About British irrationality

Recent statements by British Prime Minister David Cameron and his dispute with German chancellor Angela Merkel on EU migration policy have become a hot topic in the world media. Many commentators, especially after Merkel said that the UK was free to leave the EU if it did not intend to contribute to the EU budget, began talking about the UK leaving the EU. The press began to use the word Brexit, an abbreviation standing for “the British exit.” Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston said once: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” So, the question is: what interest the Whitehall has in the EU, in other words, what kind of the union the UK would like to stay in. The Day learned it from director of the foreign policy department at the Centre for European Reform Ian BOND.

“We have enormous economic interests in the EU. Our political debate, it is rather mad at the moment, because it’s obsessed with the issue of migration from the European Union, which actually has brought great benefits to the British economy. And people are not looking at that, and they are not looking at the extent to which we benefit from being part of the European single market. So, you are absolutely right, our perpetual interest is in being part of the world’s largest single economic space. And there is a fantasy in the UK that we could have the benefits of membership within the European Union in terms of access to the single market without being members of the European Union. If you are a member of a club, you pay your subscription charges and you abide by the club’s rules, and you get the benefit of being a member of the club. And what many people in Britain think is that we should be able to pay no money, obey no rules, and still have access to the European single market, and that is just a fantasy.”

So, why is Cameron playing this immigration card?

“It is political opportunism. He has a party, which is traditionally being very divided about Europe, and he thought that it was a clever move to offer them a referendum in 2017. And he thought that this would make them more favorable towards his leadership and would stop them talking about Europe. Actually, it encouraged them to believe that they now have a real chance of taking Britain out of the European Union. And so, instead of talking about any of the real issues, we are talking about things that politicians have intentionally invented. And now we are essentially saying: here is the problem that the British government has invented; the rest of Europe must solve it for us. And there is no real sign that the rest of Europe wants to solve a problem that we made up. And I think you can see the foolishness of the position that we are in by the fact that the German government, which shares some of our concerns about people from other European countries coming to Germany simply in order to collect social benefits, welfare payments. There is just one important case in the Court of Justice of the European Union, which said that actually Germany can restrict benefits if someone from another EU member state comes to Germany and does not intend to work there, but really goes there in order to collect benefits. So, the Germans have got the European Court to give them an answer, which ought to satisfy the British, and the British have sort of said: ‘That’s a very good answer, but we still need to have a change in the fundamental treaties of the European Union.’ And not surprisingly, the rest of the Europe is saying: ‘Well, actually, no, you don’t.’ We are getting into a very dangerous position because of our domestic politics, where we could almost accidentally leave the European Union.”

British newspaper The Telegraph, commenting on the recent dispute between Merkel and Cameron, wrote: “Is this the end of their relationship?” What do you say to that?

“Hopefully, not, but you know, essentially, as I see the position, there is a lot that they agree on. They agree on the importance of the single market, they agree on the importance of keeping the EU budget under firm control, they even agree on the importance of not allowing people from poorer member states to exploit the social benefit systems of richer member states. What they don’t agree on is the need to recent branch revisions of the EU treaties in order to achieve the goal. Merkel thinks that most of these things can be done within the existing rules, and now she has the court in a sense sending a clear signal that that’s true, that you can do much of this without having to rewrite any treaties.”

We talked about Cameron’s position, but what is the British consensus on the EU they would like to stay in?

“That is a very difficult question to answer, because the British government has not put forward any specific plans. It has said that it wants to limit migration from other EU countries. It said in general terms that it wants less regulation on the European level, although it really hasn’t been able to specify what it means by that. It claims to be a supporter of the single market, although I think many of the people who claim to support the single market don’t really understand what it is. I mean, they don’t understand the so-called four freedoms: free movement of labor, capital, services, and goods. Those are actually all linked together; if you limit one of the freedoms, then actually you have a less perfect market. So, we do not have from the government a coherent agenda for things it wants to do. And we have a lot of people who are really quite irrational in their approach to the European Union. And again, if you look at another area of the EU activity, that’s the law, order, and justice, the so-called Justice and Home Affairs. We had an absurd parliamentary debate, which was about a number of measures of police and judicial cooperation, to which the UK used to belong, and then opted out as part of an earlier deal, and is now opting back into. And there are a number of members of parliament for the governing Conservative Party, who don’t want to opt back into measures, which police chiefs and chiefs of security service believe are essential for national security, because these Conservative MPs think that this allows the EU to interfere in our legal system. So, we are having a completely irrational debate about Europe in this country; and the only positive thing about it is that actually British business is starting to say more loudly that they support our continued membership in the European Union. But the world starts to notice that those on whom our economic prosperity depends are speaking out in favor of our continued membership in the European Union.”

What, then, is the position of the Labor Party, is it more pro-European, as it used to be?

“It is more pro-European. They are also now starting to, I’m afraid, getting hold in these debates on immigration. The Conservative Party has succeeded in turning this into an important political issue. Only two or three years ago, this was an issue that hardly anybody thought was important. And the Conservative Party has turned it into a very important issue, and that means that now the Labor Party has had to follow that. But still, the Labor Party believes that it’s in the UK’s interest to remain in the European Union. And they have not promised that there would be a referendum, so if they form a government, their policy is there only will be a referendum if significant powers are being transferred to Brussels. So, if there was a new EU treaty, there would be a referendum, but at the moment there is no sign that anybody in Europe wants a new treaty.”

I read that there were calls for current leader of the Labor Party Ed Miliband to resign. Is the party engulfed in an internal power struggle already, and may his brother David, who was foreign minister, replace him?

“His personal popularity ratings are extraordinarily low. The public opinion surveys show that very few people think that he is ready to be prime minister. At the moment, there is no sign that he is thinking of stepping down. So, I assume that he will lead the Labor Party into the next election.

“As for his brother David, he very sensibly is taking himself to New York, and is not part of making this discussion at all. He is now in charge of an international non-governmental humanitarian aid, relief and development organization, the International Rescue Committee. And he finds that work very personally satisfying, at least he seems to. So, I think he is staying out of this. I suspect that there are a number of people who would be willing to put themselves forward as candidates, but I don’t think that any of them would be planting the first dagger in Ed Miliband. In British politics the person who makes the first attempt to unseat a party leader is very rarely the person who subsequently ends up being successor. They tend to be regarded with suspicion by other members of their party. So, that’s what happened with Margaret Thatcher in 1990, when the then deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine was perceived as having attempted to unseat her, and he did not become the leader of the Conservative Party; it was John Major, who would always appear to be loyal to Margaret Thatcher, who was elected by the members of the party to succeed her.”

Cameron criticizes Vladimir Putin very sharply over the Russian aggression in Ukraine. Would you agree that the City of London, with its banks serving as conduits for Russian money, can serve as one of the levers in Britain’s campaign to stop Russia?

“There seems to be some good research done, which shows that actually only a very small percentage of the money in the City of London comes from Russia, so it’s much less influential in British policy making than what one might have supposed. The question of whether we can do more to clamp down on Russian money passing through London, yes, I think, that is still a possibility. And I think it’s important that British financial institutions vigorously implement the laws that already exist against money laundering to ensure that Russian money, which comes to London, is not the product of criminal activity, bribery, corruption, theft in Russia. And I’m afraid that as we saw with Mr.Yanukovych, the use of front companies, some of which have links to London, is a very popular way of concealing the fact that political figures in the former Soviet Union are moving money into the UK or into the European Union. It is extremely important that British financial institutions vigorously implement the existing laws.”