Sunday 8 November 2009

What Does The EU Mean To YOU?

My fellow blogger and political commentator Scunnert has raised an interesting point:
"The UK is, in my opinion, the driving force behind the development of an EU super-max ghetto. They do this as a proxy of the US of A for reasons yet to be revealed."
I have been considering the ever-growing size and scope of the EU for some days now: I've been trying to work out what on earth would cause nations to willingly to relinquish their national sovereignty over their parliaments and systems of government, their legal codes and modes of education in order to create a superstate. Since said superstate is, putatively at least, 'democratic' it does not represent the kind of overwhelming power that Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand or Hitler or Bismarck held over vast territories. The leaders of nations within the superstates, having been elected in by their peoples, must be shown to be actively doing in harmony with each other something that adds to human betterment - however difficult to qualify said betterment may be. And, indeed, our very own unelected Gordon Brown sees the cessation of hostilities over national and pan-European institutions as refreshing: we can now meet a new dawn etc etc as friends and so on. They *must* therefore have a cumulative agenda. Of what are they afraid?
I think the answer is deceptively simple: the fear of the resurgence of Communism. Why else force umpteen millions of people to live under systems of government which are so socialist as to hover on the border of Marx's Utopian dream if not to demonstrate that there is no real need to return to Communism? Why offer everything the Communist state held dear - socialized medicine, subsidised housing, free education, re-education if you didn't toe the party line - with the added benefit of endless bottles of Coca Cola and Levi jeans? Why spend so many billions on shoring up Eastern European nations if not as a bulwark against Russia and, farther afield, China? And why collaborate so closely with the US whose vested interests are often markedly different from ours/Europe's? Could America's sudden extreme beadiness regarding Europe be due to the fear of Reds under the bed?

Wednesday 4 November 2009

Dead Democracy

“Today is a day when Europe looks forward, when it sets aside years of debate on its institutions, and moves to take strong and collective action on the issues that matter most to European citizens: security, climate change, jobs and growth.”
I don't know with which Europeans Gordon Brown has been hobnobbing, but they certainly aren't English. Had he ever consulted us on this 'historic' signing, he would have heard very different accounts of what these 'European' citizens are worried about: immigration, bank bailouts to the tune of £4,000+ each (foetuses included), cheating MPs and the loss of even the meagre sovereignty that to these 646 MPs Lisbon represents.
The truth is - as even Brown the spurious historian would have to concede, were he not so far up his own backside as to render truth redundant - that Britain and Europe have never really been the best of friends. That 21 mile wide strip of water separating us from France may as well have been a 1000 mile gulf. We don't share language, national concerns, temperament or character; we've been proud to be insular, 'this sceptred isle', until Labour came along and told us that we should be ashamed of everything we've ever done. Ever. Our humour, stoicism, ability to keep down ten pints of strong ale and love of monarchy - at times when Europe burned in the fires of republican revolutions - set us apart. But this isn't an apologetic for Euro-scepticism. It isn't even a rant about Brown achieving his socialist world view in which everyone marches to the same tune - or else. I'm genuinely worried about what will happen next. It seems that Merkel et al are so intent on making the EU a 'global player' - whatever that means - that they have forgotten entirely about the millions of people they have crushed together. The mere concept that Tony Blair, a man with the blood of millions on his hands, thinks that he's a good candidate to run the European show should have sent alarm bells ringing around Brussels months ago.
As it is, from this day forth our votes will mean little or nothing. Our legal system - upon which 60% of the world's legal systems are based and arguably the most successful - has been shelved in favour of its antithesis, the Napoleonic code. Our politicians' strings will be further jerked by the unelected shadowy figures somewhere on the Continent. Personal privacy will become even more of a laughable idea as Europe openly rolls out its 'security' taskforces and shares our 'data' with all and sundry. Though contemporary English democracy has only become a concrete idea since WWI in which national institutions turned things like private property rights, limited taxation and privacy upside down, its proponents eighty or ninety years ago believed in and fought bitterly for personal and national sovereignty. I await with bated breath Cameron's re-thought-out plans for Europe, due later today. If ever there were an eleventh hour crisis, this is it.
Life is to be lived, not controlled, and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat -Ralph Ellison