Dr David Green: Is Britain content to be a useful outpost of American foreign policy?

Dr David G Green is Director of Civitas.

Are we content to be a useful outpost of American foreign policy? According to successive American administrations down to the present day, we should be. For years the better Americans have worried about supporting dictators in countries such as Egypt merely because they served American interests. And recently America has acknowledged that, if self-governing democracy is right for the American people, it’s also right for nations such as Egypt. Not so in our case it seems.

It’s a mistake to focus the EU debate  on the economy, let alone on the American desire for the convenience of making a single phone call to Europe, when what’s really at stake is whether we want to be a free people or a subservient one. The European Union betrays the unspoken covenant between the government and the people. We give our allegiance to the government of the day and we agree to obey the laws of the land on one fundamental condition: that our rulers act for the common good. But we don’t merely take their word for it. Since 1689 we have had the power to remove the government immediately and call an election by the simple expedient of convincing the House of commons to pass a vote of no confidence. Knowing that an immediate election can be called makes Cabinet ministers behave differently. The power does not have to be used very often, so long as it remains a realistic threat. The right to remove an unworthy government did not emerge unexpectedly in 1689. Before that date we had a tradition of deposing rulers from time to time, with the last occasion in 1688.

Many other things make the difference between a free people and a subjugated one, but the ability to throw out the government straight away is the single most important. It took centuries of struggle, sacrifice and bloodshed to construct our free system. Today, the majority of our laws are being made by officials in Brussels who can’t be ousted. They know it and they act accordingly.

The institutions of the European Union do not even come close to our democratic system. While our constitution is calculated to make the government take public opinion into account, the institutions of the EU are calculated to isolate decision makers from public pressure. They dare not make it too obvious that we are ruled by a self-chosen elite and so they go through some forms that resemble democracy. Most notably there is an elected European Parliament, but the vital element is lacking: the power to depose the rulers and trigger a general election by a simple majority vote. What’s really at stake is the survival of democracy itself.

Dr David Green: Conservatives shouldn't dismiss Lord Heseltine’s recommendations for foreign takeovers out of hand

Dr David G Green is Director of Civitas.

Lord Heseltine’s recommendation that foreign takeovers should be subject to a public interest test has provoked a storm of opposition. Jeremy Warner, for example, remarked in the Daily Telegraph, “I’d much rather take my chances with the invisible hand than the whim or personal self-interest of the politician when it comes to determining what’s in the national interest.” A law governing foreign takeovers, he thought, would be “a bit of nonsense”.

This call for the unfettered freedom of business corporations represents the puritan wing of the movement for freedom. No less a writer than Hayek voiced his frustration with doctrinal purity. Nothing has done as much harm, he thought, as “the wooden insistence of some liberals” on laissez faire. The important challenge, he argued, was to aim at the “gradual improvement of the institutional framework of a free society”. Hayek’s focus on the steady improvement of our institutions invites Conservatives to clarify their attitude to the nation state. Is there a common good that might be different from what any one commercial company might want? If so, is Parliament the legitimate guardian of that public interest?

Dr David Green of Civitas: Britain has industrial policy lessons to learn from America

David Green is CEO of Civitas and author of a new report, A strategy For Economic Growth: A new industrial policy. Follow Civitas on Twitter.

Next week Lord Heseltine will publish the review of industrial policy commissioned by George Osborne at the time of his 2012 Budget. One of its aims is to learn from rival countries that have coped more effectively since the recession. America has achieved economic growth since 2008, while Britain’s output languishes below its peak in the first quarter of 2008. One of the main reasons for America’s success is that its hands are not tied by an international entity like the European Union. Above all, it has pursued selective industrial policies that the EU prohibits.

In his October Tory conference speech, George Osborne said: "That’s a modern industrial policy’ ‘I am its champion. Let’s get on with it". In his March Budget speech he even said that we should not be shy about identifying our successful industries and reinforcing them. Not long ago such policies were denounced as ‘picking winners’, but nevertheless he said that he plans to champion life sciences and aerospace, even promising to establish a UK centre for aerodynamics. He wants to make Britain Europe’s technology centre and subsidise video games and high-speed broadband.

Dr David Green: You can overdo austerity

Dr David G Green is Director of Civitas

The Government’s austerity programme is starting to harm our economic recovery. As Tim Montgomerie argued yesterday, 'Cuts are now the dominant theme of this government'.

Much of the current debate pits supply-side economics versus demand management, but in A Strategy For Economic Growth, we argue that the reduction in manufacturing has structurally weakened our economy and impaired the ability of the private sector to grow rapidly. 

The scale of our national debt is a major cause for concern, but it is not the biggest challenge we face. Nor is climate change. It is de-industrialisation. In fact, the massive de-industrialisation of our economy in the last 30 years has been a major cause of our high public and private debt. In particular, it led to a current account deficit, which has been partially funded by borrowing. The spare productive capacity that could be taken for granted in the economic downturns of the early 1980s and early 1990s is simply no longer there. This means that tight control of fiscal policy of the kind currently in favour cannot be counted on to spark automatic economic growth in the private sector. Large scale investment, especially in new manufacturing capacity, is needed; and in the immediate future some of it will have to come from the public sector.

And yet, the government is committed to an austerity programme that is making matters worse. The argument is developed in this piece in the Telegraph, which links the follies of the Weimar Republic with  Mr Cameron’s austerity package, especially his blind refusal to cut taxes. 

Manufacturing is still called "metal bashing" by some commentators, as if it belongs to yesterday, but its vital importance for our economic revival is described in this Telegraph article.

You can overdo austerity.

David Green: Cameron needs to emulate Thatcher and fight for British business "in the teeth of international competition"

Dr David G Green is Director of Civitas.

Yesterday in The Times David Wighton speculated that the Tories might be slowly accepting the necessity for an industry policy.  Last week Lord Young argued in The Times that the Government was not to blame for the loss of the Thameslink contract by Bombardier. The management of the company was at fault for being unable to make trains at the cost the customer wanted.

But the bidding process was not a straight fight between two manufacturers to discover who was the most efficient. The companies were required to finance the contract, with the result that their bids depended on their ability to borrow money rather than manufacturing prowess. Siemens has a credit rating of A+ and Bombardier's is BB+, which means that Siemens can borrow money for about 1.5% less.

The Government has had over a year to change the contract so that it was a contest between manufacturers not a fight between leaseback companies. It failed to do so. Why?

During the Thatcher years the Tories were split between the shallow market fundamentalism revealed in Lord Young's article and the pragmatic patriotism of Mrs Thatcher herself. She told the Commons in 1981 that she had helped British companies win contracts 'in the teeth of international competition'. British Steel was given state aid for nine years before its privatisation in 1988 and Rolls-Royce was also aided until its privatisation in 1987. On Lord Young's reasoning we should have let Rolls-Royce go bust in 1971.

As Mrs Thatcher recognised, legitimate pursuit of our national interest is perfectly possible without embracing Soviet-style economic planning. It's what all successful developed economies have always done.

David Green: What Parliament Should Do Next on Prison Votes - Pass an Act of Indemnity

David Green is Director of Civitas.

What should the Government do now that MPs have voted to defy the European Court of Human Rights on the issue of prisoner votes? The most decisive step would be to pass an Act of Indemnity, a method frequently used in the past to correct the mistakes or unacceptable decisions of courts.

Perhaps the most celebrated use of acts of indemnity followed the Test Act of 1672, which required anyone who held a civil or military office to accept certain doctrines of the Church of England. The Act was not repealed until 1863 and prevented, not only Catholics, but also Methodists and members of other minority faiths from holding public office. Parliament got round it by passing frequent acts of indemnity declaring actions that were illegal under the Test Act to have been legal after all, thus allowing non-conformists to play their full part in the life of the country.

Wartime emergency powers were also covered by indemnity acts. The Indemnity Act of 1920 declared legal some emergency measures taken during the First World War. They had been introduced in good faith to defeat the enemy and it was thought to be wrong to punish people for actions taken in the 'heat of battle'. The same happened after the Second World War. The Enemy Property Act of 1953 retrospectively regularised the confiscation of Nazi property.

More recently acts of indemnity have reversed court rulings that did not have the approval of Parliament. For example, the National Health Service (Invalid Direction) Act of 1980 legalised the action of administrators that a court had recently declared unlawful. The officials thought in good faith that they had been acting lawfully and Parliament gave them legal protection.

It is very obvious that the power to declare unlawful actions to have been legal could be abused. Consequently, it should be used sparingly. Nevertheless it is a necessary power and it is admirably suited to deal with the European Court of Human Rights. It would bind our judges to obey Parliament so long as MPs and peers reflect the wishes of the electorate, which in this case they plainly do.

If a judge defies Parliament it may be necessary to invoke the procedure for dismissal established by the 1701 Act of Settlement, namely to pass a resolution (an Address) of both Houses of Parliament requiring the Queen to remove the offender from office. The power, which was reaffirmed under the 2005 Constitution Act, has only been used against one person, an Irish judge who was corrupt. No English judge has been removed by this procedure because, so far, the judges have been amongst the foremost upholders of the laws of this land. But there is first time for everything.

Dr David Green: Votes For Prisoners And The Sovereignty Of Parliament And People – as Dicey saw it

The Human Rights Act of 1998 brought about an unprecedented increase in the power of judges compared with those of Parliament. The change has been welcomed by some academics, including Aileen Kavanagh in Constitutional Review Under the UK Human Rights Act and Professor Vernon Bogdanor in The New British Constitution. Some judges have also voiced approval, including Lord Steyn who, while he was a Law Lord in 2005 went so far as to say that the supremacy of Parliament was ‘out of place in the modern United Kingdom’. (Jackson & Ors v. Her Majesty's Attorney General [2005] UKHL 56.)

The clearest statement of the longstanding view of the British people is still to be found in A.V. Dicey’s The Law of the Constitution. (1915 Edition; Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982.) Until our revolution in the seventeenth century, the King made the laws. Since 1689 Parliament has made them, but only as the representative voice of the people. According to Dicey, our constitution is the result of two guiding principles. The first is the sovereignty of Parliament, which had historically meant ‘in effect the gradual transfer of power from the Crown to a body which has come more and more to represent the nation’. The personal authority of the King was turned into the sovereignty of the King in Parliament. This change ended the arbitrary power of the monarch but left intact the ‘rule of law’, or the ‘supremacy throughout all our institutions of the ordinary law of the land’. According to Dicey, the ‘rule of law’ or ‘the right of the Courts to punish any illegal act by whomsoever committed’, was ‘the very essence of English institutions’. (p. 314.)

David Green: Peter Oborne is making excuses for Muslim totalitarians who are at war with those members of their own faith who admire Western liberal democracy

David Green is Director of Civitas.

Peter Oborne defended Baroness Warsi’s claim that Muslims were the victims of bigotry by launching an attack on the press. Many of our most famous newspapers, he claimed, ‘routinely fabricate or pervert stories about Muslims’. Violence against Muslims, he insisted, was legitimised by ‘so much of the daily conversation which takes place in the media’. Really? And is it valid to accuse newspapers of ‘routinely’ inventing false stories about Muslims? Some stories may prove to have been incorrect, but the term ‘routine’ implies that day in and day out our newspapers are making up untrue stories about Muslims.

Surely these accusations are somewhat over the top. Worse still, Mr Oborne is creating an atmosphere in which reasoned, calm, measured, proportionate and valid criticism of Islam and the behaviour of particular Muslims is de-legitimised. Traditionally we have regarded vigorous criticism as an alternative to violence not its precursor.

Was the historian Andrew Roberts encouraging violence when he argued in his mammoth A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900, that Islamist terrorism is best understood as another variety of totalitarianism, following the lead of Kaiser's Germany, the Axis powers, and Soviet Communism. Once more, Roberts argued, the English-speaking peoples find that they must fight for their heritage of liberal-democracy, a system that aims to create the conditions in which everyone can add their bit to the improvement of society and the advance of human civilisation. Islamism, by contrast, is another version of the creed that seeks concentrated, exclusive and limitless power to control any aspect of human life.