Douglas Carswell's Blog

Euro localism is an oxymoron

“European localism” is what we need to reform the EU and make it more to our liking, says a new report out tomorrow.  Except the idea of European localism is an oxymoron.  A contradiction in terms.

The European project has only ever been about transferring power upward.  Every successive treaty reform has taken powers that rested with member states or with a free and civic society, and put them in the hands of remote EU officialdom. The idea that the EU might now begin to devolve control outwards and downwards is ridiculous.

Does this new Euro localism mean returning agricultural policy to each member state?  Control over fishing or financial services?   Would it mean devolving trade policy back to Britain?  Or giving all 17 members of the Euro control over their own interest rates?       

“European localism” sounds like a modern version of that promise of “subsidiarity”. Twenty years ago we were told that power would soon be passed down from the Eurosystem to the member states.  Can you think of a single example where this has actually happened?  It isn't going to happen now.  

Euro localism / subsidiarity are not only meaningless in practice. They are anti democratic in principle. They pre-suppose that the Euro system already has the authority to decide what is, and what is not, a matter for us to determine for ourselves. They really do reduce our legislature to the status of a county council.

Having national parliaments approve the appointment of Euro judges, as the Euro localists propose, would do nothing to decentralise power.  It would merely embolden the Euro courts to ride rough shod over Europe's different jurisdictions.        

I suspect that the only interest that the Euro system might have in localism would be if it enabled Brussels to by-pass national parliaments and deal directly with regional quangos directly.

Long before localism became fashionable, I was writing policy papers advocating it. It is precisely because I want to disperse power in the UK outward and downward that I came to the view that we need to leave the European Union.  As long as we remain members of the European Union, we cannot achieve the localist revolution we need in Britain.

A real Euro localist would want to give people a referendum on whether they continue to be governed by Brussels.  Giving power back to people means quitting the EU. 

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