Posts Tagged "Referendum"

Sarkozy tries to privatise La Poste, the citizens vote No

Yesterday concluded a massive public consultation across the whole of France.

The French were asking themselves about the privatisation of the postal service, La Poste. When I say “asking themselves” I mean it literally; the whole project was a mock referendum.

The mock referendum was designed to show support for a real referendum, which is turn is designed to block the government’s plans.

The project was organised by a “national committee” comprising of 62 different associations, unions and political parties and has already seen popular support. In Nice alone, there were nearly 1000 votes against the government. (I think the exact figure was about 9,634.)

The campaign poster found all over town

Since the start of the year, around 3 post offices have closed every day and 7400 jobs have been axed.

Nicolas Sarkozy has given two main arguments to justify his privatisation proposal; Europe and Finance. He pretends that it is the European Union which is imposing changes on the monopolisation on the delivery of post weighing less than 20 grams. This argument is false. The EU has in no way tried to change the status of the service-operator, much less its privatisation. Financially, La Poste has several other means available to it than privatisation to fund itself.

I don’t have the figures for the whole of France yet, but it looks like another Sarkoscheme that will be stopped dead by a self-made referendum.

Other countries should learn from this; democracy isn’t just about voting once every 4/5 years.

The European Referendum

Gordon Brown, for all his shortcomings, is an exceptionally fortunate politician. For a while, it seemed as though the Iron Chancellor was invincible; he dealt with floods, terrorists and foot-and-mouth disease all in his first week. More importantly though, unlike throughout the Blair years, media scandals are all speculation with little tribulation; the press has forgotten that he ‘bottled’ the election, despite the weeks of media coverage it merited.

Similarly, we saw peculiar headlines like “Beware the grip of the Euro monster” in The Times (normally a cool-headed publication) but after just a few days after Brown’s decision not to call that election, he has also decided not to hold a referendum on the new European Union Treaty. Clearly he is too busy listening to the public to ask them what they think- perhaps justly so.

In the Labour manifesto, it clearly states that a referendum would be given on such a subject, however, conveniently for Blair in 2004, France voted ‘non’ to what was then the Constitution for the European Union, giving him an escape route. This time though, the document is back for a second time, in the guise of a ‘treaty.’

The Conservatives are clamouring for a referendum, because they know how politically sensitive the issue is. A number of European politicians have gone on record, with rough estimates saying that the new treaty of 90% or even 95% identical to the rejected constitution, “they just took out a bit about flags and anthems”. Realistically, the content is irrelevant. This is just a question of whether ‘Europe’ is bad.

In Prime Minister’s Questions on October 17th, Gordon Brown bellowed, “we have managed to negotiate red lines in Europe which mean that the national interest is protected. Britain will decide on justice and home affairs; Britain will decide on foreign policy where it is multilateral; Britain will decide on social security; and Britain will decide on national security!” in response to David Cameron’s pithy line, “the red lines are red herrings”.

Nevertheless, Gordon Brown is set to win, since wars of attrition are his speciality. (This is a gentleman who waited for 10 years to become Prime Minister.) By permitting up to three months to ratify the new EU reform treaty, the Conservatives are likely to find a new issue on which to define themselves. It is also hoped that the Euro-sceptic movement will be slowed down by this gesture, as it is evidently too complex an issue to be decided by referendum.

Of course, the Conservatives do have a simple point they need to make; if the treaty is so complex that it requires three months of parliamentary scrutiny, the government really cannot substantiate the claim that insisting that it does not represent “fundamental change”.

It seems like another own-goal for Cameron. I think it is unlikely that the public will want a government that is as anti-European as William Hague (the shadow foreign secretary) does. The red lines are Labour’s red.