Identity politics is ‘sowing seeds of European destruction’
The Single Marketplace is under risk as a ‘very destructive process’ is underway in Europe, warns Business Secretary Vince Cable 
Europe’s lurch in the direction of extremism risks triggering a wave of draconian restrictions that could ruin the Single Market, Vince Cable has warned.
The Company Secretary mentioned the rise of “politics of identity” in Europe was sowing the seeds of a “very destructive process”.
Speaking at a conference on Worldwide Trade at Chatham Property, London, Mr Cable stated that the anti-globalisation views espoused by the leader of the French nationalist celebration, Marine Le Pen, have been “highly influential” and “corrosive”.
“One can see a method taking hold in Europe the place there are measures to restrict cost-free motion of labour to handle parts of the single market place,” mentioned Mr Cable.
“[This] helps make it not possible to make progress on liberalisation of companies simply because services is about men and women moving.
“Parties on the Left very fairly say, ‘Well if we are going to restrict the freedom of movement of labour we need to also restrict the freedom of motion of capital’.
“Many of the underpinnings of the single market get started to erode and one particular can see a comparable sort of factor starting to occur globally. One particular can see the seeds of a very destructive procedure except if it is stopped.”
Mr Cable spoke of the emergence of “politics of identity” in Europe, whereby “the previous left-proper dialectic gets more and more much less important”.
He explained that European politics is turning out to be more and more polarised “between people who have an outward searching, open approach to society and economics and individuals with a closed, inward searching approach”.
Mr Cable mentioned it would be “very dangerous” to bypass the emerging economies, specifically China, when creating worldwide trade agreements.
“It is fairly easy for western nations, which have typically dominated trade negotiations, to feel of these as rather awkward characters to deal with they are not component of the outdated club,” he mentioned.
“My evaluation is that the Chinese in specific are really keen to be element of the procedure, but it will be carried out at least in component on their terms.”
While the UK’s economic recovery has been “generally a very good story”, Mr Cable mentioned that “the a single thing that is not happening but is the shift of exports and rebalancing the economy”.
The most current trade figures showed that the UK’s deficit is at its widest in five months , indicating that the economic system is nonetheless struggling to rebalance in direction of exports.
Mr Cable explained that in order to “shift the point of view of large numbers of modest and medium sized businesses so that they export in the way that they do in Germany”, they will need to have to have “self-confidence that the globe trade program is open.”
Lord Mandelson, who also produced a key note deal with at the conference, spoke about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a proposed totally free trade agreement among the EU and the United States.
“Downing Street might be a tad unrealistic about what TTIP can provide in the quick term but the bigger political point is that Britain, our country, would not even be portion of TTIP if it was not in the EU,” he explained.
The former European Commissioner for Trade extra that the “attraction for Washington” is “to negotiate not merely with the relatively little British market” but with the rest of the EU.
“And that of course is not an argument for the UK’s membership of the EU by itself, but it should remind us of a basic strategic actuality,” he said.
“From a international point of view there are no massive European states, only reasonably little ones.”
Final year the former head of the Planet Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy, explained that the United kingdom would be ‘shooting itself in the foot’ if it left the EU.
Other speakers at the conference, entitled “Global Trade: A Trade Program for the 21st Century”, incorporated Anthony Gardner, US Ambassador to the EU, and Ignacio Garcia Bercero, EU chief negotiator for TTIP.