Vote Leave if You Want To Remain

The late Tony Benn said, " If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system." He was unquestionably right. The question is, do you care?

Like most people I used to be passively in favour of the EEC (As it was), because I didn't understand it. Then I studied its constitution and realised that regardless of any benefits or disbenefits it is not constituted on anything which could pass for a democratic basis and must therefore be opposed. 

There will always be a group of people who argue against democratic principles on the basis that people are too stupid to know what's good for them so their interests are best served by a qualified elite of appointed yet benevolent masters. (I particularly remember my Venezuelan friend +Julian Field arguing this way. How's that working out for ya?) This was the original idea behind what is now the EU as envisioned by its founder, Jean Monnet, who came up with the original European Coal and Steel Community from which the EU has evolved. If you want a nice concise yet thorough history of this evolution you could do no better than to read this excellent book by Tom Gallagher.

There has been some tinkering with the powers of the Parliament since I studied the constitution but they don't amount to much. The real purpose of the Parliament is to add a veneer of democracy to a profoundly undemocratic institution. It can't veto laws, it can comment and ask for review. Even then, in practice it is often completely ignored, a recent example being the recent Tobacco Products Directive, which was thrashed around by the Parliament and the Commission for ages before everything they decided was ultimately binned and measures which had never been proposed or considered were adopted on the hoof at the 11th hour by the Council, in consultation with the Commission.

Quick explanation of the powers of Government and how these are constituted in the EU:

1. The Drafting of the Legislative Programme:

In the EU laws are proposed by the commission. In the UK, this is the job of the duly elected Government, answerable to the electorate every so often. The Commisson answers to nobody. Its members (Commisioners) are appointees, mainly establishment figures from their member country who have been rejected by their own electorate, see N Kinnock.

2. Amendment or veto of proposed legislation: 

The European Parliament can suggest amendments but it can't effectively veto anything. Hence the illusion of democracy. The Europarl is a very large, expensive organisation with no real power. Even if it did have power, it doesn't really represent a proper electorate. It's a simple fact that Italian and Polish electorates do not regard themselves as unified. There is no cohesive European electorate. 

By contrast, in the UK if a Government proposes a law which parliament doesn't approve of, it can veto it. Parliament is supreme and each member is directly accountable to the electorate in his or her constituency every so often. Not so in the Europarl

3. Final assent to legislation.

This lies with the Council of Ministers. There is some legitimacy in this because it is constituted of the ministers of State from the member states with responsibility for the class of legislation under discussion. Back in my day this formed a very effective brake on the power of the Commission because unanimity was required for legislation to pass. Therefore no law could pass into law without the assent of a Government minister from each member state. In those days being a member really did give you influence. Not any more. Now we have QMV, which means only 16/28 ministers must assent for a measure to pass, provided they represent at least 65% of the EU's population. This rule means that now the Commission gets its own way pretty much all the time. 

In the UK we have Royal assent, which is totally undemocratic, but our measures have to have been passed by Parliament to get to that stage in the first place.



It can readily be seen that the Commission is effectively the Executive Government of the EU. The Commission is not elected. The President is not elected. We do not live in a democratic system.

On the face of it Mr Cameron was on a worthy mission to renegotiate Britain's membership but that renegotiation quickly lost credibility. None of his requests even hinted at the constitutional reform that the EU lacks. Tinkering with immigration rules and seeking commitments not bound in treaty form is worse than meaningless. That's not surprising. It's happened before, this pamphlet covers the 1975 renegotiation, which was thought of as having been a rip-off until it was made to look effective by Cameron's latest efforts. Be in no doubt, even if he has achieved what he says he has, it amounts to nothing.

This is a shame because there was an opportunity. The thing about negotiation is that you have to be prepared to walk away if you don't get what you want. Cameron didn't take this approach, so he got nothing. If you go to buy a car you pay more if you have decided that, whatever the price, you're definitely having it. Same thing.

I always thought this would happen which is why I have never seriously thought I might vote to remain but there may yet be a set of proposals on offer which I would vote for. There has been much scare talk recently about what would a post Brexit Britain look like? Good question but the history of referendums on EU issues in member states is that when they go against the EU, they get re-run. I would be amazed if an out vote led directly to Brexit. I think it will bring about a real renegotiation in which the EU will have to come up with something the British people will buy.

So if you want to be in a reformed, more democratic EU, vote leave. We'll very likely get a better counter offer.

Renewable energy: Regressive, counterproductive, absurd.

In the week that the UK's last deep coal mine, a few miles from my house, closes I've noticed the first local solar array springing up on agricultural land.

Also lately we've had the announcements that Eggborough Power is to close, and then that it might not. The closure of Ferrybridge is already slated and drax is to be converted to biomass.

What is biomass? As I understand it, it's mainly willow which is grown on agricultural land. After harvesting it has to be transported, pelletised and dried before being burned. This is called renewable because the CO2 produced by combustion is equivalent to the CO2 absorbed by the willow when it was grown. What about the emissions from drying it?

I may be a bit off the mark on the above but even if I am, look at it this way: The power station is still emitting the same CO2 as it would with coal per MW, let's ignore the extra from the processing of the biomass. If the agricultural land was growing food crops, the same amount of CO2 would be being taken up by those crops as would be taken up by the willow. 

So roughly speaking, the same amount of CO2 is being emitted and the same amount is being absorbed whether we're burning coal or wood. The difference is that with renewables there is more pressure on land use so food (And land, and housing) becomes more expensive, and power generation is more expensive too. Where does this money go? The usual beneficieries of renewable energy subsidy: Land owners. Classic transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

So what about these solar arrays? We're used to seeing these on the roofs of houses etc. These are another means of transferring wealth from electricity users to land owners. Government subsidies aren't claimable by the occupier of the house. Only the land owner. The land owner receives a premium for every KWh of power generated by the panels, that's the robbing from the poor to give to the rich part, and obviously there's some energy cost in manufacturing these things so there are some CO2 emissions but at least they aren't competing with food crops for agricultural land. Until now.

I first saw solar arrays on agricultural land from a train window in Cambrdgeshire. I was flabberghasted. Even by the common standards of renewable energy systems these are absurd. Not only are these competing with food crops (and affordable housing and industrial development) for land, they are preventing any kind of photosynthesis from happening on the land which they overshadow. Even weeds absorb CO2.

We are being charged a fortune to make things worse. Whenever I discuss this with people they say, "Yes, but we have to do something." I hope a passer by with that attitude doesn't pass by if I'm lying on the ground with a broken neck: Oh my God there's a serious situation! I don't know how to help but I have to do something. I'll shake the guy by the shoulders and scream, "Are you ok buddy?" That, at best, is the mentality of renewable energy subsidies. That's if you assume they are well meaning.

Tax Credits

Everybody has an opinion on tax credits at the moment. That makes it a great first topic for this blog for the following reasons:

1. Not knowing anything about the subject is no bar to having an opinion because,
2. Opinions are largely based on party allegiance or self identified social group membership,
3. The issue is highly politicised and winning popularity is more important to those who are in a position to do something about than the need to tackle the issue.
4. It is an issue that needs tackling.
5. It is a very difficult issue to do anything about.

Don't expect to see much of me telling you my qualifications on here. Argument from authority is weak and I don't do it but in the spirit of disclosure I will say I have previously spent many years in receipt of large sums in tax credits and that I am now an employer. 

There are generally two opposing positions from which this is argued about. 

1. Reducing the incomes of people who are "doing the right thing" is unjust.
2. The country can't afford to carry on as we are.

The problem is, both points of view are exactly correct. 

Let's have a look at the way tax credits work so we can begin to consider the issue from a different angle.

Firstly let's look at the big picture: What are the big problems in the UK economy and society? 

1. Poor social mobility
2. Stubbornly low productivity
3. Low wages

Tax credits make all these things worse because of the way they work. In case you don't know how they work, here it is in a fairly concise, general form. Claimants estimate their income in the coming year and are awarded tax credits to bring their income up to a certain minimum. Generally the less you earn, the bigger your award; the more children live with you, the bigger your award. If you earn more than you estimated, your claim is reduced by 50% of the amount you earned in excess of your estimated earnings and that amount is deducted from your next year's claim or, if your next year's claim doesn't cover that amount, you have to repay it.

This system makes claimants very careful not to earn more than their estimate, if they have any sense.

Look at it this way: your boss offers you £100 to change the way you work or to work overtime or whatever. Assuming you are earning over £10k per year, your Tax and NI on that £100 will amount to approx £33. Plus it will cost you a £50 reduction in your tax credit claim. So you do £100 worth of efficiency, overtime or whatever and you only get £17 of it. Would you do £100 of work for £17? 

That's a marginal tax rate for somebody deemed poor enough to require in-work benefits of 83%. That's nearly as much as what Denis Healey made Pete Townshend pay. Makes you wonder about the song, Won't Get Fooled Again. Looks like it was far from prescient.

On the other hand let's say you are an employer who is keen to increase productivity in her business. As part of this she needs to motivate her staff to work towards whatever goals are required to achieve this. The efficiencies available mean she has £100 per staff member to spend per month and it's judged that £100 would do the trick. There's a big difference between £17 and £100 so she thinks, I'll have to mitigate their losses in tax credits by increasing the incentive to make it £100 nett of tax, NI and tax credits.

My reckoning is that in order to achieve that £100 in net income per employee, for those in receipt of tax credits will cost the employer approximately £680 plus employer's NIC.

So it becomes undesirable for the employee to earn more and impossible for the employer to pay more. Productivity, social mobilty, low wages.

So regardless of the cost to the economy in cash terms, the cost in terms of the damage one to earnings, productivity and social mobility is reason enough to be deeply worried about the tax credit system.

The system is Labour's version of The Tory's right to buy legislation. A seemingly attractive policy with some dire consequences that it is pretty much impossible to do anything about.

What do I suggest is done about it? No idea. Sorry.