Louise Bagshawe: Why we must not let up on the demand for a referendum

I have often been embarrassed – not least during selections – by the couple of months I spent in the Labour party in 1996, before I became a Tory activist again in 1997 and subsequently. As I have written elsewhere, I thought Tony Blair was a Tory. I was taken in by his rhetoric on low taxes and the respect he offered to my heroine, Margaret Thatcher.

And I was shaken to the core by our own flirtation with the Euro. We disastrously joined the ERM, and Black Wednesday resulted. Those of you with relatively good short-term memory will recall how enthusiastically Gordon Brown supported the ERM. He was far more of an advocate for it, at the time, than any Tory including Ken Clarke. How ludicrous that he now likes to bait Cameron for being around, as a young researcher, for the fallout for something he supported ardently as a senior Labour MP.

But really. Given that Europe was one of my primary concerns, how could I ever – for no matter how short a time – have thought that Tony Blair was the answer?

His little jaunt in Brussels was his final two fingers to the voters. And don’t let us buy Labour’s line that Gordon is a Eurosceptic. He isn’t. He wasn’t during the Major years, when he pressed for ERM entry. And he certainly isn’t now. Under Brown, the era of Euro-spin continues.

New Labour have been patient and systematic in their attempts to dismantle our free, liberal, unwritten constitution. They’ve brought in a hamfisted attempt at devolution whose unfairness to the English now threatens the Union itself. They’ve tried to rid our country of the county system we have worked on since before Alfred was King, in exchange for unwanted, unwieldly, quango-run “regions”. They have operated an open border policy which has turned the benefits of managed immigration into the chaos that sees asylum seekers convicted for 7/7. They’ve attacked jury trials. They want us to carry ID cards. They’ve wasted months of Parliamentary time ending the ancient right of Britons to hunt – whilst doing stuff all about cosmetic experimentation on animals, and unnecessarily slaughtering millions of healthy beasts during their mishandling of foot and mouth.

But their greatest love affair – Tony Blair’s all consuming higher political power – has been with the EU. Do not be fooled by Gordon Brown’s All-American attempt to turn us into flag-waving Yankees. New Labour are fundamentally embarrassed by Britain. When a Conservative says “patriotism”, they say “nationalism”. And they see it as bad.

The answer, always, is to have a little bit less of a nation. To subsume ourselves into the EU. They failed in their bid to have us adopt the Euro – Tony Blair’s one greatest regret about his time as our PM. Brown was against it not out of principle, but because he didn’t want to lose an election. Remember his ardent love of the ERM?

And Blair was a superb politician. First rate. A lousy leader and PM, but with a political nose second to none. He knew full well that the British, whilst liking the free trade benefits of the EU, enjoying the freedoms of travel and promotion of peace it brings, want to stop right there. He knew that if he made it a referendum issue, he’d lose; and if he made it a manifesto issue, he’d lose.

So he came up with a great idea, a version of “declare victory and leave”. Promise a referendum on the EU Constitution, so he could win the last election. Then change the name, enact it anyway, and no referendum. Did “Eurosceptic” Brown oppose him? No he did not.

Some commentators have suggested that in demanding Labour stick to its promise on the referendum, David Cameron is tacking right. This is false. Cameron is frustrated by the selfish navel gazing of the EU political class. His agenda is based on efficiency and social justice. The EU, as it stands, is a rank failure. We need, as David has said, to reclaim powers for national governments and make the EU a streamlined force for progress; on climate change, on farming – the CAP stands in the way of ending global poverty, discriminating against poor African farmers whilst enriching middle-class French ones – and on trade. There can be precious little Making Poverty History while Brussels, which should be a force for good, blocks the path. Cameron Conservatism is about compassion, yes, but it is also about pragmatism. There is nothing pragmatic about the EU as it stands.

This is a Constitution in all but name. EU leaders across the spectrum have recognised that. It gives the EU more trappings of a single state. It abolishes our veto in 55 areas. Our “red lines” are faint pink traces of the proverbial lipstick on the pig – EU lawyers and presidents already say they mean nothing. It creates an EU Foreign Minister and a semi-permanent Presidency. It seems motivated more by shabby anti-Americanism than anything else.

Part of our party’s great appeal since Cameron came to power has been the recognition that the Conservatives, whilst seeing multiple areas where we have to improve, like Britain as it is. And that is where we chime with the electorate. Not xenophobic, not little Englander – although there is nothing “little” about England – but a happy, stubborn people quite unconvinced of the need to give up our nationality in order to be part of some grandiose bureaucratic scheme which national peoples, time and again, have rejected whenever it is put to them.

Of course Gordon Brown loves the EU. New Labour and the EU mandarin class are peas in a pod. Both instinctively believe that the State, or the Institution, have all the answers. They hate referendums and votes because they believe that the people are too stupid to have a say. Brown will fight tooth and nail to make sure this manifesto promise stays as broken as Tony Blair’s “I will serve a full third term”.

Conservatives are comfortable with Britain, instead. They are concerned with social justice, ending poverty, helping business, protecting the environment. We like our country as it is. We must never let up on the pressure for a referendum. Brown wants the issue to go away. It won’t.

You can sign the petition for an EU referendum here.

Comments

[david]

Back in 1975 we had a referendum on our membership of the EU, this is how Mrs T spoke then, 'Lest we forget'

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=102675

[Pro-EU]

Nice rant.

By the way, I just don't see that Conservatives like Britain the way it is. If they did, The Daily Mail wouldn't exist. It is the paradox of the rightwing nationalist: trumpet your "patriotism" while at the same time doing everything to run the current state of the country down!

Not that that has anything to do with the European Union. The problem eurosceptics have - again exposed in this diatribe - is their unwillingness to see the EU for the opportunity it is.

The specific problem for Conservative Eurosceptics is the sheer contrariness in all their views of the European Union. You admit the European Union is a force for good. So why the knee-jerk oppositionism? The electorate can't shake the idea that anti-EU feelings in the Conservative Party have ossified into tribalism. The most respected Tories are the Pro-European grandees like Ken Clarke.

The amendments to the workings of the EU have nothing to do with the USA. They are about making the EU work better for its members regardless of outside interests. The single market has indisputably been good for Britain, so any improvement in the functioning of it - as proposed in the amending Treaty - is also a good thing for Britain.

Whilst I agree that in a perfect world these amendments should be allowed a popular mandate through referendum, the kind of substance-free oppositionism in this post shows the level of ignorance there is in the country about the EU's structure and goals. Perhaps it's a good thing such decisions are removed from a public too easily seduced by nothing more than the kind of rampant, paper thin nationalism evident here.

By the way, on the ERM point. It amazes me how europhobes can't grasp the fact that while Britain was unceremoniously booted out of it, eleven other countries were able to manage themselves within it until the creation of the euro! Not really something to be proud of.

Face facts. The EU isn't going anywhere. The euro isn't going anywhere. Whatever Britain does it is fundamentally affected by the dynamics of the EU and the eurozone. That is why we are far better off inside than out.

[Andrew Woodman]

I think you'll find she was making a statement about the EEC not the EU David. Economic union is a very different thing to politicial union. That's why we need a referendum.

[Denis Cooper]

You don't have to like Britain as it is to be committed to the survival of the British state as an independent sovereign state. Every MP has to swear a solemn oath of allegiance to the Queen as Head of State, some would say as the embodiment of the British state, before he can take his seat. Understandably the Sinn Fein MPs refuse to take that oath of allegiance, and therefore they cannot take their seats, but in 1997 there was also the appalling spectacle of Labour MPs taking the oath with their fingers crossed behind their backs and making other gestures of disloyalty not only to the Queen but also by implication to the British state and its citizens. How many of the people we have elected to the House of Commons are truly loyal to this country and its people? Maybe no more than 200 - most of the rest have sold their souls to the EU, and so their loyalty to the EU will always take precedence. Will these disloyal politicians, traditionally known as "traitors", eventually get their come-uppance? I don't know, and in some ways I don't care - above all I just want them removed from Parliament (both chambers) and replaced by people we can trust, not by the next generation of disloyal politicians.

[david]

One of the great myths is that there was no intention of the EEC to develop into a political union, that myth is destroyed by Heaths statement to the House of Commons in June 1971:-

'We have said that as members of the enlarged Community we would play our full part in the progress towards economic and monetary union'.

If you have economic and monetary union, then it is obvious you must have political union!

[Andrew Lilico]

Pro-EU. I'd suggest you check those facts you want us to face. The UK was not the only member to withdraw - for example, Italy withdrew. In addition, the fluctuation band was widened to a massive 15% ir order that France need nor formally withdraw. The ERM collapsed.

Further, the notion that these other member's participation in the euro was an indication of "strength" compared with the performance of the UK is again somewhat at variance with the facts. UK growth during the 1990s was greatly in excess of the euro-zone. Even measured by the misleading indicator of the performance of the currency, the euro member currencies weighted average value declined substantially from 1996 against the pound.

I'm not suggesting that we do not benefit from EU membership or that we should withdraw - far from it. And neither does Cameron or Bagshawe. The EU is not an all-or-nothing enterprise in which we must simply agree to all proposals or leave. Rather, we are fully participating members, as entitled as anyone else to disagree with proposals and to veto Treaty amendments. I am also "pro-EU", but being "pro-EU" and being supine are two different things...

[Pro-Europe Tory]

This debate smacks of utter hypocrisy.

Why didn't Thatcher hold a referendum on the Single European Act?

Why didn't Major hold a referendum on Maastricht?

[The Huntsman]

This article from today’s Telegraph is yet another confirmation out of the mouth of the EuroNabobery that Blair lied when he claimed our so-called ‘red lines’ were safe in his hands. Remember that this is not negative propaganda from those people and organisations whose objective is at least to halt the whole EU project in its tracks or ideally to get us out of the monster’s claws at the earliest opportunity. This is from one who lives, eats and breathes Euro Federalism from the moment she gets up in the morning to the moment she lays her head on the pillow at night. Every pronouncement from the EuroNabobs at the moment seems designed to rub our noses in Blair’s dirt: yesterday’s offering from Emperor José Barroso the First being one such.

“Blair's treaty opt-out is worthless, admits EU
By Bruno Waterfield in Strasbourg
Senior European Union officials confirmed yesterday that Britain's "red line" opt-out from the European Charter of Fundamental Rights is not worth the paper it is written on.
Margot Wallström, the European Commission Vice-President, insisted that the charter will apply to huge swathes of British law, the 75 per cent or more that is derived from EU legislation.
Citizens will be able to claim before the courts the rights enshrined in the Charter," she said. "The Charter will be binding for the European institutions, and also for member states when they implement EU law, even if it does not apply to all of them."
Sensitive national legislation, such as Britain's opt-out on a Brussels directive that sets the length of the working week will, officials predict, be challenged in the EU courts because it implements European laws.
The commission's legal service estimates that British opt-outs to the charter are "limited" and point to German studies showing that up to 80 per cent of national law originates in Brussels.
"The charter will test some member states applying European law and to what extent a UK judge can be alien to this jurisprudence elsewhere is unclear," said a legal source. "The opt-out is potentially very thin."
If the EU Treaty mandate agreed by Tony Blair is ratified, Gordon Brown will quickly find the charter, including a "right to strike", becoming enforceable in the European courts as trade unions seek to roll back Margaret Thatcher's reforms of the 1980s.
A senior European Parliament source, close to negotiations on the new EU Treaty, has told The Daily Telegraph that Euro-MPs are planning to sponsor early challenges to Britain's opt-outs.
"We are going to make sure that this issue is constantly before the European Court of Justice," he said.
"There is 30 years of EU jurisprudence to say there can be no two-tier system of European rights."
Research by the think-tank Open Europe suggests that EU judges will not be backward in coming forward to apply the charter.
"The Court of Justice will decide for itself whether member states are implementing European law and interpret their national laws for them," said Neil O'Brien, Open Europe's director.
"Trying to stop the charter changing our laws will be like trying to carry water in a sieve."
I know that I am largely preaching to the converted here (and I apologise for banging on, but we do not have the luxury of time here) but for reasons which I have set out on my own blog
(http://thehuntsman2007.blogspot.com/ or click on my name below), I believe that this Constitutional Treaty (let us not indulge the propaganda of Brown et al. by getting sucked into the nonsense of calling it an amending treaty) represents an immediate and serious threat to the status of the United Kingdom as an Independent Sovereign State as a matter of customary international law. It is for those reasons that I believe it is vital to get this referendum, come hell or high water.

[Jennifer Wells]

Excellent article Louise. Thank you.

[Denis Cooper]

David, the referendum we had back in 1975 wasn't on our membership of the EU, which didn't then exist, but on our membership of the EEC, and this is one of the arguments the government put in its outrageously partial pamphlet, delivered to every household:

"WILL PARLIAMENT LOSE ITS POWER?"

"No important new policy can be decided in Brussels ... without the consent of
a British Minister answerable to a British Government and British Parliament."

"The Minister representing Britain can veto any proposal for a new law or a new tax if he considers it to be against British interests."

Of course that is no longer true: most decisions are now taken by QMV, when the British Minister has 29 votes out of 345, just over 8%, and no veto even if he was disposed to use one.

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/showPage.asp?id=242&lang=en&mode=g

"All the other countries in the Market today enjoy, like us, democratically elected Governments answerable to their own Parliaments and their own voters. They do not want to weaken their Parliaments any more than we would."

Yet the ex-President of Germany, Roman Herzog, wrote recently:

"By far the largest part of the current laws in Germany are agreed by the Council of Ministers and not the German parliament ... Therefore the question has to be asked whether Germany can still unreservedly call itself a parliamentary democracy."

Why? Because http://euobserver.com/9/24052/?rk=1

"Between 1998 and 2004, according to the German ministry of justice, 23,167 legal acts were adopted in Germany, of which 18,917, some 80% of the total, were of EU origin, meaning that only one-fifth originated domestically."

I don't know what Mrs Thatcher expected, but I doubt that she ever anticipated that we would reach the current position where the British Parliament only controls 20% of new British laws, and 80% come from the EU where the British Minister has only 8% of the votes and usually no veto, and that 80% can be neither rejected nor significantly amended by Parliament, and in fact many of them do not even go anywhere near Parliament.

[Paul Oakley]

Pro-Europe Tory @ 11.29: Because they were wrong.

Hardly hypocrisy in any event. Political parties do change their minds on certain issues from time to time.

Or perhaps you are equally frothing at the mouth when it comes to, say, our decisions to abandon the prices and incomes policy; fixed exchange rates or indeed the poll tax.

[Andrew Lilico]

Pro-Europe Tory@11:29

Why would we have wanted a referendum on the SEA? We agreed with everything in that. There was more of a case for a referendum on Maastricht (setting aside, for now, the point that I am against referendums). On this occasion the reason for arguing for a referendum is that everyone (80+%) expects there to be one if we are to ratify, and most of them intend to vote against, so by arguing for it we can wreck the prospect of ratification of a Treaty we don't want.

That's not hypocrisy. That's politics.

[Denis Cooper]

I'd rather see "Pro British Tory". I wonder: has "Pro Europe Tory" ever stood for election? If so did he openly tell the voters that as far as he was concerned their interests ranked no higher than those of anybody else anywhere in Europe?

[Serf]

This debate smacks of utter hypocrisy.

Why didn't Thatcher hold a referendum on the Single European Act?

Why didn't Major hold a referendum on Maastricht?

Do you really suggest that because two previous Conservative administrations (rightly or wrongly) failed to offer the electorate a referendum on European Integration, that Mr Cameron should not be allowed to call for one? What kind of logic is that?

You admit the European Union is a force for good. So why the knee-jerk oppositionism?

If you actually bother to read what Louise has written, you will see that she is saying "The EU can be a force for good", not "The EU, is a force for good".

The most respected Tories are the Pro-European grandees like Ken Clarke.

No doubt most respected şin the Labour Party, for their good work in slagging off their fellow Conservatives.

It amazes me how europhobes can't grasp the fact that while Britain was unceremoniously booted out of it, eleven other countries were able to manage themselves within it until the creation of the euro!

If that shows anything, it demonstrates that our economy was not in a position to enter the Euro, due to fundamental differences.

'Lest we forget'

We right wing Tories may be fans of the Blessed Margaret PBUH, but her word is not gospel. We cannot be expected to drop all our opposition to "the selfish navel gazing of the EU political class" because our hero made some positive comments about the EEC 32 years ago.

In fact in more recent times she has made rather different noises:
Europe is "a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure: only the scale of the final damage is in doubt"

I have no doubt which of the two I prefer, but as big a fan as I am, I am old enough to make my own mind up about the EU as I am sure Mr Cameron is.

[Paul Oakley]

Andrew:
"Why would we have wanted a referendum on the SEA? We agreed with everything in that."

Speak for yourself mate!

[Jason O'Mahony]

For the love of God just have the damn referendum!

Speaking as a passionate pro EU Irishman, please, just stop whinging and decide: You're either in or out. The UK is big enough to leave the EU without massive harm.
Having said that, you will still have to meet EU regs on your exports to the EU, and pay for the privlege, as the Norwegians do, but so what? True, you'll have to wait with New Zealand and Bangladesh whilst we carve up the WTO with the Yanks, but so what? That's the price of whatever you think you will get by leaving.

[Simon Denis]

Our pro-EU friend is frightfully cross and bolshie. "Face facts," he snarls and then gives us an argument which boils down to "Might is right". He suggests that being caught up in the toils of the EU enables us to "influence" it in our favour. I suppose that's how we got such an excellent deal over our territorial waters and the fishing industry which depended on them. In fact, being imprisoned in the structures of Europe will leave us ever less free to move things in our own favour. At this point, the modern, practical, materialist EU-phils spin round and come over all pious; they start talking about a "larger enterprise than mere national self interest." Really, it's like dealing with Jekyll and Hyde, but whether one is dealing with the prig or the thug, the arguments never stand up. I believe the Chinese economy is rather strong these days. Fancy pooling our sovereignty with Beijing, pro-EU? Or perhaps you'd like to tie us in with Washington? It never seems to occur to the pro-EUs of this world that countries like Switzerland and Japan do very well on their own, thank you very much. So why can't we?

And as for that argument that Louise was "doing down" Britain, leave it for the fifth form, pro-EU. Legitimate criticism is the action of a friend. I know this is hard for the undemocratic Europhil mentality to take in. After all, the focus of THEIR loyalty is notoriously touchy when it comes to the matter of shortcomings. It even sacks its accountants when they point out financial irregularities - which is in fact their job.

[Ken Stevens]

The more that anyone tells me just to get on and swallow the EU because it's good for me, the more I get suspicious of the medicine!

Let me read the label first, i.e. an objective, informative campaign by both sides of the argument, prior to a referendum on whether or not to stay in. If the majority opt for it then I'll gulp it down.

It is cynical politics to deny the public a voice on things you might lose, only allowing a choice when you're reasonably certain of winning. It's certainly not democracy.

To Pro-EU July 12, 09:46 AM
"... Perhaps it's a good thing such decisions are removed from a public too easily seduced by nothing more than the kind of rampant, paper thin nationalism evident here."

1) What is wrong with love of one's country, in a non-racist, non-xenophobic way?
2) If the public cannot be trusted to deal with a single issue, how can they be trusted in a General Election to cope with the whole raft of topics all bundled up in a party manifesto? Maybe we should abolish elections altogether because the stupid masses are liable to opt for the wrong thing. If yours is the prevailing view on Europe within the party, it's not as though you stand a particularly good chance of regaining power next time round. You'll just be floundering around in the same amorphous centre-ground policy swamp as the other two main parties, and those who bother to vote at all might well just stick with the devil they know, i.e. GB.

[ToryJim]

Tuesday's Financial Times had a full-page article entitled "Standard Bearer: How the European Union exports its laws".

I suggest all the Europhobes find a copy and read it.

It details how more and more countries outside the EU are keen to adopt the EU's regulatory and legislative lead on issues such as "product safety, financial regulation, anti-trust, transport, telecommuncations [...] and other policy areas".

"Sometimes voluntarily, sometimes through gritted teeth, and sometimes without even knowing, countries around the world are importing the EU's rules".

"The rapid expansion of the economic bloc to 27 nations with a total of more than 480m largely affluent consumers has turned the Union into the world's biggest and most lucrative import market"

"[...]the EU's rules tend to be stricter, especially where product safety, consumer protection and environmental and health requirements are concerned. Companies that produce their goods to the EU's standards can therefore assume that their products can be marketed everywhere else as well".

So, several Europhobes here seem to think that the UK would be better off outside the EU. From what the FT says, it sounds like the UK would end up abiding by many EU rules even if we were not actually part of the EU.

Is there a cogent argument for leaving the EU? Anyone care to explain?

[Emma McClarkin]

[email protected] "The Problem eurosceptics have - again exposed in this diatribe - is their unwillingness to see the EU for the opportunity it is."

I can see quite clearly the EU for WHAT it is. A juggernaut towards a failed attempt at a federalist United States of Europe, closing ranks against globalisation, forcing citizens and industry out of jobs, freedom and prosperity.

There are few opportunities that exist within the EU that we could not, or can not negotiate or take up for ourselves. It is time the British people were asked which road they want to walk down. I'm pretty sure it isn't following Gordon Brown and New Labour to Brussels.

[The Huntsman]

Tory Jim: "It details how more and more countries outside the EU are keen to adopt the EU's regulatory and legislative lead on issues such as "product safety, financial regulation, anti-trust, transport, telecommuncations [...] and other policy areas".

That is as may be, but the point is that these are sovereign independent nations deciding for themselves, by themselves and in what they consider to be their own interest to adopt such parts of EU legislation, practice, regulation etc.as their elected representatives deem fit to adopt. We can and maybe should make similar decisions in our interest from outside the EU.

But we have to adopt such things whether we like it or not at the behest of unelected and unaccountable Bureaucrats and Politicians who may well not have British interests at heart at all. If we fail to adopt them, then we get prosecuted by the EU (unless you happen to be France or Germany in which case it is pointless as they ignore the rules that don't suit them) and fined the equivalent of ten NHS Hospitals. That is what we do not like.

[Simon Newman]

"New Labour have been patient and systematic in their attempts to dismantle our free, liberal, unwritten constitution."

An understatement, but a vitally important point that the Conservatives need to focus on. We need to restore that free, liberal Constitution.

[ToryJim]

@TheHuntsman 4.46pm

"we have to adopt such things whether we like it or not at the behest of unelected and unaccountable Bureaucrats and Politicians who may well not have British interests at heart at all"

We don't have accept anything from Brussels at the behest of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats and politicians, people like Tony Blair (and John Major and Margaret Thatcher before him) head off to cozy summits and sign up for things without asking the public. Major didn't call a referendum before Maastricht, Thatcher didn't call a referendum on the Single European Act either.

Bear in mind this all started with the Treaty of Rome, then the Single European Act, then the Maastrict Treaty, then the Treaty of Nice. Then the current snafu... or treaty... or whatever we're calling it this week :-)

The Tories need to have a well thought-out policy on Europe, and if our policy is "leave the EU" then we need to explain how and why. If we think that signing up to Nice was a mistake, we should explain how and why - likewise if we now think that Major agreeing to sign in Maastricht was a mistake, we should say why too.

In my opinion, cheap one-liners such as "Brussels imposes X new laws in Y days" doesn't really win us any votes. We need to go deeper than that. The voters hate Brussels (who doesn't) but yet they like being able to go to France and bring back as much cheap booze as they can. They also like being able to buy a holiday home in Spain. We need to explain whether the policies we propose will have an effect on things like this, or we'll get ambushed down the road by the other side.

[Paul Oakley (say it loud: I'm a Europhobe and I'm proud)]

ToryJim: Sorry, but yours is a non-argument. Any country exporting to any other country must abide by the recipient nation's regulatory regime. Eg, Japan exports to the UK but has no desire to join the EU. We export to the US but have no desire to become the 51st state.

Yes - we can (and will) leave and will retain access to the EU markets through EFTA. The implicit core of your argument is that should we do so then the EU will block trade with the UK. It hasn't done so in the case of Norway or Switzerland and will not do so with us. After all, since we joined we have been a net importer from the superstate each and every year without exception. Will the remaining member states cut off this valuable market? Don't think so.

[ToryJim]

"the point is that these are sovereign independent nations deciding for themselves, by themselves and in what they consider to be their own interest to adopt such parts of EU legislation, practice, regulation etc.as their elected representatives deem fit to adopt..."

Two examples, one outside and one inside the EU:

Try asking the Swiss voters if they approve of their government spending US $6 billion building the new Gotthard tunnel so that France and Germany can get their trucks to Italy faster.

Try asking the Austrians how they feel about the thousands of goods vehicles transiting the Alps each day, so the Germans can get their export goods to the Italians.

Governments regularly lie to their voters about legislation, practice and regulation - neither the current British government nor the EU has a monopoly on this.

If we we are seriously proposing "taking back" control of things (which things?) from the EU, we need to have joined-up policies in place NOW so we can sell the idea to the voters.