A Tale of Two Parliaments - Kevin Hannon

The comprehension of truth calls for higher powers than does the defence of error.” Goethe

In the last week of October 2011 two parliaments of two major European countries voted on their future relations to the EU. In both
the government won an overwhelming victory by about a 5:1 ratio. There the similarities end.

A comparison of the two votes in the two parliaments shows the relative importance of the two countries in the future of the EU.
They are Germany and the UK.

On Wednesday the 26th MPs in the Bundestag, the German equivalent of the House of Commons, voted to give Chancellor Merkel
and her government extensive powers to deal with the financial crisis facing the Euro-zone and EU.

The possibility of sovereign debt default by Greece is causing a funding crisis both for some other European governments and for
many European banks. A cascade of defaults and a paralysis of the banking system in Europe could, at the very least, precipitate

a major European and world recession, and at the worst cause a fracturing of the Euro-zone currency bloc and perhaps a full
blown world-wide depression. (About 30% of world currency reserves are held in Euros.)

The Bundestag voted decisively to support its government in confronting this financial existential crisis for the Euro-zone and the
EU. The prosperity of all EU citizens depends upon the resolution of the sovereign debt and bank funding crises. And so all EU

citizens have had good reason to be thankful for the sense of reality and responsibility shown in the Bundestag in their 26th October
vote.

Two days earlier MPs in the House of Commons voted on matters EU. Was the UK Parliament voting on how to confront the
existential crisis facing the Euro-zone and EU? Was it voting to defend the future well-being and prosperity of the 500 millions

citizens of the EU? Absolutely not. The UK Parliament voted on whether or not to hold a referendum in the UK with 3 options in it.
Namely, to stay in the EU as already agreed; to renegotiate terms and be more partially out; or to leave entirely.

The UK Coalition government imposed a three line whip on its MPs to compel them to vote in its favour and against a referendum.
Nevertheless about a quarter of Conservative MPs voted for the referendum, about ½ of those not in the government, and more
abstained.

Only the votes of the Opposition Labour party MPs supporting the government defeated the referendum proposal; and its leadership
also chose to whip their members into line.

In the UK Parliament MPs had to be persuaded, instructed, ordered, cajoled, bullied into not adding to the uncertainties and instabilities in
the EU that would have been caused by a referendum in the UK about its EU membership. Had it been a free vote the result could have

been the other way. Left to themselves UK MPs might well have decided to have a referendum so that the most Euro-sceptic
population in Europe, informed by the most virulently anti-EU press in the world, could by-pass its normal, centuries-old parliamentary

methods of legislation in order to entirely re-consider its treaty relations with the EU, in the midst of a financial firestorm during the
longest recession since the 1930s.

Contrast the range, time direction, breadth of purpose, and sanity of purpose of the two parliamentary votes. The UK vote was just
about the UK. The Bundestag vote was about the future of the whole Euro-zone and EU. The UK vote was about how far to wind back

the clock of history. Its 3 referendum options were: a) to remain partially in the EU, surly and uncooperative as usual, ie the status
quo; b) renegotiate to go back a couple of decades; c) back track 40 years and leave the EU completely.

The Bundestag vote served the future well-being of a whole continent of half a billion people. The UK Parliament voted on whether or
not to serve the political fantasies of those who want to live in the past in one country.

The UK economy is deeply integrated into the whole EU economy, as both our Prime Minister and Chancellor have emphasised in their exhortations to Euro-zone leaders to solve the present EU financial crisis. We sink or swim with the fate of the Euro-zone and EU.

Thus the Bundestag by voting for the future of the Euro-zone and for the future well-being of the EU, thereby voted to keep to UK
economy afloat as well. Meanwhile the UK Parliament ignored the financial storms buffeting the UK, the EU and the world and voted on whether or not to set off on some time-travels. Draw your own conclusions.

An existential crisis has been forced upon the Euro-zone and by extension upon the EU. There will be financial and governance
problems and reforms for years to come. Consequently the Bundestag will have to hold many future votes vital for the future life of
the EU.

By contrast it is shocking to someone who lives in the UK to see how Euro-scepticism has made our Parliament and the UK
government so inconsequential in the EU.

Euro-sceptics in the UK, within the Conservative party and government, in Parliament, in the press and media generally, combined
with widespread public ignorance and antipathy to all things EU, actively work to drive the UK into a self-created existential crisis.

They seek a head on confrontation against the political and economic organisation of a whole continent, Europe, despite the UK
economy being clearly dependent on that continent.

Things Greek are out of favour these days. But there is a line from one of the ancient tragedies of Euripidies that seems close to the
mark about the virulent Euro-sceptic politics in the UK that forced the October 24th vote in Parliament about a referendum on the EU. “Whom the gods wish to abandon they first make mad.”

Kevin Hannon, Chairman West Midlands European Movement. 6.11.2011