Douglas Carswell's Blog

Beware the Euro spin!

This week, ministers will be meeting in Europe to cut various backroom deals.  Expect lots of spin, spoon fed via pet media pundits, designed to try to convince us that this horse-trading is actually a Good Thing. 

Here are some examples of the type of thing heading our way; 

"Ministers have safeguarded Britain’s interests"

If so, then why are we still on the hook for billions of pounds to bail out a currency we choose not to join? And why have we failed to return a single power from Brussels to Britain?  

And if it is all such a good deal, why not but it to the people in a referendum? 

"Britain has a "referendum lock" - but now is not the time to trigger it"

After reneging on that "cast iron" guarantee to hold a referendum on Europe, the Conservative leadership crafted the "referendum lock". It was designed to create the impression of firm resolve. But an impression of a referendum is as close as this measure will ever go in giving us one. 

Now that a new deal with a fundamentally different kind of Europe is being agreed to, lawyerly small-print is being cited to explain why you cannot have a say afterall.    

"Dealing with the Euro crisis trumps the need to renegotiate"

The future of the Euro does not hinge on whether Britain has control over its own fisheries policy or employment law.

Dealing with the Euro crisis is the biggest once-in-a-generation renegotiation opportunity we will ever have. If ministers cannot muster themselves to ask for anything back now, what chance is that they will ever do so?  

"Eurozone fiscal union is in our interests"

If the Eurozone is “a burning building with no exits”, why not try to help the victims escape, rather than keep them trapped inside? How does a future of debt and stagnation for millions of Europeans assist either them or us?

And if the Eurozone bloc of 17 do fuse as one, how can we ever veto any initiative ever again? How is that in our interests? 

"An EU referendum would plunge Britain's economy into chaos" 

Not true. The British economy is in a mess because successive governments have spent way beyond what the tax base can sustain.  Governments of all three parties have acted as though they could engineer growth using monetary (and to some extent fiscal) stimulus.  It has not worked, instead sowing the seeds of disaster; a credit bubble and bust, plus chronic malinvestment. 

Holding a vote on Europe would, of itself, be no more economically disruptive than one on, say, AV or electoral reform.

Voting to quit the EU, however, might just enable us to begin to make some of the supply-side reforms needed to make Britain competitive in the longer term.

"We are winning the arguments in Europe" 

If the EU really is moving our way, why are they about to move towards full fiscal fusion? 

"The single market must be completed"

Overwhelmingly most goods and services produced by people in the town or county where you live are not made for export.  Even fewer are made for export to the EU.  Yet they must all comply with every single market rule. This explains Europe's burgeoning red tape – and how it acts as a drag on Britain’s overall economic competitiveness. 

Alas, however, many big corporations and lobbyists tend to like more single market regulation.  It is a good way of shutting down the competition.

Back to all posts