Patten Nonsense

Chris

The war has demonstrated Britain's lack of sovereignty in way which has been an utter national humiliation. There's nothing whatsoever absurd about saying so.

Max Kaye

Patten's disingenuousness is absolutely outrageous - in the manner of Heath. If we, the British people, are sick of this or that government then, come the general election, we vote them out. How do we vote out the leadership of the EU (along with the new post of High Representative (aka EU Foreign Minister)?

David Lindsay

We will not be a sovereign state again at least until we restore the supremacy of British over EU law and require the latter to pass through both Houses of Parliament exactly as if it had originated in one or other of them. But nor will we be while there are foreign forces on our soil, while we have one-sided extradition arrangements, while that power's legislation is applied here extra-territorially, while our foreign policy is conducted as part of the interagency process in Washington, while it is actually impossible for us to fight a war other than under overall American command, or while we have no independent intelligence capability. Britain's incorporation into a unified Europe under overall American hegemony makes perfect, horrific sense, and is the stated aim of the neoconservatives on both sides of the Atlantic. It must be resisted without mercy, on both fronts.

TGF UKIP

Patten, like his fellow SocDems Gummer and Clarke, is and always has been instinctively europhile and anti-American. The quote above, therefore,is entirely typical. What is, perhaps,more surprising is that he doesn't seem to have been asked yet to head a Foreign Policy Commission for Cameron's SocDem Tory Party.

Simon Cawkwell

Patten's comments are simply a straightforward attempt at deception. It goes with the EU territory that absolutely any lie is a good idea provided it is thought by a europhile to assist the EU. Honest men know better.

David

First, Parliament will vote explicitly for Britain’s involvement in the EU Treaty. Second, at any election there was not a constituency in the land where you couldn’t have voted for an anti-EU Treaty candidate if you wanted to. You can’t ask for more than that in a representative democracy.

Lee Jakeman

What do you expect from a Eurocrat? Or should that be Europrat?

Jack R

Another Christopher, Christopher Booker has it right on the EU Treaty, which Brown is apparently too ashamed to sign in public. In his Notebook, www.dailytelegraph.co.uk (10 Dec), Mr. Booker outlines 6 areas of EU failure: 1).Defence 2.Foreign Policy 3.)Common Agricultural Policy 4.)Common Fisheries Policy 5.) Immigration Policy 6.)Policy on Global Warming. For supplementary arguments, see: http://eureferendum.com 'The failures of our government' (9 Dec.)

Herbert Thornton

During the run-up to the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty the demonstrations in Tien An Min Square were still fresh in all minds and especially so in the minds of the Chinese government in Beijing. The Chinese became very worried indeed about western calls for more democracy in China, and especially so in relation to Hong Kong.

Whether Patten failed to grasp this or deliberately tried to embarrass the Chinese government is unclear, but what is clear is that he tried to outwit Beijing by devising - and indeed by shoving down Beijing's throat - a system of voting rights, intended to operate in Hong Kong after its return to Chinese sovereignty, that Beijing did not approve of and indeed viewed as potentially subversive for China itself. The result was Chinese outrage and a great distrust of British motives.

Some people may remember Lord Salisbury's description of Iain Macleod, over his handling of the dissolution of the empire, as "too clever by half".

The same thing can certainly be said about Chris Patten in relation to his handling of the return of Hong Kong to China. Maybe it still fits, but it certainly fitted him then.

The Laughing Cavalier

It is true that Parliament voted for the Iraq war, but it was misled into doing so. If one is to be bumfoozled into war it is probably better that it is by a British Primeminister than by the Presidents of Germany and France. As for Monsieur Christophe Petain, he went native on arrival in Brussels.

David Lindsay

You still don't get it: the US has been in favour of a united Europe within overall American hegemony since the Forties, the driving force behind the EU has always been the (until the Iraq War, and now again) fiercely pro-American political class in (West) Germany, the most Europhile British politicians have always been the most pro-American (the SDP, Thatcher when it actually came to signing things instead of just making speeches, Blair), and so forth. It's not a choice between the EU and the US; it's a choice between the pair of them and our national sovereignty.

Nicholas Millman

Patten's democratic aspirations in Hong Kong were irrelevant, building on the shaky foundations of a succession of Left-leaning governors and merely irritating to the repulsive, repressive, communist, totalitarian human-rights abusing regime that the free and thriving British dependent territory was spinelessly handed over to.