Votes for prisoners shows the future of Euroscepticism
Posted on February 2, 2011At first glance, the Commons deciding to maintain the status quo on a 19th Century law seems like a highly conservative thing to do. But in reality, yesterday’s vote to reject giving prisoners the vote was nothing short of a revolutionary act. This is the first time that I can remember that British politicians have chosen to openly defy a European authority.
Of course, the usual suspects have trotted out to say that the European Convention of Human Rights and the court that enforces it has nothing to do with the EU, but this is garbage in two respects. First, obedience to the ECHR is a membership requirement of the European Union – they are so closely entwined as to be arms of the same creature. Second, and arguably more importantly, the public perception is that there is little difference between the two.
Any Europhile who finds comfort in an artificial distinction between the two is deluding themselves if they think yesterday wasn’t a victory for eurosceptics over the European project. If the eurosceptic movement builds on this episode in the right way and learns the right lesson, then this could become the first of many victories.
What is the lesson that must be learned? It is this: retail politics beats theoretical politics every time.
The ECHR ruling that Britain should be forced to give prisoners the vote split the debate into two sides. On one side were the eurosceptics, who built an alliance of common sense around themselves to say to the public “We oppose giving the vote to criminals”. On the other side were a rump of euro-enthusiasts and self-proclaimed penal reformers speaking legalese about charters and stuck in the awkward position of trying to promote the empowerment of muggers and burglars. The outcome was pretty clear for a long time.
We must fight the EU on battlefields of our choosing, where we have the high ground and they have the sun in their eyes. We must pick issues that affect the real lives of millions of voters, that are easily communicated and where we are obviously in the right.
By definition, that means resisting and rejecting the temptation to indulge in high-falutin’ geeky technicalities or poe-faced philosophy.
Of course our campaign should be underpinned by a strong structure of principle and theory, but we must take a retail approach to selling our ideas to the people and the media – not betraying our principles but promoting them.
For example, a couple of years ago I was involved in a series of focus groups to test different messages and issues on the EU. In one exercise, every group was given a bit of paper with the word “Sovereignty” on it and asked to write down what the idea meant to them. Every single time, without fail, the sheets came back filled not with words about self-determination, democratic deficits and unaccountable EU commissioners, but with things about the royal family.
We asked the same groups about what the Government should do in response to votes for prisoners, and they unanimously said we should tell the Court where they could stick their ruling and we should do what want in our own country. It’s not that people don’t care about sovereignty, but they simply don’t engage much with overly complex technical language. Give people a practical example and they are big fans of self-determination.
Tony Hancock summed this up sublimely when he proclaimed “Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?” At the time that was funny because most people knew what Magna Carta was – now Hancock’s line is a cautionary message to anyone who would focus their messaging highbrow rather than real life. If you aim your campaign at the intelligentsia, they may back you to a man but you will likely lose.
The EU is bad for this country because of the democratic deficit, its protectionist economics, its commitment to corpus juris and its statist philosophy – but it will fall because it messes with peoples bin collections, it closes their post office, it bans their normal lightbulbs or because it gives a burglar the vote.
Tags: Britain, Coalition, Conservatives, ECHR, EU, Human Rights, John Hirst, Labour, opinion, Parliament, Politics, Referendum, Retail Politics, Tony Hancock, Votes for prisoners
Categories: Opinion, Politics, Westminster
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11.02.2011 14:40
Crime is a high vis political issue.
People listen to that.
The insane fishing policy was in the media weeks ago .
Maybe these two episodes might just make them think for once.
The next own goal is coming i’m sure.
I suspect it will be energy.
11.02.2011 14:44
Great piece Mark.
Unfortunately this vote was a shocking indictment of our democratic system for two reasons – i) only 40% of MPs actually turned up to vote at all (despite the substantial public interest in the issue) and ii) it is being reported that this vote is not binding on the government.
11.02.2011 15:27
Exactly right. Practical examples of interference are always the best way to demonstrate what membership of the EU really means. Using theoretical waffle has enabled pro-EU politicians, civil servants and academics to advance their cause for too long.
11.02.2011 17:48
You are not alone in the fight against the EU but cheers far your politicians to see commen cense! to many career politicians have forgotten what commen cense is.
excuse my spelling, and keep up the fight against the EUSSR! A friend from The Netherlands
11.02.2011 20:39
You are absolutely correct. The average British voter is Eurosceptic but doesn’t really know why. They instinctively know that Parliament is no longer supreme and the EU makes the rules but have trouble converting that knowledge into things that affect their daily lives. I think the issue that will finally hit home will be when the EU over-reaches itself and tries to impose direct taxation. It is one thing the UK Govt paying vast sums of money en bloc into the EU, but quite another when that money is being lifted from your own pocket.
I hope the EU is so arrogant it tries it on very soon …. they will get one hell of a reaction.
11.02.2011 20:58
A sensible and refreshing analysis of the week’s major event in British politics. Let’s hope that the Tory right in parliament has at last found an identity, so that we can still have British politics.
12.02.2011 00:40
Your point about the previously impossibly-seeming prospect of a vote in Parliament going against a Diktat of an EU Institution is well made. More; the appetite grows on what it feeds on. The first successful rebellion is usually on a relatively minor issue, and the lack of any real consequence – for the EU has no real powers to punish disobedience short of armed invasion – brings with it the heady prospect of more rebellions, equally successful and equally unpunished.
12.02.2011 01:45
Uh?
The European Court of Human Rights has nothing to do with the EU. It was established with full UK participation after the horrors of the 2nd World War. The UK is entitled to challenge its ruling but it is wrong to confuse this with the EU.
Re the EU. From the fall of the Roman Empire to 1945 we were warring with each other. The EU has made the kind of conflict we endured in the past unthinkable. We are all far richer and more prosperous and benefiut from a single market of over 450 million. 70% of our trade is with Europe.
12.02.2011 15:17
Good piece Mark.It reminds me of when I was teaching unemployed immigrant benefit claimants rudimentary maths in the 70s.They struggled in class but playing darts in the lunch hour they were ace at the score card and also in finding errors in the benefit amounts.
14.02.2011 11:16
@Martin Flatters: heard it all before. And it’s still bull. The EU is like the smoking ban: the facts don’t support it and the justifications for it mutate and shift with time.
1. NATO has kept the peace in western Europe since WWII, not the EU. 2. We are not “richer and more prosperous” for being in the EU. It is a substantial and growing drag on our economy.
14.02.2011 19:40
What a ridiculous piece of writing! How have you managed to make up so much? Fantasists aren’t rare in politics fine, but you’ve rather gone down the Disney scale of delusion haven’t you?
An ECHR ruling that simply means you can’t have a blanket ban on prisoners? Overturning a barbaric 150 year old law? This ruling states that we can still prevent prisoners having the vote, just that we can’t blanket ban them. Like we can’t discriminate against any section of the populace for any other arbitrary reason. It doesn’t, in fact, do any of the things you’ve accused it of.
Then you meander your apparently idiot savant brain across to the EU! Who.. have nothing to do with this. Yes it’s a requirement of joining the EU to abide by ECHR regs, just as it is that in order to be a member of the UN you have to agree to the terms of the UN Human Rights Charter! What of it?
Just brilliant. Another Tory boy quiffed up loser in a bad suit, espousing pub politics mixed in with poorly educated Daily Mail rhetoric.
17.02.2011 17:23
Oh Martin Flatters, you’re adorable!
European peace and prosperity after WWII was neither created nor enforced by Brussels. You can thank NATO and overweening US military hegemony for that.
Lots of other countries benefit from trade with European countries without having Brussels bureaucrats tell them what to do.
I put forth that you are a nitwit and possibly treasonous.
22.02.2011 19:50
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