Last week David Cameron vetoed a ‘treaty within a treaty’ designed to save the Euro, and in doing so, left Britain alienated from the continent. This week we ask: did Cameron do the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons? Or is Britain now resigned to becoming a glorified tax heaven?
FOR: Murray Robertson
With Cameron and his cohorts leading the charge towards even further cuts, it may be tempting to condemn his actions on all counts. However, those decrying Cameron’s refusal to stand alongside Merkel and Sarkozy last Friday are missing the bigger picture: the rejected European Union treaty was in great part an attempt to legally bind nations into incredibly restrictive budgetary requirements, enforced by the European Court of Justice. Of course, Cameron’s motivations had little to do with the interests of ordinary folk in the UK. His was an attempt to protect his beloved City. But it’s a dangerous game playing ball with those within the EU who demand deficit spending be curtailed; the same group of people who take the removal of elected governments in Greece and Italy as necessary economic protections.
We must combat moves to enshrine into law the sacrifice of citizens to the service of financial institutions. If the EU apparatus keen on such moves were to have its way, cuts to public services, healthcare, education and the like would not just be an ideological decision by fiscally conservative governments, but legally mandated whenever a nation’s books weren’t balanced. Economic stimulus from any European government would be penalised, with taxation and spending powers greatly restricted; an unheard-of attack on Keynesian policy. Even The Economist, that stalwart supporter of free market ideology, has its reservations about such a political set-up, imagining on Friday the dreadful scenario of political policy being judged not by how far citizens support it, but how compatible the policy is with standards hashed out in Brussels. Such an assault on democracy contained within the rejected treaty is intolerable.
Much talk has been made of the UK being isolated, that as a nation we should have gone along with the treaty to help future interests. These interests, vaguely outlined, are of course not the interests of the most people in the UK, but the interests of the City. Arguments over which plan is better for the Square Mile are not the arguments we need to focus on with this issue. What’s important is that ordinary citizens in the UK and around Europe are not held to an enforced austerity program. Nationalistic sentiment of not being ‘at the table’ ignores what price we must pay for a seat.
A call to avoid being dragged into further ties of Europe-wide neoliberal fiscal policy does not amount to support for Cameron, nor does it align us with the Little Englanders who have little concern with economic justice. Healthy criticism of the EU and the powerful group of right-wing governments that dominate it is needed from those of us who oppose the call for austerity. Such criticism should not be dismissed along with the vitriolic xenophobia of UK nationalists. Some of the strongest calls in the last year or so of protest against government policy have been the demands that workers, students and others should not have to pay for the failures of the financial sector. “No ifs, no buts…” captures that demand perfectly, and has rung true from the student protests last year, through the occupations up and down the country, to the public sector strike of November 30th. Now, when governments and market actors are manoeuvring to reject the demand before it even reaches the ballot box, we must stand firm.
Thus, not only should we be thankful that the treaty was rejected, we should be going further; working together with groups across Europe to tackle the determination to enforce austerity. We need a Europe that is organised in the interests of working Europeans, not in the interests of the financial sector and their governmental allies. As a network of people standing against the notion of prosperity for the few trumping the concerns of the many, we must oppose attempts to codify such a notion into European law.
AGAINST: Hazel Lewry
The EU, like the UK has a fundamental problem; it has too much money in circulation that isn’t underwritten by anything. The standard solution to financial crisis’ has been to have more money printed, effectively devaluing what’s already out there by the percentage of “new money” they print. And this week when most banks claim they are in profit, paradoxically paying huge bonuses despite having lost billions in stress tests, they’re preparing to print more. This is quantitative easing; creating more money without creating additional wealth.
The Brussels summit this week, with Merkel and Sarkozy, known as “Merkozy” in the EU, proposed massive changes to the Lisbon Treaty. In its purest form, the proposals were for an unelected body of European technocrats to be in charge of every national EU budget; starting with the 17 common currency nations, but would expand to the entire EU in a relatively short time. A unanimous agreement was required to alter the Lisbon Treaty and allow the EU to grab national sovereignty across the euro-zone. Since those who control the currency supply and spending ability, control the nation.
PM David Cameron went to the summit sworn to protect his paymasters, the City of London’s financial institutions, from the proposed EU levy (Tobin Tax), which will tax large interbank or financial transactions, and to quell his rebellious anti-EU back-benchers complaints about parliamentary sovereignty. He would “repatriate” powers to Westminster.
Europe was on the verge of an agreement in Brussels on Thursday and Friday. However, Cameron dug in his heels, wielded his veto, placing his concessions to the City of London and his Euro-sceptic colleagues ahead of the fate of the euro. As events emerged, they showed Cameron clearly lacking the ability, in a crisis situation, to separate or prioritise national and international requirements from those of special interest groups. He fought and lost for “The City” and his backbenchers. And he lost big.
For the rest of Europe, the UK’s actions are unforgivable. Arguably, this is the EU’s worst ever crisis and its perceived resolution held to ransom so Cameron could please his vested interests. Had the negotiations been successful, the new treaty would have imposed decade of austerity on the euro-zone. Unsurprisingly, most of the 27 EU members are ignoring Cameron’s objections and are set to strike out on a separate treaty anyway.
The resultant two tier Europe, with the UK firmly on the lower level, means Cameron and future PM’s will be no more influential on euro matters, than if the UK were only European Free Trade Zone members. Nevertheless, the UK will still be paying her normal membership fees! What an absurd result for an individual who has put great emphasis on “having a voice and being able to influence policy at the top table”.
Meanwhile, the euro-zone will be in a weaker fiscal situation, with a treaty which will now not be ready until March. A treaty the UK will have no say in. Moreover he has made a pariah of himself and the UK, effectively excluding the country from future negotiations concerning Europe. Cameron could have ratified the proposals rather than vetoing them, and then held a UK referendum on EU membership. We vote to stay in the EU, the vote is ratified; we vote to leave, the vote remains ratified. The PM’s behaviour can only be likened to a failed horse trading exercise undertaken by an amateur poker player. Europe didn’t blink.
Despite playing his ultimate card, Cameron won nothing. No financial regulation exemptions, no concessions, and no repatriated powers. This will be remembered as the night the second battle of Britain was initiated and lost by a single man, indicating the end of the UK in Europe. How does the world view our “top diplomat”? Possibly the best response echoing many others was from “Der Spiegel” who took the position “Bye-bye Britain” followed up with “Europe Can Work Fine without the British”