GEORGE LIVES WITH FISHES

You come from an island, so maybe you don’t understand the subtleties  of European construction’

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President snapping at a BBC reporter at the G20

GEORGE  PAPANDREOU announced that he was going to give his people a voice in how their country’s history was to take its next vital step. It was the right thing to do and the brave thing to do. He offered his people the chance to decide for themselves, by referendum, whether they should stay with the austerity imposed on them by France and Germany, or declare for bankruptcy.

            At a time of such a crisis as that now experienced by Greece, it is surely right that, in any democracy, the people should determine their future. If they can longer be given this opportunity then Greece would be better off under the notorious colonels that governed their country post-war.

            But Mr Papandreou was summoned to Cannes to meet his Godfathers, Messer’s Merkle and Sarkozy. When the meeting ended, so did the possibility of a referendum. Mr Papandreou returned to announce its demise.

            What happened when he appeared before the Grand Inquisition is, if the press are to be believed, starting to come to light. We are told that the Greek prime minister was threatened with being denied any future bailout cash by the German Chancellor, and was also told that his country would face EU expulsion for ten years. After which, we are told, the Greek opposition were contacted in order to find a way of withdrawing  support from Papandreou.

            Such is the character of the European family our own home-grown Europhiles wish us to join. If those European leaders gathered at the G20 meeting in Cannes, did indeed make any kind of contact with the Greek opposition in order to get rid of what was after all their country’s elected  prime minister, then it is no exaggeration to level the charge against Brussels of fermenting a coup in Greece.

            Mr Papandreou has been made to look like a Neville Chamberlain figure by his country’s European masters. He offered his people a say in their future, but it was not to be: he is of course no hero; he, like all Greece’s politicians have conspired in the creation of their nation’s predicament. They have lied about their country’s finances in order to secure membership of the euro - but then the deception should have been discovered at the time; which it probably was, but  ignored by European idealism which rubber stamped Greece’s membership.

            Indeed, the EU as a whole  has little to boast about regarding any country’s finances the EU’s signing off of  accounts. Their own accounts have not been signed off  by the auditors for several years. Corruption is rife in Europe and Greece is not the sole transgressor.

WHAT I WOULD LIKE to see, is a return to the old Europe. A Europe of free trade where the people of Europe can prosper without the overweening presence of a Brussels bureaucratic oversight that supervises and pronounces upon each every aspect of our lives;  a European super state that diminishes the individual’s ability to flourish by the ravenous use of regulation that stifles enterprise - the very mechanism needed to bring wealth to the ordinary citizens of the continent of Europe.

            The European project was a terrible mistake; a mistake based upon a noble premise of ridding the continent of Europe of future internal wars that had for centuries occupied the continent; but all it will do is create new fissures to replace the ancient ones with same consequences for the continent.

            History in the making rarely impacts on the busy everyday lives of the people. It is only when they look back over their lives that a clear picture emerges of just how much the many changes of just five or six decades has moved their world forward.

            But then sudden events of great significance concentrate their minds and make them feel a part of history for the first time. Both of the world wars were such events; and now I believe we are in the midst of an equally cataclysmic period of European history. A period which will be effect the lives of all of us.

            The backdrop is the European debt crises and the unfolding drama will divide Europe and the nations within it. Rather than a continent of ‘solidarity’ and concord, as the founding fathers and their decedents wanted; a two tier, two speed Europe, will emerge from the political divisions that the debt crises is causing. The 17 euro members will form the core of the Union, while the 10 nations outside of the euro zone will become satellites, having, through Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) to obey the core members.

            Latter this week a report will be published by Open Europe which will describe how, through the Lisbon Treaty we have given this inner core the power through QMV to effectively overrule our parliament. We will no longer hold our veto…and Gordon Brown told us when he signed the treaty in December 2007, that this would be a technical adjustment not requiring a referendum.

            Once again the British people were duped on an issue involving our relationship with Europe - a piece of hoodwinking that is, in the light of the current crises, going to cost us dear in terms of our standard of living, and, if the people do not act, in terms of our sovereignty and national independence.