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| Scepticism over Labour's position on the EU budget | Scepticism over Labour's position on the EU budget |
| (5 months later) | |
| Your editorial (1 November) wrongly accuses Labour of "jockeying" with the Tories to gain the Eurosceptic advantage". It is wrong because it rests on a rather lazy assumption – one most often made by those hostile to Britain's membership of the EU – that opposing ever-increasing budgets is the definition of Euroscepticism. It is not. | Your editorial (1 November) wrongly accuses Labour of "jockeying" with the Tories to gain the Eurosceptic advantage". It is wrong because it rests on a rather lazy assumption – one most often made by those hostile to Britain's membership of the EU – that opposing ever-increasing budgets is the definition of Euroscepticism. It is not. |
| You make two misleading observations about Labour's position. The first is that structural reform of EU spending "is hard to square with a real-terms cut in the budget". There are various ways reform and budget discipline can be combined. Limiting the distorting effects of the agricultural subsidies under the CAP, reducing the clientelism of structural fund allocation and introducing a more consistently needs-based principle for targeting support for economic development are all possible within a tighter spending envelope. | You make two misleading observations about Labour's position. The first is that structural reform of EU spending "is hard to square with a real-terms cut in the budget". There are various ways reform and budget discipline can be combined. Limiting the distorting effects of the agricultural subsidies under the CAP, reducing the clientelism of structural fund allocation and introducing a more consistently needs-based principle for targeting support for economic development are all possible within a tighter spending envelope. |
| Second, you claim we are "making common cause with the enemies of Europe for the satisfaction of tweaking the government's nose". But Labour's position on a real-terms cut for the EU budget was set out in parliament in July and it underpinned Labour MEPs' votes against a budgetary increase in Strasbourg last week. Labour is a pro-European party. The suggestion that seeking to cut the EU budget is a Eurosceptic cause is one that pro-Europeans should resist. In fact, I would argue that pro-Europeans have no choice but to do so, if they are to win the argument for British engagement in the EU in the future. Stewart Wood Shadow cabinet minister without portfolio | Second, you claim we are "making common cause with the enemies of Europe for the satisfaction of tweaking the government's nose". But Labour's position on a real-terms cut for the EU budget was set out in parliament in July and it underpinned Labour MEPs' votes against a budgetary increase in Strasbourg last week. Labour is a pro-European party. The suggestion that seeking to cut the EU budget is a Eurosceptic cause is one that pro-Europeans should resist. In fact, I would argue that pro-Europeans have no choice but to do so, if they are to win the argument for British engagement in the EU in the future. Stewart Wood Shadow cabinet minister without portfolio |
| • Whatever solution is ultimately found to the eurozone crisis, Britain will be faced with difficult negotiations about our future relations with the EU. We will need allies, but we are losing them fast. There is a swelling chorus of voices in the EU that they would be well rid of us. Labour leaders know this. They also know that an inflation-adjusted freeze in the EU budget is the best we can hope for. Nevertheless, the Labour party joined Conservative Europhobes simply to embarrass Cameron. It is the worst possible message to send to our potential allies. Labour leaders should hang their heads in shame. Dick Taverne House of Lords | • Whatever solution is ultimately found to the eurozone crisis, Britain will be faced with difficult negotiations about our future relations with the EU. We will need allies, but we are losing them fast. There is a swelling chorus of voices in the EU that they would be well rid of us. Labour leaders know this. They also know that an inflation-adjusted freeze in the EU budget is the best we can hope for. Nevertheless, the Labour party joined Conservative Europhobes simply to embarrass Cameron. It is the worst possible message to send to our potential allies. Labour leaders should hang their heads in shame. Dick Taverne House of Lords |
| • For months Labour has been trying to persuade us that public spending has been cut too far, too fast. Now it seems it must actually be cut further and faster. Is this intellectual incoherence or cynical opportunism. Allan Brame Oxton, Wirral | • For months Labour has been trying to persuade us that public spending has been cut too far, too fast. Now it seems it must actually be cut further and faster. Is this intellectual incoherence or cynical opportunism. Allan Brame Oxton, Wirral |
| • Thanks, Ed Miliband. In your statesman mode you make powerful speeches in favour of a co-ordinated international strategy in favour of growth. In your Cameron-bashing mode you condemn a European growth strategy in condemning the EU budget which is focused on growth through research, innovation and creativity. Anne Corbett London | • Thanks, Ed Miliband. In your statesman mode you make powerful speeches in favour of a co-ordinated international strategy in favour of growth. In your Cameron-bashing mode you condemn a European growth strategy in condemning the EU budget which is focused on growth through research, innovation and creativity. Anne Corbett London |
| • The coalition government's defeat on the EU budget means that David Cameron's authority is waning, if not in tatters. Ed Miliband is daily looking prime ministerial material, while his Tory counterpart now resembles the hapless John Major. Dominic Shelmerdine London | • The coalition government's defeat on the EU budget means that David Cameron's authority is waning, if not in tatters. Ed Miliband is daily looking prime ministerial material, while his Tory counterpart now resembles the hapless John Major. Dominic Shelmerdine London |
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