The Withdrawal Method

The Daily Express continues today in fine form with its crusade to leave the EU, however there’s one article I would query:

BRITAIN could quit the European Union virtually overnight to herald a new era of independence and freedom, campaigners declared yesterday.

Quoting Douglas Carswell:

They poured scorn on Britain is now so tied in, departure is impossible. Tory MP Douglas Carswell said: “It would be relatively straightforward. The idea it would be a hugely complex process is just not true.”

New rules attempting to stop nations quitting the EU were introduced three years ago under the controversial Lisbon Treaty. A new two-year departure process was introduced in a bid to discourage any bolt for the exit door as support for the union sank across Europe.

…once the parliamentary procedure was complete, EU bosses could do little to stand in Britain’s way.

The Express article makes it seem as if it’s a simple case of repealing the 1972 European Communities Act. Before Lisbon that was true, however the ratification of Lisbon changes that position significantly. It’s no longer that easy and here’s why.

Countries exiting international organizations are covered by the Vienna Convention on the Law on Treaties. Article 56(1) states (my emphasis):

1. A treaty which contains no provision regarding its termination and which does not provide for denunciation or withdrawal is not subject to denunciation or withdrawal unless:
a) it is established that the parties intended to admit the possibility of denunciation or withdrawal; or
b) a right of denunciation or withdrawal may be implied by the nature of the treaty.

So if there’s no specific provision for exit then members states can be free to leave by terminating the treaty, and as no EU treaties have had any such provision before Lisbon, then previously we could have simply repealed the ECA and it’s bye bye EU.

However, Lisbon is different because it does have a provision for exit via Article 50:

1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.
2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.
3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.
4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.
A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.

Therefore it’s covered by Article 54 of the Vienna Convention on the Law on Treaties (my emphasis):

The termination of a treaty or the withdrawal of a party may take place:
(a) in conformity with the provisions of the treaty; or
(b) at any time by consent of all the parties after consultation with the other contracting States.

We are bound therefore by international law to follow the method laid out in Lisbon. Either by negotiating our exit with the agreement of the other 26 member states (unlikely) or failing that enduring a 2 year ‘cooling-off’ period during which, as Lisbon Treaty Article 50(4) above makes clear, we would have no participation in EU affairs at all although still technically a member state. The EU, could then during that period (out of spite) pass all sorts of financial, and other, penalties on us.

Our exit is likely to be costly and painful. We were stitched up by the French, twice over, on the way in and undoubtedly we will be stitched up on the way out.

Quote Of The Day

Douglas Carswell MP, agrees with Dr Richard North:

“Sooner or later we’ll reach the tipping point.”

UK Budget Now Under EU Scrunity

Douglas Carswell et al lost their vote tonight (surprise surprise) to reject EU scrutiny of the UK budget via point 34:

The House divided: Ayes 296, Noes 40.

Mr Hoban, who put forward the original motion in support of a Treaty change, argues:

I have listened carefully to hon. Members’ concerns tonight, and I want to state yet again that the proposals from the Van Rompuy taskforce strengthen an existing framework, crucially without encroaching on fiscal and economic sovereignty. There is much more work to be done on this, but let me assure my right hon. and hon. Friends that the Government are committed to securing the best outcome from the proposals, to defending Britain’s interests and to protecting this Parliament’s right to set and scrutinise our fiscal policy. Anything less would not be acceptable.

I shall deal with some of the issues that have been raised in the debate. Does the fact that the EU, along with other organisations, undertakes surveillance mean that we will be subject to sanctions? No, it does not. Does the measure mean that we will need to follow any of the recommendations made? No. Will we have to present our Budget to Europe before we present it to this House? No. Will we have to give the EU information that has not been presented to this House first? No. Will the provision of information erode our sovereignty? No. Perhaps more importantly, will any powers over our Budget be transferred from Westminster to Brussels? Again, no. I hope that I have been clear and explicit on those points, and it is for those reasons that I ask Members to support the motion tonight.

Point 34 says this:

“a new legal framework …. applying to all EU Member States”.

What Mr Hoban says is not technically inaccurate…at the moment, but it will be. Point 34 lays the foundation for further encroachment in the future. That’s how the EU works. I’m not called the Boiling Frog for nothing.

Round-Up

Blimey, we’re being inundated by EU news today. The budget in particular is dominating the newspapers and even BBC Breakfast led with Cameron and the budget this morning (though in part that was an opportunity to rehearse the old Tories are split agenda).

Summary of the budget row so far is; the EU parliament thought of a figure they wanted as an increase, then doubled it. Tories condemn it as unacceptable, at a time of domestic cuts. Cameron plays the tough ‘best deal for Britain’ card, will probably negotiate the budget down to circa 2.9% by agreeing to treaty changes without a promised referendum. Then Chamberlain Cameron will claim a victory. In reality far more will be given away than was won, as Witterings From Witney spots here. It’s all well worn Tory rhetoric, though the tone of the coverage suggests the ‘victory for Britain’ bit might not being going as well as hoped.

The Telegraph editorial has this corker:

At this week’s EU summit, our most instinctively Eurosceptic Prime Minister for 20 years faces a tricky set of challenges.

Hilarious. Cameron is euroscpetic in the same way that I’m a professional footballer (and no that’s not me). The comments underneath don’t seem convinced either.

Then aside from the budget, the Telegraph has this:

MEPs last week voted for rules that would extend maternity leave to 20 weeks on full pay and introduce a compulsory, fully-paid fortnight off for new fathers. Conservative MEPS voted against the plan, which the Government has promised to oppose.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph today, business groups representing thousands of British firms urge the Prime Minister to fight the introduction of the rules, which they say would cost Britain £2.5 billion and stop them hiring new staff.

And then this (hattip England Expects)*

The EU has been accused of trying to “hijack” Remembrance Sunday with a £4.7 million plan to put euro-branded commemorative plaques marking “European integration” on war cemeteries and memorials.

MEPs approved plans for “European Heritage Label” to mark sites with “a symbolic European value” that “have played a key role in the history and/or the building of EU“.

Given the EU flag already defaces our castles, so it’s no surprise they want to move onto war memorials. Apparently you’ll be able to send in designs:

The plaques, to be designed by an open competition next year, aim “to strengthen European citizens’ sense of belonging to the EU”.

Somehow I don’t think my entries will win. Then there’s two stories which don’t mention the EU but are affected by our membership:

Maternity leave, paternity leave, health and safety, PAYE, sex discrimination, ageism, flexible working, parental leave, tougher employment tribunals, a new Equalities Act.

It’s amazing that Britain has any entrepreneurs left at all, given the mountain of red tape that businessmen must cope with — and that’s before they can get on with creating jobs.

And:

Highly skilled migrants have been told to expect much tougher restrictions on coming to the UK without a job offer after Home Office research showed many recent arrivals have ended up in unskilled jobs in Britain.

The report showed that as many as three out of 10 people who were given so-called “Tier 1” visas, which are awarded to high flyers from outside the European Union, ended up doing menial jobs such as shop assistants, security guards and supermarket cashiers.

I’m sure there’s more I’ve missed. Meanwhile here’s Douglas Carswell on last night’s BBC Newsnight (23 mins in):

*Update: The Telegraph story has drawn an angry response by the EU:

You claim that the EU wants to ‘hijack’ Remembrance Sunday with a plan to put euro-branded commemorative plaques marking “European integration” on war cemeteries and memorials in the UK (27 October). This is nonsense and a serious distortion of the facts, which were explained in some detail to your correspondent.

Under our proposal, which was backed by the European Parliament this week, it will be up to national governments to nominate sites for the award, if they want to. The sites might include places of remembrance. An independent expert panel will assess the nominations it receives from national governments and decide which of them merits the heritage label.

If the panel receives no nominations from the UK, no sites in the UK would display the European Heritage Label.

The EU cannot unilaterally impose the heritage label on anyone.

Though the Telegraph didn’t actually say the EU has hijacked Remembrance Sunday, it said; ‘The EU has been accused’ which might be true if a reporter popped into the nearest pub and ask someone at random what they thought of the proposals.

Push Me Pull You

You know Cameron’s ‘don’t-mention-Europe’ stance is in trouble when even the BBC political editor gets it.

Desperate not to mention the EU issue, and hope it goes away, Cameron is finding out that it doesn’t – it comes back for more and more. As I blogged back in June:

Much as the Tories want the EU to go away it won’t. We cannot continue much longer with a ‘half in and half out’ policy. It’s either one or the other; a decision made by a referendum. There are so many more issues about to erupt during this parliament that the ‘ostrich-non-bust-up-with-Europe’ strategy simply won’t work. Either they grasp the nettle or it will be done for them.

Desperate to wriggle out of his promise of a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, Cameron gave all sorts of assurances on a ‘referendum lock’ to appease certain aspects of his party and a large proportion of his grassroots support. But as is becoming clear the coalition, particularly the Tories, are showing a pattern where attention to detail is not a strong point. Thus this ‘lock’ promise (yet to see the light of day as a bill) is coming back to bite. As Nick Robinson writes:

The problem is that when the prime minister calls Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy and President Van Rompuy today he’ll be reminded that France and Germany don’t want to stand still – they never do. They believe that Europe’s institutions need strengthening…

Like a shark that has to keep on swimming to stay alive so the EU has to keep on integrating for the same reason. It is its raison d’etre. However, as is becoming clear, questions regarding the EU in the UK are becoming more frequent, causing awkwardness for our europhile PM:

…when the PM answers questions today or in the tearooms afterwards, he’ll be told by his backbenchers that they too don’t want the EU to stand still. They want its budget cut and its powers reduced.

So what will Cast-Iron do:

He’ll advise his fellow leaders to find ways to strengthen the eurozone without a treaty change which will lead to demands for a referendum here and an unpredictable parliamentary vote. Or, if they insist on a new treaty, he’ll insist that it doesn’t give Brussels fresh powers over British policy…Thus he will seek to convince all parts of his coalition – within Parliament and beyond it – that Britain is not moving closer to, or further from, the heart of Europe.

In other words, as per Carswell’s 5 rules, Cameron will attempt to ‘fudge it’. But the more the EU asks – and gets – the less wriggle room there is and the less successful the’ staying still and pretending’ strategy becomes. Of that Robinson is no doubt:

The moral of the story is, however, that it is only in fairy stories that nothing changes year in,year out. One day the push-me-pull-you will have to go one way or the other and, when he does, there’ll be trouble.

We need to grasp the EU membership nettle now, we need a referendum.

Carswell Rules

Yesterday I linked to Douglas Carswell’s 5 rules on how a referendum on a new EU treaty for economic governance will be broken.

Well lo and behold up pops Mr Redwood who does the decent thing today by fulfilling at least 3 of the rules in this relatively short post, finishing with:

It will be a good test of the UK government’s negotiating skills, and a chance for them to show how determined they are in wishing to cut back on central controls and high spending budgets in Brussels.

And rule number 5 was:

5. Anyhow, look how tough we’ve been, getting Europe to mug us for a little less with a slightly reduced budget increase!

It’s beyond parody.

More Cast Iron Promises Go AWOL

Exhibit A:

As I blogged here, the Tory ‘promise’ of a cap on non-EU immigration is under threat. Eurogoblin rightly points out that the Free Trade Agreement with India requires unanimity in the Council – in effect we have a veto*. But it’s clear that the Tories, not wanting to be isolated in Europe, are looking to drop their election promise, not exercise our veto and we are being softened up for the eventual announcement:

David Cameron has hinted that the coalition’s controversial proposals for capping non-EU immigration may be watered down.

Perpetually unable to keep his word, should Cameron’s wife be getting worried?

Personally I don’t agree with an arbitrary cap, but it has come about, ironically because we don’t fully control our own borders. The key to a successful immigration policy is enough flexibility to respond to economic circumstances and also to voter concerns. Immigration was the number one issue at the last election.

So faced with relentless complaints by the electorate yet impotent to control immigration from the EU , successive governments have responded in the only way possible – ever more draconian measures on the only area we have control over – non-EU citizens in order to look like they were doing something. But not only is the cap hugely damaging to British business it creates the wholly unfair situation where Commonwealth countries who have regularly provided soldiers to protect our nation have far fewer rights to enter our country, than, say, those from Estonia.

However what Cameron may found out soon enough, while he’s showing contempt for voters, is that a weak economy combined with job losses, public sector cuts and uncontrolled immigration makes for a very toxic mix.

Exhibit B:

A post by Douglas Carswell on how another referendum promise will broken:

Now there could well be a new EU treaty, without any referendum – despite what we were promised.

Prepare for the government spin, which will likely say:

1. This new agreement involving France and Germany etc is not really a new treaty.

2. It doesn’t involve giving the EU new powers in new areas. Just transfers in existing areas. And when we promised a referendum on any further transfer of new powers, we meant in new transfers of power within new areas. Obviously.

3. Besides, this is not a significant transfer of power. We were careful to say there’d be a referendum only when there were significant transfers. And we don’t think this is significant. So there.

4. This new thingy, which isn’t really a treaty, doesn’t involve us, as we’re not in the Euro. Despite what the small print might say.

5. Anyhow, look how tough we’ve been, getting Europe to mug us for a little less with a slightly reduced budget increase!

By Friday, there’s a fair chance you’ll have been fed variants of all five of the above….

Indeed Cameron will follow in Labour’s footsteps in wriggling out of a commitment on a technicality (i.e. the rejected Constitution abolished previous EU treaties, but Lisbon reformed them; same outcome but different treaty etc).

It’s like an election has never happened.

*Update: EuroGoblin is partly right. FTAs can be ‘mixed’ agreements (include political stuff) and therefore it would require unanimity by member states – in effect creating a veto. This is what happened with South Korea and Columbia. However the EU in general has exclusive competence on FTAs under Lisbon article 188c (formally 133) so any agreement would be subjected to QMV which means no veto for the UK, therefore Cameron could do little about it.

I’m not sure whether ‘India’ is a mixed agreement. Will update if I find out.

Eurogoblin in the comments confirms that India is a mixed agreement, therefore Cameron has a veto.

A Team Of Carswells

Douglas Carswell demonstrates again why he’s a man of principle who has a desire to try to (as best he can*) take his role of backbencher seriously:

“How dare you keep us late this evening, Carswell!” demanded an old-school front-bench colleague.

My crime?

Together with thirty four other Conservative MPs – including many from the 2010 intake – I’ve tabled a motion suggesting that the government might not like to increase our EU budget contribution by almost £2 Billion. Under government proposals, the UK’s net transfer to EU institutions is set to rise from £6.4 Billion to £8.3 Billion, or almost 30 percent.

With the government poised to cut spending on public services, how can that be right? It means we’d be cutting UK public services, and then spending a large chunk of the “savings” on Eurocrats.

If selected, my motion could mean MPs having to debate the EU budget contribution until 10pm. By staying on a couple of hours extra, MPs could save £2 billion – or £15,833,000 per minute. Or enough to fund half a dozen nurses or police officers each second. Worth hanging around in the tea rooms for a little longer, surely?

We often hear people talk about the “new politics”. Well here it is. MPs doing their job holding government to account for how it spends our money.

Again and again Carswell appreciates why he is elected, he openly admits that he would rather sacrifice a ministerial career in order to hold the executive to account.

To paraphrase a famous Liverpool song; “We all dream of a team of Carswells”, Politics would be much better for it.

*Note: It’s worth pointing out that through no fault of his own Carswell’s hands are tied, the UK has no veto over EU budget increases, the MEPs are likely to vote for it. But they may back down if there is a direct EU tax, though it won’t be called that:

One thing is clear however, says Mr Lamassoure. “It must not be called a ‘European tax’. Once you mix the words ‘Europe’ and ‘tax’ in the same sentence it becomes explosive.”

EU Referendum Lock Worthless…

…so says Douglas Carswell, here’s his post in full:

The government is offering us a referendum “lock”, which will guarantee any new EU treaty will require a plebiscite.

Do ministers take us for fools?

This “lock” is worthless – and ministers must know it. Under the Lisbon Treaty (no referendum), the EU doesn’t need any more treaties to give itself more powers. That, Mr Hague and Mr Liddington, was kind of the point of offering a referendum in the first place ….

Incidentally, since we promised this “lock”, the EU has 1) established a diplomatic corps, which we voted through the Commons, 2) given Eurocrats control over the City, 3) extended the EU arrest warrant, and 4) agreed to an inflation-busting EU budget increase. We’ve hardly stopped give the EU more powers since May, have we?

The idea this referendum “lock” stops Brussels from continuing to assume more powers, usually with ministerial acquiesce, is balls. We might have had a changed ministers at the Foreign Office this year, but I can see no evidence of any change in EU integrationist policy.

Absolutely right, but one has to wonder why he remains in the Tory party.

Carswell’s Signed…

…the in or out pledge:

I’ve signed the pledge demanding an “in / out” referendum on the EU.

Why don’t you sign up now, too?

For decades politicians and diplomats have managed our relations with the Brussels. I think it is time that we allow the people to pass judgement on the results with an “in / out” vote.

Once you’ve signed, why not also write to your MP and ask them if they’ll sign up as well?

An email is already winging its way onto my MP, though given that last time he wrote this, I don’t have much hope of success.