Fluent Radical

Civitas has released a new set of ‘balanced’ student worksheets on the EU. Great idea, but what about this line in worksheet 4, paragraph 1:

The EU represents one of the greatest experiments in political history.For the first time nations have chosen to surrender aspects of their national sovereignty to a central body that has a responsibility to ensure that they act for the good not only of themselves but of other nations as well.

Aside from the tranzi sentiments (this is the pro-EU worksheet), is the EU really the first time that independent nations have pooled sovereignty to a central body? Seems like it might have happened before.

UPDATE: In a similar vein, Tim Worstall has problems with the same worksheet.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of The European Union (PDF) is a very confusing document. Reading it, I begin to understand why there is so much confusion about human rights in this country.
For instance, it is not spelled out on whom human rights are obligations, but we can infer from the text that the rights apply to private citizens as well as governments.

As support of this claim, Article 3, “Right to the integrity of the person” states that in the fields of medicine “the free and informed consent of the person concerned” must be respected. This must be a right that is binding upon private citizens since it only applies to relations between doctors and their patients.

In addition Article 29 says that “Everyone has the right of access to a free placement service.” This either means:

1. that law cannot restrict a citizens right to consult a free placement service, or
2. that by law, some other people must have an obligation to provide or at least fund this service, free of charge.

Since I think that it means number 2, we discover that indeed, rights in this document place obligations not only on governments but on individuals.

Therefore, we can only conclude that Article 9, “The right to marry shall be guaranteed”, implies that should you wish to marry, a man or woman must be found and compelled to oblige. *

Applying this conclusion to Article 24, which says that children “may express their views freely”, must mean that parents have a duty to allow their kids to speak exactly as they see fit.

The only meaning of Article 13 - “The arts and scientific research shall be free of constraint.” - which is consistent with the rest of the document is that it is a breach of the charter to obstruct a scientist in the execution of his duty. Financial budgets - no matter how large - are a constraint upon research. Therefore, we could provide scientists with all the money in the world, and even then, we wouldn’t succeed in removing the constraint.

As I said, it’s a confusing document. I assume that there are some other documents, perhaps obscure legal opinions, that explain why the text doesn’t actually mean what it says it means. It would be nice if the learned gentlemen who decide (presumbly from inside their own heads) what rights we actually have, could in some way feed this esoteric knowledge back into the text. Otherwise the Charter will remain the obstacle to the understanding of human rights that it is now.

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* Incidentally, if it’s important to give people the right to marry if they wish, isn’t it just as important to give people the right not to marry? If it’s possible that at some point in the future the government could require you not to be married for whatever reason, and therefore we need to guard against that possibility by creating a human right, isn’t it just as plausible that the government could require you to be married, and isn’t that just as much something that we should be protected from with a human right?

Martin Kettle, in the Guardian today offers his ten tips for the new Conservative leader. I don’t agree with everything he says but he’s not far off the mark.

So that’s not what’s irritating. This is:

Develop a more moderate and pragmatic internationalism, sceptical of both federalist Europe and neocon Washington alike. [my emphasis]

AAH!

For let us speak expertly about Europe, without knowing a thing about the subject. Actually the sentiment is a lovely thing, especially coming from an Guardian writer. Mr Kettle is right when he says that the new Conservative leader should not look to the EU for answers.

But federalism? Come on! A federal Europe would be an improvement over the current situation.

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There was a time when the Economist spoke without political bias. It was a voice of authority because it didn’t enter into the political partisanism of the rest of the press, but rather always seemed to be speaking from some distant place where it could observe and report upon Britain without prejudice.

Bagehot throws all that away today.

[Cameron's] only big mistake, made when his campaign was in the doldrums, was to promise to pull Tory members of the European Parliament out of the centre-right, but federalist-inclined, European People’s Party (EPP) grouping. It was a blatant sop to the Europhobe head-bangers who deserve much of the blame for what has gone wrong for the Tories over the past 15 years. [My emphasis]

Leaving aside that it was the Europhiles who destroyed the Tories reputation on the economy, and the fact that Europe is the issue on which the Party is most in tune with voters. Let’s leave aside also that it is the area of greatest conservative success over the last 10 years - advocating withdrawal used to be a fringe sport, now you find it in national newspapers.

No, let’s focus on Bagehot’s obvious belief that Europe is an issue over which reasonable people can’t disagree. If you don’t believe in merging Britain into a European state, you are a head-banger. Eurosceptic means Europhobe, because anyone who worries over the constitutional arrangements of the EU is simply possessed of an unthinking fear of foreigners.

This is wishful thinking from Bagehot. The poor man is losing the argument over Europe, so he’s reduced to ad hominem attacks against his opponents.

Tone it down, guys. If I’m in the market for being attacked I’ll read the Guardian.

Dr Lee Rotherham calls the alliance between the Conservatives and the EPP “The Corpse Bride” in a new paper from the Bruges Group out today. He writes about the serious work that was put into the creation of a new alliance with the Atlanticist Baltic parties that was quietly dumped after IDS’s removal.

Truly on this issue Cameron is correct.

Another day, another impressive policy announcement from David Davis.

This time it’s to hold a double referendum on the EU. The first would ask the public if they wished to see powers repatriated from the EU. Given a big yes, the Conservatives would then have more negotiating leverage when it came to discussions with other European Governments. Whatever those negotiations produced would then be put to voters in a second referendum.

This is something of a milestone for the major parties, being the first time any of them have offered to put any part of the current EU settlement to the voters. Let’s hope a taboo has been broken.

Davis clearly recognises the need for credibility in negotiations. There’s nothing to stop foreign governments just saying ‘no’, and anything that addresses this is good.

Sadly it doesn’t include the one policy that genuinely would add credibility to negotiations.

Davis: We like to renegotiate the EU settlement please.

Chirac: And what will you do if such negotiations fail?

Davis: Well, then we’d leave everything as it is now.

Chirac: Riiiiight. Well, your proposals deserve careful consideration.
[3 seconds later]
Chirac: We’re done. No.

The sad thing is that if our Government did promise withdrawal if a favourable UK protocol couldn’t be negotiated, the other European governments would immediately have a great incentive to conclude such a protocol to protect their trading arrangements. Don’t forget that the UKs balance of trade with the REU is very much in their favour, so they’d be cutting off their nose if they didn’t agree to it.

Until someone takes such a step, promising withdrawal if negotiations fail, this is all so much hot air.

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From Eu-Serf I learn that Davis used to be called Monsieur Non on the Continent. I like this guy.