CENTRE POINT
Don't vote in next week's European elections
SIMON JENKINS
Ishall not vote in next week's European elections. I do not believe in them. Every British party secretly despises this farrago of democracy, yet none has the guts to boy- cott it. Any election to any body has the politicians' trade union in full cry. Every assembly, however daft, is defended because it means jobs, as the Foreign Office defends every international body, however corrupt, because it means ambas- sadorships. The one defence the taxpayer has against such a cartel is boycott.
In the 1989 Euro-election only 36 per cent of Britons voted. This year the propor- tion is expected to be even lower. At some point these elections must be regarded as democratically worthless and the boycott party declared the victor. But is it at 30 per cent, or 25 per cent? Strasbourg will soon demand a law making its elections compul- sory, to give it a legitimacy to match its lifestyle. Until then I assert the democrat's ultimate right, the right not to vote.
My scepticism towards the Euro-election is nothing on the cynicism of the big par- ties. They have hijacked it for Westminster as usual, Labour's Margaret Beckett has declared the election 'an inevitable vote of confidence in the government of John Major'. At this point I have a grain of sym- pathy for the Euro-candidates. By what right does Mrs Beckett steal their show? Last month the local elections were similar- ly hijacked by Westminster. Press confer- ences were held at party headquarters. Sir Norman Fowler paraded central govern- ment ministers for inspection, as if this was a mini-general election. He even pushed forward Virginia Bottomley, whose work has little to do with local councils. The BBC used Westminster correspondents to report the outcome. Variations in council results, for instance in London, were put down dismissively to 'local factors'.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have already shed copious crocodile tears over the `unavoidability' of Strasbourg elections being about Westminster. This wish-fulfil- ment is both stupid and a negation of sub- sidiarity. The Government's European poli- cies are implemented in the Council of Ministers and at the Brussels Commission, not in the delightful but obscure town of Strasbourg. Most Euro MPs are party wor- thies who did not make it to their national parliaments. They meet just 58 days a year and spend one third of their budget on simultaneous translation. They are absurd. The only question is whether they should become less so. The answer is no.
The assembly at Strasbourg (which enti- tled itself a parliament in 1986) has nothing to do with European union. Being for it or against it is not to be for or against union, except for the most utopian federalist. If there is a democratic deficit in Europe, which I do not believe, then this parliament is not the body to fill it. The right body is the Council of Ministers, composed of the elected leaders of Europe's nation states. John Major's ineptly fought battle in April over voting majorities on the Council was about real power. The proper conduit for accountability is through ministers answer- ing to their party majorities back home and through them to the electorate. That is how democracy works. Divert or stem that con- duit and European co-operation and the tenuous consent on which it already rests will come to grief.
Each time Europe's constitution is reformed, Strasbourg gains a little more power. But a body without government responsibility or party discipline cannot con- vert a ropy franchise into power. If the Dan- ish government refuses to accept a common fisheries policy or, perhaps one day, the Irish government rejects a common abortion poli- cy, the fact that a Strasbourg majority has passed the policy will not make it any more acceptable. The idea of a European parlia- ment was always based on a false premise. This was that political identity within nations could be overtaken by political identity between nations. Europe-wide parties would select Europe-wide ministers with Europe- wide responsibilities. Domestic assemblies would wither. Europe's new MPs would all speak Esperanto and sing the 'Ode to Joy' in Alsatian wine bars.
The only Europe-wide interest groups that have emerged over the past decade have been sinister coalitions of farmers, trade unionists and protectionists (such as national airlines). There is no countervail- ing 'ministerial' let alone taxpayer interest in the parliament. I am told that never in its entire life has Strasbourg voted against a rise in taxes or an increase in public spend- ing. It has no incentive to do so. The money Brussels spends, egged on by Strasbourg, comes from a precept on national VAT. This is raised in secret and spent by Brus- sels in a blaze of self-publicity. If Stras- bourg MPs had publicly to levy their own taxes (and make the Italians pay them) the Euro-sceptic fat would really hit the fire.
I have a deep respect for parliaments. I have just witnessed the remarkable, possibly unique, spectacle of a parliament (in South Africa) voluntarily winding itself up and handing sovereignty to its former enemies. It did so in a spirit of ruthless clear-sighted- ness. There is none of that in Europe at pre- sent, merely a scrabble for jobs and money dressed up in the political correctness of Eurospeak. The European Parliament embodies federalism with none of federal- ism's disciplines. It is a one-way journey to fiscal irresponsibility. With no ministers to keep in power and no accountability for taxes, Euro MPs merely fight for more regional grants to justify themselves to their constituents. The only argument is over how much more to give the Mediterranean states from Europe's huge VAT revenues. A Euro MP is a lobbyist, not a parliamentarian.
With no clear line of executive responsi- bility passing through Strasbourg, Euro-elec- tors cannot know for what they are voting. The parliament is supposed to have 'co-deci- sion' with the Council of Ministers over the budget and other legislation. But co-decision is co-confusion. An absolute majority in the parliament can defy the Council of Minis- ters. Try that one out on the electorate. If such power were ever enforced on a truly recalcitrant country that country would sim- ply disobey, or abrogate the treaty.
A supranational parliament is the wrong vehicle for validating 'international' co- operation. Accountability diffused is accountability denied. This was the weak- ness of the League of Nations and of the present United Nations General Assembly. Making them 'democratic' would have made no difference. Nations not only have interests, they are interests. They elect party politicians to defend those interests. They do not elect lesser politicians to over- ride them, least of all on matters such as paternity leave or beach pollution.
If I do not like Mr Major's European policy I can vote accordingly at a general election. Euro MPs have no part in formu- lating or implementing Cabinet policy. They are institutional cheer-leaders for European union. Domestic public opinion and domestic political institutions are the proper mechanisms of democratic control. They are proving potent just now, which is why Jacques Delors is sounding so frantic. Strasbourg is a constitutional appendix. Help cut it out next week. Don't vote.
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