Wednesday 26th March: Clegg v Farage TV Debate (Round One)

[The Don]

Again, the House of Commons library cannot be taken as truth due to the fact that as Ryan and myself have pointed out - a lot of EU legislation isn't direct and is adopted within domestic law, in local law and in devolved law. MPs from both sides put it at around the 50% figure (see video of Frank Field Labour MP), Viviane Reding the Vice EU Commissioner puts it at 70% odd from my recollection, the former German President conducted a study which put it at 85% odd from which Ukip have reduced the figure to 75% taking into account Euro legislation and so on and so forth. Apparently David Cameron himself has said in the past that "almost half" of regulation law comes from the EU - and that's huge when you take into account the extent of the Single Market and what it affects when passing legislation.

But whether it's 5%, 10%, 50% or 75% that's not even the point. The point is the supremacy of EU civil-styled law over our parliamentary sovereignty and the replacement of our precious common law. I have to say that one of the best moments in this debate tonight was how Farage defended English Liberty and Common Law which is something that you never hear anybody speak of these days. Reminded me very much of Ron Paul and rather fitting considering it's the 800th birthday of the Magna Carta next year.

Why do you seem to have a problem with referencing your claims. I can write things but they are absolutely meaningless without sources to back it up. The 75% number is important because if it's not true then Farage is lying about it, and it's also a point UKIP uses quite frequently to support leaving the EU.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Two posts from the Telegraph on this with link.......

7%?

I would suggest that Nick Clegg is quoting from this study that states that the EU accounts for 6.8 % of primary legislation and 14.1% of secondary legislation.

www.parliament.uk/briefing-pap...

It then goes on to state the following:

"Problems with the calculation

These figures are indicative of the impact of EU legislation on
national law-making but they are not the full story. For example, they
do not take account of EU “soft law” or the overwhelming majority of EU
regulations, which can be several times the number of directives (see
tables on page 12), and which are usually adopted in the Member States
by measures other than laws."

As Daniel Hannan has pointed out, the same report (after page 22) talks about between 22 and 50%. So Farage was too high and Clegg too low, oddly by around the same amount.

I'm inclined to believe the 50% claim although it appears to depend on the extent of domestic legislation within a year.

Why do you seem to have a problem with referencing your claims. I can write things but they are absolutely meaningless without sources to back it up. The 75% number is important because if it's not true then Farage is lying about it, and it's also a point UKIP uses quite frequently to support leaving the EU.

Then ask Ukip to back up their claims and not me. The same goes for Clegg and the Liberal Democrats.

I'm going by what the Vice Commissioner said, the former German President, David Cameron and the report above.

But either way, the extent of law isn't my prime concern. The concern for me is that we can no longer control our borders, our agricultural policy, our fisheries, our energy and increasingly our foreign policy because of our membership of the EU. If a government is elected for example to controi immigration, how can it do so whilst we remain in the EU with open borders to 400m+ people? It can't.

[GommeInc]

I'm inclined to believe the 50% claim although it appears to depend on the extent of domestic legislation within a year.

Indeed, which is another problem. When is it decided? During the drafting process, when it goes through Parliament or when it is enacted? The Prisoners Votes law will never be passed but just sits drafted - no Government had tackled it yet.

[The Don]

http://www.jcm.org.uk/blog/2009/06/w...e-from-the-eu/
That sort of explains it. It depends what you consider as EU law as there are different types and nothing concrete. Pure EU law is probably 7%, but different contributing sources definitely raise this.

"We contacted Ms Reding’s press office to find out what source she was basing this on. In fact, the percentage was actually referring to something entirely different – where the European Parliament (consisting of elected representatives for each EU country) has an equal say to the European Council (made up of the governments of all EU countries) on EU laws, not UK laws."

So the 75% number comes from how much EU legislation the EU Parliament has a say in, compared to the EU Council. Which other contributing sources definitely raise this 15% number? This is all very wishy-washy with these numbers, but it's safe to assume it's far lower than Farage's 75% claim.

[Chippiewill]

To be honest, I think the exact figure is irrelevant, Westminster could be churning out a bunch of meaningless legislation (like naming post offices.. *stares at the US*) driving the figure way down, or it could be pushing out few key pieces of legislation that make big changes (like putting tuition fees up). There's no point adding up apples and oranges together in the same statistic, it just confuses people. Really both parties are at fault for making the debate about something so meaningless.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Indeed, which is another problem. When is it decided? During the drafting process, when it goes through Parliament or when it is enacted? The Prisoners Votes law will never be passed but just sits drafted - no Government had tackled it yet.

Indeed, it's very complex. And then there's the issue on how existing EU mandated law is affecting new law being made which I would also count as indirect EU law.

"We contacted Ms Reding’s press office to find out what source she was basing this on. In fact, the percentage was actually referring to something entirely different – where the European Parliament (consisting of elected representatives for each EU country) has an equal say to the European Council (made up of the governments of all EU countries) on EU laws, not UK laws."

So the 75% number comes from how much EU legislation the EU Parliament has a say in, compared to the EU Council. Which other contributing sources definitely raise this 15% number? This is all very wishy-washy with these numbers, but it's safe to assume it's far lower than Farage's 75% claim.

Well she would say that wouldn't she? It's like how another chap from the EU said something similar and then went back on it.

I don't actually have much idea as I don't deal with law - but as I stated above, i'm inclined to believe the 50% figure give or take 15% each year rather than 7% or 75%.

My two friends who also do Law tell me that the extent of EU law is massive.

[GommeInc]

To be honest, I think the exact figure is irrelevant, Westminster could be churning out a bunch of meaningless legislation (like naming post offices.. *stares at the US*) driving the figure way down, or it could be pushing out few key pieces of legislation that make big changes (like putting tuition fees up). There's no point adding up apples and oranges together in the same statistic, it just confuses people. Really both parties are at fault for making the debate about something so meaningless.

It's sort of useful but they need to proportion it better. 75% is too high and 7% is too low - plus weighing up what is considered key legislation. The only one that is of interest for this year is the Consumer Rights Bill, which is based on a Directive from a few years ago plus our common and domestic law (common law being case-law or "judge based law").

[The Don]

To be honest, I think the exact figure is irrelevant, Westminster could be churning out a bunch of meaningless legislation (like naming post offices.. *stares at the US*) driving the figure way down, or it could be pushing out few key pieces of legislation that make big changes (like putting tuition fees up). There's no point adding up apples and oranges together in the same statistic, it just confuses people. Really both parties are at fault for making the debate about something so meaningless.

Most definitely. It just irritates me when people blindly post numbers without sourcing them.
@-:Undertaker:-; Yeh, between 15-50% seems to be about right, although this numbers pointless due to the point which Chippiewill mentioned, where the government could lower the number by making trivial legislation. Either way, be it 15% or 50%, I don't see how it matters in the grand scale of things. I'd much rather have the safety net of being a part of the worlds largest economy and working cooperatively with the rest of Europe rather than isolating ourselves and still having to follow Europe legislation.

[Kardan]

If people are saying between 15%-50% - it's surely completely irrelevant because it's such a large margin? You can't take any meaningful information out of that.

[The Don]

If people are saying between 15%-50% - it's surely completely irrelevant because it's such a large margin? You can't take any meaningful information out of that.

Yeh, Parliament pretty much said this themselves in the report I linked a few posts back. Still a far cry away from the 75% figure Farage loves throwing around.

All measurements have their problems and it is possible to justify any measure between
15% and 50% or thereabouts. To exclude EU regulations from the calculation is likely to
be an under-estimation of the proportion of EU-based national laws (see table on page
20), while to include all EU regulations in the calculation is probably an over-estimation
(see table above). The answer in numerical terms lies somewhere in between the two
approaches. The limitations of data also make it impossible to achieve an accurate
measure. We do not know, for example, how many regulations have direct application in
the UK - olive and tobacco growing regulations are unlikely to have much impact here,
but the UK implements such regulations along with olive and tobacco-growing Member
States.

Page 24 incase anyone is wondering.