Why it's important that the British people vote to leave the EU in the in/out referendum (whenever it is to be held), despite the attempts of the pro-EU British Establishment to rig it.....
Britain staying in Europe looks more and more absurd
Greece will inevitably leave the Eurozone, and the EU commissars will continue with their project. But that project is doomed - as the fall of the USSR predicted
Martin Schulz, the EU Parliament's president, admitted last Friday that most members of the public view MEPs as 'superfluous, useless human beings' Photo: GETTY IMAGES
By Simon Heffer
21 Jun 2015
The Telegraph
2528 Comments
One of the ironies lacing our politics is that just as we witness one of the great inevitable catastrophes of the Soviet-style push to a European superstate – the implosion of Greece – so various foreigners beg and bully Britain not to leave the European Union. Have they, I am driven to ask, not eyes to see and ears to hear?
It little matters, at the latest emergency summit tomorrow, whether Greece is booted out of the euro, or whether an entirely bogus arrangement is reached to “save” the country for the Great European Project.
In the end, it will go bust. In the end, it will shatter the fantasy of a unified European superstate, with one currency, one economic culture and one economic policy.
You can’t, as some of us have been trying to tell the EU for the last 30 years, buck the markets. And the markets have made their decision about the wisdom of trying to link a basket-case economy such as Greece’s to that of Germany.
As the Greek banks are emptied of hard cash, as Greece’s creditors clench all that can be clenched in expectation of ruin, and as our economically illiterate masters in Brussels flail about in their desperate desire to prevent a public relations catastrophe (too late, by the way), where does this leave Britain?
Our Prime Minister was amidst the deaf in Europe last week, pretending to negotiate with people who refuse to listen to him. A typical response was that of the nonentity Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, who hectored him about the “hate”, “downright lies” and “national resentment” that he claimed informed the British debate about the EU.
Herr Schulz grew up in West Germany, but seems fluent in the methods of the Stasi. I doubt his outburst has swayed many preparing to vote in the referendum, other than in a direction he would not want.
Herr Schulz’s main beef is that we wish to restrict free movement of people: he hints at our hostility, if not racism, towards Bulgarians and Romanians.
As I noted here last week, the thing most British people seem to want from a “renegotiation” is the right to control our borders: and it will not be granted.
On Thursday three highly distinguished Tory MPs – John Redwood, Bernard Jenkin and Sir Bill Cash, who all have a long record of illustrating the fallacies inherent in the EU – published a pamphlet outlining what Britain needs from a renegotiation. They said that if the basic demands were not met – and the most fundamental of these is reversing the federalist principle on which the present treaties are based in order to restore constitutional autonomy – we would have to contemplate leaving.
How much more Schulzian abuse, obstruction and insult is the Prime Minister willing to take before he makes the same point as his three eminently sensible backbench colleagues? If he thinks (or if the Foreign Office tells him) that his present tactics will pay dividends, then he is mistaken.
If one negotiates, one needs a negotiating position, and I am not sure Britain yet has one – officially. Sir Bill and Messrs Jenkin and Redwood have very helpfully set one out. It is a policy anchored in reality rather than in the woolly, rather fantastic pretences that underline the approach at the moment. I suspect it is because the Government knows what a non-deal it is going to get from Europe that the terms of the referendum are being rigged so much as they are – not least the refusal to impose a period of purdah on official institutions before the vote.
The BBC is also, I regret to say, showing its hand, lining up big European players on its news programmes to share with the public their entirely unlikely apocalyptic visions for a post-EU Britain.
This week it was Bertie Ahern, the former Irish prime minister, who warned of the “hugely negative” effect on Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK if it left the EU. Mr Ahern, who was criticised by two official tribunals after he left office for accepting questionable payments (blots on his integrity and standing not mentioned in his BBC interview), clearly identifies with the baroque culture of the EU.
And much as I like Ireland and the Irish, I am afraid they forfeited their right to have an opinion on our politics when they quite legitimately chose to secede from the UK and form the Free State in 1922.
Britain has an enviable record of standing up to bullies, especially from Europe. Contrast this with Éamon de Valera, founder of Mr Ahern’s Fianna Fàil party and Ireland's second prime minister, whose reaction to Hitler’s death was to go to the German Embassy in Dublin to sign a book of condolence.
Mr Cameron’s apparent wish to keep Britain in the EU at any cost may yet be undermined by the failure of those he regards as his negotiating partners to offer him any crumbs from their table. It is, I think, more likely to be thwarted by the growing anger of the majority in this country being told what they are supposed to think and do by self-interested grandees from foreign powers.
Faced with a united front of European bureaucrats, the front benches of the main parties and, of course, the hectoring of the Scottish National Party about the importance of submitting ourselves to decades more of sovereignty-free, incompetent and corrupt European rule, I suspect the people of England, at least, will show they have minds of their own.
The Soviet Union, on which in structural and strategic terms the EU so closely models itself, lasted just over 70 years. The EU started in 1950, and I suspect it won’t last much longer. Greece’s debacle will be sobering, but not, I fear, sobering enough to persuade the obstinate neo-Soviet federalists of Brussels that they should rethink their entire purpose, and become a group of free-trading, independent nations of the Cash-Redwood-Jenkins vision.
However, Greece will not be the last catastrophe, for the crisis it is triggering will destabilise much of the Continent, and cause tens of millions to question the European project.
And, when that happens, we shall show we are more than just good at standing up to bullies, but also – however rigged the referendum – good at doing what is truly best for Britain.
simon.heffer@telegraph.co.uk
Britain staying in Europe looks more and more absurd - Telegraph
Britain staying in Europe looks more and more absurd
Greece will inevitably leave the Eurozone, and the EU commissars will continue with their project. But that project is doomed - as the fall of the USSR predicted
Martin Schulz, the EU Parliament's president, admitted last Friday that most members of the public view MEPs as 'superfluous, useless human beings' Photo: GETTY IMAGES
By Simon Heffer
21 Jun 2015
The Telegraph
One of the ironies lacing our politics is that just as we witness one of the great inevitable catastrophes of the Soviet-style push to a European superstate – the implosion of Greece – so various foreigners beg and bully Britain not to leave the European Union. Have they, I am driven to ask, not eyes to see and ears to hear?
It little matters, at the latest emergency summit tomorrow, whether Greece is booted out of the euro, or whether an entirely bogus arrangement is reached to “save” the country for the Great European Project.
In the end, it will go bust. In the end, it will shatter the fantasy of a unified European superstate, with one currency, one economic culture and one economic policy.
You can’t, as some of us have been trying to tell the EU for the last 30 years, buck the markets. And the markets have made their decision about the wisdom of trying to link a basket-case economy such as Greece’s to that of Germany.
As the Greek banks are emptied of hard cash, as Greece’s creditors clench all that can be clenched in expectation of ruin, and as our economically illiterate masters in Brussels flail about in their desperate desire to prevent a public relations catastrophe (too late, by the way), where does this leave Britain?
Our Prime Minister was amidst the deaf in Europe last week, pretending to negotiate with people who refuse to listen to him. A typical response was that of the nonentity Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, who hectored him about the “hate”, “downright lies” and “national resentment” that he claimed informed the British debate about the EU.
Herr Schulz grew up in West Germany, but seems fluent in the methods of the Stasi. I doubt his outburst has swayed many preparing to vote in the referendum, other than in a direction he would not want.
Herr Schulz’s main beef is that we wish to restrict free movement of people: he hints at our hostility, if not racism, towards Bulgarians and Romanians.
As I noted here last week, the thing most British people seem to want from a “renegotiation” is the right to control our borders: and it will not be granted.
On Thursday three highly distinguished Tory MPs – John Redwood, Bernard Jenkin and Sir Bill Cash, who all have a long record of illustrating the fallacies inherent in the EU – published a pamphlet outlining what Britain needs from a renegotiation. They said that if the basic demands were not met – and the most fundamental of these is reversing the federalist principle on which the present treaties are based in order to restore constitutional autonomy – we would have to contemplate leaving.
How much more Schulzian abuse, obstruction and insult is the Prime Minister willing to take before he makes the same point as his three eminently sensible backbench colleagues? If he thinks (or if the Foreign Office tells him) that his present tactics will pay dividends, then he is mistaken.
If one negotiates, one needs a negotiating position, and I am not sure Britain yet has one – officially. Sir Bill and Messrs Jenkin and Redwood have very helpfully set one out. It is a policy anchored in reality rather than in the woolly, rather fantastic pretences that underline the approach at the moment. I suspect it is because the Government knows what a non-deal it is going to get from Europe that the terms of the referendum are being rigged so much as they are – not least the refusal to impose a period of purdah on official institutions before the vote.
The BBC is also, I regret to say, showing its hand, lining up big European players on its news programmes to share with the public their entirely unlikely apocalyptic visions for a post-EU Britain.
This week it was Bertie Ahern, the former Irish prime minister, who warned of the “hugely negative” effect on Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK if it left the EU. Mr Ahern, who was criticised by two official tribunals after he left office for accepting questionable payments (blots on his integrity and standing not mentioned in his BBC interview), clearly identifies with the baroque culture of the EU.
And much as I like Ireland and the Irish, I am afraid they forfeited their right to have an opinion on our politics when they quite legitimately chose to secede from the UK and form the Free State in 1922.
Britain has an enviable record of standing up to bullies, especially from Europe. Contrast this with Éamon de Valera, founder of Mr Ahern’s Fianna Fàil party and Ireland's second prime minister, whose reaction to Hitler’s death was to go to the German Embassy in Dublin to sign a book of condolence.
Mr Cameron’s apparent wish to keep Britain in the EU at any cost may yet be undermined by the failure of those he regards as his negotiating partners to offer him any crumbs from their table. It is, I think, more likely to be thwarted by the growing anger of the majority in this country being told what they are supposed to think and do by self-interested grandees from foreign powers.
Faced with a united front of European bureaucrats, the front benches of the main parties and, of course, the hectoring of the Scottish National Party about the importance of submitting ourselves to decades more of sovereignty-free, incompetent and corrupt European rule, I suspect the people of England, at least, will show they have minds of their own.
The Soviet Union, on which in structural and strategic terms the EU so closely models itself, lasted just over 70 years. The EU started in 1950, and I suspect it won’t last much longer. Greece’s debacle will be sobering, but not, I fear, sobering enough to persuade the obstinate neo-Soviet federalists of Brussels that they should rethink their entire purpose, and become a group of free-trading, independent nations of the Cash-Redwood-Jenkins vision.
However, Greece will not be the last catastrophe, for the crisis it is triggering will destabilise much of the Continent, and cause tens of millions to question the European project.
And, when that happens, we shall show we are more than just good at standing up to bullies, but also – however rigged the referendum – good at doing what is truly best for Britain.
simon.heffer@telegraph.co.uk
Britain staying in Europe looks more and more absurd - Telegraph
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