I have just made the mistake of reading the Sunday Telegraph. As is too often the case the only really good thing in the newspaper was Mr Booker’s half page – and it is not worth getting a whole newspaper for half a page.
Looking through the rest of the Sunday Telegraph I came upon an article by Mr David Cameron (the leader of the British ‘Conservative’ party) the main business of the article was not important. It was just another absurd claim that we can “reform” the European Union in order to make it a ‘force for good’ – an excuse for Mr Cameron had his friends to not even promise to get the United Kingdom out of ‘the Union’ which is now the source of about 75% of all new regulations.
However, it was the rewriting of history that caught my eye. Mr Cameron correctly points out that we are coming up to the 50th anniversary of what was in 1957 called the European Economic Community. But Mr Cameron also states that this time (1957) was a time when the European Economic Community (EEC, now the EU) had to deal with a Europe that had been devastated by war, that was under the threat of Soviet attack, and was on the point of economic collapse.
In reality…
War damage had (in most of Western Europe) been to a great extent repaired by 1957, partly by the efforts of Europeans and partly by American aid. The EEC was not the thing that rebuilt the towns and cities of Europe. The Soviet threat was not kept at bay by the EEC – it was kept at bay by NATO (i.e. in reality the American military) and it is NATO, not the EEC/EU, that was responsible for the peace of post war Western Europe, which may well be why so many Europeans hate the United States – people often hate those they have long depended on.
As for on the point of economic collapse. In fact in 1957 Western Europe was in the middle of great period of advance.
Here American aid was not really the driving force. What was the driving force of economic progress was deregulation and the reduction of taxation. This movement is best remembered, if it is remembered at all, by the weekend bonfire of price controls (weekend because the allied occupiers would not be in their offices to block it) and other economic regulations by Ludwig Erhard in the soon to be West Germany in 1948 (the Federal Republic coming into being in 1949).
However, there were similar movements in other Western European nations. Even Britain had its ‘Set the People Free’ and its ‘Bonfire of Controls’ under Churchill and Eden.
Also (again even in Britain) there was a policy in the 1950’s of the reduction of taxation.
Neither the deregulation or the tax reductions had anything to do with the EEC which (as Mr Cameron correctly states) was created in 1957. And I hope that no one will claim that such things as the Iron and Steel Community or ‘Euro Atom’ were behind the deregulation or the tax reductions (in various nations) either.
In short, Mr Cameron’s view of history (which might be best described as “at first there was darkness and then the European Economic Community moved in the darkness…”) has no connection to the truth.
So is it the implication that advancement of prosperity and security in Europe caused the formation of the EEC?
Separately, I remember reading a few weeks ago about Guy Mollet’s approach to the British government (in 1956, if I remember correctly) about a ‘union’ with us as a possible solution to some of its domestic and international problems.
Given that de Gaulle was seminal in the establishment of the EEC a year later, surely that idea suggests that all wasn’t as rosy as you’re making out?
It is possibly ignorance of, rather than deliberate rewriting of history, I suggest. Any implication that the EU was a defence against Soviet attack is harder to understand. NATO still exists. Even SHAPE still exists.
However, the purpose of Cameron’s piece seems to be the delicate task (given the history of Tory in-fighting about it) of distances himself from the EU, so presumably he was looking for a way to suggest it had been a good idea once. So any slightly misleading suggestion in that direction will have served his purpose.
It is very difficult to persuade people by challengng their basic assumptions. So, often, you need to suppress expression of your own basic premises where they differ from those of the audience you are trying to capture. I do it every day. In politics one can never tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
David Cameron might have tried to rerwrite history, but, judging from the readers’ comments at the end of the article, the people aren’t buying it. Not one had anything good to say about either his policy or the EU.
Cameron’s ‘article’ (for want of a better description) could have been much better streamlined into a simple paragraph along the lines of:
I’ll give him credit for the fact that he has not yet(unlike Tony Blair) made references to feeling “The Hand Of Destiny Upon My Shoulder”.
Cameron is trying to be all things to all men. And as Robert @12:21 says, they’re not buying the snake oil. I do not believe that Cameron is ignorant of the truth, rather he is assuming, and banking on, his audience being so. And yet again we have a Tory leader implying a promise of action whilst in reality promising nothing. And even if not overtly mendacious the ignorance of his position would seem to make him unfit for office.
Guy Herbert wrote:
“However, the purpose of Cameron’s piece seems to be the delicate task (given the history of Tory in-fighting about it) of distances himself from the EU,..”
I think you are being far too generous and I don’t think that’s what he’s trying to do at all. He says that with reform – which he should know is impossible – the EU can be a “force for good” hardly distancing talk is it?
“It is very difficult to persuade people by challengng their basic assumptions.”
True, but I would argue more effective in the end. My experience of being shall we say “constructively misled” is that in the end the tactic is found out. And then one tends not only to reject the position one was led to under false pretenses, but to suspect anything else said by this sort of manipulation. The ultimate result we can see in the Daily Telegraph YouGov poll today, cynicism, alienation, and disaffection.
Pace Julian,
Cameron’s ‘article’ (for want of a better description) could have been much better streamlined into a simple paragraph along the lines of:
I’m going to resist the EU constitution, but please Europhile TRG types, don’t think that this means I hate the EU: I can see it has its good points.
That is, trying to rock the boat but sufficiently gently as not to wake any dinosaurs.
Interesting. I also read about the French Prime Minister’s Union proposal to Eden, in the Yorkshire Evening Post.
It went further; he applied to join the Commonwealth, with the Queen as French head of state.
This was also rejected.
Why?
That was the inference most of the papers took, but reading what was actually said, I’m not so sure. As I read it, he said that France would be willing to join the Commonwealth, accepting the Queen as its head. Not the same thing. There are – and were even at the time – plenty of other republics in the Commonwealth.
Although I don’t know enough of the history to know for sure why the decision was taken (although I have my suspicions; not all of them sinister), I’ve always felt that Britain’s biggest mistake of the last century was turning away from the Commonwealth in favour of “Europe”. Just think what a Commonwealth based on free trade might have been. And with France and its dependencies too…
No James I am not claiming that prosperity created the E.U. (although it may have allowed various politicians and other “leaders” the room to mess about with expensive projects like the E.U.).
As for De Gaulle – he was indeed told to “make Europe your revenge” after Britain pulled out of the Suez operation (if this is what you are pointing towards). This “Anglo Saxon” let down may have made him more favourable to setting up the project – although (of course) he would never have allowed the E.E.C. (now the E.U.) to get rid of national veto power. At least not French veto power.
De Gaulle may have played games, but (at base) he was a loyal to the independence of France – unlike the politicians who came after him (who, as long as the subsidies came to key political inerests, did not really care about French independence).
The best history of the E.U. I know of is by Christopher Booker and Richard North (it can be found via Amazon).
I was expecting someone to make the “free trade” point. Thus ignoring G.A.T.T. and E.F.T.A. and ignoring the fact the E.E.C. was a customs union (rather than a free trade area) and that the “Single Market” of post 1986 is anything but that for British exporters.
Sadly no one made the “E.U. gives us free trade” point – but I can not demand that people make points just to give me the pleasure of tearing them up.
On Guy’s point:
I do not know Guy.
I do not know what Mr Cameron believes (if anything), and I do not understand the faction fighting of the Conservative party. Other than to note that leading Conservative party members seem to be even more dishonest and unprincipled than I expect politicians to be.