Power, Lies & Deception

Today brings news that, once again, the European Union and Britain have taken another worrisome step down the path to becoming a fully-fledged super-state.

In Brussels early this morning, Tony Blair, in one of his final serious acts as Prime Minister, capitulated without any real show of resistance and signed Britain up to what the eurosceptic campaign group, Open Europe describes as, ‘just the old EU Constitution in everything but name’.

On Thursday, Jose Manuel Barroso had asked the British people to have respect for our Parliament – but, with reference to the new treaty, it isn’t our Parliament that will be signing this constitution in disguise, but instead our soon to be departing Prime Minister, Tony Blair. And just why should we respect or take seriously the voice of a man and an institution such as the EU Commission who are unelected and do not serve those it is meant to represent?

Until the Constitution, the process of ‘ever closer union’ had been a slow and subtle one; gradually regulations, laws, treaties and legislation built up over the course of decades, robbing once proud self-governing nations of their sovereignty in exchange for dubious promises, false hopes, increasing levels of bureaucracy, corruption and furthering electoral disillusionment to near breaking point.

The EU Constitution was a daring move on the part of its constructors; the culmination of years of EU fanaticism had emboldened advocators of a super-union into moving more swiftly and overtly than they should or could. Though they were momentarily put in their place by referendums in France and the Netherlands, as Michael Portillo aptly observed in the Times today, ‘the plan to create a European state never dies. As in a bad sequel movie we discover that the monster so comprehensively destroyed at the end of film one has miraculously regenerated itself’. Once again, it is stealth by which the Europhiles move. They know that the people must be circumnavigated because these EU leaders and union supporters no longer trust their people – if they ever did.

The EU Commission, along with Barroso and the EU President Angela Merkel have realised that they must deceive their own electorate and the people of Europe in order to further the European Project. Merkel said herself that, ‘as far as I am concerned, there is no alternative to the road to European unification’, and that consequently she also has said that the creation of the new treaty to replace the failed EU Constitution is an attempt, ‘to use different terminology without changing the substance’. If that is not deception, then what is?

Other European leaders have clearly learnt from their previous mistakes in France and the Netherlands. When the people of Europe were actually asked whether they wanted an EU Constitution, they answered with a resounding no on both occasions. So too have Tony Blair and Gordon Brown learnt their lesson. In their 2005 General Election manifesto, the Labour party had promised the people of Britain that they would be given a vote on any EU Constitution, in part to alleviate a strong eurosceptic sentiment in their own voters who might otherwise have switched to the Conservatives. Had Britain been given an opportunity, there is no doubt we would have delivered another nail in the Constitution’s coffin by returned a third no vote. As it was, Blair weaselled his way around that promise and Gordon Brown has said that the Government’s ‘aims have been achieved’ and therefore a referendum is ‘unnecessary’. Quelle surprise.

Despite sections of the British media (most notably Channel 4 and the BBC,) swallowing the Government lie that Tony Blair had gone to Brussels to protect British interests with little red lines drawn through treaty clauses and the like – he did no such thing. The majority of the Constitution remained intact, including a permanent EU Foreign Minister and President, along with a loss of voting rights, and the legally binding nature of such a document. Such wheeling and dealing that went on would probably make Del Boy and Trotter’s Independent Traders look like mere amateurs. Minor details such as an EU national anthem, and the EU’s universal motto ‘Unity in Diversity’ (a slogan which I think sounds very much similar to War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength) were missed out for fear of once again alienating EU citizens, but the ‘substance’ was easily sustained. For all Tony Blair’s talking tough, as the Bruges Group press release remarked, ‘Blair’s red lines were obviously as effective as the Maginot Line’.

Britain is not the nation it once was. Shackled to the EU’s trade policies and restrictions, we can no longer trade freely with the developing economic powerhouse nations such as India and China. New nations such as Poland, Bulgaria and Romania were enticed in with promises of free internal trade, but soon learnt that things were not as they seemed. As a consequence, some people talk about creating a two-speed Europe; others about a Swiss-style model. Neither would work. The former, the pro-EU advocates across Europe would never allow, and the latter model untenable since the Swiss effectively have to enact all EU laws anyway, only that they receive them via the fax machine and have no say in the matter.

We therefore simply have two choices. On the one hand we can carry on as we are at the moment, being slowly subsumed into a European super-state, flooded with red tape, illiberal European laws, and continuing to sign away our right to govern ourselves… Or we could leave. Immediately – or at least as soon as possible. That is the real way forward.

It is such a quiet thing to fall, but far more terrible is to admit it. This Constitution will fundamentally change the nature of the relationship between nation state and the European Union; the relationship between the people and those that govern them. If the Franco-Germanic axis that dominates the EU wishes to forge ahead, so be it. However, our future follows a different path; that of co-operation and free trade without relinquishing our powers and right to govern ourselves. A future that does not involve an EU Constitution for a country that has been freer and more democratic for longer than any other nation. As Conservative MEP, Roger Helmer, commented in his recent newsletter, ‘In 1938 we had the Anschluss. In 2007 we have the German Presidency of the EU pressing forward with the EU Constitution/Treaty. But in both cases, we are talking about political union in a German-dominated Europe. Let’s not go there again’. I could not agree more.

And so, unfortunately until that time, the European Project continues apace. Truly, the European Union and Parliament are the ultimate bureaucracy. Fat unaccountable MEPs wineing and dinning on extravagant taxpayers funded expense accounts, far away from the glare of the media spotlight and safe and secluded in the sanctity of their black deathstar-like Parliament; all so very distant from the people they are supposedly meant to be representing. I even like the way that offices for Turkish MEPs and representatives have been built before the country is even a member of the EU – almost as if someone had already made a decision that Turkey will be a member despite negotiations supposedly taking place and a vote sometime soon… They call it democracy.