Liberal Vision

EU SWIFT Vote Ends Bank Data Sharing

This is quite possibly one of the best things I’ve heard come out of the EU in some time and yet has been woefully under-reported:

The European parliament rejected an agreement on sharing banking data with the US yesterday, delivering a potential setback to long-running US efforts to track down terrorist financing.

Citing concerns about European citizens’ privacy, the parliament voted to scrap a deal that would have given the US continued access to data compiled by Swift, a co-operative that handles interbank money transfers.

The move means that for the first time since the September 2001 attacks, the US will not have access to large parts of the Swift database, which includes information from more than 8,000 financial institutions globally.

Crucially in this vote it was the Liberals (ALDE) who helped sway the vote in favour of our right to privacy. We should be very proud of the role LibDem MEPs played in ensuring this result. The end result was 378 MEPs voting to block the data sharing and 196 voting in favour of it’s continuation with 31 abstentions.

One has to wonder at the sheer nerve of the US:

The US had lobbied hard to keep the data flowing, with Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, and Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, both contacting Jerzy Buzek, the parliament’s president, in an attempt to sway the vote.

The US Treasury had previously obtained the data through repeated subpoenas sited on US soil, but a decision by Swift to move key computer servers to Europe from last month means Washington must now persuade the EU to hand over the data voluntarily.

EU governments agreed, on an interim basis, to continue co-operation last November. Though some had reservations, most were swayed by US arguments that the Swift data led to valuable intelligence that could prevent terrorism in Europe.

No matter how the US try to spin this, it is a victory for the little people against the state. The US demands were grotesquely disproportionate to the threat posed by terrorism. Dutch Liberal rapporteur Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert explained:

“If the US administration proposed something equivalent to the Congress – transferring in bulk all banking data on American citizens to a foreign power - we know what they would say”. In other words, the agreement provides for no reciprocity for the EU.

How French Women Aren’t “Real”

I have just returned from happily linking “s-turns” on the slops of the French Alps. Whilst I was there I had the opportunity to speak to a couple of French girls my own age, who were, to my surprise, as politics mad as I am. After discussing everyone from Obama to Sarkozy and letting them know my disdain for the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, it was time for lunch.

Now, since French women famously “don’t get fat‘ I couldn’t help mentioning that my political party had decided to pass a motion aiming at making advertisers show to what degree they had airbrushed their adverts…

Pourquoi?

Well, don’t adverts make you feel ‘inferior’ or put too much pressure on you to be thin? After looking at me like I was a space cadet for good few moment they simply shrugged, “non”. Admittedly they confessed to reading “Vogue” more often than the french equivalent of “Now” or “Heat”. To them Lagerfeld is a modern day ‘Picasso’, it is art. The adverts are simply not considered in the same nature or afforded the same status that Jo Swinson has incorrectly granted them.

As one of our few female MPs, Swinson should be in my big book of contemporary feminist heroes. Yet I completely abhor the “Real Women” campaign and its correlating motion and I continue to object to it on practical, libertarian and feminist grounds. On a practical level the rest of the political community gave a collective sigh of “ah bless”, it made us look twee and amateur. Speaking to Lynne Featherstone after the motion had been passed she described the motion as being about “honesty” and that’s a great thing. However, the Real Women campaign isn’t about honesty in advertising, it’s about honesty in advertising regarding womens bodies only. If it was truly about honesty in advertising then it should have a motion to itself including all advertising (including the degrading treatment of men by some advertisers) and not including any womens issues.

The fact of the matter is that the “Real Women” motion was a shill. It included issues as diverse as domestic violence and equal pay; issues that could (and should) have been afforded meaty motions in their own right. Yet theses more pressing issues were given the half-baked treatment in order to cynically use them as ‘window dressing’ for Swinson’s pseudo-censorship. This alone is testament to the tenuousness of the airbrushing segment; it could never have stood alone.

So where next?! We’re stuck with a poor motion that skims the meaty issues and makes a meaningless gesture at advertisers. You should not need to be told that fashion adverts are not true to life any more that you need to be told a Picasso isn’t figuratively accurate. The “Real Women” campaign is patronisingly maternalistic if nothing else. What women need is to get back to feminist basics. Women need to stop objectifying the women in fashion adverts. We turn them into rods and then proceed to flagellate ourselves with them.

The “Real Women” campaign has  been an orgy of weeping an wailing: completely emotional and irrational. It provides a salve for our self-inflicted wounds but has also granted us a greater capacity to inflict them and never let them truly heal. How women can truly help themselves is by truly ending this masochistic cycle. We need to see fashion as art. Art is useless; if an object has any function other than to aesthetically please it is no longer art. Therefore there is no reason for us to worry about not looking like a Chanel ad. Obviously that’s easier said than done but it is certainly preferable than turning yourself into a perpetual victim.

Placing limits on the human expression of consenting adults is a violation of their intrinsic human rights. It is also completely unnecessary. If you can’t break the cycle of masochistic madness then be an adult and withdraw your consent. Stop buying the products that are advertised in a way you find objectionable an the magazines that advertise them.

Swinson obviously cares about women a great deal. In this case, however, good intentions have not made good policy and done women a disservice in the process. This orgy of self-depreciation has to stop. To end on the words of my French friend: “Of course aesthetics are important but if I’m not fit I’m not free to do the things I want to do.” It’s time to stop being “Real” and start being down to earth!

DISCLAIMER: THE INDIVIDUAL PICTURED SNOWBOARDING IN THE ABOVE ARTICLE IS NOT ACTUALLY ME…

Breaking news: Wilders has UK ban overturned

Courtesy of the BBC - Dutch right-winger Geert Wilders has successfully appealed against the ban imposed on him entering the UK.

I’m sure you all recall the situation: upon trying to enter the country in February, our ever illiberal Home Office chucked him on a flight back to the Netherlands.

At the time Chris Huhne, disappointingly, endorsed the government’s decision.

Not all of us were impressed.

Shouldn’t the LibDems say that “President Blair” is totally unacceptable?

The view in the more hysterical reaches of the Eurosceptic press is that Tony Blair is heir apparent to become President of the European Council should the Lisbon Treaty be ratified.  This fits a neat narrative for those on the Right who wish to warn Cameron that Lisbon is roughly synonymous with Armageddon. Tony Blair is the only man in three and a half decades to have successfully challenged - indeed, reversed -  the electoral ascendancy of the Tory party. He is feared, respected and reviled by Conservaties in about equal measure.

But the major issue about Blair for liberals must be that he led Britain casually into an illegal war, on a false prospectus and with utterly catastrophic consequences. There has yet to be a full public enquiry into the Iraq war. Until there is, and until any possible subsequent legal action against Blair is resolved, Nick Clegg and the LibDems should surely use what (limited) political power they have to argue that Blair should not be considered for any meaningful public appointment within the UK or the EU.

Is Cameron’s best tactical option a referendum that means virtually nothing?

Tory splits over Europe aren’t what they used to be. Nevertheless, David Cameron got off to a shaky start to his party’s conference over the vexed issue of a referendum on Lisbon.

On the face of it, his position isn’t total nonsense. Basically, if Lisbon  has not been ratified by all 27 member states, he will hold a snap referendum in an attempt to rescind the UK’s ratification, thereby preventing it coming into force.  But, if Lisbon is already in place, he’ll have to find a different way to prosecute his plans to repatriate powers to nation state level - which may or may not involve a referendum.

But you don’t have to dig very far beneath the surface for this stance to start unravelling. It’s Parliament - not the British people - who would need to tear up our treaty commitments. This would, of course, be seen as a monumental act of bad faith by our European partners  ( it’s hardly the EU’s fault that the UK’s system of government allows strong majority governments elected on 36% of the vote to wriggle out of their manifesto pledge to a referendum).

A Lisbon referendum would also give rise to the absurd situation of a government holding a nationwide vote in which they want to secure a negative answer. I can’t find any precedent for this in the history of human democracy. Referendums have always been used - sometimes badly - because the government wishes to achieve X but feels the need (or has a legal requirement) to secure the public’s explicit support.

And this shows how the whole European debate has warped a meaningful discussion on the proper use of referendums. Questions along the lines of “Do you like the Lisbon Treaty?” don’t provide much policy guidance if the answer is “no”. It simply begs the question “Ok, what the f**k do you want then?” It’s certainly not at all evident that the “no” votes in various member states have been an expression of settled public support for the status quo - i.e. the present, constitutional structures of the European Union (which is what you end up with if Lisbon falls). At some point, people need to say “yes” to something - even if this is a “yes” to withdraw completely from the European Union.

That’s why I don’t buy the Eurosceptic argument that a re-run of a referendum is intrinsically undemocratic. It’s wholly legitimate to go back and seek to secure a majority vote - especially if you were very close to getting 50% support first time round and if you believe you have taken compelling steps to understand and address the objections of  “no” voters. (I gather the Irish government did this in 14 areas, before the second referendum).

So, Cameron has a difficult problem. His European strategy is no longer in his own hands. Britain’s policy and approach to the EU in 2010 now largely depends on the deliberations and legal processes of the Poles and the Czechs.  So much for national sovereignty.

Our likely next Prime Minister also has an internal party difficulty. Europe is to the British Tories what abortion is to the American Republican party. With ConHome’s poll showing a huge majority of Tory members wanting a referendum come what may - and nearly half wishing to leave the EU altogether - an appeal to “move on” from their party leader will fall on deaf ears.

Perhaps David Cameron’s best option - if Lisbon is a sealed deal by the year’s end - is a consultative referendum on whether the British people support the British government’s attempts to repatriate certain areas of social policy. No doubt, the Tory leader could secure a pyrrhic victory and appease at least some of his hardcore anti-EU supporters. But the rest of the European Union could just turn round and say “no” to the new British Prime Minister.  So, such a referendum would not be an expression of national sovereignty, it would a demonstration of how meaningless the whole concept of national sovereignty has become.

+++ Eurosceptics trounced in Irish referendum +++

The YES campaign is heading for a landslide victory in the Lisbon referendum - much, much higher than the 10% I was predicting.

Nigel Farage has just been on RTE calling for a third referendum, on the grounds that it’s now Yes 1 No 1. Guido Fawkes makes a similar point. But - as we all know - over two legs, you measure goal difference in the event of a tie. The Yes side win decisively on that score.

UPDATE 5.30pm - The final tally is 67.1% for the YES side - a landslide majority of more than 2:1

Irish YES campaign “confident” of 6%-10% majority

So, I’m told. Mind you, they also thought they’d won without the need for a replay….

The Irish causing Cameron a major headache - the odds are 25/1 on

Following the last minute surge in the No vote last time round, the pro-Europeans in Ireland are wisely taking nothing for granted as polling takes place today in the “re-match”. But I’m willing to stick my neck out and say that the Yes side will prevail, and with some considerable room to spare (I’m guessing a majority of about 10%). The bookmakers agree.

That’s a major headache for the Tory leader as his conference gets under way in Manchester this weekend. If the Conservatives do win the election next May, they will probably take office in a world in which the Lisbon treaty has been ratified. Some Eurosceptics are holding out the hope that the Czechs might drag out the issue  until next Summer, thereby providing a narrow window for a British referendum. But that’s fantasy politics.

David Cameron will have a lot of serious stuff in his inbox on May 7th. To invest enormous amounts of political capital in attempting to undo a done deal would be a pretty inauspicious start to his premiership. Hardcore Eurobashers would love it, of course, but it’s doubtful whether the markets would see a Tory programme consisting of a year-long fight over the already ratified treaty and the repeal of the fox-hunting ban as evidence of a government tackling the serious problems facing Britain.

So, Cameron will probably return to his strategy of “not letting matters rest”. But what on Earth this means is anyone’s guess. Unless he can get the different factions in his party to all believe that it means what they want it to mean, he is in for some internal strife.

The Conservative party is no longer divided on Europe in the way that it used to be. The pro-European faction has been decimated over the past decade. But there is a new split between soft and hard opponents of European integration. That could end up being just as bloody.

It’s a shame the LibDems dithered and dallied so much over a commitment to a referendum. Nick Clegg’s ability to make hay over this is severely curtailed.

EXCLUSIVE: Nick congratulates Guido Westerwelle

Following Liberal Vision’s celebration of the rise to power of the German liberals, Nick Clegg has now written to congratulate their leader Guido Westerwelle following the superb performance of  the Free Democrats in last weekend’s election.

It’s not on Nick’s or the party’s website yet, as far as I can see.

And the “latest news” from Nick’s constituency website is that - about six weeks ago -  he wrote to congratulate someone called Jessica Ennis, who apparently won the heptahlon at an athletics event in Berlin in the Summer. It appears that she went to school in Sheffield Hallam. You can read his letter to Ms. Ennis here.

His letter to Guido Westerwelle - dated yesterday -  is available in full here. My GCSE German is a little rusty - but I’m guessing it’s all pretty damned positive stuff.

Classical liberalism, hung Parliaments and coalition government…is Germany a glimpse of our future?

The LibDems’ sister party in Germany - the free market, socially libertarian Free Democrats - are the real winners of their country’s general election. Their all-time high vote of 15% - secured on a platform of low tax, less regulation and more personal freedom - has propelled them back into power.

Although Merkel’s Christian Democrats slipped backwards slightly in the polls, the FDP’s strong showing allows her to remove the dead hand of the left-leaning Social Democrats (who were slaughtered)  from the federal government. Liberal leader Guido Westerwelle and his colleagues stand on the brink of wielding real clout - and ministerial office - in the EU’s most powerful nation.

I recall Westerwelle leading a delegation of Free Democrats to a LibDem Shadow Cabinet meeting in Westminster in 2006. I can’t remember what the main business of the meeting was, but the FDP’s guest appearance was tagged onto the end - slightly unceremoniously. A real highlight, however, was a LibDem frontbencher asking Westerwelle whether he wanted the Free Democrats to remain in opposition to the grand coalition of Christian and Social Democrats, or whether he sought to return to government. The German liberal leader was pretty incredulous. With a friendly frown he said that he wanted to return to government as soon as possible, what was the point of being in permanent opposition? A heavily pregnant pause followed.

Three years on, Guido Westerwelle now has serious power, whilst a major breakthrough for the LibDems remains frustratingly elusive.

David Cameron has congratulated Angela Merkel on her “victory”, but I can’t yet find a similar message from Nick Clegg to his liberal counterpart.

This might be because everyone at LibDem HQ is still recovering from Bournemouth, but it could also reflect the party’s extreme allergic reaction to discussing anything that relates to hung Parliaments or coalitions. If so, that’s a shame because we could learn a lot from the FDP and how a consistent, vigorous liberal manifesto can garner growing popular support and secure high office for its proponents.

So, from Liberal Vision, very heartfelt congratulations to Guido Westerwelle and everyone in the German liberal party.  I hope British liberals can gain confidence and inspiration from your remarkable achievement.