There is little surprise that the Italian people are increasingly fed up with EU membership. Italy has struggled since adopting the euro currency 18 years ago.
Deprived of the ability to manage its own economy, there has been no cumulative economic growth since then.
In recent years, Brussels has imposed unelected technocrats to run the Rome government with savagely austere economic policies.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs.
PETER OBORNE: The chilling perils of the EU’s latest bid to kill democracy
By Peter Oborne For The Daily Mail
2 June 2018
Of course they were much too Machiavellian to admit it at the time. But when the architects of what is now the European Union set out their vision, they wanted a superstate that smashed down national borders, which removed countries’ own sovereignty and which rode roughshod over democracy.
Indeed, these founding fathers explicitly wrote the objective of ‘ever closer union’ among the peoples of Europe into the 1957 Treaty of Rome.
Aware of the huge threat this posed, far-sighted British political leaders at the time, such as Labour’s Clement Attlee and Hugh Gaitskell, warned that national independence was incompatible with what was then called the European Economic Community.
Another man to realise that if Britain joined, this country would no longer be master of its own destiny and would lose the power to make its laws and control its own borders was the great historian AJP Taylor.
Historian AJP Taylor, whose brilliant TV lectures are currently being re-shown on the BBC Parliament channel, stated that the ultimate aim was political union run by an arrogant elite
As the author of books such as The Origins Of The Second World War, he could legitimately claim to have more knowledge than anyone else about European history and of Britain’s relationship with the Continent, and thus he warned as strongly as he could against the UK’s membership.
Taylor, whose brilliant TV lectures are currently being re-shown on the BBC Parliament channel, stated that the ultimate aim was political union run by an arrogant elite whom he called, with heavy irony, ‘top people’.
Above all, he said that Britain had been ‘most secure when we kept out of Europe’, adding that ‘meddling with European affairs has brought us nothing but toil and suffering.’ Predictably, our defeatist political Establishment failed to heed his wise words.
Not long after, in 1972, Edward Heath, the Conservative Prime Minister, set about negotiating Britain’s membership of the Common Market.
To win voters to his cause, he cynically misled the British people — telling them that this was only a free trade deal and we would not be giving away our national sovereignty.
In 1972, Edward Heath, the Conservative Prime Minister, set about negotiating Britain’s membership of the Common Market
He shamefully ignored the fact that it is in the DNA of the Brussels elite to destroy democracy of the kind that Britain has enjoyed for centuries and which it has spread across the world.
More important to these unelected panjandrums was the desire to yoke France and Germany together in a union so as to prevent a third world war after two terrible conflicts that desolated the European continent in the last century. Admittedly, that was a noble cause but it meant the ruthless creation of a European superstate.
It is no wonder that other countries rebelled against this challenge to their own sovereignty and sense of nationhood.
At the ballot box, the Danes (in 1992) rejected an extension of Brussels’ powers in the Maastricht Treaty, and the Irish followed suit in a referendum over the Lisbon Treaty in 2008.
Likewise, when crisis-hit Greece tried to assert its independence from the EU’s economic policy five years ago, the bully-boys at the European Central Bank and in Brussels, backed by German bankers, mercilessly put a stop to the Greek mutiny. The consequences for Greek democracy — and the country’s economy — have been devastating.
The latest manifestation of this battle of wills between an authoritarian Brussels and individual nations trying to uphold democracy came this week with a set of extraordinary events in Italy.After national elections in March, Italian voters committed themselves to what to the EU elite is the ultimate heresy. They voted in their millions for politicians who said they were prepared to abandon the European single currency.
The result was that two populist parties, the League and the Five Star Movement, came together to try to form a government.
There is little surprise that the Italian people are increasingly fed up with EU membership. Italy has struggled since adopting the euro currency 18 years ago.
Deprived of the ability to manage its own economy, there has been no cumulative economic growth since then.
In recent years, Brussels has imposed unelected technocrats to run the Rome government with savagely austere economic policies.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs.
Seemingly blind to this human suffering and to this upsurge in democratic sentiment, Brussels officials vented their spleen against the Italian people.
Most outrageously, European commissioner Guenther Oettinger said the crisis would teach Italians not to vote for ‘populist’ parties next time.
Without a shred of evidence and in a manner akin to those behind Project Fear in the run-up to the EU referendum in the UK, he said menacingly that the financial markets would punish Italy and that votes for anti-EU candidates risked destroying the Italian economy.
In other words, if Italians do not vote the ‘right’ way the next time they go to the polls, they will be punished.
Italy (above, new Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte) is likely be the next country to leave the EU
This from a man whose main claim to fame is having been the leader of the Christian Democratic Union in the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg.
What we are witnessing, I fear, is a looming tragedy. If Italy stays within the EU’s economic straitjacket, it faces more years tied to a broken system which has given it two decades of economic stagnation with one out of every three youths jobless.
Alternatively, if the Italians have the courage to back politicians who will pull their country out of the euro, I believe their economy will recover.
Italy is not alone in defending democracy against the Brussels despots.
In Eastern European countries, voters are in revolt against the EU on the issue of open borders and consequent mass immigration.
In Spain, too, the malign anti-democratic influence of Brussels is being felt.
Last year, during Catalonia’s independence vote, as the Madrid government panicked, state troopers were sent in and beat up pensioners, plastic bullets were fired at crowds and ballot boxes were torn from polling stations.
Last year, during Catalonia’s independence vote, state troopers were sent in and beat up pensioners, plastic bullets were fired and ballot boxes were torn from polling stations
And what was Brussels’ response to this brazen assault on the most fundamental human right of people to vote?
The European Commission said the Spanish government’s ‘proportionate use of force’ was necessary to uphold the rule of law.
What about the principle of democracy?
It seems that to Brussels, democracy is a dirty word.
For these unelected and unaccountable nabobs, democracy can be replaced with rule by bankers, bureaucrats and technocrats.
All this is an awful paradox, which I identified in this column last week.
The European Union was set up to promote peace and harmony across a continent that had been ravaged by two wars in which around 70 million people died.
But in a dark irony, it is now creating precisely the opposite result.
It is no exaggeration to say that Europe is riven by more hatreds, divisions and conflicts than at any time since 1945 — and they are threatening to tear the continent apart.
How tragic if the vision of the EU’s founders, who wanted to prevent another terrible war, were responsible for the collapse of parliamentary democracy.
And we all know what happened the last time that occurred, in the 1930s: voters turned to paramilitary bullies and nationalist dictators.
Deprived of the ability to manage its own economy, there has been no cumulative economic growth since then.
In recent years, Brussels has imposed unelected technocrats to run the Rome government with savagely austere economic policies.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs.
PETER OBORNE: The chilling perils of the EU’s latest bid to kill democracy
By Peter Oborne For The Daily Mail
2 June 2018
Of course they were much too Machiavellian to admit it at the time. But when the architects of what is now the European Union set out their vision, they wanted a superstate that smashed down national borders, which removed countries’ own sovereignty and which rode roughshod over democracy.
Indeed, these founding fathers explicitly wrote the objective of ‘ever closer union’ among the peoples of Europe into the 1957 Treaty of Rome.
Aware of the huge threat this posed, far-sighted British political leaders at the time, such as Labour’s Clement Attlee and Hugh Gaitskell, warned that national independence was incompatible with what was then called the European Economic Community.
Another man to realise that if Britain joined, this country would no longer be master of its own destiny and would lose the power to make its laws and control its own borders was the great historian AJP Taylor.
Historian AJP Taylor, whose brilliant TV lectures are currently being re-shown on the BBC Parliament channel, stated that the ultimate aim was political union run by an arrogant elite
As the author of books such as The Origins Of The Second World War, he could legitimately claim to have more knowledge than anyone else about European history and of Britain’s relationship with the Continent, and thus he warned as strongly as he could against the UK’s membership.
Taylor, whose brilliant TV lectures are currently being re-shown on the BBC Parliament channel, stated that the ultimate aim was political union run by an arrogant elite whom he called, with heavy irony, ‘top people’.
Above all, he said that Britain had been ‘most secure when we kept out of Europe’, adding that ‘meddling with European affairs has brought us nothing but toil and suffering.’ Predictably, our defeatist political Establishment failed to heed his wise words.
Not long after, in 1972, Edward Heath, the Conservative Prime Minister, set about negotiating Britain’s membership of the Common Market.
To win voters to his cause, he cynically misled the British people — telling them that this was only a free trade deal and we would not be giving away our national sovereignty.
In 1972, Edward Heath, the Conservative Prime Minister, set about negotiating Britain’s membership of the Common Market
He shamefully ignored the fact that it is in the DNA of the Brussels elite to destroy democracy of the kind that Britain has enjoyed for centuries and which it has spread across the world.
More important to these unelected panjandrums was the desire to yoke France and Germany together in a union so as to prevent a third world war after two terrible conflicts that desolated the European continent in the last century. Admittedly, that was a noble cause but it meant the ruthless creation of a European superstate.
It is no wonder that other countries rebelled against this challenge to their own sovereignty and sense of nationhood.
At the ballot box, the Danes (in 1992) rejected an extension of Brussels’ powers in the Maastricht Treaty, and the Irish followed suit in a referendum over the Lisbon Treaty in 2008.
Likewise, when crisis-hit Greece tried to assert its independence from the EU’s economic policy five years ago, the bully-boys at the European Central Bank and in Brussels, backed by German bankers, mercilessly put a stop to the Greek mutiny. The consequences for Greek democracy — and the country’s economy — have been devastating.
The latest manifestation of this battle of wills between an authoritarian Brussels and individual nations trying to uphold democracy came this week with a set of extraordinary events in Italy.After national elections in March, Italian voters committed themselves to what to the EU elite is the ultimate heresy. They voted in their millions for politicians who said they were prepared to abandon the European single currency.
The result was that two populist parties, the League and the Five Star Movement, came together to try to form a government.
There is little surprise that the Italian people are increasingly fed up with EU membership. Italy has struggled since adopting the euro currency 18 years ago.
Deprived of the ability to manage its own economy, there has been no cumulative economic growth since then.
In recent years, Brussels has imposed unelected technocrats to run the Rome government with savagely austere economic policies.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs.
Seemingly blind to this human suffering and to this upsurge in democratic sentiment, Brussels officials vented their spleen against the Italian people.
Most outrageously, European commissioner Guenther Oettinger said the crisis would teach Italians not to vote for ‘populist’ parties next time.
Without a shred of evidence and in a manner akin to those behind Project Fear in the run-up to the EU referendum in the UK, he said menacingly that the financial markets would punish Italy and that votes for anti-EU candidates risked destroying the Italian economy.
In other words, if Italians do not vote the ‘right’ way the next time they go to the polls, they will be punished.
Italy (above, new Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte) is likely be the next country to leave the EU
This from a man whose main claim to fame is having been the leader of the Christian Democratic Union in the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg.
What we are witnessing, I fear, is a looming tragedy. If Italy stays within the EU’s economic straitjacket, it faces more years tied to a broken system which has given it two decades of economic stagnation with one out of every three youths jobless.
Alternatively, if the Italians have the courage to back politicians who will pull their country out of the euro, I believe their economy will recover.
Italy is not alone in defending democracy against the Brussels despots.
In Eastern European countries, voters are in revolt against the EU on the issue of open borders and consequent mass immigration.
In Spain, too, the malign anti-democratic influence of Brussels is being felt.
Last year, during Catalonia’s independence vote, as the Madrid government panicked, state troopers were sent in and beat up pensioners, plastic bullets were fired at crowds and ballot boxes were torn from polling stations.
Last year, during Catalonia’s independence vote, state troopers were sent in and beat up pensioners, plastic bullets were fired and ballot boxes were torn from polling stations
And what was Brussels’ response to this brazen assault on the most fundamental human right of people to vote?
The European Commission said the Spanish government’s ‘proportionate use of force’ was necessary to uphold the rule of law.
What about the principle of democracy?
It seems that to Brussels, democracy is a dirty word.
For these unelected and unaccountable nabobs, democracy can be replaced with rule by bankers, bureaucrats and technocrats.
All this is an awful paradox, which I identified in this column last week.
The European Union was set up to promote peace and harmony across a continent that had been ravaged by two wars in which around 70 million people died.
But in a dark irony, it is now creating precisely the opposite result.
It is no exaggeration to say that Europe is riven by more hatreds, divisions and conflicts than at any time since 1945 — and they are threatening to tear the continent apart.
How tragic if the vision of the EU’s founders, who wanted to prevent another terrible war, were responsible for the collapse of parliamentary democracy.
And we all know what happened the last time that occurred, in the 1930s: voters turned to paramilitary bullies and nationalist dictators.
Read more: PETER OBORNE: The chilling perils of the EU
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