After David Cameron's iron fist vetoing yet more European Union integration, I thought it would be worth reminding ourselves of a previous Conservative Prime Minister who said 'no, no, no' to Brussels.
Britain's veto last night was of huge importance. It is the first shift away from the ratchet effect of European integration for many years. It shows that the UK will no longer accept the unacceptable transfer of powers away from our nation state. It also opens up a real possibility of a fundamental renegotiation of our relationship with the EU: as part of a co-operative free-trading bloc within a European Economic Community - rather than being an inexorable part of a federal superstate.
I look forward to being in Parliament on Monday. Our Prime Minister deserves three hearty cheers - especially for defying the federalist consensus.
by Robert Halfon - www.roberthalfon.blogspot.com
There seems to be a lot of misinformation about what the Priminister vetoed, we earn a lot of our overseas earnings from the financial sector and the taxes they were proposing and the move to a more centralized banking system was not in Britain’s interest. Allready Germany has a strong industrial manufacturing base, including Landrover and Jaguar cars, they make thing,s we don’t anymore.
ReplyDeleteIs it not the case they now want our financial service industry. Already the stifling rules and regulations from Europe have slowed our building, business and manufacturing base to almost a standstill, so now it appears they want the same for the financial service industry, they may have lost during their quest for world domination in the 40,s, but by the back door or European regulations they are gradually diminishing our country to third world status.
Thank the Priminister for at last being someone who rather than tow the line like Blair and Brown did, even if it meant giving our countries and it,s peoples right,s away, towed the line in Europe and signed everything that was put in front of them, as a way to their own end,s.
So Cameron stood up and at last we have a Priminister who isn’t afraid of being heard, although it may not endear him to the politicians interfering, the European union.
Lets face it they have not made a good job of running Europe and still the Euro may sink them, only time will tell.
With that one word, "No!", the Prime Minister has swept away the horribly negative images of himself and of Britain that have had most of us in Britain wincing every time we looked at a newspaper or at the news on our television screens in recent months.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Mr Cameron's "No!", for the first time in a decade I can identify with 'Britain" and "British" without mentally distancing myself as English.
Its all too clear to most of us in Britain that the Euro is fundamentally flawed, thanks to the appalling bad judgements of the EU elite who established it. It's equally clear that Mr and Ms Merkosy have been plotting to produce a diabolical Treaty deal in their own interests, not ours, to make Britain pay the lion's share among the 27 EU countries for an unworkable sticking plaster patch for the Eurozone.
Mertol and Sarkozy's Treaty - condemned by the Euro lawyers as illegal - would have destroyed the British financial services sector in favour of those of Germany and France, just as the EU destroyed our fishing and manufacturing industries in Franco-German interests.
It would have integrated the EU countries in an even more corrupt, even more undemocratic and even more 1984ish, tightly controlled EUSSR - and it would still fail to solve the Eurozone crisis.
So, well done and thank you, Prime Minister, for speaking the truth to power and for making me feel British again. Perhaps your courage will lead to the sort of reform that the EU has desperately needed for so very long. As long as your “No!” does not turn out to be a delayed “Yes”, the majority of the British people will back you, because you've made the right choice.
The European Union works as an internatiomal trading partnership,but even the public in the other member states must now realise that the single currency is a total disaster.Thank goodness we now have a leader who put Britain first.The Prime Minister did not use Britains veto because the other states accepted the agreement therfore this was a case of majority voting.Is this legal under EU rules?
ReplyDeleteDer Spiegel puts the German view of the British "No!"
ReplyDelete"It was to be expected. And now it's official: The British have elected not to join the treaty governing Europe's new financial system. Prime Minister David Cameron refused.
Does that mean, then, that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have failed? Not at all. Only incompetent amateurs could have believed that London would join the attempt to overcome the European debt crisis together. European leaders in Brussels hammered out an agreement that marks the end of unlimited fiscal sovereignty -- and that conflicts fundamentally with the British understanding of Europe.
The result of Thursday night -- the 17 euro-zone countries joined by nine others pending parliamentary approval in three of the non-euro-zone capitals -- is a success. A success for the majority of Europeans and for efforts to find a solution to the euro crisis. Any deal with the obstreperous British would have been a weak compromise, and one that would have allowed questionable economic practices to continue.
But from the very beginning, Great Britain's participation in a united Europe was a misunderstanding. When the EU was founded, the British still hadn't finished mourning over their lost empire. Europe seemed far away and Continental efforts at unification were seen by many among the British elite as little more than naïve idealism.
Despite such doubts, the EU became a reality, and a success -- and it was economic realities that ultimately led London to join. Companies in the UK pushed the government toward Brussels because staying away was far too risky economically.
Grave Misgivings
Still, the political classes in Britain never fully shared the Continental conviction that the European Union was an absolute political necessity following two destructive world wars in the 20th century. They never fully believed that Europe had to grow together, despite all the cultural, linguistic and societal differences.
In the 1960s, the empire was history, with one colony after the other declaring independence. But instead of turning toward Europe, Britain looked west to the US. And to this day, the UK feels much closer to America than it does to the frogs and the krauts on the other side of the English Channel. One could see the strength of that bond as recently as 2003, when then-Prime Minister Tony Blair joined President George W. Bush in his Iraq adventure despite grave misgivings on the Continent.
In Brussels, which has for decades been depicted in the British press as little more than a bureaucratic monster, London has mostly played but a single role from the very beginning: that of a spanner in the works. There has hardly been a decision aimed at greater European integration that Britain hasn't sought to block. And it was a role that even brought financial benefits. Ever since Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously demanded "I want my money back," Britain has had to contribute less to the EU than the size of its economy would otherwise require.
To avoid misunderstandings, it is important to note that Britain is a fabulous country, as are its people. Their finely honed humor, tolerance, composure, language, culture and, yes, their worldliness are all to be praised and envied. Germans particularly, with their predisposition to overwrought fear, could learn a lot from the British.
rest to follow...
Second section of der Spiegel article:
ReplyDelete"Demanding a Say
But the UK and the EU was a source of frustration for decades. On the long term, a member cannot demand all of the benefits of a community while refusing to shoulder its share of the burdens. One can't constantly seek to thwart all efforts at greater European integration while at the same time demanding a say in all decisions.
Great Britain is an EU member that never truly wanted to be part of the club. It was more of an observer than a contributor and it always had one eye on Washington. Indeed, it is telling that the country never joined the border-free travel regime known as Schengen -- Britain still checks everybody who enters the country from the other side of the Channel. The political establishment was likewise extremely skeptical of the common currency from the very beginning.
It is true that much of the criticism was spot on, which is why the euro zone is now in crisis and in need of repair. But it wasn't really the design shortcomings which led the British to stay out of the euro zone. Rather, it was their independence -- one could say currency nationalism -- which led to the country remaining on the outside.
Though that hardly kept them from acting at EU summits as though they had long since introduced the euro. At the summit before last, in fact, Sarkozy even lost his cool, telling Cameron "you missed a good opportunity to keep your mouth shut." The French president continued: "We are sick of you criticizing us and telling us what to do. You say you hate the euro and now you want to interfere in our meetings."
Only One Possible Answer
Now, finally, there is a clear line of separation. On the one side is euro-Europe with a treaty obligating them to stay within clear budgetary and sovereign debt boundaries. And there is the rest which still has complete sovereign control over their finances. The 17 euro-zone member states will no longer be forced to accommodate a country that rejects anything that smells like supra-nationalism.
There is certain to be a debate over the question as to how a divided Europe should continue. But that doesn't have to be a disadvantage. Such a debate has been necessary for a long time and conflicts can not always be avoided. Sometimes, a bit of bickering is necessary to create clarity.
The questions for Britain, however, are equally difficult. What exactly is the country's role in the EU? British historian Timothy Garton Ash, a critic of the euro-skeptic course followed by the Cameron administration, said recently in an interview with SPIEGEL: "If the euro zone is saved, there will be a fiscal union, which means a political union of the euro countries.... Then, in the next two, three or four years, we in Great Britain will face the final question: in or out?"
If the British political class does not undergo a fundamental transformation, there is only one possible answer. Out."
What delluded hogswash from the most supra-national nation of them all, a Germany which Der Spiegel admits is gripped by a national neurosis of "overwraught fear" of other nations.
"They [UK] never fully believed that Europe had to grow together", claims Der Spiegel.
What Der Speigel really means is that the British have always known that Germany would inevitably subvert the EU to German supra-national interests to the detriment of the rest of Europe.