Generation Yes: Insulting your intelligence

For all its claims to want to 'Fight the Lies', the 'Generation Yes' campaign in Ireland is making some very bold claims which don't stand up to scrutiny (surprise surprise).

The latest one is that "the Lisbon Treaty will stop human trafficking and drug smuggling into Ireland." That is a pretty strong statement, which the Irish media should surely be investigating very closely indeed. The claim comes complete with a 1 minute video which tells us about the horrors of these crimes to a backdrop of moving music, and a claim that "The Lisbon Treaty is a direct response to these grave problems".

It points to Article 83 TFEU, proabably in the hope that no-one will bother to go and read it. What this article does, is allow the EU to adopt "minimum rules concerning the definition of criminal offences and sanctions in the areas of particularly serious crime with a cross-border dimension resulting from the nature or impact of such offences or from a special need to combat them on a common basis."

It lists the areas of crime concerned as "terrorism, trafficking in human beings and sexual exploitation of women and children, illicit drug trafficking, illicit arms trafficking, money laundering, corruption, counterfeiting of means of payment, computer crime and organised
crime", but notes that the Council may at a later date add to this list.

This is an extremely important article in the Treaty, and one of the most contentious of all. It is not, as Generation Yes quite shockingly states, a magic potion to end the evils of international organised crime. This video is easily worse than any of the attempts by various anti-abortion campaigners who were accused of sensationalising the debate out of all proportion. Playing on people's emotions in this way is highly suspect.

When considering how to vote on this Treaty, people need to take a sober look at the issues, and not be scaremongered one way or the other. Who, for example, would really argue against putting an end to human trafficking and drug smuggling? Nobody. But to suggest otherwise and to pretend that this is the crux of the issue is convenient for 'Generation Yes' and allows them to distract people from the very important detail of the Treaty - particularly on the issue of justice and home affairs - the rights of criminals and so on - which truly go to the heart of most people's political views.

Let's take a look at those important details. Article 83 allows the EU to set “rules concerning the definition of criminal offences and sanctions”, by qualified majority voting. It is intended to prevent criminals “shopping around” for countries where their activities will carry the lightest penalties. The list of crimes over which the EU can harmonise sentences was supposed to limit the EU to dealing with cross-border crimes, but the vaguely-defined categories such as “organised crime” and “corruption”, is likely to enable the EU to rule over a wide variety of offences (see here for how previous attempts to combat 'serious' cross-border crimes with the European Arrest Warrant have had a horrible spillover effects and unintended consequences). As noted already, the list is also designed to be expanded over time, as a clause allows EU leaders to add to the list of crimes on which the EU can legislate.

The real question Irish voters must ask themselves on this issue is do they really want the EU to determine Europe-wide minimum prison sentences, and by a majority vote? What if you disagree to the length of times the (unelected) Commission believes certain criminals should get? Why should the Commission even have a role, instead of just individual national governments? And how, exactly, will minimum rules put an end once and for all to human trafficking and drug smuggling, as the Generation Yes website explicitely claims?

The European Commission has already begun to propose EU-wide minimum standards. When he was EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner in January 2005, Franco Frattini called for minimum prison sentences of five years for gang members and a minimum of ten years for gang leaders. He has argued that he will not prescribe the sentences member states’ justice systems should set because “the method I prefer is to indicate minimum and maximum, a range leaving Member States free to harmonise”. He claimed that, “We cannot live without a European definition of what is a criminal organisation and trafficking in human beings.”

It's worth noting that the UK Government opposed giving the EU this power to set minimum sentences when the Constitution (which later became the Lisbon Treaty) was first being negotiated. In an attempt to change the wording of the text, then-Europe Minister Peter Hain wrote:

“Framework laws on substantive criminal law must not require the imposition of mandatory minimum penalties. We hope that the Treaty would exclude the possibility of measures requiring all Member States to impose a minimum penalty of at least x years on anyone convicted of a crime.. irrespective of the circumstances or any mitigating factors.”

Not only that, but Open Europe can reveal that the Irish Government, and specifically Ireland's very own Dick Roche, who as Europe Minister is now fighting tooth and nail to get Lisbon passed in order to save face in the EU Council, was himself dead against these provisions when they were first proposed back in 2001.

Looking at his proposed amendments to the original Constitution, he didn't want the EU defining criminal offences and sanctions, he didn't want such things to be decided on by majority voting instead of unanimity, and he didn't want to make it possible for the EU to expand the list of crimes that would be affected.

He told the Convention on the Future of Europe:

"Given the sensitivity of the issues involved, this is an area where unanimity should be the general decision-making procedure. The Article should make it explicitly clear that mutual recognition is the principle underpinning the Union’s work in this area. The existing language of Article 31 TEU should be used. The second indent is too widely drafted. As fraud against the Union is a serious crime it is already covered by the first paragraph."

See here too for another instance where Dick Roche reiterated that there should be no majority voting in the area of criminal procedure "because of the particularly sensitive nature of this area." Oh, and here - this time he said: "In our view, unanimity is the appropriate decision-making procedure for the more fundamental aspects of judicial cooperation."

While we're at it, we should also note that articles 82 and 83 also allow the EU to set common rules concerning legal procedures in criminal cases. This means that EU rules, decided by QMV, could determine the rights of criminal suspects and control the admissibility of evidence in Court. There is also a provision for EU rules to cover “any other specific aspects” of legal procedure if EU leaders so decide.

One problem with this proposal is that it would no longer be possible for voters in individual member states to alter the balance of the legal system between the rights of victims and suspects’ rights. For example, if EU rules were to set the balance in such a way as to favour protection for suspects, voters in any one member state would not be able to vote for a policy which would make it easier to secure convictions. The rules could only be changed subsequently if the majority of other members agreed.

The over-simplification of such important issues by slick 'yes' campaigns is (excuse the pun) criminal. To follow the logic of Generation Yes's argument, people voting no must be against putting a stop to organised cross-border crime. Do they honestly think the Government was arguing against this when it tried to remove the clauses from the Treaty? Do they honestly believe the Government saw these articles in the Treaty as an opportunity to "stop human trafficking and drug smuggling into Ireland", and said, no, hang on a sec, we don't agree with that? Come on, people, get real.

Just like the embarrassing and patronising 'Women for Europe' campaign, the shameless Generation Yes should be avoided by anyone with the ability to think for themselves.

To be fair, we should probably throw the anti-democrats over at 'We Belong' in with that too - especially after reading in one of the Irish paper's Saturday supplements a couple of weeks ago that some of the people working on the campaign are so plugged in to what's going on they didn't actually even vote in the first referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. We think that says a lot.

She lied and lied and lied (we're not exaggerating)

It's often said that one of Tony Blair's best assets is his skill at acting. The feigned sincerity, the lump in the throat and -of course- the comedy mockney accent - y'know.

Margaret Beckett's performance in front of the EU scrutiny committee yesterday suggests that his legacy will survive after all when he steps down.

The session began with the Labour Committee Chairman - Michael Connarty - saying that the current negotiations on the EU Constitution were taking place against a "background of non-transparency". This, claimed Beckett, was Berlin's fault. It is the way they wanted to conduct negotiations. Nothing she could do about it.

She then denied that the questionnaire that Merkel had sent to every EU government had any importance ( the letter which set out how they would make "presentational changes... without changing the legal substance" of the Constitution). She said it had “not played any real part in the discussions” on the new treaty.

When asked to give a bit more detail on these discussions she argued -puzzlingly -that there hadn't been any. "Nothing that you could really call negotiations has taken place."

She told MPs that the idea that the Constitution was being resurrected had been made up by the media. She declared that "There is nothing on the table" and that other countries were "in denial" about the Constitution's rejection.

When Bill Cash dared to suggest that she might not have a firm grip on the negotiations, she replied tersely “It’s not that I don’t know what’s going on, it’s just that nothing is going on”.

She carried on: “I’m afraid Mr Cash, you say to me ‘We know there are party-to-party negotiations”. There are not. There have not been. There has been a process whereby member states are occasionally invited to give some views. There have not been negotiations.”

Cash: “So there is something going on” Beckett: [shouting] “There is nothing going on”.

She even refused to be drawn into whether she would support individual proposals from the old Constitution. “Until it is clear that a proposal is being but forward and in what form I will reserve my comments until something is practically proposed. And at the moment nothing is proposed.”

But then the cracks started to appear. First she confused her own interests with the interests of the country as a whole - “I believe it is very much in the interests of those who wish to see British national interests protected and preserved that we do not carry out our negotiations in public” [pause] “Especially when they haven’t started”.

Michael Connarty asked what the sherpas (envoys sent by each country's PM to agree a framework on the new treaty) were discussing.

“Not very much”, she replied as she glanced to her advisers knowingly. She stumbled on: “I accept. I do accept... I know that the committee... I’ve read all manner of things, a number of fascinating articles about the negotiations that are no doubt going on. How the sherpas are beavering away, there will be a text here with brackets." [opening her arms in a dramatic Italian-style gesture while shaking her head] "No."

Then the plot thickened. The reason she couldn't answer any of the committee's questions was that it would make it easier for her to negotiate that way.

“The less I say about what we might in principle accept, and what we might not, the more I preserve the maximum amount of negotiating space to resist anything that I think is not in Britain’s national interest." She added: "we're not going to negotiate in public" (why did you show up then?)

"I appreciate that is unsatisfactory for the committee and I apologise to you for that. But since we are so much in uncharted waters of knowing what may be proposed. The more I say 'we can live with this, we can’t live with that', the more I’m giving away from my negotiating strategy. Which I’m always deeply reluctant to do.”

But she was happy to talk about the parts of the negotiations the Government are happy with. She said the Government could "live with" changes to the voting system and that she would “have sympathy” with proposals to introduce the subsidiarity mechanism from the old Constitution.

She even said it would be “unwise” to add things such as Copenhagen criteria (restricting future enlargement) , as well as clauses on energy and climate change.

The MPs were feeling frustrated. James Clappison said that he was going to ask for her view on the proposed EU President, "but I think I can make an educated guess about what the answer’s going to be”. The Foreign Secretary agreed - he has guessed right that the lady wasn’t for talking.

The whole performance was nicely summed up by her response to Richard Younger-Ross' assertion that there was nothing MPs could do to influence the Government in the negotiations and that the new treaty would be presented as a fait accompli.

She just shrugged her shoulders and looked away ... we wonder if she really has a place in the new 'humble', 'listening and learning' era of politics which Brown has promised...

Meanwhile, while the Foreign Secretary was insisting that the negotiations were "frozen", elsewhere Nicolas Sarkozy was announcing that, "Tony Blair and I have just agreed on what might be the framework for a simplified treaty. " Which doesn't sound very frosty...

The whole thing was like a piece of performance art: 60 long minutes of straightforward, in-your-face refusal to answer any questions. It made the famous Michael Howard Newsnight interview look like an excercise in open government. The only consolation, perhaps, is that soon all ministers will be touring the studios, having similarly difficult interviews, as they attempt to explain why the Government has broken its promise of a referendum. Now that will be fun to watch.