What they said and what they meant (probably) — the Spectator Brexit debate
On Tuesday, 26th of April, the Spectator held what it said was the best attended event in its entire history as over 2200 people packed out the London Palladium for a debate on leaving the EU.
The star studded panel included: Nigel Farage, Kate Hoey, and Daniel Hannan, arguing for Britain to leave the EU; and Nick Clegg, Chuka Ummuna, and Liz Kendall, arguing for the Britain to stay in.
Now any debate can easily go off the rails when one of the speakers is misunderstood, sometime because their words have been twisted, but mostly because what they meant to say and what they actually said were two different things — and who hasn’t been there? This is particularly true of debates on the EU as both sides struggle to agree on even the most basic facts.
I spend a lot of time summarising debates for our members and helping them to clarify what they mean to say, so they can say what they mean. The decision we face on June 23rd (the EU referendum) is too important to be made on the basis of what we think a small handful of people arguing for and against meant when they gave their reasons. So, I’d like to help.
Below are a few of the claims made by the speakers on Tuesday night and my advice to them on how to bridge the gap between what they said and what they meant, so that their arguments are given the consideration they deserve.
You can watch the whole debate for yourself on the Spectator’s Coffee House blog at: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/live-from-the-london-palladium-the-spectators-brexit-debate/
Nick Clegg on co-operating with EU countries
What he said:
“ I think the only way we can maximise control over our own destiny is by working hand in glove with our nearest neighbours in the European Union. We are safer and stronger and in many respects bigger together.”
What he meant:
The only way (or at least the best way) to co-operate with other EU countries on issues that matter to us is to be a member of the EU ourselves. A vote to leave is therefore a vote to stop working together to solve problems and take opportunities that no one country can do anything about by themselves.
Advice:
This is Nick Clegg’s single most important point, yet in this debate it was also his weakest. This is because while his opponents enthusiastically agreed with him on the importance of co-operating with other EU countries (apart from Kate Hoey), they challenged the idea that we had to be in the EU to do it.
Nick never responded to this, instead repeating his original point and emphasising the impact of our decision on our children and grandchildren. Since membership of the EU (like any club) carries all sorts of costs, he needs to be able to explain why the benefits it gives us can’t be realised for free.
Until he does, we’re going to be faced by two sides arguing they can achieve exactly the same ends through completely opposite means, which is one of the reasons this debate confuses so many people. Also, he’ll lose.
Kate Hoey on the right to make our own laws
What she said:
“Our basic right is our right to make laws. I don’t believe you can trust people in power if they can’t be removed by elections. No one can deny that the EU’s government, the Commission, is unelected and cannot be removed by any of us through elections.”
What she meant:
The European Commission is the most powerful of all the EU institutions because it is the only one that can make laws that member states then have to follow (if they are accepted by the European Council). Yet none of the commissioners are elected and even though the European Parliament can vote to remove them and the European Council can veto these laws, the UK is only one of 28 countries who has a say on this.
Advice:
First, Kate must check her facts. The European Commission is just one part of what she called ‘the government’ of the EU. No one arguing for the Remain side was either able or willing to call her on this, but if they had, it could have seriously dented her credibility.
She must also be ready to answer the question of how she would feel about directly electing the European Commission. This would put her in a difficult position because then UK voters would have to compete for influence with 500 million other people across Europe, whereas at least now we get to hand-pick one of the Commissioners ourselves.
Furthermore, if she was to cite being outnumbered by other voters as the real problem, she’d then have to explain why it was OK to expect Scotland to put up with this in the UK, but not for the UK to put up with it in the EU.
Ultimately, when you listen to Kate’s real objection to being in the EU, it is about free trade undermining the rights of UK citizens, which is chiefly where she differs from most Leave campaigners. She should stick to making the case against ANY form of co-operation that allows this to happen, which is what she really believes, otherwise someone may just call her bluff — although to be fair nobody did in this debate.
Liz Kendall on maximising Britain’s power
What she said:
“ I think President Obama was absolutely right. Being a member of the EU gives Britain more influence and power, not less. There is not a single, serious, credible independent organisation that thinks we would be better off out.”
What she meant:
The opinions of President Obama and organisations Liz considers to be “serious”, “credible”, and “independent”, such as the CBI and the IMF, matter a great deal and are the best indicator of what is the right choice for Britain. They prove that being in the EU increases our power and influence, which are more important than being solely responsible for our own decisions and laws.
Advice:
Liz gave into the temptation to rely on the authority of the people who agreed with her to make her case over the power of her arguments. The problem with this is that it depends on everyone equally respecting the judgement of those people and not everyone does — least of all the people who disagree with her.
It would have been a far better idea to use their reasons for agreeing with her and simply attribute them accordingly. After all, you’d like to think that a leading British MP wouldn’t decide she wanted the UK to stay in the EU just because the President of the United States said so — what if he’s wrong?
However, a far more important point that has been at the heart of this debate since Britain first entered the EU (then called the EEC) back in 1973, was that power trumps sovereignty. If Liz is looking for an example of what such an argument looks like, it’s this:
It didn’t come from Barack Obama, though. It came from John Gummer, Agriculture Minister to Margaret Thatcher. Now there’s a name she could drop to get the attention of Leave supporters.
Daniel Hannan on making free trade deals
What he said:
“We are a trading people. We don’t sit on great natural resources here, we have to make our way by what we buy and sell, that means we have to be where the customers are. And that means as long as we’re in the European Union, we cannot sign independent trade deals with non-EU countries.”
What he meant:
The growth of the UK economy is dependent on trade and we cannot afford to ignore all the “customers” outside of the EU. Currently, our membership of the EU is preventing us from trading with them, but if we left, we could agree new and better trade deals more quickly and effectively.
Advice:
Daniel does a good job of explaining why the EU takes so long to agree trade deals with one example being Italian tomato growers stalling agreement with Australia (even though it’s not exactly true — naughty Daniel). This also carries the benefit of playing on insecurities about vested interests hundreds of miles away holding top British priorities hostage.
However, he needs to clarify a couple of things to give his argument more impact: First, is he saying that the UK should trade with non-EU countries instead of its current EU trading partners or in addition to them? Second, would we be able to trade as freely with EU countries as we do now if we left?
Judging by everything else Daniel said in this debate, I’m pretty sure his intention is to maximise British trading opportunities everywhere, including within the EU. If so, his own rhetoric could come back to haunt him because if Italian tomato growers are enough to stall a trade deal between the EU and Australia, what makes him think they wouldn’t stall a trade deal with the UK?
This becomes a bigger deal when you consider that one of the UK’s long-standing objectives it to establish a European single market for services, to which we would need to negotiate access from the outside if we left the EU.
Daniel needs to come up with robust answers to these questions lest he fall into the trap of confirming the Remain side’s argument that life after Brexit would be arduous and uncertain. But again, none of them made that point on Tuesday, so he stays safe for now.
Have your say in the People’s EU debate
Debating London aims to put the public in the shoes of their leaders and get them to debate the big decisions that shape our lives across the country. In the People’s EU Debate, a panel of our members will make the case for and against leaving the EU on June 22nd, the night before the referendum itself.
Like all our public debates, it is free to attend, and open to anyone. You can sign up for it and follow all the other public debates taking place on the EU Referendum in London on our website at www.debatinglondon.com
