The Referendum on the UK's Membership of the European Union

[Stavros]

The Conservative Party has introduced a Bill into Parliament which will 'make provision for the holding of a referendum in the United Kingdom and Gibraltar on whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union'. The Bill passed its first reading on the 9th of June 2015 with support from the Labour Party, and while it has been agreed that the Second and Third Readings will be read on the same day, that date has not yet been fixed, nor has a date for the Referendum been set, assuming it passes all its stages in Parliament; but it is expected to be held before the end of 2017.

The question on the ballot paper will be: Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?

There are too many issues at stake here, and perhaps posts will reflect this if the topic invites enough comment. For me these are some of the issues:

1. A Referendum is the means whereby a government can abdicate decision-making and hand it over to the people even when, as in this case, it has only just been elected to office. Moreover, in legal terms, the Government could present a bill to Parliament seeking authority to enable the UK to cite Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon 2009, and thus leave the EU as an Act of Parliament, without holding a referendum. Two states have left the EU -in its earlier forms- Algeria was part of the Common Market [CM] when it was part of France, but left both France and the CM when it became independent in 1962; and Greenland left the EU in 1985 when it became independent of Denmark.

2. A referendum does not conclusively put an end to the argument. In 1975 the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson gave the British people a chance to vote in a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Economic Community but did so to put an end to internal Labour Party conflict over the issue. The result of the referendum not only made no difference to party conflict, by 1981 leaving the EU was Labour Party policy and as a consequence senior Labour figures left to form their own party, the Social Democratic Party. All the signs suggest that if the country votes to remain in the EU, the anti-Europeans will just carry on as they have been doing. But leaving the EU will make it harder to 're-join' so from this point of view the vote when it happens will be decisive.

3. The precise organisation of the referendum has yet to be decided. We do not yet know if the Bill when it becomes law will require a certain percentage of votes to be conclusive -for example, the vote requiring an endorsement of, say 48 or 49% of those who voted- or how this will be judged on a low turn-out. In addition to these calibrations, there is an appeal to allow 16-17 year olds to vote, given that they will be living with the consequences of the referendum for the rest of their lives; while the more complex issue concerns the regional aspects of the result if, for the sake of argument, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar vote to remain in the EU where the voters of England say No but where English votes are decisive in the result (if the vote is to leave). These issues will have to be dealt with before the Bill becomes law, but are important if the voting arrangements and the result are to be considered legitimate.

4. Prime Minister David Cameron has argued that the referendum is linked to the UK's attempt to reform the Treaty, but instead of cultivating agreement on Treaty reform with other EU members who share his views before bringing them to the negotiating table, he has advertised his menu of reform without consulting anyone, and is thus in a weak position, though this could be a deliberate tactic to make reform impossible, thus justifying the referendum which he thinks will maintain the UK's membership.



Should the UK remain in the EU, or should it leave? I have not gone into any of the issues around trade, the influence the EU has on the legal system in the UK, the impact on British society of the free movement of labour, but these are some of the key issues that relate to the UK's membership.

[martin48]

I'm sorry not many replies. It's an important issue for UK and the level of discussion in the press or by politicians will be very biased and weak.

Driven by a falsehood on the effects of immigration and some long-held desire to rebuild the British Empire.

[sukumvit boy]

I'm a Yank and don't know that much about the British political system , found this very informative and compelling , hats off to Stavros.

[greyman]

I will make only one point. The 1975 referendum was not about joining a European Union but a Common Market. I voted in favour of that but have no interest in political or monetary union with the EU. I believe it should revert to being a trading bloc and that the Euro has been a disaster and should be scrapped.

[Stavros]

I'm a Yank and don't know that much about the British political system , found this very informative and compelling , hats off to Stavros.

Thank you for your compliment. I should probably insist on United Kingdom, rather than 'Britain' which is just the island containing England, Scotland and Wales, whereas the UK is a larger political structure.

One way of understanding some of the themes and issues in EU politics is to compare it to the USA -for example, three of the most topical current issues driving the EU Referendum debate concern Federalism, the Law, and Immigration, issues which resonate in the USA with regard to the balance of power between the Federal Government and States, with Federal law being 'imposed' on States (eg, same-sex marriage), and with illegal immigration, particularly from South of the Border and the debate on whether or not illegal immigrants should be granted US citizenship.

One of the problems which has beset the UK's relations with Europe may be due to a belief in the UK that on the 1st of January 1973 we were joining an economic zone from which we would benefit, whereas for France and Germany in particular, the European experiment always had an additional, political dimension. Closer integration is thus part of the 'natural discourse' on Europe in France and Germany, but worries a lot of anti-EU Brits. As with the Federal government in the USA where some States feel Washington is over-reaching itself, in the UK there are fears that the Council of Ministers in Brussels -in effect, the government of the EU- makes laws which the UK is obliged to incorporate into English [and Welsh) law (and by extension in Scotland and Northern Ireland although this does not always in fact happen at the same time).

Greyman's post above is a good summary of the position Euro-Sceptics take.

The fundamental idea is that creating close, co-operative economic, political and social relations is an advance on centuries of division and war. The idea that economic ties lessen aggression and war is not new, one can find it in the 19th century ideas of Cobden and Bright. The reaction in Europe to the First World War led to both a powerful Pacifist movement, and also ideas promoting European integration using the American model -for example the Pan-European Union that was created in 1923 by the eccentric Austrian Richard Coudenhave-Kalergi (1894-1972), born to an Austrian father and a Japanese mother, and the model for the character Victor Laszlo in Howard Hawks' film Casablanca (1942). The concept of a 'United States of Europe' was also promoted by elements in the Russian Social Democrats in 1915, much to the concern of Lenin and Trotsky, both of whom dismissed it as a utopian fantasy (Lenin and Trotsky were Social Democrats before the distinction between Menshevik and Bolshevil morphed into two different parties).

The question thus could be: if the USA can bring 50 states together in one Federation, with one currency, and one official language, and succeed, why is it that much harder for the EU, 28 states, two official languages, multiple currencies and legal systems -indeed, would the EU be more successful if it had say, two official languages, one currency and one legal system, in other words, if the EU is struggling, is that because Federalism doesn't work, or because the EU is not Federal enough?

And we are still just scratching the surface of these debates.

[sukumvit boy]

Yeah , fascinating stuff ! Nobel efforts born out of the realization of the waste and futility of war and the economies of scale , trying to find a foothold in a new Europe.

The situation now further complicated by Greece , which it seems to me ,lied their way into the EU and now expects to be bailed out.

Also,thanks for the fun Casablanca trivia.