VIEWS FROM THE CAPITALS

Autumn 2007

by Ian Kearns

RELATED ARTICLES:

---

Britain’s new prime minister, Gordon Brown, is joining Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and others as a fresh generation of European leaders who will be taking Europe forward at a time when liberal economies are in the ascendant and the future of the European social model is under question. Global environmental challenges present these leaders with another chance to make their mark on the world. For Brown, meanwhile, thorny domestic problems like illegal immigration and the breakdown of British family life won’t go away.

Contrary to popular opinion around continental Europe, Britain under Gordon Brown will not be approaching these subjects from a neo-liberal standpoint; the UK today would be better described as “Anglo-Social”. In these post-Thatcherite days, Britain’s economic framework of open and competitive markets combines with strong public services. These include an active welfare state which is designed to promote the work ethic and hefty public investment to reduce poverty among children and pensioners. Brown himself has long argued that social justice and economic efficiency can and should go hand in hand.

An Anglo-Social viewpoint does create one particular difficulty regarding Europe for progressive British policymakers. The benefits of this model can effectively be delivered by existing national networks; it requires no pan-European social agenda. Critics are therefore free to argue that Britain retains an essentially conservative attitude towards the EU, focused on the completion of the single market and in favour of a “wide, not deep” approach to integration.

To counter this retrograde image, Britain is increasingly promoting Europe as the best player to confront international social and green issues. London nowadays pushes for a tough EU line at global negotiations on climate change, supports increased international aid and wants a world trade deal that benefits the world’s poor rather than Europe’s farmers. All these topics require coordinated European action and collective EU diplomatic clout.

An EU-centred approach to the environmental and global welfare has a knock-on effect for the new prime minister back home. Brown needs to be seen to lead public opinion on green issues, rather than following the crowd. He also needs to match words with action. For instance, Britain is (just) meeting its Kyoto targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but it languishes at the bottom of the European league table for recycling waste. Three-quarters of British rubbish is still incinerated or dumped in landfill sites, well below the 60% recycling rates achieved by Germany and the Netherlands. Even with financial incentives for households and business to increase recycling, Britain is unlikely to reach the 60% target until 2020.

Britain has also led efforts to bring the aviation industry into the EU’s carbon emissions trading system, but still needs to cut pollution from British airlines’ flights. Perhaps global health warnings displayed inside planes − akin to those on cigarette packets − might encourage more Britons to take the Eurostar!

Brown also has to respond to British concerns over another hot topic for debate – immigration from the new members of the enlarged Union. With an estimated half a million illegal migrants currently working in Britain, Brown needs to restore public confidence that the immigration system is still functioning. He could perhaps look to Spain for ideas about how to manage the influx after Madrid successfully offered an amnesty for its illegal migrants. Since it would take Britain about 30 years to deport all its illegal workers at an estimated expense of £4.7bn, an amnesty that could actually raise £1bn in taxation might sound like a good scheme to a cost-conscious prime minister.

Brown could spend then the additional tax revenues on after-school activities for Britain’s troubled teenagers. The UK tops the European tables for teenage drinking, drug-taking, aggressive behaviour, underage and unprotected sex and teenage pregnancies. And, with the longest working hours in Europe, too many British parents are leaving their children in the care of older siblings. Meanwhile, British adults are more likely than any others in Europe to avoid a confrontation with youngsters who are vandalising their neighbourhood or harassing the elderly. Perhaps this will be Brown’s biggest social challenge of all − to try to repair family life so that Britain’s young people learn how to become tomorrow’s responsible citizens.