28 April 2016
Another Volley From “Remain”
By John Watson
Another week, another salvo from the guns of the Remain camp. President Obama makes his contribution to the discussion but without, of course, telling the British how to vote. He is here as a guest for the Queen’s birthday celebrations and he is far too well-mannered a man to do that. Instead he approaches things from a US perspective in two ways. First, he makes the point that it could be many years before a separate UK has a trade agreement with the US. There is nothing surprising here. The US and the EU have been trying to agree a trade agreement for many years and a negotiation between the UK and the US would have to start afresh and so would be further back in the queue. Obama merely makes the point to counter misleading suggestions from the Brexit campaign that it will all be easy.
More broadly, he points out that the US wants to deal with a unified Europe, at the heart of which sits the UK. There is no suggestion here that the “special relationship”, whatever that is, is dependent on us being in the EU. It is just that the current dynamic works for the US, and the UK would be much less interesting if it was on its own. Hillary Clinton takes that view as well.
Mr Obama’s comments have met protests from the Brexit camp, who seem a little too willing to complain about breaches of political neutrality when things are said which don’t suit their arguments. Still, it profits them nothing as the importance of the debate means that senior figures, from the Governor of the Bank of England to the President of the United States, see it as their duty to explain their views fairly frankly. It would be odd if they didn’t. Suppose a decision is made which is later seen as an obvious mistake? No one will thank them for saying that they foresaw it at the time but decided to stay stum. Attempts to stifle comments are unlikely to go down well with the public either. Why should they not hear the views of the most knowledgeable people before they make their decision? After all, the vote will decide their future. It is not a game of chess.
Well, if last week was the Treasury paper and this week was our US allies, what’s next? The Remain campaign seems to be developing their argument through a series of broadsides and presumably we can expect some new attack. What will it be? Loving comments from the leaders of other EU countries? Angela Merkel is certainly well respected here but I’m not sure that expressions of friendship from Hollande would go down particularly well. Indeed the proposal that Marine LePen should pop across the channel for a little “Leave” campaigning is likely to be far more helpful to “Remain” than any endorsement from the Monsieur le President.
One place where we can look for more is the EU itself. Last week, Jean-Claude Juncker, the Chairman of the European Commission, admitted that the EU had interfered too much in the affairs of member states. There is something in the air here unless the Shaw Sheet is very much mistaken, and it would be no surprise to see some new commitment on subsidiarity and respect for national sovereignty emerging from Brussels. It is too early to know exactly what form such a commitment would take but one point should be borne in mind. The UK is not the only country where there is widespread public dissatisfaction with the EU so any reform in this area will be targeted at a wider market. Still, the timing will be set by reference to the UK referendum campaign, so look out for something around the middle of May.
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