No courage in British Labour.

If you'll excuse me I am going to talk a little bit about something else today. I was considering putting a little remark about Felipe Gonzalez, former Socialist President of Spain from 1982 to 1996, being selected by EU leaders as the chair of a group of European experts to look into the long term future of the Union. But then reading the British press I found attacks on Prime Minister Gordon Brown by the Conservative shadow Europe minister, Mark Francois, for 'opening a pandora's box with the election of an old Spanish socialist' to lead this group.

As it has become the common norm in the British Labour Party, besides within its group of very courageous MEPs, they didn't respond to the attack. So I have decided to, modestly, do it for them.

If Mark Francois would honour his title by knowing a little bit about European politics he would realise that Felipe Gonzalez isn't an old socialist by any means. In 1979 during the 28th PSOE National Congress Felipe Gonzalez defended the removal of any mention to Marxism in the party's Constitution, similar to Blair's removal of Labour's clause 4. He famously gave an ultimatum, 'Marxism or me', and after the party voted against his proposal resigned as leader. Later in the year the party decide to scrap the clause on Marxism and Gonzalez came back as leader. Furthermore, he undertook structural reforms in several industries that modernised the Spanish economy, without the disastrous consequences of Thatcherite reforms. He also took on the trade unions when he had to and got Spain into NATO. So Mark Francois should really think twice about making such innacurate statements if he's hoping to be taken seriously at any point in his career.

But going back to the title of this entry, the British Labour Party has no courage when it comes to its European policy. Why are they letting themselves been attacked continously on EU policy? Why are they not saying what they expect from Europe and what they can contribute to it? Political leadership is about shaping people's perception on issues when one believes he's right. Labour is the pro-European party in Britain and should be saying so out loud. Where are the high-profile rebuttal of innacurate information by the Tories, UKip and the right-wing press? Britain is by far the most Euro-sceptical country in the EU and when the Labour party stops defending the benefits Britain has got from Europe the fight gets tougher and tougher. Brown cannot be late for a signing and cannot play down the issue, he should be proud of what he has accomplished and explain how Britain is going to benefit. How British people want more transparency in Europe and that's what the Lisbon Treaty does. How a common market is free market and how many British enjoy welfare benefits on holidays in Portugal, Spain or France because of the EU. Etc, etc, etc. Labour thinks they can avoid Europe and be ok, but every time Europe comes up in the politica agenda they will be attacked and at some point they might want to bang their fist on the table and speak the truth to Eurosceptic right-wingers. Internationalism is left-wing and Socialist parties in Europe are friends no foes of Labour and they should start acknowledging that.
There was a time Labour was seeing unelectable because of being loony lefties and Blair changed that. It is time Brown stops apologising for being in the EU and starts to change British attitudes towards it, for the sake of Britain, Europe and the British Labour party.