Friday 16 December 2011

Engagement is not Appeasement: why we should hang in there with the EU


There’s a lot of fuss in various media about those who have dared to suggest the UK is a middling sized European power with little sway in the big, Real World, outside of it’s involvement in the EU and it’s [tenuous’ links to the US through the ‘special relationship’ are anti-patriotic defeatists.  And by saying we should be fully involved in shaping the EU rather than standing on the ever barren, icy side-lines in our Union Jack waistcoats clutching an Airfix model of a Spitfire, makes us appeasers.
I don't see any appeasing going on here at all however.  But I do see though- in a few isolated places of hope- a good dose of reality being swallowed.

The machinations of the EU may at times seen like the Mafia and it admittedly leans towards the autocratic rather than the democratic, but remember we have a press dominated by rabid anti-European hysteria [and that's putting it mildly] that permeates UK society so completely with it's unreasonableness- and often OUTRIGHT LIES- that it's difficult sometimes even for the most open-minded to develop informed judgements.

Whatever, hyperbole about the EU being ran like the Mafia doesn't help, nor is there the imminent threat of a new USSR on our doorstep etc etc etc.   Even if you take that concept on board, this government and Cameron's actions at the summit DID NOT amount to us standing up to the EU.  IT AMOUNTED TO US RUNNING AWAY.

There's lots of talk about Cameron using a veto last week to stop the EU in it's tracks.  It was nothing of the sort.  A veto stops things; he stopped nothing.

We have to be very careful not to get hysterical about the evils of the EU.  Just bear this in mind: after centuries of slaughtering each other in Europe, the EU has delivered over sixty years of peace, where talking has replaced warfare.  In an alternative universe, Cameron and the other leaders of Europe in all probability have left that summit last week, and returned to their capitals to ready their troops for warfare.  REAL warfare, with 21st century weapons.

I think to have the threat of that reality being reduced to the almost completely implausible is a huge endorsement of the success- and need- for the EU, don't you?  So lets be show our real bulldog spirit by getting stuck into the EU and working to shape it more in our image, rather than running away and daydreaming fantasies about returning to our [long lost] empire days.

Monday 12 December 2011

How Sarkozy made the UK Billy-No Mates in one quick master class of political intelligence

 

L’Épouvantail is unashamedly a pan-European enthusiastic; the EU may be imperfect and lacking often in basic, democratic instinct, but as the recent summit proved, sitting around a dinner table talking about problems, and then going home to face the politicians and press at home with sound bites, is preferable to them leaving the table and going home to ready the troops.

Well Cameron seems to be enjoying the adulation of his party at the moment, but after seeing his body language at and after the summit, I strongly suspect in ten years time when his memoirs are published he will pin-point that summit and this week when he realised he'd made a huge mis-calculation, and it spelt the beginning of the end of his political career.

Cameron made an horrendous mistake at that summit, and through his inexperience as both a domestic and international politician, has put the UK in a very, very disadvantaged position. When all the flag waving and jumping up and down singing Rule Britannia has stopped, more and more people will realise just that, as the true consequences of us effectively being booted out of the EU decision making process becomes all too clear.

As said above, L’Épouvantail  is not a huge fan of the way the EU has developed in recent times;  for years it’s been clear that it naturally inclines towards beings run by a technocratic elite from behind closed doors, and their European Project is hugely ambitious, massively bank-rolled, and very, very powerful. But the only way we can oppose the excesses of this behemoth and it's un-democratic instincts, is by being at the heart of the EU and making our voice heard, because believe it or not, we ARE listened to and supported an awful lot in EU affairs by other member states than our shameless, lying, rabidly beyond-all-sense-of-reason-and-proportion anti-European media care to report [an anti-European press incidentally ran almost exclusively by non-Europeans and tax exiles by the way, but that's another issue].

The EU's member states are not structured in a Them against Us way at all; in fact in it's day to day running, many of 'them' are on our side.

Although it’s appreciable how hard Cameron's job was, somehow he has managed to achieve the worst of all possible outcomes, and allowed Sarkozy in particular, to change that day-to-day face of the EU around, and make us the villainous, outcast, Billy No-Mates. Cameron has been totally outclassed on the world stage here, and we really, really should be careful about how much celebration we indulge in, because our country is about to enter a dark period where our politicians are not up to the job of protecting us adequately, and we are going to be very quickly dominated by a European super-state which, without us having a voice within it, will potentially become increasingly autocratic and that- in the long run- will make the world a much more dangerous place.