Motion #10
This year the Policy Working Group has met regularly for three or four hours per month, to progress the draft policy chapter to completion and bring it to Autumn conference. We wish to thank all the members who have been closely involved in this process and have given up hours of time to drafting, reworking drafts, handling aspects of the consultation process and helping us all to navigate the processes to get the chapter approved by PDC and submitted as a B motion. In the year of a sudden General Election and no Spring Conference this has been no mean feat. Thanks in particular to Deolinda Eltringham, Evelyn Leslie, Richard Wilson, Francis Sedgemore, George Edgar, Mike Lloyd, Erwin Schaefer, John Street. Each of these contributors has played a key role without which we wouldn’t have been able to finish this task.
The main activities this year have been
We have also been pleased to contribute to consultations from other policy working groups with regard to their motions.
Now that our Voting Paper is complete, the group is considering our next moves. Despite the apparent consensus of the political establishment that you should never mention Brexit – a consensus that includes the pro-EU Liberal Democrats – it is clear to everyone that the hard Brexit that Boris Johnson’s government inflicted on this country has inflicted massive damage, causing annual deficits that will persist year on year, dwarfing any of the “black holes” left by Truss and Sunak’s incompetent domestic policies. The new Labour government is in denial, refusing to consider Single Market and/or Customs Union membership; the Liberal Democrats have declared a ‘Brexit truce’ in order to woo Tory voters in the English Home Counties. The Green Party has a unique role (along with the SNP and Plaid Cymru) in putting forward an honest, and explicit, rejoin policy and talking about the ways in which our isolation hinders us from bringing a greener agenda to bear across the whole continent. .
For the Europe PWG, a key question is how to respond to the Labour government’s desire to “reset” our relationship with the EU. We support measures such as a phytosanitary agreement and a youth mobility scheme because they are good in themselves, and will facilitate the process of rejoining, and we need to press this argument in Parliament and in the Press. There is a risk that Keir Starmer’s “reset” might delay the plans for rejoining.
Our credibility and public profile as a party requires that we turn our developed Europe policy into strong and attractive political arguments that our parliamentary representatives can put forward in parliament and in the wider public debate. The EuPWG is hoping to play a key role in this, through providing our MPs and spokespeople with a source of expertise, offering facts, figures and contextual backup to the party’s detailed policy on Europe.
The EuPWG will also be taking a deeper look at other chapters in the PSS where policies would be enhanced if we mentioned what can be gained by restoring access to the rights, regulations and opportunities that come with EU membership and other kinds of closer relations with Europe. We shall be working with respective policy groups as appropriate
Last updated on 2024-11-02 at 12:44