Cameron can not reform the EU. The only question is why he’s telling us he can.
If anywhere in Europe was likely to be receptive to Cameron’s idea for a reformed European Union you might think the Nordic countries would be the place. These are small, high income countries who have also seen large scale immigration. Countries that (except for Finland) have stayed out of the Euro, and even kept their finances in some sort of order. These countries have their own reservations about European Union with Denmark joining at the same time as the UK, and Sweden much later while Iceland hasn’t joined at all, and Norway, a member of the EEA but not the EU is often heralded as an example of success outside the European Union.
But it all went wrong again for our Dave last week, as these potential allies rounded on Cameron to remind him that freedom of movement is a fundamental pillar of the European ideal, with Finnish PM Alexander Stubb describing it as “holy” and Prime Minister Solberg describing it as “extremely important to Norway” despite the country not actually being a member.
And they are of course absolutely right. The free movement of labour and of people throughout the European Union is as much a part of the European ideal as the free movement of goods, capital and services. Perhaps even more so for some.
If that’s what sort of reception Cameron gets from his potential allies on the periphery of the European dream, then how will his ideas be received at its centre in France and Germany? And how will they be received in the countries of the east who are the source of these migrations?
To anyone who has bothered to find out what the European project is all about, none of this comes as any surprise. Freedom of movement is not just some experiment started by Tony Blair, it’s one of the founding principles of the European Community that was enshrined in the Treaty of Rome over half a century ago. The idea that we can negotiate some sort of opt out or work around like countries do for certain particularly burdensome directives is either fantasy, duplicity or extreme naivety.
As a Eurosceptic I’ve always been firmly of the belief that in the case of pro-EU politicians, and Conservatives in particular it was simply duplicity. Heath later admitted that he knew full well in 1973 that it was about a federal Europe, and the only way Major could have missed this intention in the Maastricht Treaty is the unlikely scenario that he rammed it through parliament and the expense of an internal civil war in his party without even reading the pre-amble. Cameron’s post 2010 decision to renege on his promised referendum seemed like more of the same, as he claimed that changing the title of the document from “European Constitution” to “Lisbon Treaty” changed the nature of the agreement and negated the need for popular approval.
There was duplicity a plenty with Blair as well, but also an element of fantasy. After fixing the problems of Ireland and the middle-east he would bring his new and exciting brand of politics to the people of Europe, sweeping to power as an EU President with a popular mandate to reform the sclerotic economies and byzantine institutions of Europe. The idea was quietly dropped when it emerged that by 2007 no-one liked or trusted Tony Blair either in the UK or Europe.
We can discount the fantasy explanation for Cameron’s behaviour, because his big idea was shot down spectacularly by Merkel last week when the most influential EU leader made it quite clear that freedom of movement was not up for negotiation, up to and including Britain leaving the EU. This kind of firm and unambiguous rejection would have the fantasist dropping the idea as quickly and comprehensively as Blair dropped his designs on the European Presidency.
So it seemed straight forward enough to assume that Cameron’s latest big idea – to gain agreement from the rest of the union on changes that would make the EU acceptable to British voters – was more of the same. My first thought was that he would secure a couple of opt outs, do a bit of window dressing on things like removing EU flags from sponsored projects, then develop some unattractive and ill defined alternative and put it to a lop sided referendum.
This is plausible while he’s going around the country telling people that he will sort it all out, and while he’s occasionally winding up other leaders by waving a veto about and other crass attempts to emulate Thatcher’s famous handbagging, but when he is going around other European leaders making a complete fool of himself by casually claiming to want to stop intra EU immigration, it suggests something different.
it makes me wonder if Cameron is less of a manipulator or fantasist and instead genuinely misunderstands the whole nature of the project. Perhaps he genuinely believes the line trotted out by generations of Tory leaders, that Europe is a trade agreement that got a little out of hand. This would actually mean he was worse than a deluded fantasist or a liar, which we expect of our politicians, and in fact a blithering idiot who has somehow managed to get himself to the position of Prime Minister without even a basic grasp of the nature of the European Union. Hardly a strong position for someone hoping to lead Britain to a better position in our most important foreign relationship.
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The dishonourable tactics of the leadership last night (over the E.U. arrest warrant), and the craven surrender (“we only gave half of the extra they ordered”) over the edict ordering us to give the E.U, additional cash, can not be honestly defended.
The Rochester election is now lost. And, unless basic policy is changed, the General Election will also be lost.
I too gave this essay five stars, though I do think he’s rather over-generous to Cameron.
BTW, here;s a link to what appears to be the original – the one at the top isn’t working:
http://alex-rantwell.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/liar-fantasist-or-fool.html
And I do approve of “Rantwell” as a name for a blogger!
Sadly I would say the boy is an idiot in terms of understanding the origins and the functioning of the EU. He has proved that tirelessly since 2010. Like his friend George Osborne he has no idea and therefore no control over EU events, policies or even how to converse within an adult political arena. Pity. The UK deserves so much better.
Every nation gets the government it deserves. Looking at modern England, I suspect we deserve even worse than we have.
We certainly allowed the Political-EnemyClass to take over all the bright shiny levers of influence and opinion, while our backs were turned. That was a grave fault.
I think it was Ronald Reagan who said “Liberty is never more than one generation away from extinction.” We’ve gone three now, more or less, while failing to resist the more-or-less obvious FabiaNazi encroachments.
A UKIP majority at the GE-2015 will buy us a few more years. But ChiIndoRussia isn’t going to come to our rescue with any enthusiasm, to promote an externally-supported revolution by the British People against the remaining EnemyClass-Corrupted-Institutions, between 2015 and the Nazi-smeared-fall of a British UKIP administration.
Moreover, the British People themselves don’t really care deeply enough who forms the Gubblentment, so long as there’s food in the shops, the lights work, the takeaways are staffed with “wily oriental gentlemen who fry stuff up quick” and the telly has the usual mass-popular-culture wall-to-wall.
populus panem et circenses voluerit
Oh and so long as “The Footy’s On Tonight!”
They’ve become “Sheeple”. We may have to forcibly dissolve them and elect a different people.
Cameron can’t be as stupid as you suppose, he would be barely able to string a sentence together in public if he was dumb enough to imagine the EU to be an overgrown trading union.
In fact he knows quite well that most of the voting public is dumb enough to believe that the EU is an overgrown trading union and that’s what actually matters to his political career.
Because the BritishPolitical-EnemyClass has deliberately captured the Mass Media, effectively since WW2, the voting public in now almost 3 generations into being told what to think about the allowed topics of discussion.
It’s also reminded continually about which topics are forbidden.
I know many reasonably intelligent adults who seriously believe that “Europe” won’t trade with us, buy things from us, sell us gear or let us travel on holiday there, if we leave the EU. They also accept quite naturally that “we’ll be alone in the world and unable to survive on our own”. Really, people actually say this stuff.
The “if we leave, 3 million British jobs will vanish” meme is taken at its face value.
“I still think UKIP are extremist right wing fruitcake skinheads” is widely stated especially by Tories (even if “that Farage man talks sense”. is tacked on.) Conflation of UKIP with the EDL and the BNP is almost completed as a tactical-media-project, certainly in major cities and towns.
I think we’re lost, finished, frankly, as a free nation. All we can hope is that something vaguely ramshackle and resembling outwardly some form of personal liberty, will survive the lifetime of our children if not further. But I doubt it.
I say, “most of the voting public is dumb enough” advisedly. If you want to know the real story of the EU there are numerous excellent blogs detailing the issue or, if you care to go that extra mile, the EU (and every other supra-national organisation) puts all its documents on-line. In this day and age there is no excuse for ignorance – other than basic stupidity.
Camoron is evil scum. Like all his kind he has animal cunning but he is thick as pigshit in any practical terms. Show him a spade and he’d call it an implement. He knows well the evil that he does. Leaving a banquet early to ensure that yet more tyrannical shite is ratified. In less than 5 years he and his gang have earned themselves a place in the “Top three worst UK govts of modern times” listing. And Yes–that goes all the way back to Lord North.
David & Sean, I just can’t be that downbeat about things. People have survived a lot worse than a rotten political system.
Alex, thank you for starting your new blog, and for coming here. Maybe I already know you under another name; but that isn’t important.
I too am optimistic for the future, and I wonder how well pessimism is correlated with level of emotional involvement with the current system?
I can’t speak for David, but I think you may be doing Sean an injustice. He has, overall, been far more optimistic in the last 8 years or so than in the decade I knew him before that.
And as to the question you pose as the title of your essay, have you considered the answer: “Any or all of the above – whichever and whenever it suits them?”
“People have survived a lot worse than a rotten political system.”
A rotten political system is one of the things that people don’t survive. Often they don’t survive by the million.
Perhaps this present gang are small-timers and too much emotional energy should not be wasted on them. The truly galling thing is that they mostly get away with their evil and live long and prosper while others are ruined.
Neil, we may have met around 10 years ago in London. I was replying to Sean’s comment more than Sean in general. And calling David a gloom merchant is a high compliment!
There are reasons to be pessimistic but reasons to be optimistic too.
Mr Ecks: Many more people do survive than do not. That isn’t a reason to be complacent, but I find when I get too cynical about it all I tend to get resigned to continual failure. Keeping some sense of optimism is more likely to induce me to do something about it.
If you don’t believe you can do something about it then you either get out or you start a revolution, and I’m not really in a position to do either.