Red Cliffs Of Dawlish

Red Cliffs Of Dawlish
Red Cliffs Of Dawlish

Thursday 28 January 2016

Britain, Supranationalism & Globalization

Is this what Pro-EU advocates believe the UK's position in the EU actually looks like?

In the previous blog post Arguments: In The Deadly Grip of Confabulation. We looked at examples of empty concepts or containers that dominate the EU Referendum arguments in place of i(e due to a lack of) a cooperatively shared and developed and disseminated "intellectual architecture" to advance our arguments quality with. Dr. RAE North provided a description of this previously in EU Referendum: back to basics, using the metaphor of building the foundations of a building before the actual useful components of the building that are functional for people to use can be developed; and indeed people who use these spaces are often unaware of what they are "literally" built upon.


 EU Parliament percentage of MEP's representing each national member

If we compare the above: What is yet another confabulation of our membership of the EU to the actual foundations, or "details" using merely one example that's more than illustrative and fairly representative: We see that in effect our leaders our telling the people that:-

"All Animals Are Equal But Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others." ~ Animal Farm, George Orwell
 If we look further at the effect of the Supranational EU:-


 Supranationalism: Effectively all UK MEP's could vote "no" but be overruled Supranationally in the EU Parliament (political institution)

 FLEXCIT: 5.5 "Influence" in perspective, p.97 _ Dr. RAE North:-
"As to Britain's voting power within the EU, most often agreements are reached by consensus. Where a vote is called, qualified majority  voting (QMV) applies to  the  Council  of  the  European  Union  (formerly  the  Council  of  Ministers). There, Britain  has  29  out  of  352 votes,  representing  eight  percent  of  the  vote. A qualified majority is 252 votes (73.9 percent).

In the European Parliament,  the  situation  is  little  better.  There  are  73  UK  MEPs,  and  these represent  a  mere  9.7  percent  of  the  751  elected  MEPs  (post-2014  election). Given the party splits,  this level of representation is notional. UK MEPs rarely vote together as a single bloc. Even if they did, they could never muster the 376 votes needed for a majority.

Furthermore,  the  powers  of  the  Parliament  and  the  Council  are  limited  in important  but  poorly  recognised  ways."
Worse the smaller nations have even fewer votes than the "major" nations such as Germany and the UK as dint of their population sizes. Even worse this is the proverbial "tip of the ice-berg" due to how the various streams of legislations are filtered down to the EU Parliament or either by-pass it completely or are already in their final form and require a "box-ticking" symbolic vote on them to be passed on Nationally (read on from p.97 in FLEXCIT above for more).

And here's the problem with this system:-


Europe's inherent diversity and complexity of network of actors and interests

Europe can be divided into distinct regions with distinct cultural, historic and geographic and political attributes that are VARIABLE per region and indeed per member nation! The above suggests the barest representation of this reality.

Now combining all this variation into one QMV system is simply suffocating this variation under a system that merges and mixes "political" and "technical" issues. This is of course the deliberate function of the EU as a Supranational Construct: To erode National Sovereignty and merge National Institutions under one EU Supranational Institution.

This is indeed seen in the way the EU Parliament actually works via groups:-























As you can see these groups work as "clusters" of alliances of MEP's. Predominantly the groups that are Pro-EU the institutions "club" together. So far from the UK "having a seat at the top table as a big player on the world stage in the EU club playing by the clubs rules", the UK is split up between these groups and it's national interest further diluted down. In fact these are politicians and their privilege and priority is to the EU and their careers. The amalgamation of different regional and national concerns of politics along with technical legislation is perhaps not a happy recipe?

An alternative model:-



FLEXCIT: 11.2 Potential regional structures, p.222 ~ Dr. RAE North:-

"Working within the aegis of the WTO's TBT Agreement, UNECE could thus be equipped  to  coordinate  the  production  of  single  market  instruments  for  the whole of continental Europe,  then administering the functioning of the market. It  would  replace the EU  as  the dominant  body,  thereby  involving  all  European countries in the decision-making process, not just EU Member States.

This is perhaps an improvement on that offered by Lord Leach of Fairford, who has advocated attempting "to redefine the EU as the Single Market" rather than as  "a  vague  aspiration  to  political  union". Such  a  scenario would  conform with  the  Foreign  Affairs  Committee's  idea  of  "radical  institutional  change"  to give  decision-making  rights  in  the  Single  Market  to  all  its  participating  states, on  an  equal  footing. By  this  means,  the  EU-centric "Europe  of  concentric circles" would  be  avoided,  and  with  it  any  idea  of  first  class  and  second  class members. Each body, such as EFTA and the EU, has equal standing, creating a community of equals."

ASEAN and the European Union: Lessons in Integration


With this caveat, there are three main lessons worth considering for regional integration experiences in ASEAN and the EU.

1. Integration processes are not really comparable, though their fundamentals are similar
"Many like benchmarking ASEAN’s progress to that of the EU’s. There is a tendency to project the EU as a model for ASEAN and to propose the European way of integration as applicable to ASEAN as well.  The EU’s commitment to pooling sovereignty for common gains has been cited as key to an integrated communityOn the other hand, ASEAN pursues integration without yielding individual sovereignty of member states.  This has created the impression that the EU is a supra-national body in a way that ASEAN cannot or does not aspire to be. The principles of inter-state relations enshrined in the ASEAN Charter reiterate respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and national identity.  Yet, the two organisations are more similar in their decision-making processes than is generally acknowledged.

The EU depends on unanimity – not just consensus – for its major decisions. The image of the EU’s supra-national authority has also been recently shattered as the Eurozone crisis evolves. Individual members have made their (national) preferences prevail at the regional table.  Regional consensus cannot be forged without taking into consideration the national interests of individual members." 
2. Institutions (and mechanisms) do not always work
"Recent experiences in both ASEAN and the EU have shown that institutions notwithstanding, no regional organisation can accomplish its goals of regional peace and security nor economic integration without national commitment to regional priorities. Regional institutions can certainly play a role in community-building. However, if regional decisions are not supported – and implemented – at national levels, the institutions by themselves cannot do much, even with well-meaning attempts to fine-tune or reform them."
3. Regional disparities can hamper integration
"While the EU faced less of a problem of regional disparities in pursuing economic and monetary integration (with “strong” political will carrying the day) in the past, the EU today is confronting  the problem of relatively weak and unstable economies. The financial crisis has exposed the vulnerabilities of the EU economies, especially those in its periphery. Greece’s budget deficits have considerably weakened the EU’s economic position and standing, as have those of Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain."

What we're seeing is that political integration is introducing it's own set of stresses. What is needed for the EUROZONE is increase in Global Trade to increase it's chances of recovery. Effectively in conjunction with the wider global processes happening (see below) there's fundamental need in the EU Political Project for boosts to prosperity to "salvage" it's future. ASEAN shows that "Supranationalism" is not the only nor necessarily the best option for regional cooperation.

This is very important part of the Globalization of Regulations to which a full blog of links and references will be needed to cover the full details. As we can see above it's in the UK's ultimate interests to split the Single Market from Political Union. It might be argued from the opposite position, if argued honestly, that the Political Union needs to be split from the Single Market also for those goals and objectives; namely the future of the EUROZONE which we've already looked at referencing the top EU thinkers and their plans for this Political Union.

Pete North has written some excellent blogs on this globalization process. Which will be listed in another blog. But to try to show a summary of the concept (perhaps failing and falling far short, in the attempt):-

Metcalfe's Law: Two computers can make only one connection, five can make 10 connections, and twelve can make 66 connections.

Metcalfe's law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n2).

Metcalfe's Law is related to the fact that the number of unique connections in a network of a number of nodes (n) can be expressed mathematically as the triangular number n(n − 1)/2.
The law has often been illustrated using the example of fax machines: a single fax machine is useless, but the value of every fax machine increases with the total number of fax machines in the network, because the total number of people with whom each user may send and receive documents increases. Likewise, in social networks, the greater number of users with the service, the more valuable the service becomes to the community."
The irony of raising fax machines into the discussion...

Above Eg: 16(16-1)/2=120 ; EEA-31: 31(31-1)/2=465 ; UNECE-56: 56(56-1)/2=1540

As said the full globalization process is staggeringly complicated. But the above at least gives an illustration of the virtue of a larger network at GLOBAL - REGIONAL - NATIONAL connectivity level and as Dr. RAE North points out in:-

FLEXCIT: 19.0 Trading with the rest of the world p.350 ~ Dr. RAE North
"The  global  economy  is  being  re-shaped at  breakneck  speed.  In  the  past decades,  political  systems  have  changed,  new  players  have  emerged  on  the markets,  as  well  as  new  materials,  new  technologies  and  workers  who  are better skilled  than ever. To compete  in  this fast-changing economy requires regulation that promotes growth, better access to markets and the availability of new sources of energy. Cut EU Red Tape: Report from the Business Taskforce February 2014

By  this  penultimate  stage  of  our  six-stage  programme,  all  the  structural  issues have been addressed, leaving the way clear to look at Britain as a global trader. As  we  have  seen  earlier,  organising  trade  in  continental  Europe,  adopting formal   structures   around   UNECE,   would   not   replicate   European   Union arrangements,  in  that  there  would  be  no  external  trade  policy.  Britain  would thus  be  free  to  act  on  its  own  account  in  relations  with  the  rest  of  the  world. Alternatively,  it could act with EFTA, or take collective action through ad hoc alliances."

FLEXCIT: 21.4 Conclusion, p.402 ~ Dr. RAE North
"But it is this idea of a six-stage plan, integrating disparate points, which makes The Market solution what it is. We start with stage one – the process of leaving the EU.  We then move on  to  stage two – sorting  out  immigration  and asylum. Stage  three  has  us  launching  a  genuine  European  single  market,  breaking  free from the EU-centricity of Brussels and building a European village where every "house" is  equal.    In  stage four,  we address  the  task  of  rebuilding  independent policies, and stage five has us reinvigorating global trade, with the adoption and implementation of an eight-point programme."

Conclusions:

When we started this blog post we had this horrible confabulation of "Leading in EUrope!" that means nothing except false and broken promises to people and the abrogation of democracy itself.

I've tried to summary a vastness and of course failed in the attempt. But at least a glimpse may have been provided for the rational, the "intellectual framework", the foundations that are invisible and underpin the First Stage Of The Market Solution:-




































The Sceptic Isle has a full summary here:-

Coming back to the objective of this blog, to dispell the starting premise of confabulation from our Pro-EU Politicians; the rot starting at the top, I hope Leave Campaigners will not fall for such arguments as "Leading in EUrope", but choose an eminently wiser and more pragmatic and maturer political outlook:-