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THE SLOWLY EMERGING ELITE EU SUPERSTATE
Old Hickory
The news programmes on Tuesday, 20 December 2005 reported Blair in a clash with the UK Independence Party [UKIP]over the EU budget deal, patriotism and the slowly emerging EU superstate. Blair said the EU did not meet the needs of the modern world. Presumably he means that it ought to back up his warmongering projects like the inept invasion of Iraq. The EU is a warmongering project but it is not ready yet to meet his need to meddle around the world.
Earlier, the UKIP's Nigel Farage said that Blair was “outplayed and outclassed” by France's Jacques Chirac, rather than the Germans in budget negotiations. Blair had wanted a reform of the Common Agriculture Policy [CAP] and he suggested that he might reconsider the deal Mrs Thatcher made back in the 1980s in the hope that he might get a revision of CAP. In the event, he gave a billion pounds, or in later news reports a billion and a half pounds, of the rebate back anyway.
UKIP wants to pull out of the EU altogether, as it sees that the EU wants to turn Britain from a nation state to a mere province of the superstate. It sees no merit in doing that. Blair attacked them on what he took to be a solid, or at least a viable line of thought and he accused them of being hostile to Germany. He said to the UKIP members of the European Parliament: “This is 2005, not 1945. We are not fighting each other any more.” Blair said to them that although Farage and colleagues “sit with our country's flag, you do not represent our country's interest”. Blair seems merely perverse when he say he thinks that euthanasia for the UK, and its reorganisation as a region of the EU superstate, is somehow in its interest. Maybe he might think it good for the people of the UK, if not for the UK itself, but how paying out all those taxes to spend in Blair's meddling war projects round the world could be in the interests of the people who are thus taxed is no clearer.
On Wednesday, 21 December 2005 there was a report that even Gordon Brown let it be known that he did not like this giving something away for nothing. Blair came on the news to deny any new rift between them over it. Blair continued to think his give away of part of the budget rebate was a good thing. He told the UKIP members that he got lots back for it, like stability, investment in the new states of the EU and a long list of things like that.
Nigel Farage came onto the news and said: “We are isolated and alone in the European Union. We are completely alone.” The UKIP party got 16.1% of the vote in the last European Parliament elections. The Tories also think that Blair was giving something away for nothing. The new Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, said: “Tony Blair's presidency will be remembered as the time Britain gave up £7bn without securing anything in return.”
But the recently ebbing, and now defunct, Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said: “If only Tony Blair could close the gap between his rhetoric and his actions in Europe, he'd be in a much stronger position both in the EU and at home. He has mismanaged expectations.” In the new year he showed that this was the case with him as the leader of his party too, when he felt obliged to confess that he was a alcoholic on the first Thursday of the year and in the wake of that, he had eleven members of his front bench team calling for him to go. On Saturday, 7 January 2006, he finally resigned, after a week being dogged by his MPs with the additional aid of the media, that carried their discontent as the top story in the news.
The European Commission chief, Jose Manual Barroso, wants a direct EU tax for citizens of member states. That would let the public of all the EU states feel the “benefits” of the EU directly. They would feel up front that they were then having taxation without representation. Blair feels that he cannot quite introduce that in the UK just yet, but he continues to be as keen on the EU project as ever. Indeed, much of the New Labour destruction of the British tradition, from devolution to the changing of the House of Lords, might be better understood if seen as mere conformity to preparing the end of this old nation by perpetration of it as a mere region of the slowly emerging superstate.
In the summer of 2005, the superstate lost a few referendums, in France and Holland. Brown gave a few speeches that the EU needs to face up to the new reality. The public in the member states were nationalistic for those states rather than for the EU and John Redwood welcomed those speeches from Brown, but thought that Blair could never stand up to the EU in that way. In fact, Brown was actually talking about the old realities that the EU have been waiting to fade since the 1940s rather than any new reality. Brown thought the 2005 referendum results might alter, or slow still further, this superstate project and he was not alone in that idea. Many newspaper columnists declared that the EU was effectively dead, but that also turns out to exaggerate the setback the EU suffered, and, indeed, it now seems that it was mere hyperbole to even think of those events as a practical setback for the EU project at all.
It is an elitist project that rolls on independent of the lack of popular support and it simply ignores the fact that many do not want it. Brown made his speeches on the “outdated” superstate EU project at the beginning of the UK's presidency, of which he seemed to rather hope for some UK progress on the free trade zone idea. But at the end of this six months, Peter Mandelson was giving speeches directly contrary to Brown's, though he was largely repeating ones that he had earlier also made at around the same time that Brown made his. He was, again, talking about the need to end the Thatcherite outlook in the UK, and Blair's cave-in over the budget rebate showed that there was a bit more political motivation in the latter, even if it is going to be a very slow project. It was certainly not the end of the superstate project and the replacement of it with a mere free trade zone, as many fondly imagined. That could have been achieved without any more unifying reforms, yet the unifying reforms have continued as if the vote was in favour of them rather than against them. As Christopher Booker says in “The Federal Monster”, Daily Mail, 10 December 2005 (p.16f) the superstate went on regardless, just as Robert Michels in his book Political Parties (1911) said the leaders did in any supposed democracy. But, as we all know, the EU is not even supposed to be a democracy. It has developed largely out of sight, and despite what the people think along the way, always in the hope that one day, a new generation will arise that endorse it as a entity. That generation is still way into the future, and that would have disappointed the founders . But the current power hungry politicians still think that this generation will one day arise. What about the result of the summer referendums? They were as ephemeral in their effect as last year's snow. The superstate has continued to take over the power that was formerly in the hands of the member states. The quest for power and influence in the world from a new superstate plods on. Like the gap between the ruled and the rulers on hanging, the public hate what the elite hold as civilised. But public opposition is futile. The referendums were as futile as the opinion polls on public support for hanging.
Booker says it is all like the old television series, Quatermass. An attempted take-over of Earth by aliens from another planet, disguised as humans, so their conquest could not be seen. Similarly, the superstate's take over is said to be nothing to worry about and it is so often said that the superstate is not really coming at all, that it is all a big fiction. Yet now and again, Quatermass saw signs that the ministers who had tried to reassure him were in fact aliens and so it is with the superstate deniers: they are Europhiles to a man.
What is most irritating about this slow superstate plan is the assumption that it is all automatic and that the future is set, no matter how remote it may seem and how many obstacles lay in the way: it is all a matter of time. It is taking far too much time for the liking of the warmongers but they feel they can vicariously feel satisfaction that one day the superstate will be here and that its chances of being top dog state will be excellent. Some 80% of law is now just rubber stamped in the member states and has been forged by the EU. It ranges over all aspects of life, from the police to the court systems, from immigration policy to taxation. Not many understood that when the Labour government set up its Food Standards Agency to monitor the hygiene laws it was a manifestation of the EU's Food Safety Authority set up in Italy. Similarly, the UK's largest quango, the Environmental Agency to enforce laws on pollution and waste is a manifestation of Brussels rule. The European Aviation Safety Agency, based in Cologne, has now taken over from Britain's Civil Aviation Authority. Control of railways is soon due to move to France from all over the EU domain states, including the UK. EU ports and ships will be ruled from the new headquarters in Portugal from the developing European Maritime Agency. The chemicals industry, larger in the UK than elsewhere in Europe will eventually be ruled from the European Chemicals Agency in Finland.
National embassies from the member states have been closing down to be replaced by EU embassies and the single EU diplomacy and this began way before the referendums ratified this process. The “rejected” constitution was due to go on no matter what. Time was when the EU enthusiasts used to re-run those referendums till they got the right result from the voters but they now seem to have realised that there is no need to do that. They can just go on regardless. Apart from the few enthusiasts, the EU bores one and all so much that it is hardly to be noticed by most voters whatever they do.
The EU single police force continues to be fostered. Soon the 43 police forces of the UK will be cut to 12 to prepare for this end, says Booker. The European Evidence Warrant will allow the EU to order all zones in any member state to take action according to EU demands. The EU is setting up its own space programme that will tax all the member states, whether they want to send ironmongery into outer space or not. It is out to rival NASA and the Galileo satellites have already cost the UK alone some £400 million. This was due to be ratified by article 254 of the rejected constitution but it moves on as if the vote went in favour. It is seen as vital to the superstate's armed forces in the distant future. Oddly China has invested 20% into it and Booker feels they were allowed to do so as they are anti-USA. But the USA is just today's top dog state. Booker does not seem to realise that China will be just as hated if it becomes the rival. As in the Cold War, fools fooled themselves that it was distinct from the great power rivalry that was in operation before 1914, when the basic fact of the matter was plainer. It was less plain owing what many thought was a new phenomenon called communism. In fact, communism only obfuscated the fact that all politics is cold war; and that this quest to be top dog state is all there is to it. Most on this list will know that the USSR had not the slightest thing to do with actual communism, if we mean by that, a non-money system. If there had been nothing like communism, or any difference of any type, the rivalry between the top powers would go on and there would be the threat of futile war as a result.
Similarly, the European Defence Agency goes on, though before the unexpected referendum setback it had jumped the gun and legally needed a ratification of article 41 under the “defeated” constitution, says Booker. The UK taxpayers’ money was earlier diverted into this EU development and it continues as if it was ratified. Booker says that it is buying inferior products at greater expense too. The free traders who thought the EU was a boon always tended to overlook the fact that the EU enthusiasts only tolerated free trade within the superstate as they could hardly avoid it. It was higher tariffs for all from outside the EU.
Many of the old authorities in the member states have been largely left intact so that it looks as if nothing has changed. There are still General Elections in the UK but parliament needs to conform to Brussels’ rule and it does do so. Like the monarchy, it has become de jure in appearance rather than an institution with any real power. The true capital city is no longer London but now Brussels. This is not an elected rule, says Booker. So the referendums were a sham all along. The EU is a one party state, he says. So any “No” vote against it, as we had in the summer of 2005, is irrelevant. On and on it goes, with the EU fans hoping that one day it will emerge as a nation as well as superstate. The bored and indifferent public will, hope the warmongers, have scions in generations to come that will adopt a European patriotism that they are willing to die for.
Further reading:
Nigel Farage came onto the news and said: “We are isolated and alone in the European Union. We are completely alone.” The UKIP party got 16.1% of the vote in the last European Parliament elections. The Tories also think that Blair was giving something away for nothing. The new Shadow Foreign Secretary, William Hague, said: “Tony Blair's presidency will be remembered as the time Britain gave up £7bn without securing anything in return.”
It is an elitist project that rolls on independent of the lack of popular support and it simply ignores the fact that many do not want it. Brown made his speeches on the “outdated” superstate EU project at the beginning of the UK's presidency, of which he seemed to rather hope for some UK progress on the free trade zone idea. But at the end of this six months, Peter Mandelson was giving speeches directly contrary to Brown's, though he was largely repeating ones that he had earlier also made at around the same time that Brown made his. He was, again, talking about the need to end the Thatcherite outlook in the UK, and Blair's cave-in over the budget rebate showed that there was a bit more political motivation in the latter, even if it is going to be a very slow project. It was certainly not the end of the superstate project and the replacement of it with a mere free trade zone, as many fondly imagined.
Booker says it is all like the old television series, Quatermass. An attempted take-over of Earth by aliens from another planet, disguised as humans, so their conquest could not be seen. Similarly, the superstate's take over is said to be nothing to worry about and it is so often said that the superstate is not really coming at all, that it is all a big fiction. Yet now and again, Quatermass saw signs that the ministers who had tried to reassure him were in fact aliens and so it is with the superstate deniers: they are Europhiles to a man.
Many of the old authorities in the member states have been largely left intact so that it looks as if nothing has changed. There are still General Elections in the UK but parliament needs to conform to Brussels’ rule and it does do so. Like the monarchy, it has become de jure in appearance rather than an institution with any real power. The true capital city is no longer London but now Brussels. This is not an elected rule, says Booker. So the referendums were a sham all along. The EU is a one party state, he says. So any “No” vote against it, as we had in the summer of 2005, is irrelevant. On and on it goes, with the EU fans hoping that one day it will emerge as a nation as well as superstate.