A Tale of two Zolas

Three years ago, Zola Gidi became a UK citizen. It had been the culmination of a long, hard struggle with the authorities after she had escaped from apartheid South Africa in 1991, following her ANC member partner. When I saw a reminder in yesterday's Evening Post of her achievement, I immediately thought of another Zola, one apparently quite happy with apartheid, whom the Thatcher government could not get over here fast enough once the Daily Mail had taken up her cause in 1984.

Zola Gidi's story is now out as a paperback.

The EU and the environment

I am grateful to Clean Slate, the magazine of Machynlleth's Centre for Alternative Technology, for an article on the environmental implications of the UK leaving the European Union. It is a shame that it has appeared when some people, including CAT members, will have already returned their referendum ballots by post.

The UK has a fair record for environmental protection - not as good as  Sweden, Austria, Spain, Germany, Czechia or Luxembourg according to the WEF, but better than south-eastern nations of the EU. Some of this improvement would have been made regardless of our membership, but Catriona Toms in her article makes clear that
a large number of EU directives have helped to enforce standards in areas as diverse as water quality, air quality, fish stocks, waste disposal, hazardous substances, radioactive waste, recycling, construction, habitat and wildlife protection, GMOs, animal welfare and climate change. [...] In the event of a "leave" vote, there's no clear consensus over which exit scenario the UK would follow but, irrespective of what the final arrangement might be, Brexit would result in some important changes:

• Loss of the UK's voice in EU decisions affecting the environment.
• In international negotiations, such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UK would contribute independently. This would allow us to steer our own path, but we would lose influence over the EU position, which holds more sway at a global level owing to its size and economic importance.
• The Common Agricultural Policy* and Common Fisheries Policy** would cease to apply and we would need to find alternatives.

On climate change, the EU made commitments at the Paris conference in December. They
are currently being developed into a package of new measures [...] The UK, along with other North-West Member States, has pushed for an ambitious approach to targets, while states in the South and East of the EU have been more reluctant. The UK has been particularly influential in determining targets for 2020 and 2030. [...] Under a Brexit scenario, EU policy may therefore become less ambitious

One area in which the EU's intervention changed UK policy for the better is bathing water:
The Bathing Water Directive was the main reason that the UK introduced improved water treatment from the 1970s onwards. Prior to this, the seas around the UK were some of the dirtiest in Europe, thanks to the government policy of "dilute and disperse". In the event of the UK leaving the EU, this directive would cease to apply. Although it is unlikely that the UK government would take the unpopular step of weakening standards in this area, there would no longer be pressure from Europe to keep our seas clean.

When I repeat to Eurosceptics the argument that we have not so much given up sovereignty as pooled it with other nations, a frequent response is that they don't want to dictate to other countries, let the Wops get on with their own affairs. I believe that water quality is a good example where we do need to impose common standards. Pollution knows no boundaries and stuff dumped in the Mediterranean by one country soon finds its way round the seaboards of others (including some of Brits' favourite beaches) and into food fish. We all need the strong voice of Britain within the EU.

* It has to be admitted that some farmers say that they would welcome a reduction in red tape and that they could manage fine without EU support. On the former point, one has the impression that much of the excessive form-filling is generated by UK civil servants and that therefore will not markedly diminish outside the EU.

** Many fishermen see leaving the CFP as an opportunity to increase their catches, unrestricted by limits imposed by the EU. 

Perils of perception

This is the title of a regular series of papers from the Ipsos Mori Social Research Institute. It seems that on a whole range of subjects we are inclined (seemingly "hard-wired") to believe the worst of any situation.

One example quoted on Radio 4's "All in the Mind" this week was on immigration. We in Britain think 25% of the population are immigrants – nearly twice the actual figure of 13%. This misperception clearly colours political debate. There are more listed on the Ipsos Mori website.

Anonymous foreign ownership of Welsh property

Some time ago I drew attention to the Private Eye campaign to make public the real ownership of property in England & Wales, hidden behind offshore or brass-plate companies. (It is a situation which could be made worse by the Conservatives' plan to privatise the Land Registry.)  At the time, I found only a few local properties on the Private Eye map of anonymous ownership. It seems from yesterday's South Wales Evening Post that the situation is now worse. Even the Aberavon shopping centre, of which Neath Port Talbot council is one of the tenants, is now behind the cloak of anonymity.

More rebuttals

On zero VAT on fuel bills, and on parental leave, Caron Lindsay has this to say:

So, the latest salvo from the Leave camp is an assertion that the EU is stopping us from cutting VAT on domestic fuel.

There is one man amongst the ranks of the Brexiters who knows all about VAT on domestic fuel. That’s right. Step forward former Chancellor Norman Lamont. It was he who decided to put VAT on domestic fuel at the rate of 8% from April 1 1994. The EU didn’t force him to do this. He was doing it to cut public spending, something Tories have a bit of an obsession with. Not only that, but he would have been quite happy to raise it to 17.5% the year after.

Here’s a story from the Independent at the time where Mr Lamont is doing his usual Je ne regrette rien line.

Fellow now Brexiteer Michael Portillo, then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, added his twopence worth:

And in an atmosphere of growing confusion, a damaging Commons row broke out last night after Michael Portillo, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, suggested that poorer people would not suffer too much because of the ‘swings and roundabouts’of the Income Support system.

A parliamentary briefing from 1997 gives more detail.

Member States are only permitted to charge zero rates which were in place on 1 January 1991. No Member State can introduce a new zero rate or reintroduce a zero rate once it has been abolished. Following the abolition of the zero rate on fuel & power on 1 April 1994, the UK may charge a rate as low as 5% on these supplies, but no lower.

Had Norman Lamont done the fair thing by the poorest households at the time, none of us would be paying any VAT on our fuel now. If people want someone to blame, he is your guy, not the EU. He knowingly introduced a tax that he knew could not be put back to zero because of a change in EU taxation law that the UK Government had agreed. If the Tory government had wanted to, it could have vetoed that clause. Did it? No.

This is not the only issue where Leave have tried to blame the EU for the Tories’ actions. Yesterday, Jo Swinson had to slap down Steve Hilton for saying that the EU tried to stop the coalition from offering extra parental leave. Jo was the minister who introduced shared parental leave, a key Liberal Democrat policy, and she says that it was the Tories who put paid to that idea. From the Independent:

Jo Swinson, a former business minister whose portfolio in the Coalition included women and equalities issues, told The Independent there was no “conceivable universe” in which the EU could prevent Britain from offering workers extra parental leave.

Ms Swinson said that far from campaigning for more time off for new mothers and fathers, the Conservatives actually “fought tooth and nail” against a Liberal Democrat initiative to extend parental leave.

She said her party, led by Nick Clegg, had wanted to follow a successful Scandinavian trial which saw men take up a fairer portion of paternal leave if a greater number of weeks were offered to the couple as a whole.

“Maybe he (Mr Hilton) was negotiating on his side and it was blocked by his Conservative colleagues,” she said.

“But in my time, it was very much the Conservatives who were fighting tooth and nail our attempts to make shared parental leave a success.

“The way EU directives work is that they set out a minimum number of weeks; if we wanted to offer more we would be able to,” she added.

“I was minister from 2012 and parental leave was in my portfolio. I do not understand in what conceivable universe it could be true that the EU ‘blocked’ plans here.”

We do know that the EU has done more to ensure workers’ rights than any Tory Government ever has, securing such things as maternity rights, paid holiday, and limiting the amount of hours you can be asked to work*.

Do Labour voters interested in workers’ rights really trust the likes of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove with them? They have not been known for supporting them in the past. The EU, on the other hand, has a proven track record of delivery on that front.

On the "failed" currency: the euro was launched with a value of 69p in sterling; it is now worth 77p. Where is the failure?

On the failed eurozone: it grew 0.6% in the first three months of this year. The US economy grew slightly more - but on revised figures. Hardly a failure.

There have been economic disasters in constituent members of the zone: the Republic of Ireland, Spain and Greece, but these have been caused by reckless populist governments rather than the existence of the euro. Those failures have been more than counter-balanced by Germany, one of the most successful economies in the world, and seven other eurozone nations with a better government debt to GDP ratio.

On immigration: no Brexiteer has said that they would stop all immigration. Indeed, Tim Martin of Wetherspoon's has admitted that around 4% of his staff are immigrants, and he wouldn't want to stop them coming to work for him. Leaving the EU would not make any difference to the distressing casualties at sea, which are emotively used by Brexiteers as an argument. What is needed is a reversal in the cuts to the coastguard, together with an augmented and upskilled Borders Agency - but of course the latter steps need money, and Michael Gove wants to give up VAT on fuel bills as well as spending £350m/week on the English NHS. This is where we came in.


* I would add protection from dismissal on grounds of age and from being forced to work excessively long hours.

Brexit lies on social matters rebutted

I wrote some time ago that, regarding exit from the EU, I was more frightened of the immediate effects on civil and human rights than on the economic issues (though I am persuaded of an inevitable financial decline after Brexit). I also remember the fight which the Blair-Brown government put up against the working time and the anti-ageist directives. I worry that an authoritarian government, such as we are likely to be stuck with for the next decade, will be quick to remove those protections.

Now there is confirmation from an employment rights barrister, together with a reminder of how Thatcher had effectively dismantled equal pay legislation. Sean Jones systematically dismantles a number of Brexit misstatements after a brief overview:

 two general points can be made immediately. First, the EU does not have the power to regulate Employment Rights generally. It is perverse to criticise the EU for not creating a right to a minimum wage, where Member States have been scrupulous to ensure it does not have the power to do so. Second, the EU law sets a floor not a ceiling. There is nothing to stop the UK having more generous rights whilst remaining a member of the EU. The only thing continued membership prevents is having less generous rights.

A better-mannered debate

The first fifteen minutes of this morning's Sunday Supplement was occupied by a discussion by Patrick Minford and Vicky Pryce of the economic benefits (or the opposite) of leaving the EU.

The main point at issue was the importance of manufacturing. Pryce asserted that UK manufacturing would disappear on Brexit because other nations' tariff barriers, including those of our former partners, would go up. Minford disputed the extent to which this would happen and in any case maintained that traditional manufacturing was a thing of the past and that the future was hi-tech.

One recalls Mrs Thatcher saying very much the same sort of thing. When she, Geoffrey Howe and Michael Heseltine caused the death of mainframe computer manufacture in Britain, she claimed that manufacturing jobs would be replaced by higher-value programming work. In reality, the jobs of the writers of the software needed to make those machines usable disappeared with the computers. The direction of software development was taken over by the USA and the UK left to fill niches.

Patrick Minford implied in a eulogy three years ago that business services would take over as a mainstay of the Welsh economy. But what happens to the workers by hand in this hi-tech future? And how does Professor Minford square his vision of the future with cutbacks like this, which seriously affect our local economy?

Cameron and Osborne should stick to known facts and rigorous analysis

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/26/pensioners-could-lose-32000-after-brexit-george-obsorne-claims/ refers.

The biggest danger to occupational pensions comes from the idea that Saj Javid is floating, that trustees be given the power to change the nature of indexation. This will be a threat whether we are in or out of the EU, just as house prices depend almost wholly on UK government policy. As to state pensions, no government is going to upset the sector of the population which consistently votes in higher numbers than any other.

Rather than exaggerate possible scenarios, Cameron and Osborne should point to sober analysis by respected independent bodies like the IFS.

There is also real evidence of the difficulty of withdrawing from free labour movement agreements while continuing to trade with the EU. Switzerland's troubles, outlined in an April 2015 article, continue. Brexiteers claim that Great Britain is strong enough to survive outside the EU and without formal trade agreements other than adherence to World Trade Organisation rules. Switzerland, with her habitual current account surpluses and a debt to GDP ratio just over a third of the UK's clearly has a stronger economy, yet her government does not want to jeopardise her treaties with the EU and the EU in turn is adamant that they are dependent on free movement.