Lisbon Treaty overwhelmingly adopted by European Parliament

My report on the Lisbon Treaty, which I co-authored with Íñigo Méndez de Vigo MEP, pleasingly sailed through the European Parliament today, with 525 votes in favour and just 115 against.

Every single party that is in government in the EU’s member states and almost every single one of the principal opposition parties in every member state – except the British Conservatives - showed their support for the treaty in today’s vote.

All the main Christian Democrat parties, all the Socialist parties and the Liberal parties in each of the 27 member states supported the treaty. The same is true for the majority of the Green parties and even Conservative parties, except, of course, the Tories.

Opposition to the treaty came mainly from the far-right and some on the extreme left of the political spectrum. It was, though, curious to see a new political alliance being forged between Sinn Féin and the British Conservatives in opposing this treaty!

Bizarely, some opponents of the treaty argued that it was being adopted without them having access to the consolidated treaties (i.e. the treaties as they will be after being amended by the Lisbon Treaty) and the poor souls find it too hard work to cross reference the amendments. But in any case, consolidated treaties have been published by several member states. Frankly, any Member of the European Parliament who says he or she has not been able to study the texts is not doing the job which they are paid to do. It is pure laziness.

There were also some strange calls for the European Parliament to demand referendums in each member state to ratify the treaty. I find it quite amusing that those who oppose the European Union now want the European Parliament to tell sovereign member states what their internal procedures should be to ratify an international treaty. That is hypocrisy in the extreme!

Finally, I suppose I couldn’t blog on today’s events without mentioning UKIP’s chicken stunt. There were rumours every UKIP MEP was going to dress as a chicken during today’s vote but sadly the sight of Godfrey Bloom in a chicken suit was not to be and in the end they settled on wearing yellow t-shirts with a chicken print. At least they didn't try to disrupt the Parliament this time, but they didn't half look silly!

However, they spent so long parading outside the chamber for the benefit of the press that it became clear to everyone that what they were really "chicken" about, was taking part in the debate - presumably because they can't stand hearing views they disagree with. They simply dislike democratic parliamentary debate.

For my speech opening the debate click here and for my speech winding it up click here.

The debate begins!

The first hurdle to the parliamentary ratification of the Lisbon Treaty was easily cleared in the House of Commons last night. Despite extravagant claims in some newspapers that up to 100 Labour MPs would defy the government by voting against the treaty, the bill's second reading was passed by 362 to 224, with 19 rebel Labour MPs, (a small group with a history of being Eurosceptic), voting with the Conservatives.

Let us be clear - leaving aside the hyperbole, the Lisbon Treaty amounts to a set of modest adjustments to the EU's institutional framework such as replacing the rotating six-month presidency with a full-time one on a 30 month term, reducing the number of Commissioners to 18, altering the voting system in the Council to be based on population and increasing the role of elected parliaments in EU law-making. But in terms of what the EU can and cannot do, it changes little. Unlike the Single European Act or Maastricht, there are no new subjects added to the EU's field of responsibility - put bluntly; the Lisbon Treaty is about reform, not new powers.

The Tories' opposition to this treaty is nakedly opportunistic and lacks credibility. As David Miliband put it: "Left of centre parties in all 27 European countries support the treaty; liberal parties in all 27 countries support the treaty; and Conservative parties in 26 countries support the treaty. Only in Britain do we have a major party opposed to the contents of the treaty."

Indeed, William Hague's speech for the Conservatives was long on jokes (no one can accuse Mr Hague of lacking a rhetorical flourish) but fell short on substance. At one point, he defended his party's opposition of the treaty on the grounds that it would "weaken democracy" by taking "more decision making away from democratic control". This argument simply does not stand up. In fact, the Lisbon Treaty, by making virtually all EU legislation subject to the prior scrutiny of national parliaments (with the power to object to a proposal) and to approval by both the Council of Ministers (representing national governments) and directly elected MEPs in the European Parliament. This would amount to a level of parliamentary scrutiny and democratic accountability that exists in no other international structure. To claim that this is a diminution of parliamentary democracy is no more than intellectual laziness.

My analogy that, just as the Lisbon Treaty is estimated to be 90% the same as the Constitutional Treaty, human beings and mice are 90% the same in terms of their DNA but the difference is pretty important, also made an appearance in Hansard, being quoted approvingly (and with acknowledgent) by the new Lib Dem Foreign Affairs spokesman Ed Davey, who also made a fine speech. It was also cheering to hear Nick Clegg's interview on Radio 4 this morning, during which he appeared to state that the Liberal Democrats would not support any Tory attempts to defeat the Government in demanding a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Although the Lib Dems have a reputation for saying different things to please different people, voting in favour of a treaty that they support rather than voting against it in a bid to embarrass and score points against the Government, would be an honourable approach.

Tories and UKIPs in cahoots once again

A month after bringing the tactics of football hooliganism to the European Parliament, four or five Tory Eurosceptics and UKIP have again worked in cahoots to undermine the work of the European Parliament.

They hit on two tactics. The first was to demand a full roll call votes (instead of a show of hands) on every paragraph and every amendment before the house. (Imagine that the House of Commons had a division on every paragraph of a bill). This slows down voting and costs £300 per vote (but they don't really care about taxpayers money).

The second was to use the procedure of "Explanation of Votes" which allows Members to speak after a vote, even if they have already spoken in the preceding debate, to explain why they voted in a particular way, for instance if they change their mind following the debate. Usually, only a few members avail themselves of this possibilty, and often do so in writing, which is also allowed. But yesterday, every UKIP member and several Tories asked to explain their vote verbally on every item on the agenda, whether or not they had already spoken in the debate. This would have held up the next scheduled debates for several hours, so the President proposed to take these explanations after those debates. This was agreed by the House, but UKIP and Dan Hannan protested that they were being "censored", that minority views were being crushed and that they had an absolute right to delay proceedings if they chose to do so.

Let one thing be clear, this is not about their freedom of expression. The European Parliament has a very wide range of poitical views and speaking time in debates is shared out proportionately among all the political groups - so all views will have been heard in the debates.

Most MEPs take their role as elected representatives seriously, working to deliver legislation and policy outcomes for their voters. In contrast, some Tories and UKIP are apparently only interested in disrupting the work of the elected Parliament either through behaving like football hooligans or procedural jiggery-pokery. The sheer contempt they show to democracy is breathtaking.

Mote affair highlights an absurd situation

One welcome result of former UKIP MEP Ashley Mote's stint in jail for multiple benefit fraud, could be a change to the law that has allowed him to be paid as an MEP despite being unable to carry out his function as an elected representative. The Leader of the House of Commons, Harriet Harman, who is responsible for the payment of MPs and MEPs, is now in the process of reviewing the legislation.

The law was introduced back in 1981 after IRA hunger-striker Bobby Sands was elected to the Commons despite being in prison, to stop others from doing the same. It disqualifies anyone from being an MP if they are facing a prison sentence of more than a year. These were somewhat exceptional circumstances - I don't think that the then Tory government thought that the law would lead to the farcical situation whereby a politician continues to receive his taxpayer-funded salary, while in jail at the expense of the taxpayer and all for defrauding the taxpayer in the first place. It is outrageous that politicians can continue to be paid when they are in prison for defrauding their electorate and, self-evidently, cannot represent their constituents.

There will be some who say that Mr Mote never did much work when has was allowed to attend Parliament sessions - we shall see what happens when he returns to Brussels in the New Year.

The Tory's jumbled mess of referendum promises

The Tories are in complete chaos over whether to call a post-ratification referendum following the speech by Foreign Affairs spokesman William Hague in the Commons on Monday, in which he stated that the treaty ratified by Parliament without a referendum would "not be acceptable to a Conservative government and we would not let matters rest there". He started to expand beginning, "in such circumstances" before deciding not to complete the rest of the sentence.

As Ken Clarke noted several moments later, Mr Hague had "given a helpful new statement of Opposition party policy, although it came to a rather vague conclusion". Clarke added that the alternatives were either "repudiation of a treaty that this country has ratified; an attempt to renegotiate or reopen that treaty; a parliamentary process of some kind; or a referendum" and pointed out that the Tories had "always accepted treaty obligations accepted by previous governments" when they came to office.

Meanwhile, the highly Eurosceptic Tory MEP Martin Callanan claimed yesterday in the Northern Echo that "David Cameron has even committed to a referendum after the treaty has come into force". This, presumably, will come as news to Cameron, who has so far refused to pledge a post-ratification referendum. Indeed, after Hague's speech, Cameron's spokesman told the press that that had been "no change" to party policy.

Once again the Tories are divided on Europe. Less than two weeks ago former Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind (no Europhile he) urged Cameron not to allow the debate on the Reform Treaty to be "dominated by the small group of hardline Europhobes" and described demands for a post-ratification plebiscite as "silly and wrong".

Let us be clear - a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty after its ratification would, in effect, be a referendum on whether to renegotiate the terms of Britain's membership of the EU. The Tory hardliners are quite candid that they would view this as an opportunity to engineer British withdrawal. No amount of sophistry from Cameron can hide the fact that by refusing to take on the Europhobes he reveals his parties complete lack of credibility on Europe.

To add to the confusion (or maybe to deflect attention away from their dilemna over a European referendum), Cameron is now promising local referendums on council tax rises. He has vowed to make councils offer a referendum if they want to raise their council tax beyond a certain threshold and said, "I want to replace bureaucratic accountability with democratic accountability".

He seems to think local councillors are bureaucrats (much as he seems to think MEPs are) and not elected. In most areas there are council elections three years out of four - plenty of opportunity to vote out an administration you don’t like. A referendum each year added to this is preposterous.

But what about this? Cameron went on to say, "Council tax referendum ballots would be sent out with the annual council tax bill". Does this mean people who don’t pay council tax, like students, will not get a vote? If so that also spells the end to universal sufferage!

As poorly put together as this idea is, it is merely a sideshow to the real argument do we want a parliamentary democracy or do we want a plebiscitory democracy? By offering a series of referendums the Tories would fundamentally change the way Britain is governed, surely a bigger threat to Britain’s tradition of parliamentary democracy than either a new treaty being ratified through the Commons and Lords, or elected Councillors deciding a budget for a council.

At last, the deal has been done and a new treaty reforming the EU has been agreed by all 27 national governments!

Amid all the fuss about what the treaty does and doesn't do, it is perhaps worth noting that it will improve the democratic accountability of the European Union. Under the terms of the treaty, no EU legislation can be adopted without, first,examination by national parliaments, second, approval by the EU Council of Ministers (composed of national ministers from national governments accountable to those national parliaments) and third, approval of the European Parliament (composed of our directly elected MEPs). This is a level of scrutiny that exists in no other international organisation. Anyone genuinely worried about accountability should focus on NATO, the IMF, the WTO, the World Bank, the OECD and so on, which lack such accountability.

A paper published by the European Commission a couple of weeks ago set out ideas that could make it easier for European political parties to increase their profile.

Despite the fact that, in the European Parliament, Labour members sit in the Party of European Socialists, the Tories (for the moment at least) in the European People's Party and the Liberal Democrats in the Alliance of Liberal Democrat and Reform Parties, when it comes to European election campaigns, their respective parties do little more than co-ordinate national campaigns. European elections tend to be fought as 27 different national campaigns dominated by the state of domestic politics.

This is slightly anomalous. Broadly speaking, the European Parliament gives the EU ideological/political pluralism, while national interests represented by national governments in the Council of Ministers. Most European issues are in fact political rather than national choices, such as whether you want higher environmental standards, but at greater costs, or not. There are people on both sides of the argument in every country. They are represented in the Parliament, but not reflected in the Council where each country is represented only by the government party.

The new rules would allow and indeed help Europe-wide parties to campaign and also to establish political foundations to encourage debates and political research.

One of the provisions of the proposed Reform Treaty is the election of the Commission president by the European Parliament. This has given rise to calls from some quarters that the European parties should nominate their own candidates for President. This would add to the profile of the elections and the European parties, as well as provide a more visible link between the election results and the choice of Europe's chief executive.

Many feel that this could be used as a tool to increase political participation and voter turn-out as well as generate a better understanding of the working of the EU.

I was pleased to see that my website and blog has been nominated for a New Statesman New Media Award in the elected representative catergory.

It's nice to see people acknowledging the site as a lot of work goes into expanding and updating it. It is also an effective method of communicating with constituents and informing them of my activities.

With such a vast constituency it is impossible to see as many constituents as I would like but the website and blog attracts over 900 unique visitors a week. There is obviously no substitute for meeting people in person but I am able to communicate with far more people in the region through my website than I possible could only with visits, talks and meetings.

Constituents for their part are also embracing the use of the internet. The past couple of years has seen a considerable rise in email queries, with sites like www.writetothem.com making contacting a politician effortless. The internet has also made it far easier to organise a concerted campaign, with people able to publish a stock letter on their website which others can print off and send to their MEP or MP - though this is sometimes a problem when I get 600 identical emails!

With all the talk about wide spread apathy towards politics it is heartening to see the internet enable so many more people to be involved in democracy.

One of the ideas floated on the future of the Constitutional Treaty is to hold a Europe-wide referendum across the 27 Member States.

This idea is superficially attractive: a single Europe-wide decision, instead of separate national decisions, on Europe's "rule book", could settle the divergence of views that has emerged.

However, the EU has no right, under the current treaties, to organise a Europe-wide referendum. The treaties would first need to be changed - by unanimous agreement and national ratification - to enable it to do so. Even if agreement were reached, it would take years.

So, the advocates of this idea are now calling instead for simultaneous national referenda - in every member state - and because several countries don't allow for referenda in their national constitutions, they argue that such referenda should only be consultative, not binding.

But holding a new set of national referenda now on the constitutional treaty would probably just confirm what we know already: that there is a divergence of views on it with most countries supporting it and a few against it. It would simply bring us, after a few more months, back to the question that Member States will face in June's European Council: how to overcome that divergence and find a compromise acceptable to all?

I had the pleasure today of attending the launch of the Centre for Women in Democracy - a new organisation based in the North of England working to increase the representation of women at all levels of public life. The Centre for Women in Democracy is the first think tank of its kind to be based in the North of England, whereas such things are traditionally based in London.

The event began with a fascinating speech by Jill Liddington, whose recent book, Rebel Girls: Their Fight for the Vote, tells of the struggle women from the Yorkshire region faced in their fight for suffrage in the beginning of the twentieth century. Next to talk was the Centre for Women in Democracy’s director Nan Sloane. Nan highlighted just how under-represented women still are at all levels of government and public life, quoting some very disturbing figures. Only 19.5% of MPs are female, 25.6% of UK MEPs are female, 27% of local councillors are female and perhaps more worryingly, just 2% of councillors are black and ethnic minority women. Last up was Hilary Armstrong MP, Minister for Social Exclusion, who spoke of the importance of women in politics and the barriers they face.

The European Parliament, which has over 30% female MEPs, is at least better than Westminster. Labour is well above average with 42% female MEPs. Unfortunately, the UK is let down by the Conservatives, who have just one female MEP (who has just announced her retirement), and UKIP who have none at all, together bringing the UK average down to just 25.6%.

For further information on the Centre For Women & Democracy please click here.

One favourite Eurosceptic line is that the European Union has developed with barely any reference to public opinion, and in fact without democratic support. This kind of claim is usually tossed into anti-European arguments as an aside, and therefore too often goes unaddressed.

It is, however, complete rubbish. In fact, I can think of no other topic which has ever been subject to quite as many referenda as the process of building the European Union. Specifically:

• Between 1972 to 2005, no fewer than 34 national referenda have been held in EU member states on the subject of European integration - be it accession, treaty ratification, or joining the euro. Averaged out, that amounts to (more than) one referendum every single year.


• The average turnout in EU-related referenda is two-thirds; the highest turnout is 91%, and only 4 of the 34 had turnouts of less than 50%.


• Of these 34 referenda, 28 (82%) have been 'yes' votes. Of the remaining 6 'noes', two were later reversed in subsequent referenda.

If anyone can think of a political issue that's received more endorsement by plebiscite than this over as long a timescale, I'd be interested to hear about it.

And besides, there's a more general point. We in the EU are all parliamentary democracies; the UK has a longer tradition than most. It is our elected parliamentarians who deliberate and decide policy on our behalf, and must account for their actions at election time. Nobody claims that the NHS is undemocratic because it's never been subjected to a referendum, yet our national policy on this continues to be shaped by elected governments. In the UK, even constitutional developments are rarely put to vote, and still this is not seen as an omission which undermines their legitimacy. And we joined the UN, the WTO, NATO, and countless other structures where we share our sovereignty without any clamour to hold a referendum.

As long as our government remains accountable to Parliament for British policy towards Europe, and as long as we continue to elect the House of Commons, the claim that the EU has poor democratic legitimacy is always going to be shaky. All the more so when we also elect MEPs to represent us directly at European level!

I was struck by how the assumptions and myths propounded by the Eurosceptics in Britain have come to dominate even the thinking of many of us pro-Europeans. Sometimes we all-too-readily concede arguments that are based on nothing more than endless repetition.

Take, for instance, the evidence that Lord Wallace of Saltaire gave to the European Reform Forum (page 19 of this PDF document). He played to the gallery in complaining that the European convention (which drafted the constitutional treaty) "did not go far enough into the whole subsidiarity issue and did not open the box that it was supposed to open, which was marked 'returning competences from the Union back to national governments'".

This is simply not true. The first few months of the Convention's work was precisely around the subject of "what do we want to do together?", in order to examine whether the EU's field of responsibilities is too large, too small or about right.

The conclusion was that it was about right: because after all, the EU only ever deals with those matters which the member states have unanimously agreed that it should. Where they have done so, it is not because they are predisposed to handing over their powers to "Brussels", but because there is sufficient reason to convince them all that common action in the matter is beneficial. And even where the EU has been given the authority to act, the degree and intensity of EU action is determined by the member states themselves, as it is the Council of Ministers (and the directly elected European Parliament) which adopt European legislation and policies, not the European Commission.

Lord Wallace bemoaned suggestions that there should be a harmonisation of the maximum level of alcohol allowed in the blood stream before a person's driving licence is withdrawn, stating that "for all I know, South Carolina and North Carolina might have different views on that, so I do not see why Belgium and Luxembourg should not have different views on it either". That is a perfectly valid standpoint - and indeed different EU countries do have different laws on this. But the difference between the US system and the EU one is this: in the EU, those arguing to have a harmonised rule have to persuade the European Parliament and ministers from national governments to support it. So, unlike in America, it cannot happen without the agreement of the member states themselves!

The UK Independence Party's latest scheme is to try and convince us that the great British public hasn't been consulted on our membership of the EU for thirty years — because the last referendum was in 1975.

This is peculiarly twisted logic. According to UKIP's reasoning, we have also never been consulted on the NHS, education, housing, taxes, the environment or anything else.

But of course this is complete rubbish. We live in a parliamentary democracy, and we have a general election every four or five years. If we don't like a government's policies, we can kick the government out of office and replace it with a better alternative. If that's not consultation, I don't know what is!

As every general election since 1975 has produced a pro-European government, maybe UKIP should take the hint?

In the darkness of the current EU crisis, there are at least a few moments for me to enjoy.

I'm particularly fond of the comment of the Irish Commissioner Charlie McCreevey in the most recent issue of European Voice:

"For the great majority of people, transatlantic dialogues, inter-institutional committees, gender institutes and the like hold little interest. They are people who just want to earn a decent living, be able to afford a few pints, go to a game of football and have a bit of sex."

And, enjoying that particular press freedom that not even politicians would dare entertain, the Guardian says that:

"the European democratic deficit is not only a matter of secret or unresponsive leaders but of muddled and unrealistic citizens."

This is not something that any politician could get away with saying, even if some of them no doubt think that!

The Grand Mufti of Bosnia, Dr Mustafa Ceric, who I gather is Europe's most senior Muslim cleric, has told a gathering of Muslim leaders in London that a declaration from them should:

contain a clear message that European Muslims are fully and unequivocally committed to the European Constitution, the rule of law, the principles of tolerance and the values of democracy and human rights.