Can the UK reform the EU from within?

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On Newsnight this evening Kirtsy Long asked Shadow Chancellor and Labour MP John O'Donnell why he wanted to follow the recommendations of bankers Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, to stay in the EU.

He replied that he thought there was a lot wrong with the EU but felt we had to remain in the EU to reform it from within.

Didn't Cameron try that and fail?

Is the EU actually capable of reform and is the UK capable of bringing about reform of the EU by staying in the EU?

Brexit can’t have it both ways claiming the EEC/EU has changed beyond recognition & is incapable of reform. Reform is both historical & ongoing;

EU legislation now requires approval by the EU Parliament as well as by national ministers in the Council. This is a double-check on anything the EU adopts.

Before any proposal is debated by ministers, national parliaments have prior scrutiny. Each national parliament has eight weeks to instruct their ministers before they go to Brussels to discuss the proposal.

Commission President is elected by the EU Parliament, straight after EU elections. The Commission as a whole can only take office with parliamentary approval, & it can be dismissed by Parliament.

There is now an EU Ombudsman, a right of petition for citizens, and a right for the Parliament to set up committees of inquiry into cases of EU maladministration.

EU is legally obliged to respect fundamental rights in everything it does.

Freedom of Information: Council must now deliberate on legislation & vote in public.There is a right of access for the public to EU documents

Budgetary reform: Redesign of the EU budget to reduce spending on agriculture & focus expenditure on areas where acting together at a EU level rather than a national level will save money, or improve effectiveness, or both.

Strengthening environmental protections: Updating the law to force large corporations’ impact on the environment out into the open.

REFIT: A massive review of all EU legislation, making sure it’s fit for purpose, simplifying & repealing where necessary.
ec.europa.eu/smart-regulation/refit/index_en.htm

Deepening the single market: Removing administrative obstacles to cross-border trade & strengthening economic development.
ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/index_en.htm

Fisheries policy: Implementing a fundamental, root-and-branch reform of the common fisheries policy.
ec.europa.eu/fisheries/cfp/index_en.htm

Jobs and growth: Investing heavily in cross-border competitiveness, both within EU & globally.
ec.europa.eu/priorities/jobs-growth-and-investment_en

Transparency: Strengthening existing rules governing lobbyists, to make backroom deals in Commission & Parliament a thing of the past.
www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20150127IPR15401/Commission-and-Parliament-implement-new-rules-on-Transparency-Register

Better lawmaking: Rewriting the rulebook about how EU laws are made, hardwiring impact assessments into the legislative process.
ec.europa.eu/dgs/legal_service/law_making_en.htm

Of course some of the reforms are controversial & not everyone agrees but the UK heavily influences them, it isn’t just a case of what the EU does to us.

Yes.

What reforms did you have in mind?

The EU seems pretty unreformable to me. If we haven't managed to reform it yet, even when negotiating before a referendum, what makes people think it will happen in the future? We've had decades in which to reform the EU already. I think we should concentrate our efforts on Britain instead.

Before any proposal is debated by ministers, national parliaments have prior scrutiny. Each national parliament has eight weeks to instruct their ministers before they go to Brussels to discuss the proposal.

8 weeks is no good when our Westminster parliament spends up to 3 months in recess at times.

Of course some of the reforms are controversial & not everyone agrees but the UK heavily influences them, it isn’t just a case of what the EU does to us

You see I don't want to be dictated to by an organisation over which we only have some influence and have to accept laws we do not want and are not in our best interests.

It seems that Cameron's 'negotiations' with the EU were just a total sham as he has already written to companies asking them to back REMAIN before he had even concluded his fake negotiations and was 'still ruling nothing out'.

What irks me most is not that he did this - it's what you what expect from a slimy sod that that - it's the fact he never even bother trying to hide his tracks. He just hold the pubic in utter contempt.

The UK will never ever be able to reform the EU, we just threatened to Leave and David Cameron still got nothing. The EU is planning on a superstate where there are no countries just 1 EU nation. All EU law & court decisions are aimed at achieving this. The Lisbon treaty also changed the EU voting system so the UK lost its veto & Qualified Majority voting is now used. Only 55% of the vote is needed to make law in most legal areas now & the Eurozone is well over that mark

My colleagues are talking about the Jeremy Paxman show about the EU last night and said it was such an eye opener. They are all leave.

What irks me most is not that he did this - it's what you what expect from a slimy sod that that - it's the fact he never even bother trying to hide his tracks.

Agreed on your assessment of Cameron, except he did try to hide them, he just lacked the imagination to anticipate that Michael Gove someone would leak his backroom maneuverings

Whisky I saw the Paxman in Brussels programme too and found it very informative.

Here it is on iPlayer in case anyone's interested: Paxman in Brussels: Who Really Rules Us

I haven't seen the Paxman programme but will watch. In the meantime, I've been reading this (late 2011) article, which I find disturbing. What do the Remainers think about this? :

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/what-price-the-new-democracy-goldman-sachs-conquers-europe-6264091.html

It's entitled 'Masters of the Eurozone' and discusses the Goldman Sachs connection between: Peter Sutherland, Karel van Miert, Ottmar Issing, Mario Draghi, Petros Christodoulou, Lucas Papademos, Mario Monti and Antonio Borges.

Fourmummy and of course their mate Mark at the Bank of England!

I just can't get past the point of all the dubious connections between these people/politicians. What do Remainders do? Do they ignore, wish away or prefer not to notice?

I just can't get past the point of all the dubious connections between these people/politicians. What do Remainders do? Do they ignore, wish away or prefer not to notice?

The Left are displaying ostrich-like behaviour. They seem to think there will never be another Labour Government so the only way to protect workers rights is to get them from Europe.

Which is kind of negated by the fact that Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Big businesses etc are all backing REMAIN - not the natural supporters of workers rights . These are the organisations that will use TTIP to break apart public services in the UK - which will destroy public sector jobs.

So I just put it down to a hatred of the Tory Govt - the same one that is recommending that they vote to REMAIN

Labour has a significant cognitive dissonance on this matter.

I don't buy this 'Reform from Within' malarkey. We've been in this dysfunctional club for 41 years. We did have a decent wedge of power back in the early days, but we don't have that now. It's always "jam tomorrow" with the EU. Stay in - and march on to the glorious reformation (that we haven't managed in the last 41 years)???? No thanks, I'm out.

Can you spot the difference?

Cameron's previous slogan was Britain will be stronger, safer and better off remaining in a reformed Europe".

Funny how he has dropped the last bit of that slogan so it is now "Britain is stronger, safer and better off in Europe".

Even Cameron has given up on the hope of reform.

The EU has changed but the changes are not reforms driven by us. They never will be. I'm out.

Has he actually dropped the 'reformed' word now?

His 'special deal' will come unstuck at some point when the EP/ECJ strikes a part of it down.

What then? Is he going to say 'Sorry, people of Britain, you know that referendum you voted on - well I got it wrong, my 'special deal' didn't actually include what you voted on'.

People will not be happy.

It would appear so - Stronger In facebook page and Twitter page use the words Britain Stronger In Europe. No suggestion of reform.

It's all very doublespeak, isn't it.

And laughable that the UK could ever achieve any sort of reform of the EU. Having watched Jeremy Paxman's programme, the EU couldn't organise a pissup in a brewery without a 4000-page directive (translated into all the languages) and a few thousand man-hours of consultation and committees.

It's all very doublespeak, isn't it

It's insulting our intelligence.

Just as when Corbyn is asked if he supports REMAIn and he replies "The Labour party supports REMAIN - always disassociating himself from the REMAIn campaign.

We do notice, you know.

EU has changed a lot... was the common market, now the EU. Seems pretty obvious it's an institution that can & does change ("reform").

The bigger the EU gets the less influence each country has.

The EU is planning on a superstate where there are no countries just 1 EU nation. All EU law & court decisions are aimed at achieving this.

Can you back this up with any evidence?

It doesn't tally with my understanding of what the EU is working towards.

gastropod the EU has aimed to be a superstate from day 1 it is why it was created every reform, every law is aimed at making Europe 1 nation. 'Ever closer union' was the founding aim of the EU and is the basis of every treaty

Most people in the “better the devil you know” camp tend to think of the EU as a distant paternalistic presence that’s occasionally a bit annoying, but in the main has our best interests at heart. They don’t really understand what the EU is for, what it’s done and what its future plans are. So the idea of the UK being on our own, going it alone - these are frightening thoughts. TBH, that’s what I thought about 25 years ago, until the pound was forced out of the ERM. That opened my eyes and made me realise that the whole EU (and Euro) project is for the greater good, individual countries don’t matter and the few will be sacrificed for the benefit of the many.

The idea of losing our sovereignty, inch by inch, to a monolith of unelected Eurocrats is what now frightens me.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/european-union-makes-britain-literally-ungovernable-says-david-cameron-s-former-guru-a7042916.html
Mr Hilton added in an article for the Daily Mail: “Membership of the EU makes Britain literally ungovernable, in the sense that no administration elected by the people can govern the country.”

“A democracy is based on the notion that the people – or their directly-elected representatives – are able to decide issues for themselves. And yet membership of the EU brings with it constraints on everything from employment law to family policy, all determined through distant, centralised processes we hardly understand, let alone control.”

Mr Hilton, who now works in America, said his experience working in Downing Street had helped him see the problems of the EU and said the EU has become "so complicated, so secretive, so impenetrable that it's way beyond the ability of any British government to make it work to our advantage".