Brexit or the joy of the jilted spouse

The EU savours the idea of freeing itself once and for all from London, who lacked the commitment to their ‘shared’ project

17 SEP 2017 - 00: 00 CEST

Tomorrow  a fresh round of negotiations - the fourth - begins between the United Kingdom and the European Commission with the aim of reaching an agreement on the terms of Brexit. The previous three have done little more than consolidate positions, and, as a result, it has been concluded that reaching an agreement will be extremely difficult. The jilted spouse (the EU) is demanding that the partner now walking out (London), whom is just beginning to realise, with horror, that breaking up after 44 years of living together will be far more expensive and complicated than it had originally foreseen, make payment for the damage it has inflicted on their relationship. It is part of the weirdness overpowering this estranged couple that the jilted spouse has just discovered the unexpected joy of being forever free from a partner who was never completely faithful to their shared commitments.

Pro-European spirits now swell contemplating new projects, always opposed by the British, such as those set out last week by the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, covering the single currency, the Schengen zone or immigration. Even within the European Parliament they are now in huddles on how to divvy up the 73 seats occupied by British MEPs, including the Eurosceptics, who have poisoned their fellow citizens with their scathing criticisms of Brussels, based mainly on fake news. Some countries, like Spain, stand to gain from this redistribution.

It is the first time that one of the EU Member States abandons the project. Today, the new approach of the 27 remaining Member States, who have made a common cause against the defector, is to make a virtue of a necessity. With or without an agreement - except where there is an extension-, the United Kingdom will be leaving on 19 March 2019. There is even talk of a new European rebirth coinciding with that date. But is such joy a mere illusion, a dream from which an abrupt awakening can be expected?

The United Kingdom is one of the richest of the EU Member States. It contributes 10,000 million euros net per year to Community coffers. The next multi-annual budgets (from 2021 onwards) therefore, require some cutting back, by about 17%. There will be less money to go around. But, as is now beginning to dawn on the British negotiators, their country obtains, by mere dint of being a club member, gains that are more difficult to quantify. Hence the UK’s resistance to abandoning the single market.

The clearest example where the new Europe may benefit economically from Brexit is in the field of defence. If the 27 Member States manage to launch the European Defence policy, which was always held back by London, savings of 26,000 million euros stand to be made. It is the cost of the current lack of coordination within the EU, and the reason why, for example, there are so many different combat-ready aircraft and tanks.

Contemplating such prospects, it is entirely logical that the newly-abandoned spouse will this week listen with not a little reticence to Theresa May’s proposals in Florence for a "privileged relationship" between her country and the EU.*

* This is a translation of an editorial opinion piece that was published in Spanish newspaper El Pais on 17 September 2017

The Labour Party's position on Brexit: enabling harm

The current Labour position on Brexit is more than incoherent, it is suicidal.

Only a perishingly small majority chose Brexit. Think about it, if 2% of the people voting had voted in the opposite direction Remain would have won, if that 2% had stayed at home it would have been a tie. Furthermore, the referendum was advisory, it did not give this government or any government a mandate to do what it is actually doing. I must 'accept democracy' Jeremy Corbyn says (why is suddenly, everybody so keen on this verb "accept", it is an evangelical, repressive term, is it not?), that wasn't democracy at least not in the healthy functioning meaning of the word. It was a skewed result from a cracked system. It is a bit like saying that if my computer broke down I should just accept that it broken and not attempt to mend it. Because currently the Labour Party aren't attempting to mend the system, they are running with it and in fact supporting its brokenness.

Labour are accepting this result and accepting that the system was broken without questioning what happened and why it happened. This is not a little sick and a little dangerous, it is propping up the sickness and the extreme right wankery which is Brexit. Scratch every reason behind Brexit and you will find exceptionalism and racism. You will not be able to wean people away from it while you profess to support it in this way. If a friend attempted to commit suicide by cutting their wrist would you offer them a knife and suggest they should learn how to slice themselves up better? Or would you call an ambulance and try to convince them that doing away with themselves is a bad idea? Because currently the Labour Party is doing the former rather than the latter.

I approach this from the direction of morality and right because I am pointing out that one narrowly won advisory referendum is not grounds to do away with 40 years of relationship building with our closest and most influential neighbours, especially in these times with the reactionary ogre that is Trump in the White House.

I do not believe that it is possible to put an "alternative programme" in place without pulling out Brexit by the root. Anything else and you will be building that brave new world on shifting sands. It saddens me that so many good people are currently engaged in attempting to win UKIP supporters over to the Labour Party, and by extension, supporting a system that will only harm our country and its people. I really do think Labour needs to take a step back and take a good look at what it’s doing, because, at the moment, it's going nowhere.

I am very clear that what Labour needed to do a week ago, is stand up and be counted in the House of Commons. A handful of private citizens actually took the step and made the effort to go to court to give Parliament this opportunity. Some Labour MPs to their eternal credit actually did this, people like David Lammie, Heidi Alexander, Owen Smith, Tulip Siddique and, ultimately, Clive Lewis. They are the future of our party. The rest, the cowards the friends of convenience, who made little speeches about how bad Brexit would be for the UK and then helped this Conservative government vote it through, they are weeds and will shrivel away like Brexit itself.

At the very least the Labour Party should be supporting having another referendum on the ultimate course to be taken, and one of the options available should be to remain in the EU. Had you asked me a few weeks ago, and I would have said that I would have been happy for Parliament to have a vote on the option, but given the cowardice of Labour's representatives, and of most of the Tory dissidents, I have lost any confidence in the value and integrity of our lower chamber. The Lords are definitely setting the right example here, and that is another thing that should make all of us think.

Unfortunately, although I agree I voted for him in the first round, I think Corbyn is seeking to use Brexit for his own ends. In the same way as the Conservatives, he thinks that getting out of the EU will allow him a freer rein in government. Obviously, he seeks to do this for a different purpose, or, at least, that is what he tells us.

His supporters say he wants to implement an inclusive and fair programme, but that is something that cannot be done on the back of Brexit. Brexit has been tainted from the very beginning by excluding half of the population that voted against it. And, in fact, the Labour Party's current posture supports and reaffirms this marginalisation. There is no way the 48% and climbing can feel included and fairly treated when our rights and our voices and our views have simply been side-lined and ignored and when the Labour Party is actively collaborating with the Conservative government to delegitimise and denigrate us. And furthermore I would predict there is no way, that Brexit, even if we were to assume that it was beneficial, which is isn’t, will ever prosper without the support of half of the active population. The most educated segment of the population, in fact.

Current Labour party supporters should be asking themselves what the point of Brexit is. I have asked Brexit supporters numerous times to give me one example of a specific, tangible benefit that it will produce for the man or the woman in the street… To date no one has been able to provide me with a straightforward answer to this question. Can you? And yet we know Brexit will be expensive, it will be time consuming, and it will alienate those who should be our natural allies…

Even carrying out a cursory cost effective analysis of Brexit shows that it is no good for anything. That being the case this is another reason why it should not be supported but resisted and, as I said above, there can be no way that it would be the foundation stone of a fair and inclusive system.

The EU currently gives me the right to work, live start a family and access healthcare in 27 other countries. I happen to value this right, what can Brexit ever give me to make up for its loss?

And there you have your answer, nothing, so, I'm afraid, that is the amount of support Brexit will get from me, whoever is touting the cause of that twisted ideology.

Dear Tim

The British people also voted against brexit or didn't you get that memo? Why are only those voting for the insanity that is brexit British and people? You seem utterly unaware of the exclusionary implications of the language that you are using. 48% of people voting in the EU referendum voted against leaving, who represents us?

How is Labour 'pushing the government' on brexit if it has already stated that it will not block the implementation of Article 50? How can Labour call itself 'the opposition' if its policy position on brexit is the same as that of the government?

Fact is, the government is laughing at you. We are half way through January already and where is their plan? Nowhere. Far from being smart, you are being used as their stooges. You won't get a chance to scrutinise it, much less hold the government to account. This will be a right-wing brexit and you will be the useful idiots. 

And on top of this, if there is a right way to do brexit, the government is doing it wrong. Completely wrong. If it cannot be trusted with the NHS, and it can't, then it cannot be trusted with Brexit. May I suggest you read Brexit: What the hell happens next? by Ian Dunt.

Brexit like the EU referendum is being rushed. There was far more consultation on a third runway at Heathrow than there has been on brexit and you must ask yourselves the reason for this. It is being rushed because the Tories know that if it was properly managed and reviewed it would not be implemented and the reason for this is that it will not provide any specific benefit to the country. On the other hand it will be a costly administrative nightmare that will destroy good jobs and damage our relationship with our closest neighbours for decades to come.

On top of everything else, I and most of my compatriots will lose our EU citizenship rights. These are the specific, tangible and enforceable rights to live, work, run a business and retire to another 27 countries on the same footing as if we were citizens of that country. I would happily retain those rights over and above any 'benefit' that brexit might provide me.

So if you really want to hear my ideas on how Labour should tackle the challenges facing our country, it is simply this: Oppose brexit.

Kind regards,

Clariana

Stuart Agnew MEP – East of England UK Independence Party 25 Regent Street Great Yarmouth Norfolk NR30 1RL Tel: 01493-856744 e-mail: ukipeast@intamail.com www.stuartagnewmep.co.uk

  

Dear Mr Agnew

Thank you for taking the trouble of getting back to me. You are the only MEP who to-date has replied to me and you deserve some respect for that, I am extremely grateful.

However, there are some points you raise in your letter that I would like to address.

Firstly, there is the issue of citizenship, or rather citizenship rights. You describe this as being ‘imposed’, surely this is an incorrect interpretation and citizenship cannot be imposed…

The 'citizenship of the EU' was not imposed upon the citizens of the UK, nor the collective citizens of the EU, it was an international treaty agreement entered into by the membership on a multilateral basis. 'EU citizenship' does not confer any rights in its own right, they are reciprocally applied rights by all 28 member states. The EU is not a sovereign state and is therefore unable to confer citizenship upon any persons, regardless of who they are.

It is an offer, you either take it up or you don’t, you exercise it or you don’t but it is not imposed, in the strict English meaning of that word.

The EU has never demanded that I be loyal, or obey its treaties. I have never had to swear allegiance to the EU, its institutions or show my loyalty to it in any other way. Whether I chose to exercise my rights as an EU citizen, by living in another country, voting in European Parliament elections, or writing to my MEPs is entirely up to me.

Something similar happens with EU law, EU law does not take precedence over domestic law, it is given precedence by virtue of international treaty agreement, in the same way that the UK has around 13,000 other treaty agreements with sovereign states. EU law only has competence over community law, that is to say, it can only rule in areas in which the UK has entered into a multilateral treaty with the other 27 member states of the EU; it might be noted that this is exactly the same competence which the ICJ would have were it not for the existence of the ECJ. The ECJ cannot, and does not rule on issues that only effect a single state, it would not have jurisdiction to do so.

As a former lawyer, I would be extremely grateful if you could aside provide me with detailed citations of the unconstitutionality you allege regarding EU law because I would be very interested to review them.

Then there is a matter of the European arrest warrant you state “The EAW was supposed to be used to tackle terrorism and organised crime but has ended up being used for such things as trivial motoring offenses…”

However, a little research tells me, EAWs can only be issued for offences carrying a maximum penalty of at least a year in prison, or when the individual has already been sentenced to at least four months in prison. 

I would be very interested if you could provide me the specific details of a case in which an EAW has been issued involving a traffic offence, a case name and date would be very welcome.

I am sure you are also aware that there are specific cases in which a country can refuse to honour an EAW. This include the double jeopardy principle - a suspect will not be returned to the country that issued the EAW if he or she has already been tried for the same offence abroad. A refusal can be justified if an EU state's amnesty covers the offence in question. A refusal can also be justified under a statute of limitations - that is, if a time limit has passed for prosecution. And a state can reject an EAW if under its laws the suspect is a minor and below the age of criminal responsibility.

It is also clear that the UK has used the EAW for its own benefit many times. One instance in particular sticks in my mind, Hussain Osman, who in 2005 was charged over the failed 21 July London bomb attacks after being extradited from Italy. Mr Osman was accused of attempting to place a bomb in Shepherds Bush underground station. At the time, I was working in Shepherds Bush and using that station every day. Mr Osman was arrested in Rome a week after the attempted bombings, and flown back to the UK on Thursday 22 September.

Ironically, Mr Osman’s Italian lawyer attempted to block the extradition on the grounds that he would not receive a fair trial in the UK.

I think therefore that the EAW far from being a you say “unsubstantiated accusations on a piece of paper” is an extremely good example of the give and take that must exist between independent nation states. This is especially so in these times when terrorism is rampant and international and I am sorry that you feel obliged to disparage and misrepresent it simply because it was conceived by the EU. I also do not think it requires ‘rectification’.

You then go on to address our desire for ‘Associate citizenship’ saying this will place us in an untenable situation because we “would live in Britain while subjecting themselves to a foreign state”. Obviously, you have an issue with ‘subjection’ but setting that to one side, I have to ask, why? Doesn’t the UK, for example, accept dual nationality?

If people are defined and marked by their culture as right-wing parties such as yours seem to postulate, what about people like me, the child of an English mother and a Spanish father, who grew up in England and in Spain, belongs to both cultures and speaks both languages, am I ‘untenable’?

What about the citizens of Northern Ireland? It was agreed as part of the peace process that they would be able to take up Irish citizenship in addition to British and many of them are doing so, right now.

Are the British/German daughters of your former party leader, Mr Farage, ‘untenable’, is their nationality position ‘nonsense’?

Are you yourself ‘untenable’? Your party despises the EU and yet you stood for its Parliament, you were elected, you represent people from the UK there…. You are paid remuneration from the EU, aren’t you? You claim expenses? You will receive a very generous pension as a result of your tenure in the EU parliament? Are you ‘untenable’ Mr Agnew, or simply a good old garden grown hypocrite?

So, in order to be consistent, if you are going to argue that having dual British/EU citizenship rights in untenable nonsense, wouldn’t you have to strip dual nationality from all British citizens, including the wife and daughters of your former leader Mr. Nigel Farage, Mr Boris Johnson and the entire population of Northern Ireland?

Sorry, EU citizenship rights to me are something real and enforceable and I and many others are not prepared to be forcibly stripped of them by ideologues such as yourself without a bloody good fight. I am sure you can understand that. Paltry offers of possible ‘visa free travel’ are a very poor second best.

Let’s also disagree on ‘uncontrolled mass immigration’ shall we, your little bogeyman, blaming years of UK government underinvestment in infrastructure and services on immigrants is one of the oldest tricks in the demagogue’s copybook.

I was admitted to hospital in Watford on Boxing day and was kept in for a few days, while I was there I indeed saw and spoke to many foreigners, Spaniards, Romanians, Fillipinos, Africans as well as British nationals... But most of them were highly-qualified medical personnel actually looking after me, helping me get back on my feet. Even my female consultant was Polish.

So I thank you for your letter, which was indeed, as you say, ‘honest’ from a certain point of view.

Pity it was so full of the usual untruths used to justify brexit.

Kind regards

Clariana