EU referendum should address the real issues

The British referendum about whether to stay in the EU is asking the wrong question, which Sholto Byrnes says is a missed opportunity.

Campaigners for Britain to leave the EU will get their chance this year. (Neil Hall / Reuters)

The countdown is on, in Britain at least, until Friday. That is when prime minister David Cameron will arrive back in the United Kingdom to present to cabinet the concessions he has wrested from the European Union. He is then expected to formally announce the referendum on British membership in the EU for which he will lead the stay- in campaign.

But will he have overcome a last minute hurdle over whether the children of eastern European migrants working in Britain should receive full benefits, even when they live in their home countries? Will he have secured a deal good enough to ensure that his Eurosceptic allies, such as justice secretary Michael Gove, and frenemies like the London mayor, Boris Johnson, help him sell his case to a dubious Conservative Party?

It is being billed as the vote that will define Britain’s relationship with Europe for at least a generation. But it is obvious that whatever understanding Mr Cameron reaches, the details will be too paltry to satisfy those who want real change. They will vote for Brexit anyway.

At the same time, critics of the case to exit are justified in saying that their opponents have been calling for a referendum for decades, yet they still haven’t managed to come up with a detailed, specific post-EU scenario. It is unclear what the British horizon would look like once the English Channel truly marked a boundary with the continent again.

But the concessions being sought are, in any case, the wrong ones. The referendum seems destined to be fought on the right of national governments to be as miserly as possible to people of other nationalities, and to slam the door in the faces of non-EU citizens. These are narrow and unworthy grounds on which to hold a vote that could have such big consequences.

The referendum should, instead, be about sovereignty, and about the grievous lack of democratic accountability in the EU – a state of affairs that its unelected elites show no sign of wishing to tackle, even in the face of all the challenges that ought to show that the whole project, from top to bottom, needs rethinking.

A referendum on reform, in which a vote to remain would be conditional on wholesale restructuring, would not only be worthwhile, it would be possibly the only way to reach a settlement under which all parties could view membership positively.

At the moment, the best case that can be made for the EU is that it is imperfect, but it is better to be a part of it than not. This less-than-ringing endorsement implies that change is necessary, but somehow it never comes. No one would seek to create from scratch a compromise that hardly anyone was truly happy with. So why continue to accept it today?

It is not as though there is any shortage of reforms that could swiftly transform the EU into being a far more efficient, accountable and democratic institution. For starters, the EU parliament should stop alternating its sittings between Brussels and Strasbourg – a practice that has become symbolic of waste and bureaucracy.

Next, the salaries, expenses and allowances of EU officials should be slashed. In an age of austerity, the Brussels gravy train is indefensible. Why should the EU high representative for foreign affairs, for instance, be paid more than the German chancellor or the US secretary of state – both of whom have considerably more influence and, frankly, work to do?

Those who believe in the idea of Europe are welcome to do so for normal levels of pay and out of a sense of duty and public office. If lining their pockets has to come into it, that can come afterwards when the move into lucrative business positions is usually effortless – not that that stopped at least 15 former commissioners, according to a 2010 investigation, claiming “transition” payments of up to 65 per cent of their EU salaries after they had found new employment.

Lastly, there is the issue of elections. Once upon a time, the European Commission was always described as being the civil service of the EU. Now it is routinely described as being its executive arm. Even MEPs are unclear about how a group of officials frequently appointed as compensation for having lost a ministerial position at home – or never having gained one – have managed this discreet power-grab.

If the commissioners want to be the EU’s executives, then Europeans should be able to vote for them.

In fact, perhaps all EU officeholders should be elected, from the high representative to the president of the European Council. It would be interesting to see for whom the peoples of Europe would cast their ballots.

This kind of reform could bring real legitimacy and accountability to the EU. A referendum on whether to make such a restructuring the condition for Britain to remain in the union would be a question appropriate to the weighty decision to stay or leave.

What a pity that, instead, the plebiscite will be framed around a matter of small differences. It is an opportunity lost, for both Eurosceptics and Europhiles – and as such, will not settle Britain’s relationship with the EU for five minutes, let alone decades.

Sholto Byrnes is a senior fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia