Ideas on Europe Blog

It might not be the first question on your mind when you think about Brexit, but should French SMEs be better prepared for a no deal scenario?

Pierre Séjourné

Pierre Séjourné certainly thinks so. As the head of the international mission at DIRECCTE, a French trans-ministerial agency for economic development, he politely but very firmly has been pressing business leaders across the country to start realising that ‘no deal’ has become the most likely option, and that there is an urgent need to prepare for the unpleasant consequences that the UK’s messy departure will inevitably have for their activities.

No public comment he makes lacks a reference to the government’s virtual helpdesk brexit.gouv.fr which provides assistance to smaller firms with the necessary risk assessment and mitigation.

As a recent public event held on 7 February at ESSCA School of Management in Angers – dedicated to the impact Brexit on Western France’s Pays-de-la-Loire region – showed, Monsieur Séjourné is not alone in having growing concerns with the relative ‘unpreparedness’ of French business.

The public authorities, regional councils or larger conurbations known as ‘métropoles’ in the French provinces are also increasingly worried, as every single regional policy maker pointed out in the various round-tables of the event

The key word is, of course, uncertainty. Since nobody is capable of providing any clarity on what scenario will prevail at the end of March, SMEs are caught like rabbits in the Brexit headlights.

Brexit is destabilising in many ways: this is the first time in most business leaders’ lifetime that intra-European trade has not led to fewer barriers, and it turns back the clock in order to reinstall long-forgotten ones. It is also deeply unsettling on a cultural level.

In France, with its long-standing tradition of high principles often thwarted by practical earthly details and regularly resulting in collective frustration, there has always been a strong belief that pragmatism and phlegmatic down-to-earth problems-solving were the very essence of Britishness.

Giving priority to concrete business interests rather than indulge in grandstanding philosophical dogma was a collective aptitude attributed to the British, despised and envied at the same time.

And now France and the rest of Europe are witnessing how pragmatism is drowned in a sea of collective hysteria, and how clear business interests have been sacrificed on the altar of irrational politics.

This irrationality, to which Hervé Jouanjean, former DG at the European Commission, pointed in his keynote, simply does not fit century-old cultural patterns. There are many business leaders who are convinced that reason will prevail in the very last minute and a sensible solution will be found that will keep consequences down to a perfectly manageable minimum.

As Gérald Darmanin, the French budget minister, recently pointed out, this was the first time in his political career where the public authorities seemed to be better prepared than the corporate world.

At the Angers conference his assessment was indirectly corroborated by the panel dedicated to the transport sector.

Pierre Rideau, director of the customs office for Western France, explained very clearly how they had already been preparing for the worst case for several months and what resources (both human and material) were being mobilised to mitigate the forthcoming problems of cross-border trade.

What they would be unable to avoid, though, was the expected increase in transport costs, which he had no doubt would drive many French SMEs out of the British market.

On each of the round-tables, experts from The UK in a Changing Europe (Raquel Ortega-Argilés, Carmen Hubbard, Christopher Huggins, John-Paul Salter, Ignazio Cabras, and Simon Usherwood) shared their own understandings about the likely disruptions in the different sectors that were addressed by the panels composed of policy-makers, business representatives and researchers.

The agrifood round-table, with Fabrice Sciumbata (Brioches Pasquier), Lydie Bernard (Regional Council Pays-de-la-Loire), Joao Pacheco (Farm Europe), and Carmen Hubbard (UK in a Changing Europe).

One of the major takeaways of the event was the perceived need to give more consideration to regional perspectives.

Just as Scotland feels – understandably – left out of a debate that circles around Westminster issues, so too the French regions, across which the impact of Brexit will vary considerably, have not been helped by a national approach either.

As one the regional councillors, Lydie Bernard, complained, even in a sector as essential to the French economy as the agrifood business, the available data is hardly ever broken down on a regional level.

Beyond the business data and economic prospects, however, the event concluded in a surprisingly humanistic profession of faith in transnational cooperation.

The Pays-de-la-Loire, as provincial as they may seem on a map, have their Brussels representation right on Rond-Point Schuman. Their policy makers and high civil servants are embedded in European networks, the British counterparts they regularly meet with are highly appreciated.

Vanessa Charbonneau

As Vanessa Charbonneau, Vice-President of the Regional Council, repeatedly insisted, they would – ‘of course!’ – be willing to continue to work together with their British neighbours in order to make the best of whatever would be going to happen.

Rather than shoulder-shrugging at the unforced self-destruction of a former premium nation, the overall attitude that seems to prevail in this part of France is one of compassion with a trusted partner whom you would like to help out of an impasse, but are unable to.

 

This post was initially published
on “The UK in a Changing Europe”

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So here we are. In little more than one month, Britain is due to crash out of the EU without an agreement as the single outcome a strong majority MPs abhor because of the damage it would do to jobs, tax receipts and relations to European and international partners. The agreement actually negotiated by the government was strongly rejected by two thirds. Instead, a fragile majority of MPs demand ill-defined ‘alternative arrangements’ to the Irish backstop, or want it gone completely. Labour insists on a permanent customs union that is a matter for the future relationship and is perfectly compatible with the withdrawal agreement, while the party’s ‘six tests’ can realistically only be met by staying in the single market with all the obligations this brings or remaining.

Those who know how the EU works such as the former UK permanent representative in Brussels, Ivan Rogers, are tearing their hair out over the level of ignorance and his sense of frustration is widely shared among the community of people who study the EU professionally. I don’t wish to rehash the critique of the government approach to the negotiations, but want to explore why so many MPs, both Tories and Labour, misjudged the degree of the EU’s unity, what the core interests of EU member states are, the asymmetry of power in the negotiation, and how to best influence it. If we consider insights from research into foreign policy and intelligence failures, four main reasons stand out:

Firstly, the EU-related knowledge basis and professional connections have been eroding over years, because of declining priority and associated career incentives of being successful in Brussels. During the Blair years the government was keen to and proud of setting the policy agenda in the EU in economic strategy, counter-terrorism and security and defence policy. This started to change already under Gordon Brown who showed little interest in or appreciation of Brussels politics.

Labour’s loss of knowledge continued the longer it stayed out of power, but also because those MPs with experience of governing under Blair were being side-lined by the new front-bench under Jeremy Corbyn. Mr Corbyn himself, a lifelong Eurosceptic as well as his key advisors and some on the front bench, tend to see the EU as an unreformable neoliberal project and, erroneously, think that delivering the 2017 Labour manifesto requires freedom from EU state-aid rules. From this perspective, there is no need for coalition building with the socialist parties in Europe who called to stay and reform.

The Conservatives’ understanding of the EU suffered from Cameron’s early decision to withdraw his party from the conservative grouping in the European parliament in exchange for Brexiteer support for his leadership. This cut off the Conservatives from the European mainstream, damaged relations to sister parties such as the German CDU, and disrupted information flow and influence. As a result, British MPs overestimated both Germany’s capacity as well as its willingness to help accommodate British demands, which were increasingly about stopping things rather than setting the agenda for new policies. The 2011 watershed failure of the government to block the Fiscal Compact designed to save the Eurozone was the first sign of misreading EU partners, closely followed in 2015 by futile efforts to block Jean-Claude Juncker becoming Commission President after his party grouping won the European Parliament elections.

The second explanation for the misjudgement is confirmation bias. This is a problem affecting not just MPs but many commentators and members of the public with the most passionately held political beliefs. Confirmation bias involves seeking and accepting information, because it supports actions that are in line with ones’ beliefs and disregard evidence that contradicts them, regardless of reliability, relevance or track-record of the source. One can always find some “expert opinion” from an ideologically compatible “think-tank” that supports ones’ view and avoid or discard those that jar or contradict it.

One of the benefits of confirmation bias for true believers is that you can never be disproven by real world events. If the EU did not blink and yield as David Davis and other Brexiteers argue it must have been because it was intransigent, arrogant and out to “punish” Britain – not because the UK harboured unrealistic ideas. If the deal was somehow approved at the last second and negotiations about a post-Brexit trade-deal turned out not to be “the easiest in history” it was because the Commons had lost its nerve to fight for a better deal. If the EU did not respond positively to a new approach from a potential Corbyn-led government it was because the Tories had destroyed trust through the negotiating tactics, rather than Labour engaging in wishful thinking.

The third problem is mirror-imaging whereby uncertainty about the intentions of the other side is filled by imagining what is rational from ones’ own point of view. From the perspective of many British MPs the EU insisting on the backstop even if it risks a no deal is an irrational strategy given the economic damage a no-deal would incur. Many also do not understand why Britain could not enjoy the same kind of access to the Single Market as before as it creates new barriers to European businesses. This reflects a strong tendency in British political discourse to see evaluate policies and the EU in particular from a narrow “bottom-line”, cost-benefits perspective.

In contrast, EU institutions and the overwhelming majority of its members see Brexit not just on its own terms, but as precedence creating and future credibility-defining. Cutting an economically favourable deal with a country wanting to be politically more distant would come at an unacceptable price of weakening the Union at a time when populist parties in government attempt hard-ball tactics. The integrity of the Single Market is at stake if Northern Ireland was outside the customs union without border controls or by allowing Britain to undercut standards to gain competitive advantage whilst enjoyed good access to the Single Market. The EU is determined to defend the Treaties as its quasi constitution, which is something difficult to understand in a country without a written constitution. The difficulty of arriving at a legally-binding text among 27 member states also helps to explain why such texts, once agreed, become very difficult to change and why the EU says it will not reopen the withdrawal agreement shaped around and agreed by the British government and the EU 27 at the end of last year.

Beyond the immediate issue of the Brexit negotiations, many British MPs struggle to understand the compromise-nature of EU politics. They see Brussels through the lens of their own confrontational system with strongly whipped parties and underpinned by first past the post elections. Many continental European countries are run by coalition governments and problem-solving-focused parliaments, making it easier for them understand the give and take in Brussels. The EU is a compromise-making machine geared towards building the broadest possible support even when majority votes are allowed. This works only because members agree on informal rules on how to act and share a minimum level of trust not abuse their rights. Casting vetoes, going into battle with publicly announced red-lines and reneging on agreements made has lost the UK trust and good-will even among the most Anglophile countries. The lack of trust has now become a major obstacle for negotiation success.

Finally, assumption drag helps to explain why many MPs still do not realise that their perceived understanding of how Brussels works does no longer apply. Not just MPs, but also many journalists remember long EU summit negotiations and the late-night compromises that typically enable a deal to made. Indeed, in the now distant past, Britain won some special concessions at these negotiations over new Treaty texts. However, this is not a normal EU summit over a new treaty or a major agreement where everyone needs to have prizes to sell at home. By voicing its intention to leave Britain has placed itself in a fundamentally different position of a prospective “third country” against which the remaining EU members defend their interests. While the EU is keen to get Brexit over with and passed and will show flexibility, particularly on the political declaration, it is not going to let either Ireland or its mandated negotiator, the European Commission, stand in the rain on such a high-stakes issue. Smaller member states in particular will watch this closely as a test-case.

The need to address these misunderstandings rises whatever the outcome of Brexit. It will be central to making a success of the coming negotiations about future relations if May’s deal passed. Remain will require a change of attitude. And even if Britain crashed out, it will still remain strongly connected to and impacted by the European Union by virtue of geography, economic links, law, security cooperation and, indeed people. As long as the EU exists and confounds Brexiteers predictions of its imminent demise, Britain without a seat at the table and voting rights will have an even greater need to understand how the EU works in order to influence it from the outside.

 

*Christoph Meyer is Professor of European and International Politics at King’s College London. An abbreviated version of this text was published under the title ‘Brexit turmoil: five ways British MPs misunderstand the European Union’, in The Conservation and Uk in a Changing Europe, on 7 February 2019.

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What is Communicating Europe?

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License, created by Niaz.

Communicating Europe really started as an idea, or rather a reflection, after watching the BBC Great Debate in June 2016 between representatives of different UK-based political parties regarding whether to leave the EU, or to stay inside and make it stronger.  The reflection I had at the time was that, for all the importance of the issues being discussed and indeed the importance of EU membership more generally, here were several politicians speaking past each other on these issues, all with very different understandings of what the EU is, how it functions, what it does, and why it does it.  What is the EU?  What are its values?  Is it an oppressive, distant bureaucracy, crushing the sovereignty of its composite members?  Is it a neoliberal economic project, seeking instead to extract whatever financial value there may be from its workers, to the detriment of their welfare, quality of life and happiness?  Is it instead a compromise between states, flawed or otherwise, that nevertheless stands for certain fundamental principles such as the rule of law, equality, human rights and social democracy?  Is it none of these things?  Or perhaps is it a complex amalgamation of all these things?

Communicating about the EU

The EU fundamentally changes, depending on who you speak to, and what they say.  The same individuals may even speak differently about the EU depending on their audience.  We are all familiar with the political actors who support the EU and its project in Brussels, taking full part in its activities and policy-making, who then decry it in domestic politics.  The trade unionist who talks of making stands against the onslaught on workers’ rights by a removed technocracy in public speeches to delegates, who realises the importance of compromise and shared responsibilities when attending closed stakeholder meetings.  We know of traditional media, becoming increasingly balkanized in their communications to their target audience, dividing themselves into camps that could almost be considered ‘EUrophiles’ and ‘EUrophobes’.  So too are we aware of new ways of communicating about Europe, far from the language and rules traditional media.  Online citizen campaigning about Europe, academics engaging in ‘public intellectualism’ through short YouTube videos or symposiums, and somewhat more shady, unknown entities going beyond expressing views or opinions on the EU based on the facts as they see them, instead seeking to deliberately mislead through the creation of extreme narratives and ‘false facts’.  The various ways and means of talking about the EU and its actions, policies, values and value are becoming increasingly complex, emotive, and yet, incorporating a greater number of actors than ever before.  How can we understand what is happening?

About the Research Group

Communicating Europe is the attempt to explore these fascinating interactions between different actors and audiences in far more detail.  Coordinated by Dr Benjamin Farrand at Newcastle University, Dr Isabel Camisão at the University of Coimbra, Dr Katjana Gattermann at the University of Amsterdam, and Professor Catherine de Vries at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, this UACES Research Network seeks to bring an interdisciplinary perspective to bear on the questions of who talks about the EU; how; why; and with what effect, bringing insights from international relations, law, sociology, politics and communication.  Through its activities in workshops and panels at international conferences, Communicating Europe will create a larger network of researchers considering how the EU is communicated, what influences the mode and content of communications, how it relates to broader trends, and how, if at all, these communications should be regulated by legal systems.  This first blog post, as the reader is no doubt aware, does not shed any particular light on any of the issues raised – it instead constitutes a statement of intent, a beginning of a conversation, and perhaps, a call to action.  Communicating Europe welcomes any and all academics, whether established Professors or Early Career Researchers just beginning a PhD to become involved.  We will be publishing information shortly regarding our initial UACES conference panels on these topics, and a call for papers for an opening event to take place in late May or early June 2019.  We look forward to working with all of you.  If you are interested in finding out more, do not hesitate to contact uacescommunicatingeurope@gmail.com to be added to our mailing list.

Benjamin Farrand, on behalf of Communicating Europe.

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University of Tartu. Photo from www.ut.ee

Teele Tõnismann

In my paper “Paths of Baltic States’ public research funding 1989–2010: Between institutional heritage and internationalization” (Tõnismann, 2018) I analyse transformations in public research funding of the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The paper is part of my PhD thesis where the topic is further explored with the example of research funding practices in the discipline of sociology.

 

Divergent impact of European Union politics in the Baltics

The paper focuses on the international competition in research funding policy. In research policy literature, competition is mostly seen to accompany “project-based” funding systems, which spread in the Western world since 1960 as a counter to so-called “institutional” or “basic” funding models. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, project-based funding systems were also established in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. As with the other Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, the EU accession is considered to have played significant roles in actualising these developments (Radosevic, Lepori, 2009). The overall transformation in these three countries encompassed the establishment of independent funding bodies, the introduction of project-based funding instruments, and the linking of institutional evaluation with research funding as was taking place in Western European countries.

 

However, against theoretical assumptions developed by neo-institutionalist authors (see below), these changes entailed significant differences. First, all three countries ended up with different shares of funding instruments. In a fashion similar to the ‘US system’, Estonia and Latvia rely mostly on project-based funding instruments while Lithuania’s public funding is built on a combination of core and project funding; this is typical of the ‘continental European funding systems’. Secondly, international dimensions of competitiveness in these systems occurred at various times: In Estonia before, in Latvia during, and in Lithuania after EU accession. Finally, policy changes gave different outputs, meaning that the research performances of the three Baltic States differ, with one country of the three—Estonia—surpassing the others. Consequently, the aim of this article was to better understand the factors that influenced the divergence in these three countries.

 

Limits of historical neo-institutionalism in explaining the impact of internationalisation

The Baltic case allows the discussion of works that have addressed similar questions using neo-institutional approaches. Although traditionally the external context is seen to have an impact on national institutional arrangements only through major ruptures or changes in an institutional environment, some recent historical neo-institutional authors have claimed this view. They claim that besides external factors, such as the restoration of national independence or accession to the EU, endogenous factors such as local political context and actors’ ability to interpret institutional rules play a crucial explanatory role in delineating the different change trajectories (Mahoney and Thelen, 2010).

 

In the article, I have applied the approach to the Baltics case and found that it raises at least two questions. First, if the political veto power could indeed explain the differences between the late Lithuanian reforms and those of its two northern neighbours, then how can we explain the Estonian reformers’ decision to move towards criteria favouring international competitiveness in a project-based funding system, while Latvian reformers did not? Secondly, if Latvian reform could be explained by political pressure coming from the EU, then how can we explain Lithuanian change agents’ motivation to delay change until 2009 even when political context would have allowed the change in the early 2000s? And although Latvia’s first changes were implemented in 2005, why has no substantial change occurred since?

 

These questions are showing the limits of the historical neo-institutionalism approach for understanding change in the Baltics. Instead, for a better understanding of the Baltic case, we drew on the works of recent historical neo-institutionalist authors and supplemented them with an analysis of change actors’ knowledge resources acquired from different international contexts.

 

Internationalisation as an endogenous factor of change?

In sum, the paper proposes the following hypothesis: to better understand the Baltic States’ divergent policy trajectories, internationalisation should be conceptualised as an endogenous factor of change, instead of perceiving it as an exogenous factor, as is theorised by historical institutionalist authors. The “endogenous” factor of change denotes here the “resource”  that change actors might engage for undertaking national policy reforms (Knoepfel et al. 2007) and that they have collected through their educational, professional, administrative, associative and political life trajectories.

 

Indeed, we found that the higher level of Western international knowledge resources with Estonian reform actors, compared to their Latvian counterparts at the beginning of the 1990s, and coupled with the political and institutional context, could explain the Estonian reformers’ decision to move towards integrating criteria favouring international competitiveness in a project-based funding system while Latvian reformers did not introduce these criteria. Similarly, a higher level of Western international knowledge resources with Lithuanian reformers compared to their Latvian counterparts can explain Lithuanian change actors’ motivation to undertake substantial changes in 2009 at the moment of national political change. At the same time, in Latvia, the changes were implemented incrementally and in a top-down method since 2005, as there has not been the emergence of a strong group of reformers with relevant knowledge resources.

 

It seems that actors’ knowledge resources gathered from different international contexts influence their intervention capacities in political processes and hence allow them to shape the institutional paths in given national contexts. Also, political and institutional contexts offer opportunities for change actors to use their resources to enact these changes. Hence, both the knowledge resources that actors have gathered from international environments and the motivation for their utilisation in national contexts need to be analysed in the context of the historical neo-institutionalism framework.

 

The results provide further understanding about the factors that have had a role in forming the differences in the Baltics’ research funding policy systems, and the given analysis can also contribute to better understanding the more general transformation in CEE innovation policies. The focus on the groups of reforms actors’ trajectories and their coalitions could better explain why some strongly pushed EU R&D policy objectives (such as private sector R&D specialisation or a socio-economically relevant public R&D system) are not fully implemented in the Baltics. Lastly, relative to long-term transformation in CEE policies, the Baltic cases expose the need to shift the focus from “eurocentrism” and to take multiple international change factors into account when explaining international impacts on local policy trajectories. The utilisation of different international contexts by change actors can explain the repertoire of solutions that are within the actors’ grasp.

 

Teele Tõnismann is, since 2014, a PhD student under the joint supervision of Sciences-Po Toulouse LaSSP and Tallinn University of Technology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance. She currently holds a prominent Estonian Government research scholarship: Kristjan Jaak.

 

References

Knoepfel, P., Corinne, L., Varone, F. et al. (2007) Public Policy Analysis. Bristol: Policy Press.

Mahoney, J. and Kathleen, T. (2010) Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power. Cambridge: CUP.

Radosevic, S., Lepori B. (2009) “Public research funding systems in Central and Eastern Europe: between excellence and relevance: Introduction to special section”, Science and Public Policy, 36/9: 659-666.

Tõnismann, T. (2018) “Paths of Baltic States public research funding 1989–2010: Between institutional heritage and internationalisation”, Science and Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scy066

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Britain may be an island, but we are part of a continent and a planet. And it’s only by countries working closely together that urgent issues such as climate change can be effectively tackled.

What’s the alternative? That Britain retreats into an island mentality, thinking we can go it alone as if we were the only country in the world, the only nation of our continent?

That cannot be the way forward for Britain.

Working closely with other countries means agreeing democratic structures to reach decisions that affect us all, regardless of national boundaries. That can’t be done in isolation. That cannot be achieved unless we are a part of that democratic structure, and not apart from it.

The EU has evolved over the past six decades to provide European countries with a powerful and effective way to reach democratic decisions to enhance and protect all our lives. It’s been a remarkable achievement, of which the UK has been at its forefront for over 40 years.

As far as our continent is concerned, there is no other structure that enables Britain to have a say on the running and future of Europe. Outside the EU, we will only be able to look on as decisions that affect us are made without us.

And for what benefit? None that anyone can say. Not one.

If it’s right to leave the EU and ‘go it alone’ then why stop at the EU?

On the same basis, why don’t we leave the United Nations, NATO, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, the European Convention on Human Rights, Interpol, the Commonwealth, and over 14,000 international treaties that the UK has signed up to?

Leaving makes no sense. Britain cannot go it alone. Turning our back on the world and our continent will just leave us isolated, alone, vulnerable and without friends and allies just when we need them.

International issues need an international approach. And climate change is the biggest international issue facing all of us right now.

No single organisation on the planet is doing more than the EU to tackle climate change.

Climate change is threatening Europe’s water resources – and Britain is not excluded from that threat. We are affected just as much as any other country on our continent.

(Article continues after this one-minute video)

The European Parliament – one of the world’s largest democratic assemblies – wants to safeguard our continent’s freshwater sources by promoting the re-use of water wherever possible.

The Parliament is making democratic decisions to push for urban wastewater to be used for irrigation, offsetting the environmental and economic costs of droughts and other extreme weather conditions.

Does Britain really want to be on the side lines of our continent, looking on, as these plans and more are made without us?

Britain is due to leave the EU next month, without any plans in place. That’s just daft. Actually, it’s more than daft. It’s a dereliction of common sense.

Walking out of the door, into the unknown, will not solve anything.

It’s not too late to stop the madness of Brexit. Parliament, in its wisdom, could revoke Article 50 right now, and we could keep our place in the EU on exactly the same beneficial terms as we have enjoyed for decades.

Please, write to your MP today and tell him or her that’s what you want. Over 60 polls since 2017 also confirm that’s what Britain wants.

Tell your MP to act on ‘the will of the people’ and arrange for a U-turn on Brexit. It’s urgent. In just a few weeks time, it will be too late. 

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Let me put my hands up on this one right at the start: I’m writing about this because it’s a more familiar case to me than many others. I know and work with several people at the European University Institute, even though I’ve not had any formal link with the place.

For those unfamiliar with the EUI, it’s a postgraduate and post-doctoral research centre, established in the early 1970s, specialising on various aspects of European governance and law and based in a charming village in the hills above Florence. It’s a world-class institution, both in terms of the work it produces and the reputation it holds among academics and various EU circles: scarcely a week goes by without someone very important giving a speech there.

In short, it’s an excellent example of what can come from international collaboration on research.

So today’s question is then, why is the UK leaving it?

Yesterday the government published a statutory instrument to the effect that the UK would no longer be a signatory to the Convention establishing the EUI come the end of EU membership, so needed to remove any implications of that Convention from UK law.

The memorandum attached notes that “The European Communities (Definition of Treaties) Order 1975 (SI 1975/408) designates the Convention as an “EU Treaty” as defined in section 1 of the European Communities Act 1972” and as such it falls when the UK is no longer an EU member state.

But let’s explore this further.

As the memorandum also notes “The Convention Setting up a European University Institute is an international agreement”, so let’s go read that Convention.

Article 1 starts with “By this Convention, the Member States of the European Communities (hereinafter called the “Contracting States”) jointly set up the European University Institute (hereinafter called the “Institute”).” This is probably the root of the issue, since it links the EC (as it was at the time of signing) with membership. Article 32(1) might seem to underline that point by noting “Any Member State of the European Communities besides the Contracting States may accede to this Convention”, which they all have.

However, let’s compare this with the other case you’ve heard about, namely the EEA.

In that treaty, membership of the UK is very clearly a function of being a member of the EU (see Article 2): the activity of the EEA can only happen with EU membership for non-EFTA members.

But the EUI Convention isn’t like that. The very limited function of the Institute requires nothing of signatories that springs from their EU membership: states could sign up as EU members, but not because of it.

Put differently, while the Convention requires signatories to be EU members when they join, it does not require them to leave when they stop.

So what, you ask: it’s just a bunch of academics swanning about in Tuscany.

Well, no, it’s not (and they don’t). Three key reasons stand out.

Firstly, the government (and Leavers) have repeatedly stressed that the UK is leaving the EU, not Europe. If there is a concern that other links should be maintained post-withdrawal, then it seems odd to take the position that any more than the bare minimum of ties be cut. In this case, the Convention carries minimal financial liabilities or freedom of movement implications. Indeed, this particular case represents a cutting off of what could potentially be a key avenue for informal discussions with key people from across Europe.

Secondly, the government has consistently claimed that it wants to keep close ties on research and education. After the whole Galileo saga and the on-going refusal to remove students from immigration figures, the move to end involvement in the EUI looks more like a revealed preference for less cooperation, somewhat perversely after the UK’s concerns about the CEU in Budapest. As my timeline yesterday highlighted, that will feed (and has fed) back into the UK HE sector.

Finally, this whole case shows the difficulties of managing a massive change in public policy. The statutory instrument makes no mention of what happens to existing UK nationals studying or working at the EUI, nor of how to handle any liabilities. As one of several hundred SIs that the UK needs to put into effect by the day of withdrawal, it will get minimal scrutiny, even as it has assorted effects that look unnecessary or even pernicious.

And there we have it: another small example of how Brexit is going to have effects far beyond the immediate circle of impacts that we usually discuss.

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Not the curry in question, just a stock photo of someone who eats off chopping boards…

Like the rest of you, I spent much of Christmas trying hard not to think too hard about Brexit, and for the most part I succeeded.

Right up until about 0100 on 1 January, when I lay awake in bed like some modern-day Scrooge, thinking about Brexits to come.

Experience told me that then wasn’t the time to share with loved ones, so I’ve saved it up for you lot instead.

You’re welcome.

The curry

For reasons that needn’t bother us here, we stayed in on New Year’s Eve: this became the plan relatively late in the day, but we put into effect some options. a contingency, if you will.

That contingency centred on ordering a curry from our regular provider. For context, they deliver super-fast (current record is 20 minutes and the mean is only about 10 minutes more), the food is always really good, and we’ve never had problems before.

Of course, we knew that NYE was likely to be a bit different, as others might have had the same idea as us, so we called at 6.30 to order early: we’d cover the gap to midnight with movies and family board games (it’s non-stop fun round ours).

In the spirit of the season, the adults consumed some alcohol and everyone consumed some nibbles, while we chatted and waited.

Time passed.

After an hour-and-a-half, I tried calling the curry house for an indication of when the curry might arrive. Both numbers were engaged, and remained engaged every one of the times we tried for the next hour or more.

Initially, this wasn’t a problem, but by the time 9 o’clock was heaving into view, we were talking about further contingencies: trying to piece together something from the (rather bare) cupboard, basically, since no one was in a condition to drive anywhere, and shops and restaurants would be closed.

Just as we were about to get going on cooking some plain pasta, the doorbell rang. The curry was there, delivered by an apologetic guy who explained that he’d been drafted in at 8 o’clock to help with the backlog of deliveries.

Obviously, our frustration was tempered by the smell of the food, so down we sat to eat. Whereupon it become apparent that the curry had been prepared with its usual speed and efficiency. At 6.30.

Fun through it was to observe the younger members of the family compete on how far they could bend their poppadoms (very far, BTW), it did rob the meal of something (enjoyable poppadoms, mainly), as did the missing bits of the order.

So middle-class, so what?

You don’t care about my curry, and nor should you: we eventually got a meal that still tasted good for the very large majority of its parts, plus we made the getting-to-midnight bit of NYE quite a bit simpler.

But for me, laying there some hours later, it underlined some key points about contingency planning (because that’s the crazy-fun kind of guy I am).

Most obviously, contingencies need preparation: the more critical the situation, the less scope there is for making things up as you go, there and then. We’d not planned for no-curry, but we had some food in the house: if we’d been dealing with something involving a system critical to life, then we’d have made absolutely sure we had everything in place, plus back-ups.

But the evening also highlights another key part of contingency planning: the interconnectedness of processes. Put differently, there’s stuff you can control and stuff you can’t, so you either need to bring enough under your control to make your contingency work or you need to get others to also prepare for the contingency.

In the case of the curry, we’d assumed the curry place would have enough experience of NYE demand to maintain their usual service provision. And they mostly did: the food was prepared promptly and largely correctly. But there was a bottle-neck in the deliveries: the reason could have been any of  of several factors, but the capacity to unblock the problem was evidently limited. In addition, the general nature of the problem exacerbated the problem, as lots of people were obviously trying to phone in and find out what was happening with their orders, making it harder to provide that information to others.

Thus, our contingency – staying in – relied on the curry house’s contingency – ramping-up for NYE – which in turn relied on the delivery team’s situation. Our own choices – a couple of drinks – meant we’d closed down some contingencies to our contingency – driving over to the curry place, or to find a corner-shop still open.

All of which is to say that planning for even the mundane can be difficult.

And Brexit is not mundane at all: it’s systemic, it’s profound in its effects and it contains a high degree of uncertainty.

This was all thrown into some relief over Christmas by the story of the plans for cross-Channel ferries.

The government had spent £100m on securing extra capacity on routes beyond Dover-Calais, to try and reduce some of the bottle-necking that will likely ensue in a no-deal scenario. Most of that money went to established providers, but £14m went to a ‘start-up’, planning to run Ramsgate-Oostende services, but not actually yet in possession of a vessel.

Quite aside for the process issues involved – the government bypassed tendering for all this – we can see the same problems as with my curry.

The government relies on the start-up to be able to provide the service, but the start-up relies on someone else to provide it with a vessel or two; on Ramsgate harbour to dredge sufficiently-deep channels for the ferries to be able to navigate the port; and on the British and Belgian governments to provide the necessary customs and border control infrastructure in both ports to allow goods to access the ferry.

At the most mundane level, the company will need suitably skilled personnel to sail, dock and load the ferries.

Modern economic, social and political systems are characterised by these kinds of networks of different individuals and organisations, working with and across each other. To expect that any one of these – even a government – to be able (let alone willing) to cover all the risk and all the possible contingencies is at best misguided, and at worse highly problematic.

As we roll towards March, we’re going to see many more cases like the ferries, where the systemic issues and bottle-necks become apparent, alongside the limited capacity of anyone to address them.

That doesn’t mean we’re helpless, but the more there is an understanding of what is and isn’t realistic to expect, the better everyone can manage their expectations and work towards finding resolutions.

The post A story about a curry and no-deal planning appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

It’s been confirmed by both the Prime Minister, Theresa May, and the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, that the choice now is either ‘the deal’, ‘no deal ‘or ‘no Brexit’.

‘The deal’ negotiated between the EU and Theresa May is the best Brexit deal available, according to both sides. In any event, the EU is adamant: the negotiations are over, and ‘the deal’ cannot be amended or debated any more.

On or around 14 January, our Parliament will vote on whether or not it accepts ‘the deal’.

If Parliament does accept it, then sadly, that’s the end of the Remain campaign and Reasons2Remain. The long and tortuous Brexit process will have reached its conclusion, and the UK really will be leaving the EU on 29 March.

We cannot campaign to remain after we’ve left, although we are confident that new campaigns will emerge to rejoin the EU in the future.

But by all accounts, it is more than likely that Parliament will reject ‘the deal’ when it’s put to the vote in a couple of weeks time.

Then, who should choose what happens next?

(Article continues after one-minute video)

If Parliament cannot resolve the impasse on Brexit, then the choice should be put back to us, the people, by way of a new advisory referendum.

Theresa May keeps saying she’s determined to deliver on ‘the will of the people’. But before she can do that, she should find out what it is.

Yes, she needs to ascertain what the ‘people’s will’ is today, and not what it might have been over two years ago, when no one knew the fuller details of Brexit that we now know.

We now know from the government’s own reports that all versions of Brexit will cause Britain considerable damage. There is no good Brexit.

We also now know that a ‘no deal’ Brexit would be the worst option of all.

Two independent bodies – our Civil Service and the Bank of England – have completed in-depth analysis and calculations. They both conclude that leaving the EU without any deal would be catastrophic for Britain. We should not even contemplate that.

Multiple assessments, including the opinion of the vast majority of economists, confirm that Britain will be better-off, safer and with greater influence by remaining a member of the EU.

Maybe, then, it’s no surprise that over 50 polls since last year’s general election all show that a majority in the country considers that Brexit is a mistake.

But the only poll that will count is new national ballot on Brexit. If that’s the next step, Parliament will be wise to exclude ‘no deal’ from the ballot paper.

If there is a new referendum, the choice – which has to be agreed by Parliament – is likely to be ‘the deal’ or ‘no Brexit’.

IF ‘THE DEAL’ WINS, SO BE IT.

We will leave the EU on the government’s agreed terms. It will be the end of the Remain campaign, but new campaigns will emerge to rejoin.

IF ‘NO BREXIT’ WINS – MEANING WE STAY IN THE EU – SO BE IT.

The European Court of Justice has already ruled that the UK can cancel Brexit, and rescind the Article 50 notice, and stay in the EU on our current good terms.

As Mrs May keeps saying: ‘Let’s get on with it.’

The sooner the better, so that we can wrap this up and all move on from three years of Brexit chaos and calamity.

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My path into political science as a profession was never planned. It started rather accidentally, quite exactly 10 years ago, without me knowing that I would end up where I am today. This year, in 2019, I will try to regularly blog about this profession, my own research, and the research of others – even if this promise may end up one of those New Year’s resolutions that never really materialise.

Why do I want to start with such a series of blog posts? Mainly because I see, in online and offline conversations, with friends and family, with colleagues, and with strangers, that academic life in general and the work of a political scientist in particular need a bit more public explaining and a little more public reflection. I also get asked quite often whether what I, what we, do is relevant for society at large. So, I feel that I should explain more, and better.

When I say “I”, what does the I stands for?

It stands for the perspective of a white, male, fully mobile, German scholar (to highlight just a few dimensions of who I am) who is working on a full-time, multi-year contract at a major German university. Currently, I am an advanced postdoc, employed in a research project at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute at LMU Munich. When I’m asked what I’m an expert on, I’d probably say that I focus on United Nations and European Union institutions and finances.

I also come from a family that values and encourages education: my parents have university degrees and have always supported my path(s), whether I wanted to become a diplomat (in my late teens and early 20s), be a PhD student in political science after realising that diplomacy wasn’t for me (in my mid-20s), turn to professional activism close to my PhD topic (in my late 20s) or start the life of a university-based political scientist (in my 30s).

Why is this relevant? Because I have learnt to know my privileges, and because my path into academia shapes how I see the world and this profession.

First, I work in an environment that under-represents women and that also lacks diversity with regard to other dimensions of social and individual personal backgrounds. On most of these dimensions, I score clearly towards traditional individual privilege. And even though the individual is pretty important in academic life, the academic system also favours well-known, rich, and Western institutions. As I work at such an institution, I have additional institutional privilege.

Second, although I am not tenured, my personal background and professional situation as well as my path into academia make that I feel less pressured by the precarious life situations that most of my peers face, in various combinations. These precarious situations include short term contracts; unwanted part-time contracts; implicit and explicit pressures to be highly mobile across countries, continents or world-wide, independent of family and relationship situations; being required to do research-unrelated teaching and to deliver on requests related to university administration while being mainly evaluated on research output and fundraising success for career advancement; etc. Although I face some of these pressures (some increasingly), my personal and professional situation eases my ability to deal with them (for now).

Third, when I study the United Nations and the European Union institutions and finances, I look at the world through the eyes of a Western European scholar, despite some East European socialisation and despite my urge to better include different perspectives into my work. So far, I focus mainly on the powerful in my research, not the powerless. I build on the notions of democracy, bureaucracy, culture, politics, etc. that I have grown up with, perspectives that my own, mostly male, mostly Western, exclusively white professors and academic supervisors have rarely questioned, at least not fundamentally. So my perspective is well enough into the current mainstream to not feel marginalised academically, even when I work on so far unexplored issues.

In light of this, my goal for this year is not to explain “how political science works” as if this was an objective perspective where personal and institutional factors don’t matter. I simply would like to share more often what I do, whether it’s researching, teaching, publishing or communicating science; to share more frequently what I learn, whether it ends up in academic publications or not; and to publish one or the other commentary on academic life as I experience it, without having to go through the lengths of the traditional academic publication process.

PS: If I blogged at least weekly, something between 500 and 1000 words per article, I’d end up with around 25,000 to 50,000 words, that is 4-6 academic articles or about half an academic book. If academia stays the way it is, this will not be counted as academic publishing and it will not be considered by search committees. Because it’s on social media.

It means what I write here is not registered on Google Scholar or in the Social Science Citation Index, and it therefore does not count in academic terms. That’s fine for me. It’s fine because the only blog post that I managed to write in 2018 – I was much more prolific in previous years – already has about as many views as the first peer reviewed academic article I ever published (paywalled, published more than two years earlier in 2016). My only blog post last year was in German [Google translation]), about why major academic conferences and political science as a profession are not as bad as reported in a major German newspaper. I take this as an encouragement to write more about my job and my profession, whether it counts or not.

The post 2019 in Political Science – A Personal Account (1) appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

…whatever be cause or effect, the disintegration of culture is the most serious and the most difficult to repair.

T S Elliot, Notes Toward a Definition of Culture, 1948

What words can be used to portray the present state of European and Western culture?  Diluted, fragmented, anchorless, drifting, and increasingly meaningless? Are we living in the mere afterglow of the brightest moments of a civilization now dimming?  Or, are these false notions?  Does Europe remain a coherent whole, its culture, traditions and heritage intact and unthreatened?

To pull back, to ‘zoom out’ in an attempt to discern the process of a declining civilization, to assess the state of health of a culture comprising centuries of shared recognition is no small intellectual task.  Nevertheless it was undertaken by the  Anglo-American poet and critic T. S. Elliot in his famous post-war essay, Notes Toward a Definition of Culture.  Elliot, the Nobel Prize for Literature winner for that same year, was convinced that Europe as a historic focus for our common values and beliefs was indeed in trouble.  Writing  three years after the close of the Second War, he laid the groundwork for his observations by first arguing that ‘culture’ and religion were inseparable, the opposite sides of the same coin:

The first important assertion is that no culture has appeared or developed except together with a religion: according to the point of view of the observer, the culture will appear to be the product of the religion, or the religion the product of the culture.

By culture, Elliot meant the aggregate of human excellence and achievement in every sphere, and not just the more modern and narrower notion of art, literature and music.  As for religion, it was the accumulated and shared recognition of our Judaeo-Greek heritage.  And, it is the linking of these two – culture and religion, that Elliot sought to underscore and emphasize.

. . . we may ask whether any culture could come into being, or maintain itself, without a religious basis. We may go further and ask whether what we call the culture, and what we call the religion, of a people are not different aspects of the same thing: the culture being, essentially, the incarnation (so to speak) of the religion of a people.

The decline of religious belief and practice in western society is well documented.  The impact of that decline less so.  If Elliot is right, might it mean a concomitant decline in western culture as well? Can there be a Europe, a Western civilization without the foundation of Christianity and its precursors?  Or, is the very essence of two millennia of the ethics derived from our Judaeo-Greek heritage so ingrained that even a thin vestige remains a permanent basis for our day-to-day functioning as a society, informing virtually everything from law to art?  Put another way, can we successfully cling to long-recognised beliefs without believing?

For the culture we know, for its evolved system of values to survive, Eliot thought three conditions must be met:

The first of these is organic (not merely planned, but growing) structure, such as will foster the hereditary transmission of culture within a culture: and this requires the persistence of social classes. The second is the necessity that a culture should be analysable, geographically, into local cultures: this raises the problem of ‘regionalism’. The third is the balance of unity and diversity in religion — that is, universality of doctrine with particularity of cult and devotion.

To take the most contentious, why ‘social classes’?  In an era of mass democratization, the smoothing out, flattening and blurring of racial, ethnic and even sexual distinctions, now inflamed and driven by social media, may be the first hint that trouble lies ahead.

In her 1961 book, The Crisis in Culture: It’s Social and It’s Political Significance, German-American political scientist Hannah Arendt traced the origin of class to the second half of the 19th century:

Society began to monopolize “culture” for its own purposes, such as social position and status. This had much to do with the socially inferior position of Europe’s middle classes, which found themselves as soon as they acquired the necessary wealth and leisure in an uphill fight against the aristocracy and its contempt for the vulgarity of sheer moneymaking. In this fight for social position, culture began to play an enormous role as one of the weapons, if not the best-suited one, to advance oneself socially, and to “educate oneself” out of the lower regions, where supposedly reality was located, up into the higher, non-real regions, where beauty and the spirit supposedly were at home.

This evidently is Elliot’s ‘transmission of a culture within a culture’ at work.  It clearly would not have worked had there been no ‘upper class’ to envy, admire and imitate.  The trouble Elliot foresaw was also predicted by Hannah Arendt, albeit more than a decade later.  For both it was a fragmentation of the social classes and the uses they put to culture which was at the root of the problem.

Instead of enriching life, thought Arendt, culture was increasingly becoming utilitarian, a method of social advancement, and not an end in itself.  This, of course, is what is behind the rise of mass culture, a culture to be bought and sold.  For Elliot that meant fragmentation and decline:

If I am not mistaken, some disintegration of the classes in which culture is, or should be, most highly developed, has already taken place in western society — as well as some cultural separation between one level of society and another. Religious thought and practice, philosophy and art, all tend to become isolated areas cultivated by groups in no communication with each other.

What neither could have known or even anticipated was the re-emergence of another totally different culture, one that had swept much of the then known world in the middle ages – including significant parts of Europe.  It is, of course, Islam, and today it is happening as Christian culture falters and stumbles, unsure of itself, questioning its relevance to modern life and hence its very future.

In an ironic echo of early Christian and Jewish values, the religion of Mohammed is demanding and uncompromising.  To step aside invites harsh punishment.  It is disciplined, organised and above all, rising in influence within Europe.  The overwhelmingly Muslims migrants causing so much political turmoil in Europe are a  growing in every respect – in numbers, and in economic and even in political power.  Abandoning much of what is taken for granted by Muslims as their religious duty, Christians have made their ‘deal’ with God.  ‘Render onto Caesar’ has become manifest, best seen in the West’s insistence on the strict separation of church and state.  In Islam there is no such concept.

We must turn to Roman history to see what could be the outcome of what the late American historian Samuel Huntingdon thought would become a ‘clash of civilizations.’  Gibbon in his Decline and Fall, saw the incursion of Christianity into Rome as fundamental to the Roman collapse. In his autobiography Gibbon says “…I believed, and as I still believe, that the propagation of the Gospel, and the triumph of the church, are inseparably connected with the decline of the Roman monarchy…”

Modern scholarship on the relationship between Christianity and the fall of Rome is more nuanced, as was Elliot himself in his essay, noting that “. . . the culture with which primitive Christianity came into contact (as well as that of the environment in which Christianity took its origins) was itself a religious culture in decline.”

Whatever is happening, whatever will be its outcome, this conclusion by Elliot seems indisputable:

… the one thing that time is ever sure to bring about is the loss: gain or compensation is almost always conceivable but never certain. 

If there is neither heaven nor hell; neither saints nor sinners, what will we tell the children?

 

Mike Ungersma

Christmas, 2018, Benicassim, Spain

 

 

The post Neither Heaven nor Hell; Neither Saints nor Sinners appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The following report contains words and quotations that have been translated from German into English by Jolyon Gumbrell.

Secret political donations have allowed external actors to interfere with elections and referendums in EU member states, which is damaging the democratic process across Europe. Often the source of a political donation can be traced to a company or organization based in a tax haven such as the Isle of Man or Switzerland, but finding out who is really behind the source of these multi million euro or pound donations is more difficult.

In Germany an organization called the “Verein zur Erhaltung der Rechtsstaatlichkeit und der bürgerliche Freiheit” – which translates as “club for the maintenance of the rule of law and citizens freedom”, also referred to in English as the “Rights and Freedom Club” – has supported the right wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party in several elections. The chaiman of the AfD, Jörg Meuthen denied in “ARD-Sommerinterview” the summer television interview with ARD of July 2018, that his party had ever worked with the Rights and Freedom Club. However the chairman of the Rights and Freedom Club, David Bendels is also the publisher of Deutschland-Kurier, a political newspaper that supports the AfD.

According to email and interview evidence presentented by the German television program “ARD-Politikmagazin Panorama”: David Bendels gave1500 free copies of Deutschland-Kuriers to the AfD’s regional association in Rosenheim. The copies of the newspaper were distributed by party volunteers to local mail boxes. This happened in July 2018 three months before the state elections in Bavaria for the “Landtag”, the state parliament in Munich.

According to a legal and constitutional expert, Prof. Sophie Schönberger interviewed by ARD-Politikmagazin Panorama: “the email evidence is a comprehensive connection between the club and the AfD, which means comprehensive proof that there was an agreement for election support between the AfD and the club. And this delivers plausible clues for the first time, that it concerns a type of illegal party financing.”

The AfD should have recorded the donation of the copies of Deutschland-Kurier in their accounts of election expenses. If the AfD had published and printed its own newspaper, then 1500 copies distributed in the Rosenheim area would have probably cost the party at least €3000 to produce. However Deutschland-Kurier did not pass this cost on to the AfD, and the newspaper has also been distributed in other locations in support of AfD election candidates. If the Rights and Freedom Club is funding Deutscland-Kurier, then the members of this club are in effect AfD donors.

Under German law political donations received from countries outside of the EU are illegal, unless they come from a German or other EU citizen, or a company which has at least 50 percent of its shares in German or EU hands. Anonymous donations exceeding €500, and anonymous donations passed on from a third party are also forbidden.

According to reports in the German and Swiss press from the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Wochenzeitung (WOZ), the secretive billionaire August von Finck is thought to be a donor to the Rights and Freedom Club. It is thought that Fink’s authorized representative Ernst Knut Stahl is one of the people behind the Rights and Freedom Club, who has in the past organized on Finck’s behalf, political donations to right wing parties and organizations.

August von Finck junior who is now 88, was heir to a fortune that came from his family’s business, the private bank Merck Finck & Co. His father also called August von Finck was the main shareholder of Merck Finck & Co., and sat on the supervisory board of several German companies in the 1930s. According to an article of 29th November 2018, published on the WOZ website entitled, “Ein schrecklich rechte Familie”, which translates as, “A right terrible family”: Finck senior was a member of a group of industrialists who met secretly with Hitler in 1933 and deceided to support the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) with a secret election fund of three million Reichtsmarks.

During the Nazi period Finck senior profiteered from businesses and property which had been stolen from Jews by the Nazis. He was also on the boad of trustees of “Haus der Deutschen Kunst”, an art gallery built between 1933 and 1937 in Munich, which used art for Nazi propaganda purposes. After the Second World War the Allies did not consider him as a serious Nazi War Criminal, even though he had helped fund Hitler’s rise to power. In 1949 he was able to re-establish the bank Merck Finck & Co. In 1973 Finck senior also known as “Freiherr” or Baron, bought a castle called Schloss Weinfeld in Switzerland. Finck senior died in 1980 and the castle has since then remained in the possession of his son August von Finck junior.

It has been estimated in the media, that August von Finck junior has a fortune of more than €8 billion. In 1990 he sold the bank Merck Finck & Co., to Barclays Bank PLC and moved the headquarters of his business group to Switzerland to avoid German taxes.

In 2010 Finck junior acquired the trading name of the precious metals company Degussa. This was at a time shortly after the financial crash, when gold and other precious metals were considered a safe investment option. Degussa Goldhandel retail outlets were opened in Germany, Switzerland, Spain and the United Kingdom in response to a revived interest in buying gold as an alternative investment.

If Finck had made large political donations to the AfD, then it would come as no surprise, that the AfD has a policy to reintroduce a gold standard for the Bundesbank in Germany. According to an article published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on 24th November 2018 entitle, “Die AfD und der Geheimnisvolle Milliardär”, which translates as “The AfD and the mysterious billionaire”: Finck was supposed to have supported a policy with good will – proposed by an AfD politician called Peter Boehringer – to bring gold reserves back to the Bundesbank in Germany.

This story is to be continued . . .

Sources

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/afd-verein-103.html

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/afd-von-finck-1.4225837

https://www.woz.ch/1848/verdeckte-parteienfinanzierung/eine-schrecklich-rechte-familie

https://hausderkunst.de/en/history/chronical

https://www.merckfinck.de/unternehmen/geschichte.html

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/parteispenden-faq-101.html

http://www.swisscastles.ch/Thurgau/weinfelden.html

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/Democracy_in_the_Crosshairs_.pdf

©Jolyon Gumbrell 2018

The post Illegal political funding across Europe. Part I appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Since I last blogged about how the EU’s Rule of Law Framework works and why Article 7 have been triggered against Poland and Hungary, a long list political developments took place both in Hungary and in Poland, as well as in the UK; some are positive and some are negative, but then this is relative to where you stand politically.

Theresa May introduced her long negotiated Withdrawal Agreement to the British in November. It was as affective as a bombshell. It even surprised those who were actively engaged in the process of negotiating this deal; like former Brexit Minister, Dominic Raab, who happened to resign immediately over the deal and  who said that he could not support the deal. It was a bewildering moment that the Brexit Minister resigns over the deal of which he was part. It did not make sense and still does not. However the subsequent resignations, and disunity among and within the governing and the opposition political parties over the deal not only have overshadowed Raab’s resignation, but have also made everything more complicated to follow.

At least there was one certain thing until 10th of December, which was the vote in the House of Commons on the WA on the following day, until Theresa May delayed that too another date, upon realising that she could not guarantee a majority in the Commons. What happens now is the pressing question.

Both the Irish backstop and disunited political parties have been the main cause of volatility in the British politics in relation to Brexit. Whether order and stability can be restored into British politics with a tweaked WA (if agreed by Brussels), I don’t see how that is happening, thus the point of delaying the vote does not make sense, unless she knows something we don’t. Is more than a tweak to the WA possible? As of now the officials say that they could issue a statement clarifying that the EU does not want to trap the UK under the bloc’s authority. Can she secure any concessions? We all have to wait and see, but I believe that is highly unlikely. 

Moving on to alleged Polexit, the local elections of October and the reinstatement of the Supreme Court judges have been the highlights of the last two months for me, as far as the Polish politics in concerned. Plus there seems to be a degree of causality between the results of the October local elections and having the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) opting to take a step back from its judicial reforms.  

When the PiS lost the control of some of the municipalities to the opposition political parties during the local elections of October, they began to reflect on what might have gone wrong or what they have done wrong. Since 2015 the PiS administration have not been harmonious with the EU, they not only they stood against a EU common policy, that is being the EU’s migration quote scheme, but have also domestically introduced and passed laws that are against the EU’s core values, the judicial reform is being one of them, threatening independence of judiciary and giving more authority to the politicians. Thus there has been an ongoing tension between the Polish administration and the EU institutions, be that the European Commission and the European Parliament. This meant that Poland was no longer seen as the beacon of stability in the Central and Eastern Europe, but as a troublemaker.

Although I have never heard it from anyone from the PiS, during the election campaign it was however suggested by the opposition political parties, such as the Civic Platform (PO), that the PiS was inching towards Polexit. This is something Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister and the serving President of the European Council, have also reiterated by comparing the situation in Poland with the situation in Britain before Brexit, and claimed that Poland could end up leaving the bloc as a result of miscalculation. It is true that Polish administration’s Conservative and illiberal policy choices make Poland distant from the core values of the EU and this is why Article 7 was triggered against Poland. 

However I would not stretch it that far to claim that Poland is inching close to leave the EU as the membership to the EU is very popular among the PiS and the public. Since the most recent survey published by the newspaper Rzeczpospolita found that 84 per cent of Poles wanted their country to stay in the union, while only 8 per cent wanted to leave. It may be that the opposition political parties’ campaign about Polexit and the existing tension between Poland and the EU have played up to the fears of the people that Poland might leave the EU, which then have shaped their voting intentions, contributing to the PiS’s loss of votes in October elections. In response to this the PiS officials denied any intention to leave the EU and is working towards neutering this line of attack before Poland holds European and domestic parliamentary elections next year. Plus the PiS’s latest u-turn on the judiciary reform do demonstrate how much EU membership is important for the PiS; particularly after having to agree to reinstate Supreme Court judges.

Whereas situation in Hungary is now  more bleak and alarming than ever. Just after a week an independent University, the Central European University, had been forced to exit from Budapest, Orban’s government did not miss any time to pass another controversial law, tightening the control of the courts, despite the ongoing Article 7 procedure. 

Despite having to complied to the last year’s law that required that the foreign universities to have classes in their home countries in order to enroll students in Hungary by opening a program in New York, Orban’s administration refused to sign the  necessary paperwork for the CEU to be able to operate in Hungary.

Once it became official, yes there were criticisms from different EU circles and the US over the forced exit of the CEU. None however were affective enough to change the fate of the CEU. Silence from the European People’s party (EPP), of which Fidesz is part of, were the most  deafening. At one point in the past the EPP had set the closure of the CEU as a red line, but they did not take any action which would stop this forced exit, which meant that  Orban’s administration was once again able to behave as they wished. Since European elections are fast approaching, and so the short term interests of the agents involved in these elections are prioritised at the expense of the EU’s core values on which the EU was once established. 

Since Orbán did get away with the CEU-exit, on the 12th of December, his administration  approved a law that will further tighten his hold over the country’s court system by creating a new high court to deal with public-administration cases and brought it under the government’s oversight. The legislation strips the supreme court of its ultimate authority over so-called administrative disputes — cases involving everything from elections and corruption to taxes and police abuse — and creates a new court overseen by his justice minister. From now on the Justice Minister pick the new court’s judges and control its budget. This meant that Orbán  continues to shape the Hungarian state structure in his own illiberal image, threatening the EU’s liberal standing. 

Above three cases show that either membership to the EU is a cause of instability for all the three countries  including the UK, Poland and Hungary or these countries are cause of worrisome for the EU. While there are now two option in relation to UK’s position in the EU:(1) no deal Brexit and (2) no Brexit: at  least that is some clarity in some form, that will be something for the UK and the EU to decide. However the situation for Poland and Hungary are totally different, they do favour the EU membership and do like to remain as members. Yet they opt for policy choices that are in contradiction with the EU’s core values. When it is in their benefit they agree to make a u-turn on these policy choices, like we have seen it in Poland, otherwise they push their agenda as far as they can however radical it is, like Fidesz did in Hungary.  Thus we should be concerned about the current state of affairs.

The post Voluntary, Alleged and Forced Exoduses–Brexit, Polexit and CEU-exit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

It’s a mark of the times we live in here in the UK that a confidence vote in the leadership of the Prime Minister counts only as an incidental side-show in the performance of Brexit.

At least it wasn’t a musical.

Last night’s win by Theresa May was neither the emphatic crushing of her internal opponents nor the laying waste to her authority that it might have been.

Instead it was another demonstration of the blocked nature of the Commons at present: no one strong enough to impose their will; no one weak enough to get knocked out of the running all together.

This morning, as last night, everyone fancies their chances and there remains no obvious path forward.

Perhaps the most that could be said is that now that the Conservative no-confidence motion option is closed for a year, perhaps the range of next steps is a bit narrower than before.

Parliament still has to approve the Withdrawal Agreement that May negotiated in November for it to proceed with ratification, and that still doesn’t look likely.

If renegotiation is a non-starter and revocation or a second referendum are too unpalatable, that only leaves having to swallow the deal as is.

 

What is unclear is how much May has used last night to make her MPs an offer on this.

Absent a different text, it’s always been clear that May’s other gambit would be to note that the Withdrawal Agreement only deals with the ending of UK membership of the EU and not the future relationship between the two.

With that in mind, May’s explicit suggestions that she would step down once withdrawal had occurred would allow the party to choose new leadership to make decisions about the future path, which – lest we forget – is where much of the criticism lies.

This might work if one takes the view that the unwillingness of Tories to push for a leadership vote until now reflects an understanding of the limited options available to the UK if it desires a negotiated exit for the EU: better to keep May in and blame her for the necessary compromises than to kick her out and then have to owe the problem yourself.

 

Of course, by that logic, there wouldn’t have been last night’s vote at all.

And this is perhaps the key point in all this: logic is not necessarily in much supply right now in Westminster.

If we take the “what the absolute fuck is going on” view of this situation, a confidence vote on May looks like the option with the fewest down-side risks. Put like that, it’s a means of ‘doing something’ and venting steam, even if it’s also the option with the least chance of making a real difference to the final outcome.

May’s mantra that ‘nothing has changed’ always had the ring of desperation and denial about it, but in this case it does represent pretty accurately the reality of the situation.

 

May’s still in Number 10, she still has the only negotiated deal on the table, she still lacks the majority needed to get it through Parliament, and her opponents all lack a majority to force her to change course.

As I’ve pointed out on previous occasions, Brexit is a negative-sum game: it’s about the allocation of costs between the parties and no-one gets to avoid carrying some of them.

Put more simply, Parliament faces a selection of bad options, each problematic in its own way: both to decide and not to decide will incur political, economic or social costs of some kind.

The danger now is that for each of those options there are enough people able to block that option happening that the only option left – not deciding and thus leaving without a deal at all – takes place, imposing much greater costs on the UK collectively.

 

Unless and until MPs recognise that this is the situation they face, it’s hard to see how this impasse can be resolved to anyone’s satisfaction.

May might have survived her vote last night, but she is certainly not out of the woods yet.

The post Nothing has changed (part 453) appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

This article may partially self-destruct soon, when it is likely that Parliament will decisively vote down Theresa May’s Brexit deal, known as ‘the withdrawal agreement.’ But then what?

Currently, according to Prime Minister, Theresa May, and EU Council President, Donald Tusk, the choice is the deal, no deal, or no Brexit. But who will end up making that choice?

Currently, not us, ‘the people’.

Theresa May has fundamentally ruled out any chance of a ‘people’s vote’ on Brexit, and realistically, a ‘people’s vote’ could only happen with the support of the government.

Yes, there could be a private member’s bill for another referendum, but the chances of that being successful without the government’s backing are very remote.

So, there would have to be a fundamental shift by the government, or a new government, for the idea of a ‘people’s vote’ to have a real chance of materialising.

• Did the electorate truly realise just how complicated Brexit would be when we had the referendum on 23 June 2016?

Clearly not.

Exiting the EU has taxed some of the best legal brains in the UK and the rest of the EU, and even many of them are now scratching their heads.

Brexit is not simple, but the referendum question was ridiculously simplistic – and the choice of just one of two one-word answers in response totally unrealistic.

The country clearly didn’t have enough information to make any realistic choice or decision in the referendum.

And even now, the details of Brexit are so arduous and perplexing that many people are struggling to understand what any of it means.

• Would the electorate have voted for Brexit if they had known on 23 June 2016 what we know now?

The evidence indicates definitely not.

Professor Adrian Low, who has been analysing all the polls since referendum day, told me:

“The latest polling figures, from YouGov on 3 and 4 December for Great Britain, are very grim reading for Brexiters.

“From a winning position of 52% at the referendum, their support has dropped to less than 44%, whilst those who think it wrong to leave are now at 56%.

“Poll after poll – more than 50 of them – since last year’s general election show that UK no longer wants Brexit

“One poll, or maybe a handful, can be wrong, but not this time. There are too many of them saying the same thing.

“The will of the people is to remain in the EU.”

[∞ Link to Professor Low’s latest analysis].

Given the choice of the deal, no deal or no Brexit, it is becoming increasingly obvious that ‘the people’ by a substantially clear majority want ‘no Brexit’.

Even by the government’s own independent assessments and admission, ‘no deal’ would be catastrophic for the UK, and many believe it would be entirely irresponsible to put such a choice on any ballot paper.

• So, the realistic choice comes down to ‘the deal’ (the withdrawal agreement) or ‘no Brexit’.

The EU asserts – and the government agrees – that ‘the deal’ is the only deal on the table and there cannot be any other deal offered or negotiated, especially as the government has ruled out remaining in the Single Market after Brexit (i.e. a Norway option, which would mean continuing with ‘free movement of people’).

• What exactly is ‘the deal’?

As my graphic shows, Theresa May’s deal means that from 30 March 2018 – known as ‘Brexit Day’ – the UK would continue to be ‘in’ the EU, as if we were a member as now, except we would have to obey almost all the rules of the EU, including any new rules, without any say in them.

This arrangement, called the ‘transition period’ would end on 31 December 2020.

• What happens after the ‘transition period’ has not yet been agreed, apart from the arrangements regarding Northern Ireland.

If by the end of 2020, a satisfactory arrangement has not been mutually agreed between the UK and the EU on how to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, then something called a ‘backstop’ would automatically kick in.

Under the backstop the whole of the UK would enter a “single customs territory” with the EU.

There are many parts to this but essentially there would be no tariffs on trade in goods between the UK and the EU and some (though not all) trade restrictions will be removed.

Northern Ireland alone would remain aligned to some extra rules of the EU’s Single Market to ensure the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will remain open as it is today.

• The government doesn’t want the backstop to happen.

But in the withdrawal agreement, the backstop would go ahead regardless, unless both the EU and the UK agree that alternative arrangements to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland are acceptable to all sides.

In other words, both sides would have to jointly agree before the backstop could be stopped.

• Yes, it is complicated.

Fortunately, I have on hand the expertise of EU law expert, Professor Steve Peers of Essex University, who has written a comprehensive overview answering some of the key questions on what ‘the deal’ means, which I am summarising here.

• Does the withdrawal agreement cover the long-term relationship between the UK and EU after Brexit?

No. The withdrawal agreement governs only the details of leaving the EU, not the long-term relationship between the UK and EU.

• What if the withdrawal agreement is not ratified?

Unless the two sides agree to amend it and then ratify the amended text, in principle the alternatives are the UK leaving the EU without any withdrawal agreement (‘no deal’), or staying in the European Union (‘no Brexit’).

However, it remains to be seen if remaining by revoking the Article 50 notice of withdrawing is legally possible. (This will be clarified by a ruling of the European Court of Justice, expected on Monday).

A general election might be held, but that will not in itself change the options available.

The Brexit date could be delayed, but both the UK government and the EU27 Member States (acting unanimously) would have to agree to this.

– The EU Commission has issued preparedness notices setting out its view on what would happen if the UK leaves the EU without a withdrawal agreement. [∞ Link ]

– The UK government has also issued its own no deal notices. [∞ Link]

• Does the withdrawal agreement end free movement of people?

Yes, free movement ends at the end of the transition period (31 December 2020), unless the UK and EU decide to sign a separate treaty as part of the future relationship extending free movement in the future. Currently the UK government opposes this idea.

The ‘backstop’ relating to Northern Ireland, if it ends up applying, does not include free movement of people, but only the continuation of the UK/Ireland common travel area, which is more limited.

The withdrawal agreement also ends free movement for UK citizens already in the EU27, unless (again) a separate treaty as part of the future relationship addresses this issue.

• Does the CJEU (European Court of Justice) have jurisdiction in the UK indefinitely?

No. The Court will have jurisdiction during the transition period, and following that specific jurisdiction over EU27 citizens’ rights and EU law referred to in the financial settlement, as well as the protocols on Northern Ireland (in part) and bases in Cyprus.

After the transition period, UK courts can send the CJEU cases only in limited contexts.

The European Commission can sue the UK in the CJEU for failure to implement EU law correctly for four years after the end of the transition.

The Commission can also sue the UK to enforce State aid and competition decisions which were based on proceedings which started before the end of the transition period, but concluded afterward.

• Which EU laws does the transition period cover?

The simple answer is that the transition period covers all laws applying to the UK except a handful of exclusions.

• Can the UK be forced to stay in the transition period indefinitely?

No. Any extension of the transition period has to be agreed jointly.

Furthermore, any extension won’t be indefinite, since the negotiators will add a final possible date for extension when they agree the final text of the withdrawal agreement.

On the other hand, the UK might theoretically end up in the backstop relating to Northern Ireland indefinitely.

Although the withdrawal agreement says that this arrangement must be temporary, unlike the transition period, there is no final date to end it and the UK cannot unilaterally end it at a certain date.

• The article here contains just a brief summary of Professor Steve Peers 5,000-word analysis of the withdrawal agreement (for ‘non-lawyers’). To see his full article, with links to his other explanatory blogs about the legal aspects of Brexit go to EU Law Analysis.

• Follow my journalism page on Facebook: Jon Danzig writes
• Follow my Stop Brexit campaign on Facebook: Reasons2Remain

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How do researchers contribute to policymaking? What facilitates policy learning? And how do big data influence research-policy nexus and policy-making in European cities and regions? These are some of the questions addressed in the new book ‘Knowledge, Policymaking and Learning for European Cities and Regions. From Research to Practice’, edited by Nicola Francesco Dotti. Here he answers some questions about its origins, key ideas and lessons learned.

 

Q1: What have been the rationales and origins of this book?

There are two main reasons, one very personal and the other one more ‘academic’. I start from the second one.

 

The debate on university-industry cooperation, technology transfer, national/regional innovation system and Triple Helix is extensive. Universities are more and more pushed to cooperate with industry to enhance economic competitiveness; while, very little is said about cooperation with governments to improve policymaking. Doing research across regional economics and policy studies, I have asked myself if there is a ‘Fourth Mission’ for the university to contribute to policymaking, besides education, research and technology transfer. I think so, though this requires new concepts and approaches because I often see confusion between policy-oriented research and consultancy, between being academic scholars and activists. These distinctions are quite clear when we speak about national or European governments, but it becomes more ‘blurry’ when assuming the perspective of cities and regions.

 

The second reason is very personal, though with a big mistake in it! When I was conceiving the book, I had in my mind my grandfather, Francesco Dotti. In the 1930s, he had an ‘itinerant chair’ in agriculture from the University of Bologna. Basically, he was a kind-of young PhD/postdoc travelling across the province of Bologna to teach farmers the best agricultural technics at that time. Then, I asked myself: how can a young scholar in urban and regional policy contribute to policymaking? While writing the book, my father explained to me that ‘itinerant chair’ was something different, more a kind-of consultancy and definitely not an academic position. My mistake! But the image of applied policy knowledge was still pointing out to the Fourth Mission of University.

 

Q2: Your book focuses on research-policy nexus in urban and regional policy. What are the main opportunities and challenges when researchers and policymakers collaborate?

Here, we need to make a preliminary distinction between academic disciplines. In policy studies, research focuses on processes of decision-making; in urban and regional studies, most of the scholars focus on the contents for those decisions. These two academic communities do not communicate, very rarely meet each other and, even worst, they do not realise this difference. In the book, I did my best to gather both communities. On these boundaries, we have started working on the notion of ‘knowledge brokers’ for urban and regional policymaking.

 

The primary opportunity for researchers is to get involved in real-world policy going out of the ‘Ivory Tower’, and understanding how ‘their’ knowledge is ‘used’ and ‘translated’ for policymaking; for policymakers, they can acquire the knowledge they do not have (yet). However, the main challenge is to recognise each other rationales: research and policymaking are different. In this perspective, the keyword of the book is dialogue, which in Greek means what goes through two ‘logos’. Researchers and policymakers have to acknowledge each other ‘logos’ and then engage in a dialogue. Otherwise, we end up in a monologue, which is a real risk: “blame politicians if they don’t do what I said!” vs “those academics do nothing, just a waste of public money!”.

 

Q3: An important concept in the book is ‘policy learning’. How does policy learning work? What facilitates policy learning?

This is the most challenging question, which is the frontier of research in policy studies. I do not know, I really do not know. In policy studies, I see many excellent theories, but when it comes to the case of cities and regions, these theories fail because of lack of critical mass, few and limited expertise and structural constraints on available resources. The new behavioural approaches applied to policymaking are really moving forward our understanding, but they mainly refer to larger scales, i.e. national/federal/European decision-making. In cities and regions, policy knowledge is structurally limited and context-specific, while policy challenges are urgent as much as for the upper tiers of government. In this perspective, I really appreciate the EU efforts on ‘administrative capacity’.

 

Here, I would like to turn this question as follow: how do you learn about a policy? From whom? When? What are you learning and what are you looking for? What is your background to understand that policy? What are the sources you refer? Why do you want to learn about a policy? Researchers can contribute to improving policymaking but are definitely not the only relevant actors: policy learning is a collective process. We pay a lot of attention to politicians, who do not seem so relevant in my view. On the contrary, civil servants, advisors, cabinet members and other stakeholders are more relevant because policy learning is mainly a social process. Politicians have a different role, which is essential, but different.

 

And here it come my research question. What are your core beliefs and preferences about policymaking? Do you know them? Are you ready to change them? What could make you change it? These open questions are, in my view, the frontier of research nowadays. Assuming the perspective of cities and regions, these questions are even more relevant because actors interact directly, in person, without intermediaries, and they have repeated, long-term interactions. This creates communities of practices that learn how to move forward together.

 

Q4: The book includes case studies of policy-oriented research in Spain, Italy, Belgium, Scotland, the Netherlands and Mexico. Why were these cases selected? And what other cities and regions can learn from them?

The book originated during a European workshop I organised in Brussels in January 2016. It was such a fruitful discussion that we decided to write a book, but we realised that a simple conference proceeding would not have worked because the two communities from policy studies and urban and regional studies were too different and, at first, had difficulties in finding common ground. Just half of the materials come from that workshop, while the other chapters were developed to provide a complete perspective.

 

In fact, the fracture between those focusing on decision-making processes and on decisions is so deep that I had to spend two years building up a (hopefully) consistent framework. Cases are presented in a way to provide general results, beyond the cases itself. Some of the authors were involved in policymaking, and some of them are even policymakers themselves, so it was difficult to take them out of those contexts. I think the result worked well because each author has also contributed as a reviewer of the other chapters taking lessons learnt into their own chapter.

 

Q5: The book addresses topics of open data, big data and information technologies. What changes do they bring to evidence-based policymaking and policy-relevant knowledge?

Thanks for this question. I waited to address this issue previously because it requires a specific discussion, as we do in the third part of the book.

 

Big and open data are the frontier for policymaking, definitely. In fact, there is a revolution in front of us, a Copernican revolution! We are moving from a world where we had to take decisions with structurally limited information to a world where we have too much information, more than humans can handle. This is a Copernican revolution! The scarce resource is no longer information, but our attention as Herbert Simon already pointed out in the 1970s. I see that most of the decision-makers at the urban and regional levels are not aware of this revolution causing a divide with upper tiers of government that seem by-far more advanced in experimenting big and open data for policymaking.

 

The big and open data revolution opens a set of critical, fundamental issues. Who is able to handle big data for decision-making? Knowledge is not information, then how to turn abundant information into policy-relevant knowledge? What about those who do not have such advanced knowledge? Should they be left out of decision-making? If so, democracy is over. When we have so much information, the challenge is to turn this into knowledge which is relevant for policymaking. I know we are already doing it, but I think most of us are not aware of this revolution. Again, here it comes back the question of how we learn about policymaking. I know someone can be disappointed because I have more questions than answers, but –in my view- questions are more useful to learn, and the book is about learning. The book does not have a thesis to demonstrate. On the contrary, we hope to stimulate questions. This is not a handbook; this book is a question mark towards the way we learn policymaking.

 

Q6: What are the main lessons from your book for practitioners and policy-makers?

Ask yourself: how do you learn about policymaking? From whom? When and where? Are we ready to question our core beliefs and preferences about policymaking? If the answer is yes, then we can start a dialogue, which implies acknowledging the different rationales between research and policymaking.

 

The book is conceived around shorter chapters, just 4,000 words at maximum. This decision that I imposed as editor was difficult for many authors, but it helps the readers to go straight to the point. This is not a book to read linearly, I see it more as a basket of fruit where experts in policy studies read chapters on regional and urban studies, where academics can read chapters from policymakers, and the other way round.

 

Q7: What would be interesting avenues for future research?

In our last two chapters, we propose a synthesis which is also a framework for future research by discussing the notions of ‘knowledge governance’ and ‘policy resilience’. Knowledge governance is a new type of governance where policy learning, knowledge sharing and collective actions are taken as building blocks. Policy learning is, then, no longer a by-product of governance, but a key element, a goal to achieve. In this way, we can develop policy resilience which is the capacity to act collectively adapting policy to emerging issues. To understand this, it is necessary to assume the cognitive-evolutionary approach: knowledge and policymaking co-evolve, analogously to ecosystems. It is the ‘fittest’ policy knowledge that survives, and this shapes decision-making processes. Accordingly, knowledge governance is the way to keep this ‘ecosystem’ alive.

 

These notions are proposed to provide a synthetic framework on knowledge, policymaking and learning for European cities and regions. Knowledge governance and policy resilience are the future research fields I would like to work on. Again, I hope we can open even more questions.

 

Q8: Anything else you would like to add?

Yes, one more thing. I hope readers won’t look for linear, clear answers. This book is for curious readers who like to challenge their beliefs. We do provide theoretical references and case description, but we mainly propose questions on the research-policy dialogue. This book is a question: do you know how to learn urban and regional policymaking?

 

Nicola Francesco Dotti is a researcher in Urban and Regional Economics and Policy at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). His main research interests are spatial dynamics of knowledge and research, knowledge for policymakingm EU Cohesion Policy and Framework Programme / Horizon 2020. He is currently researcher on data-driven university governance and coordinator of the RSA research network on Cohesion Policy. He recently edited a volume on “Knowledge, Policymaking and Learning for European Cities and Regions” (E-Elgar). He previously worked for the EU Commission, the Politecnico di Milano and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). He holds a PhD in regional economics and policy from the Politecnico di Milano.

 

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This wasn’t the post I was going to write this morning, but frankly after listening to Theresa May grind her way through another less-than-revealing interview, I want to consider one neglected aspect of the current debate on Brexit.

The content of the Withdrawal Agreement.

As May didn’t-really answer John Humphrys’ less-than-incisive questions, I was struck by how little substance there was to either side of the discussion.

May has her talking points; Humphrys’ his clever-clever jibes. But neither presented a close reading of the text that is actually to be voted on next Tuesday.

This has been the pattern of the entire Brexit saga: half- or quarter-understandings of things that people encounter, turned into the be-all and end-all of How Things Are.

Exhibit 1 is that bus, with its highly tendentious reading of, well, of some set of figures possibly related to the EU budget. I completely understand the logic for doing that – and it worked – but it did help to open the door to a much more emotive approach to the entire question.

And emotions do matter: even on much more narrow questions and issues, how we feel about matters of justice or fairness or community counts, in a way that can’t really be reduced to a rational balancing-out.

But here and now we find ourselves with a national debate – and a parliamentary debate – that is driven by more emotion than cold analysis.

Three examples will suffice for now.

Firstly, much of the parliamentary debate is framed by emotional ideals of parliamentary sovereignty: that it only has to say the word and things will happen.

But parliament is only sovereign within the UK: it cannot force the EU to renegotiate, or to change its preferences, any more than it can make other countries sign up to trade deals. Likewise, May can talk about giving parliament more power within the backstop process, but the limits to UK (and thus parliament’s) powers are already clearly set out in the relevant protocol of the Withdrawal Agreement.

Secondly,there continues to be minimal understanding of what the Withdrawal Agreement actually is. It’s not a commitment to the future relationship with the EU, but a resolution of the ending of UK membership of the EU. With the exception of the backstop, there is nothing in the Withdrawal Agreement that requires the UK to follow any particular path of interaction with the EU down the line, so anyone with the intention of an agreed exit from the Union might recognise that there will be an opportunity to change government policy on that future in the hiatus between leaving and the start of future relationship negotiations.

The liabilities from ending membership will be the same, whatever the future relationship, so why the government isn’t selling that as a way of building some more support seems strange.

Thirdly, there is a basic confusion between having the power to do something and that thing actually happening. This seems especially ironic in the week of three government defeats in a day. For all the talk by those who would remain about a second referendum amendment to the Meaningful Vote, that still would requires subsequent approval of a referendum bill and then the fighting of a successful referendum campaign: one does not necessarily lead on to the next.

Indeed, the only decisions you can count on are the ones that have been made already, most important of which is the decision on 29 March 2017 to notify the EU of the UK’s intention to withdraw from the EU. Unless and until another decision is reached, that decision will take effect on 29 March 2019.

In large part, this is all a reflection of the lack of trust between all involved.

Look at the forced release of the Attorney General’s advice on the backstop: there was nothing in it that wasn’t already clear in the Withdrawal Agreement itself (and in the copious comment from independent commentators and experts), but the suspicion that something was being hidden contributed to the push to secure it.

People do feel strongly about Brexit, but that shouldn’t be at the expense of having a good grasp of the detail involved. And that should be especially true of those who will be making a key decision on this next week.

The post I feel strongly about Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The EU is trying to deal with two headline issues at present: whether the Brexit deal agreed between the Commission negotiators can be agreed on the one hand by the British parliament and on the other by all 27 member states, the other is whether the Italian government’s budget which has been deemed to breach euro zone rules should be sanctioned and whether it leads to an Italian financial crisis, as would happen if interest rates on Italian government debt continue to rise until they become clearly unaffordable. The Italian crisis differs from the Brexit saga in that Italy is not leaving the EU. Nevertheless the Italian government, especially its most powerful member, the deputy prime minister and interior minister, Matteo Salvini, is hostile to the EU and the overwhelming support in Italy for EU membership until a few years ago has evaporated with only 44% of recently- polled Italians supporting EU membership (although with a lot of don’t-knows, this still exceeds those definitely wanting to leave).

 

In this situation the Commission is danger of setting itself up to be blamed by threatening to fine Italy for non-compliance of the euro zone budgetary rules. This only feeds the government’s narrative that Italy’s woes can be blamed on the EU. In defence of the Commission, it is carrying out its formal duty as defined by the euro zone rules established when the euro was formed, and it is also under pressure from some other euro zone members, such as the Netherlands and Austria overtly  and probably Germany more discretely, to take a hard line. However, the Commission is a political organisation whose duty is not just to blindly enforce rules but to act in the long-term interest of the EU. There is no point in allowing the EU to be portrayed in Italy as a scapegoat. Although so far investors have only higher yields which the government considers affordable, if the government budget plans become clearly unaffordable, investors will at some point refuse to buy government debt so forcing the government to back down. In the meantime the Commission may be right to think that short-term budgetary generosity may cost the Italian public in the longer term. It is entitled to say so but should otherwise stand back.

 

One possible argument for the Commission taking stronger action is the possibility of a government fiscal crisis leading to a banking crisis given that many Italian banks have less strong capital underpinnings than would be desirable. Already higher rates on government bonds have led to higher rates that banks must pay to issue their own bonds. However, banks in other countries have had nine years to rebuild their balance sheets since the euro zone crisis and would be likely to be able to resist. The most vulnerable other country Greece, which has been and continues to comply with strict (many would argue excessively strict) conditions, is still supported through the European Stability Mechanism.

 

The EU is not to blame for Italy’s government debt or general economic problems (some argue that the latter are partly due to euro membership but even if this were so Italy did not have to join the euro). The EU, or more precisely other member state governments, do, however, bear considerable responsibility for the rise of the right-wing Lega based on its hostility  to migration to Italy across the Mediterranean. They did hardly anything to help Italy tackle the issue whether by providing financial support for managing the inflow or sharing those with asylum claims and even blocked migrants crossing borders into Austria and France.  There are no easy answers to how to deal with migrant flows in a way which tries to respect the dignity of these desperate people, but EU countries should try to work together rather than against each other.

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Considering EU democracy promotion as an integral part of EU foreign policy, Evangelos Fanoulis examines the effectiveness of political conditionality in the EU’s advocacy of democratic reforms in developing countries.

© Vlad/AdobeStock

Since its inception in the 1950, the European Union (EU) has tried to spread its democratic principles and values worldwide. These endeavours are broadly known as “EU democracy promotion”.

To a certain extent, such pursuit has been due to a genuine belief that democracy can lead to peace and prosperity for all. From a more pragmatic point of view, the EU institutions believe that democratic governments are more stable politically and therefore readier to get into trading and diplomatic relations. Some scholars have also interpreted the EU’s democracy promotion as indication of guilt for the colonial past of European societies.

Whether the reasons behind EU democracy promotion are pragmatic, idealistic or psychological, the Union has advocated for democratic reforms in developing countries for many years. It does it primarily by imposing political conditions in trade or exchange for development aid.

This means that the EU provides preferential trade agreements and development assistance to regimes that promise to make democratic reforms for the sake of their citizens. In this way, the EU clearly pushes a certain agenda for example, the abolition of death penalty, fair elections, freedom of speech and of the press, the right to protest, in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.

One crucial question is whether political conditionality has worked or not. The events of Arab Spring are telling. For example, the EU Commission funded Ben Ali’s regime with the European Neighbourhood Policy instruments in order to secure political stability in Tunisia. However, funds stayed with the country’s elites instead of being spent for the well-being of the Tunisian people. Promised democratic reforms agreed under the title of political conditionality got delayed, unemployment rose and the public uprising against the government followed.

Of course, it is difficult to say what could have happened if the EU had pushed more fiercely and openly for democratisation in Tunisia. Yet, there is a sense that having turned a blind eye for the sake of stability in the region the EU failed in its ambitions abroad.

Tunisia, as with other cases, shows that when country politicians are unwilling to stay firm to the agreed agenda of reforms, democratisation fails (Grugel 2007). For instance, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy criticised Guatemala in 2010 for the potential restoration of the death penalty; she condemned the violent suppression of protesters in Kazakhstan in March 2012; and in January 2013 warned Sri Lanka about maintaining an independent justice system. In all three cases, there were prior commitments by the governments of those countries to promote democracy in the context of their agreements with the Union.

The EU has acted in response where commitments have not been followed.  After the military coup in Fiji in 2006, the EU stopped development funds to the country. But to what extent is this an effective strategy to ensure democratisation? Political conditionality on development aid may eventually deprive people of much needed assistance. I doubt that this scenario can be seen as a success story of EU democracy promotion. At least, not from a normative perspective.

So far, the effectiveness of EU democracy promotion appears pessimistic. Yet, for the EU, both institutions and member-states, democracy promotion remains a policy priority. As I have argued, however, this sometimes fruitless effort is part of who EUropeans are. In an EU of different nations, languages, cultures, and historical experiences, the idea of democracy became a common point of reference. As the EU appears to move from an era of democratic politics to an era of populist politics, let us hope that this common point of reference will endure.

This piece draws on the article The EU’s Democratization Discourse and Questions of European Identification in JCMS Vol. 56 Issue 6.

Please note that this article represents the views of the author(s) and not those of  Ideas on Europe, JCMS or UACES.

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Evangelos Fanoulis | @EvansFanoulis

Evangelos Fanoulis is Lecturer in international relations at Xi’an Jiaotong- Liverpool University (XJTLU). His main research interests lie within democracy and populism in the EU, Euroscepticism, European security governance, EU-China relations and post-structuralist IR theory.

 

 

 

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In all democracies, it’s essential that elections – including referendums – are run fairly, and that the regulatory authority has the power to annul an election or referendum if serious irregularities may have affected the result.

That’s not just my opinion. Such a requirement forms part of the Venice Commission’s ‘Code of Good Practice on Referendums’.

Although the code is voluntary and not legally binding, the UK is one of the 61 member states of the Commission and helped to form the Code, which was adopted in 2006. The Commission advised me:

“The Code was and is strongly supported by the Committee of Ministers recommending to the member States to respect its provisions.”

The Venice Commission is an advisory body of the Council of Europe, and the UK’s Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, currently sits on its Committee of Ministers.

Clause II 3. 3 e) of the Venice Code states:

‘The appeal body must have authority to annul the referendum where irregularities may have affected the outcome. It must be possible to annul the entire referendum or merely the results for one polling station or constituency. In the event of annulment of the global result, a new referendum must be called.’

In the UK, our Electoral Commission is the independent regulatory body for elections and referendums, set up by Parliament to “regulate political finance in the UK” and to “promote public confidence in the democratic process and ensure its integrity.”

I asked the Commission if they have the power to annul a referendum, in accordance with the recommendations of the Venice Code.

They replied:

“In short, no we do not have the power to annul an election or referendum.”

If the Electoral Commission had the power to annul a referendum, then it’s unlikely that members of the public would now be needing to call on the High Court to declare the EU referendum “void” as a result of serious irregularities.

The Venice Commission’s Code states that a final appeal to a court must be possible.

The case of Susan Wilson & Others versus The Prime Minister is scheduled to move to a full hearing on 7 December.

The case will argue that Brexit must be declared void and the notification of Article 50 quashed because, “various criminal offences may have been committed”. 

Currently the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) is conducting an investigation into suspicions of “multiple” criminal offences committed by Aron Banks and the Leave.EU campaign that he founded.

Both Leave.eu, and the official Vote Leave campaign, have already been found guilty of breaking electoral law in the referendum.

The Independent reported this weekend that the government is expected to deploy Sir James Eadie QC – the star barrister who led the unsuccessful battle for the government to trigger Article 50 without parliament’s consent – in a sign of the case’s importance.

The lead litigant in the case against the Prime Minister, Susan Wilson, told me this evening:

“Since the outset, the behaviour of the Leave campaigns has undermined British democracy.

“Bad enough that they lied and misled the public on an industrial scale, but they added insult to injury by breaking electoral law.

“The Electoral Commission proved the scale of the misdeeds but have no power to act, so that task was left to members of the public like myself, who felt we had no choice but to act.

“The result of the referendum cannot be trusted and we will argue in court that it should be declared invalid.”

The Electoral Commission’s representative explained to me how the the current law is  time limited in so far as challenging the result of an election or referendum.

“The only way an election result can be challenged is if a petition is launched within 21 days to the Elections Petitions Office at the High Court. We include details in our guidance for candidates which you can see on this link (paragraph 1.10 onwards).

“With regards to the EU Referendum, the referendum result was likewise only subject to challenge by way of judicial review. Any challenge to the EU referendum result must have been brought before the end of six weeks beginning with the certification of the ballot papers counted and votes cast.

“This is set out in paragraph 19 of Schedule 3 to the European Union Referendum Act 2015.”

The spokesperson added:

“As you can see, these processes are set out in law. Any change to the law would be for the Cabinet Office to make. I should add that the UK’s Law Commissions’ made a series of recommendations in 2016 to modernise electoral law which we wholeheartedly support.

“One of their recommendations was to make it easier to challenge an election or referendum result. That would all require a change to the law. So again, you may want to contact the Cabinet Office.”

So, my next call was to the UK government’s Cabinet Office, which is a department of the Government “responsible for supporting the Prime Minister and Cabinet” and ensuring “the smooth running of government”.  In charge of the Cabinet Office is David Lidington, who was previously a Minister for Europe.

I shared the Venice Commission’s code with Mr Lidington’s office and reported back what the Electoral Commission had told me.

I queried why the Electoral Commission does not have the power to annul an election or referendum, as recommended in the Venice Commission’s code.

I also added that whilst the referendum result could only be challenged within six weeks of the referendum taking place:

“Only now are we discovering seriously irregularities in the conduct of certain parties in the EU referendum, long after the expiry of the six weeks.”

I put four questions to the Cabinet Office:

1. What is the government’s view about the Law Commissions’ recommendations, especially in regard to making it easier to challenge an election or referendum result?
2. If serious irregularities are discovered in a UK election or referendum, should it not be possible to challenge this beyond the current very short deadline?
3. Why doesn’t the UK follow the Venice Commission’s Code of Good Practice for Referendums, by allowing an appeal body (presumably the Electoral Commission in this case) to have the power to annul an election or referendum where “irregularities may have affected the outcome”?
4. Is the government planning any new legislation in this regard?

A spokesperson for the Cabinet Office replied:

“It would be helpful if you could let me know me what is the angle of your story? Are you making the case that the referendum should be annulled because of the Venice Commission’s Code?”

The spokesperson added:

“Your second question I think should be directed to lawyers, it’s not something we could answer.

“With regards to your third question, the Electoral Commission brought out their own report in the Referendum and said it was well run. If you want anymore on that I suggest you ask them.”

So, I went back to the Electoral Commission to ask them if it was still their view that the referendum “was well run” as claimed by the Cabinet Office?

The Electoral Commission responded:

“We published two reports on the EU Referendum. The first one – in September 2016 – focused on the administration of the poll. We reported that the administration of the poll was well-run and still stand by that view.”

The Commission spokesperson continued, however:

“We published a report on the regulation of the referendum in March 2017 and made recommendations to the UK Government about how there need to be improvements made to the rules ahead of any future poll.

“Obviously since the referendum we have concluded a number of investigations into EU campaigners and we continue to call for changes to the law that would make it easier to regulate any future poll.”

I went back to the Cabinet Office (on 13 November) with the following comments regarding their question as to whether my article would put the case for annulling the referendum:

“There are concerns about the conduct of the Referendum campaigns because evidence is emerging of alleged fraud, and criminal acts by Vote Leave, Cambridge Analytica, and Aggregate IQ: illegal overspending, psychologically profiling and targeting people with online ads, based on stolen data.

“This issue has become even more serious because the legal opinion of three barristers is now public on how Vote Leave, and its organiser Dominic Cummings, allegedly committed criminal offences.

“In addition, Leave.eu has been fined the maximum amount possible by the Electoral Commission for multiple breaches of electoral rules, and in addition fined by the Information Commissioner’s Office for serious breaches of data laws.

“Furthermore, suspicions about the source of millions of pounds loaned to Leave.eu by Arron Banks is now the subject of a criminal investigation by the National Crime Agency.

“However, I am not in a position to judge whether these irregularities in themselves were of such a magnitude as to have affected the result of the referendum.

“The point of my email to you, and of my article, was to enquire why it is in the UK that our Electoral Commission does not have the power, as specifically required in the Venice Code of Good Practice for Referendums, to annul an election or referendum result if it is deemed that such irregularities had affected the outcome.

“Are you able to provide an answer?

“I would of course, not expect the government to comment on such a contentious question as to whether the irregularities in the referendum were sufficient to have nullified the result.

“My question was more general: why is there no power by the regulatory authority to annul an election or referendum result if irregularities are discovered that could have affected the outcome? Lawyers may have an opinion on this, but it will depend on the current law, and the powers conferred onto the regulatory body.

“Which comes to my fourth question on what is the government’s view of the UK’s Law Commissions’ recommendations in 2016 to modernise electoral law, especially their recommendation to make it easier to challenge an election or referendum result?

“Does the government support these recommendations? Is the government planning any new legislation in response to the Commissions’ recommendations? If not, why not?

“I look forward to your reply.”

The next day (Wednesday 14 November) the Cabinet Office spokesperson replied:

“Apologies I’ve not been able to get a response today. I’m hoping to come back with a response first thing tomorrow.”

The next morning, Thursday 15 November, I received the following reply:

“An Act of Parliament is required before any UK-wide referendum can be held. There are thorough parliamentary procedures in place to ensure that any referendum legislation is scrutinised and debated.

“The European Union Referendum Act 2015 was scrutinised and debated in Parliament. The Act set out the terms under which the referendum would take place, including the means by which a challenge of the referendum result could be brought.”

This seemed to be an entirely inadequate response to my questions to the government.

I asked the Venice Commission to comment, but they replied that they did not ‘have a mandate’ to comment on the situations in member states. I also asked how many of the Commission’s member states have an appeals body that has the authority to annul a referendum or election result in the case of serious irregularity? They plan to have this information available next year.

The Venice Commission (also known as the European Commission for Democracy through Law) is the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional law. The Council (which is not part of the European Union) was founded in 1949 to uphold human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe.

Although the Venice Commission’s Code of Good Practice on Referendums is a voluntary code only, it was set up for a reason and has been accepted by the Committee of Ministers where all member states, including the UK, sit.

In a ‘solemn’ declaration regarding the adoption of the Code in 2004 it was stated that the Committee of Ministers recognised, “the importance of the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters, which reflects the principles of Europe’s electoral heritage.”

On 27 November 2008, “the Committee of Ministers adopted a Declaration on the Code of Good Practice on Referendums for the purpose of inviting public authorities in the member states to be guided by the Code of Good Practice on Referendums.”

It’s becoming increasingly clear that there were serious and illegal irregularities in the EU referendum of 2016 that, over two years later, we are only now learning more about, with criminal investigations still ongoing.

The law as it currently stands does not provide an easy or effective way to challenge an election or referendum result. This is wrong.

The Venice Code of Good Practice, in point 3.3 on funding also states that:

“In the event of a failure to abide by the statutory requirements, for instance if the cap on spending is exceeded by a significant margin, the vote may be annulled.”*

Leave.eu has been fined the maximum amount possible by the Electoral Commission for multiple breaches of electoral rules, including exceeding the cap on spending by a significant margin. These, I believe, are sufficient grounds to annul the referendum.

But also ongoing are criminal investigations as to the source of £8 million of funds that Arron Banks, the founder of Leave.eu, “loaned” to the campaign. The Electoral Commission suspect that these funds may have come from foreign sources, which would be illegal under UK law. This is currently the subject of a police investigation.

If proven, the case against the referendum being valid would be unassailable.

Commented Dr Ewan McGaughey, Senior Lecturer of Law at King’s College London:

“A fundamental principle of the common law is that votes can be declared void for substantial irregularity.”

He added:

“Most people voted for Brexit because they are honest: they believed promises and arguments about the EU’s democratic deficit or investing in the NHS. 

“It is clear that certain organisers of Brexit were prepared to say anything, do anything, with anyone’s support, to get the result. 

“We need to raise the integrity of public discourse, so this can never happen again.”

We await the verdict of the High Court.

But the bottom line? The referendum result is unsafe. We cannot possibly proceed to change our country forever based on such a dodgy ‘election’.

 

* Until last month, the English version of the Venice Commissions Code of Good Practice on Referendums stated that, “In the event of a failure to abide by the statutory requirements, for instance if the cap on spending is exceeded by a significant margin, the vote MUST be annulled.” However, a review of the Code’s translation from the original French to English revealed that this was a mistranslation and the word “must” should have been “may”. Subsequently, a revised English version of the Code was published on 25 October 2018. The Commission has written to give reassurance that the use of the world ‘must’ in the following code is, however, correct: ‘‘The appeal body must have authority to annul the referendum where irregularities may have affected the outcome.”

 

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Here’s the hypocrisy of Brexit. Brexiters reject the Brexit deal on offer. But Britain is not allowed to reject Brexit.

From the outset of the EU referendum back in 2016, Brexiters couldn’t agree with each other what kind of Brexit they wanted.

Nothing has changed.

There was no agreed plan, blueprint or manifesto for Brexit. And there still isn’t.

Theresa May’s Brexit plan looks set to be roundly rejected by Parliament early next month.

By all accounts, most Brexiters hate it. They want a different kind of Brexit altogether.

But here’s a question for all Leavers: what kind of Brexit did you actually vote for? The answer has to be that you didn’t vote for any kind of Brexit. No one defined what Brexit meant.

Leave was just one word, and the implications of it were never properly spelt out. Brexit didn’t mean Brexit. Leave didn’t mean leave. It was never detailed.

Now we have the detail of Brexit, or “a Brexit”, shocked Brexiters say that isn’t what they wanted. Indeed, the so-called plan doesn’t even include all the details: that’s to be decided over the coming years, when it will be too late.

Brexit politicians only have themselves to blame. Nobody was told what kind of Brexit they might get if they voted for Leave. And we still don’t know for sure.

Brexiters want an opportunity to choose a different kind of Brexit. But at the same time, they want to deny the country an opportunity to choose to reject Brexit altogether.

Like a broken record, Prime Minister Theresa May says there cannot be another vote on Brexit.

“The people were given a vote,” she says ad nauseam. “The people’s vote happened in 2016. And the people voted to leave.”

• But the people didn’t vote for an almighty, calamitous mess, Mrs May.
• The people didn’t vote to have vital foods and medicines in short supply.
• The people didn’t vote to be poorer.
• The people didn’t vote to trash our economy – which before the referendum was the fastest growing in the G7 (now it’s the slowest).
• The people didn’t vote to put at risk peace in Northern Ireland.
• The people didn’t vote for utter uncertainty and chaos, just weeks before we are due to leave.

Now, the evidence is overwhelming that a majority of the UK public not only don’t want the Prime Minister’s Brexit.

They don’t want any Brexit at all.

On 15 November, just one day after the Cabinet “approved” Theresa May’s Brexit deal (although resignations followed later) YouGov sampled the GB population.

The results were that 47% said it’s wrong for Britain to leave the EU, 40% said it’s right to leave, and 13% didn’t know.

The figures have been analysed by Adrian Low, Emeritus Professor of Computing Education at Staffordshire University. He told me:

“If you take out the ‘don’t knows’, add Northern Ireland’s preferences and re-weight the data using the original referendum results, that adds about 4% to the remain majority.

“So, the majority of the UK as a whole (which of course, includes Gibraltar as they were included in the original referendum), it shows that now around 55% want the UK to remain in the EU, and only 44% want to leave.

“That’s a margin of about 11% for Remain. This figure has been growing since last year’s general election.”

Consequently, Professor Low wrote last week to all 650 Members of Parliament to advise them as follows:

________________________

Dear Member of Parliament

More than 50 polls, from a range of different polling companies (YouGov/BMG/Survation/National Centre for Social Research) have sampled Brexit opinion since the 2017 general election.

The results have been consistent and show a clear trend.

[ ∞ Link to graphs and data]

Since the general election, 98% of the polls have shown that the UK public no longer want to leave the European Union.

Two and a half years on since the referendum the majority has moved from 3.8% in favour of leave to between 8% and 12% in favour of remaining in the EU.

A single polling result has, typically, a potential 3% error, but when 50 out of 51 polls from different sources, agree, it is difficult to refute this new ‘will of the people’.

Statistically, the reasons for the changes are, almost certainly:

1. Over half a million older voters who voted 75%:25% in favour of leave, have died.
2. 700,000 new 18-20 year-olds are now able to vote. They have a 67%:33% preference to remain.
3. About 5% of remain voters accepted the democratic decision and 5% now undecided, but 90% still want to remain in the EU.
4. A lower percentage (80%) of leave voters still want to leave, but 20% have changed their minds.
5. Of the 12.9 million who did not vote, there is now a 2:1 majority in favour of remaining.

It seems to me important that you should know these figures, given the decisions you will be making in the near future.

As David Davis said, ‘If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy’, and there has been a substantial change of mind swing from the referendum of between 12% and 16% in the direction of remaining in the EU.

We have attempted to illustrate how a three-way ‘Peoples’ vote’ might be conducted at www.ThePeoplesVote.eu.

This does seem a very simple way to conduct a three-way vote and provides a way forward for dealing with the change of will in a democratic and stable manner that should appeal to much of the population.

Best wishes to you over the coming politically turbulent time.

Adrian Low

________________________

If, as now seems close to certain, Parliament rejects Theresa May’s version of Brexit, then the case will be overwhelming to put the decision back to us, ‘the people’, who the Prime Minister so often refers to.

If Mrs May is really interested in acting on the ‘will of the people’ she will surely want to find out what that will is today, over two years after ‘the people’ were last asked.

Now we know what Brexit means, we need a new vote on that, for the very first time.

And if the country votes to reject it, and to remain in the EU, it will mean that’s the new ‘will of the people’.

After all, if Brexit is rejected in a new poll, it will mean that sufficient numbers of Leave voters have changed their minds since the 2016 referendum.

So, Mrs May, you shouldn’t worry that you’d be going against what ‘the people’ wanted two years ago, if they don’t want it any more.

Indeed, if you go ahead with Brexit when the country doesn’t want it, you will be going against the ‘people’s will’.

And you wouldn’t want to do that, would you?

 

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