Now it might seem odd that someone on record as being as hostile to the EU as me might hope that Gordon Brown gets his way and just bounces Britain into adopting the resurrected EU treaty against what is quite obviously the wishes of the majority of politically active people in Britain.
But that is what I want. I want the EU to get its way and for there to be a dramatic shift in power from London to Brussels, with commensurate huge diminution in democratic control of the political process in this country. I regard the fact Gordan Brown can look the nation in the eye and utter such a naked lie that the current offering is not, to quote the Chancellor of Germany, “the new constitutional document is the same as the old constitutional document: the only difference is that it doesn’t have European Constitution as its title”, with pure delight.
In short I want Gordon Brown to strip away the myth of the democratic accountability. I want the system that has been so seriously damaged over the last ten years to be broken in such a visible way that even the most purblind self-deluding fool can see just what sort of country they really live in. Let all sixty million people on this island hear the stream of pork pies issuing from the gob of the man in 10 Downing Street, with the entire apparatus of power standing behind him nodding.
Although very worthy folks like the UKIP will argue passionately for a referendum, knowing that their position will almost certain win (which is of course why it will not be allowed to happen), in truth the long term position of a fringe party like UKIP will be vastly improved if the ‘nightmare scenario’ does indeed come to pass. To actually break the current political monoculture will require far more really pissed off people than currently exist in Big Bruvvah anaesthetised Britain.
The system needs to break and millions of people need to be confronted with their political irrelevance before anything really… interesting… can happen.
So good luck Gordan, I wish you great success in screwing over your subject people and locking in the centrist regulatory Big State at the more remote European level. More and faster in fact.
The government of the Federal Republic of Germany was forced (by their rules) to admit that more than 80% of new regulations were the result of E.U. orders. The British government has refused to say – in spite of verbal and written questions from members of the House of Lords and House of Commons, but private calculations put it at much the same percentage here.
The new “treaty” would at least strip away the myth that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is an independent nation.
If the “treaty” goes through people who STILL supported the United Kingdom being in the European Union would be revealed as what they are – traitors.
Oh, I dunno Perry. I see your point.
I just don’t want to see a cataclysmic collapse. I’m rather more “slowly, slowly, catchy monkey”.
And I somehow doubt that if the whole thing breaks it will result in the dice falling the way you want them to.
I can see a lot of people thinking a collapse shows that Westminster ought to run the whole shooting match. A lot of lefties see the EU as a prime example of capitalist globalization…
On a serious note, could any of this lead to some kind of war of seccession?
I am serious – could it?
Wasn’t it Lenin who said that in order to make things better, we must first make them worse? And some other dude, during the Vietnam war, said “it became necessary to destroy this village in order to save it”?
I am uncomfortable when normally-reasonable people start saying these things.
Yeah, me too, but the alternative is slow incremental surrender, not movement in the opposite direction… so I prefer something more noticeable.
This is defeatist talk. We cannot afford to allow this treaty pass without the approval of the people.
A dangerous wish, Perry.
Didn’t the German communists argue somewhat the same about the rise to power of Hitler? The argument that things need to get worse so that they become so bad people rebel seems to me a stark betrayal of the time tested principle of pessimism. Better to fight up front than to wait until the enemy has marshaled his bureaucratic forces. It is easier to avoid the treaty than to remake the English system of government in rebellion. Frankly, I don’t see the English up for civil war after all these centuries, nor do I think drowning in the molasses of EU regulations will bring them there.
And do you see any sign of that?
It’s not fair..
An’ I don’t care…
If you seriously imagine that an even more obvious example of how they are being disenfranchised will stir the British Sheeple to do anything, other think about pressing their TV remote control, you are more optimistic than I am.
‘Stepford’ voters most of them.
Broon is quite prepared to sell us all down the river and most of the political pundits are busy talking about how statesmanlike he is and what nice change it is from Tony Blair.
I hate being a pedant but the last spelling of Gordan Brown – were you subliminally thinking of Gordian – and something that needs to be cut clean through and its mystique destroyed ??
That wish would be a practical way forward but for two facts:
1. It underestimates the infinite capacity of the human mind to delude itself (how else do you think, after all that has happened since 1991, can anyone be even taken seriously when proposing Socialist policies; and still they do).
2. Do you think the Government or its liberal lackeys in the Media are going to play fair? Do you think that if UKIP starts to grow they will not use the same techniques they have used to keep real Conservatives out of power even in their own party?
Wishing for one quick solution to the EU problem is to make the first mistake in fighting it; underestimate it. I am afraid that the EU is not going to be defeated with one swift well-placed move, but it is going to be a long and hard slog. Anything else is to delude ourselves.
Bottom line is that we were promised a referendum on this matter and it has been reneged upon by Brown.
He as indeed all of the MEPS know that ultimate political power now lies within Europe where politicians can exert their arrogance and influence without being held accountable. Take the 30 billion Euro fraud which has been going on for decades, has anyone ever been brought to account or is likely to? I don’t think so.
Brown knows that all these perks can be kissed goodbye were he to now concede on this matter.
I see your point but I think it is a win-win situation whatever happens.
I had a similarly nihilistic idea about labour winning a single term in 1997 and not ever being voted back.
I’m with Phil A and Frederick on this one. I would hope that this will be the final straw, but I really doubt it. You underestimate the capacity of people to put up with things. They may well come to realise that we “sceptic”s were right, but they will shrug and claim that it’s not so bad.
Even if it is.
Generals are said always to fight the last war. It’s become clear to me that people only fear the last bogeyman. As long as there aren’t blokes in black shirts goosestepping up the High Street rounding up Jews, we’re free. Seriously. NewLabour’s creepy billboards during the ’97 campaign (“People will live longer”, or some such tosh) were okay because they were in helvetica, not gothic blackletter. The paramilitarization of the police is okay because they wear baseball caps. The main problem I had with the film V for Vendetta was the way it looked; it would have been far more forceful had it actually appeared like the near-future, rather than flagging up the bad guys with 1930s imagery. The next dictator won’t come with uniforms, stormtroopers, SS guards and slogans – he’ll have open-necked shirts, focus groups, PR, and soundbites.
Rant over. 🙂
My main problem was the ending. I really, really want to believe that something would motivate the great British public to turn out and play some small role in overturning an oppressive state, but I can’t.
I’m with Phil A.
I really don’t understand your hate for “Brussels”. Do you think really that your actual Prime Minister would ask for less regulations and less taxes if UK wasn’t part of the European Union ? Of course, not. Westminster is not better than Brussels.
Education and Health services are not regulated at all at the european level. Westminster could liberalise it very quickly if willing.
Furthermore, the new treaty will probably allow for a smooth secession from E.U. if wanted by, for instance, a UKIP government.
And, of course, I agree totally that the E.U. but also UK government and my government are gigantic nightmares.
This is defeatism, as someone else here wrote. Never give your enemies an advantage in the hope that it will lead to some kind of strategic defeat for them that will redound to your favor. You may be miscalculating, and if you are you will end up much worse than you would have otherwise. Instead, keep fighting.
PHILIPPE,
I’d rather have one nightmare than two.
Furthermore, the new treaty will probably allow for a smooth secession from E.U. if wanted by, for instance, a UKIP government.
Yeah, right.
PHILIPPE,
If there is no constitution, the EU has no legal existence save as a treaty with foreign nations; there would be no need to secede, just to repeal the treaties. What is smoother than that?
That is true, but my theory why statists like Brussels so much is that making things super-statist locks in the changes they introduce via an institution that is more remote and less vulnerable to some future aberration like Thatcher (not that they have anything whatsoever to worry about with Cameron). In short, the acquis communitaire is what makes me hate Brussels even more than Westminster.
That is why I hate Brussels.
Perry, my dear friend: be really careful what you wish for. History is replete with arguments such as yours — and they never turned out the way the proponents wanted them to.
Actually most ministers (and Prime Ministers) have not cared about the sort of regulations that have come, in a great tidal wave, from the E.U. since Mrs Thatcher was tricked into accepting the 1986 “Single Market” (Mrs T. was told, again and again and again, that it was free trade agreement).
The idea that ministers (or Prime Ministers) would have wasted their own time demanding most of these regulations is utterly absurd.
However, whenever someone complains about some regulation that has destroyed their life the Civil Servants can say “we had to do it”, and the M.P.s Ministers and Prime Ministers accept this for the same reason that they would not have bothered to introduce the regulations themselves – lack of concern with details that do not influence their own lives.
Politicians are human after all.
Even Mrs Thatcher (who was rather interested in such things) found that she was unable to much about it. Mrs Thatcher did not mutate in 1986 – before this year regulations in Britain were going down, after it they started to go up.
Of course, for years Mrs Thatcher could not bring herself to admit that accepting the 1986 Single Eurpean Act was a mistake. First Mrs T. did not think there would be a tidal wave of regulations – her interpretation of the agreement would win out (till the European Court rejected her interpretation – as some people had said it would). Then there was the stress on the, largely mythical, increased access that British companies had to the markets of other member states.
However, eventually, even Mrs T. accepted that this supposedly greater access did not counter balance the tidal wave of regulations – i.e. that accepting the deal (which was not the deal the lady was told she had – the Civil Servants and some other ministers were shits) had been a mistake. Of course some people had said that at the time, not they are bitter or anything……
As for tax and spend – so the British government would have imposed taxes to fund various schemes in other parts of Europe (I rather doubt that).
We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills.We shall throw bottles at the bastards.
“Do you think really that your actual Prime Minister would ask for less regulations and less taxes if UK wasn’t part of the European Union ? Of course, not. Westminster is not better than Brussels.”
We can vote the bastards out,politicians are sensitive to the electorate biting their arses,no such restraints governs the Niebelungen of Brussels.
At the risk of making a fool of myself from my admittedly outside-of-Britain perspective, I’d like to comment on Mr. de Havilland’s call for the UK government to go ahead and impose the EU Constitution without a vote of the people. Just for the record; I am American, Chinese-German by ancestry, and adopted by marriage into a Highland Scots clan. I am also a Peace Officer. Probably not typical. Take what I say with whatever sized grain of salt you find convenient.
If I read him correctly, Mr. de Havilland has given up on normal political means to arrest the move towards tyranny in Britain, imposed from within and without. I admit from my outside point of view, there is quite a bit of rationality in that. As some of us in the US see it, the British government is quite upset at missing the schedule for imposing ‘1984’, and is running hard to make up the deficit.
You have the beginnings of an internal passport system that either the German SD or the Soviet KGB would envy. The movements of individuals are monitored constantly. You have a government controlled source of news that lacks only suppression of Sky News, et. al. to be omnipotent. Expressions of politically incorrect opinions are prosecutable under various acts. You have preventive detention without trial or formal charge. Your Parliament is …. superfluous, since the passage of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act of 2006; as ministers can enact, amend, or repeal legislation with a signature without reference to Parliament or Crown. Your government controlled health system is an excellent means of eliminating those the State does not wish to survive. [I have a daughter who studied in England a couple of years ago, and fell into the clutches of your NHS. She saw at least two cases of what would be charged as premeditated murder in this country while in one of your newest hospitals in Kensington, London.]. Indeed even that party that is pleased to call itself ‘Conservative’ recently called for witholding health care to those whose lifestyles the government disapproves.
Your governing party is essentially anti-British and desires nothing more than to subsume Britain in a socialist European tyranny run by France. Your formal Opposition party at best wants to do the same thing slightly slower, and at times wants to run to the Left of the government. Your minor parties are subject to being suppressed and outlawed by the government at whim.
In addition, you share in the demographic collapse endemic to Europe. According to UK government figures, overall you are far below replacement birth rate. What is worse, native Britons have a birth rate far below the overall rate. Compounding this; you are losing about 1% a year of the critical 15-55 age cohort of those native Britons, the most productive portion of the population, to emigration. Not to worry, you are more than replacing them with unassimilated, and arguably unassimilable, Muslim immigrants.
This is not a fertile ground for Liberty to grow in.
Mr. de Havilland says, “The system needs to break and millions of people need to be confronted with their political irrelevance before anything really… interesting… can happen.”. Granting that it may be the fact that I am an American, but the only thing in that case that would be both “interesting” and appropriate would be armed revolution. That, at least, would return some relevance to the millions of people.
I am not sanguine about either the attempt or the outcome. First of all, your people are unarmed and not used to either handling arms or resisting authority, even oppressive authority. Your police and military, while small, would side with the government. Second, you can be sure that the EU will do its best to keep a collaborationist regime in power. Finally, if the current government ensnares you in the EU, you can be sure that the form of government will change, with power divided amongst petty regions that are not capable of standing up for anything, complicating any revolt.
This, however, is not the bad news. The desired European Socialist Reich will not last long even if established. For the government that is in power in Britain has decided that it can safely appease Islamic terrorists and co-opt them. That is not a good bet. Islamists do not appease. The EU is simply terrified of them and incapable of resistance. Mullahs and Imams do not share the same cultural assumptions of peaceful due process as Oxford dons.
The question remains, what should you do? With all due respect, I don’t think the Samizdatista’s are really trained or capable of plotting armed resistance. Nothing personal or derogatory, it is just that from what I have seen of your backgrounds you would not know what to do, nor do you have the connections to do it.
Mr. de Havilland recently stated something to the effect of that as soon as he could arrange his affairs, he would ‘leave this Godforsaken country’. There comes a time in every country that turns totalitarian, when the smart ones leave, and thereby survive.
I realize that this is absurdly long, and probably reaches conclusions that many Samizdatista’s will find offensive. I am sorry for the offense, and I really expect to be ‘flamed’ royally in return. I accept that possibility, but what I really would like to see in return is reasoned argument that proves me wrong.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai Bahadur.
Sadly “Sky News” is little different from the B.B.C. – regulations mean that no broadcasters in Britain really take a hostile line to the “progressivism” of Mr Brown, Mr Cameron and so on.
Even “Fox News” (owned by the same company as Sky News – and F.N.C. is not nearly as friendly to either conservative or libertarian ideas as its enemies pretend) would not be allowed if it was British based. Indeed Fox News may well be quietly castrated if Mrs Clinton wins the election of November 2008 (the owner will not want to dare what a President H. Clinton could do to News International).
In Britain it is only really the newspapers who (sometimes) express some opposition to the rise of tyranny.
This is why the decline in quality of thought of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph newspapers is so distressing to some of us.
There newspaper were once the main serious voice for liberty in the United Kingdom.
If I were a man of means (which Perry may or may not be), I also would be planning to get out of Britain.
The question would be – to go where?
Murdoch actually held a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton last year. So the ideas that Fox is particularly that anti-democrat or is going to be castrated by Hillary are bogus. Murdoch has also fundraised for Giuliani. Murdoch I think probably wants Giuliani to win, but knows the GOP are in a shit state. So just as he did with new Labour in the 90s, he’s getting pally with the democrats so they won’t harm his business interests.
I personally cannot fathom the hatred by most US conservatives of Clinton. Granted, she’s a lot more socially liberal than most of them are, but so is Giuliani (and Clinton at least is still in marriage no.1 and talks to her child). On paper, she is economically to the left of them. But in practice, we know the GOP is just as bad as the democrats on spending, welfare, healthcare, etc. They support a strong executive state for Bush. Well, Hillary supports a strong executive too! And most importantly in this age of the gaudy crusade against so-called ‘islamofascism’, Clinton is as much as an interventionist as the average GOP supporter. Clearly, the hatred between modern US conservatives and Hillary is just partisan rubbish. When all the rhetoric and buncombe is thrown in the bin, they barely differ. Hillary has a lot more in common with the likes of Giulaini and McCain than she does with say Dennis Kucinich, and Giuliani/McCain etc have a lot more in common with Hillary than they do with say Ron Paul.
@ Dr. Ellen:
You are correct, Ma’am. The exact phrase was translated into English as “heightening the contradictions.” Marxists believed that capitalism contained “contradictions” that would inevitably lead to its downfall and replacement. Any method of hastening this process by causing internal strife, especially class conflict, was believed to be a good thing.
Perry, I cannot agree. First, because the British are unlikely revolutionaries, having only had one revolution in their history (not counting the 1688 coup). They have put up with ID cards, ubiquitous surveillance cameras, a DNA database, the effective dissolution of one house of Parliament, and the ridiculous notion that the Belgium matters. What makes you think that this stupid constitution will send them to the barricades? Second, there are still democratic, non-violent ways of making the change. The majority simply sees no point in doing so.
What will be interesting is when the British government finds itself between the dictates of the EU and the demands of the British people, and sides with the people. That should heighten the contradictions within the EU, assuming it hasn’t imploded before then.
Cynic – you are quite correct about “Red Rupert” (as he was known in his youth – and this did not mean “Red State”). He will make any deal to save his business.
There are a few people in F.N.C. who will not play ball – but they can be eased out (should Mrs Clinton win).
“Republicans just as bad as Democrats”.
You remind of the Cato Institute there Cynic.
They actually thought that Democrat control of Congress might mean less pressure for more Welfare State spending and regulations (at least you have not said that) – and have been rather surprised by what has happened.
If Mrs Clinton becomes President “universal” (i.e. government backed) health care will be the first order of business (“but what about Mitt Romney before a few weeks ago” – O.K. a good counter point). Statism will also explode in all other areas.
The lady will also push the United States further towards totalitarianism. Opposition media (such as F.N.C. and the Wall Street Journal) will be castrated – as you say Rupert will make a deal. And if he does not make a deal, the I.R.S. and the “antitrust” (etc) people will be sent in to destroy him.
Also the handful of anti statist people in A.B.C. will be eased out – Disney will make a deal (so forget about 20/20 making antistatism points anymore).
Talk radio will also be dealt with (the “fairness doctrine” will serve that purpose).
So instead of most of the media serving the cause of total statism – ALL of it will.
As for “civil liberties” the liberal-left media who attack President Bush for various things will not bark when President H. Clinton orders them.
Economically any down turn in the economy will be used as an excuse for yet more statism – even if the down turn was caused by statism.
And as ALL the media will support the power-that-be the voters will not hear any counter case. So the idea that a MAJORITY of voters would turn against statism in 2012 is not likely (some people are never controlled by conditioning via the “education system” and the meida, but they are the minority – one may not be able to “fool all the people all of the time”, but with enough control one can fool the MAJORITY of voters).
Things will NOT be as they were under President W.J. Clinton.
Mrs H. Clinton is a far more determined and unlazy person.
Basically should the lady win it is – “game over”.
At least till when, and if, there is total economic collapse.
Then it will be “the time of the gun” – and I agree that it is a least possible that the good guys will defeat the bad guys (although I have my doubts).
In Britain any total economic collapse would not lead to victory by the good guys – there is no chance of that here.
That is because the media ignore the fact there actually is an alternative to Labour and ‘Conservative’. The other day I actually met a well educated and quite well read person who has actually never heard of UKIP. Likewise those who have heard of it are constantly told (when they are even mentioned that is) that UKIP is “like the BNP” (whereas they are actually an interesting mix of Thatcherite and libertarian) or that they are a single issue party when that has not been the case for many years.
No, as the two main parties are now largely identical ideologically and as a practical matter under the worthless Cameron, there really is no point in pretending democracy offers any meaningful options at the moment. That may change at some point but it is wishful thinking to think so at this juncture.
One hopeful sign Perry.
On “Any Questions” (B.B.C. Radio 4) this week whenever David Cameron’s name or policies were mentioned there were hoots of contempt from the auidence.
This was not a Labour or Liberal Democrat audience. The show was being broadcast from Stamford (one of the most conservative towns in England).
Also the panel treated Mr Cameron with contempt – not just the socialist and the Liberal Democrat (Greg Dyke ex Director General of the B.B.C.) but the two conservatives – the conservative (not Conservative party) ex editor of the “Sun” newspaper and R. Johnson (sister of Boris Johnson).
At least no one is fooled by “Dave” any more.
By the way it was also funny to hear the “culture clash” between the socialist (Tariq Ali the student radical from the 1960’s) and the good people of Stamford.
He wanted to talk about revolution and the Iraq war – and they asked questions about people putting their shoes on train seats and about what was the members of the panel favourate song to sing in the bath.
Mr Ali clearly hates the English – especially when they are being Hobbit like (perhaps he suspects they are just playing).
As a serious future dictator he refused to reply to the silly questions of the Hobbits and got upset and snobish.
I was so upset for Tariq that I laughed and laughed.
I wonder if Mr Ali suspects that at least some of the people in the audience were not unfamilar with serious things, indeed violent things. After all there are a lot of ex military people in Stamford – and not wildly far from the town are the Fens.
For a little while I actually felt optimistic.