26 versus 1 — really?

Ben McGinn

You've left out the dismissal of the IMF funding part of this "non-agreement" by the US, China and Japan.

This so called agreement will never make it to the statute books.

David L

Interesting, and not surprising. Need to take account of Germany's ability to bully heavily indebted nations, such as Hungary. But the national political dimension over the next few weeks and months is going to be fascinating. And if there are to be referendums, then the euro will run out of road. Despite the awful economic shock that would cause, I'm beginning to think that may be the best outcome in the long term.

JohnOfEnfield

..and even if it were unanimously approved "tomorrow" it will certainly not save the Euro. See Anatole Kaletsky in the Times(£) today.

"The Emperor has no clothes!" (Sorry Angela).

Kennybhoy

David L on December 14th, 2011 8:32am

Unusually coherent and rational post Young Maister! Interesting times indeed...

Andy Leeds

The Euro is and always has been a load of rubbish. These idiots are so determined to save it they will happily destroy the European economy and Democracy to do so.

Luke

Oh thats even more tragic. Cameron has thrown away many of britain's best EU alliances to opt out of a deal that may never even happen

backs to the wall

The EUSSR does have its dissidents then.

Its a fair bet that Merkozy know who they are and what they are going to achieve sometime before they themselves do

So maybe this treaty is merely a punt attempting to kick the euro can off the pitch and into the stands, instead of endlessly dribbling it around the centre circle.
-It's very likely to hit the post and
rebound.

Julian F

"Leaving aside whether Cameron could have played his cards better (he could have)"

Could he really? Seems to me that Cameron got exactly what he wanted from this affair: political kudos; a defining moment in his premiership; a renewed lead in the opinion polls; humiliation of the Lib Dems; confusion in the Labour Party; comfortable victory in a parliamentary motion to commend his actions; spared the discomfort of having to debate and defend an unworkable and unpopular Treaty amendment; looked up to by the smaller non-Euro Member States who are now thankful that he secured them a cooling off period; Europe on notice that the UK is no longer a push-over; and almost a guarantee that the French and Germans will come crawling back with concessions when they have got over their initial misplaced anger.

Couldn't have played it better, as far as I can see.

TomTom

"You've left out the dismissal of the IMF funding part of this "non-agreement" by the US, China and Japan."

Or the fact that the Bundesbank is opposed without Bundestag approval and will only fund the General Agreement to Borrow and not any Special Facility and only if the UK agrees to contribute

disenfranchised

27! twenty seven countries! and they'd have another twenty for us to fund if they weren't such total basket cases (there are countries in worse shape than greece). they'd make europe stretch to the pacific!
the sole thing that sustains me, that gives me hope when i look at their ugly mugs - god, they're an ugly bunch - is the quite beautiful nigel farage giving them some reality to chew on.
if there's one thing an EU nutter hates, above all else, it's a bit of reality shoved down his throat, especially from a bloke who can tie all of 'em up in knots.
god bless nigel farage.....

RKing

Has anyone asked the BBC don't they make the decisions in this country???

sandy

"Is it fair...."?

Depends on whether or not you're the BBC.

Andrew Fletcher

As the Times reports today Cameron will be ambushed by the Sceptics at the Eurozone bail out fund vote in February

The PM is now firmly in the pocket of the 81 and has no choice but to do as he's told by them

It will indeed be an English Spring

All the sound folk on here should get in touch with the 81 and support their efforts to keep Cameron in line (remember he is a Wet at heart and will try to wriggle off the hook at the earliest opportunity)

The Wets will squeal about party unity but with Ed Mili as leader Labour will pose no threat - Now is the time for action

Make sure Cameron stays a puppet of thew 81

Nicholas

The usual scripted propaganda from Labour and the BBC where they try desperately hard to seed the same soundbites in the public consciousness (Campbell, pre-1997) might, in the longer term, look very foolish. But whether they will ever be held to account for it remains doubtful. Labour are past masters at ducking their responsibilities and shifting blame. But they need to be nailed and nailed good over this and many other crimes.

Cameron needs to tackle the BBC, if not directly, at least by creating a cogent counter to its pro-Labour, pro-EU nonsense.

Julian F

Luke 9.22am: "Oh thats even more tragic. Cameron has thrown away many of britain's best EU alliances to opt out of a deal that may never even happen".

The point is that this deeply flawed Treaty amendment probably would have happened if Cameron had signed up, because they would have achieved unanimity at the Summmit. What Cameron has done is buy the other states time to review their positions. Some are already beginning to state their gratitude to him for this (not that it's reported on the BBC). New Europe will end up on the UK's side and old Europe (France/Germany) will come crawling back when they realise their errors. Win-win for Cameron. The more I think about all this, the more impressed I am by the PM. As Boris said, he "played a blinder".

Frank P

Julian F

Seems like a good summary of outcomes as far as it goes. Trouble is you still haven't addressed the pachyderm in the parlour: a referendum on repatriation of powers and annulment of the Human Rights nonsense that is rendering our judicial system virtually redundant.

At best the Euro project limps on, even though we have set an example of 'defiance' that may become contagious.

And the jihad in all its overt and covert determination rolls on.

That's all apart from the uncomfortable reality of the LimpDem Party having its legs around Cameron's neck, a la the 'Old Man of the Sea' fable. Is it likely that he can get through the turgid political waters flowing between now and 2015 with that to contend with? I doubt it! The last question is even more important - where have the 'Great and the Good' invested their money? When money talks, bullshit walks.

Lance Grundy

But anyone taking their news from the BBC wouldn't know any of this.

Brownloather

Regardless of what the other european nations think or do:

We never pay anyone eurogeld
No matter how trifling the cost
For the end of that game is oppression and shame
And the nation that plays it is lost.

Apologies to Rudyard but he summed it up nicely for me.

Malcolm Porter

Some idiots suggest that Britain is, or will be marginalised, are we not marginalised by being at the table at 26 to one? Nah, out of the EU will give Britain 100% control of its own afairs, not a lot wrong with that!

disenfranchised

the bbc, rabid tribalists relentlessly playing out their shameful political agenda at the public's expense.
having finally reached tipping point and given up on them completely a while ago - i could take no more. it had got to the point where i was seeing a political message in the weather forecast - i find life without them quite blissful. of course, there are perhaps one, maybe two things, without political messages that i'm forsaking, but ho-hum.
now all i have to do is get the missus off the ludicrously-inclusive archers, and my grandchildren, the poor little conditioned mites, off the pc-frenzied cbeebies.....

Frank P

Lance Grundy

BBC - Brussels Broadcasting Conspiracy?

Mycroft

Excellent informative post, I hope you'll be posting regularly here on European issues.

Ian Walker

Julian F - excellent summary. In particular, Cameron's turned the divisice 'Eurosceptic' issue into a much more unifying 'hate the French.'

Valerie T

Czech Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek may have described the contribution as "extremely high," but he says he wants to help negotiate it down, not to avoid paying it altogether. Kalousek says the country can't afford to reject the EU crisis plan, and that it's a foreign policy decision, not a budgetary one.

Andy Carpark

Lance Grundy - Are you that bloke that interviewed the Sex Pistols?

Forlornehope

Yesterday Die Welt was reporting that a majority of Germans now think that Germany would be "better off out" to coin a phrase.

Perry, a Heartless (Romantic) Curmudgeon

PLEASE! - will someone (it should be the H2B) DO something about the Biased Bullsh*t Co-operative - in that if I wanted the Socialist-PC-Grauniad perspective on the world I would buy the necessary papers!

I DO NOT expect to be forced to pay a Telly Tax to have such baloney rammed down my throat!

mattghg

@Julian F

Some are already beginning to state their gratitude to him for this (not that it's reported on the BBC)

Could you please provide a source for this? I'd like to be able to direct other people in its direction.

Terrible BUt True

Oi... have a care!

Much more of this 'wrong kind of facts on the line', and you'll have the DG of the BBC claiming you are out to get them, and their narrative, along with other rabid low lives from the print world, like the Daily Mirror.

I think he's miffed 'cos folk are starting to notice, well, that Aunty is beginning to 'whiff' a bit in public.

Russell

Nick really should have said "I agree with Dave" on Friday and left it at that.

David L

The BBC has received lots of complaints about its biase coverage of the euro crisis, in response ro which its Director of News, Helen Boaden has posted a reply on the BBC's Editors Blog site, saying (I paraphrase) 'I have concluded that our coverage has not ben biased because I say so'.

Cutting the licence fee further would be a welcome tax cut for a struggling nation. Failing that, then how about independent handling/scrutiny of complaints of political bias? One for "Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt".......

Julian F

mattghg: Actually I must credit the BBC with the following report: " "Thank you, David Cameron," thundered the headline in Saturday's Magyar Nemzet, a daily newspaper close to the governing centre-right Fidesz party in Hungary."

It is be found at this link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16136207

Kristo Miettinen

No, the UK isn't on track to become the NK of Europe, but rather the USA of Europe - the stodgy and necessary backstop that can and will veto the bad ideas that nobody wants to implement but everyone wants to pander with... the one that gets universally pilloried in public but selectively appreciated in private.

Julian F

And my apologies to the BBC for unfairly maligning them (on this one point...)

oldtimer

@Frank P

..or British Brainwashing Conspiracy

Terrible But True

David L - hidden away a bit, isn't it?

She says a lot of things that appear based for substantiation on her saying them. Good job she's not in charge of too much that depends on judgement or trust.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2011/12/the_challenge_of_reporting.html

Cynic

"A poll this week found that 54 per cent of Danes want the pact to go to a public vote." If the Danish MPs are anything like our lot, that's guaranteed not to happen, then.

Marcher Baron

"A fresh poll out this week shows that over 80 per cent of Swedes would vote ‘No’ to the euro in a referendum, compared to 42 per cent two years ago, while support for EU membership has dropped from 55 per cent to 47 per cent in a year." That bears out what my Swedish friends have been telling me. Sweden voted no to the euro but I note that the government didn't get an opt-out from Maastricht!

Cynic

"But the main reason was this – nobody knows what's in it’ ..." If that's true and people did blindly sign up, one wonders about their competence for office! Who in their right mind signs up for something unknown. What the heck might be in the small print?

John Emsley

As so often happens, a few days reflection puts things in a better perspective. The Westminster bubble has had its flurry of narcissistic posturing and the press has been able to flash some lurid headlines.
Calm down dears....
As this (sound) article sets out, the UK is most certainly not in a 26-1 situation as has been depicted over the last few days.
Cameron should have been better briefed and his team should have been more on board BUT the deal on offer to save the euro was and isn't on. Other countries are coming round to Cameron's (however trigger happy) view.
In addition, to watch Clegg and Huhne systematically destroy the LibDems credibility in five days is simply fascinating......
Let's just say 20-7-for now-shall we?

AliC

We can only pray that Dave continues to tell the Euro 'emperor's new clothes' brigade to 'Jog on'.

Dimoto

One of the more outrageous aspects of this mess, is the disgusting role played by Lagarde.

Newly appointed, over the protests of much of the world, she appears to think her job at the IMF is to be bag-woman to Sarkozy.
She constantly steps outside her mandate, until brought to heel by the US.

And WHY was she allowed to be "present at the summit" which was supposed to be for EU leaders only ??

A very bad decision by the FO/Cameron to back this conniving wretch.

Who will be first to censure her, Geithner maybe ?

Matthew

Very good article.

So why the hell did they all sign up?!

Phil Richmond

I dont think the British people have realised yet that the goal of Brussels is to do away with the Nation states. i,e Britain ceases to exist as a sovereign country. The real danger is that 100% of the Lib-Dems/ 90% of the Labour Party and the Tory leadership are in favour of this. Quisling scum all of them.

Custom Floor Mats

Oh, really! Thanks for the article.