Britain’s coming crunch with Europe

Liz Brown

At last the truth is beginnning to emerge. Out now

Fergus Pickering

But won't our judges simply say that we can't, that it's not lawful, that we must etc etc. I don't know when they got all lefty. Bring back Melford Stevenson, I say. I think judges OUGHT to be reactionaries. But what are we going to do about them, Fraser. And what are we going to do when the jailbirds win huge sums in the European Court. Tell them to bugger off and refuse to pay. What are we going to DO?

Perry

" Cameron is trying to put the brakes on this process. "

Please provide concrete proof.

Michael

One of the extraordinary old chestnuts still frequently trotted out is that even if we left the EU, we would still have to operate all of their laws. Do the Americans? Do the Chinese? Does Japan? Does anyone outside Eurolala land?
Of course they don't but they still manage to export to the Euro region quite happily. Trade is two way.

libertarian

There is no way we could be allowed to be in but operating solely under the 75 agreement ( every one else except France and Germany would demand the same). So OUT it is. Lets get it done save ourselves £16 billion a year into the bargain

David Newcastle

Brilliant, Fraser -- let it be so!

Nicholas Heneghan.

"A crunch is coming. The only question is how long we have to wait."

Oh God, not too long, please!

Alan Douglas

Excellent, Fraser. Cameron HAS to start leading THIS NATION, starting with the forthcoming budget, which must slash much of the Brownian obfuscation.

He also has to put his fine words about sovereignity into effect, and do more than allow tinkering at the edges, such as the (not quite EU) ECHR.

If he actually LEADS, he could have all UKIP's votes, and dispense with the Lib Dems by 2015.

ALan Douglas

TrevorsDen

It is indeed a useful thing - but what will 'they' do/ they will sue, any mean minded prisoner that is. Will MPs or the taxpayer cough up?

Sydney Carton did a far far better thing - and ended up under the guillotine.

Votes for prisoners is the lest troublesome thing this ECHR gets up to.

ATC

Oh, Fraser! You are a one... raising our hopes and optimism again, after we're almost through with painting our placards and taking to Parliament Square in the mode of Tahir Square on the issue. Articles like this will buy the House of Commons time... I propose we give them until St. George's Day to get it sorted, before we descend on them enmasse demanding our country back.

Rhoda Klapp

OK, Fraser has caught up with many regular commenters. How long will it take for the government to catch up with Fraser, or the Finkelstein wing to catch up with the public. Only once that has been achieved can we all try to deal with the pro-EU lobby in the civil service and business. Then the BBC.

Charles Martel

Well, it's all well and good Cameron pontificating how bad the Lisbon Treaty is, he decided not to hold a promise of a referendum on it (as did Labour and the Limp Dims), and could have honoured the pledge and used is as leverage when dealing with the EU.

But no, he did not, and as a consequence he has destroyed peoples trust on this issue.

We keep hearing all these noises about how Eurosceptic Cameron is, but every single time he has taken a pro-EU stance.

This has nothing to do with Eurosceptism and absolutely nothing to do with Eurosceptism, and absolutely everything to do with the May 5th elections.

It's not going to wash.

pharbitis

There is a small snapshot in today's MoS - a Cornish brewer of Nettle beer (from an ancient recipe which long predates the EU dictatorship)could go out of business as the EU dictates that their beer isn't really beer and so extra duty must be paid. Of course HMRC is happy to hoover up the nearly ten thousand pounds of back tax which would see this liitle business go to the wall.
The EU must be resisted; I only hope Cameron is the man to do it. Or we older folk who remember a free country that our parents fought for could go out on the streets and noisily demonstrate. I'm up for it!

Richard Calhoun

The EU sceptics, pressure groups & ukip have all failed to coordinate and force a referendum.
Hopefully there will be a possibility now that the damage by Labour is being revealed

Cogito Ergosum

It is simply wrong to say that in 1975 we voted for a free trade area. Once upon a time (1959) there was the EEC (the "Gang of Six") and EFTA (the Secret Seven). Hence the British newspaper headline that year, "Europe at Sixes and Sevens".

The Gang of Six made it clear from the outset that, for them, a free trade area alone was not enough. When we voted in 1975 that was more or less understood and accepted here.

What has gone wrong, then? I suggest that Brussels has tried to make each satrapy identical in its rules; when it would have been better to say that in each satrapy every EU country competes on equal terms. We do not want UK = Germany = Spain. What we do want is that in the UK, we and Germany and Spain face equal trade regulation; in Spain, we and Germany and Spain face equal trade regulation but perhaps a different regulation from that in the UK.

Some harmonisation is indisputably good. For example, all Europe runs on electricity that is 230 volts, 50 Hertz. That means manufacturers can produce for a single market that is larger than the USA. But if Germany wants fluorescent light bulbs, Spain wants filament bulbs, and we want candles, then that is how it should be.

Ed P

EFTA please! Iceland, Norway, Switzerland & Liechtenstein have mainly avoided the worst excesses of the EU - lets join this group, save billions of our "contributions" literally going to waste and regain sovereignty.

strapworld

Just read the contribution from that arch tory loyalist, TrevorsDen, above. If you have readit look at it again.

That is what is wrong with people nowadays. Appeasement, it is the 'lest troublesome' way forward.

It matters not what the fight is over we need to ask the British people if they want IN or want OUT of the EU.

Surely that would be democratic. As a democrat I believe we require that referendum sooner rather than later. Then we can get on with our own destiny.

When you get that third rate EU Baroness talking about democracy, it just beggars belief.

David Parker

Cameron would be extremely vulnerable to any Labour promise of an IN/OUT EU referendum as part of their manifesto for the next G.E. Despite the fact that both Labour and the Lib-Dems have reneged upon previous promises of a referendum (and would undoubtedly campaign for a IN vote, should one ever be held)The mere promise of such a referendum would be a powerful campaigning weapon, which would be enough to convince many voters on both sides of the EU divide.

In such a scenario Cameron, having lost the initiative, would almost certainly be forced to follow suit, though the Lib-Dems, having pre-empted him, might well campaign upon the promise of a coalition with Labour rather than the Conservatives in the event of another hung parliament.

Even though both Csmeron and Hague have repeatedly stated that they would never contemplate leaving the EU, the only hope for a Conservative victory would the promise of a referendum in which, if elected a new Tory government would actively campaign for an OUT vote. This would probably only be credible if accompanied by a change in the party leadership.

Jim Burfield

"In our only referendum on Europe, 1975, Britain signed up to a free trade deal: a
common market, not the Euro wannabe-superstate that we have now"

Not true. We voted on the basis of the Treaty of Rome, with its clearly stated goal of "ever closer union". If the British people didn't know what they were voting about, then that is a very powerful argument against holding referendums.

ollie

If Cameron wants a proper legacy - and a good chance of winning a landslide in 2015 - all he need do is offer that in out referendum to the public.

It would be a resounding No vote. We DO NOT need the EU for anything more than a trading partner.

Who could have foreseen 35 years ago that a European Court would be imposing laws about prisoner voting rights on a sovereign state?

Barry Bilge

Fraser Nelson said: "A healthy precedent was established last week. Britain has rejected that old argument that we have no choice. We do. Parliament is sovereign. We can reject as many Euro laws as we like:"

Which will cause consternation in Westminster. The situation *hasn't* changed. The introduction of foreign authority has *always* been because Westminster has knowingly deferred to it. The sooner the public realise the problem isn't in Brussels or Strasbourg and has instead always been in Westminster, the better.

Our representatives have excelled in convincing us that these were external forces against which they could not push - this gave them a quieter life and more time to spend dithering over insignificant issues that ought to be the job of local Government. They always could have pushed back but our representatives *chose* not to.

We need to choose better representatives.

David Ossitt

“It did not take David Cameron long to realise that there were three parties in his coalition”

And not one of us ever voted for the third party, it is high time we had the referenda to get out of the undemocratic EUSSR.

Martin Keegan

If the UK public can be financially illiterate enough (and why should people HAVE to be financially literate? their politicians shouldn't be lying to them about public finance in the first place) to put up with Gordon Brown's policies, why should the publics of other EU member states be constitutionally literate enough to realise how damaging the EU is?

Norman Dee

The comment "most gullible" contributor is absolutely right, I sincerely believe that the French and Germans have been taking the piss for many years now, it may even have started in good humour, well it is funny really isn't it ?, but it has got out of hand. So time for their joke to come back and bite them in the arse, and when as mentioned it gets down to only France and Germany supporting the "French Agriculture Benefit Society" we will see Germany having a good look around also.

Neil Turner

This is by far the most encouraging piece I have ever read on these pages

Fraser, I sincerely hope your political senses are accurate

Chris

Please don't use 'lift' to mean 'lower', as in 'lift fuel prices.' 'Lower the burden of,' or 'lower duty on,' is what you mean.

Fergus Pickering

Cogitoergosum, no it wasn't, no it wasn't, no it wasn't. Remember Our Enery and his cauliflowers. We were sold it as a free trade area. Maybe we were fools to believe lying shysters like Edward Heath and his understrapper Rippon, but we did believe them, and we did believe Harold Wilson. Or I did. So I voted Yes. Oh bloody dear. But I did NOT know it would be like this.

Aubrey Herbert

Fraser, you overlook the point that at the same time as he is coming over all Eurosceptic to you, Cameron is also digging out the Barry White CDs and singing "I'm Never Going to Give You Up" to Nick Clegg. As a former MEP and Europhile, Clegg wants to opt in to everything that the EU throws up. The Lib Dems are more influential than the Tory sceptics in shaping EU policy because the PM does not want to push them so far as to open up a Coalition fault line on the EU.

It probably suits your Government sources to pass their Euro-confusion off on the Civil Service, a line which you appear to have swallowed. It's a Civil Service duty to inform Ministers when they are adopting a policy which is not in conformity with the law or a binding international commitment, such as not implementing EU legislation to which the Government has agreed or deciding not to observe ECtHR judgements. That can't be explained away as starry-eyed Europhilia, nor can pointing out to baffled Eurosceptics the fact that a Conservative Government in ratifying earlier Treaties accepted the principle that EU law trumps domestic legislation.

I agree with you that at some point we will have to have a referendum on whether we should stay in or leave the EU. In effect, any of the referendums envisaged in the Government's EU Bill will be just that. But it would be much better for them to grasp the nettle now and settle once and for all an issue that has been left unresolved for too long.

Publius

@Jim Burfield
"We voted on the basis of the Treaty of Rome, with its clearly stated goal of "ever closer union". If the British people didn't know what they were voting about, then that is a very powerful argument against holding referendums."

-- At the time the ever-closer-union question was raised again and again by the No campaign, only to be dismissed as swivel-eyed lunacy and scare-mongering by the Yes campaign, who maintained that all the EEC was about was a free-trade zone, irrespective of what the treaty said or didn't say.

The No side was proved right. The Yes side were either deluded or they lied.

This is not a question of public ignorance, but of deliberate deception.

Yarnesfromhorsham

The only time politicians listen and are forced to do anything is when the people take to the streets - like the Poll Tax and petrol hike. Frankly whats the point of voting - those with money leave the country and the rest settle back to non stop Corri St and Albert Sq and dumb down Radio 4 Bye - yet we allow our soldiers to risk their lives for a no hope country. And another thing - dont put mesh on your garden shed windows as you might get sued by the burgular. triffic.

Bill Cash

Hi Fraser. Repatriation on social and employment legislation was promised over and over again before the election and Coalition. Where is it? Clegg said he won't do it. The tail wags the dog. The existing EU regs have cost British business 128 billion since 1999. It's not just any new regs, Fraser, it's the old ones that hurt - they must be removed or zero growth. Where is the claw-back? How do you put brakes on the majority voting system without renegotiating the treaties? It's all talk. I fought the EU power grab over the City, but the Coalition caved in. And it's not only this. What about the investigative order? What about EU economic governance? What about the increase in the budget, when it was my amendment accepted by the whole House? Etc. etc.

Was my amendment to the EU Bill on 11 January "to reaffirm the sovereignty of the United Kingdom Parliament" (which the Coalition were whipped to vote massively against) dull and "constitutional outrage" or was it about who governs Britain and how? This is about real democracy. It affects everything - let's get real. The referendum amendment on which we voted last week and yet again was voted down by the Coalition (although the Lib Dems voted for it before) is a constitutional issue, isn't it? I've campaigned for an EU referendum since Maastricht and gathered up over 500,000 on the Maastricht referendum petition. A fringe issue? The prisoner votes issue is important, but don't forget it's a symptom of the fundamental sovereignty issue of which you make so much - not "constitutional outrage". It was an engineered free vote and the whipped vote is to come.

Bill Cash

Joesph Alan Jones

There is a strong suspicion that our PM lacks the necessary backbone to take positive action with the monster EU.

Yarnesfromhorsham

The only time politicians listen and are forced to do anything is when the people take to the streets - like the Poll Tax and petrol hike. Frankly whats the point of voting - those with money leave the country and the rest settle back to non stop Corri St and Albert Sq and dumb down Radio 4 Bye - yet we allow our soldiers to risk their lives for a no hope country. And another thing - dont put mesh on your garden shed windows as you might get sued by the burgular. triffic.

Mark M

I seem to remember the book "10 Years On" involved a storyline where it was one little thing (can't remember what) that set off a chain reaction that resulted in Britain having an in/out referendum.

Could the prisoner votes, technically not even an EU issue, be that catalyst? Let's hope.

denis cooper

Fergus Pickering -

"But won't our judges simply say that we can't, that it's not lawful, that we must etc etc."

No, not yet; the orthodox view among the judiciary is still that Parliament having passed the European Communities Act 1972 and subsequent amending Acts, it remains open to Parliament to repeal those Acts.

Moreover it's open to Parliament to repeal those Acts not just in their entirety but in part, to the extent necessary to disapply certain EU laws within this country, provided only that Parliament does that expressly so that it's clear to the courts that the EU treaties are being broken deliberately and not inadvertently.

If any judge persisted in defying the will of Parliament as expressed through its legislation, on this or any other matter, and refused to accept the suggestion that he should quietly retire, then Parliament has the reserve power to remove that judge by an Address of both Houses to the Queen.

denis cooper

Fraser

Oliver Letwin should go back and look at this Commons Division No 239 on May 16th 2006:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo060516/debtext/60516-0017.htm

when he and 137 other MPs voted in favour of Bill Cash's proposed New Clause 17 for the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill:

"New Clause 17

DISAPPLICATION OF EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES ACT 1972 (NO. 2)

‘(1) An order made under Part 1 containing provision relating to Community treaties, Community instruments or Community obligations shall, notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972, be binding in any legal proceedings in the United Kingdom.

(2) In section 1 and this section—

“Community instruments” and “Community obligations” have the same meaning as in Part 2 of Schedule 1 to the European Communities Act 1972 (c. 68);

“Community treaties” has the same meaning as in section 1(2) of the European Communities Act 1972.'."

Somehow Bill Cash had secured official Tory party approval for his amendment, and the "Ayes" list included not only Letwin, but also Ancram, Davis, Duncan Smith, Fox, Grayling, Green, Hammond, Lidington - who is now the Minister for Europe - Maude, May, Spelman, Willetts and even Dominic Grieve - who is now the Attorney-General.

The debate was on the previous day, the relevant parts starting at Column 750 here:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo060515/debtext/60515-0010.htm

with John Redwood saying:

"Finally, I turn to the amendments on the European issue tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash). Nowadays, so much of our regulation comes from Brussels that we cannot exempt that from scrutiny and from our deregulatory urge. New clause 17 makes a good attempt to draw the House’s attention to that and to make Ministers understand that they cannot have a deregulation policy worth anything unless they are prepared to tackle quite a number of the regulatory burdens coming from Brussels. That would preferably be through renegotiation of those individual items, but it would be good to have a legislative back-up to make it crystal clear that if this House wishes to deregulate something, that should be law made here in the United Kingdom."

Followed by Bill Cash explaining the purpose and legal basis for his proposed New Clause 17, which is just what Letwin now needs.

dg

Cameron would win the next election handsomely if he offered for us to leave the EU. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

TGF UKIP

Ooh, Fraser, you are cruel, getting CHers all lathered up over an in/out referendum when you know full well that with Dave in Downing Street there's as much chance of him standing up to Brussels as there is of him standing up to Brown, the BBC, the LibDems or indeed anyone with whom he might have to argue a case.

Although I had a already read the other Fraser Nelson's piece in the NoW and was quite amused reading through your post above, it wasn't until I got to the first line of the last para that I really did laugh out loud. Nearly as loud as the civil servants and the Eurocrats must be laughing at the thought of all that lies between them and completely tying up the UK in knots prior to complete takeover, is Loopy.

I just hope they get the Screws, though, because I suspect the loudest laughs of all at such a notion, must be coming from his burglars.

Boudicca

Well it would be wonderful if Call Me Dave is finally waking up to the negative effect our membership of the EUSSR is having on the UK ... but I doubt it. This is the man who meakly accepted Darling's agreement to help prop up the Euro with money the UK taxpayer hasn't got. This is the man who quietly acquiesced to the European Arrest Warrent - ditching Habeas Corpus in the process. This is the man who, whilst trumpeting spending cuts here, capitulated to the EU Politburo's demands for a 2.9% increase in spending.

The ONLY time I will believe that Cameron is finally understanding the catastrophic effect the EU and ECHR is having is when Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan have been invited to No. 10 for tea and a discussion about how to get us out of the EU.

When Nigel Farage is invited in on the discussions I will believe what I am reading. My vote will only return to the Conservative Party when UKIP has reached a binding deal with the CONservatives currently running the Party.

Tomorrow I shall be out delivering UKIP Surrey News again.

Cynic

"even Danny Alexander, a former Europe spokesman, was shocked when he wanted to lift fuel prices for his Highland constituents, but found he can only do so with the permission of all other member states" Then I'd like to know why he's had his head in the sand for the last 13 years or so. I well remember that when VAT was put on heating fuel, the next government was told it could not take it off, only reduce it to the common tariff applied in other EU member states (which it did). If I, a simple layman, knew that, how come Alexander was so ignorant?

Jim Burfield - I voted in 1975 and NOWHERE on the ballot form was there any mention of "ever closer union" or even the Treaty of Rome. The choice we were offered was whether we wanted to stay in the European Economic Community (the Common Market). The Treaty of Rome was sold to us as being merely a facilitation of the Common Market. We were lied to and many people, myself included, voted on false information. Rather like the Iraq war, really.

Edward

I don't buy the argument that Dave's instincts are sound. I might have in May 2010, but now there are too many facts pointing the other way. But the situation as a whole is looking semi-promising...

Frank P

Good to see Bill Cash contributing here. I was beginning to think you had cashed in your chips, Mr Cash. More please!

Why not ask Fraser why he chose to renege on his promise to deal with the Neather revelations on this blog; it becomes more apposite by the day and the multiculti miasma increases in toxicity?

Jim Burfield

@Publius

"This is not a question of public ignorance, but of deliberate deception"

You make your point extremely eloquently. But the fact remains: the Treaty was not secret and anyone could read it. If people chose not to, the result was ignorance. If they were so easily deceived, AND knew nothing about the issue involved, then they were not qualified to vote.

Aside from the Europe issue, this is the problem with referendums: they deliberately give the vote to people who have no idea what is going on and, usually, are too busy and too indifferent to find out. That is why we pay MPs to make decisions for us.

Bill Cash

Denis Cooper - I'm glad that to see that people are beginning to notice what really goes on in Parliament. I got official Tory approval because they knew I was going to rebel and with big numbers behind me, and because DC had promised to repatriate social and employment legislation in his CPS lecture in December 2005, etc. Indeed, 55 backed me in another rebellion on my sovereignty clause on the Lisbon Treaty. The key words are "notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972" and "binding in any legal proceedings in the United Kingdom", which together impose an obligation on the courts and deal with the courts' assertions of judicial supremacy over Parliament. See also my Westminster Hall debates on sovereignty in January and June last year and my speech on Clause 18 of the EU Bill (11 January).

The trouble is that the press / media do not, or barely, read or report any of this and the whip has been put massively on against our amendments - and now the Coalition in Government will not pass the necessary legislation.

Frank P - Blue chips still very much on the table!

TGF UKIP

Noteworthy, by the way, Fraser, that you stop a long way short of committing the Speccie to campaigning for such a referendum, let alone a "No" vote in such a vote.

Chris Rose

Our only hope is the House of Commons. The EU institutions can cow judges, they can intimidate governments, they can bully ministers, they can bribe and threaten citizens (as they did in Ireland last year); but they cannot stand up to a resolute House of Commons.

Yet in the prison vote last week 394 MPs didn't vote at all: most of them supine remnants of the most corrupt parliament we have ever had. They had better grasp that there's battle looming and we expect them to fight.

DJT

Those graphs make me proud to be British :)

David Petrie

It’s interesting to see the UK fretting over loss of sovereignty.

The competing demands between national sovereignty and adherence to supranational institutions causes no such angst in Italy.

The mother of all cases is Italy’s refusal to implement six judgments, yes six, of the European Court of Justice, with regard to foreign lecturers (the largest number being British) seeking equal treatment with regards to access to jobs and equal pay and pensions in Italy’s universities.

On 29 January 2011 an Italian law (Article 26 of law 240 of the “Gelmini” reform) came into force which “extinguishes” pending court cases of the foreign lecturers.

I know of no government in Europe, before 1938/39 adopting such measures.

The ECJ rules on the principles of EU law to be applied – but leaves their application to the member state.

Don’t like judgments from Europe – cancel the rights of anyone trying to apply them!

Can you imagine what would happen if Britain brought in legislation stopping prisoners from seeking application the Strasbourg ruling?

The rule of law? Scusi, che cos'è?

Frank P

Bill Cash

Excellent. Keep it up. We've been pressing for a real Conservative blogger to post on this blog for some time. Other than our Melanie, we're bombarded with leftish to lefty posts daily.

Pete Hoskins has some promise - he needs some sage advice; take him in hand! As for Fraser, he'll never be forgiven for bottling out on the Neather issue.

This 24 hour pub - chose your own tipple (at supermarket prices of course) - has a quirky clientele and you should drop in more often; better still claim a blog platform here. Now that would be interesting!

David Petrie

It’s interesting to see the UK fretting over loss of sovereignty.

The competing demands between national sovereignty and adherence to supranational institutions causes no such angst in Italy.

The mother of all cases is Italy’s refusal to implement six judgments, yes six, of the European Court of Justice, with regard to foreign lecturers (the largest number being British) seeking equal treatment with regards to access to jobs and equal pay and pensions in Italy’s universities.

On 29 January 2011 an Italian law (Article 26 of law 240 of the “Gelmini” reform) came into force which “extinguishes” pending court cases of the foreign lecturers.

I know of no government in Europe, before 1938/39 adopting such measures.

The ECJ rules on the principles of EU law to be applied – but leaves their application to the member state.

Don’t like judgments from Europe – cancel the rights of anyone trying to apply them!

Can you imagine what would happen if Britain brought in legislation stopping prisoners from seeking application the Strasbourg ruling?

The rule of law? Scusi, che cos'è?

Linnear

This is nothing new. This campaign has been going for a long time. If you haven't signed then do so if you want the chance to vote.

http://www.eureferendumcampaign.com/EU_Referendum_Campaign.html

http://www.eureferendumcampaign.com/EU_Referendum_Campaign.html

daniel maris

It is incredible to think that Cameron and his cronies would ever leave the EU, despite there being a ready home in the EEA (which Switzerland and Norway belong to).

It is credible to think that someone writing for the Murdoch press might want to ratchet up the anti-EU rhetoric.

As far as I know the Spectator has never even sketched a path for us out of the EU. It's high time someone did.

ndm

-- Either out of the EU; or inside it, operating under the original 1975 free trade deal alone. That, I suspect, will be the end result. A crunch is coming. The only question is how long we have to wait.

I have nothing but admiration for those who wish Britain were like Iceland without the cod. There is only one decent future for Britain and that is within the European Union. Outside the European Union, Britain would be just another third-rate power.

We can already see that in the way no one cares about the value of sterling. The top of the Business & Finance section of the Wall Street Journal list the exchange rate for the Euro and the Yen but NOT sterling. That irrelevance is the future Fraser Nelson seeks.

yank

All fine and good to (finally) speak out against the EU's nanny state regulatory impositions, but that too becomes a dodge, unless accompanied by withering assault on that posed at home, by the home team, all on its lonesome.

Dave campaigned green, vote me and vote green and all that rot. That's not the EUcrats... it's Dave.

The other day, you Spectator chavs posted the results of a "think tank" jaw-jaw, and proceeded to censor BOTH of my posts commenting on the queer fact that the best and brightest quoted here in the Spectator think global warming is the biggest problem going forward for the People on the pile or rocks.

You think that, your government thinks that, and the best and the brightest (in your eyes) thinks that.

Huh?

You thus favor pounding down the costs of a regulatory state geared towards fighting a chimera that nobody anywhere with any sense buys into. That's not Brussels talking. That's Dave talking. It is not the People. It is a small group of bubble denizens.

You can forget the dodge. It will work awhile, but only awhile.

I give Cameron credit for recognizing that the worm is turning on the EUcrats. He's waiting to see how it turns, and taking small public perception steps, marketeering steps, in the interim. He's reacting, and that's not leadership.

Acknowledging public opinion with a couple graphics, finally, at long last, while welcome, just inflames matters. And it doesn't address the problem.

Stagflation. That's what's at hand. Unless large swaths of the regulatory burden is peeled off... large chunks off the hide of the beast... stagflation is here to stay, and the People will suffer its effects. It's a zero sum game here.

Out with it. Be plain and straight. You've published another confused, conflicted blogpost, like your chainsaws at 3:00am tale, and that's not good enough. Just come out with it. Name it and shame it. And for crisakes, at least stop cheerleading for it, and silencing dissenters.

conrad

Please, please, please leave the EU. Do everyone a favour. That would be the best thing for it. They should never have let you in! Afterwards, you can continue your rapid slide into oblivion made even quicker by your continued ad nauseaum nostalgia for a long lost Rule Britania. You guys are truly pitiful. I almost feel sorry for you.

daniel maris

Anyone get the feeling techtonic plates are moving? We've got the worst depressions in 70 years, a Middle East revolution, the end of multi-culturalism and now speculation that the UK's involvement with the EU is coming to an end.

I don't know where NDM is coming from. Is NDM a sentimentalist hankering after the days of imperial prominence? Such fantasies motivate a lot of the upper classes in the UK but they are essentially irrelevant.

UK is naturally a world trader. Being in the EU just cramps our style. We can have access to EU markets via the EEA. Also I think getting out of the EU will allow us to develop our green economy with state aid.

Archie

So why does the Great British Voting Public keep electing the same shower of manure as in the past forty years? Here's a solution: stop paying our £18 billion or whatever. Bet THAT would get their attention! What are they going to do? Invade us?

Major Plonquer 1

Excellent article. Well written too. I have only one problem.

I particularly enjoyed the sexual metaphor - 'The problem is that you have the entire British Civil Service playing Barry White CDs and making eyes at Brussels; the two of them make out on the small print sofa and breed regulations like rabbits. '

Yes. Very flowery. But inaccurate. You can't 'breed' from anal sex.

A Man With no Voice

The vote in 1975 was presented as a free trade agreement. The public shouldn't have to read an impenetrable legal document, that's what the politicians were supposed to do on our behalf. You don't hire a lawyer and then do his job for yourself.

More importantly, all treaties should be up for reconfirmation every 20 years. I was ten years old in 1975. I have never been offered a direct say even on the so-called EEC let alone on the EU. Don't my generation have rights too?

Johnny Foreigner

Funny reading this article and then look at the comments. Gosh, you really hate the EU don't you? And boy do you think the foreigners are taking you for a ride. Well I'm a foreigner and I think getting the UK out of the EU would be fantastic. Whether you believe this or not your civil service, which you all seem to hate (but you love your politicians - sounds really silly to me considering you have one of the best, most professional and least corrupt civil services in the world whereas your political class seems hell bent on continuing to milk the system for all its worth), is practically running Brussels together with their German and the French colleagues. The Lisbon Treaty is terrible for the small Member States. It would be great to get rid of one the big ones. As for all the comments on the horror of getting some proper regulation into the City – what on Earth would be wrong with that? I thought the reason the UK is on the brink of economical collapse was the lack of proper regulation in the financial sector. Or am I wrong? Maybe it's all an evil papist conspiracy?

Publius

@ndm
"That irrelevance is the future Fraser Nelson seeks."

A false dichotomy, I suspect. But if forced to choose, I would choose the irrelevance of liberty.

Why is it that the Left is always so obsessed with power?

Rhoda Klapp

In respons to Jim Burfield, this is the official government pamphlet delivered to all households during the 1975 referendum campaign. It is what the electorate was told. It is not practical or sensible to suggest that each voter should read and be able to understand the detail of the treaty of Rome. This is what they were told.

http://www.harvard-digital.co.uk/euro/pamphlet.htm

Rhoda will not be editorializing about the content. Read it for yourselves.

dorothy wilson

ndm: I'd rather be like the Swiss. Their government conducted a cost/benefit analysis a few years ago and found that EU membership would cost at least six times the current bilateral agreements they have with the EU.

And since Bill Cash is following this debate, I'd like to take the opportunity to say a big thank you to him for all his efforts on this issue.

rob

Another reason, if one more were needed, to vote UKIP.

Vulture

It is significant that of the 63 posts here thus far just one - that of ndm - is unequivocally pro Britain staying in the EU.

Ahem, I am aware ( he says) that the intellectual standards of Coffee Housers are way above that of the average Joe, but if that statistic in any way reflects public opinion, then the Eurocrats should tremble.

After 35 years of membership we should long ago have bedded down and be enjoying ' the club'. In fact, opposition to the EU is viral, and growing all the time.

Leaving aside the economics, our political culture just does not 'fit' with the EU's statist, corporatist, undemocratic and inorganic structures. We still value freedom.

Full marks to Fraser for finally recognising this. Now perhaps he will turn his attention to the other big elephant in the room - you know, the one he promised to write about all of...oooh, it must be a year or more ago. IT means mentioning the 'I' word, of course, but now Dave has done so, surely its safe for Fraser to follow suit?

Barry

"Cameron jokingly refers to Letwin as a ‘contraceptive’..."

I've got a better idea - how about celibacy? Perhaps then we can start treating the STD we seem to have caught.

Pinko Tory

At last at last. We have waited 20 ghastly years to start to talk openly. Curse the lot of them, the Lab liars and cheats, the weak wishy washy Tories that John Major allowed to fester and the Lib Dem snakes in the grass.

Vanessa Crichton

No, not invade! But fine us for all the 90 thousand criminals in prison. And the judiciary will make sure they are large fines. The government must not give in. We should also stop paying our membership fees to the EU and then let's see what they do!!?

Annie

I too voted in the 1975 referendum (it was my very first time of voting) and my recollection is quite strong that we were voting for a trading zone in Europe. At no time were we told it would lead to a European superstate. I was aware of Churchill's comment over the need for a "United States of Europe" to fight off the USSR communist peril but that's all.
As I took my first time vote very seriously I would have remembered if there was any mention of what came to be the EU. I therefore conclude that we were indeed duped.

bony

Read this before you all start wetting yourelves:

AUTHOR: Mary Ellen Synon

Here is an edited version of my column in today's Irish Daily Mail:

What a delight the Greeks are. All that noise, all that passion. All that debt, all that ignorance: I mean they still don’t seem to grasp exactly what it was their Government agreed to when it accepted the 110bn international bailout. They have been squealing that nobody can be allowed to run Greek affairs except the Greeks, that the EU and the IMF should butt-out. All I can say to that is: Zorba, it’s time to read the fine print on the contract.
It is also time for the Irish to look up from the election and pay attention to exactly what the EU and IMF are doing to the crippled Club Med country. It’s the Greeks now, but the Irish later.
Last week in Athens the Greeks went another round with the EU and IMF inspectors, the German-types – there is always at least one named ‘Klaus’ in the group -- who turn up every quarter to see whether the government is sticking to the bailout deal. Ireland gets the same sort of inspectors, of course, but the inspectors arriving in Athens get a much rougher time than the inspectors who come to Dublin. As I said, the Greeks are a delight.
What set off the Athens anger last week was that the inspectors made it clear Greece would have to get on with selling 50bn of state-owned assets over the next four years to pay down debt. The problem is the Athens government wants to sell just 7bn worth. The Greek people, already suffering with spending cuts, tax rises and unemployment, are angry at being told they must also sell off great chunks of national property.
The EU and IMF inspectors have ordered the government to sell water companies and mines and almost anything else that could find a buyer. However, so sensitive is the idea that these sales might include sales of land – you can bet at least a dozen people named Oleg or Abdul would have the money and desire to buy whole Greek islands -- that the government spokesman George Petalotis had to insist land would not be sold.
Yet at the same time Mr Petalotis said: ‘We asked nobody to interfere in domestic affairs. We only take orders from the Greek people.’ So you can reckon he doesn’t have much of a grasp on just how much power his government has handed to the EU-driven bailout powers.
It is important to remember that these bailout conditions for Greece, just like the bailout conditions for Ireland, were designed by the EU and not by the IMF. The IMF technique for bailout is first to devalue the currency and oversee spending cuts, then negotiate with bondholders. The reason the EU insisted on being leader in the bailout was to stop that very sensible IMF technique being used anywhere in the EU.
Reason? It would have meant a member state becoming independent of Brussels. The IMF could have helped the member state drop out of the euro. Staying in the euro and paying off all the bondholders, as the EU insists, means recovery has to come the more slow and painful way – by the anti-growth austerity Greece and Ireland are both suffering now.
Of course, this means leaving the people of both countries burdened with loans they can never pay off, and with spending cuts and unemployment levels from which they will not recover for a generation. The bailouts are designed in this way for just one reason, to forge the final link in the chain that will shackle Greece and Ireland, and in turn other eurozone countries, to a centralised European government.
That is why the Greek spokesman’s cry that ‘We only take orders from the Greek people!’ is both absurd and heartbreaking. The fact is that the euro-elite are now speaking with satisfaction of Europe entering ‘the post-democratic age.’ The dismissal of Ireland's first Lisbon Referendum result by Brussels was only the most brazen example the EU policy of ‘post-democratic’ government.
The unelected technocratic elite of Brussels see government as being too important, too complicated for the little people to control. Sending in inspectors named Klaus to direct the fiscal and economic movements of the government of a member state is more what the euro-elite have in mind -- what they have in mind now, and have always had in mind.
Certainly during this election many Irish people are beginning to question the power that the EU has over this State, and the power that the EU may allow the German government to take over this State and the rest of the eurozone. The extent of that may be decided at the European Council meeting next month, at which the new Taoiseach will have no more influence than a member of the catering staff.
But these powers have been growing since the moment the Irish greedily signed on to join the Common Market because they thought it meant free money. The gush of cash drowned out the sound of what the euro-elite were really saying.
In ‘The Great European Rip-Off,’ a book by David Craig and Matthew Elliott published in 2009, the authors list many of the statements of intention made by the bosses of the EU over the decades. It’s worth recalling what the euro-elite said during all those years so many of the Irish were sucking up what they thought was a free lunch.
It is hard to sympathise with the Irish whimpering now that ‘We have lost our sovereignty’ when the loss of our sovereignty was always the point, and the Brussels elite made no secret of it.
Here is commission president Romano Prodi in 1999: ‘The single market was the theme of the eighties; the single currency was the theme of the nineties; we must now face the difficult task of moving towards a single economy, a single political unity.’
As long ago as 1991, Hans Tietmeyer, then head of the Bundesbank and the most powerful central banker in Europe, said: ‘A European currency will lead to member nations transferring their sovereignty over financial and wage policy as well as monetary affairs. It is an illusion to think that states can hold on to their autonomy.’
Here is the present head of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, in 1998: ‘The Council of Ministers will have far more power over the budgets of member states than the federal government in the United States has over the budget of Texas.’
Here is Roman Herzog, then the German president, speaking in 1996: ‘The day of the nation state is over.’
I will add that the day of national legislatures is over, too, unless the Greeks, and the Irish, and others, find the will to get out of the EU. What the Irish will vote for later this month is not in fact a parliament. We will vote to put highly-paid politicians into the shell of a parliament, a chamber that has given up almost all the sovereign powers held by a genuine parliament. Losing the power to control the budget is just the latest and most shameful surrender of parliamentary sovereignty.
Listen to the then-president of the commission, Jacques Delors, talking in 1988. He said that within ten years ‘80 percent of our economic legislation, perhaps even fiscal and social as well’ would come from the EU and not from national parliaments.
As the authors Craig and Elliott point out: ‘This was actually quite an accurate prediction – in 2007 the German president calculated that about 84 percent of all legislation passed by the German parliament came from the EU.’
There is no reason to imagine the amount of legislation passed by the Irish parliament but originating in the EU is much less than the same 84 percent. So what the Irish are voting for is a group of politicians who will be able to control 16 percent of our laws: not control the country's budget, of course, not the monetary policy, nor the tax policy – the Irish can't really imagine they are going to be allowed to hang onto that, surely? – not the currency nor the debt nor the foreign policy.
In fact, the complaints being made in this election that parliamentary Deputies must stop acting like local politicians are rather too late: planning permission, town drains and going to constituency funerals are probably the only things left over which the Deputies have any sovereign power. Though I wouldn’t be too sure about the planning. Or the drains.

Dr. Wofgang Munster Schnoozle

Der British eurosceptic are well know in germania but reality is wrong. We are good freinds, we lend lots of money and we have interest in financial city jointly together.
Joint leglsiation to control the bond holders will be good for you and for us. No?

FF

Rhoda, the pamphlet from the 1975 Referendum you linked doesn't imply a pure trading block. It addresses the sovereignty issue in the section "WILL PARLIAMENT LOSE ITS POWER?" where it effectively states (Fact 1) that Parliament would lose some sovereignty. "Medium-sized nations like Britain are more and more subject to economic and political forces we cannot control on our own ... Membership of the Common Market also imposes new rights and duties on Britain, but does not deprive us of our national identity" It downplays the issue but it is there. Fact 2, which stresses the value of the veto and the supremacy of the Council of Ministers, no longer applies however. Fact 3 - the right of the UK Parliament to pull out altogether still applies.

dave

A once great nation has realised the EU was a con all along! Fifty years eh. Monnet would be so pleased to have seen all the idiots believing the Eussr to be a good thing. WAKE UP CAMERON. time for us to leave.

FF

The UK doesn't have to be in the EU but it does have to deal with it. It's the only game in town (or in Europe anyway and Britain is part of that continent). And we have to deal with it as it is, and not as would like it to be.

dorothy wilson

FF: We may have to deal with it but we do not have to sell our soul to it.

cuffleyburgers

Few observations - yes the 1975 was carried out on a deception - this is well documented in North/Booker's "The Great Deception", Heath lied repeatedly, the issue was raised and anyone who was concerned was treated as an idiot, rather inthe manner of warmists nowadays.

Secondly - Johnny Foreigner - glad we will be doing you a favour by leaving, we will be doing ourselves one as well.

FF, ndm - the old false dichotomy - that because we are near Europe we have to be in the EU - mm tell that to the (richer than us, now) Swiss or the (richer than us, and still got their fish) Norwegians who are even nearer than we are but seem to get by all the same.

Of course the EU will do all it can to punich us when we leave, and that is often used as the main argument for not leaving, but to me it is the main argument for wanting to tell the garlic-sausage-munching johannes etrangé to ficarlo nel culo.

Any club, whose main argument for staying in is that they'll bash you over the head and keep your wallet if you try to leave doesn't sound much like a club I'd like to be part of.

Mike Doherty

Do me a favour? Are you seriously suggesting that:

a) David Cameron has only now discovered how the EU operates and 'didn't know' that it has a huge effect on UK govt policy?

b) that Danny Alexander 'didn't know' that taxation policy on fuel had a Brussels influence? (I read somewhere else today that Clegg -- the former MEP and adviser to a UK EU commissioner -- claims not to have known that VAT rates have to adhere to EU regs as well).

c) that Cameron will risk the stability of the coalition and his premiership on a referendum on membership/1975ers?

Get serious.

Helen Beard

As we are Lumbered with The Big Society of Cuts, why have we give the EU £1.8billion plus the Exchange rate so far this Year with a further £15billion to Go this year. Just for the Pleasure of Being European, Their's Not Ours

Mike

Now is the time to hold a demonstartion / sit in on Parliment Square and demand a referendum on our membership of the EU. Hopefully DC will then take his own advice he had for Mubarak "Listen to your people" !! I'm ready for it are you?

FF

cuffleyburgers, to be clear, I am sure Britain can manage fine outside the EU. My point is that the EU won't go away if we do leave. We still have to deal with it. And it's no good pretending it's something it's not.

Unlike most on this column, though, I don't have a problem with staying in either.

TGF UKIP

Fraser, I really am full of admiration. What a wonderful, wonderful wind-up and I'm sure the reaction fully lived up to your expectations. Should provide amusement for you and the rest of the clique for weeks to come.

RCS

The main issue to my mind is that the EU is failing politically and economically.

One of its proudest acheivements is its concern for the environment. The CFP, CAP and climate change have become ecological disasters. The latter is based on an increasingly untenable idea that we have to limit our CO2 emissions, despite a latrge body of evidence that we don't. So we have to invest in the most costly and inefficient way of generating energy - "renewables" and conform to totally unrealistic targets that will cripple our industry. The biofuels policy has caused widespread devastation in areas previously occupied by forests and it is becoming increasingly apparant that biofuels do not reduce CO2 emissions. Any rational, engineering based approach to current energy supply and demand is rejected by the EU commission. Since, we are told, this represents the best and brightest that Europe has to offer, there can be no possibility of error.

The major problem with the EU is that once it has pronounced and regulated, it seems impossible to change a decision. The CFP, for example, is the worst managed fishing policy in the World, many people acknowledge this, but there is no possibility of getting it changed - in fact tnobody even knows how to change it.

Contrast this with the US, where the dspleasure of the electorate over some of Obama's policies has changed Congress and there is now a cool hard look at climate changeand what, if anything, should be done about it.

The EU is slowly spiralling into an over-regulated, economically stagnant backwater. It is unreformable and there is no political mechanism by which it can be changed.

The UK cannot possibly recover until we leave the EU.

Jim Burfield

@Rhoda Klapp (and others)

We are in agreement , although you do not seem to have spotted the fact. Since it is so easy to deceive the electorate in a Yes/No referendum, referendums are clearly a bad idea. Voters have no idea what they are voting Yes/No about. We pay MPs to acquire the expertise that most of us are too busy and/or too ignorant and/or too indifferent to garner for ourselves, and then to make informed decisions on our behalf.

The eurosceptics' demands for a referendum are baffling. After all, they never tire of saying that the last one was a con.

Paul Henke

Why is it our politicians won't have an honest debate on the subject of the EU? Why are they happy for us to be ruled by overpaid, incompetent Eurocrats who are feasting in a bottomless trough of our money?
Brown said "British jobs for British people.
Cameron pledged a"cast iron guarantee" to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
The countries two most senior politicians LIED to us.
Who is there left to trust?

michelauslöneberga

thank the lord...i hope youŽll p§5$ off really fast...then we can cry out in joy: the poodle is gone;halleluja;the poodle is gone... you will have to obey all eu rules and pay for access like norway or switzerland without having any say at all :)or you wonŽt and your economy will collapse because industry will leave...canŽt wait for that referendum....

Darren R-W

With the loss of power, democracy, and justice. With the real costs directly and indirectly being in the order of around 165+ billion pounds, with a healthy trade deficit of 40+ billion pounds. I would say it was time to get out of the eu (was there ever a time to be in it). It is hardly a great democratic, or business model, and never will be. We do not need or want extra layers of legislature, courts, regulation, costs etc, all coming from abroad and foriegn bodies that we do not need or ever wanted, now, or in the future. Why do the majority vote for the 3 conliblab cartoon parties, when they are clearly at odds with the British nation, our intrests, and ambitions? When we do leave the eu, I think the conliblab set up will need to be consigned to the political scrap heap. The problem is staring us in the face, which is the eu, and the solution to our problems of the eu and political set up are staring us in the face, which is UKIP.

Presager

I've read the article and every one of the comments. I'm also one of those who were fooled into voting 'yes' in '75, believing that we were entering a Common Market (as it was then universally referred to), not a political union.

Although I hope that Britain will leave the EU, in the short and medium term it is difficult to see Eurosceptics achieving the 'critical mass' that would enable us to do so via a referendum. In this short to medium term (within the next five years, and shortly after the next Parliament is formed), if we got to the stage of an in/out referendum (which is very doubtful), chances are that it would be worded in a misleading way that might scupper the chances of an 'out' vote.

However, it is heartening to see that the Eurosceptic war of attrition against the EU is an ever-increasing phenomenon, gathering more and more allies, and on that front at least there is every reason to have strongly based hope that radical change in our relationship with the EU can be brought about, which will eventually lead to us leaving.

There comes a point when even Europhiles say 'up with this we will not put', and we reached it on the prisoners' rights issue. This is a genuine tipping point, and I am certain that Euroscepticism will be an ever-increasing political force in the land. The fact that a mass-circulation tabloid has come out strongly in favour of us leaving the EU won't do Euroscepticism any harm either.

The future looks bright for the long-term Eurosceptic cause. I'm an ex-Tory voter, am throughly committed to vote UKIP, and the voting change which will almost certainly be brought about by the AV referendum should see UKIP having representation at Westminster.

The longer the fight goes on, the better the chances of us leaving the EU. I am quite certain that, eventually, either our relationship with the EU will be radically changed to give us a far greater degree of independence, or we will have left. The realistic odds are that we will achieve the latter option.

VEBott

So, why are we still in the EU, if it's so expensive and unpopular?

For two very simple reasons:

1) Because on the whole, and despite all that intrusive EU legislation, the CEO's of so many of our major companies want us to be.

2) Because the US wants us to be.

So, asks yourselves,

a) Why 1 and 2
b) Why do 1 and 2 matter so much to Conservative leaderships?

Paracetamol

Never in the field of British politics was so much betrayed by so few to so many.

Rather more than a three-quarters of a year has passed since the new Government came into power in this country. What a cataract of disaster has poured out upon us since then!…

Barbara

This is the first convincing article I've read on the EU and Britians relationship with it. Its obvious we don't want it. Why is it that politicians refuse to admit, or give the public what they want. They assume we won't display our anger publicly, yet, we look to Egypt and Tunisia and we think on; we might just join them.
I want out of the EU, I don't like the thought of unelected men/boffins telling us what to do. Labour appeased and fell into line weakly, they were foolish and betrayed us as a nation. Unforgiveable. I hope this portrayal is true, it's given me hope where there as been none of late. This country is beginning to fall into a mire of hate, depression, and self interest, it can only end in trouble. When I remember what we all suffered to defend and fight for this country and it's been given away to foreigners makes me angry. We as a nation have to make it clear, enough is enough, in all areas we complain about, EU, immigration, jobs, housing, health tourists; the list is endless. While we the taxpayers keep funding the above in a bottomless pit of money, until we too are left poverty striken and like a third world country, that's what I invisiage we will become if we don't act soon.

simon

Cronus is reputed to be lying deep alseep within these British isles lets hope he's having the EU for breakfast