Dear Lord Liddle,
I’ve lived in the UK for 6 years and have never understood why the Brits are so passionately anti-Europe… until I attended my first pro-Europe event in London last Thursday.
It was a Federal Trust conference on the UK and the EU after the general election .
The room was dull, speeches were too long, there were not enough chairs and poor refreshments. But it was packed yet the average age was 65. It really was ageing Europe. I counted only 4 people under 40. Could you explain why only the class of WWII are interested in Europe?
You are one of the most brilliant and poignant political analysts I have ever met. Your performance is always funny but all the topics covered in a half-day conference were pretty technical. Only constitutionalists and political advisers could have left excited.
I tried doing my bit by proposing more peppered topics. You ignored my question on European Big Society while the conservative Anthony Teasdale – the other speaker – praised the question but gave the wrong answer. He referred to the Citizen’s initiative – one million signatures to initiate legislation. It’s a modern version of the petition to the King with little to do with putting civil society in the driving seat of the European Union.
It’s funny to consider the recurrent pattern in both parties. If asked about the role of civil society in Europe the answer is never right.
Let me make a joke: Labour called for the third sector but meant the third way. Today Tories call for the Big Society but mean small state. In both case civil society is just a cover for party politics.
If I can dare let me stress a fundamental point it seems to me missed: citizens are mature enough to stand on their feet. They can organise themselves and fix their own problems organising themselves in associations and social enterprises.
They don’t need nanny institutions to make them inept but need help in creating an enabling environment, providing a means for scaling up what works and bridging it to the rest of the world.
Regarding the European Union specifically, citizens want more democracy and less technical bla bla. They want to feel empowered, their pooled resources are spent more effectively such as in defence and international development, and they can send the leaders home when a good job has been done .
