Of Animal Husbandry, PIGS and The 'Don't Know' Tories
Pinky Barroso: So what shall we do tonight, Brain?Brain von Rumpy-Pumpy: What we do every night, Pinky:
try and set up a Euro Government and
so take over the world!
APOLOGIES FOR THE PARAGRAPH GLITCH: FOR SOME REASON BLOGGER IS PLAYING SILLY BUGGERS WITH THE FORMATTING! > MARKS A PARAGRAPH
> I am in the very heart of the enemy's camp, to wit the European Parliament - or it would be the 'heart' if the entire circus had not gone off on its monthly peregrination to Strasbourg and posting will now come mostly from here. Today the European Council is engaged in some animal husbandry, that is saving the PIGS.
> Saving their own bacon, more like. That which was foretold when the Eurozone was established - with the Euro as a vanity currency designed to give the European Union one veritable and visible sign of its being a Sovereign Independent nation State in its own right - has indeed come to pass. This is that the Euro is not and can never be a 'one size fits all' currency, especially when candidate entrants lie about their economic and fiscal status and even then the rules are bent by the EU Comrades to squeeze countries of doubtful compliance with the rules into the corselet that is the Euro.
> The Euro removes from the members of the Eurozone any sort of genuine economic independence and sovereignty - as it is intended to do - so that soi-disant 'governments' no longer have the flexibility and nimbleness of devaluation and interest rates at their command to manoeuvre their way out of the sort of economic crises that now beset the so-called PIGS nations: Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain (and, one might add, with the probable inclusion in due course, when the market gets round to it, Italy).
> By comparison the UK went through this particular nightmare in 1992 on 'White Wednesday' when the markets assailed our currency and forced the UK from the ERM, thus trashing John Major, Norman lamont and the Tory party's reputation for economic competence in just twenty-four hours.
> Now the same nightmare is being played out for the PIGS. Greece is the current basket case and it is to address its particular torture that the European Council assembles this day in Brussels. Talk is of a bail-out, something which is supposed to be forbidden under the rules of this particular EU fantasy, ie The European Stability and Growth Pact and the Maastricht Treaty.
> Germany backs Greek bail-out as EU creates 'economic government'
> Germany is preparing to drop its vehement opposition to a rescue package for Greece, fearing that a rapid escalation of the debt crisis in Southern Europe could endanger German banks and damage the euro.
> It may be in the 'rules' that you cannot bail out a country that is imploding financially, but, hey, what are rules when set against the objectives of Le Grand Projet, to wit the creation of a Super State called Europe? In fact the EU Comrades will see in this particularly black cloud and distinctly silver, not to say golden, lining. What better reason, in their eyes, can there be than such a crisis but for the EU to sweep aside national governments' control of their own economies and replace them with, yes, you've guessed it, control of the entire EU economy by the PolitbEURO.
> The Telegraph goes on thus:
> Herman Van Rompuy, the EU's new president, has submitted a text calling for the creation of an "economic government" that shifts responsibility for economic planning from national authorities to the "EU level". In a parallel move, Commission chief Jose Barroso said Brussels has treaty powers allowing it to take the reins of economic management.
> "This is a time for boldness. I believe that our economic and social situation demands a radical shift from the status quo. And the new Lisbon Treaty allows this," he said.
> "Economic policy isn't a national, but a European matter. No modern economy is an island. When a member state doesn't make reforms, others suffer because of that."
> Let it be quite clear then: the EU plans to take away the final rights of government from the member states to manage their own affairs. Just savour the sentence: "Economic policy isn't a national, but a European matter." The threat to the UK's final vestiges of indpendence cannot be clearer. So the plan, whilst the ink is still dry on Lisbon, is to proceed full speed to European Government.
> The new President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, is using the financial crisis sweeping the eurozone to launch an audacious grab for power over national budgets, leaked documents reveal.
> The Independent has seen a secret annexe to the letter being sent by Mr Van Rompuy to European Union heads of government inviting them to the summit to be held tomorrow in Brussels.
> In an early and muscular assertion of authority over national governments and over the EU Commission, the Van Rompuy note states: "Members of the European Council are responsible for the economic strategy in their government. They should do the same at EU level. Whether it is called co-ordination of policies or economic government, only the European Council is capable of delivering and
sustaining a common European strategy for more growth and more jobs."
sustaining a common European strategy for more growth and more jobs."
> [....]
> "An EU source explained:
> "It has become clear to everyone that this economic crisis can't be solved by individual member states, such as Germany helping out Greece. What we need is the same kind of mechanism that we have now imposed on Greece in order to monitor and survey eurozone countries. So the idea is to put all European economies under surveillance. You can expect some important decisions to be taken this week."
> So there you have it. The game, people, is soon to be over and the likes of Brown, Cameron, Sarkozy, Merkel and the priapic Berlusconi, not to mention the Zapteros, the Papandreous, Balkenendes will soon be relieved of any further responsibility for the messes they have or might yet create. They can no longer be trusted not to make a total horlicks of economic management.
> Let the EU technocrats run the show.
> This is all set down for Thursday's summit here in Brussels. Curiously, according to the Indie, this little Cabal is keen to avoid the limelight:
> "The summit will be held away from the usual redoubts of the Euro bureaucracy, in Brussels' Solvay library. "Van Rompuy wanted to create a far more intimate atmosphere without an army of advisers," a source said. "There are a lot of tensions between member states right now, which he is why he decided to get them to talk in an open, friendly setting, starting with aperitifs. The idea is to have a proper brainstorming session and hear everyone's thoughts."
> In other words a secret deal is to be reached stitching up the economic governance over canapés, caviar blinis and champagne, in the time-honoured manner of the erstwhile 'smoke-filled room'. The people of the erstwhile member states (known formerly as 'voters') will not be invited to this particular little gathering, nor, you may be sure, will they ever be asked their opinion of it all for the last referenda ever have already been held. We will simply be presented with the New Order.
> Meanwhile, you could do worse than read Simon Heffer's thoughts on this particular travesty of democracy and EU law-breaking. One way or another it looks as though the people of Greece are being awoken to the fact that their ruling political class has spent the last few years in selling them all into, for the want of a better word, helotry.
> And what, I hear you ask, for ask you should, of our 'elected representatives', our MEPs in the European Parliament, that fig-leaf of democracy for the EUSSR? Where are they whilst all this is going on?
> It is a very good question. It might be thought that they would be close on hand awaiting their turn to say 'yea' or 'nay' to this particular development.
> Er, no.......they are actually all this week in Strasbourg paying court to the vanity of little Nicholas Sarkozy and France, taking part in the one-week-a-month Plenary at the EP's second home, deciding whether, inter alia to approve or disapprove of the new Commission.
> No need, then, for them to be distracted with something like an EU power-grab for economic government of the EU by the EU. They are, after all, not important in the scheme of things. Such matters are best decided, as they say, at a European level, i.e. by a small Camarilla of like-minded politicians keen to arrogate more power to themselves without the intrusive antics of democratically-elected politicians.
> The Commission, surprise, surprise, has been approved. UKIP rightly voted against its approval. The Tories? They abstained. To crown their risible policy on the EU since Cameron about-faced on his "cast-Iron guarantee" to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution, when it comes to deciding if they approve or disapprove of the body that will be promoting new legislation (lots of it) and executing policy (lots of it) in Brussels, they have concluded that they are a party of "Don't Knows".
> Thus is a great party with a history going back three hundred years reduced to irrelevance and impotence by its duplicitious leader: to say they are a joke is simply too kind. This is the party whose leader has told us that he is all in favour of our membership of the EU (in respect of which he has decided that there will not be an IN/OUT referendum on his watch) because membership, in his view, is in the interests of the UK, so there. Yet on a genuinely important issue such as who is to propose 70-80% of the laws that will come into force in the UK, the Tory Party cannot make up its mind.
> If it is contempt for Cameron that you feel on reading this, then that, I suggest, is to be mild and polite. I can think of other epithets for him, but this might be read by those of a sensitive disposition, so I shall forebear from deploying them. Meanwhile 'Old Cast-Iron' has been spraying 'guarantees' like confetti over at the Daily Express:
> "Q What is your position on Britain joining the single currency – we see some of its members, notably Greece, struggling badly at the moment?> A. Very simple, one word: never. I was in the Treasury when we were in the Exchange Rate mechanism, and I said to myself: “Never again should we give up control of our domestic interest rates.” If I am Prime Minister and for as long as I would be Prime Minister, I would never take Britain into the euro, full stop, end of story.We should never have got ourselves into the financial mess that we are in but at least we have the flexibility of our own currency and our own interest rates."
> The problem with this is Dave's egregious record on little things like promises: he fibs. When he uses the word 'never', it should be taken with a pinch of salt (salt, people, salt).
> One fly in Dave's unguent is our old friend Article 3.4 of the Treaty on European Union which has a rather different view:
> 4. The Union shall establish an economic and monetary union whose currency is the euro.
> Note the word 'shall' here, which to any lawyer explicitly comports the notion of 'obligatory' or 'mandatory'. The time will come when Cameron, who has already shown his yellow-streak over Europe, will simply be told to get on with taking us into the Euro or else. At which point he will assume the position and abolish the pound.
> Finally who is actually doing the job of being an opposition in the European Parliament, now that the Tories have decided that they have no opinion on such things?
> Why, UKIP's Nigel Farage, of course. Whilst the Tory party awaits the call to power, it has shoved Europe not so much on´to the backburner as down in the cellar. Given its leader's own pro-EU proclivities, it is terrified lest the business of Europe spills out into public discussion during an election period (perish the thought) of its own ludicrous EU policies to which he has, unilaterally and without so much as a 'by-your-leave' from his party, committed the Tories. Tories have now become the Basil Fawltys of politics when it comes to the EU: "For God's sake don't mention the EU!".
> So here for your delectation is Nigel doing what he does best, sticking it to the EU in characteristic fashion. But it is not merely giving the EU Comrades a hard time that is the point: ths issue of the EU is far too serious a matter for mere obloquy:
> People of Buckingham take note: you could do a lot worse (such as re-electing Squeaker Bercow) than putting Nigel Farage into the House of Commons to reflect the 2.46 million people who voted UKIP at the European elections last June and at the same time to provide the genuine voice of Euroscepticism which the ruling political class seeks at best to sublimate and at worst to suppress whenever it can. Perhaps then he might become a focus for dissent on Europe (and other matters attractive to those of the right) for the new intake of Tory MPs in May who may find little solace for their own views on such things in the utterances of Cameron, Hague and the rest.
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