Europe Does Not Equal The EU.

Will Hutton writes in support of the European Union:

Moreover, geographical proximity has always given Europe its special character, if doing no more than offering a nearby bolthole or new ideas that could simply cross a frontier. Without Protestant Holland, William Tyndale would have had no home to print the Bible in English; the Industrial Revolution was fuelled by exiled scientists and entrepreneurs from all over Europe. The Ukip/Tory story that Britain’s greatness was built on independence from Europe is a fairytale. We are as much part of our continent’s history and evolution, and share its values, as any other European country. Arguably, we are the quintessential Europeans.

What he says about the influence of Europe on Britain's development is true but rather undercuts his argument.

William Tyndale fled to the Netherlands because he would have been executed on the orders of the crazed zealot Thomas More, had he remained in England, at the time the Dutch were more tolerant.

Imagine if the EU had existed in the 16th century- all that would have been needed would have been for Thomas More to issue an EU arrest warrant, and he'd have been executed within the month.

Say No To An EU Referendum

In referendums the status quo option tends to do better that the initial polls suggest- this was seen in the referendum on electoral reform last year.

Currently a majority (or maybe a mere plurality at worse) of people favour leaving the European Union, but in a referendum the Europhile campaign will be free to scaremonger about the prospect of being "isolated in Europe" and taking a leap into the unknown. The worst the Eurosceptic camp can do is point at the present which cannot be made to seem unrealistically terrifying as an imagined future with less constraints of reality. Politically Ted Heath was quite clever to make the UK join the EEC and then let his successor have a referendum on whether to remain in- so the Europhile case became the status quo.

In a campaign the Europhiles will certainly close the gap on the Eurosceptics and may even overtake them to win the campaign. If that happens there will no constraint on UK governments who wish to surrender more power to Brussels as the issue would be "settled" for a generation.

Unless the support for withdrawing remains comfortably above 50% for a few years it would an enormous gamble to hold a referendum on the matter now.

Not Sure I Follow This Line Of Reasoning.

I'm not entirely sure that I follow this argument- there has always been a rich, vibrant and common European culture regardless of political divisions. However people who oppose the political unity of Europe are against a common European culture.

The periods of innovation and cultural exchange within Europe came during an era where political repression was common but political disunity allowed those being persecuted in one juristiction to seek sanctuary in other places. So to use that common history as an argument for a political union (complete with a pan-European arrest warrant) is not much of an argument.

How Nick Clegg Sees Britain.

I'm in two minds over the Daily Mail's attack on Nick Clegg.

Describing his remarks about Britain's place in Europe and attitude to World War 2 as a "Nazi slur" is grossly unfair to him. If what he said is a "Nazi slur" then almost any comment that tangentially references the War can be a "Nazi slur". I also don't like the reference to his foreign parentage and marriage which seems gratuitous. Churchill had a foreign mother of course and it didn't seem to affect his love of country.

However Nick Clegg's articles on Britain's role in the world are worth airing as they reveal how he views the world. The first thing to make note of is how unimaginative he is with cliches about the "loss of empire" popping up. He churns out the default positions of Guardianistas in the Guardian yet does so in a patronising tone that suggests that he is bravely challenging the orthodoxy. He does not challenge his opponents positions because he doesn't seem to see any need to actually know what they believe because they are so self evidently stupid. Therefore he simply creates a straw man and knocks it down.

This attitude also infuses the Lib Dems statements about other issues, for example on crime they come out with the canard that prisons are "colleges of crime" and try to pass this off as original thinking that contrasts to their opponents more emotive and irrational positions.

In fact it is almost 180 degrees opposite from the truth, the idea that prison doesn't prevent crime was for many decades the policy of both Conservative and Labour governments but when Michael Howard finally made prison a more likely outcome for criminals, crime fell for the first time in decades. There are counter arguments that can be made against this but Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne can't be bothered to understand the position of their opponents let alone refute them, so instead dismiss it as an emotional spasm that is self evidently stupid.

Dogmatic thinking is never appealing especially when it is presented as being the result of open minded and non ideological policy making.

Frying Pan To Fire

So sacked Tory MEP Edward MacMillan-Scott is joining the Liberal Democrats. In his resignation letter (can you resign after you have been sacked?) to David Cameron he says:

You continue to refuse to accept that Michał Kamiński, who now leads the ECR and against whom I stood and won re-election as vice-president of the European parliament last July, has had "antisemitic, homophobic and racist links". You say that you are against extremism at home, yet you propitiate it abroad.

Without going over the accusations against Kaminsky yet again, I'll just say if you are going to pretend to be outraged over antisemitism it would be best not to join the Lib Dems. This is a party whose leader has repeatedly praised Jenny Tonge and allowed her to keep the party whip even after she demanded an investigation into whether Israeli agents went to Haiti to harvest the organs of Haitian earthquake survivors.

Quote Of The Day

When not writing about US politics, where is too partisan to be insightful, Paul Krugman can be worth reading, as this article on the Euro demonstrates:

So the only way out is forward: to make the euro work, Europe needs to move much further toward political union, so that European nations start to function more like American states.

But that’s not going to happen anytime soon. What we’ll probably see over the next few years is a painful process of muddling through: bailouts accompanied by demands for savage austerity, all against a background of very high unemployment, perpetuated by the grinding deflation I already mentioned.

A monetary union requires a political union in order to work, particularly when national economies operate so differently as say Spain and Germany.

Therefore the claim put forward by most British europhiles that it is a purely an economic matter is nonsense. Keeping Britain out of the Euro looks more and more like a very wise decision.

Who Pays The Piper

Curious isn't it, David Milband has adopted a highly critical approach to Russia during his tenure as Foreign Secretary (rightly so in my opinion) and yet soon after his name starts being touted for the role of EU foreign minister he does a 180 degree u-turn, decides that murder by nuclear terrorism on the streets of London is no biggie and that the Merkel-Sarkozy appeasement approach is much better.

Conspiracies New & Old

After the Polish Chief Rabbi torpedoed Labour's smear campaign against the Tories' European ally last week the journalists who had been going along with Labour's spin had some explaining to do. For instance Toby Helm:

What I understand is that Schudrich has been under the most enormous pressure from the highest authorities in Poland to retract the remarks, but has refused to do so. The pressure, I am told, came from Kamiński's Law and Justice party, the party of the Polish president.

So could we be seeing the an old conspiracy being inverted to create a new one?

• Old Conspiracy- International Jewry is conspiring behind the scenes to control the political leaders of sovereign nations.
  

• New Conspiracy- Domestic political parties are conspiring behind the scenes to control international Jewry.

Question...

Will the number of "The Conservative's European allies are nazi homophobe babyeaters" articles that appear on the Guardian's website between now and the general election exceed the number of "Boris Johnson is in the Ku Klux Klan" pieces that appeared on the same website prior to the London mayoral election?

Update: There are two more today.

Time For A Referenda Referendum.

Now that the Lisbon treaty has been approved by Irish voters it will probably be in force by the time of the next election. I was hoping that it would be best of three with a third referendum to decide who wins but apparently "yes means yes" but "no means try again".

A referendum after it is in force would be a de facto in or out vote and it is unlikely that David Cameron will want that because it will aggravate splits in the party and he would probably lose which would damage both him and Euroscepticism.

However doing nothing in response would make his current statements about "not letting it rest" look laughable, which will also annoy the party and make him look weak. So he needs to do something to satisfy Eurosceptics in the party and the country.

What I would do in his shoes would be to offer a referendum on the following question- "Should future European Union treaties require majority support in a referendum in order to be ratified?".

This would put the brakes on any deeper EU integration without the consent of the voters & force Labour and the Lib Dems into the position of arguing against democracy.

His Original Plan To Commute From Bolivia Didn't Work Out

Is this the lamest 'gotcha' ever:

Now it turns out that the MEP [Daniel Hannan] is planning to move to and live in Brussels. He hates it so much he’s actually planning to move out there.

Ignoring the implicit assumption that being hostile to the European Union means hostility towards Europe, is anyone really going to be shocked that a Member of the European Parliament is going to live in the city where the institution is mostly based?

The Euroweasel.

When David Cameron announced plans for the Conservatives to leave the European People's Party he essentially left two ways open for Tory Europhile MEPs to protest. They could either register their objection to the policy before the election and announce they they wouldn't join the new Euro grouping- thus putting their fate into the hands of the electorate. This would be a brave and honourable method of registering their disapproval.

If they aren't brave or honourable then Edward MacMillan Scott's approach is much less risky- you stand on the popular Eurosceptic platform for the the election, but then once you are elected and have your snout in the trough for the next 5 years you announce that you cannot in all principle go along with what you promised to do during the election held less than a month previously and jump ship.

EMS can't even go through the whole "my party left me" stuff that defectors usually engage in because David Cameron quite specifically waited until after the European election to withdraw from the EPP, had he done so beforehand the likes of EMS could legitimately claim that they were staying true to the principles they were elected on.

Denis Macshane Says- "Embrace Racist Xenophobes"

Denis MacShane writes:

3. Racism and xenophobia are now part and parcel of European elections. Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel made their views against the accession of Turkey, a majority Muslim nation, the archstone of their campaign. The manifesto of the centre-right EPP federation explicitly referred to Europe as a Judeo-Christian concept. No room for Muslims then.

Gosh, well these racist xenophobes sound awful. Let's see what else MacShane has to say:

10. David Cameron was rejected by more than seven out of 10 voters yesterday. He now has to put in place his isolationist EU politics by breaking links with mainstream centre-right parties

So having just denounced the mainstream European centre right parties as racist and xenophobic, he denounces David Cameron for having nothing to do with them.

MEP Tackles Critical Issue.

At long last an MEP is standing up to corruption in Europe and demanding an investigation. Not corruption in the EU of course, but alleged and unproveable corruption in European football three and a half decades ago. Funnily enough I can barely find any references on his website to issues of corruption within the organisation he is responsible for.

I can't help also notice that for all their lectures about xenophobia EU-philes are more than happy to play on stereotypes about dodgy Greeks and Italians conspiring to cheat the English out of a trophy.

Quote Of The Day.

From a Guardian editorial, the closest you can get to the official voice of the left:

The EU can ill afford the luxury of amateur voices, let alone of populist, Eurosceptic neoliberals like Mr Klaus.

They don't just think that Vaclav Klaus is mistaken, they think that allowing him to speak is a 'luxery'.

Lib Dems Ditch Euro Fanaticism?

The headline in the Telegraph promises more than is actually being offered, far from reconsidering Britain's relationship with Europe, they are merely acknowledging that joining the Euro is unrealistic in the short term. They still appear to believe that the EU can do no wrong, and I don't see them apologising for breaking their manifesto committment to support a referendum on the EU constitution.

Eurofanatics Deploy The Chewbacca Defence.

I'm wondering, have the euro-fanatics now simply developed so much contempt for the electorate that they can't even be bothered to try to appear honest. I watched Question Time last night and watched veteran Liberal Democrat being caught out by David Davis when she claimed that the Lisbon Treaty was a minor and unimportant treaty with no constitutional significance and then five minutes later telling the audience that if the treaty was rejected it would mean Britain would have to leave the EU.

Amazingly Baroness Williams isn't even the most ludicrous proponent of the treaty, that honour goes to David Aaronovitch. The other day Peter Briffa mused on how magnificent it must be to be Aaronovitch:

It must be quite fantastic being David Aaronovitch. I mean, imagine waking up every morning, turning on the Today programme, and basically nodding in approval every five minutes at every new government initiative.

His attitude to the referendum is exactly the same as the government's, obviously, but his argument, if you can call it that, is even less coherent than theirs:

‘There’s been no referendum on our membership of NATO – a treaty organisation. Nor on immigration. Nor on the death penalty. Nor on the Act of Union in 1707. I haven’t had a chance to vote on that. Nor did my great-great-great-great-grandmother!’ Laughter and some angry heckles.

During questions from the floor Aaronovitch was roundly booed when he suggested that people didn’t want a referendum. ‘Oh OK, you lot do,’ he said. ‘But some people believe the Americans blew up the twin towers.’

Or as the lawyer told the jury "sure 600 witnesses saw my client climbing out of the window with a bag marked 'swag', but did you know that some people believe that Prince Phillip killed Diana?". Presumably Aaronovitch is a big South Park fan.