Europe

Tom Griffin (London, OK):Over at the main openDemocracy site, John Palmer looks at the stakes as Ireland contemplates a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

With ratification now virtually complete in the rest of the EU (the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany apart), the Irish veto has put the whole process of reforming the way the union functions into cold storage. 

Meanwhile, a number of large-scale issues and events have emerged or become more acute since discussions about a new constitutional treaty for Europe began - global economic crisis, severe threats of climate change, dangerous regional conflicts, challenging geopolitical shifts, prospects for significant change in United States policy under a new president. All are stretching or will stretch to the limit the capacity of the union to react. 

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Over at the Independent, Chris Huhne finds himself in the uncomfortable position of defending holocaust-denier Dr Frederick Toben, who is facing extradition to Germany under a European arrest warrant:

In Dr Toben's case, the European arrest warrant is being used to detain someone who lives in Australia and who was changing planes at Heathrow, but is accused of the offence of Holocaust denial in Germany. Dr Toben has not committed an offence under British law or indeed under the law of 17 of the 27 European Union member states. I respect the right of Germany, Austria and others to criminalise Holocaust denial, but I do not want to imitate them. That is why our courts should refuse extradition.

The legal controversy does not end with the use of the warrant. Dr Toben is accused in Germany but his offence is to post on an Australian website. Germany has taken on itself the role of censor, because of the capacity to download content in Germany. It is hard to see where such an attempt to extend jurisdiction might end, or what its chilling effects on freedom of speech might ultimately be.

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Government is determined to press ahead with its e-borders plan to count travellers in an out of the UK, despite running into problems with the European Union, The Guardian reports this morning.

A draft European agreement would allow the collection of 'Passenger Name Records' (PNR) data, but only for the purpose of fighting terrorism and organised crime.

Catherine Reilly (Dublin, Metro Éireann): Who really runs 'democratic' countries, government officials or politicians? I have often wondered.

Last week, a long-time Irish politician raised that very question, in response to news reports in Ireland that there may be another referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

David Marquand (Oxford, oD author): From 600 miles away, British politics seem more than usually dismal, and more than usually petty. The sight of Labour MPs running around complaining about Brown's faults only a year after they gave him the leadership on a plate is deeply unedifying, to put it at its lowest. Nothing new has happened to his character or style since he became leader. He is still the person he has been for the last 20 years and more. If his MPs have now changed their minds about him that tells us more about their gutlessness than about his inadequacies. If he's unfit for the job now, he was unfit a year ago. If he was fit then, he's fit now.

But Brown's personality is not the real issue in any case. The first and most obvious point to make about Glasgow East is that it happened in Scotland, and that the Scottish National Party won! I don't think it was a vote against the Union, but I do think it was a vote against the way in which the devolution legislation was framed. New Labour was trying to have its cake and eat it - to appease the manifest Scottish demand for Home Rule, while maintaining the sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament and the inequitable absurdities of the Barnett formula on finance. It was always likely that this would blow up in Labour's face sooner or later; and in Glasgow East it did so with an almighty bang.

This report from the bulletin of the hard working OpenEurope on yesterday's Fabian Society meeting in the House of Commons.  It makes you wonder about all those fine words on the sovereignty of parliament. Perhaps it has now become the sovereignty of passerelle.

At a meeting of the Fabian Society in the House of Commons last night, Labour MPs Michael Connarty, who is Chairman of the EU Scrutiny Committee, and Gisela Stuart debated whether or not there should be a referendum on the EU Lisbon Treaty.  Michael Connarty said he was against a referendum in principle, despite conceding that "It's not that much different from the Treaty for a Constitution".  He also said he had three outstanding reservations about the Treaty, which the Committee will be investigating - on the opt-ins on Justice and Home Affairs, on the yellow card system and on the passerelle clause.  He said he wanted Parliament to have a role in deciding whether or not the UK should opt in to future JHA initiatives which will be decided on by QMV.  He said: "We want the Government to have a procedure that puts that in the hand of the Parliament, because that is what parliamentary democracy is about - it is not left to a deal in the Council, but it is left to a debate that will go to the floor of the House.  People will say the Government will whip it in or won't whip it in - if it's not right you can argue against it, and I think, if it's really bad, you can get 30 members of the other side to vote... and turn it over."

Moderator: This is the final part of a three part exchange between David Marquand and Anthony Barnett. You can read the first part here and the second part here.

David Marquand (Oxford):

Moderator: This is the first part of a three part exchange between David Marquand and Anthony Barnett. The second part will be published tomorrow.

David Marquand (Oxford):

Dear Anthony

I've just read your ‘dream' on "What Gordon Brown should have said". I loved it.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): As the Brown government makes a hash of its so-called citizens juries, James Fishkin reports on the conclusion to the altogether more serious efforts to listen to the people of Europe which Clive James Matthews has been blogging over on our sister site dLiberation. It is a must-read if you are really interested in 'listening to the people'. Fishkin works from the Centre for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford and has developed a sophisticated form of deliberative polling. For a good overview of the issues involved see his review of the best selling Wisdom of Crowds. He concludes:

Jon Bright (London, OK): One of the many things that stuck in my mind during the run up to the Iraq war was a furious Joschka Fischer shouting at Donald Rumsfeld: "You have to make the case". It's about a minute in to the video below. You can feel his frustration: the US wasn't consulting on the Iraq war, they weren't convincing people it was right, they had just decided to go for it, and were expecting everyone else to sign up uncritically.

Jon Bright (London, OK): Good post from Mark Mardell on the recent report of the European Scrutiny Committee, which assesses the legal and political implications of around 1,100 EU documents a year! What they say on the other 1,099 won't matter nearly as much as what they've said about the EU reform treaty, and they've produced something intensely sceptical: for them the treaty is nearly identical to the constitution, and the value of our opt-outs is questionable. Mardell keenly picks out what's odd:

Jon Bright (London, OK): Just wrote a small piece on the problem of European identity over on the dLiberation blog. Without a common feeling of being European I don't see how the EU can overcome the stiff resistance it faces at the moment - yet most people in the EU itself seem to assume a few abstract values will do the trick. What do you think? Have a look, comment here or there - would be especially interesting to hear from someone who does feel European!

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): John Palmer has replied with admirable brevity in the comments to the OpenEurope response to his post. This debate is very important both externally in terms of the UK's position in the world and internally in the sense of whether we trust our political system. One of the aspects that has not been discussed to my knowledge is the role of imagination. People get very het up about defending their identity (or identities if, like me, you admire Michael Keith's arguments). But where do they see themselves and their children heading in the future, what kind of world are they looking forward to? One reason why these debates often argue past each other is that their protagonists live in quite different imaginative universes.

Mats Persson (London, Open Europe): John Palmer can be confident that despite his assertion to the contrary, we have indeed read the revised version of the EU Constitutional Treaty, having translated it, consolidated the amendments and put them side-by-side with the original Constitution. This exercise exposed the striking degree of similarity between the two texts. But don't take our word for it: read it here, and make up your own mind...

Jon Bright (London, OK): Another editorial in the Telegraph today calling for Brown to hold a referendum on the new EU treaty - and calling on people to sign their own online petition (to which, curiously, they do not provide a link). The arguments are the same (that it is almost identical to the old one, which Labour did promise a referendum on) and are well founded. The subtext, as always, is unspoken - Brown would hold a referendum tomorrow if he thought he could win it. He probably couldn't, and the political cost of campaigning for a 'yes' vote then losing would be huge.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): In a recent post on an article by Frank Field in the Telegraph I observed that he had connected three of Britain's seven big seven constitutional questions. Of course, this being Britain (still) he did not identify them in this way. I thought that the three he connected are:

Guy Aitchison (Bristol, OK): Pressure is mounting on Gordon Brown as calls for a referendum on the EU treaty grow louder. Senior Conservatives have been reported as saying that the party will make a referendum on the treaty a key general election issue - if Brown decides to call a snap poll in October or next May. This comes on the back of the EU Commissioner for Agriculture Mariann Fischer Boel, confirming that the old and revised texts were "as close as possible to each other". Open Europe, based on their own translation (the current official version is at the moment in French only), claim that the Treaty retains 96% of the proposed constitution. William Hague has even suggested that the Tories could back a privately funded referendum.

Robin Wilson (Belfast): As a number of contributors to the ‘Britishness’ debate in OK have made clear, the other term at play here is ‘multiculturalism’. This is being debated in Gordon Brown’s own homelands north of the border. How does it look in Northern Ireland, the only part of the UK to have seen sustained armed conflict between its communities in modern times?

Gavin Yates (Edinburgh, GYMedia): A Salmond strategy is emerging, and quickly. The SNP leader, has used his debut overseas trip as First Minister to signal closer Scottish ties with Europe as, he hopes, a precursor to independence.

Salmond visited the European Commission to hold talks with Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and Fisheries Minister Joe Borg. Fishing is a totemic issue in Scotland. Salmond is keen to ensure that he can lead on the issue and at least appear to be making progress towards a better deal for the Scottish fleet.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I was puzzled by John Palmer’s post (below) on the EU summit. If he is right, what is so wrong with making the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding? I’d gone along with the general prejudice against all forms of Euro-penetration from above. All I’d read about the Charter recently was Bill Emmott insisting that if it was agreed then whatever opt outs Britain might have there should still be a referendum. A little bit of research led me to the excellent Spyblog. This points out that Europe’s Charter stipulates: