We all know that Labour is as divided as the Tories are over the European Union, which is why Blair decided to hide behind Brown's 5 economic tests for 8 years in relation to the euro. Mainstream Britain is, however, quite clearly in the "Non" group.
The EU would possibly be more popular (or less hated) if the great unwashed actually knew what it did. How can people engage in a process if they have no idea what the EU actually does? My first grouse with the British media is that it tends to cover the EU issue as a right/wrong issue rather than a left/right issue, a possible exception being the most recent debate on the European Parliament's vote to scrap a key opt-out clause of the Working Time Directive and changing the said Directive to limit the working week in the EU to an average of 48 hours; comments on the WTD issue to follow. The press of this country is also frighteningly biased against the EU and are happy to take an eurosceptic view that is at time aggressive but mostly, and unsurprisingly, nationalistic.
It is fair to say that if one wants a truly democratic community, then for a start one needs to respect the opinion of its citizens. But despite living in a democracy with press freedom, one tends to feel that the British public's nationalist sentiment springs more from the media's own euro-sceptic tendencies, rather than proper analysis of the european state of affairs at hand. Suffice it to say, whilst I am not terribly impressed by the British press, neither am I wholly in the "Oui" bandwagon (or at all).
So after a lovely weekend in Manchester enjoying the flowers, cheese and Heineken at a Dutch market at St Ann's Square and chilling out at the EuroCultured snapshot celebrations, I arrive back in London to read that the French voters have blown the "constitution" out into oblivion; constitution being a misnomer since it's really a consolidation, reiteration and restatement of the existing treaties.
There has been much bull spouted for/against it, and there's little need to go through the whole lot since the French have rather helpfully made the decision for all of us, but if there is one thing I do take issue with it is how some "Oui" commentators try to portray staying status quo as conservative and constitutional stagnation whereas accepting the constitution qualifies as progressive, a view that is better expressed as rather naive and patronising. And before anyone starts, I am neither Euro-sceptic nor Euro-phile. I take a more pragmatic view on things and have little fondness for extreme side-taking tendencies.
I do recognise the pivotal role that the EU has played in securing peace, stability and relative prosperity within Europe and its ever-changing borders, as was the basic idea in the original treaties. Team Europa has also much potential to do good for the world as it moves forward as a more confident player in the global stage.
But big is not necessarily beautiful. The mammoth that it is today has spawned an administratively burdensome and regulation heavy style of government that often inhibits commercial and personal laissez faire. It increasingly resembles an institution whose power exceeds its democratic mandate and which resists attempts to democratise.
Reforms are not necessarily progressive. Centralising power in the hope that the EU can improve is certainly not being progressive, particularly when allied with such clearly regressive measures such as support for a mandatorily limited working week and corrupt institutions such as the Commission. There is no objective case that the EU is capable of usurping the functions of national governments, or that greater power at European level will lead to better governance. The UK has a system which, for all its quirks and foibles, works reasonably well thank you. A reason which explains why the UK is, for example, one of three countries in the world without a written constitution - why fix it if it ain't broken?
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