Laughing at the present/Thinking about the future

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mind over chatter special: ue or not ue?

 

Introduction

We say 'EU', they say 'UE'. Silly point although this may be, from now on it's going to be UE, because that's what Brussels wants. The 'new' Treaty signed amid such glee earlier this week removes our right to say 'no thanks'. Technically, it also means the French can no longer have their 'centimes' dispensation either: as of last Thursday, je suis desole mes amis, but the word is 'cents'.

If this is all it's about, should we really care? To which, I suspect, for all but the maddest Empire loyalist the answer is 'no'. In Friday, the Prime Minister got a roasting from the tabloids, the Sun still flogging the bottle joke to death with 'BOTTLER BROWN IN EURO SELL-OUT'. We already knew where Rupert Murdoch stood on the issue, but the paper's editorial made a more serious point:

'The prime minister surrendered our veto to Brussels in 61 areas of law-making'

Is that true? Probably not, if only because the contemporary exaggeration of statistics is inversely proportional to anyone's willingness to go back and check the numbers. Indeed, the issues surrounding this Lisbon agreement lie beneath layers of obfuscation, carefully secreted in a warren of blind alleys and then buried under the smelliest red herrings a Spanish fisherman could find.

The various shades of opinion are all at it to a greater or lesser extent, but it is hard not to reach the conclusion that the EU, sorry UE, is engaged in truth-burial more than most. The 2004 agreement was many-layered and dull, but parts of the Lisbon accord are impenetrable and open to endless interpretations. I spent most of Friday trying to find one UE website that gave clear facts in either English or French. It probably exists, but the Internet is the best island for burying treasure the world has ever seen.

If everyone simply debates 'sixty-one' laws or fourteen areas or forty-seven virgins for the next three months, the argument will become sterile and evoke even more apathy than exists alreadyin the UK. At least one protagonist seems to want exactly that , so for the purposes of today I wish only to answer five questions - within which ramifications and likelihoods will be set against a background of facts.

Think of it like this: there are those who know this time the trees won't hide the wood. Their answer is an avalanche of facts to bury everything.

All it requires is a few thinking folks to dig down to the woodstore.

1. What does the Lisbon agreement say?

I hope that what follows is simplification rather than simplistic, but here goes:

* The EU becomes a legally recognised State. For those not into national jurisprudence, this means many things, but one above all: our human rights and the the protection of them (or restriction of them) now lie in Brussels. Brown and Miliband are being either specious or naive in suggesting that our exemption from a Human Rights Act is a red line: it's a Maginot Line. The Treaty states quite clearly (for once) that the UE 'reserves the right to protect or restrict rights in its own interests' (My italics). Europol and Eurojust will now outrank any individual country's police force.

* Tax changes and regimes can be created or detroyed by the UE. It can do this without notice, and without appeal from any individual member provided the revisions are the same everywhere. Ten out of ten for fairness on the surface, nought out of ten for individual and national rights. The wording of this section, incidentally,is uncannily close to that of the USA's tax principles on the issue of State versus Federal taxes.

* In the area of what I call 'general' government, the UE takes complete control of transport, energy, agriculture and fishing, social policy, public health and safety legislation. That's a big, long list - and if you think there are still exclusions, keep reading.

* As regards business and finance, the UE now adopts control of all commercial, monetary and competition policy. The only thing this leaves out is wars, the Head of State and foreign affairs.

* Rotating UE Presidents are now at an end: they and Foreign Secretaries will be elected, and there'll be just the one of each.

So in short, as far as I can judge from the agreed content (and no doubt I've made errors here and there) the one thing we can still do on our own is start a war and have our own army to fight it. I for one have not the slightest interest in doing this, and I very much doubt if anyone beyond a few generals does either.

2. Is it different to the Constitution France & Holland turned down?

Let me first of all declare a position here: I couldn't give a toss. Arguing endlessly about what has or hasn't changed is a bit like asking what the difference was in 1938 between the Sudetenland and the rest of Czechoslovakia - it doesn't matter. The thing to grasp was that a madman was making a spurious case to take over somebody else's country. Angea Merkl is no Hitler, but given the Lisbon Agreement allows the UE to take over so much of our daily life in theory, why on earth fret about whether it's 'better' than Mark 1?

I think the Referendum campaigners have fallen into the Brown/Miliband trap here. The issue is simple: we are creating a new, enormous State with more power than the UK - is this entirely wise? Keep the argument that simple, and even the shoe-shoppers will catch on in the end.

Still, for the record, the pro-Treaty Spanish Foreign Minister noted on Friday:

"98% of the old treaty is in the new. The wrapper has changed, but the contents are almost exactly the same".

The day before, Gwyneth Dunwoody (who despite all appearances to the contrary is a nice person) the respected and long-serving Labour chairman of the Commons' transport committee, disagreed and called for a referendum in this "rare" case.

The Labour-dominated Parliamentary committee's findings about the treaty and the constitution will list 440 clauses of the old constitution and demonstrate how similar they are to sections of the new treaty. (440 is roughly all of them)

Statewatch (the anti-Treaty website) records:

'The draft Reform Treaty would repeal or amend every single Article of the 62 Articles of the current Treaty on European Union (TEU) and would make 296 amendments to the 318 Articles of the current Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC).' (Not even the UE disputes these numbers).'

This strikes me as pretty convincing evidence: the 2004 and 2007 drafts are - for all practical purposes - the same....and either way, are introducing hugely far-reaching changes. In 2004, Geoff Hoon said, and I quote:

'If this Treaty is reintroduced, we will have a referendum upon it. That is absolutely the Government's position'.

Last week the Daily Telegraph (and all UK media - apart from The Star, which had gone love-ratting again) noted:

'The Prime Minister insists that the new treaty is substantially different from the old constitution and no longer requires a referendum.'

Gordon Brown is lying, but then this is nothing new. When the Sun pointed out that Brown's broken promise is "an act of betrayal which will haunt the prime minister for the rest of his political days", it was falling prey to highly optimistic wishful thinking. Although he is already the most haunted man in Britain ( it probably began around the age of five) our Greatest Ever Chancellor is mainly spooked by two thoughts: losing power, or not having enough of it. After the catatonic dithering either side of the Conservative Conference, the last thing the PM wants is any kind of electoral challenge.

Thus: the two Treaties are pretty much the same, but it's going to take a lot more than 100,000 Torygraph readers signing a petition to shift the Miliband/Brown pact of steet.

3. Is either version - any version - of a Euro Consitution necessary?

For me, this is part of the debating territory that can remain sovereign for those opposed to the UE as a supra-state.

When the EEC was set up in 1955, the original signatories had no UE-style aspirations at all. But since Britain's entry in 1971, the shift has been (while cumbersome) consistent in its direction: laws, standards and then money across territories has mirrored the clever shift from first EEC to EC then EU....and now UE. Once the money and power being enjoyed - without the tiresome business of elections - had become astronomical among Brussels Eurocrats, it went to their heads even more quickly than it went to their wastelines and wallets.

The politicians involved have many different agendas (Franco-German anti-Americanism, Latin freeloading and former Eastern bloc gift-horse gaping) but the prospect of a bigger canvas is greater than all the others put together. Blair would like to be European Foreign Secretary (at least) and Sarkozy - on his way to God - clearly fancies the Presidency in time.

I make these points as the emotional backcloth to a consideration of what rational positives there might be to any form of far-reaching UE Constitution. Because once the fog clears on this particular issue, there is but a barren landscape to look upon. It may well be where we're all going, but there's no reason for it from the voter's point of view. The 'arguments' run as follows:

i. It will improve trade efficiency. So what about the British, who aren't in the Euro? And we're not told how efficiency is likely to sprout, given that the EU trade commission is hiring more bureaucrats every day, and by its own admission will have to 'gear up' for the newly-powerful UE. This body is effectively run by Peter Mandelson. You have been warned.

ii. It adds a further power bloc to defend us against the other big players. If so, why has defence (of all things) been left off the almost all-encompassing list of UE responsibilities? And what good would such a bloc do, given that in a nuclear world none of Putin, Bush, Ahmadinnejahd and the centagenarians in Beijing will give a monkeys about whether the enemy is called EU or UE or is in one easy-to-hit bit or 27 dithering bits? Having the UE is a good way of Putin rationalising his missile duplication; I fail entirely to see (a) how it would make us militarily invincible or (b) other than the Iranian Mad One, what common enemy we would all have anyway.

Finally, can anyone seriously imagine a 'united' UE in which German soldiers were heading East with all speed, the Italians were running away, the British couldn't get their men through a bankrupt Tunnel because of snow on the lines, and the French and Spanish wanted to be neutral while blaming the Americans for everything? Precisely - which is why the UE has been happy to fudge it - and blame the Brits.

iii. It will help fight crime. Two points here. One, the Euro's introduction and removed tariff barriers have aided crime at all levels; and two, it is the Internet that is key to fighting crime in 2007 - and specifically the task of beating up ISPs and hardware/software/financial stake-holders to stop turning a blind eye to it. The only thing the UE will help is Eurocops to gain more and more sway over our personal liberties. (Even before the Lisbon Treaty was signed, Eurojust - the European Union crime-fighting body - was seeking new powers to freeze property and goods and gain access to British police databases. It now wants to be given powers to issue arrest warrants, seize goods and order prosecutions. A positioning paper leaked to the UK Press shows a favourable attitude to all this: UE justice commissioner Franco Fratinni also favours creating a Euro-prosecutor capable of directing national police to carry out investigations on cross-border crimes).

iv. By having one President and one Foreign policy, the new UE will streamline European government. Haaaaaaaaaaaa....hahahahahahahahahahah.....sorry about that. No politicians or civil servants in the member states are losing their jobs; Brussels' headcount continues to spiral out of control; every decision taken by a future Euro-president will be questioned on the basis of national interest; an elected President will mean yet more costs on running and publicising the election; and we're talking about two blokes here, not a division of the SAS.

While it is true that one President and Foreign Minister will make the current rigmarole marginally less laughable, the acid test would surely be whether either or both could be any more successful at persuading twenty-seven greedy, squabbling members to sign up to stuff. This strikes me as highly unlikely - and without that promise, the establishment of such offices is both pointless and wasteful.

 

The reality is that there is no rationale for a more centrally controlling UE State. There never was: once we got past 'EC' as nomenclature, all the arguments are just so much piffle. They are put forward by a ghastly alliance of failed national politicians, corrupt UE suppliers and bureaucrats, MEPs dining nightly on the gravy train, and contemporary political clowns in search of bigger and bigger stages.

The sole thing a State called the UE (and then who knows one day - UNE?) will give us is all the egos in one basket.

4. Is any European superstate practical (or wise) at present?

Like the majority of people who've done the research and thought about it, I'd offer an emphatic no. This has nothing to with patriotism or hang-ups about nationality: I am for an EC that remains varied, cosmopolitan about world affairs and committed to free trade - which is, for example, more than one can say about President Sarkozy. I also believe that after genuine economic harmonisation, one currency would be the obvious next step. (At the moment it is an idiotic leap in the dark). And finally, I think that once everyone everywhere is taught at most the same two languages fluently, it would be a good idea to have government shared between central and local bodies.

Nevertheless, I say no to Brussels corruption, the Euro and the Lisbon Treaty on these bases:

i. I am opposed to all forms of large supra-national government and Globalist economics. They are hopelessly costly and difficult to control, they produce alienation, they attract dysfunctional egos who want obscene amounts of money and power, they do not value families and communities enough, and they have little or no respect for personal liberty. Any time anyone wants to debate the track-record, I'd be delighted to oblige. And equally, if you want me to take you through several superior (bordering on obvious) forms of liberal democratic capitalism, I'd be happy to devote the week it'd take if you were.

ii. The project is impractical and can only end in disaster. It is being pursued too quickly - and in the wrong order - among States far too varied economically and culturally to make any kind of 'union' a reality. The idea of Spain, Rumania, Ireland, Poland and Germany sharing the same currency as early as the first decade of the Twenty-first century is so entirely cuckoo, it would only be suggested by very bright people, and accepted by apathetic, distracted people. Yet it is in place, and riding high against the dollar and Sterling: why? Not one of the economies involved justifies such a crazy exchange rate - it has more to do with US foreign debt and a poor UK economic outlook than any real market factor.

iii. On the one occasion to date when the citizens (for whom all this is allegedly being done) said 'no thanks', a petulant scream of pain by the power-seekers was followed quickly by honeyed promises of 'radical change' to the proposed Constitution and further referendums. Both promises have now been broken in the manner of a spoilt brat unused to being disciplined. This does not bode well for the chances of a listening, democratic State emerging from the newborn UE monster. Citizens will, inevitably, lose more power and rights in favour of control freaks hidden in silos. What the species needs more than anything today is more control of (and responsibility for) managing their lives and those of manageable communities - not handing it over to the likes of Brown, Mandelson, Blair, Sarkozy, Merkel and Associates. They will tell us of legacies and visions and lebensraum and la gloire and God alone knows what else. What they will never do is tell us what they're doing - unless forced to.

iv. That this is all we can expect has been exemplified by the contempt shown towards anyone not in the immediate loop of the new Treaty in the run-up to its signature in Lisbon. The text to be finalised by the European Council on 18 October 2007 was finally published on 5 October 2007 - leaving less than two weeks for it to be read, comprehended and discussed, and for civil society and parliaments to make their views known. Statewatch published the "almost final text" on 9 August 2007. Several senior UK Civil servants were somewhat put out to find themselves given the 'final, final' draft forty-eight hours before the press conference at which lots of smiling faces announced agreement. Considering it was 98% unchanged, that was a class display of filibustering. Considering it's content - 'repeal or amend every single Article of the 62 Articles of the current Treaty on European Union (TEU) and make 296 amendments to the 318 Articles of the current Treaty establishing the European Community' - asking government officials to 'check it out' in two days was a joke thinly wrapped in an insult

v. At the first sign of solids hitting fans on any kind of scale, MEPs and national politicians - and UE Presidents - will revert to type. Not for nothing is this site called Not Born Yesterday - but anyone who thinks that one Treaty will transform a scrum of blatantly egocentric (yet parochial) politicians into philanthropic men of stature most certainly was. Two hundred years after the USA became a nation state, President Bush is still pursuing policies that pander to the needs of white corporates, especially those who live in Texas and own oil-wells - which, not entirely coincidentally, is the tribe from which he hails. This is the richest nation in the world, but still the underprivileged, the sympathetic, the socially caring, the seriously ill and most non-Caucasians are on the outside. In this context, what chance do the future UE citizens have of a level playing field? The answer is none, and the other less polite version of none.

vi. Eventually - one day - all worms turn if trodden on enough. I genuinely fear for the social backlash when the money for bread, circuses, low-interest loans, pensions, cheap Asian clothes and shoe-shops finally runs out - while those at the trough are still swanning about banning garlic and motor bikes and various other products they have been bribed to destroy by rich multinational and agrobusiness barons.

The French workforce has a long and stubborn tradition of taking drastic direct action against things they don't like. And they do not like 'l'Anglo-saxonisme'. By the same token, a majority of the British are dubious of the whole project: given the chance, they would vote to end the Brussels jamboree - the very reason, of course, they are not being allowed to.

When there is less to distract them - and less money coming in - most Europeans outside the former Soviet Union will rapidly flock to those who tell them they have been conned. Experience teaches us that politicians taking advantage of such emotions are rarely either democratic or principled. Within twenty years, UE bureaucrats may wake up to find themselves the new (and even more hated) aristocrats. All the sans culottes will need then is a rabble-rouser with charisma.

vii. Penultimately - and here I lay myself open to the charge of Little Englanderism, however unfair the accusation may be - among these twenty-seven mamber states, I do not see enough liberal democratic pedigree for me to say "Fine chaps - go off and have all this extra power, and I'll trust you to handle it with care and in the interests of my liberty and overall quality of life".

Within the total membership, there are only five who I regard as - among those with enough wits to care - the home of men and women prepared in large numbers to die for individual freedom and social justice. These are the UK (although increasingly declining in such matters), France, Holland, Poland and the Czechs. This conclusion is based on facts, history and experience: France was the first nation to get leeches off their backs, and - despite two wars and a dictator - survive intact as a democracy. The UK has easily the longest and most stable tradition of Parliamentary sovereignty and protection of the citizen via Habeus Corpus. The Dutch spent the best part of five hundred years getting rid of invaders. When independent, they too have never succumbed to the appeals of dictatorship or oligarchic fascism.

In this tradition, they are joined by the Poles, a nation invaded, divided up, wiped from the map, and then imprisoned many times, but still the first to rise up and recover - or swim the Channel and join the RAF. It is no coincidence that the two nations with the best linguists are the Dutch and Poles; if I had my way, nobody but these two would be allowed anywhere near education as a dimension of social policy.

And the Czechs are a genuine self-selection: they fought hard and long against the Nazis, they despatched the psychopath Heydrich and suffered the obscenity of Lidice as a result, they took on Soviet Moscow, and in the summer of 1968 produced in Aleksander Dubcek perhaps the nicest and bravest politician since Mazaryk and Benes - also, of course, Czechs - ready to die when pacifist Britain was still in the selfish grip of appeasement.

Turning to the dark side, we have Rumania (a country largely run by gangsters, and the UE's biggest exporter of organised crime), Turkey (until recently a military dictatorship - and currently in fear of losing its democratic grip to the Mad Mullahs), Italy (a country whose inhabitants cannot break wind without graft being involved), Spain (very happy to live under Fascism for forty years, and the first to run away from Islamic terrorism), Greece (an enormous building site riddled with corruption, and still ruled by the army as recently as 1977), Latvia (a tiny nation with a disturbingly large Russian minority) and Cyprus (a divided island where the current EU's benefits still do not apply to the Turkish community).

I certainly don't want to share a currency with any of these people - and under no circumstances would I entrust my rights to them. Who knows when a combination of politically correct blindness, inability to agree, bribery and tokenism might one day lumber us all with a Russian Latvian whose well-hidden megalomanic mission to become Tsar of all the Russians, defender of the Faith and the Hammer upon all those who follow Mohammed could start a nuclear war? (If you think this far-fetched, look no further than Putin).

viii. Finally - and yes I admit it, selfishly - only a congenital idiot would be in favour of a proposed supra-state with an unbroken history of loony, costly, and command-economy ways of dishing out all European tax monies in the most useless and corrupt manner possible.

Endemic pocket-lining in Brussels is, furthermore, not keen on being found out. In 2004, Hans-Martin Tillack, the Brussels correspondent for Germany's Stern magazine, was held for 10 hours without access to a lawyer by the Belgian police after his office and home were raided by six officers. A confirmed federalist, Tillack had been a vocal critic of OLAF, the EU's main anti-corruption body. At the time and since, OLAF has been the subject of constant rumour, innuendo, accusation and investigation of the widespread belief that it too is up to its eyes in corrupt cover-ups of, er, corruption.

In 2003, whistle-blowing Eurocrat Daniel Hannan told the press:

"I shouldn't say this, but the expenses here are fabulous....The sums involved make Westminster look positively Lilliputian. Our staff allowance is €12,305 (£8,620) a month - enough to employ a genuine secretary, and a research assistant, and still have 50 or 60 grand left over for the missus. The idea of auditing any of these expenses strikes many Euro-MPs as sacrilegious - "an assault on the dignity of our office" as an Italian friend grandly put it. So everything is done on the basis of no receipts, no invoices."