There's been much coverage on the EU treaty, Cameron’s veto and Clegg’s disappointment, but for all the coverage, little detail, little proper journalism and it has left the public in the dark.
Polling shows that people are generally pleased that the British PM ‘stood up for British interests’. Ask the same polled public ‘But what does it mean?’, ‘What were these interests?’, ‘What was so offensive about the EU proposal?’ and the polling would probably show the largest percentage in the ‘don’t know’ column.
A quick look at the BBC website and there is little in the way of detail, just the recycled line from Cameron.
There is mention of new rules that mean national governments must have sensible budgets that don’t threaten the stability of the European economy again. Not sure what is so bad about this. If it prevents governments borrowing at a time of boom and plunging Europe into a debt crisis again when the economy dips it has to be good. The Coalition (and Labour) have recognised that the UK deficit needs to be cut, this just means the rest of Europe has to take the same path the UK has taken. In other words it simply stops governments going a bit mad, so a good thing.
Another line is that national budgets should be shown to Europe to make sure they are sensible. This obviously flows from the first thing. How can you check a budget is sensible if you don’t look at it.
Perhaps this was the problem? But as the UK government are dealing with the deficit and set sensible budgets why should we be worried?
Of course it is the same old problem of governments, they will take your DNA, try to make you carry an ID card, scan your number plate, track your emails and watch your every move on CCTV. When you challenge this they say “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”.
When you ask a government for information, such as MPs expense claims, you have a four year fight and have to go through the courts! If the government can watch me without my permission why can’t the EU can watch the government?
The only other thing I could find was this Tobin tax (or Robin Hood tax) where financial transactions are subject to a levy. Now if you polled people, they would probably support this to a greater degree than they supported the veto that may have prevented it!
With the UK’s big financial services industry the British government will be the big winner. Would it make us less competitive? Well probably not. If banks need to trade in the EU and all countries were charging the same rate of tax, why would they re-locate?
Let’s not forget that most of the European banks have either been (or may need to be) bailed out by their governments and could now be put under pressure to trade within the 'treaty area', which will be most, if not all, the EU countries except the UK. Far from saving the city of London, we may have seriously damaged it with this ‘veto’
The other favourite line is 'the UK government made reasonable demands’. Again the media have just recycled the official line, it is not clear to me what these demands were.
Of course what may be reasonable to some, is not to others. But for 26 heads of state, both left and right wing to unanimously agree that our demands were unreasonable is unusual to the point of suggesting the governments claim is unbelievable. So what were these reasonable demands. Once again we're told not detail just words such as 'safeguards', either the media can't be bothered to get the detail, don't understand it or feel the British public can't be trusted with the truth as it might distract them from the views of the papers owner! (the government in the BBCs case)
What we don’t know is;
Whether Cameron’s poor result was the least worst option. Could he have done any better than failure?
And what the real implications are of his veto?
What seems more certain;;
if Cameron’s intention was to stop the EU setting new rules, he appears (at the moment) to have failed, these rules will happen anyway and we will have no influence over it. Cameron got a poor result.
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