ONCE, not so long ago, the European Parliament was the class
favourite. Lacking charisma, a bit nerdy, she none the less
attracted friends because her ample pocket money enabled her to
lend carelessly to the others in the class. Of late, however, she
has been feeling the pinch, and has asked to be repaid.
Consequently, her popularity has plummeted, and her former friends
are now making unkind remarks about her size and her habit of
interfering in their affairs. The victory of the Eurosceptic
parties last week, not just in semi-detached Britain, but in
France, Denmark, Greece, and elsewhere, sounded a warning bell to
the centre-right coalition that continues to form the majority bloc
in the Parliament. Whether it has heard that warning remains to be
seen.
The greatest impact, though, is likely to be on domestic
politics. The electorate will vote, in general, only for a party
that might win. The European election results have changed things
significantly by lending credibility to minority parties such as
the Front National and UKIP. This leaves the mainstream parties
with a choice. They can, of course, pretend that last week's
elections never happened, on the grounds that protest votes almost
invariably evaporate in the heat of a General Election.
Alternatively, they can attempt to outflank the newcomers by
adopting their key policies. This is a dangerous route to take,
however, since a single-issue opposition party such as UKIP, has no
record to defend and no need to co-ordinate a package of
policies.
The third option is to address the concerns that have prompted
the protest vote. The main parties have attempted to do this
largely through rhetoric, but so timidly that they have actually
boosted the UKIP vote: the electorate has interpreted Labour and
Conservative criticisms of Europe as a tacit support for UKIP's
stance. Concern about immigration is paramount, and it is possible
for the mainstream parties to tackle this without succumbing to a
fortress-Britain mentality. The key is fairness: the more
articulate among those who voted for UKIP said that it was unfair
for foreign nationals to benefit from the public purse without
having first paid into it. If we filter out the blatant racism
felt, we are told, by one third of the population, this is a
defensible position.
To focus on this, however, would be wrong. Politicians in
Britain and on the Continent must not be drawn into the age-old
argument about the deserving and the undeserving poor. Critics of
the present system should, instead, focus on the forces that have
set different sections of Europe's population against each other:
the heedless actions of the pan-European financial institutions
that take no responsibility for the results of their profit-seeking
- such as the loss of industry, the manipulation of foodstuffs and
other raw materials, and unemployment. If Europe's politicians are
serious about a new focus, let it be, as the Governor of the Bank
of England, Mark Carney, has suggested, the undeserving rich.