What David Cameron didn’t learn from Lisbon
I was watching Andrew Marr’s interview with David Cameron this morning.
Cameron was asked repeatedly whether he was going to raise VAT, and he kept saying it wasn’t what he wanted to do; however, if you listened closely, he didn’t rule it out.
It reminded me of an interview Marr did with Cameron just before the Lisbon Treaty was ratified: Cameron stuck to his line that he would call a referendum so long as it wasn’t ratified, but he refused to discuss what he’d do if that happened before he became PM.
As we know now, a lot of Tories felt upset and betrayed when Cameron swiftly dropped the idea of a referendum two weeks later.
Cameron said he had never promised a referendum under these circumstances, but lots of people had believed he’d call a referendum no matter what.
In other words, Cameron thought he was being really clever by talking only about what he’d do if things went his way, but when they didn’t, people felt betrayed.
I can’t help thinking the same story is repeating itself when it comes to VAT.
Cameron probably thinks it’s clever not to talk about a VAT increase that perhaps won’t be necessary, but he’s forgetting that the vast majority of people will have understood him as ruling out higher VAT, and they’ll feel majorly betrayed when Cameron has to increase the rate to 20% (as seems very likely).
Vote Match
Filed under: Denmark, Europe, Lib, SNP, Scotland, election, independence, referendum
In Denmark, websites that calculate which parties you agree the most with have been a regular feature of election campaigns for a decade.
However, they have been missing in the UK (to some extent because they make less sense under first-past-the-post), but now there’s finally one on The Telegraph’s site: Vote Match.
I tried it out, and it gave me roughly the results I expected (see the graph on the right).
The UKIP are much further up than I expected, and I had expected the LibDems and the SNP to be neck-and-neck, but then I do disagree with certain LibDem policies (such as Scottish independence and a referendum on EU membership).
Do try it out, and if you’re brave enough, publish your results in the comments section!
Who’ll benefit from AV?
There’s an interesting article on the BBC analysing what would have happened if AV had been introduced in 1983.
The assumption is that people wouldn’t have made any change to their first preference (and I think this is quite doubtful), but it’s still very interesting:
The conclusion is there wouldn’t have been any change to the winning party, but interestingly, the Conservatives would have been completely wiped out and replaced by the LibDems back in 1997.
I would prefer a proper proportional system (such as d’Hondt), but I do think AV is better than FPTP, mainly because it doesn’t require the voter to decide on their preferred candidate’s electability prior to casting their vote.
That said, I do expect the Tories to win the election, and they will unfortunately never allow the AV referendum to go ahead.
Lisbon is now a part of what we live in
Since midnight, the Lisbon Treaty has become part of the fundamental EU treaties.
It has thereby ceased to be a treaty that a country can withdraw from – from today, it is just as much part of the EU as all the past treaties, and if any future government were to disagree with Lisbon, their only way out would be to leave the EU altogether.
Anyway, in my opinion this is a day to celebrate.
I know Lisbon was not perfect by any means, but many of its changes were very much needed to make the EU able to function well.
It’s hard to say how different the EU will turn out to be. Some changes, such as the new EU foreign minister, could be revolutionary, but if the EU officials are timid and the member states are hostile, very little will change.
I for one hope it will work out well. Who knows, perhaps the peoples of Europe will even come to love the Union one day?
Europe in 2039
Filed under: Cons, Europe, France, ROI, environment, referendum
When people said back in 2009 that there wouldn’t be another treaty revision for a generation, they didn’t realise how true it was.
Here we are in the year 2039, and the EU is still operating according to the Lisbon Treaty.
Sure, the Union has expanded to 37 countries, and a few areas have seen power moved from the states to the EU, in particular the environment, but it is still the same old treaty.
This has been such a change from the period from 1988 to 2009, when the EU treaties were revised again and again.
However, it became clear when France and the Netherlands rejected the Constitution and Ireland later rejected Lisbon that it was becoming too hard to agree on any meaningful changes.
However, the defining moment was on the 4th of November 2009, when the leader of the British Conservative Party, David Cameron, announced a new policy that ensured that all future Treaty revisions would be decided by a referendum in the UK, virtually guaranteeing that they would be defeated.
At the same time, he pledged that the Tories wanted to remain in the EU, working positively to advance their national interest, so any hope that other countries might have had the the UK would leave the EU were finally laid to rest.
It was attempted, of course, to make a major revision in 2024, but the Belgrad Treaty was soundly defeated in the British referendum.
It is therefore no wonder that twelve continental European countries today announced that they would enter into a new union, the European Federation (EF), completely pooling their defense and foreign policies.
The EF will probably become a member of the EU instead of the individual countries, so the EU will become completely dominated by the EF in a few years’ time.
It is expected that most EU members will join the EF in due course. The Twelve have said that all EU members are welcome to join the EF, provided that they sign up to the full package, including the Euro, Schengen, etc.
The EF actually doesn’t differ radically from the EU in scope at the moment. The main difference is that the EF Constitution can be changed if 2/3 of the member states agree and it is agreed in a European referendum (not on a national basis), so it is expected to change a lot over the next decades.
Although many Europeans are still nostalgic for the old nation states, the rapid rise of China and other non-democratic countries has made it necessary to create a single, strong European power to preserve our values.
Update (8/10): Rob asked for a map:
Who to vote for in spring
Filed under: Cons, Europe, Lab, Lib, SNP, Scotland, economics, election, recession, referendum
I had been planning to blog this just before the next general election, but now that the main party conferences are over, I think the picture is clear.
It’s obvious that Labour is an unmitigated disaster, especially under Gordon Brown. They claim to be progressive and prudent, but they’re centralist authoritarians that waste our money. Also, they’re dependent on public-sector votes to a degree that makes it unlikely that they’ll ever be able to shrink the public sector to any meaningful degree.
It’s also clear that while the Tories have some interesting policies in some areas (e.g., their free school plans are captivating), they’re more hostile to the EU than ever before. Their plans to repatriate powers could lead to a huge disaster, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the UK left the Union if the Tories were in power for very long. Also, they haven’t really demonstrated that they have a proper plan for growing the British economy.
The SNP are doing a decent job in Scotland, although I disagree with quite a few of their ideas (esp. with regard to alcohol), but the only reason to vote SNP at a general election is to call for a referendum. At certain times, that might well be the most important question, and it is then proper to vote SNP at a Westminster election, but at the time of a deep financial crisis, it would be foolhardy.
That leaves the LibDems as the only party that will try to end the recession and keep the UK within the EU.
Of course, it’s unlikely that the LibDems will get a majority, but it’s not at all impossible that the Tories will need their votes to gain power, which would be a great outcome: The LibDems could prevent the Tories from doing anything really stupid in Europe, and the two parties could probably agree on a feasible economic recovery plan.
To conclude, here are my voting recommentations:
- If the LibDems have any chance of winning in your constituency, vote for them.
- If not, vote SNP/PC if they have a chance.
- If it’s down to Labour or the Conservatives, evaluate the local candidates and make your own choice.
After the Irish yes
Filed under: Cons, Europe, Lab, ROI, economics, election, psephology, referendum
It was a relief to see that Ireland voted yes by such a large margin.
I’d be the first to admit that the Lisbon Treaty isn’t perfect by any stretch of imagination, but it’s time to accept it and move on.
It doesn’t seem like the Tories have understood this, though.
The leadership are ducking the issue: ‘However, Mr Cameron declared in an email to Tory supporters last night on the eve of his party’s annual gathering, in Manchester: “I want to make one thing clear: there will be no change in our policy on Europe and no new announcements at the conference.”‘
And most of their members want a referendum no matter what: “The poll of 2,205 Tory members by the ConservativeHome.com website found that more than eight in 10 want him to call a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon even if it has been approved by the next general election – a pledge he is refusing to make.”
Scarily, according to the latter link, “total withdrawal from the European Union is the most favoured option among party members when asked how a Tory government should handle the issue, putting them totally at odds with a Tory leadership committed to British membership. Some 82 per cent want to freeze Britain’s financial contributions to the EU.”
Much as Gordon Brown and New Labour are a disaster, it’s hard to believe that such a europhobic party can be an improvement for the country. 
Which voting system should you use for choosing a voting system?
If you’re a voting system nerd, there’s a highly amusing article by Martin Rosenbaum on BBC’s site.
He’s asking which voting system should be used for choosing a new voting system, and shows that under certain circumstances, each voting system will declare itself the winner.
The Russian war against Georgia
Fortunately, the war between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia has been featuring prominently in western media.
However, I sense that many people have a tendency to let Russia off lightly.
It is worth remembering that South Ossetia (and Abkhazia) legally are parts of Georgia.
Russia are defending their actions by saying they’re defending their citizens, but they’re forgetting to tell the world that they have for many years now been handing out Russian citizenship to anybody from South Ossetia and Abkhazia who applied.
In other words, the situation would be similar to the Netherlands handing out citizenships to all Belgians that would like one and then sending in the military to protect their citizens as soon as the Belgian state tried to assert its authority.
Of course, Russia could only do this because many of the Abkhazians and South Ossetians wanted to be part of Russia, but it still is a worrying way to interfere in other countries. I wonder what Russia would do if Germany, Poland or Lithuania started to hand out citizenships to the inhabitants of Kaliningrad, for instance…
One can also argue that the Abkhazians and South Ossetians should be allowed to decide on their own where their future lies, but Russia hasn’t been very keen on that idea when it came to Chechnia and Kosova.
To sum up, I think the Russians should pull out and revoke the citizenships it has granted to citizens of other states. The UN should then be called upon to arrange referenda on the future of any area that so desires, whether Kosova, South Ossetia or Kurdistan.
Please do also read Edward Lucas’s take on this. Also, this makes it more important than ever to let Georgia join NATO, as The Times argue.
Update: The Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have a blog.
Ireland and the Gricean maxims
The latest opinion polls seem to indicate that the Irish referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon will be very close.
For some reason, most referendums tend to end up with a close result, even if one of the sides is far ahead before the campaigns start.
I’ve been thinking a bit about this, and I think an explanation might be found in the Grice’s conversational maxims.
Basically, the maxims are some rules that form the basic assumptions underlying human communication. The rules are often broken, but not without reason, and breaking them implies a meaning on its own.
In particular, I think the Maxim of Relation (“Be relevant”) is crucial here. In means that one will assume that a question asked is relevant, that is, it is assumed it can be there is more than one possible answer. If the politicians arrange a referendum but say that only voting yes really works and that a no would be a disaster, they break this maxim, which makes people confused and angry and they start thinking they’re being lied to. They might even think the Maxim of Quality (“Be truthful”) is violated, too.
To make it even worse, people tend to say no when they don’t fully understand a question, which is why making people read the whole treaty is normally a winning strategy for the opponents.
Because of all this, I believe referendums only work where politicians are happy to proceed with either outcome. For instance, Scotland can feasibly continue as a part of the UK or become an independent country, so this is a possible topic for a referendum.
On the other hand, saying yes to a complex treaty that is a messy compromise between 27 countries that took years to negotiate is clearly not a good basis for a referendum. If one had wanted one, it should have been held years ago and have been about the negotiation mandate for the Irish government (but that’s of course not what the Irish constitution demands).