EU Referendum

Showing posts with label Monnet. Show all posts

santa+klaus[i-santa+klaus]Offering us a very early Christmas present (although I swear it was warmer on Christmas day that it was yesterday) Vaclav Klaus, the Czech president, has intimated that he intends to refer the constitutional Lisbon treaty to his country's constitutional court at the start of August.

With the support of 17 senators, he will seek a ruling on whether the treaty complies with the Czech constitution, thereby delaying once more the ratification of the treaty, which he can now do until the court has given its verdict.

This completely stall the process, blocking Sweden, the current rotating EU presidency holder, from sorting out the final details of the treaty implementation by the end of the year, assuming the Irish vote "yes" on 2 October.

Whether even that will happen is anyone's guess. According to The Telegraph the "no" campaign is seeking to exploit the financial crisis, so says Mr Cox, a former Irish MEP (and EP president) "to encourage the Irish people to vote against our own interests and reject the Treaty." He adds: "We do not plan to let them succeed." But then he always was an arrogant .... person.

The longer Klaus delays it, of course – even if the Irish do roll over – the closer to Armageddon comes David Cameron, who will now not be off the hook by the time of the Conservative Party conference. Just a measly six months into the next year – if he can stall it that long - and we will see what Boy Dave is made of, when he has to promise us a referendum.

It is not only the EU presidency that will then be rotating. Mr Monnet, tucked up in his grave, will be doing likewise.

COMMENT THREAD

ball_and_chain[i-ball_and_chain]Ambrose has an alarming (or alarmist) story in The Daily Telegraph today telling us that the EU is "considering a voting structure for its new apparatus of financial regulation that would make it almost impossible for Britain to block measures, even if they pose a major threat to the City of London."

We are thus told that the commission is mulling a simple majority system (SMV), making it far harder for the UK to mount a "blocking minority" with like-minded allies. Malta or Slovenia would have the same voting weight on financial regulation as Britain, the world's banking capital.

On the face of it, this does not seem possible, as voting procedures are defined in the treaty and cannot be changed willy-nilly by the commission, or anyone else. But it is not at all clear from the story as to the context in which this system is supposed to apply.

However, Ambrose tells me that the commission hopes to use the procedures within the technical committees for the three new regulatory authorities, which of course is a devious piece of Monnet salami tactics. The regulators, therefore, will be able to impose their rule over the heads of the British government – if this procedure is approved.

In fact, says Ambrose, it makes little difference whether it is QMV or SMV. The key moment was when the member states agreed to binding EU powers at the Ecofin meeting in May and then at the June summit. That entailed the transfer of ultimate control over the City from London to Brussels. The rest is detail.

That, in many ways, defines the EU – submerged in technical detail and complexity which lacks clarity and defies understanding. However, we are also told that, "The City is very seriously concerned about this," which is no bad thing. If the money men are seriously worried about the depredations of the EU, then we might see some increased resistance to the evil empire and more pressure on the Conservative Party.

On this, though, it would be unwise to rely. City financiers, in our experience, tend to be extraordinarily naïve when it comes to dealing with the EU, believing they are dealing with a rational organisation with which it is possible to have sensible negotiations. They will learn in time, but not before the City has largely been destroyed by a welter of regulation and procedures that no one understands and which are too complex to report in a popular newspaper.

Any which way though, even if it is not this issue in particular which does the damage, the one constant is that we are going to get shafted, with the City shackled by a ball and chain of perverse regulation. When it happens, we will probably not even realise how it is has been done. A thought thus occurs that between the Taleban and the EU as enemies, the former are possibly preferable. At least we can shoot the Taleban.

COMMENT THREAD

invisible+man[i-invisible+man]As the euro-elections come closer, The Economist has devoted an article to noticing that "Europe is invisible" in the campaign – telling us that it "shouldn't be".

As to the invisibility, that certainly is the case. The campaign literature from the main parties scarcely mentions the EU, while a Conservative Party circular letter tells us that the election "gives us an opportunity to send a message to this government, loud and clear: it's time for you to go". Media interest is minimal and the claque obstinately focuses on the domestic political scene.

However, in an article apparently devoted to this phenomenon of invisibility, the magazine offers little by way of explanation for it. The tide of European integration has slowed in recent years, leaving Britain with less to get worked up about. Also, Tony Blair was constantly talking up the EU while Brown has rarely shown the same zeal, and is anyway preoccupied with fighting a recession.

That's it. That is all we get on this bizarre situation, the magazine being more concerned with telling us why we should be interested in "Europe" than exploring why we are not.

Not least of the reasons why we should be interested – although not mentioned by the Economist - is a recent research which tells us that regulation generated by the EU has cost businesses across a total of €1 trillion in the last 11 years - equivalent to 12 percent of the gross domestic product.

That 12 percent figure is not exactly new, first reported in November 2004 and reinvented by Open Europe in February of this year. But what is intriguing about this current report is the view of one of its authors, Professor Francis Chittenden, who declares that EU regulations are largely driven by political motives, with little assessment of the impact they will have on businesses and the economy.

This, of course, is a theme which we have been plugging ever since we started this blog – and before. The primary purpose of EU regulation is not regulation, per se. It is a mechanism for promoting economic integration, from which political integration follows, the embodiment of the "Monnet method", relying on engrenage and latterly the "beneficial crisis" to drive the agenda forward.

David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), calls for this "massive burden of regulation on business" to be reduced, but he is whistling in the wind. The EU cannot and will not reduce regulation – it is its very raison d'être.

If EU politics was normal politics, on the national model, there could be change. Parliamentarians – in theory at least – could demand it and MPs holding themselves up for election with ambitions of forming a government could pledge change in their manifesto. But in the euros, there are no manifestos because the right of initiative is the prerogative of the EU commission. All the MEPs can do is conform with the "working programme" set by the commission, their power confined to making tweaks round the edges.

That is another of the reasons why the euro-elections are unreal. They don't matter because MEPs don't matter. They are a supreme irrelevance, serving as the gloss on a fundamentally anti-democratic system, there to give it the appearance of legitimacy.

The trouble is that, as the EU takes over more and more powers, and thus expands its legislative range, it also marginalises our own Westminster MPs. They also become irrelevant, thus ending up filling their idle hours with increasingly inventive schemes for self-enrichment.

And that is a true measure of the decay in our system. Collectively, in the last three weeks, both the politicians and media will have devoted far more time and energy to discussing parliamentary expenses than they have given to the EU in the last three years. That, however, leaves a huge vacuum and, in the way of things, if the politicians do not address it, others will.

COMMENT THREAD

frank-field[i-frank-field]One very minor effect of this current political furore is the reinforcement of a trend that has been apparent for some time. Links to this blog from the rest of the "political" blogosphere have virtually dried up, so that most readers come to this site as "direct hits" rather than as referrals. In effect, this blog has been sent to Coventry.

Particularly noticeable is the absence of any "hits" from the self-appointed chef de claque, but also from some of the other so-called political sites, which is hardly surprising when we include in our scatter-gun critiques, some cruel observations about the rule of the claque. Yet, despite all that, our hit rate is standing up tolerably well, suggesting that we have an audience which is capable of tolerating an alternative view.

Another alternative view, which apparently also finds little favour with the chef, who somehow fails to mention it in his round-up of press comment, is a contribution in The Sunday Times from an otherwise favourite of the claqueurs - Frank Field.

In this case, however, he is telling the claque something they do not want to hear, echoing a theme which we have been pushing hard – that "Expenses are just a symptom, parliament must be remade".

Above the roar of the crowd, Field is saying that the expenses scandal is "only part of the deep-seated problem over the legitimacy of our parliamentary system." Voters, he writes, increasingly cannot see what the role and purpose of parliament is. They feel that MPs are on a different planet and no longer represent their views.

That said, Field's views about what must be done are a disappointment. Not least, he fails to address perhaps the most singular defect of the current system in that there is no proper separation of powers. We have inherited a system where members of the government are drawn from the legislature, so that there is no proper distinction between parliament and the executive.

Arguably, we need to adopt the US system, where the head of the executive – the prime minister, in this country – is elected separately and appoints his own cabinet, from outside parliament, and is held collectively and individually to account by a wholly independent parliament.

However, such considerations are not crowd-pleasers – the claque has a short memory span and an eye for triviality, making the expenses controversy the ideal subject for high moral indignation and offers of increasingly fussy detail about how the system should be "reformed", with no concern at all for the bigger picture. Their picture of a perfect democracy, it seems, is MPs posting their expenses on the internet.

Turning back to Field's views, one of the many omissions from his piece is the European Union yet, as Booker observes, part of the dynamic which has led us to our current sorry state is the process by which Parliament has allowed itself to be stripped of its powers, with much of our legislation being outsourced to Brussels.

That, of course, is a subject which the claque seriously does not want to talk about – another factor which sets us apart. With domestic politics deteriorating into low-grade soap opera, the last thing about which the theatre critics want reminding is that the object of their attention is simply a hollow sham, with much of the power drained away.

Oddly enough, one commentator who does pick this up today is Rees-Mogg, in the Mail on Sunday. He notes that there has been too little debate about the future of European policies. British voters have become preoccupied with the Westminster expenses affair and have given too little attention to the similar - and perhaps worse - scandals of Brussels, which is notorious for the inadequacy of its financial reporting systems.

In fact, as we have noted, the scams perpetrated by MEPs are far greater than those in which our MPs indulge. But the European Parliament had the foresight to devise a system where no receipts are required, so there is nothing for the media to get excited about.

Thus, we have the extraordinary situation where the biggest crooks on the block are standing for election to the euro-gravy train, representing that malign organisation in Brussels which has done more than anything to destroy our parliamentary democracy, and the whole election campaign has been submerged by a controversy about a 30-year-old system of MPs' allowances.

One might note that the system itself was introduced at the same time we joined the EEC and wonder whether it was something of a bribe to keep MPs quiet about their loss of powers. But, in any event, the current controversy certainly has the effect of keeping the claque entertained, with the bisseurs in full cry, thus keeping more substantive issues off the agenda.

In the forum, we described it as the "lightning conductor effect", diverting the attention of the crowd to where it will do least damage to the establishment. Back in Brussels, they must be purring as they see opinion polls which tell them that the European Union is now regarded as a more trustworthy organisation than the British Parliament.

How Monnet would have enjoyed that moment, seeing the final destruction of our parliamentary democracy. But his laughter would not now be heard above the roar of approval from the crowd.

COMMENT THREAD

euro[i-euro]It cannot be a coincidence that we are now getting a rash of media stories speculating about the possibility of the collapse of the euro. And, of course, it isn't. Ambrose, after all, has been banging on about this since before the ink was dry on the first euro note. What is different now is that the theoretical possibility now looks closer to reality.

Perhaps the most thorough of the most recent analyses comes from The Times which chooses a fairly level headline for its dissertation, simply noting "Cracks in the euro". Its strap tells us nothing we did not know already, that the economic downturn has exposed harsh differences between EU members. The stronger states are likely to have to bail out their weaker neighbours, it says.

The piece starts with a historical perspective, reminding us of the launch of the euro in 1999, when 3,000 blue and yellow balloons were launched into the grey Brussels sky, and "Europe's financial leaders popped corks on 9-litre champagne bottles." It misses a small but entertaining detail though, which we record in our book, The Great Deception. As the corks popped, the band struck up with a rendition of "Land of hope and glory".

There is very little glory now, and a lot less hope now that the euro – which hitherto has enjoyed a charmed life – is locked into a battle for survival, rocked by the deepest recession in living memory. But all The Times can do, as the strap itself does, is re-state exactly that of which the naysayers were warning at the time – that the "one size fits all" economic regime which accompanied a single currency could do nothing else but create problems.

The central issue, as it always was, is the arcane issue of "fiscal transfers", the willingness of the richer countries to bail out the poorer areas which are deprived from seeking their own salvation by competitive devaluation and adjustments of interest rates.

As long as the good times rolled, this was not a problem but now that whole economies are heading for Carey Street, this is top of the political agenda. Greece and Ireland are at the top of the list needing bail-outs, followed by Portugal and possibly Italy, Austria and Spain. And then there are the central and eastern European countries, not in the eurozone but also needing assistance, which muddies the water no end.

Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg and head of the euro group of finance ministers, is telling us that, "The credibility of monetary union is at stake." But it all boils down to whether the taxpayers of the bigger and historically wealthier countries like Germany are prepared to carry the additional tax burden of problems elsewhere, at the fringe.

With a general election in Germany this year, Merkel is going to have to box clever if she is to get this past the voters and the indications are that she is going to have problems. Thus we get Derek Scott, former economic adviser to Tony Blair, suggesting that the chances are that the eurozone "leaders" go for a short-term fix rather than address the fundamental issues. Perception, as always, will outweigh substance.

It is this which is having serious players asking whether the euro can survive. The Times tells us that half of top American investors already consider the break-up of the euro to be a "done deal". Central banks in Asia and the Middle East are slashing their exposure to the euro, according to debt and foreign-exchange traders, and there has been a collapse of investment from foreign buyers into euro-denominated assets.

Interestingly, Credit Suisse economist Neville Hill is rehearsing precisely the issues that the eurosceptics were raising way back, although they are now becoming mainstream. "It's about the problem of having one central bank and 16 individual policy-setting regimes," he says. "Nobody ever resolved those issues, but they were gradually forgotten about over time."

Chickens are now coming home to roost, and all the clichés can come out to play, not least the observation that our gifted leaders are "flying by the seats of their pants".

The original plan was to go ahead with a flawed construct on the basis that the Monnet dynamic of engrenage would eventually create such stresses that there would be a growing constituency for increased central economic governance, the trigger being the "beneficial crisis". Now that strategy is being tested to destruction and it is anybody's guess as to which way it will go.

Cue therefore, Newsweek with a piece written by Holger Schmieding, chief European economist at Bank of AmericaMerrill Lynch. He asks, "Is the euro at risk?" The risk being considered is its ultimate death, with worries that "Europe's most ambitious integration project to date, could break apart under the strains of the recession."

Schmieding concludes that the notion of a full-scale euro breakup looks vastly overblown, suggesting that the worst of the global crisis will be over, with luck, sometime later this year. Once that happens, he says, trading nations with a focus on investment goods, like Germany, should be able to recover lost ground. Thus, he tells us, the medium-term outlook for core Europe is still encouraging.

Crucially, Schmieding notes that the political logic argues very strongly against a demise of the common currency. All member countries have invested a lot of political capital into the European venture. They are not going to let that go without a gargantuan fight. As we ourselves observed, it is a question of hanging together or hanging separately.

The bottom line says Schmieding is that global investors have bigger things to worry about at the moment than a breakup of the euro zone. In the medium term, he concludes, the crisis may even enhance the position of the euro.

In the third of today's crop, however, we find that no such sanguinity troubles Roger Bootle. He freely writes of "the budding eurozone disaster", a tiresome epic of shallow triumphalism which need not detain us overlong. It revels in the travails of the euro, allowing Bootle to conclude that "we should thank our lucky stars that we have managed to escape the budding economic and political disaster across the channel."

Disasters over the channel, he might recall from history, have an unfortunate habit of exerting their malign influence here. It is one thing, therefore, rejoicing in the British escape from the euro. It is quite another to take any comfort from its demise.

In any case, though, the fat lady ain't sung yet and reports of the death of the euro may be a tad premature. Beyond speculation, no one has the first idea what is going to happen. We are in uncharted territory - all we have is our clichés.

COMMENT THREAD

online+shopping[i-online+shopping]Although great events dominate the headlines, as always, the slow, insidious process of EU economic integration goes on, this – in the Monnet mould – being the precursor to and the mechanism for political integration.

In the spotlight (not) is the news carried by the Irish RTE network which announces that, as of Thursday (i.e., 1 January), "a new small claims procedure has been put in place for people across the European Union to deal with cross-border complaints."

Like the Irish Small Claims Court system, this piece tells us, the new procedure is for dealing with disputes concerning goods or services of €2000 or less. The new system will make it simpler for people to resolve complaints against traders based in another EU country. (Previously a court action had to be pursued.)

Generally the new procedure will cost a fee of just €15, and no layer (sic) is necessary. Claimants will file a standard claim form, the defendant is given the chance to reply, and then judgement is issued in 30 days. The judgement is enforced by the member state.

This, of course, will not work – different systems and different priorities will cause all sorts of hang-ups. But you can see the progression. First, you "open" the borders to the free flow of goods and create a borderless system of trading. Then, inevitably, the cross-border consumer cannot get redress over faulty goods, so you must then have an official cross-border system to deal with that.

Then, in the fullness of time, when this is shown not to work, you must then introduce a common system of enforcement. When that does not work, you must have a "European" supervisory agency to ensure that the common rules are applied … and so on and so on.

By such tiny, barely-reported steps, each separated by many years, does the process gradually ensnare us so that, decades later, we look up and ask "how the hell did we get into this mess?" By then it is too late.

That the process is politically driven is well evident by our lack of arrangements with the USA. There, UK online (i.e., cross-border) trading volume is much higher, but it works on the basis of trust – and the old principle of caveat emptor. There is no official intervention, and no common small claims system. You take your chances and, by and large, the system works to the satisfaction of all.

The genius of engrenage, though, is that nobody notices. Each step can be justified, in isolation, on apparently good grounds – as long as no one understands that it is a process, and the end point is economic and then political integration. By such means are we thus enslaved.

COMMENT THREAD

FISH+-+rusty+boat[i-FISH+-+rusty+boat]We've written about it before, most recently in June last year and then again in the January of the same year.

This is engrenage - not talked about much in polite company and if you mention it to the average politician of journalist, you will be greeted with a blank stare. Yet, in our June post, we explained that this mechanism, loosely translated as gearing is one of the major drivers of political integration within the European Union.

We even went so far as to explain the mechanism, even in the certain knowledge that many of those who should know will steer clear of this blog, like it was the plague, and this remain in their desired state of blissful ignorance. For the rest, those of us who have ambitions to drive the tumbrels or cheer their passing, we wrote thus:

First of all, it prevents member states implementing their own controls in a vital policy area (such as immigration), and then starts to regulate in these areas itself. The regulation is invariably incomplete and functions poorly, requiring more legislation. It is then not long before there are demands for additional laws, whence the EU commission happily obliges with proposals – grandly declaring that the member states are calling for "more Europe".

So it is that we see another example of the mechanism, this one relating to what qualifies – despite intense competition – as one of the most disastrous policy yet to be devised by the EU, the Common Fisheries Policy.

Through this dire, bureaucratic construct, the EU has managed to devastate the fishing grounds of the member states and, in particular, the formerly teeming waters of the Continental shelf around the UK, variously reckoned to have held some 80 percent of the commercial fishing stocks in the waters that come within the boundaries of the EU member states.

But, all-encompassing though it might be – there is one huge gap in the policy. It leaves the enforcement of the EU fisheries laws to the member states. And having turned commercial fishing virtually a criminal activity, having demonised fishermen and driven most of them into penury or alternative livelihood, the EU commission is complaining that those foolhardy or desperate enough to remain in the industry are not being fined enough by their member state courts when they fall foul of EU rules, and that there is too much variation in fines for similar offences in the different member state courts.

Thus, in an absolutely classic example of engrenage the commission is asking member states to approve "dramatically tougher enforcement of fishing rules". There is no word, of course, of the EU itself having created a conservation disaster and an entirely unworkable, which creates the very "criminals" to whom the "tougher enforcement" should apply.

Instead, it invokes visions of "motherhood and apple pie", pleading that this move is necessary to "stop years of illegal catches that have devastated species such as cod and tuna."

With such noble ambitions declared – quietly sliding over the real agenda, the pursuit of political integration – the commission thus proposes that EU officials would receive new powers to pursue fishermen in their home countries for offences such as fishing in protected spawning areas or out of season for threatened species. Inefficient and costly checks at sea would be replaced by reinforced investigations at port.

Needless to say the fishermen must be punished severely under this new regime, with fines rising to as much as €300,000 for serious breaches of (EU) fishing rules - 100 times greater than current fines in some cases. Repeat offenders could lose their permits.

To bolster his case, EU fisheries commissioner Joe Borg declares that low fines and weak enforcement by some member states "makes a mockery" of the EU's "tough catch quotas," calling in aid one of its favoured captive NGOs, the WWF, to support it.

But, while the WWF exudes horror at the supposed depredation of the evil fishermen – thereby seeking to enlist the approval of all "right-minded people", who have been indoctrinated with decades of "anti-fishermen" propaganda – the EU gets a new brick in the growing edifice of its common judicial system, with a uniform application of fines across the EU, monitored and controlled, of course, by the EU commission.

We have already seen a similar attempt with EU environmental laws, this one driven through the ECJ, but this is the first overt attempt to standardise penalties through the direct application of a new EU law.

If successful, this will set a stronger precedent for a system of common penalties throughout the EU. In the fullness of time, possibly after the passage of many years, the commission will then look to encroachment into another policy area. And so, slowly, steadily and inexorably, the process of engrenage does its deadly work, so stealthily and cleverly that hardly anyone notices – much less protests.

Jean Monnet – deviser of the mechanism – certainly knew what he was doing.

COMMENT THREAD

Monnt+memorial[i-Monnt+memorial]"Obama to 'act swiftly' to resolve economic crisis", blare the headlines, reporting on the intentions of the president elect of another country who is not even in power for another 70-odd days.

On the other hand, who has noticed that, yesterday, our own government met – in Brussels – to decide on its "common position" on reforming the global financial system? All 27 member state leaders were there – which includes our beloved premier – and, according to temporary boss-man Nicolas Sarkozy, "There is a pretty detailed common position from Europe … We will be defending a common position, a vision … for restructuring our financial system."

"Defending" from what? one might ask. The answer is from the United States and other global players, at a meeting of the world's leading economic powers in Washington on 15 November – when president Bush will be in the chair.

What that common position is, I have no idea – but it is the British position. Our prime minister has agreed to it. The funny thing is that you can read all about Barack Obama's plans for the United States in the British media today. If you want to read something of what our government did – but not very much – forget the British press. Nowhere can I find reference to the meeting in today's editions.

You can try Voice of America or, if you want a fuller account, go to Deutsche Welle.

The even funnier thing is that, even though this is happening under our very eyes, no one, apart for the occasional nerd and EU Referendum readers, actually gives a damn. Most actually resent being told. Having lost control over our own government, the bulk of the population is happier watching the theatre of a proxy government rather than getting to grips with the reality of our own powerlessness.

Our experience of democracy has become vicarious - to be enjoyed through others and never, any longer, directly.

And the picture? Representatives of our government take time off from deciding our financial policy to unveil a plaque commemorating the 120th birthday of Jean Monnet – the man who set in train the destruction of our democracy. It is perhaps fitting that the bulk of the people in this country haven't heard of him, and would think you were talking about an artist if you mentioned his name.

So nobody gives a damn about his 120th birthday either. At least we have that in common.

COMMENT THREAD

Merkel+001[i-Merkel+001]If we came away with nothing else out of the constitutional Lisbon treaty, it was an appreciation of how much the "colleagues" value their institutions, this being their preoccupation during this – and previous – treaty negotiations.

It is quite remarkable, therefore, that the rabidly Europhile Euractive can apparently view with equanimity what amounts to a complete breakdown of the established institutional order of the European Union, over relations with Russia.

In the natural order of things, EU external relations should be handled by the presidency, currently in the "safe" hands of M. Sarkozy, aided and abetted by the High Representative, Javier Solana, the baton handed on through successive presidencies until the matter is resolved (or not).

What Euractiv is embracing, however, is the growing view that German chancellor Angela Merkel should "step up and take the lead within the EU to resolve tensions over Georgia and reshape the West's relations with Moscow".

In one way, this is a completely logical view. By any account, Sarkozy has spectacularly failed to manage the Georgia crisis and, with clearly a better rapport existing between Merkel and president Medvedev (pictured) – to say nothing of shared geopolitical interests – it makes sense for the chancellor to front negotiations.

The point is, though, that Merkel is an interested party, with a very keen interest, not least, in maintaining the flow of gas, oil and coal from Russia. With Germany closing down its nuclear industry and its coal mines, without the active support of Russia, Germany no longer has an economy.

Yet, the whole ethos of the EU institutional system is that it should be "above politics", managed by disinterested "Platonic guardians" who are looking after the interests of the Union as a whole, without deference to the needs or ambitions of any one or group of member states. Whatever Merkel's merits, no one can accuse her of being disinterested.

On a more practical level, the very last person (or country) we want representing our interest is Germany. Having mismanaged our own energy policy, we too are reliant on Russian gas and are likely to become more so – and have also an unhealthy reliance on Russian coal. Merkel, therefore – in a very real sense – is hardly a "partner" but a serious competitor in the race to secure increasingly scarce and expensive energy resources.

Any idea that Merkel will, in representing the EU in its relations with Russia, will look after our interest lies strictly in the land of the fairies.

In this, history offers a very poor precedent when, in the post Yom Kippur oil crisis, individual member states broke away from the community interest and sought their own salvations. At the time, Jean Monnet and his integrationalist colleagues deplored this exhibition of national self-interest, calling for the rapid development of still more institutional structures to remove this undesirable trait.

Some 35 years later, the institutional structures are still not in place and, rather that pursue them with more vigour – not that they would be of any use – the "colleagues" seem quite content to abandon them altogether in their search for answers.

The significance of this cannot be overstated. Effectively, it represents a loss of faith in the drivers of European integration, with politics reverting to the classic model of Great Powers resolving issues between them, while the lesser powers pick the crumbs from the table after the pie has been shared out.

What is different now, though, is that the UK has absented itself from the game, yet we are still bound by the institutional ethos of the Union when it is clearly no longer functioning. This is the worst of all possible worlds.

COMMENT THREAD

Dunkirk[i-Dunkirk]In an earlier post, I promised a series of essays exploring why euroscepticism failed and what we need to do about it. This is the first.

Before embarking on the subject, though, I must thank all the forum posters, those who e-mailed us and Daniel Hannan, Tim Montgomerie and Tony Sharp for their good wishes and comments.

I should stress, though, that while we are considering winding up EU Referendum, that is because that issue – the idea of a referendum – is dead and buried. This means our title is confusing and misleading, which also suggests it is time to move on. We are thus thinking in terms of a name-change and a change of style, widening our scope beyond EU issues.

As to the thesis of this post, based on the premise that "euroscepticism" is dead, we really need to define the term. For the purposes of our argument, we take the "extreme" view that this encompasses those who wish to extract the United Kingdom from the European Union.

There is no equivocation here: we use the term to describe those who want to leave the EU – not those who would want to "renegotiate" our position, or who would like to see the EU "reform", reshaping itself in a way that is more acceptable to the British, or some such. Neither, in our view, are in any way likely or even possible. The guardians of the "project" have not come all this way to water down their creation, or give up their hard-won advances.

And, if "renegotiation" was ever on the cards, a necessary precursor would have to be a commitment to leave the EU, which means that those who are really serious about seeking a new relationship with the EU though this means must first accept the essential precondition. Leaving the EU would, in any case then require a negotiation – or "renegotiation" if you prefer – in order that we are able to maintain relationships with our neighbours, which rather makes arguing for renegotiation redundant. It follows necessarily, but only if we quit.

Addressing now the chosen thesis, I would maintain that, in the foreseeable future – and for many years to come – there is no prospect whatsoever of the UK leaving the EU. I see no likelihood of a newly elected Conservative government seeking to do this, and of course, there is absolutely no possibility of the Brown government even thinking about it.

To that extent, euroscepticism is dead. It is a movement without an achievable goal and, furthermore, the goal itself does not have any widespread popular support. Put the in/out question to a referendum and the near certainty is that the vote would favour staying in.

One of the reasons why the majority of people would most likely decide for the EU is the famous TINA – there is no alternative. Like it or not, the EU provides innumerable "services", without which the UK would have difficulty functioning. Furthermore, outside the EU, it would have enormous difficulties rebuilding and establishing working relationships with the rest of the international community. For better or worse, most would say, we are stuck with our current arrangements.

Another reason relates to the "teaser" offered in the earlier post. Big business, I asserted, loves the EU. In evidence, two links were provided. The first reported: "UK businesses back EU expansion".

This piece retailed that "some of Britain's biggest companies are backing the enlargement of the European Union", arguing that the economies of Eastern Europe provide lucrative growth opportunities - and they want more of the same. These businesses included the advertising giant WPP, life assurer Aviva and steel group Corus.

The other link referred to a report of a conference where "European power companies" called for harmonised EU safety rules on nuclear power plants.

Any amount of evidence can be produced to the effect that "big business" supports our membership of the EU. For sure, some would like to see "reform", or "tweaks" that would adjust its rules in their favour, but none would support the proposition that we should leave the EU. And, of course, big business equals big money – and influence. In any referendum campaign, or generally, money talks. The money would be talking for continued membership.

One more reason why sentiment would not favour the exit route is the extraordinary level of ignorance about the EU – and in particular the amount of damage it does – contrasted with those who believe that, for all its disadvantages, the EU does offer the UK some benefits.

Typical of the latter genre are many Conservatives, who sincerely believe that the Single Market is "a good thing", entirely unaware or unwilling to accept that this is a major instrument in the process of economic integration – the essence of the "Monnet Method" from which stems political integration.

Much of this fantasising about the Single Market rests on the uncomfortable fact that it was on Margaret Thatcher's watch that the Single Market Act was passed into UK law. The Thatcher worshipers have difficulty coming to terms with the fact that she was responsible for one of the most important steps towards integration the Community has produced.

Serious students of EU history will know that, in accepting the Single Market Act, Thatcher was comprehensively hoodwinked, and that the treaty itself was part one of two, the latter part being the Maastricht Treaty – the genesis of modern euroscepticism. If you are against Maastrict, however, to be intellectually consistent, you must also oppose the Single Market Act. They are but one, in the march to political integration, of which the constitutional Lisbon treaty is the latest instalment.

Yet, such is the profound, wholly untutored ignorance of the reality that we can read of "the moderate Euroscepticism of Thatcher 1979-86 - which was very productive from the British point of view, delivering us a rebate and the Single European Act."

Against such ignorance, there is no defence - it is so absolute that it cannot even begin to understand how wrong it is. It is complete in itself, needing no sustenance or evidence, and brooks no counter-argument. It is beyond rationality, reflecting an article of faith which drives much of the Conservative tribe, sustaining its "soft" Europhilia which masquerades as Euroscepticism.

Yet, unfortunately, it is to the Conservatives that we must turn for any hope of leaving the EU. Hope there is none. And here, the most powerful reason comes into play.

Returning to TINA, what few people even begin to realise is the depth and complexity of our entanglement with the EU. After 36 years of membership, imbibing fifty years-worth of integrationist measures, our administrative and legislative systems are so interwoven with the EU that to remove them would be equivalent to dealing with a metastatic cancer with a surgeons knife. In theory, it could be done – but it would almost certainly kill the patient.

This is actually what presents itself to anyone who has seriously examined the reality of leaving the European Union. If team Cameron ever get down to such an examination, its thinkers will come to the same conclusion. They would also discover that, such would be the complexity and political capital expended, it would neutralise the political process for years to come, entirely frustrating any attempts the Conservatives might have to develop a distinctive domestic agenda.

So fraught with risk would be such a process that, wisely, any sensible politician (i.e., one who wishes to remain in office) would run a mile from it.

That is not to say that the complexity could not be addressed and overcome, but the word means what is says. Complex is, er … complex. To come up with a well-founded strategy for leaving the EU – and thus replacing the web of EU policies with distinctive national policies of our own – would take a massive amount of work, requiring a huge team of experts familiar with every aspect which the EU touches.

That work has not been done – there is no likelihood of it being done in the immediate future. Yet, unless and until the British public (and the politicians) can be offered a reasoned and better alternative to the EU, like it or lump it, TINA lives.

For sure, we can continue telling everybody how ghastly the EU really is. But those who care enough about the subject know that already, or believe it even if they do not know it as fact. The majority of people, though – confronted with the reality of leaving the EU, and what that entails – would accept the status quo, simply on the premise that any (unformed and unspecified) alternative could only be worse – and infinitely perilous.

It is in that context that Euroscepticism has met with the poison which will finish it off. We have spent decades telling everybody how awful the EU is. Most probably, the bulk of people believe us – even the soft Europhiles of the Conservative Party. But we do not have the capability to take the next step – to push the intellectual boundaries and offer realistic, fully developed alternatives. Worse still, most do not even accept that there is the need to do so.

To conclude this first part, therefore, I will refer to what I would aver is essential reading for anyone with any interest in military history – but with surprising relevance to contemporary politics.

This is a new(ish) book by Major General Julian Thompson. Simply called "Dunkirk", its sub-title is "Retreat to Victory", which is also the theme of this post, the relevance of which can be drawn from this quotation dealing with General Gort, commander of the BEF in France in 1940. Thompson writes:

Gort's decision to evacuate his army at Dunkirk saved the BEF. He may not have been a brilliant army commander … But he was able to see with absolute clarity that the French high command were utterly bankrupt of realistic ideas and that consequently Allied plans would lead nowhere, and he had the moral courage and unwavering willpower to act in the face of censure and criticism, thus ensuring that the BEF was saved. There are few occasions when the actions of one man can be said to be instrumental in winning a war. This was one of those. Had the BEF been surrounded, cut off and forced to surrender, it is inconceivable that Britain would have continued to fight without an army.

Faced with an unwinnable battle, therefore, Gort did the only sensible thing. He cut and ran – the precursor to rebuilding and re-equipping a damaged army. With new allies and against a weakened enemy, his successors were thus able to return to Europe and comprehensively defeat the Nazis.

I have in my mind's eye a parallel between Dunkirk and the constitutional Lisbon treaty. Both represent major defeats, the one for the BEF and Britain, the other for Euroscepticism (and Britain). In the former event, the defeat was turned to victory by Gort's retreat. My thinking is that we must do the same – retreat, rebuild and rethink, ready for the long battle that our successors must fight. We are not going to win it, and if we continue the way we are doing, we risk the same fate that would have befallen the BEF had it been rash enough to stand and fight.

If Sun Tzu and Clauswitz both maintained that one of the most important military rules is, "Don't reinforce failure," I am merely following that advice. We need to retrench and rebuild. We need to "retreat to victory".

Precisely what we need to do to, I will discuss in Part II.

COMMENT THREAD

EU+-+Jean+Monnet+320[i-EU+-+Jean+Monnet+320]The IHT is telling us something we already knew (and wrote about in early April) that the EU commission is keeping a lid on controversial decisions until after the Irish referendum on 12 June.

The view that Brussels has been gripped by a go-slow is shared widely, the paper informs us, citing an anonymous "EU diplomat" saying: "We all know this is happening, but we are all denying it - so you won't get me saying anything on the record."

Elsewhere, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes of the stresses suffered by Ireland as a result of its membership of the euro. He suggests that the situation in Eire "is starting to feel like the ERM crisis in 1992 but without the escape valve." He adds:

By the time this EMU denouement plays out, Ireland will have voted. Lisbon will probably be law. The euro-elites will have prevailed. But history will not be kind to the venture.

It is one thing to nudge the European Project forward by stealth - the "Monnet Method" of fait accompli. It is another to impose a treaty that has already been rejected by people in a direct vote, as the French and Dutch did by emphatic margins in 2005.

We are witnessing Europe's Prague Spring … the moment the EU loses its legitimacy. Yes, the system endures. The tribes acquiesce. But the idealism is draining away. Can anyone really claim that the Lisbon Treaty is rooted in the democratic assent of the French, Dutch, British, Danes, Swedes, Finns, Poles, and Czechs?

We have the spectacle of Gordon Brown refusing to sign the treaty in public because of the potent danger it poses to his Government.

A British prime minister slinks away to a private room to commit Britain to an arrangement that alienates the powers of Parliament - in perpetuity and perhaps illegally - knowing that his people would vote 'no' by crushing margins if given a chance.

"How on earth did we arrive at such a sorry state of affairs?" he then asks. Although obviously rhetorical, Ambrose could benefit from reading the IHT report. This is further evidence that, when it suits it, the EU commission can disappear under the horizon to the point where it is all but invisible. Given that the media and domestic politicians are then quite happy to "conspire" with the commission in keeping EU affairs out of the headlines, people tend to remain unaware of what is happening.

And, when the chatterati then focus on the soap opera of politics, instead of the substance – in obsessive detail – what little news about the EU which does escape is drowned out. Look, for instance, the huge amount of coverage devoted to speculation about whether Gordon Brown is going to be replace as prime minister, before the next general election electorally mandated reshuffle.

Despite the fact that Brown is and always was going to stay in post until the next election, coverage of the soap opera has totally dominated the political "news" ever since last Thursday's by-election. Now compare this with the coverage of the Irish referendum or, for that matter, the debate on the British referendum (not) in the Lords.

Therein lies something of the answer to Ambrose's question. It is a good question … and it needs more answers.

COMMENT THREAD

Lord+Kerr+2[i-Lord+Kerr+2]By his own estimation, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard is an expert on the European Union. For 36 years a foreign office apparatchik, he was a member of the negotiating team on the single market and worked with both Major and Blair, famously advising Major during the Maastricht treaty negotiations. He then moved further to the dark side, acting as Giscard d'Estaing's right-hand man on the constitutional convention.

As a self-proclaimed Europhile, he was on his feet earlier this week, speaking in support of the constitutional Lisbon treaty, and in particular for the "reforms" of the European Council which, he averred, would make the European Union "work a little better".

Treated with great defence as the "expert", however, this former mandarin then proceeded to display nothing more than his complete ignorance of the nature of the very European Council which he so freely supported, making you wonder whether there is anyone at all in the Europhile ranks who actually knows what they are talking about.

Lord+Kerr+3[i-Lord+Kerr+3]Where he so egregiously went wrong was in telling us that the European Council was "invented by Chancellor Schmidt and President Giscard d'Estaing 30 years ago… the European Council was never a part of Jean Monnet's plan."

The thrust of this specious argument is, of course, to present the Council as an intergovernmental institution, representing the member states. He thus makes out that the plan to have a full-time president presents the "danger" that the Commission "will be overshadowed by the member states in the Council," thereby implying that the new constitution is somehow beneficial.

It is unlikely that Kerr is lying. He is one of those airy-fairy Europhiles who quite sincerely believes that the EU does adequately represent the member states. But, as such, he represents the typical British Europhiliac tendency to wallow in a miasma of rose-tinted self-deception that has the EU as something altogether different from what it really is.

In fact, as we pointed out in our post on 16 December 2004 - based on our work in The Great Deception - the European Council was wholly an invention of Jean Monnet who, when he set it in motion, called it the "provisional European government".

That was back in 1972, at the Paris summit on 18 October, the day after Heath's European Communities Bill received Royal Assent. The idea for this summit, to celebrate the "enlargement" of the "Six" to the "Nine", had also originated with Monnet where, amongst other things, Heath called for "a clear timetable for economic and monetary union".

By and large, however, the summit was inconclusive. Monnet felt it had lacked focus and, more importantly, mechanisms for carrying its resolutions forward. His great regret in establishing his "community", the Treaty of Rome had not set up "a supreme body to steer Europe through the difficult transition from national to collective sovereignty". By the end of August 1973, he had decided to remedy this deficiency.

He therefore produced one of his famous plans, outlining a structure for a "Provisional European Government". This body would draw up a plan for "European Union", to include a "European Government" and an elected European Assembly. This "provisional government" would meet regularly. Those taking part would keep its deliberations secret.

Monnet came over to England to discuss his proposal with Ted Heath at Chequers on 18 September 1973, telling him "we must give public opinion the feeling that European affairs are being decided: today, people have the impression that they're merely being discussed."

Heath readily agreed, but had a reservation about making the proposal public. "Let's just do it," he told Monnet. He also worried about the term "provisional government". "That would get me into great difficulties." he said.

Monnet then approached Georges Pompidou and Willi Brandt. They were equally enthusiastic and neither shared Heath's reservations about the title, although Pompidou warmed to the name "European Union". A member of Pompidou's staff was heard to inquire of a close confidant of Pompidou what this phrase meant. The reply came, "nothing… but then that is the beauty of it".

In late September, Pompidou mentioned Monnet's proposal at a press conference. Heath then took up the baton at the Conservative Party conference on 13 October. "I believe", he said:

...that already some of my colleagues as Heads of Government feel the need for us to get together regularly without large staff so that we can jointly guide the Community along the paths we have already set. I would like to see the Heads of Government of the member countries of the Community meeting together, perhaps twice a year, as I have said, alone and without large staffs, with the President of the Commission being present, as he was at the Summit …our purpose in meeting together would be to lay down the broad direction of European policy.

Heath failed to mention that he was talking about what was being called a "provisional government", and said nothing about it being intended to steer Europe through the "transition from national to collective sovereignty".

Two weeks later, on 31 October, Pompidou told his Cabinet that regular meetings of heads of states were needed "with the aim of comparing and harmonising their attitudes in the framework of political co-operation". He wanted the first meeting to be held before the end of 1973.

Monnet was now confident that, despite the turmoil into which the world had suddenly been plunged that autumn by the Yom Kippur war in the Middle East, his plan was back on track. Then, as he was to recall, "when all seemed well, everything was thrown into turmoil".

In the aftermath of the war, the price of oil had quadrupled, threatening chaos to western economies. The governments of the Nine rushed to strike individual deals with the oil sheikhs. Heath was later to write that, at this moment, the Community:

...lost sight of the philosophy of Jean Monnet: that the Community exists to find common solutions to common problems. Each member state drifted back to seeking its own, unilateral solutions. So we all had to relearn painfully that there is no solution if we act on our own.

Despite this, Monnet continued to make progress with his plan. By March 1974 he was circulating another paper, proclaiming:

Existing European practices have proved inadequate as a means of enabling our countries to organise themselves for collective action… We must break out of this vicious circle, in which the common interests of the Community countries are inadequately served. The existing European institutions are not strong enough today to do it on their own.

Then, in the three leading Community states, there were changes at the top table. In a general election in Britain, Heath was replaced by Wilson. In Germany Brandt retired, to be replaced in May by Helmut Schmidt. The same month in France, after Pompidou had died, he was replaced by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

EC+Brussels+1975+2[i-EC+Brussels+1975+2]The old alliance between Pompidou and Brandt was soon replaced by a similar friendship between Giscard and Schmidt. The two new Franco-German leaders soon agreed that there should be "no more separate national actions, only European actions". They accepted Monnet's "provisional government", giving it the title "European Council".

The new body was approved at an informal meeting of heads of government at the Elysée on 14 September 1974.

The Council's first meeting was held in Paris on 9-10 December 1974. Its main business was to make the Council a permanent institution. Giscard pointed out that there had only been three "summits" between the heads of government in five years. They had to become "more organised" and regular, as Monnet had proposed.

Nothing appeared in the communiqué about the Council becoming a "provisional government", but one of its first actions was to ask the Belgium prime minister, Leo Tindemans, to draft a report on how further integration could be achieved. Giscard brought proceedings to a close with the words: "The Summit is dead. Long live the European Council".

Yet, even today, people like Kerr do not realise the significance of what had happened. Monnet himself, however, had no doubts. In his Memoirs, he wrote:

...the European institutions were in charge of immense sectors of activity, over which they exercised the share of sovereignty that had been delegated to them. But if they were to work effectively, the governments had to have the same European will and be prepared, acting together as a collective authority, to transfer the additional sovereignty required to achieve a true European Union. The creation of the European Council supplied the means for reaching that essential decision. A major step had been taken.

It was, effectively, Monnet's last great coup. His "provisional government" survives to this day and, now that it is to become a full-blown institution of the European Union, the heads of states and governments become fully-fledged members of the government of the European Union, owing their loyalty to it.

Perversely, Kerr in the conclusion to his speech, told us: "The critics need to put away their caricatures and look at the Union of today as it is, and as this treaty would confirm it." He added, "They will not, of course," entirely unconscious of the irony that he, himself, is manifestly incapable of looking at the Union the way it really is.

COMMENT THREAD

EU+-+ECJ+002[i-EU+-+ECJ+002]Just in case you were in any doubt as to who really runs the show, Reuters has come up with list of legal actions initiated yesterday by the EU commission against member states.

These include a suit against Italy, requiring it to comply with an ECJ ruling on the award of concessions for horse-race betting services, "reasoned opinions" to Italy regarding lawyers' fees, to Slovakia regarding disclosure of privatisation agreements, and to Britain regarding implementation of a directive on motor insurance.

The commission is sending reasoned opinions to Italy and Germany concerning the procurement of water/wastewater management services and waste disposal services. It has referred Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, France, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg and Spain to the ECJ over their failure to inform the commission of measures taken to implement EU rules on professional qualifications relating to EU newcomers Bulgaria and Romania.

It is also sending reasoned opinions to Belgium, the Czech Republic and Spain for failing to inform it of measures taken to implement other rules on recognising professional qualifications.

Meanwhile, the commission has closed a case against France over a domestic law on current account interest. It said France had now abolished its legislation that formally prohibited banks from offering interest on current accounts to their customers.

Spain is being taken to the ECJ as the commission deems its rules on the establishment of retail outlets are incompatible with EU law. Malta will receive a reasoned opinion telling it to amend its car registration tax rules, which the Commission said discriminated against second-hand cars brought into Malta from other EU countries.

The commission has formally requested Hungary to change its tax law provisions which limit the granting of a tax incentive to taxpayers who engage in research or development activities performed on premises located in Hungary.

Last but not least, the commission has instructed Spain to bring in line with EU rules its administrative practice for determining how much VAT should be paid for barter transactions.

All this because Mr Monnet wanted to stop Germany going to war with France!

COMMENT THREAD

EU+-+Jean+Monnet+320[i-EU+-+Jean+Monnet+320]A good piece from Frank Furedi in Spiked online. "Despite appearances," he writes:

…the political oligarchy is not passionately pro-European. It lacks a political language or any ideals that might give Europe some meaning. That is why those who celebrate and uphold the EU are not necessarily pro-European. National governments are happy to participate in the EU because it relieves them of the need to take direct responsibility for many policy initiatives and measures.

Frequently, they can shrug their shoulders and say: well, these policies emanate from a technocratic, supra-national body, the EU. In earlier times, national governments jealously guarded their policymaking processes and prerogatives. Today, they are eager to subordinate themselves to EU protocols, and to "share" authority with others.

The voluntary relinquishing of sovereignty by European elites does not show that they are high-minded, forward-looking, enlightened internationalists. Or even that they are fervently pro-European. It merely shows that an insecure oligarchy is happy to work through institutions that allow it to disavow full responsibility for its actions.

These are exactly the points we made in our piece in March last year. The political élites actually like the EU because it is so convenient. It does all the donkey work of governance, relieving them of the responsibility of having to work for their livings, allowing them to parade and posture on the political stage. They can spend their time indulging in the theatre of politics without having to deal with the boring details.

Mr Monnet (pictured) really knew what he was doing when he set this thing up.

COMMENT THREAD

Telephone[i-Telephone]Disturbing enough in its own right, the report today on EU plans to create a European telecoms "tsar" in The Sunday Telegraph is even more sinister than it appears.

The paper tells us that Britain's telecoms watchdog, Ofcom, could have its decisions overturned by Brussels under proposals to create the "tsar", set to be outlined by the EU commission on Tuesday.

Through this means, decisions that affect the cost of phone calls, or how easy it is to keep mobile phone numbers when providers are switched, could be taken in Brussels.

The proposal is attributed to Viviane Reding, the EU information, society and media commissioner, and her department would have the power to scrap remedies to market problems put forward by national regulators such as Ofcom and enforce its own solutions.

This also involves absorbing by 2010, an organisation called the European Regulators Group, a forum for national watchdogs from the 27 member states. This would transformed into a super-regulator and renamed the European Telecom Market Authority (Etma).

It would be headed by an executive director, or telecoms tsar. The budget would grow from €12m (£8.4m) to €27m in three years. Staff would increase from 110 to 134 full-time staff.

Unsurprisingly, Ofcom and the British government are against the reforms and lobbying "to stop Reding's plan". Ed Richards, the chief executive of Ofcom, said: "A centralisation of power to Brussels, plus a new European bureaucracy, is not the answer."

But of course, it is the answer – but not to whatever question might have been posed by Ed Richard. It is the answer to the longstanding problem of how to achieve political integration, despite opposition from member states and their peoples.

Underlying this is the whole programme of "market liberalisation" – which is actually anything but. The ostensible aim is to break up national monopolies but the real objective is to break up national enterprises, and detach them from their national regulatory bases, recreating them as "European" – i.e., cross-border enterprises.

This then justifies the creation of a European regulatory authority – which is what we are seeing here – under the control of the European Union. Thus, through economic integration, the reach of the central government in Brussels is extended.

And such an audacious plan was not hatched by Reding. Its true author was Jean Monnet, the creator of the "Monnet method" – sometimes known as "neo-functionalism". It is a direct attack on nationalism, but disguised as a mechanism to promote economic efficiency, competitiveness, or even "consumer protection" – whatever mantra presses the right buttons and attracts the necessary support.

But the underlying objective is wholly political, creating a state of "interdependence" – another of Monnet's favourite concepts - within the member states that they lose strategic control over key functions (the energy market is another) so that their affairs can only be managed by supranational government.

This is the "master plan" – it always has been, but hidden in plain sight, no one puts the pieces together until it is too late. And the one-dimensional media sees every facet of the plan in isolation, without ever joining the dots to see the bigger picture.

COMMENT THREAD

millbrown[i-millbrown]Martin Ivens writes in The Sunday Times that when the EU treaty was called a constitution, the government said it was a harmless tidying-up exercise to help with the enlargement of the European Union. Then it negotiated changes and said all clauses dangerous to Britain had been removed.

"Make your mind up, chaps," he suggests.

Then he observes that an enlarged European Union has not been reduced to paralysis without this treaty. Even if it is sensible to reorder some elements of its voting and modify the rotation of the presidency to cope with new members, he adds, this does not mean that a charter of fundamental rights and majority voting on energy and justice should piggy-back on it.

Our tax and benefit systems are not safe from Europe as is claimed; our freedom in foreign policy will be curtailed. The abolition of further national vetoes is unnecessary. This is a project to further political union.

And there we have it in the last sentence. As with the Coal and Steel Treaty, the Treaty of Rome, the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, the Amsterdam Treaty, the Nice Treaty and now the Lisbon Treaty. One and all, without exception, they are "a project to further political union".

We don't want it, we never voted for it, the political classes deny it is happening and yet … we've got it. What the hell went wrong?

Well, as so often, Christopher Booker gets closest to making any sense of it.

It was apt, he writes, that Gordon Brown's agreement to the EU treaty should have coincided with the announcement that MPs are to get an additional two weeks' holiday a year because there is so little for them to do. The Lisbon Treaty, after all, is another giant step towards a new form of government, empowered to decide most of the laws that govern our lives, making our Westminster MPs even more redundant than they are now.

It was equally appropriate, he adds, that Mr Brown and his puppet foreign minister, David Miliband, should have agreed this treaty on the basis of the most shameless political lie one can recall: that the new treaty is completely different from the rejected EU constitution – with which it is 96 per cent identical.

He then continues:

Three years ago, when Richard North and I were writing a history of the European Union, trawling hundreds of books and thousands of documents, nothing struck us more than how consistently this grandiose project has been built on deceit as to its true nature (hence our title, The Great Deception).

It is more than 60 years since one of its progenitors, Altiero Spinelli, wrote that its aim should be stealthily to assemble the components of a supranational government and only to declare its true purpose at the end of the process by unveiling a "constitution".

It is more than 50 years since another founder, Paul-Henri Spaak, advised Jean Monnet, who was above all "the Father of Europe", that the only way to achieve their goal – a politically integrated Europe – was to pretend that it was only a "Common Market".

It is more than 40 years since Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath went along with this, deciding to withhold from the British people that the real aim was a European state – a deceit perpetrated by Heath in spades when he took us into the Common Market in the 1970s.

Of all our prime ministers since, the only one who did not go along with this concealment was Mrs Thatcher. In the last years of her premiership, she woke up to the dangers of this stealthy, relentless drive towards full political integration – and her determination to fight it played a crucial part in the way she was brought down.

In this respect, the decision of Europe's political leaders in 2001 that the building of the European state should culminate in drafting a "Constitution for Europe" was entirely in keeping with the strategies proposed by Monnet and Spinelli decades before, marking the moment when the "project" could at last come out in its true colours.

When, to their horror, it was rejected, their solution was simply to bulldoze it through regardless of popular wishes, as recent months have shown.

Mr Brown's deceit over this treaty is in some ways no worse than that practised by Macmillan and Heath before him. But he has pulled off a brilliant tactical victory by focusing discussion on those "red lines" (so aptly described by Gisela Stuart MP as "red herrings"), thus diverting attention from the treaty's real significance as a further huge step towards creating a European state.

Of all the immense changes this will make in how we are governed, none is arguably more important, or has received less attention, than the formal creation of the European Council as the cabinet of our new government. The prime ministers who make it up are placed under a wholly new obligation to put their loyalty to "the Union" above that to their own countries.

With this treaty we shall finally be ruled by a government that cannot be dismissed, making Britain, in effect, a small part of a giant one-party state. This may make Mr Brown feel important, as part of "the Big Show", but it is hardly surprising that he does not dare consult the wishes of his countrymen on what he has done.

The scale of this deceit is so colossal that one can scarcely believe they have got away with it. Yet, so far they have. And if it is any indication, watching the "blogosphere" on Google alert, in the wake of the IGC, there is less blogging than normal on this issue, even for a Saturday.

You would have expected the blogs to have exploded with comment – even despite the rugby match - but it is almost as if the majority have been stunned into silence, or are wondering what to make of it.

But what do you do when your politicians tell you bare-faced, brazen lies and, against all the evidence, keep repeating then and repeating them and repeating them? How long can we continue calling them liars, before we ourselves get sick of the sound of our own voices?

COMMENT THREAD

Not content with the mere Sunday Telegraph, Booker today is published in the Wall Street Journal under the title, "The Big 'Terminological Inexactitude'" – a piece primarily written for American readers on the EU constitutional reform treaty.

Monnet, Schuman and Spaak (right) - the 'fathers' of the European Union[i-Monnet, Schuman and Spaak (right) - the 'fathers' of the European Union]
The piece, however, is subscription only so, for the benefit of EU Ref readers, we replicate it here (complete with Americanised spelling):

One of the time-honored rules of British politics is that a politician must never be directly accused of telling a lie. Winston Churchill, on one legendary occasion, got round this rule in parliament by accusing an opponent of uttering "a terminological inexactitude".

Yet in recent weeks British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has repeatedly uttered an untruth so brazen that all the normal rules are suspended and commentators have not hesitated to accuse him of the forbidden "l" word. The cause of Mr. Brown's deceit is that European Union "Reform Treaty", barely distinguishable in its contents from the previously proposed "Constitution", which French and Dutch voters chucked out two years ago. No other EU leader tries to hide the fact that the two documents are, as Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker put it, "99 percent the same".

The British prime minister implausibly claims the opposite for the simple reason that he and his party were elected to power in 2005 on the promise that the U.K. would not ratify the constitution until it had been put to a referendum. Labour was left off the hook for a while when following those votes in France and the Netherlands the constitution went into abeyance. But now it's back, leaving Mr. Brown with a nasty dilemma. He knows that if he was to keep the promise on which his party was elected, the odds are that he'd lose. To save him from such embarrassment, he's determined to bluff it out by pretending that the new treaty is indeed new and poses no threat to British sovereignty.

To appreciate just why it has been so important for EU leaders to get their constitution regardless of their peoples' wishes, one must grasp the fundamental principle on which those behind the "European project" have worked toward their ultimate goal. The process favored by the visionaries who first dreamed of a "United States of Europe" as far back as the 1920s was the very reverse of how the US was launched. When the founding fathers gathered in Philadelphia in 1787, their idea of building a nation was to start with its constitution and let the new Union grow from there. The Europeans chose the opposite strategy. They knew it was always going to be a much longer haul to place long-established nation states under the rule of a new form of supranational government.

That is why, as long ago as 1941, one of those visionaries, Italian ex-Communist Altiero Spinelli, proposed in his Ventotene Manifesto that the shapers of the new Europe should stealthily build up the structures of their new government over a long period without consulting the people. Only when the process was all but complete would they summon a "constituent assembly" to draft the constitution, which, Spinelli argued, the people would then acclaim by referendum as their "crowning dream".

A similar strategy was conceived after World War II by the Frenchman Jean Monnet who was to become known as the "Father of Europe". In 1952, when he set up the European Coal and Steel Community, he described it as only the embryo of that "government of Europe" he had been cogitating since the 1920s. What came to be called the "Monnet Method", enshrined by Monnet's friend Paul-Henry Spaak in the Treaty of Rome in 1957, was that process whereby the powers of the new supranational government could be steadily expanded, beginning with mere economic co-operation in a "Common Market" but gradually working up toward full political integration. Each new advance becomes the nucleus for the next step in integration. Over the next 40 years Monnet's strategy was followed, treaty by treaty, as the European Economic Community became, first, the European Community and then, thanks to Spinelli, prime mover behind the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992, the European Union.

Only by 2001 did EU leaders feel they were at last close enough to their ultimate goal to draft a fully fledged constitution, putting the all-but final touches to the new supranational government by giving it a permanent president and foreign minister, and with the European Council acting in effect as its Cabinet. According to Spinelli's original script Europeans should have greeted the constitution with "acclamation". When, however, the French and Dutch gave the tortuous 400-page document a resounding thumbs-down, EU leaders were baffled as to what to do next - until this year they came up with their masterstroke.

Why don't we, they agreed, just revive the rejected constitution under another name? By calling it a "Reform Treaty", making a couple of cosmetic changes, it can then be rammed through in a few months. So short was the timetable set for agreeing the treaty (to be signed in December) that there would be little chance for any popular opposition to gather momentum as it did in 2005.

Only in Britain has this cynical maneuvering provoked real national anger, compounded by Mr Brown's "terminological inexactitude" that the new treaty is different from the constitution. The Conservative opposition, most of the press, even the trade unions are now demanding that the prime minister should honor the promise on which he was elected. If just one country fails to ratify the treaty, EU leaders will be back with the impasse they faced two years ago. So it is a gamble they cannot afford to lose. If they get away with it, however, they will have taken another giant step toward that "United States of Europe" those visionaries first dreamed of 80 years ago, a government set up regardless of the wishes of the people it seeks to govern. They will be on the verge of pulling off what, over the past half-century, has amounted to a slow-motion coup d'état, one of the strangest and most far-reaching in history.

Mr. Booker, a columnist for the London Sunday Telegraph, is co-author, with Richard North, of "The Great Deception: Can The European Union Survive?" (Continuum, 2005).

The point, we hope, that comes over from the piece is that this current treaty is not an isolated event – as the "colleagues" want us to believe – but part of a continuous process, all dedicated to achieve that single end point of European political integration. By doing it slowly, step-by-step, they hope we won't notice until it's too late.

But… we noticed, and we don't like what we see.

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Much of the focus on the changes proposed by the "mandate" has been on headline issues such as the appointment of a full-time president and a "high representative" to act as an EU foreign minister. Perforce, less attention has been given to other changes in what are almost casually referred to as "institutional changes".

These, Blair would have us believe, are simply changes of rules to make the European Union "effective". More specifically, he told us:

This deal gives us a chance to move on, it gives us a chance to concentrate on the issues to do with the economy, organised crime, terrorism, immigration, defence, climate change, the environment, energy, the problems that really concern citizens in Europe. And this is why it was important to get out of this bind into which we had got with the constitutional treaty, to go back to making simple changes in our rules that allow us to operate more effectively now we are in an enlarged European Union, but most of all allow us to work effectively for the betterment of people inside the European Union.

In the manner of the joke about the Lone Ranger and his sidekick Tonto, however, the key to understanding what is going on is to ask, "who's this 'us' paleface?"

To answer this, we look to the European Council "mandate" where, in paragraph 12, we find the dense but superficially anodyne statement that:

The institutional changes agreed in the 2004 IGC will be integrated partly into the TEU and partly into the Treaty on the Functioning of the Union. The new Title III will give an overview of the institutional system and will set out the following institutional modifications to the existing system, i.e. the Articles on the Union's institutions …

The reference to the "2004 IGC" is of course the code for the EU constitution and the important modification here is to the "Articles on the Union's institutions".

To find these, we have to go to Article I-19 of the failed constitution where we see the definition of the "institutional framework" and a statement of its aims. These are expressed in terms of the "Union" telling the institutions that their aims are to: "promote its values; advance its objectives; serve its interests, those of its citizens and those of Member States; and ensure the consistency, effectiveness and continuity of its policies and actions".

Now, the crucial point here is that the first three of these objectives are entirely new. And, of these, the third is especially important: to: "serve its interests, those of its citizens and those of Member States".

However, this is but a curtain raiser to another short insert in paragraph 12, which states (by way of one of the institutional changes): "the European Council (transformation into an institution…)".

This is of huge significance. Originally set up in 1972 by Jean Monnet, the European Council was presented, during its first meeting under president Pompidou as a "fireside chat" between the heads of states and governments of the then nine members of the EEC.

Indeed, the first meeting was in fact held in Pompidou's private salon, with members lounging in armchairs and even sitting by the fire, but Monnet had far greater ambitions for it. He styled it as nothing less than a "provisional government" of Europe, its task being to steer Europe though the "transition from national to collective sovereignty" (Memoirs, p. 503).

However, as is the way with the incremental development of the European Union, the European Council enjoyed a half-life outside the treaties, acquiring the appellation "summit", and reported almost universally as such by the media, growing from its origins as an informal "fireside chat" to the full-blown monster that it is today.

But, while it remained, in treaty terms, an informal body, it was formally recognised in the Nice Treaty (Article 4) which first defined its role as to "provide the Union with the necessary impetus for its development" and to "define the general political guidelines thereof".

Thus, while it was seen as a meeting of heads of states and governments (now assisted by foreign affairs ministers), the inference being that they were representing their respective nations, the European Council was being drawn into the treaty maw. Although not yet a fully-fledged institution, it role was being more clearly defined as a representative body of the European Union.

Now, with this proposed change, the European Council is being defined fully as an institution. Furthermore, its aims have been set out, which it shares with the Commission, the EU Parliament and the European Court of Justice. It now will have developed into Monnet's "provisional government", acting, to all intents and purposes, as the "cabinet" of Europe.

The problem, of course, is that the members are still made up from the heads of state and governments of the member states. But, rather than representing their respective nations, they now act as a corporate body – an institution – the aims of which are, in respect of the Union, to: "promote its values; advance its objectives; serve its interests, those of its citizens and those of Member States; and ensure the consistency, effectiveness and continuity of its policies and actions".

Crucially, the requirement to serve the interest of the Union comes first, the "citizens" come second and the Member States come third. The order is neither accidental nor without significance. The European Council has to put the Union first. Tony Blair's "us" is the European Union.

Serving the EU is, de facto, what the European Council already does, but this is now to become de jure. That such an important change is tucked into a paragraph of an obscure document which few will read – and fewer will understand – is another of those dangerous and deliberate obfuscations, designed to defeat easy analysis.

It also represents a very significant transfer of power from member states, our leaders having been hijacked and impressed into the service of the Union – all the more dangerous because, as far as the media and the general public is concerned, they are part of an invisible institution, one that will, to them, remain a "summit".

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