Second Clegg/Farage debate highlights that the EU status quo is indefensible

The majority of the UK public was not represented at last night's debate

The second EU debate between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage was an altogether more scrappy and bad-tempered affair with more personal attacks and fewer statbombs being thrown about. 

The polls hand Farage a clear victory - 68%/27% in the Sun/YouGov poll and 69%/31% in the Guardian/ICM poll - a more comprehensive margin than last week.

So clearly a bad evening for Nick Clegg, although the calculations of the Lib Dem strategists seems to be that the combination of the additional exposure and full-throated defence of the EU will allow the party to pick up some extra votes in May's European elections.

However, it remains to be seen what the longer term repercussions of the debates will be. It was striking that, over the course of two hours, Clegg had virtually nothing to say about the EU's flaws and failings and what reforms he'd like to see. Indeed, in response to a question from the audience about how the EU would look in 10 years' time, he said that it would look "quite similar to what it is now". Given what is happening in the eurozone, which will indirectly also affect the UK's position in the EU (something Clegg has himself mentioned on previous occasions), this is simply not credible. It also completely dismisses the public appetite for EU reform.

What is interesting is that, despite Farage's overwhelming victory in the debate, the Sun/YouGov before/after poll showed that public opinion on the In/Out question remained pretty finely balanced. Before the debate there was a small majority in favour of staying in the EU - 48% compared with 42% in favour of leaving - after the debate this was reversed slightly with 45% in favour of staying in and 48% in favour of leaving.

Polling has consistently shown that when the public are offered options that go beyond the binary in/out question, the majority of the public fall between the Clegg and Farage positions, with a far larger constituency in favour of staying in a reformed/slimmed down EU.

People hold different views about how they would like to see the European Union develop. Which of these statements comes closest to your view? (click to enlarge)

Source: YouGov poll for Open Europe, February 2014

Clegg's decision to talk only to the limited number of 'in no matter what' voters might be a clever Lib Dem 'core vote' strategy but it will turn off many swing voters in any future In campaign. All the more reason for politicians to represent the view held by the majority of voters and to test the limits of EU reform before forcing them to choose between In or Out.

Fact-checking the Clegg v Farage EU debate

The first EU debate between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage on LBC was for the most part restrained with a surprising amount of detail and substance. Most of the key fault lines in the UK-EU relationship were touched on.

However, given that the two men represent the polarising ends of the debate, there were also a number of claims that struggled in the accuracy department. Here is our quick 'fact-check' of the key debating points:

Claim - Clegg: I supported a referendum on Lisbon

Verdict: Technically true but highly misleading

On the referendum question, Clegg said that when it came to new EU Treaties transferring new powers to Brussels,

"I've never wavered in that position, that's why the last time the rules changed, something called the Lisbon Treaty, I said there should be a referendum."

It is true that the Liberal Democrats called for referendum on Lisbon but crucially it was an in/out referendum which was not on the agenda at the time - the issue wasn't even put to put to a vote. There was however a vote on whether to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty itself on which the party abstained, despite the fact that together Tory MPs, Lib Dem MPs and Labour rebels could have passed it. Clegg is being highly disingenuous by blurring the distinction between an in/out referendum and a treaty specific one. Farage's quip that there was no point waiting for a new Treaty as powers were being transferred to the EU every week via directives and ECJ rulings was quite effective in this context.

Claim - Farage: Under EU rules we have a completely open door to 485 million Europeans 

Verdict - Partially true but unclear on the numbers

It is true that the free movement of labour is a fundamental principle of the EU and the UK cannot limit the numbers of EU migrants coming over. However, Clegg was right to point out that the right to free movement is not completely unqualified - under the free movement directive migrants have to be able to support themselves financially or have 'reasonable' prospects of finding a job.

In terms of Farage's 485 million figure though we have to say we are a bit confused as to where exactly this comes from - the population of the EU28 is around 506 million, which minus the UK's approximately 63 million leaves 443 million.

Claim - Clegg: 3 million jobs would be at risk if UK left the EU

Verdict - Highly unlikely - would depend on a range of other factors

Clegg cited the well-worn '3 million jobs linked to the EU figure' despite established doubts over its veracity. Recently those tending to cite this number have replaced "depend on" with "linked to" but it's still dubious. As we've argued in the past, this claim is one of the most conspicuous examples of a rogue statistic without any credible counter-factual attached to it. The assumptions behind the 3 million jobs figure is that there would be no trade at all trade with Europe if the UK left the EU, which of course is nonsense -  a similarly heroic assumption to that which Better Off Outers make when calculating the cost of EU membership based on all regulatory cost magically disappearing on Day 2 post-Brexit.

Claim - Farage: UK would hold the whip hand in negotiations over a new trade deal with the EU

Verdict - Very uncertain 

Farage argued that in the event of an exit, the UK would "hold the whip hand" in trade negotiations with the EU due to the EU's trade deficit with the UK. We've looked at this in detail - the key point is that while this is true in the area of goods, when it comes to services - a crucial and thriving area of the UK economy - this is not the case. So with that logic, EU countries would have incentive to strike a deal with the UK in goods but not services including financial services. Secondly, the process for leaving the EU - the so-called Article 50 - actually involves less control for the UK than is often assumed, including a Qualified Majority Vote on the final deal in which the UK will not take part.

Claim - Farage: 75% of UK laws come from the EU. Clegg: no it's 7%

Verdict - Both are wrong

The contentious topic of how exactly how many UK laws are derived from the EU also came up, with Farage gleefully citing Viviane Reding's absurd claim that 75% of UK laws are decided in Brussels (as we've argued many times, Reding must secretly be on the UKIP payroll). Clegg went with the House of Commons' Library's briefing which estimated this to be around 7%. Regular readers will know we've analysed this in painful detail and the truth is it is simply not possible to say exactly - what's clear is that it's neither 7% (this only counts primary legislation which isn't meaningful at all) nor 75%. (But basically too many).

Claim - Farage: We give the EU £55 million per day

Verdict - True if counting gross cost, untrue and misleading if counting net cost

Farage is correct that the UK's contribution to the EU works out as around £55 million per day. However, that it is a gross figure which does not include the UK rebate (cold, hard cash the UK gets back from Brussels every year) and nor the UK's receipts from the EU budget (even if this is only UK taxpayers' cash being re-routed via Brussels).

Claim - Clegg: Without the EAW we'd struggle to extradite criminals and terrorists

Verdict - The EAW makes the process faster but it is not indispensable

The European Arrest Warrant (EAW) is used by EU states to speed up extradition procedures. It is true that the EAW has been used by the UK to recover suspected terrorists and other criminals from other EU states who have subsequently been found guilty and locked up. It is however untrue to claim that suspects such Hussain Osman and Jeremy Forrest could not have been recovered without it. Also before the EAW was agreed, there were agreement on extradition and the UK managed to successfully extradite plenty of criminals from EU countries through bilateral procedures. These were considerably slower but it is highly unlikely that with or without the EAW Italy would have wanted to hang on to Hussain Osman or France to Jeremy Forrest.

Who won the Cleggv Farage EU debate?

The much hyped debate between UKIP leader Nigel Farage and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has made the Westminister village buzz.

So who won? The headlines give it to Farage on the basis of the instant YouGov poll commissioned by the Sun which found that 57% believed Farage had “performed better overall” in the debate, 36% believed that Clegg had won (7% said they didn't know).

A decisive victory then? Well LBC's twitter 'worm' had Farage only just edging it, and there was a general consensus among the Westminster village punditry that Clegg had emerged as the winner.

However, the poll also found that after the debate 47% believed Britain should stay in the EU – down from 48% before – while 44% wanted to leave – up from 42% before the debate. This means that even a substantial number of those who want to stay in the EU believed Farage had performed better than Clegg which has to be a worry for the 'in at all costs camp'. Moreover, the poll also found that following the debate, the number of people who believed leaving would be “good for jobs in Britain” rose from 28% to 34%.

Finally, the big omission from the debate was any substantial discussion of EU reform which we've argued will be key to swinging public opinion in favour of staying in. Will the post debate polling lead Team Clegg to focus more heavily on this in Round II on the BBC next week? Let's hope so.

Open Europe Chairman Lord Leach: The single market must be the EU's primary mission

Open Europe Chairman Lord Leach of Fairford writes in the Sunday Times: 

In the 1990s, the process of eliminating trade barriers between Europe’s member states was hijacked by an ideologically driven elite bent on nation-building; on giving flesh to the postwar dream of ending conflict by abolishing Europe’s patchwork quilt of selfish national states.

In constructing this project, the ends always justified the means, even if this meant ignoring the electorate. Those in this country who opposed the UK joining what was to be the crowning glory of European integration, the single currency, were vilified as Little Englanders.

Now the game is up. Elected parliaments have become the sole accepted seal of legitimacy. A new generation is saying that the EU is in desperate need of both democratic and economic reform. The Dutch government has called time on “ever closer union”, the German chancellor Angela Merkel says we should “consider whether we can give something back” to member states, and the Italian prime minister Enrico Letta talks of treaty changes in the “very near future”.

The latest sign of the changing times is an unprecedented joint call from German, Swedish and UK business leaders — from the head of the world’s largest bank down to the Mittelstand, between them guiding companies employing about 1m people — in favour of sweeping change. Germany’s leading business magazine, Wirtschaftswoche, wrote: “Now business leaders have spoken up — some of them for the first time. This is not only good, but it is long overdue.”

Britain needs to be attuned to the changing mood. Its current shouting match between polarised camps doesn’t help. I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked by the BBC to take part in or stage a debate between “europhile” and “eurosceptic” business leaders. Spurious facts and figures are thrown around — “3m jobs will be lost if we leave the EU” or, “if we withdrew, the UK would instantly be freed from all EU regulatory costs”.

The reality is that business tends to be neither die-hard europhiles nor convinced “outers” — with exceptions, most are in between. Business values access to European markets but doesn’t see why it has to come with a political union. On balance, business still likes the EU’s combined weight in trade talks but worries about protectionist tendencies and the dampening effect of Brussels regulation on firms competing in global markets. As the economic climate hardens, more business people on the Continent make the same analysis, concluding that we have to lay grand ideological projects to rest and focus on where the EU can add value.

The objective is therefore simple. The EU’s defining purpose must be the single market — it doesn’t have to be the only thing the EU does, but it is the primary mission. The task at hand is equally simple: maximise trade — including in the hugely underdeveloped EU services market — and minimise non-trade costs. Once we have tested the limits of reform, we can see if it still makes sense to remain an EU member.

So it’s time for business to make its voice heard. It won’t be easy to achieve the reforms we need if we are to reverse Europe’s economic decline and win back the support of our electorates. If Europe’s wealth and job creators throw their weight behind this agenda, not even the most detached politician or eurocrat will be able to resist.