted against an all-elected House of Lords or even the abolition of the remaining hereditary peers; voted against devolving more powers to Scotland and Wales or to local councils; and voted against lowering the voting age to 16.[26]

Bearing all of the above in mind, I hope that you will understand why I cannot support Philip in this election and why I will be campaigning instead for Sophie Walker to be my next MP.

In the meantime, if there is anything I can do to help you in my capacity as your local councillor, please do not hesitate to get in touch!

Very best wishes, as ever,

Kevin


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Tuesday, 7 June 2016

European thoughts - why I am voting REMAIN

A sense of European perspective.


The 'debate' about Europe spiralled off into fantasy land weeks ago. The Remain camp warn of renewed warfare and economic collapse if we leave the EU; the Brexiteers warn of the end of a thousand years of history if we stay in. Each side ramps up the rhetoric, leaving most of us scratching our heads wondering who is right. The lack of proportion is breath-taking. The extreme posturing is disheartening. The result is that nearly half of voters say they do not trust what either campaign is telling them.

Thanks to The Guardian's Steve Bell for this little beauty!

The reality is that we face a far more nuanced choice than the campaigns suggest. On the one hand, if the UK votes to stay in, British citizens will continue to enjoy a significant range of benefits of membership despite the EU's considerable imperfections. On balance, therefore, I hope very much that we vote REMAIN on 23rd June. If, on the other hand, we vote LEAVE, the sky will not fall in. But we will be worse off in several respects, even if we strike a deal with Brussels allowing us to continue to access the single European market and even if much of the beneficial EU legislation that currently protects us continues to apply.


As I outline below, I am voting to remain in the EU because we retain sovereign control over most key government decisions; and, where we share sovereignty, we do so for perfectly practical reasons and generally support the decisions that result. The resulting EU legislation gives us essential environmental, consumer, social and employment protections that will be put at risk if we leave. I am voting to remain because leaving the EU will not in itself stabilise UK population levels. I am voting to remain because we can easily afford the cost of EU membership and, in fact, are economically better off overall. I am voting to remain because the EU is sufficiently democratic, albeit in need of some reform, and we can only achieve those reforms by remaining an influential EU member state.


Shared sovereignty is good for Britain.


The Leave camp bangs on about the need to 'regain control' and 'take back our sovereignty'. The Remain camp counters that our sovereignty has not been significantly compromised by EU membership. Neither of them is being entirely truthful.


On the one hand, the Leave campaign massively overstates the degree to which British politics is subject to EU law. The reality is that most of the important decisions made by British governments have little or nothing to do with the EU. Think about the 'big ticket' political arguments that have polarised the UK over the past six years. In most of these areas, the UK decides for itself what it wants to do and to suggest otherwise is nonsense. Domestic politics reigns supreme. Here are some recent examples.
  • British governments, not the EU, have been responsible for the successive 'austerity budgets' pushed through by George Osborne since 2010 and for the steady degrading of our public services.
  • The British government, not the EU, has ramped up university tuition fees, cut higher education funding and reduced investment per pupil in our schools.
  • The British government, not the EU, pushed through the radical top-down NHS reforms of 2012.
  • The British government, not the EU, cut the top rate of tax for the wealthy and boosted their tax-free inheritance rights.
  • The British government, not the EU, has been responsible for the heartless welfare cuts and benefit changes that roll on and on. Brussels did not impose the bedroom tax on our most vulnerable families or embark on the train wreck that became Osborne's derailed attempt to cut tax credits for the working poor.
  • British ministers, not the EU, have decided to waste tens of billions of pounds on HS2 and new roads rather than invest more widely in our public transport networks.
  • British governments, not the EU, have scaled back support for the British renewable energy sector and chosen to subsidise fracking and nuclear energy. It was not Jean-Claude Juncker of the European Commission who coined the phrase "green crap" or tried to privatise our forests, but our very own prime minister.
  • The British government, not the EU, handed control of our police forces to elected Police and Crime Commissioners (for whom most of us don't vote).
  • The British government, not the EU, is making multi-billion pound preparations to renew our strategic nuclear weapons system.
  • British governments, not the EU, have allowed our airports to expand and British ministers are preparing to allow a third runway at Heathrow airport despite the environmental costs.
  • British governments, not the EU, are responsible for the failure to build enough new homes over the past thirty years.
  • British ministers, not the EU, decided to flog off the Post Office to the private sector.
  • Successive British governments, not the EU, decided to participate in disastrous wars in Afghanistan, the Middle East and North Africa despite widespread public unease.
On the other hand, of course, it is disingenuous of pro-EU campaigners to suggest that our sovereignty has not been compromised by British membership of the EU. We share sovereignty in a growing range of policy areas as a result of successive treaties signed by Conservative and Labour governments. The Single European Act of 1987 - supported by Mrs Thatcher herself at that time - allowed the Council of Ministers to use Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) to push member states to accept common European rules governing their trade. Subsequent treaties signed in Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon between 1991 and 2007 extended the use of QMV so that most EU directives and regulations are now passed in this way. Moreover, the powers of the European Parliament have been similarly extended through a process known as 'Co-Decision', giving MEPs a more co-equal say (with the Council) on most EU legislation. The upshot of this is that the ability of UK governments to 'veto' draft EU legislation (in those policy areas where the EU has the right to legislate) has been greatly curtailed over the past thirty years.


My considered view is that, on the whole, it makes sense for us to share sovereignty in these particular areas of policy. It makes sense for governments to share decision-making in relation to our shared trading relations. It makes sense for European governments to jointly decide how to protect worker rights in that shared market - and to provide good employers with a level playing field on which they can look after their staff. It makes sense for us to share decision-making on legislation to deal with cross-border environmental challenges like climate change or water quality or air pollution. It makes sense for the EU to regulate our agricultural sector given our shared reliance on food imports and exports. In short, in areas where common action is the best way to safeguard and improve the quality of our lives, it makes sense for decision-making to be made in a way that facilitates progress and minimises the problem of individual governments blocking necessary change for selfish reasons.


In any case, most EU legislation is positively supported by the UK, both in the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. This is partly because the European Commission and the European Parliament usually bend over backwards to accommodate the concerns and interests of the member states in order to find a workable consensus. As a result, British ministers vote in favour of at least 90% of the legislation that crosses the desks of the Council of Ministers. That sounds like a reasonable deal to me - I can only dream of a scenario in which I supported nine out of ten decisions made by the British government!


We can stay in the EU and manage our population challenges


UKIP has dined out on the issue of immigration since the mid-2000s and used it as a means of galvanising their attacks on the EU. Their campaigns are xenophobic in the extreme and it is no coincidence that support for UKIP has grown since 2004 as support for the BNP has declined.


I fully accept that managing migration and the overall level of the UK population is an issue that requires close attention in order to ensure that everyone living in the UK has access to affordable housing, decent healthcare and school places. It is true that EU laws governing freedom of movement make it impossible for individual EU member states like the UK to re-establish tight controls on migration from other EU countries (and nonsense for Cameron to claim otherwise). It is also true that annual net migration to the UK has risen sharply following the EU's enlargements in 2004 and 2007 and has recently topped 330,000.


But the Brexit campaign has blown the issue of migration out of all proportion in their narrow-minded quest for victory in this referendum. My reading of the situation is that migrants are NOT the main cause of our housing crisis; and the problems in our health and education systems are the result of chronic under-funding and poor decision-making by generations of British ministers. This is as true today as it was a century ago, when thirty million fewer people lived in Britain and most of them lived in poverty with terrible housing, health care and education. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose...


The Brexit campaign's claim that population growth in the UK will be solved if we leave the EU is nonsensical for a range of reasons. The UK population is increasing naturally as births outnumber deaths; most migrants come to Britain from outside the EU; tens of thousands arrive as refugees or are seeking asylum; many are students who will continue to be wanted by our universities; many have vital professional qualifications, experience or skills that our employers will continue to demand. Sustainable population 'management' in the UK will require an intelligent, multi-strategy and long-term approach, and 'pulling up the drawbridge' is not the answer to our woes.

I suggest that it is worth pressing a few facts into service before blaming 'Brussels' for population pressures that have, in fact, been a feature of British life for the past half century.
  • Half of the ten million increase in the UK population during my fifty year lifetime has been the result of people being born here in Britain. Trends suggest that our home-born population growth will continue whether or not we leave the EU.
  • Most migrants to the UK in the past twenty years have come from outside the EU, drawn in for family reasons or to study here or to fill labour shortages in key sectors like healthcare. Leaving the EU will not deal that side of the population equation at all.
  • Around 25,000 people seek asylum in the UK each year, a number which rises and falls regardless of our membership of the EU.
  • One in seven new British businesses are set up by migrants. Migration boosts our economy overall, so limiting EU migration will have an adverse impact on our GDP.
  • Approximately two million Brits live and work or study or are retired in other EU states. What will happen to them and us if Brexit makes it more difficult for them to remain abroad? Our EU borders are open in both directions.
  • Migrants are more likely to be in work and paying tax than British citizens. Most are young, healthy and childless and therefore far less reliant on our public education and health care services than that bubbling cesspit of xenophobic outrage known as the Daily Express would have us believe.
  • It is true that migration exerts some downward pressure on the wages of the lowest paid, but the best answer to that problem is for our government to establish a decent National Living Wage and enforce it properly so that all employers respect the law and treat their staff fairly.
  • It is also true that migration creates additional housing pressures, but our national housing crisis is primarily the result of decades of under-investment in new housing, of the mass privatisation of our social housing stock since 1979 and of land-banking by developers who are still not being pushed to develop brownfield sites or higher-density urban housing in sufficient quantity. Limiting EU migration will make little difference to that problem either.
Finally, it is highly likely that the UK will have to accept free movement of workers even if we vote to leave the EU! So this ugly, dangerous debate about migration is an academic one. If we vote to leave, the British government will seek to retain the preferential access to the single European market that we currently enjoy, and free movement will be the price we pay to secure this. The Norwegians and Swiss have had to accept this and I cannot imagine that our future will be any different. Of course our economy is far larger than those of Norway and Switzerland, and of course we are a major importer of EU products; but EU leaders are well aware of the extent to which British companies rely on their European export markets and will insist that we continue to accept free movement as the quid pro quo for access to that single market. Why anyone should think otherwise is beyond me, given Cameron's complete failure to secure concessions on the principle of free movement during the nine months of EU talks that followed the 2015 general election.


We can afford the cost of EU membership


The third red herring waved by Brexiteers is their fatuous claim that mountains of British cash is trousered each year by our friends in Brussels. The Brexit battlebus is festooned with the false allegation that British taxpayers hand over £350 million to Brussels each week, or about £19 billion per year. This is money which the creative accountants at Brexit suggest would otherwise be invested in the NHS by generous Tory ministers.


This is nonsense, and here's why.


  • The Brexit campaign glosses over the billions that the UK gets back in return as an EU member state. In 2014, our rebate was worth £4.4 billion. We also received £1.1 billion in regional funding and £2.3 billion in farming support. Add in our other financial returns from the EU and it turns out that our net annual contribution to the EU is just under £10 Billion (about half the level claimed by the Brexit campaign).
  • Our net contribution falls further if we factor in other benefits of EU membership. The Office for National Statistics estimates that, if we take into account the spending by EU visitors to the UK linked to our EU membership and the European research funding that goes to our universities, our net contribution falls to £7.1 billion. The Treasury Select Committee estimates that the weekly cost of our EU membership is, in fact, £110 million, less than a third of the amount claimed by the Brexit campaign.
  • In addition, some of the money that the UK transfers to the EU is recycled into infrastructural investment in the emerging economies of central and eastern Europe. As those economies develop, new British export markets are opening up: British goods exports to these new markets have doubled over the past decade and the value of services exports has trebled (overall, this trade was worth £16 billion by 2014).
  • Our net contribution to the EU budget is perfectly reasonable and affordable. We are one of the wealthiest countries in the world, let alone the EU. The amount we contribute to the EU is around one-eightieth of British government spending and about 0.5% of our total national wealth. We spend eight times more on education and fourteen times more on pensions and are about to spend £100 billion on a fresh generation of nuclear weapons that we don't even need. The fact that the UK spends more on health care alone than the EU's TOTAL budget tells us all we need to know about the relatively low 'cost' of staying in.
  • It is, to say the least, doubtful that a Tory government would spend this money on the NHS if we left the EU. Tory ministers have, in fact, spent their past six years in government slashing investment in public services, including education and health, and cutting one million public sector jobs. Their track record suggests they are far more likely to dish out fresh tax cuts to wealthier, Tory-voting Britons than pay for the additional doctors and nurses that our healthcare system desperately needs.


The EU is not the undemocratic federal superstate claimed by its critics


As I mentioned earlier, the roles and powers of the EU are tightly restricted by the treaties that we have signed since we joined in 1973. Most big decisions are still made at Westminster, and it is twenty-five years since the Maastricht Treaty embedded the principle of subsidiarity in the EU (the idea that the EU should not make decisions that are best left to the governments of the member states).


Yes, the European Commission is not directly elected. But the role of the Commissioners is to propose draft legislation that is subsequently only passed into law by the Council of Ministers (representing Europe's elected governments) and the European Parliament (stuffed with MEPs directly elected by the peoples of Europe). The Commission is therefore less like a European government and more like a European civil service, and generally bends over backwards to consult with governments and key interest groups as it makes decisions.


Of course, I would like to see further democratic reform of the EU. I would like to give the European Parliament the power to remove individual European Commissioners who are not up to the job and to have more freedom to propose draft legislation. I would like to see far greater transparency in the deliberations of the Council of Ministers. I would like to see far greater numbers of European citizens taking the trouble to vote for their MEPs rather than not bothering to exercise this vital democratic right. Above all, I would also like those citizens to vote for the green, progressive politicians that we desperately need in those corridors of power - my beef is not with the EU's particular institutional architecture, but with the 'business-as-usual', unsustainable politics of the people who populate it.


It is a rich irony that British politicians lecture our European friends on the lack of democracy in the EU. Our British head of state holds this job because her dad was king. He got it because his brother abdicated. The royal family is a relic of medieval politics that should have been swept away decades ago. But at least our monarch plays a ceremonial political role, unlike the 800+ members of our House of Lords. All of them are unelected and unaccountable and lack legitimacy; some are bishops and some are hereditary peers; and all have a say over the laws passed by our Parliament on our behalf despite the fact that we (the people) did not choose them in the first place. As for the Commons, our Tory government reigns supreme thanks to a general election in 2015 that gave the Conservative party barely 37% popular support on a turnout of under 70%. Their mandate to govern rests on the positive support of barely a quarter of the electorate.


So, why stay in?


The bottom line is that our membership of the EU makes it far easier to trade with our European partners in the single European market and ensures that this trade is properly regulated with common standards. The EU has passed over two hundred environmental laws that protect us from various forms of pollution and have begun to help us make the transition to a post-carbon economy. European social and employment legislation provides us with a range of important worker rights - vital for ensuring fairness as the single European market has developed. Closer cooperation on cross-border policing makes all of us safer. The freedom that we enjoy to travel, work and retire anywhere in Europe is a freedom that we can celebrate and should not fear. The cost of EU membership is one we can easily afford. It's time for Britain to accept that we no longer live in the 1950s, that we are part of an interdependent world, and that the benefits of working together far outweigh the compromises we sometimes have to make in the shared enterprise that is the EU.


So, vote to REMAIN on 23 June!

















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