(28)

Blogger and debunker of various economic fallacies, Tim Worstall, points out something that tends to be forgotten in some of the angrier, gloomier commentary about the European Union and the recently ratified Lisbon Treaty. We - the UK that is - can leave if we wish to do so, and it will be a lot less complex than such a process can be made to appear. That surely is the 800 llb gorilla in the drawing room - we can get out pretty fast if the whole edifice becomes intolerable. And there is nothing that any EU bureaucrat or their political allies can do about it. How likely are they to ever use a military option? Hmmm.

(27)

"David Cameron ditches referendum and backs away from EU bust-up" chuckles the Guardian... followed by "Eurosceptics welcome 'never again' rhetoric".

So in effect Cameron is saying "yes I know I said we get a vote before... "iron clad" was the words I used... but if those mean old Euros want to grab even more power than all that stuff you are not going to get a vote on after all, we will have a referendum next time. Really, you can trust me".

Of course the Eurosceptics are happy, because after all, if David Cameron promises something, you can be sure he will keep his "iron-clad" word, right? Amazing.

Never forget that the party of Winston Churchill was also the party of Neville Chamberlain.

(9)

It may seem late in the day, but those fine people at the Taxpayers' Alliance are putting around a petition urging support for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, aka the European Constitution. The Czech Republic is, at present, the last country to stand in the way of what will be a dangerous acceleration in the move of the EU towards the status of being a complete state in its own right.

Here is the link for those who are interested.

As an aside, I see that the TPA has spawned a leftist website using almost exactly the same URL. The TPA, is, according to this outfit, an evil, right-wing (booo!) organisation that er, wants to do terrible things like curb the spending of the state. This lot appear to be almost as capable of tax-doublespeak as the absurdly misnamed Tax Justice Network .

(18)

Tory politician and London Mayor Boris Johnson bets that Tony Blair will not get the post of European Union president, a role that will carry enhanced powers if or when the Lisbon Treaty (or Constitution) gets rammed through. He argues that countries such as France will not tolerate having this former big mate of George Boooosh take the role, representing not just France but 500 million souls across an entire continent.

Boris has a point: Blair is still heartily detested in France for arguably the one act that makes me think quite well of Blair - his determination to rid the world of Saddam Hussein, even if one would choose different justifications from him in that course (an argument that continues to divide libertarians, by the way). Nevertheless, Boris's underlying logic is strong: it is monstrous that a man who played a part in ensuring that Labour failed to honour its 2005 election manifesto pledge over a EU referendum on the EU constitution should be in the frame for the job that this Lisbon Treaty stitch-up has made possible. And as the Treaty is more or less the same as the Constitution, the position taken by Blair and by Gordon Brown represents their contempt for the democratic process.

But remember, however much one might loathe Mr Blair and the transnational progressivist, corrupt politics that he represents, it is the very idea that the EU needs some grand president at all, not simply the personality of this rather creepy individual, that should be kept front and centre. Even if the holder of the office is some drone from central Europe given to vacuous pronouncements on "good governance" or whatever, no such post should exist. It is hard, I know, to play the ball and not the man.

Of course, there is another theory: if Blair is elected to the job, his strutting, fake-charm might actually help discredit the idea of a EU presidency per se. Perhaps, though, that it is being too clever on my part.

(9)

Irish votes... the finest European money can buy.

It is entertaining to see how brave and resolute Dave is already setting up his wiggle room for refusing to give Britain the referendum it overwhelmingly demands.

(27)

"She's a communist. A real one."

Some thirty years ago I, then a bookish sixth former, attended a week long "Introduction to Philosophy" course at London University. One of the tutors was a commie. She was quite pleasant, introduced us to philosophy more than adequately, but truly, really was an actual no-kidding self-declared communist. First I had ever met.

I and some of the other kids from various different schools on this course found this even more interesting than Logical Positivism and we all tried to get into debate with her about it. Got nowhere, of course. A woman who had been defending the party line in all its various manifestations for decades was more than capable of disposing of the arguments of a bunch of seventeen year olds.

All of us but one - there was one boy who did, just about, make an impression. The tutor had some particular link with East Germany and this boy simply repeated, politely but insistently, several very basic statements about that state. "Nobody is allowed to leave." "They have a wall and and barbed wire to stop people escaping." "If you try to escape they shoot you." And when he said this he sounded honestly astonished that anyone could be - could allow themselves to have become - the sort of person who would sincerely defend East German communism. It was not just wrong but weird. I mean, what? The wall, the shooting people, and she says she likes that?

I am moved to write about a communist I met thirty years ago because the second referendum in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty will be held tomorrow. The European Union is not remotely as bad as Communism. But there are some very basic things wrong with it and this referendum has brought them out. The European Union will not accept a vote against it. It will not allow a vote at all, if it can get away with it. If people do vote against something the EU wants it makes them vote again and again, knowing that the donors and volunteers for the opposing side will be exhausted eventually, as will the voters, whereas its side has bottomless coffers and power to keep on pushing till it gets its way. The European Union lies to get what it wants. The Lisbon treaty is the rejected Constitution under another name. The Lisbon Treaty is deliberately written in confusing language so as to hide what it means. That is what con-men do. The Lisbon Treaty is a con.

I think that anyone who has allowed themselves to become the sort of person who would sincerely defend these lies and abuses of democracy should be regarded as a weirdo. Amazing, and not in a good way. Yeah, sure, people might be bribed or bullied or bored into doing what the EU wants - all these I can understand, if not admire. But the "neverendums", the Constitution written like the small print of a dodgy timeshare agreement - you say you like that? I mean, what?

Of course my view as to how such people should be regarded counts about as much as a "no" vote three referenda ago. What is more to the point is that I am almost sure that in Britain at least, my "should" has become, or is in the process of becoming, an "is". At some point during the Lisbon treaty saga normal people in Britain became embarrassed to actively like the EU. This does not mean that they cannot be bullied or bribed or bored into going along with it, as the Irish will be tomorrow, if the polls are to be believed. But when did you last meet a person who passionately and proudly supported the EU? And what were they, some sort of weirdo?

(11)

I guess this is a good reason as any not to fly on Ryanair.

(10)

Imagine a future where you could find yourself arrested for crimes for which you were acquitted nearly twenty years ago... where you can be found guilty and sentenced in your absence and without your knowledge... a future where when you go on holiday abroad you find yourself being arrested for you know not what - and those arresting you do not know either; they just know you are wanted in another foreign country.

This is not the future.

I have added emphasis to this BBC story about Deborah Dark in order to highlight aspects that particularly shocked me but otherwise left it unchanged.

A British grandmother is being pursued by France for a crime she was convicted of in her absence 20 years ago. Deborah Dark, 45, from London, was acquitted of a drugs offence in 1989 - but found guilty and sentenced to six years on appeal without being told.

France issued a European Arrest Warrant in 2005 but recent extradition attempts have failed in both the UK and Spain.

UK charity Fair Trials International said the warrant system was creating a "blatant injustice" against her.

Ms Dark, from Richmond in south-west London, was arrested in France in 1989 in a car containing several kilos of cannabis.

A French court believed her defence that she been set up by an abusive boyfriend and was acquitted.

But she was unaware the prosecution appealed without telling her after she returned to the UK and she was found guilty and sentenced in 1990.

A European Arrest Warrant was issued by the French authorities for Ms Dark to be returned to France to serve her jail term.

Ms Dark told the BBC of the effect that still being officially wanted in France had had on her.

She said: "It's destroyed me, and to see my daughter to go through all that pain again. I just will never forget it.

"I can't leave the country. If I leave the country I will be arrested because I'm still on the European Arrest Warrant."

In 2007 she was arrested on a package holiday at a Turkish airport but the authorities were unable to give her a reason.

On her return to the UK the British police could not find any warrants against her.

When Ms Dark travelled to visit her retired father in Spain in 2008 she was arrested and spent one month in custody.

But a Spanish court refused to extradite her on the grounds of unreasonable delay and the significant passage of time.

When she returned to the UK she was arrested by British police at Gatwick airport and released on bail pending an extradition hearing. Magistrates refused extradition in April this year.

Fair Trials International said Ms Dark was effectively being "imprisoned in the UK".

Chief executive Jago Russell said: "Deborah's case is a shocking example of the way a system intended to deliver justice has created a blatant injustice.

"The European Arrest Warrant should have been designed with a time-limit built in but it wasn't.

"The result - a person's life can be turned upside down for an event alleged to have happened 20 years ago."

(3)

In a comment thread on this posting, the question came up, from the commenter "Laird", as to why Samizdata has not written about the local UK/European Union elections. Part of the answer, for my part, is that a little bit of me dies whenever words such as "EU elections" come up, but also there has been a lot of commentary and head-scratching analysis, in the press and other blogs, on this issue for the past week or so. What could I say that has not been already said?

Anyway, for our non-UK readers who have not been following it, the ruling UK Labour Party did very badly in both the local UK elections and the European one. In the latter case, Labour came in third place (15 per cent of votes cast), behind the Tories and United Kingdom Independence Party respectively. UKIP is a party that wants the UK to leave the EU. I voted for it - partly because I did not want the Tories to get a larger share of the vote and hence get complacent, partly because I broadly agree with UKIP on things like cutting state spending and the EU. UKIP is not a hardline libertarian party but it is the best of a bad lot, generally. And I happen to know one of its MEP candidates, Tim Worstall - who is a member of the London bloggerati - and I always say it is a good idea to vote for someone you know, trust and like (I also know Syed Kamall, a Tory MEP, but just could not bring myself to vote Tory. Sorry Syed).

As for the aftermath, well, UK PM Gordon Brown has managed, by a mixture of party membership cowardice, shellshock, bullying and flimflam to persuade his colleagues in Parliament to give him another chance in the job. Labour has suffered the lowest share of the vote since the First World War, albeit on a very low turnout of voters. The national socialist British National Party, a party which, let it not be forgotten, holds to fairly hard-left views on economics, has picked up two seats in the European Parliament, and did so by playing fairly hard on the grievances of traditional Labour voters in run-down parts of the UK. There has often been a streak of "sod the foreigner" in the makeup of the UK left, although it has been tempered by a sort of transnational progressivism, at least from the Fabian middle classes who have provided Labour with some of its intellectuals (if that is not too grand a word to describe such people).

So there you have it - Britain is on course, if poll data are accurate, to have a Conservative government by the middle of next year, when a general election must be held. Europe has moved, politically, to the right, with concerns about immigration and economics driving some of that. But the UK Conservatives, while they have benefited from a mortally weakened government, have not convinced me that they have a serious intent to shrink the state. It may be that when or if David Cameron gets the keys to 10 Downing Street and has a chance to read the financial books, that the full horror of what he sees will necessitate spending cuts. We shall see.

And in the meantime, the US has, at least for a moment, moved to the left under Mr Obama, although for how much longer, it is premature to say (bring on the mid-term elections!). Ideologically, the Atlantic may be widening. We live, as they say, in interesting times.

(6)

"The readiness of politicians to relinquish power amazes me.....Take the European constitution, now rebranded as the Lisbon treaty. I read all the drafts of that document, spoke to lawyers and became convinced that its calculated opacity was a charter for the creeping takeover of national policy by bureaucrats and judges. There were brilliant MPs who could debate every inch of the detail - David Miliband, Gisela Stuart, David Heathcoat-Amory, Chris Huhne. But I met others who hadn't even read the document and looked incredulous that I had. When the annual EU membership fee is £6.5 billion, when EU directives have driven almost half of the regulations passed here since 1998, and when implementing those regulations has cost £106 billion (according to a recent study by Open Europe), it is not surprising that people ask what MPs are doing."

Camilla Cavendish.

As she points out in an excellent Times column, the contempt many of us feel for MPs is not just driven by their corruption. It is far more serious than that. It is that a group of people, either through apathy, venality, EU fanaticism or blind cowardice, have decided that they need to transfer powers away from the traditional cockpit of British politics. MPs are admitting they have little point other than to vote on minor, parish-pump matters. In which case, there is little case for paying them more than a local town councillor, or paying them anything at all.

The Times has a pretty good editorial on reforms that are needed. I have my quibbles, but it is generally on the right track. My main point of disagreement, however, is that none of the changes will significantly alter the balance between the state and the individual until the former is drastically reduced in size.

(25)

Norman - now Lord - Tebbit, famously the scourge of trade union militants and who also survived a murder attempt by the IRA in the mid-1980s (an ex-RAF fighter pilot by the way), is urging voters not to vote for the main political parties in the European elections. Instead, the implication is that folk should vote for UKIP. Well, that is Guido's take on the matter.

Suddenly, the Tory Party does not look in quite such bouncy shape this morning. I guess when you have MPs trousering taxpayers' money on a fairly impressive scale, it dents the brand somewhat. Like I said yesterday, though, the central problem of UK political life is not fiddling expenses. No, the problem is a continuing failure to push for a major rollback of the state, including removal of this nation from the clutches of an European federal state. Compared with how much money is wasted on quangos, or ID cards, or the rest of it, an MP's claim for swimming pool maintenance is small beer.

(7)

Meanwhile, in the Strasbourg Village, it is being called a "huge scandal", but Der Spiegel describes this huge scandal somewhat strangely:

The economic crisis has hit countless retirement funds, including that of members of the European parliament. They may take the controversial step this week to use taxpayers' money to top up the pension fund.

I am sure that Der Spiegel did not mean to suggest that this will be the first splurge of taxpayers' money ever to arrive in this pension fund. But, they rather do, don't they? My guess is that the original pension fund is a pretty big scandal to start with.

And indeed it is:

The scheme was already in disrepute because MEPs' contributions are taken automatically from their office expense allowance of €4,202 (£3,700) a month rather than their salary. MEPs are supposed to reimburse this account but there are no checks and it is accepted widely that many do not repay the money, potentially making the pension an entirely taxpayer-funded perk.

That was from the Times, last Friday. The same piece goes on:

Senior MEPs are proposing several changes to the second pension to reduce the deficit, such as increasing the retirement age from 60 to 63 and stopping early retirement at 50. But these are likely to be blocked after the fund chairman, the Conservative former MEP Richard Balfe - who now acts as David Cameron’s envoy to the trade unions - warned that such moves were "not permissible under European law", in effect leaving the taxpayer with the entire bill.

So, who is this Richard Balfe? There's been no mention of him here until now. It seems that in 2002 he stopped being a Labour MEP, in disgust, after having a fight with some other Labour people, and became a Conservative MEP instead.

Further googling got me to this Balfe-ism:

"You have got a situation now where the Conservative and Labour parties have overlapped so significantly that the ideological collapse of both parties must be mirrored in a new relationship with the unions, just as it is mirrored in a new relationship with business."

Well, that is one way of looking at things. Balfe didn't change. There is just so much ideological overlap between the big parties these days that Balfe could switch parties without himself moving his position. Another way of looking at it is to say that Balfe was a member of the politicians party, and that his allegiances are unchanged.

(8)

...wonderful.

(25)

Does anybody know where the words of this can be copied and pasted? I would hate to have to type it all out - or maybe that should be 'in' - myself, but somebody definitely should, and if I or any commenter does find it, I will maybe add it to the bottom of this posting. As Peter Hoskin of the Spectator's Coffee House blog says, Dan Hannan "absolutely skewers" the PM. (Can you kick someone with a skewer? Never mind.) Guido also piles in.

As my fellow scribes here say from time to time: I love the internet. In fact I love it even more than I hate Gordon Brown, and that's saying something.

ADDENDUM Monday morning: Here it is. Thank you commenter Simon Collis, and blogger Stuart Sharpe.

Prime Minister, I see you’ve already mastered the essential craft of this Parliament – that being to say one thing in this chamber, and a very different thing to your home electorate. You’ve spoken here about free trade, and amen to that; who would have guessed, listening to you just now, that you were the author of the phrase ‘British Jobs for British Workers’, and that you have subsidised - where you have not nationalised outright - swathes of our economy, including the car industry and many of the banks.

Perhaps you would have more moral authority in this house if your actions matched your words. Perhaps you would have more legitimacy in the councils of the world if the United Kingdom were not going into this recession in the worst condition of any G20 country.

The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around £20,000. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child.

Now once again today you tried to spread the blame around, you spoke about an international recession; an international crisis. Well, it is true that we are all sailing together into the squall – but not every vessel in the convoy is in the same dilapidated condition. Other ships used the good years to caulk their hulls and clear up their rigging – in other words, to pay off debt – but you used the good years to raise borrowing yet further. As a consequence, under your captaincy, our hull is pressed deep into the water line, under the accumulated weight of your debt. We are now running a deficit that touches almost 10% of GDP – an unbelievable figure. More than Pakistan, more than Hungary – countries where the IMF has already been called in.

Now, it’s not that you’re not apologising - like everyone else, I’ve long accepted that you’re pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for these things these things - it’s that you’re carrying on, wilfully worsening the situation, wantonly spending what little we have left. Last year, in the last twelve months, 125,000 private sector jobs have been lost – and yet you’ve created 30,000 public sector jobs. Prime Minister you cannot go on forever squeezing the productive bit of the economy in order to fund an unprecedented engorging of the unproductive bit.

You cannot spend your way out of recession or borrow your way out of debt. And when you repeat, in that wooden and perfunctory way, that our situation is better than others, that we’re well place to weather the storm, I have to tell you, you sound like a Brezhnev-era Apparatchik giving the party line. You know, and we know, and you know that we know that it’s nonsense. Everyone knows that Britain is the worst placed to go into these hard times. The IMF has said so. The European Commission has said so. The markets have said so, which is why our currency has devalued by 30% – and soon the voters, too, will get their chance to say so.

They can see what the markets have already seen: that you are a devalued Prime Minister, of a devalued Government.

It will be interesting to see what Britain's mainstream media make of this. My guess is that the blogosphere will be all over this speech not just today but for a longish time, with constant links back, and that many newspapers will also refer to it during the next day or two. But how will the BBC respond? They are in a lose-lose situation, I think. Mention it, eventually, they lose. Ignore it, they look like Soviet-era buffoons, just as Hannan said Brown is. A bit like the US MSM and those tea parties.

Presumably, by the time the BBC do mention it, the story will be that the Conservatives are divided. Divided, that is to say, in that some of them think the Prime Minister is mad and evil and believe in saying so, while others merely think it.

(9)

The wonderful world of web provides us with a way to check what happens to the CAP aptly described by a European leader:

... a programme which uses inefficient transfers of taxpayers money to bloat rich French landowners and so pump up food prices in Europe, thereby creating poverty in Africa, which we then fail to solve through inefficient but expensive aid programmes. The most stupid, immoral state-subsidised policy in human history, give or take Communism.

via Charles Crawford

(10)

IKEA customers across the world are led to believe, naively, that the world is composed of simple elements that we can understand, interlink, and repair if necessary. Populist politicians throughout the world exploit similar social engineering... I respond critically to this European hypocrisy with an IKEA flat pack in the shape of the Swedish kingdom, which conceals an inconvenient truth.

- 'Sonja Aaberg', the Swedish sculptress, quoted by Mark Steyn in Euro-artists Speak

(9)

First financial, then economic, finally political. The smaller countries will be followed by the larger. In one of his op-eds, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes an overview of Europe in which he opines that the outer rim: the post-communist states and Club Med are entering a 30s style depression due to the unwillingness of the European Commission or Central Bank to alleviate their woes.

Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltic States are now facing a 'spring of discontent' as austerity measures result in rioting and instability. Evans-Pritchard has noted that the European institutions are compunding the problem:

Leaked documents reveal – despite a blizzard of lies by EU and Latvian officials – that the International Monetary Fund called for devaluation as part of a €7.5bn joint rescue for Latvia. Such adjustments are crucial in IMF deals. They allow countries to claw their way back to health without suffering perma-slump.

This was blocked by Brussels – purportedly because mortgage debt in euros and Swiss francs precluded that option. IMF documents dispute this. A society is being sacrificed on the altar of the EMU project.

The political consequences of the credit crunch are coming to the fore in the fragile periphery of the European Union: how long before we begin to see the political expression of this discontent respond to the monopoly of the European class, a challenge that will arise outside the mainstream from the extremes.

(32)

One of the reasons why people get so cross about the cost of petrol is the knowledge that a high proportion of the price paid at the pumps is accounted for by tax, rather than the cost of extracting, refining and distributing the stuff. The same goes for a pack of cigarettes, pint of beer or a bottle of wine, to name a few. With a lot of grocery produce, such as your humble carrot, most people may not appreciate - yet - how much of the cost of getting those vital vitamins is accounted for by government-created production costs. Well, there have been a flurry of stories on the wires about a recent EU Parliamentary vote to ban dozens of pesticides that are deemed harmful. As a result, farming groups claim, output of crops will fall and presumably, if other things remain equal, prices will go up at a time when household budgets are under strain. It does not seem to have occured to policymakers that a simple option would be to put what chemicals are used to treat crops on a packet so that consumers can figure this out for themselves and take an informed decision.

The trouble with stories like this is that the votes to ban X or Y at the EU level rarely gain a lot of coverage for more than a day or so, and then the issue tends to fizzle out, of interest only to obsessives and geeks like yours truly. A busy populace, worried more about their jobs, mortgage or children, will hardly dwell on the issue. But when Mr and Mrs Briton wonder why on earth it costs so much to buy basic groceries, the temptation will be to imagine that it is the fault of big, evil supermarket chains, for example. Rarely will the cause of the cost be seen as stemming from bureaucrats and European MPs.

Of course, it may well be that the chemicals being banned are as harmful as is claimed, although given the way these things work, I doubt it. We are told that for a healthy diet, your average person requires several servings of fruit and veg a day; such things are considered good for warding off cancer. Even if there is a health risk from chemicals, the health risk of not eating enough vegetables because of high costs is even higher. These things involve a trade-off between one set of risks and another, rather than some imperfect and perfect state. If such chemicals are banned, resorting to grow-your-own is hardly a viable alternative, since modern farming can, through economies of scale, achieve better yields and lower costs-per-output than someone tending their vegetable patch. And importing fruit and veg from countries such as Spain via air transport, for example, is also becoming less attractive an option due to increased fuel prices and governments' taxes on air travel.

Once again, the Forgotten Man gets the shaft. This chemicals ban, like measures such as "employment rights", paternity leave or 35-hour weeks, impose costs on the populace without a government having to take the potentially visible and unpopular step of raising taxes. Joining the economic dots is hard. I just hope that some in the MSM try and do so occasionally so that the message gets through. We bloggers cannot do it all on our own.

Update: in the comments, one person argues that I have contradicted myself by pointing to public apathy or lack of time to scrutinise EU actions, on the one hand, and my stress on the ability of consumers to read packaging labels, on the other. There is no contradiction, though. People shop daily, weekly, monthly, etc. They constantly come up against labels, look at packaging, see advertisements, surf the Net looking at products, and so on. One of the great things about markets is that it is a constant provider of information. Not always accurate, of course. By contrast, once an EU directive has been imposed, that is usually the last that any ordinary member of the public will hear about it. As soon as a law is passed, the media and political wagon rolls on.

(40)

A half-remembered phrase from a short story by C S Forester is lodged in my mind. The story is set in World War II. Some sort of British warship has to approach very near an enemy-occupied coast, do something or other heroic, and then get away before the German artillery can do its work. The ship, under the guidance of its iron-nerved captain, does so, and then - futzed if I can remember the details - stops or delays to do something else, to serve some side order of military misery to go with the main dish, the captain having calculated that it will take a certain amount of time for the defenders to wake up, realise this is for real, get orders and crank up the guns or whatever. Everyone else on the bridge makes their estimate of how long all this will take erring on the side that one does generally err on when the penalty for error on the other side is to be shot at by artillery, but the captain makes his estimate the way he would from his armchair at home. His bold guess is right, and the ship gets away. And then comes the phrase that shows clear among the fog of my other memories of this story: those watching on the bridge were awed by his sheer will to do the enemy harm.

I dare say in WWII there were many people, ordinary people, who really did spend a substantial fraction of their time thinking up ways to hurt the Axis. No doubt most of them ended up bombarding the War Office with absurd plans and inventions that came to nothing, but some of them found ways that worked. It must be rather interesting to live in a time and a place where it is good to let the will to harm the enemy run free.

We in Greater Europe do live in such a time and place. Don't get excited. I am not advocating violence. In fact I get a little disturbed when Tim Worstall, the blogger whom I am about to quote, makes his customary appeal for a hempen rope and a strong beam. But when I read on his blog about this latest measure from the EU, all I could think was harm them. Bring them down. Please, I would be grateful.

(68)

How can we bring down the European Union?

(4)

As of today, the Czech President Václav Klaus takes control of the largely symbolic but quite high profile office of President of the EU. Given his stridently pro-free market and highly Euro-sceptic utterances in the past, the sense of dread in Brussels is palpable. He is a brusquely outspoken man and I cannot wait to see how he uses the bully pulpit that the EU Presidency provides.

(10)

In an electronics market in China last month, I found these intriguing items for sale.

Okay, "MP3" I understand. The MPEG-1 standard for digital media storage and transmission contained three audio formats. These were MPEG-1 audio layers 1, 2 and 3. Of these, layer 3 provided the highest audio quality, became the standard for compressed digital audio, and "MPEG-1 layer 3" became abbreviated to "MP3".

"MP4" is slightly more problematic. The successor standard to MPEG-1 was MPEG-2. MPEG-2 is very important, but mainly because it contains much more advanced video formats than MPEG-1. DVDs and most digital television applications use MPEG-2 video. In terms of audio, MPEG-2 contains the three existing formats from MPEG-1 (including MP3) and a more advanced format called Advanced Audio Coding (AAC). Perhaps confusingly, AAC is very seldom used with MPEG-2 video, which is much more frequently paired with the MPEG-1 audio formats, or with Dolby AC-3 (which is not part of any of the MPEG standards).

However, AAC is also part of the MPEG-4 family of standards. (There is no MPEG-3). Due partly to AAC being the favourite audio standard of Apple, AAC is commonly paired with the video standards of MPEG-4, the two most common of which are the Advanced Simple Profile (MPEG-4 part 2) and the now favoured Advanced Video Coding (MPEG-4 part 10, known also as ITU-T H.264). This partnering between AAC and the MPEG-4 family of standards can mean that AAC audio is sometimes referred to as "MP4 audio", with "MP4" as an abbreviation of "MPEG-4", even though AAC as a format technically preceded MPEG-4. In addition, media of this form is often encoded using the MPEG-4 part 14 container format, which usually has the file suffix ".mp4". Thus it makes a certain amount of sense for an AAC or MPEG-4 capable media player to be referred to as an "MP4 player". In this case the "4" in MP4 means something different to the "3" in MP3, but there is some logic to it.

As to what an MP5 player might be, that is on a par with the European commission announcing that we must take steps to "put Europe into the lead of the transition to Web 3.0", I fear. Sadly, I think it is unlikely that they are selling these.

(12)

Poor naive George W. Bush! For all his shambolic presidency, his dreadful mistakes, and the horrors of aggressive imperialism, his last couple of months in office could end up being the most disastrous for the world.

Bloomberg reports:

The leaders of the U.S., France and the European Commission will ask other world leaders to join in a series of summits on the global financial crisis beginning in the U.S. soon after the Nov. 4 presidential election.

President George W. Bush, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Barroso said in a joint statement after meeting yesterday that they will continue pressing for coordination to address "the challenges facing the global economy.''

The initial summit will seek "agreement on principles of reform needed to avoid a repetition and assure global prosperity in the future,'' and later meetings "would be designed to implement agreement on specific steps to be taken to meet those principles,'' the statement said.

Just how bad this could be is already showing. The report continues:

Sarkozy and Barraso are pressing Bush for a G8 agenda that includes stiffer regulation and supervision for cross-border banks, a global "early warning'' system and an overhaul of the International Monetary Fund. Talks may also encompass tougher regulations on hedge funds, new rules for credit-rating companies, limits on executive pay and changing the treatment of tax havens such as the Cayman Islands and Monaco.

Just what has the continuation of the OECD nations' campaign to plunder smaller states and institute globally uniform (high) taxation got to do with the market crash? Nothing. Executive pay? Irrelevant, too, save in the politics of envy. Mainstream banks, not hedgies, were the ones that crashed after playing iffy games with CDOs, and governments helped pump-up house prices - with enthusiasm. Where this agenda comes in is as an opportunity to kick the resented "Anglo-Saxon" model of capitalism while it is down - even, and especially, in those places where it is not down yet. (Are we missing Commissioner Mandelson yet?)

Mr Bush has lost the thread entirely if he really thinks a transnational "reform" of the financial system can do other than damage "free markets, free enterprise and free trade". He may have a patchy record on liberty, and a bad record on limited government. His guests in November will have no interest in either. They will tempt him (have tempted him) with the mantle of world saviour, and will try to get him to bind his successors. We shall have to hope that his successor, either one of whom would be well to the economic right of the self-selected 'international community', depressingly enough, is more wily and far-sighted.

Meanwhile, where is there left to run?

(16)

Peter Mandelson's re-appointment to Gordon Brown's cabinet is a potential disaster, and not just for Britain.

I have always liked Mandelson more than any other Labour politician. I ought to hate him, because his strategic genius gave us the New Labour revolution of the last decade. But his lucent unwillingness to pretend he is an imbecile, to conceal the fact of his cunning, or to act out his party's customary hatred of private enterprise, even while his pupils execute their vile populist capers, is to me endearing.

Maybe that is why I'm worried more than stunned by his return to British politics. While most commentators are mesmerised by the story of Brown's feud with The Prince of Darkness, and the daring of playing with Labour Party's own resentment of him by bringing him back from Brussels, I am more interested in strategy. Do not just look at the flashy sacrifice; see how it changes the board.

There is now a gap in the European Commission. Brown will appoint one of his favourites to it, and have far reaching influence on Europe, and therefore Britain, even after he steps down. This can be seen as a subtle purge by bribery, and as a retirement strategy. A preparation for the Brown legacy.

There is now a gap in the European Commission. Whoever fills Mandelson's Trade portfolio will be replacing one of the most free-trade-friendly commissioners that the EU has ever had, in a financial crisis, with protectionist populism surging on both sides of the Atlantic. Brown's legacy could easily be a trade war and a real depression.

(53)

Glad to know that at a time when people are concerned about the economic outlook, crime and so forth, that those chaps at the European Union have not taken their eye off the ball:

The acre, one of Britain's historic imperial measurements, is to be banned from use under a new European directive. The measurement, which will officially be replaced by the hectare, will no longer be allowed when land is being registered. After being agreed last week, the new ruling will come into force in January 2010.

I do not know why this story riles me so much, but it does. It is not that I cannot understand the logic of using a metric system so that it is possible to make instant comparisons between say, the price of a hectare of land in France and Britain, which is quite useful to be able to do when looking at the state of our respective economies. But it is the illegality of registering land by using certain measurements that is so barmy. If there is a market in land - well, partially free anyway - surely the persons buying or selling can measure it any way they please, so long as the amounts are agreed and are accurately registered. It is the accuracy of the register, not the units per se, that counts. Apart from anything else, cannot the EU and its minions do some basic maths? An acre is equal to 0.404 hectares. Every time one has to convert the old English Imperial measurements to metric and vice versa, it has the salutary effect of encouraging people to do a bit of maths, which is a good mental exercise anyway.

Many units of measurement used in the Anglo-Saxon world have been ingrained in our mental lives. I can - just about - visualise what an acre is. I cannot do that for a hectare. Far from being fogeyish or illogical, there is nothing essentially better or worse than one or the other. Roger Scruton has a nice discussion of the benefits of traditional weights and measures here. Every time there is an assault on such traditional measures, it is an assault on differences because they are differences, on the eccentric, the quaint, the odd, the unusual, the untidy.

Compared to many of the other creeping forms of "harmonisation" beloved of the Eurocrats, this may seem like a paltry measure, and I am sure that is right. But it has really annoyed me. Leave our acres alone, you tidy-minded bastards.

(1)

Daniel Hannan has a short but pointed article about how the European Parliament does not hesitate to ignore its own rules if it means they can crush euro-sceptic dissent.

The European Parliament operates a corporatist system: in order to move amendments, propose debates or qualify for campaign finance, MEPs are required to join trans-national Groups. To incorporate such a Group, you need at least 20 Euro-MPs from five states. This means that, alongside the big Groups - the Christian Democrats, Liberals, Socialists, Communists and Greens - there is also a little bloc of Euro-sceptics called Independence and Democracy. There was also, briefly, a Euro-fascist alliance (erroneously termed "far Right"), which fell apart because its block-headed members couldn't stand one another.

The new rules, drawn up by the Labour MEP (and touchy blogger) Richard Corbett, would raise the thresholds to 25 MEPs and seven states, making it harder for dissidents to register. What are they so scared of, these Euro-fanatics? After all, we sceptics represent no more than 50 or 60 MEPs out of 785. Why not treat us as an Official Opposition, thereby demonstrating their fair-mindedness and bestowing a measure of legitimacy on their institution? Because they can't bring themselves to do it. They hate us too much.

Disgraceful but hardly surprising.

(24)

Pretty gruesome stuff happening. This is old news:

The ongoing Google/YouTube-Viacom litigation has now officially spilled over to users with a court order requiring Google to turn over massive amounts of user data to Viacom. If the data is actually released, the consequences could be far more serious than the 2006 AOL Search debacle.

But this not so. And happening via backdoor of telecoms regulation.

The Telecoms Package (Paquet Telecom) is a review of European telecoms law. [...] buried within it, deep in the detail, are important legal changes that relate to enforcement of copyright. These changes are a threat to civil liberties and risk undermining the entire structure of Internet, jeopardising businesses and cultural diversity.

The bottom line is that changes to telecoms regulations are needed before EU member states can bring in the so-called "3 strikes" measures - also known as "graduated response" - of which France is leading the way, but other governments, notably the UK, are considering whether to follow. A swathe of amendments have been incorporated at the instigation of entertainment industry lobbying. These amendments are aimed at bringing an end to free downloading. They also bring with them the risk of an unchecked corporate censorship of the Internet, with a host of unanswered questions relating to the legal oversight and administration.

The Telecoms Package is currently in the committee stages of the European Parliament, with a plenary vote due on 1st or 2nd September. This does not leave much time for public debate, and it reminds me of the rushed passage of the data retention directive (see Data Retention on this site). It is, if you like, regulation by stealth.

These two items have in common the attempt to undermine the infrastructure of the net/web by controlling those who provide or maintain it. Not good.

(20)

Over at EU Referendum under the heading "Caught red-handed" there is an instructive YouTube video. It shows a bunch of MEPs showing up at their place of work at quarter to seven in the morning. Exemplary devotion to duty? Well, no. What they are actually doing, suitcases in hand, is signing the attendance register on a Friday morning before heading home for the weekend. Then they will be paid, most lavishly, for working that day.

The cat really lands among the pigeons around 2 minutes 30 seconds in. Watch the MEPs dodge back behind doors as they register the camera's unwelcome presence. Listen to the cries and squeals. "It is not your business!" "Such impertinence!" I did not catch the name of the genial chap who claimed to be about to start work in his constituency before running for the door, but Irish MEP Kathy Sinnott (of, I am sorry to say, the EU-sceptic Independence and Democracy Group) said she had already been at work for seven hours, and Hiltrud Breyer of the German Green Party really ought to look at people when she talks to them.

We bloggers often criticise the mainstream media but I take my hat off to Thomas Meier, the intrepid journalist here. He represents a tradition of - literally - foot-in-the-door reporting that the "colleagues" would like to put an end to if they could. In this case, as soon as they could, they did. The fun ends with Herr Meier being escorted out by seven heavies.

If EU Referendum's video is down, this link might work, or search YouTube for "Expense allowance abuses by MEPs".

(16)

I came across this from the online version of the German magazine, Der Spiegel (hat tip, Tim Worstall):

The scoundrels in Brussels have sold the European people a lot of things: a single market, the euro, the lifting of many border controls and, most recently, a binding global climate policy. These have all been good things, and they have helped make Europe an eminently livable continent. Despite the many dull moments and emotions that have been negative at best, the end result has been laudable.

"All good things" - oh really? The euro has not been a great success. Sure, it is a strong currency relative to the dollar at the moment, largely because of the Fed's policy of printing money like it had forgotten all that sage advice from a certain late Professor M. Friedman, but the one-size-fits-all interest rate of the euro zone has proven a burden on the likes of enfeebled Italy, has boosted the Irish economy to boiling point, and now of course Ireland is in trouble, suffering a sharply contracting property and stock market. I am not sure how that impresses the Spiegel editors. For them, the whole project is going splendidly. As for the "binding" climate policy, I guess it does all rather depend on whether one accepts the thesis that Man-Made global warming is either happening; is happening at the speed some people claim, or justifies imposing heavy costs on industrial nations to correct it in ways that might affect other, more urgent human needs.

But this paragraph is the beaut, the one to savour:

Most of these improvements would have been held up, if not outright prevented, by referendums. Democracy doesn't mean having unlimited confidence in citizens. Sometimes the big picture is in better hands when politicians are running it, and a big picture takes time.

Jeez.

(9)

The Irish "no" vote on the EU's Lisbon Treaty has already had some positive effects, such as the lessening chances of the European major states attempting to create a tax cartel. Well, we can all hope, anyway:

France has dropped plans to push forward with tax harmonisation under its European Union presidency, following Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon treaty.

Christine Lagarde, French finance minister, told the Financial Times that while the proposal for a common consolidated corporate tax base had not been abandoned altogether, Paris would no longer press other governments to back it over the next six months.

Yes, perhaps the French, rather than attempting to prevent some horrific "race to the bottom" on tax rates, should instead admit that tax competition, including that which comes from those dreadful offshore centres, is a good thing.

The comments ought to underscore just how serious are the consequences of creating an EU state and the benefits that exist from resisting that ambition.

Well, maybe I write these words in a spirit of optimism as the light pours through my window. Indulge me for a while.

(34)

The Irish have voted "No" to the EU Constitution, sorry, Treaty, in their national referendum.

It is turning out to be quite a week in politics.

(8)

Robert Man from the European Commission speaking on this morning's Farming Today:

There is a case for allowing supermarkets to sell mis-shapen fruit and veg, provided it has a label such as "suitable for cooking" on it.

He was talking about proposals for simplifying EU produce classification regulations.

In the interests of the poor chap keeping his job, I feel I should emphasise it was a very relaxed, friendly interview, and that this latitudinarian idea was clearly being examined hypothetically as a way of reducing waste, and no impression was given that it formed part of current Commission plans. Nor did Mr Man imply that the 'simplification' proposals are completely settled. The Commission proposes, but member states dispose; and Mr Man was careful to point out that not all member states are yet convinced by the bold libertarianism inherent in simplification.

So for the moment you should be reassured that the full EC Marketing standards continue to apply to: Apples, Apricots, Avocados, Cherries, Grapes, Kiwifruit, Lemons, Mandarins (and similar hybrids), Melons, Oranges, Peaches and Nectarines, Pears, Plums, Strawberries, Water Melons, Artichokes, Asparagus, Beans (other than shelling beans), Brussels sprouts [of course!], Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflowers, Celery, Courgettes, Cultivated mushrooms, Garlic, Leeks, Onions, Peas, Spinach, Salads, Aubergines, Chicory, Cucumber, Lettuce endives and batavia, Sweet peppers, Tomatoes, Hazelnuts in shell, Walnuts in shell, Flowering bulbs, corms and tubers, Cut flowers and foliage.

Though I know us Samizdatatistas are apt to be rude about regulators, I think it is important to recognise the merits of these noble public servants occasionally. Younger and foreign readers will not appreciate how much suffering the EC Marketing standards have saved. British television viewers no longer face peak-time magazine shows featuring vegetables with an amusing resemblance to genitalia.

(13)

There are many aspects of the European Union that I dislike but I have never quite shared the view that the euro is due to collapse at some point, even if one or two member nations revert to domestic currencies, which at this stage looks highly unlikely barring an Asian-style collapse. Of course, I certainly think that imposing a single, monopoly currency on widely diverging economies at different points of the economic cycle is fraught with danger but that, remember, applies to single political jurisdictions like Britain or the US as well as blocks of different countries, which is why I am interested in the idea of free banking and multiple currency systems within a single polity. People who scoff at this idea have to argue why, if this is so weird, you can operate in a world with different forms of computer software, etc. Here is another interesting article on the idea.

Of course, I know that the prime reason for objecting to the euro for many people is not the economics anyway, but its place in the political agenda of those who wish to forge a European single state, relegating the separate nations to the status of provinces. But if people imagine that the economics of the euro-zone are going to blow the whole thing apart, they may have to wait a long time. A couple or more years ago, remember, it was argued - with a lot of convincing detail - that the euro would fall apart and countries like Italy would be forced to quit. That has not happened. The Daily and Sunday Telegraphs, with columnists like Evans Ambrose Pritchard and Liam Halligan, have argued several times about the euro's demise. Halligan is arguing this again. Well, try as I might, it is quite hard to imagine at the moment that the euro is about to fall to pieces. Try telling that to anyone who has bought euros with sterling or dollars lately. We might soon be reaching the point where, to borrow from Mark Twain, the comment is that rumours of the euro's death have been much exaggerated.

(12)

As several commenters like to point out here, the UK parliament, having shed so many powers and transferred them to Brussels, is now more like a branch office of a large company, in which the great majority of the powers are exercised from the centre. The branch office staff may try to kid themselves that they are important, and voters in national elections may take the view that they are wielding meaningful power by voting, but the truth is that they are not.

Also, the workload of politicians as serious legislators has seriously declined. They are essentially implementing laws that have been, to a great extent, decided by someone else. So it makes sense, perhaps, to cull the number of MPs and cut their pay to reflect their diminished status.

I should have linked to this before, but Tory MP Peter Lilley has argued for precisely this: cutting MP's salaries to reflect their weaker powers. Mr Lilley is a reminder that at least some MPs really get what has happened. As I occasionally point out, as MPs become more pointless, their behaviour, perks and corruption become less tolerable. Lilley's proposal may not come to anything, but it is a meme worth spreading: these people are unimportant, and should be remunerated accordingly.

In an ideal universe, MPs would not be paid by the taxpayer at all, of course. We can always dream.

(1)

It has been revealed that the Europhiles in the Tory party, led by John Maples MP, rigged the Tories' recent primary for Members of the European Parliament in order to prevent the deselection of Europhile incumbents and to promote women that had received too few votes. ConservativeHome has the full, sordid account.

(23)

Down in the West Country, fires are being lit:

Imagine, if you can, a party rally, put on by one of its regional branches, and attended by several hundred decent, ordinary people. Imagine, then, being able to watch a dozen or so people called to the podium to speak fluently and with passion about what they truly think. Imagine also being able to mingle throughout with the leaders and elected representatives of that party. Imagine all this, and you have UKIP.

The excellent speeches from that rally can be viewed here.

I spoke to Sean Gabb the following day. He told me that he perceived a 'great suppressed anger' among the people he met.

Good.

(36)

That the EU Referendum blog is unhappy at the latest turn of events in the UK parliament is an understatement:

In other words, in a very real sense – not at all an arcane, academic point – as Lisbon bites, it will no longer makes any difference at all who we elect. For sure, any new government will have some residual powers which it can call its own, but these will gradually be stripped from it as the EU starts to exert its newly-acquired powers.

It occurs, therefore, that the one thing we need to do is boycott the electoral process. If there is no point in having MPs, we should no longer partake in the charade that we have meaningful elections. There can be no better message to send to MPs than an ever-declining turnout. This robs them of even the pretence of legitimacy.

Quite so. It seems to me that we have the bizarre spectacle of MPs choosing to make themselves irrelevant. Perhaps they have reached the deep realisation that they are unworthy of being legislators, that their real role in life is to fiddle expenses, disport themselves on TV and go to foreign junkets. There is, quite frankly, no further use for them.

In moments like this, when so many powers are being transferred to a supranational entity like the EU with remarkably little democratic accountability, and on a scale that has no clear modern parallel, it makes me wonder what, if any point, there is in things like intellectual activism. Getting the message across in a national context is hard enough; trying to persuade Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Dutchmen, Spaniards, Greeks, Portugese, Belgians and Finns of the case for less government is next to impossible. One of the reasons why I, as a libertarian, am broadly in favour of self-governing nation states is not out of some starry-eyed belief that they are always better than some broader alternative, but because experience teaches us that it is increasingly hard to make changes on a large, supranational level where there is not a shared culture or shared language.

The EU has had its merits, but I think the sad truth is, and has been for some time, that lovers of liberty cannot expect it to be reformed from within or turned into some sort of benign free trade zone. We have to get out.

(22)

The EU has determined that passenger flights by DC-3's flown by Air Atlantique Classic Flight or any one else must cease when new regulations come into effect on July 16th of this year. These rules are imposed upon and override UK regulations, so even though the UK CAA is on the side of Air Atlantique, it will make little difference. Brussells, not London, is the capital of the United Kingdom.

The new rules require any aircraft with more than 19 passengers must have an armoured door to the crew cabin among numerous other modifications. They even demand an inflatable slide be added to the passenger door. There are no exceptions for classic aircraft and thus after July 16th the soulless gray men will make the European world that much more like themselves.

The EU Federal State is a special case of the general truth whose promulgation is a primary raison d'etre of Samizdata: The State is Not Your Friend.

Note: If you want to fly on a DC-3 before your betters prevent you for your own good, you had better hurry. You can reach AACF at 08703-304747 for reservations.

(16)

William Hague is on the money and bloody hilarious...

(11)

The European Union has its uses. While rootling around for stuff to link to from CNE Competition, I came across this:

Left-wing Labour MPs are girding themselves for a rebellion over a European Union plan which they say could spell the end of the National Health Service.

When left wing Labour MPs rebel, I at least hope for possible goodness.

The European Commission will publish its health directive next week and it is meant to make it easier for people to travel to get specific medical treatment in another EU country.

Ah, the age-old dilemma of the EUrosceptic. What do you think if the EU imposes something sensible?

British diplomats say that this is NOT the same as making sure that if you fall sick in Slovakia or have an accident in Austria you can get treatment straight away.

When British diplomats say that something is NOT something else, it means that they have been told to say that by their political masters and that the small print of their argument will be about a very small difference. The feathers on the other something will definitely NOT be the exact same colour, but the other something will otherwise waddle and quack in an identical fashion to the original something, and will in fact be just another duck. For "NOT", read " ", in other words.

It is what some people call "health tourism" and both critics and fans say it will allow people to shop around for health care.

Sounds great. So what if it is just a plan to sell Eurostar tickets; I still like it.

In the end, there is nothing like people preferring something else to whatever bogus nirvana is being peddled by the bogus nirvana peddlers. The one argument against the much vaunted Soviet Communist nirvana that the vaunters could never wriggle free from was the fact - for fact it was - that this was a nirvana that millions wanted to escape from, through minefields if need be, and with only the clothes they were wearing at the time of their escape if that was all they could take with them. A similar process is now under way with Britain's similarly vaunted NHS, the best healthcare system in the world except for all the others.

(18)

Yes, it is true. I am going to go and sign the treaty for the European Constitution on behalf of Belgium.

Now you might well ask yourself, why would Perry de Havilland have the right to sign the EU Treaty (do not worry, I intend to 'accidently' tip the ink pot over the foetid thing)? Simple... because clearly anyone can. There are many articles about what El Gordo is going to do and the long running weird protocol spat between Portugal and Belgium over where the treaty must be signed... but that should be academic to Belgium because Belgium still does not have a government, ergo there is no one who can sign on Belgium's behalf... yet strangely that does not seem to be stopping the former government from doing just that.

If the people who were voted out of office in Belgium months ago can sign the treaty, then why not me too? They have no more right than I do to sign anything on behalf of Belgium. The fact that the Belgian establishment can and have simply banned popular political parties that do not play by the required consensus should indicate that to all intents, Belgium is not a democracy in any meaningful sense. This latest action indicates Belgium is in fact some sort of divine right oligarchy where being a member of the power elite is all the legitimisation you need.

(18)

Orwell imagined a political order that would try to change people by expunging certain terms from the vocabulary in order to make the very concepts those words represent un-knowable.

Of course Orwell had not heard of the European Union. To quote EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini:

I do intend to carry out a clear exploring exercise with the private sector... on how it is possible to use technology to prevent people from using or searching dangerous words like bomb, kill, genocide or terrorism

And of course this will also block anyone researching the history of Nazi German and all manner of other governmental action throughout history . It might be interesting to speculate on what the motivation of someone like the EU's "Justice and Security" Commissioner really are.

(via Ben Laurie)

(33)

Now it might seem odd that someone on record as being as hostile to the EU as me might hope that Gordon Brown gets his way and just bounces Britain into adopting the resurrected EU treaty against what is quite obviously the wishes of the majority of politically active people in Britain.

But that is what I want. I want the EU to get its way and for there to be a dramatic shift in power from London to Brussels, with commensurate huge diminution in democratic control of the political process in this country. I regard the fact Gordan Brown can look the nation in the eye and utter such a naked lie that the current offering is not, to quote the Chancellor of Germany, "the new constitutional document is the same as the old constitutional document: the only difference is that it doesn't have European Constitution as its title", with pure delight.

In short I want Gordon Brown to strip away the myth of the democratic accountability. I want the system that has been so seriously damaged over the last ten years to be broken in such a visible way that even the most purblind self-deluding fool can see just what sort of country they really live in. Let all sixty million people on this island hear the stream of pork pies issuing from the gob of the man in 10 Downing Street, with the entire apparatus of power standing behind him nodding.

Although very worthy folks like the UKIP will argue passionately for a referendum, knowing that their position will almost certain win (which is of course why it will not be allowed to happen), in truth the long term position of a fringe party like UKIP will be vastly improved if the 'nightmare scenario' does indeed come to pass. To actually break the current political monoculture will require far more really pissed off people than currently exist in Big Bruvvah anaesthetised Britain.

The system needs to break and millions of people need to be confronted with their political irrelevance before anything really... interesting... can happen.

So good luck Gordan, I wish you great success in screwing over your subject people and locking in the centrist regulatory Big State at the more remote European level. More and faster in fact.

(10)

Well, that is probably inevitable anyway. Political honeymoons that last a long time tend to be followed by savage changes in fortune (Nicolas Sarkozy, please note). Gordon Brown enjoyed a bounce in the polls after he killed off, er, sorry, I meant took over from Tony Blair; he was able, however spuriously, to appear all statesmanlike amid the various natural disasters, almost-successful terror plots. But the shooting of the young boy in Liverpool, adding to a spate of gun crimes, has put crime higher up the political agenda, which may hurt Brown; the recognition that Brown has, after all, been finance minister since 1997 and therefore bears a fair share of the current difficulties, is starting to break into the public awareness. And the latest issue which could really wipe the smirk off his face is Europe. His attempt to slyly sign up to a EU Constitution in drag is unacceptable, and thank goodness if it is true that many Labour MPs and some ministers feel the same way.

Seeing is believing, of course. But somehow, I think life is going to get a lot rougher for the government. The question as always is whether the opposition will fully exploit it.

(20)

As people involved in this blog know I am not exactly shy about attacking Conservative party policy either nationally or locally. So it is only fair that I present good news when there is some.

The other night the MP for Kettering, Mr Philip Hollobone, was formally readopted as the Prospective Conservative Party candidate for election as member of the House of Commons for Kettering.

Why is this "good news" or a "reason to proud"?

Because of what he said.

Mr Hollobone informed the score or so people who had come for the meeting of the Executive Council, of the local Conservative Association, that he believed that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should leave the European Union - and that he had said this publicly and would continue to do so (which is why I can mention it here) whatever Mr Cameron thought about this matter (although, in the interests of fairness, I must make clear that Mr Cameron has not said that a person may not hold this opinion).

Mr Hollobone then left the room and a secret ballot was held. It is a rule that numbers can not be given. However, in this case they are not needed - as there were no spoilt ballot papers and no opposing votes (work it out).

Both good news and a reason to be proud.

By the way, in case anyone thinks I had something to do with any of the above, I did not say a word in the entire Executive Council meeting. As the meeting was not public I will not mention what other people said. However, there were no comments opposing Mr Hollobone's position.

(29)

At the end of the 1970s the Cato Institute and Reason Foundation were founded in the United States. Both of them have had a huge effect in promoting libertarian ideas, pushing better ideas in front of the Federal Government. The Adam Smith Institute was founded at the same time, successfully pushing liberalisation in the UK. But while London and Washington have enjoyed a plethora of good think tank activity, the rise of Brussels has been largely ignored. There are only a handful of really good think tanks (like the Centre for the New Europe). This is remarkable given that Brussels passes legislation over a population of 494m people (compared with only 302m the US). Brussels should have more libertarians trying to influence it.

So what I am doing with the Globalisation Institute is expanding it from covering a small range of topics in London into a much-broader, Brussels-based think tank covering the full range. In essence, the GI team is creating a European version of the Reason Foundation or the Cato Institute; a Brussels version of the Adam Smith Institute. Just as Cato in the early 80s moved its HQ from California to Washington, we are moving our HQ from London to Brussels (though we will still be doing things in London).

Our objective, in a nutshell, is influence. That is, to influence the thinking of policy-makers at the European Commission and in the Brussels community generally. (We’ve got an excellent record of influencing policymakers in London.) Like Reason founder Bob Poole and ASI co-founder Madsen Pirie, I see our role as a think tank as developing implementable small steps, looking two or three years ahead. Of course, we simultaneously have a broader educational role looking further ahead, especially with students, but I do not think it is realistic to get European Commissioners to sign up to a "liberal utopia".

The think tank world in Brussels - all around the political spectrum - is thirty years behind the United States. It seems to me that it is time for some catching up.

(17)

The EU Referendum blog, a euro-sceptic site that I read regularly, has few doubts about a key part of Tone's legacy:

There has already been a Cabinet reshuffle, in Europe. A new member has just joined the European Council. The shiny car in which he is driven to Downing Street should be bearing not a Union Jack but a ring of stars, to remind us of his coming servitude.

That also would be an acknowledgement of Tony Blair's true legacy to this nation. Ten years ago, he entered Downing Street to a flurry of Union Jacks, waved by enthusiastic supporters. Today, he leaves - to an unprecedented standing ovation of the House - bequeathing his successor a blue flag with twelve yellow stars.

I would also add that a badge depicting Blair - and Brown's - utter contempt for the traditional liberties of this nation, and our Common Law, might be appropriate. The trouble is, who among the broad British population would know what such a badge stands for?

(31)

Yesterday I happened to see the Sunday Telegraph and Niall Fergusson's contribution was 'interesting' (in the sense of the old Chinese curse).

Niall Fergusson is a Scottish conservative who sold out and got a high paid job at Harvard (perhaps he just went along with the leftist stereotype of the conservative as someone who puts his personal financial interest above everything else). He sometimes still writes decent stuff, but normally his writings are designed to not offend his new 'liberal' friends (and employers) and today was no exception.

Professor Fergusson was not writing in support of Islamic terrorists in Somalia (which he has done in the past), or declaring that the West should submit to (sorry engage in 'diplomacy' only with) the Iranian regime (regardless of how many British and American people this regime kills in Afghanistan, Iraq and the streets of Western cities). No today he had a different subject - the European Union (remember in establishment circles in the United States wanting to take powers away from the EU is considered as wicked as it is in establishment circles here).

The great historian has decided to put his support behind the superstate and denounce its evil 'nationalist' foes.

Supposedly 30% of the population of the United Kingdom think membership of the EU has been harmful. I think it is rather more that 30%, but perhaps Professor Fergusson is correct.

What were Professor Fergusson's arguments against those people who think that the tidal wave of EU regulations has been harmful?

He presented no arguments at all. It was just taken as obvious that anyone who opposed this layer of government was both stupid and evil.

Professor Fergusson is clearly a true establishment man and no doubt will continue to be welcome at all the social events in Harvard.

(6)

Simon Jenkins, the columnist and former editor of The Times (of London), is capable of making a strong argument at times and he tries to do so with his thesis that the Blair government continued much the same policy mix as Margaret Thatcher. Yes, really. Jenkins argues that in some ways, the Blair government was more enthusiastic in privatising certain industries than the Thatcher one (he says Mrs T. was opposed to selling off the railways, but I am not sure that is true). Even without the odd quibble, it is a quite persuasive piece of writing. However, in the light of this week's events as related by Perry de Havilland below, Jenkins spoils his piece by this piece of utter nonsense:

Although Blair made a spirited bid after the 2001 election to make Europe, as he put it, ‘the cornerstone of the new parliament’, he found it merely a source of dissension with Brown. He signed the Maastricht treaty as promised in his manifesto but did not implement it and eventually ceded to Brown a de facto veto not just over the euro but over further European integration. Blair’s 2005 presidency of the council of ministers was a fiasco. Under him Britain remained semi-detached from Europe and beyond Thatcherite reproach. His glee at being let off the hook by the French and Dutch referendum votes against the 2005 constitution was ill-concealed.

I think even Jenkins probably feels a bit of a twit about those words. Because it appears Blair was pretty keen to transfer more sovereignty to the EU all along. The idea that he was pleased at the outcomes of the referendums in previous years is not borne out by his sly actions.

(22)

Although the Blair government has needed little encouragement from the European Union to destroy our civil liberties and impose ever more layers of political control over our lives, it seems he has decided to try and lock a few more controls at the more remote European level.

And will a future Cameron government undo what Blair has wrought? Do not make me laugh. As Dave Cameron even attempted to back out of his pre-leadership promise to take the token action of removing the 'Conservatives' from the integrationist EPP grouping in the European 'parliament' (and the Conservatives MEPs are still in a de facto coalition with the EPP), clearly he lacks the inclination to do anything of actual substance.

Clearly the only way to undo what Blair has wrought in Brussels is to just start ripping up treaties or better yet get out of the EU altogether... and that is not going to happen under any foreseeable UK government. Nothing short of a social earthquake that radically shifts the political landscape is going to make much difference and that ain't going to happen under any likely government I can foresee.

(6)

There's a very important article in The Economist this week on the subject of Brussels-based think tanks. Under the headline The think tanks that miss the target, it says that Brussels' think tank world is failing to challenge the standard consensus. "Nobody seems able to change the default formula for Brussels policy seminars: good coffee and croissants, dull speeches and a brief exchange of conventional wisdom," it says. The article mentions free-market guru Johan Norberg who says that too many think-tanks spend their time offering straight commentary on the Brussels machine, whereas in Washington DC they tend to lead the debate.

The way I see it is that Brussels is a fledgling market. Just as there were think tanks in the US and UK before the 1970s, it was not until launches like the Cato Institute and Adam Smith Institute, both in 1977, and the takeover of the Heritage Foundation by Ed Feulner, that the modern think tank was created. By modern think tank, I mean the politically-savvy institute that does not just put out ideologically pure work, but engages in "policy engineering" (the development of practical policies) and the marketing of those policies in the political world. There were important institutes before then, such as the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in New York. But FEE is not the same sort of institute as Cato; it performs the essential task in educating students about free markets, but does not do the policy engineering work. People might label it a think tank, but really it is a different creature from Cato and Heritage. Indeed, it describes itself simply as an "educational foundation". In Brussels, the think tank world is going through the learning process that think tanks in the US and UK went through in the 1970s. There are not many Brits working for Brussels' think tanks, bringing expertise from the London think tank world, which may be part of the problem.

The Economist is right that the Brussels think tank world needs something of a shake-up. That said, not everyone is spouting consensus. I like the Centre for the New Europe, for example. It might serve good coffee at its events (none of the Traidcraft Fairtrade stuff), but I suspect that any exchange of conventional wisdom is brief indeed! Its blogs, on the topics of intellectual property, health and competition policy, are challenging and interesting. Additionally, the European Enterprise Institute has been particularly influential with the European People's Party and more generally in keeping the pro-enterprise agenda from dropping off the table. But it is certainly odd how few think tanks there are in Brussels compared with London. Brussels needs more. Well, free-market ones anyway.

The article is particularly interesting for me with my Globalisation Institute hat on. Many policymakers in Brussels have commented that while they value following the Institute's output on trade and globalisation from a distance, they would like access to the Institute's thinking and events in Brussels itself. Believing that responding to market signals is important, the GI is expanding into Brussels on 1 September. The aim is to inject some good free-market thinking into the city's European quarter. I think I'm going to have my work cut out.

(37)

I wish I understood Turkish politics better than I do. There was a large pro-secularism rally in Ankara, which is surely a good thing. The fact these people are backed by the army is an even more encouraging sign.

On Friday evening military chiefs said in a statement they could intervene if the election process threatened to undermine Turkish secularism.

EU politics however, I understand just fine. The usual halfwits have moaned that the Turkish army is interfering with democracy because they made it clear they will not tolerate Turkey becoming an Islamic state. Yet strangely all manner of constitutional limitations on the democratic will of the majority exist in many countries (the USA and Switzerland, for example) and yet that does not seem to attract the displeasure of the fools who live off our tax money in Brussels.

In Turkey, the army is probably the best bulwark against Islamism and the fact the same €uro-spokesmen allegedly responsible for working towards integrating Turkey with the EU want to weaken the role of the main opponent of Islamist political aspirations in the country is... astonishing.

(27)

What are the causes of the rise of far right political parties across Europe?

(5)

There is a strong interaction between British ideas on security and those adopted by Europe, where New Labour dreams of authoritarian and democratic socialism can be writ large. The justification of a new database to hold fingerprints for every EU citizen is a larger white elephant than any yet conceived. Knowing the opposition that would arise if this project was publicised:

The proposal, which was buried in a lengthy European Commission document setting out policy goals for next year, managed the rare feat of uniting all sides in opposition. Euro-sceptics criticised them as the trappings of a super-state, while some of Europe’s most ardent supporters complained of a threat to civil liberties.

This is part of the extension of EU powers into the sphere of justice and security. The Commission has gained the power to prosecute certain crimes and wishes to extend these at a European level. The powers are descibed as "indispensable". The project was initially based on a voluntary scheme between certain Continental countries and is now being extended through harmonisation and Member States' agreement.

We will be less secure, crime will rise, and the databases portend further declines in civil liberties.

(25)

The British Council announced that ten offices in Europe would shut so that funds could be diverted to the Middle East and Asia. Part of this diversion is admirable: an attempt to undermine the attraction of the Salafist ideology for impressionable youths. Scepticism rises over the small sums allocated in comparison to the rich charities that fund madressehs in all Muslim countries.

Martin Davidson, director general designate of the British Council, said it was "time to tackle the new challenges the world faces."

These included "building trust with the Islamic states and China," Davidson told the Press Association.

The council would scrap "traditional arts activities" in Europe, such as orchestral tours and artistic commissions, in favour of projects "designed to prevent Muslim youths from being indoctrinated by extremists sympathetic to al-Qaeda," the Times said.

This project is coordinated by a new leader of the British Council, who also stated that they would be working with their European partners to promote common values. The British Council belongs to EUNIC, the European Union National Institutes for Culture, and this new organisation was launched on the 21st February 2007 (pdf file). Is it any coincidence that, as soon as the British Council is submerged within a pan-European body, its focus is aimed at the Middle East and China? Even the small details begin to back up Mark Steyn.

(10)

One of the grey areas in European Union law is the primacy of community law in relationship to the constitutions of the Member States. As the treaties have encroached more and more upon the national sovereignty of Member States, this has become a fraught issue. It has resulted in a staunch defence of sovereignty or a surrender of the national prerogative. The country having the strongest debate upon this issue is France.

In a recent case at the Conseil D'Etat, Arcelor had requested a ruling on whether EU law violated the principle of equality in the French Constituion as steel companies had to comply with climate change laws whereas the competing industrial sector of plastics was exempt. The Conseil D'Etat declined to make a ruling and referred the case to th European Court of Justice. This has caused a debate in France as to whether the French constitution is now subordinate to the European Court of Justice.

The French court's decision not to conduct a constitutional test on EU legislation is seen as significant as it arguably places France's constitution below the ECJ in the legal hierarchy.

Although the supremacy of EU law over national law has been well-established, the status of national constitutions has been less clear not only in France but also elsewhere, including Germany.

Leading newspaper Le Monde was quick to predict on the day of the ruling that sovereignists and eurosceptics would probably interpret the judgement as a "Waterloo" of French sovereignty - something which became a self-fulfilling prophecy as sovereignists were eager to stress that even Le Monde called the ruling a "Waterloo."

There is some debate as to whether this was the groundbreaking referral that some commentators have stated. As the ruling concerned EU law, it has been argued that the Conseil D'Etat was only deferring to the European Court of Justice on this matter as equality was a governing principle with European law. Therefore the European Union and the French Constitution are complementary.

Despite the radical arguments of some who view the entry into the EEC as a watershed that fundamentally abrogated British sovereignty, the right of Parliament to bind the powers of its successor is not a recognised convention yet. Given the political will and a majority in Parliament, the United Kingdom could democratically withdraw from the European Union and assert the primacy of British law. The illiberal EU may not recognise self-determination except as an entry principle, but the constitutional recognition of European law is a parliamentary derogation, nothing more.

(8)

Here is the latest Papal Bull from the European Union:

A series of "green crimes", enforceable across the EU and punishable by prison sentences and hefty fines, are to be proposed under a contentious push by the European Commission into the sensitive area of criminal lawmaking.

The drive by Brussels to apply penalties for ecological crime reflects concerns that some countries treat offences such as pollution and illegal dumping of waste more seriously than others, allowing criminals to exploit loopholes.

It used to be the dream of socialists and utopians of varying degrees of malevolence or stupidity to want a world state. In a world state, pesky local regulatory differences would be obliterated and replaced by a rational grid of laws from which no escape was possible. In true 'watermelon' fashion - green on the outside, red in the core - the Greens are embracing the instruments of a pan-national state to enforce their ideas.

There is a superficial plausibility to this. Pollution knows no barriers. If a German coal-fired power station emits carbon dioxide and other things, that will not just affect the Germans living near to the station but other nations. If a Swiss chemicals firm accidentally spills toxic material in to the Rhine - this has happened - then people in Holland get affected, and so on.

But what these sort of cases do is not to suggest that we need to give a centralised, international body coercive powers over people living across a whole continent. Rather, we should keep reminding people that rigorous enforcement of existing property rights, and creation of such rights in hitherto unowned resources, allied to the incentive structures of markets, provide the best route for tackling real environmental problems such as pollution. In any case, with certain emissions, it pays to remember that a pollutant for one person might be a positive benefit - or "externality" - for someone else.

The global warming/pollution/generally-we-are-all-doomed agenda is a significant threat to our liberties at the moment, so I make no apologies for going on about it.

(9)

I have just made the mistake of reading the Sunday Telegraph. As is too often the case the only really good thing in the newspaper was Mr Booker's half page - and it is not worth getting a whole newspaper for half a page.

Looking through the rest of the Sunday Telegraph I came upon an article by Mr David Cameron (the leader of the British 'Conservative' party) the main business of the article was not important. It was just another absurd claim that we can "reform" the European Union in order to make it a 'force for good' - an excuse for Mr Cameron had his friends to not even promise to get the United Kingdom out of 'the Union' which is now the source of about 75% of all new regulations.

However, it was the rewriting of history that caught my eye. Mr Cameron correctly points out that we are coming up to the 50th anniversary of what was in 1957 called the European Economic Community. But Mr Cameron also states that this time (1957) was a time when the European Economic Community (EEC, now the EU) had to deal with a Europe that had been devastated by war, that was under the threat of Soviet attack, and was on the point of economic collapse.

In reality...

War damage had (in most of Western Europe) been to a great extent repaired by 1957, partly by the efforts of Europeans and partly by American aid. The EEC was not the thing that rebuilt the towns and cities of Europe. The Soviet threat was not kept at bay by the EEC - it was kept at bay by NATO (i.e. in reality the American military) and it is NATO, not the EEC/EU, that was responsible for the peace of post war Western Europe, which may well be why so many Europeans hate the United States - people often hate those they have long depended on.

As for on the point of economic collapse. In fact in 1957 Western Europe was in the middle of great period of advance.

Here American aid was not really the driving force. What was the driving force of economic progress was deregulation and the reduction of taxation. This movement is best remembered, if it is remembered at all, by the weekend bonfire of price controls (weekend because the allied occupiers would not be in their offices to block it) and other economic regulations by Ludwig Erhard in the soon to be West Germany in 1948 (the Federal Republic coming into being in 1949).

However, there were similar movements in other Western European nations. Even Britain had its 'Set the People Free' and its 'Bonfire of Controls' under Churchill and Eden.

Also (again even in Britain) there was a policy in the 1950's of the reduction of taxation.

Neither the deregulation or the tax reductions had anything to do with the EEC which (as Mr Cameron correctly states) was created in 1957. And I hope that no one will claim that such things as the Iron and Steel Community or 'Euro Atom' were behind the deregulation or the tax reductions (in various nations) either.

In short, Mr Cameron's view of history (which might be best described as "at first there was darkness and then the European Economic Community moved in the darkness...") has no connection to the truth.

(4)

Another two countries are determined to support the constitution. This means that only six countries, including the Czech Republic, will remain. These countries will have to decide whether they want to continue cooperating with the core of Europe or whether they want to again retreat from the European integration process, Posselt says.

Bernd Posselt, leader of the Sedeten German Society and an MEP for Bavaria has praised the Chancellor, Angela Merkel for demanding the Czech Republic to sign up to the European Constitution. Posselt may be supporting the initiative, since it favours restitution for properties seized after the War by the restored Czech Republic, desirous to remove irredentist elements from its polity, and abetted by the barbaric Red Army.

Posselt is merely echoing the 'friends of the constitution' who met under the auspices of Luxembourg and Spain over the weekend. The noises coming out of this meeting are not good for Europhiles in New Labour. Despite some willingness to show flexibility on some of the phrases, the 'friends of the constitution' wish to use the text as a base and add more areas of competence for integration. The mini-treaty favoured by the British, avoiding the need for a referendum, looks like a long shot. If Segolene Royal wins the French Presidential election and upholds her manifesto promise of another referendum, the tabloids will be howling for blood.

Mr Hoon suggested that moves to streamline decision-making in an enlarged EU could be agreed by the government without being ratified directly by voters.

A decision on a vote would be taken once the outcome of negotiations was clearer "bearing in mind that no previous government has held a referendum on the detailed processes that have been involved in treaty change, he said

Europhiles such as Hoon wish to short circuit a referendum, since they would lose their prize. This may form the final frontispiece of Blair's legacy, since the meeting on this occurs during the dying days of his premiership. Any warmed up document, with the title Constitution dropped to hide the fundamental and radical nature of the text, needs to be opposed as quickly as possible. New Labour, in this as in all other enterprises, is not a friend of the Union or the English. As for Cameron he may have tried to avoid Europe, but it has returned to force the issue upon him.

(26)

Are you a member of the Tory Party? Remember when Dave Cameron said he would pull the Tory Party out of the €uro-Federalist EPP once he was elected leader? Remember when he promised Tory MPs would be free to campaign for withdrawal from the EU provided they were not on the front bench?

Have you had enough of the endless porkie pies from Dave Cameron yet? Do you care if you are lied to just to get your vote? If you do care and you still like the idea of being a member of a political party, then I suggest go and join the only thing even approximating a conservative party in Britain... and to do that, you have to leave the Tory party because if you are not a part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

The only thing worse than another term of Labour implementing its destructive policies would be a term of the same destructive policies being implemented by Dave Cameron's Tory Party and institutionalising radical regulatory centrist authoritarianism as the only permitted political option in Britain regardless of the party in 10 Downing Street.

Although the editorial writers are pulling out all the stops to minimise the threat of the UKIP, clearly the blood is in the water and ideology-free die-hard 'sensibles' like Matthew d'Ancona and other have abandoned their policy of trying to laugh off UKIP. There could be no clearer sign that the Cameron Tories are circling the drain.

Update: I left the following comment earlier today on the Telegraph's website for the Matthew d'Ancona article linked above. As they seem to have decided not to approve the comment for publication...

So let me see... Dave Cameron (who you may have noticed leads a party that claims to be conservative) promises more 'green' regulations, goes back on his pledge to leave the Euro-Federalist EPP, goes back on his pledge to allow non-front bench Tory MP's to campaign for EU withdrawal if they support that, has called for 'redistribution of wealth' a la Polly Toynbee, but no, he has not signed up for the European Social Model and is a pukka conservative. Is that really your position?

Sorry Matthew, but how credulous do you think people are? Not only is Dave Cameron a liar (please show me where the things I have mentioned are incorrect), he is clearly not in fact a conservative by any meaningful definition of the word.

(16)

The attempt assassination in London of a critic of Vladimir Putin, Alexander Litvinenko, almost certainly carried out by the Russian intelligence services, highlights that it is long past time to stop treating Russia as 'just another European government'.

But there is another rather interesting twist to this story that I did not spot in the media yesterday, courtesy of the UKIP.

Update: sadly it is not longer an 'attempted' assassination.

(13)

Who would you not allow to participate in a parliamentary delegation to Israel? An MEP linked to far right anti-Semitism and holocaust denial. That seems a fairly straightforward rule of thumb. Do not take such figures along as your hosts might get a trifle jumpy.

Welcome to the pomposity of the European Parliament, the post-democrats who represent us. They decided to include Marine Le Pen in their ranks, and the Israelis thereupon refused to meet any of the delegation. The visit was promptly cancelled for "technical reasons", or, as one official noted, rather pointless.

The cancellation was not met with universal acclaim. Some think that a foreign power should not dictate the membership of a parliamentary delegation:

On the other hand, according to the official, there was concern on the parliament's side that a national government should not be allowed to dictate the composition of the group.

Others were miffed that they did not go, as they thought had a contribution to make, and the Israelis should have been willing to put the Holocaust behind them:

Speaking before Thursday's decision was announced, Irish centre-right MEP Simon Coveney, on the delegation list, told EUobserver that he believed the trip should go ahead.

"I don't think we should be cancelling the event … personally I am going because I am interested [in the issue]."

He added that any members of a parliament delegation have to remember that they are representing the views of the EU assembly and not their own personal view points.

(10)

Having given up trying to stay PM and handed over the kulturcampf to Mr Brown, St Anthony now wishes to save the world:

In his strongest warning yet on the environment, the prime minister will tell fellow EU leaders that the world faces "conflict and insecurity" unless it acts now. "We have a window of only 10-15 years to take the steps we need to avoid crossing catastrophic tipping points," Mr Blair says, in a joint letter with his Dutch counterpart, Jan Peter Balkenende.

I am not interested for this purpose in whether he is right about 'catastrophic tipping points'. It is entirely possible he is. It is interesting that this is certainly not from his own knowledge. And since actually no one knows enough about climate to say under what conditions, never mind when, a catastrophe, bifurcation, flip, transition... whatever you would like to call it... might occur, then the fact the firm limit of years is reported as as little as 7 in some places, and up to 25 elsewhere, should not worry us.

What should, is the contradiction between the millenarian rhetoric and the irrelevance in its own terms of the hair-shirt policy that we are being exhorted to adopt. If the quantity of CO₂ in the atmosphere will cause catastrophe at some threshold level, then capping emissions from human activity merely postpones reaching the threshold. By not very much.

If things are that bad either: (1) We should find ways yet unknown to make global human greenhouse-gas emissions close to zero or net negative. (Sorry, no cooked food - except sun-baked and geyser-boiled - until we do.) Or (2) we should enjoy the party at the end of the world. But it seems those in charge do not know the difference between quantity and rate.

Now that is really scary. Reality I can cope with. I am aware I'm going to die, and probably suffer disease and loss first. That the course of my life will be determined not by biology, physics and economics, but by messianic imbeciles with no grasp of any of them, is harder to bear.

For me; the non-exclusive or: technofix plus fun.

For the Head Boy; "Repent, o ye sinners or burn in hell on earth! Go, and sin no more. (Than you did in 1990)."

(5)

Jose Manual Barroso, President of the European Commission, and grand panjamdrum of Brussels has kindly deigned to share a few words with those of us who do not understand the contribution of the European Union to world peace. Who would have thought that the peacekeeping exercise in Darfur, Sudan, was a success. Barroso has opened my eyes.

I was in Darfur last week, on my way to co-chair the first ever meeting of the European Commission outside Europe, in Addis Ababa – the home of the Commission of the Africa Union. I am amazed at what I have seen in these young people that travel so far to help the people of Africa. I am proud of this Europe, I feel proud to feel European.

Let us look at security. There is a rising demand for a European role in external crises. And the EU is responding. It has doubled the number of peace and security missions in recent years. It is playing a central role in conflict prevention and resolution from Darfur to Palestine, from the Congo to Lebanon.

It is an effective actor because of the range of instruments at its disposal. In Darfur, for example, it is the biggest contributor to humanitarian aid, the main supporter of the African peacekeepers there, and playing a political role in pushing the Sudanese government to avoid another humanitarian catastrophe.

The man who knows what institutional reform is needed to ensure further European 'success'.

The Constitution would have helped. But perhaps the grand finality of the word 'constitution' set it up as a hostage to fortune, both to intergovernmentalists who felt it went too far, and to federalists, who felt it did not go far enough. Let us be clear about the label which should be attached to further institutional reform. What Europe needs is a Capacity to Act.

Oh masters, if I were disposed to stir your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong -- who, you all know, are honourable men. I will not do them wrong. I rather choose to wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you, than I will wrong such honourable men.

(62)

The EU and the US have failed to reach an agreement on airline passenger data sharing. This is a euphemism. The US is demanding information on all travellers that the European Court of Justice says violates our privacy, and the EU countries have been trying to square the circle. They have failed so far.

Let us be clear. The member states want to do it. All 25 of them, despite Germany's constitutional data protections. They would love to give the FBI your travel plans, bank account details and dietary preferences. UKgov is particularly keen, and makes sure such information is always sent ahead from UK flights to such friendly, peaceful and enlightened regimes as the People's Republic of China (it bullied the other EU states into accepting the principle of requiring carriers to retain all communications data for state inspection). What is stopping this becoming an universal convention is not European states but the independent, supra-national institutions of the Union.

(21)

Whilst travelling down towards the station in Brussels with some friends, one could not help noticing one street full of coffee bars, frequented solely by the male of the species, replicating a corner of Algiers or Tunis. Whilst new to me, this is not an infrequent encounter for the traveller in the Low Countries or France.

As vast portions of the urban geography continue to be recast in the Maghreb mould, and the demographics of immigration and indigenous wind down play out, I asked myself: which European Union Member State is most likely to join the Arab League (perhaps the Maghreb subset) or Organisation of Islamic Conferences in the next few years? Albania, Uganda and Guyana are members of the latter. This would be the predictable 'next step' for democratic structures with a large minority Arab electorate.

(39)

Want to see Tony Blair getting a political kick in the cobblers?

Sweet. Agree or disagree, it is nice to see some political hardball. UKIP thrive on such confrontations. It is hard to imagine the pointless milksops of the 'Conservative' Party getting stuck in like that.

(14)

The utterly flaccid David Cameron has balked at even the token gesture of pulling his 'conservative' party out of the Euro-integrationist EPP in the European parliament. As withdrawal from the EPP would be little more than a minor token that did nothing beyond offer the tiniest of fig leaves to the now completely naked Euro-skeptic remnants within the Tory party, is anyone under any illusions now of his inclination to 'stand up for British interests' in dealing with the EU?

As having the Tories ditch the EPP (whose platform includes 'ever closer union') was one of the planks of his pitch to win the Tory Party leadership against David Davies, will conservatives who are not pure Blairite (or perhaps even Heathite) now admit they have been screwed (and not in a fun way) and finally decamp from Cameron's appalling social democratic party?

(17)

Alain Lamassoure, a prominent French (naturally) MEP is proposing the idea of a pan-European tax on e-mail and SMS text messages and is quoted as saying:

"Exchanges between countries have ballooned, so everyone would understand that the money to finance the EU should come from the benefits engendered by the EU."

Huh? I hate to break this to Mr. Lamassoure but countries neither communicate with each other nor 'exchange' with each other, companies and people do. Moreover I think the 'benefit engendered by the EU' is highly debatable. If I am understanding this klepto correctly (and as he is both French and a politician, that may be beyond me), he thinks that without the EU, people would not be able to exchange e-mails and SMS messages? And if that is not what he means, what the hell does he mean? I do not even grasp what he is talking about, let alone understand why even more money should be appropriated from people to pay for that sublimely corrupt institution.

(8)

Peter Mandelson has been an unmitigated disaster. Sign the petition to get him recalled.

(18)

The excellent Tim Blair notes a Telegraph article reporting that

European governments should shun the phrase “Islamic terrorism” in favour of “terrorists who abusively invoke Islam”, say guidelines from EU officials.

(55)

The latest wheeze of the EU is an online forum, probably designed to replace Wallstrom's blog, which decayed into a morass of anodyne tedium - another puffpiece for the Commission. When will politicians understand that blogs require authenticity?

The welcome message is inaccurate: the ideology of Europe, replacing the European Union. Balkans, Ukraine, Belarus, not part of the message:

Welcome to 'Debate Europe', our website for the wide debate on the future of the European Union. This website is our invitation to you to discuss with us your ideas, hopes and worries for Europe's future. With this site, we want to make contact with you and listen to what you think and propose.

There are the usual blog contributorns, haunting the official space that the EU provides for us. But the whole project is an unmitigated failure. Here are the results for the "popular" English language pages after approximately a week:

Europe's economic and social development: 64 comments.

Feelings towards Europe: 95 comments.

Europe's borders and its role in the world: 63 comments.

Not a roaring success!

(33)

JURIST lays out the planned outline of the latest attempt to revive the European Constitution. In tandem with the actions of Chirac to publicise EU actions that demonstrate a defence against socialisation, the leaders of France and Germany wish to revise the first two chapters and submit these revised parts of the Constitution to referenda in France and the Netherlands.The third chapter would be ratified by the respective Parliaments of the two countries.

Christian Democratic politicians from Berlin, Paris and the European Parliament were holding confidential talks to restart talks on the failed attempt to ratify a constitution for the European Union, according to reports in Der Spiegel magazine.

The group includes German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Jacques Chirac, and other conservative EU leaders, the magazine reported.

This plan will be taken up by the German Presidency of the European Union in 2007. Just imagine the pressure on a British Prime Minister when twenty four have ratified and we have not. No doubt the Liberal Democrats and Europhiles will construct some face-saving routine that allows the politicians to avoid holding a referendum here.

Separate referenda for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: vote for the Constitution to save the Union?

(60)

The European Union is making soothing clucking sounds to try and calm the outraged Muslim masses with plans of a 'media code of conduct' designed to prevent a repeat of the Jyllands-Posten incident with the 'Satanic Cartoons'.

EU Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said the charter would encourage the media to show "prudence" when covering religion.

"The press will give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression," he told the newspaper. "We can and we are ready to self-regulate that right."

Who is this "we"? Does Frattini think he is speaking for the British and European on-line community? If so then perhaps I can spell out the "consequences of exercising the right of free expression" that "we" are aware of... it makes us free, that is the consequence of free expression. Are "we" clear now? These non-enforcible guidelines are just a worthless sop to people who need to be confronted, not treated as though they have a legitimate argument.

And yet later he seems to take a strangely different stance...

The chairman of World Islamic Call Society, Mohamed Ahmed Sherif told a press conference in Brussels on Thursday (9 February) that the cartoons of Mohammed published first in Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, fuelled extremism.

"Nobody should blame the muslims if they are unhappy about the images of the prophet Mohammed," Sherif said coming out from a meeting with EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini in Brussels. "It's forbidden to create a hate programme to show that the prophet is a terrorist while he's not," he stated, "Don't ask us to try to make people understand that this is not a campaign of hate."

EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini repeatedly nodded and mumbled "yes" in front of cameras and microphones during Mr Sherif's statement.

Mr Frattini also denied wanting to create a code of conduct for journalists reporting on religious matters, as indicated by earlier media reports.

"There have never been, nor will there be any plans by the European Commission to have some sort of EU regulation, nor is there any legal basis for doing so," the commissioner stated.

So in the space of two days, Frattini seems to have done a U-turn and stated his commitment to freedom of expression whilst simultaneously looking like an appeaser. That takes some doing!

Let's hear it for 'nuanced' European diplomacy!

(15)

The drive to revive the European Union's Constitution, after the period of reflection, is proving rather fruitless. Since full ratification will not be forthcoming, the only outcome currently in prospect is a fudged showdown. A combination of vindaloo and Armitage Shanks. Either the Nos will be finessed with opt-outs so that the structural changes will be implemented without too much distress, or the EU will fracture with a move by an avant-garde towards a more deeply integrated European state, a la Chirac.

To avoid their nightmare of fractured EU, the Euro-MPs, Andrew Duff and Johannes Voggenhuber are preparing to fill the breach, parliamentarians riding to the rescue of the forlorn constitution. The two pour scorn on the European Council, as a tool divided and unable to provide leadership. Please note that whilst their quotes may verge on satire, they are authentic and provide a sad testament to the delusional meta-context of Brussels.

"From Europe�s leaders we have had a display of a wide range of simplistic solutions to the crisis," Duff said on Friday.

"From President Chirac we have had a proposal for a piecemeal approach to the constitution and from Nicolas Sarkozy we have had a proposal for a restructured version."

From [the Dutch and UK foreign ministers] Bernard Bot and Jack Straw we have confirmation that the present treaty is finished; from Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel we have him disagreeing with all of these people and then we have the president of Finland disagreeing with Schuessel."

"All their proposals are constitutionally improper or politically quite unrealistic. Some of them are both."

This institutional paralysis amongst the Member States provides an opportunity. The European Parliament can provide leadership and attain its place in the sun:

Both MEPs want parliament to show a clear way forward on reviving the constitution debate in Strasbourg next Wednesday and Thursday.

"We have to decide as a parliament if we are to fill the political space or to be satisfied with being supine parrots of fashion; commentators of the paralysed and confused European council," said Duff.

Voggenhuber argued that there didn�t appear to be any serious EU leadership on the constitution.

"The crisis seems to be getting worse," he said adding, "The question now is who is going to be able to lead us out of this crisis."

"Someone has to take responsibility, someone has to take initiatives. If it's not the parliament, then who is going to take the lead and stand up for the constitutional process?"

It is kind of Duff and Voggenhuber to selflessly burden themselves with this responsibility. But why not leave it to the French and Dutch people? They stood up to the constitutional process, didn't they?

(76)

Tony Blair showed just how courageous he is... he chose to face up to an internal battle based on one idea - the European Union - rather than just doing his job as just Britain's prime minister.

Pity Samizdata.net does not have a catagory for articles called "Treason & Betrayal".

(34)

Seldom in the course of European negotiations has so much been surrendered for so little. It is amazing how the Government has moved miles while the French have barely yielded a centimetre.

- William Hague

(28)

Charles Crawford, the British ambassador to Poland, is in hot water for an e-mail which says several entire true things:

He describes the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as "the most stupid, immoral state-subsidised policy in human history, give or take Communism".

He also ridicules French leader Jacques Chirac for "nagging the British taxpayer to bloat rich French landowners and so pump up food prices in Europe, thereby creating poverty in Africa".

He also suggests Blair gives EU leaders one hour to make up their minds on the budget because "If anyone says no, we end the meeting. The EU will move on to a complete mess of annual budgets. Basically suits us - we'll pay less and the rebate stays 100 percent intact".

Oh, but he was only 'joking' of course. Riiiight.

Yes, this guy should indeed be fired from his job as an ambassador... he belongs in 10 Downing Street doing Tony Blair's job!

(31)

Britain's government surrenders billions of our money to the EU in return for... nothing much... and that has left the UK government 'isolated' because more was not surrendered.

The gall of the Gauls at insisting Britain's taxpayers stump up even more when they are massively greater beneficiaries of the EU's largess than the UK is breathtaking but far from surprising.

Britain is not even nearly isolated enough from the EU for my taste.

(11)

The US Constitution begins, famously, "We the People...". The European Constitution begins, "His Majesty the King of the Belgians...". That gives you a fair idea of the different spirit of each document.
- Charles Moore

(Hat tip to Taylor Dinerman for pointing out this gem)

(42)

Unbelievable. Blair is actually going to fold on the EU rebate for the UK? Why? What possible advantage could it bring him politically to give away even more of our money to the parasites in Brussels?

What ever happened to:

If we cannot get a large deal, which alters fundamentally the way the budget is spent, then we will have to have a smaller EU budget
- Tony Blair

We were told that the British rebate would only be negotiable if the monstrous EU agricultural subsidies were also negotiable. Yet France et al have give up nothing whatsoever of any consequence, and yet the halfwit in Downing Street is going to give them want they want anyway? WTF?

I must be missing something here.

(100)

Eurostat has concluded that sixteen percent of the population resides in poverty. At a first reading this appeared quite a high figure, perhaps mitigated by the enlargement process in 2004. On closer examination, this statistical sleight of hand concerned the level of social inequality in each Member State. Poverty was measured as that proportion of the population who had less than 60% of the country's median disposable income. Hence, these startling results:

Using a set of micro-data and cross-sectional indicators from national sources, Eurostat determined the percentage of people living in households that have less than 60% of the country's median disposable income to live on. Surprisingly, this indicator for social inclusion is best in some poorer countries, such as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia. The Czech Republic's leadership shows that recent policy plays a greater role in combating poverty than a country's historical background. Slovakia, which was part of the same country as the Czech part of the former Czech Republic for more than sixty years until 1993, has the worst indicators eleven years after Czechoslovakia split.

Being poor does not mean the same throughout the European Union. While a four-person family with an annual purchasing power of 30,000 euro in Luxembourg is already threatened by poverty, a family with 5,000 euro a year in Lithuania or Latvia is just above the poverty line.

(20)

William Heath has another example that even when governments set out to do a Good Thing, it's not necessarily worth it.

Europe's governments, freaked out by how good and free Google is, have knee jerked and spent a pile of money launching an online Euro-library. "We're engaged in a global competition for technological supremacy�, said French President Jacques Chirac about this. "In France, in Europe, it's our power that's at stake�. Let's show them what an intergovernmental steering commitee can achieve, when backed up by a series of working goups.

Predictably enough this was no contest.

Well, Google print is unbelievable. I never asked for it, it cost me nothing, it works very fast and I'm delighted. Euro-lib didn't find anything for me, just crashed my browser (Mozilla).

Euro-lib sounds a bit sleezy, doesn't it? Anyway, William then picks on the Euro efforts to develop a search engine called Quaero widely seen as a potential competitor to Google. (!) Oh dear.

Nobody has ever heard of it (although Google turns up several Quaeros, of course). What next? EC-funded Euromaps? Euromail? Euro-Earth (perhaps just restricted to Europe, and called Euro-Euro)?

Would it be too Anglo-centric to ask: "Can I have my tax back now please?"

We hear you...

Note: William has started another Ideal Government project, this time about Europe, Ideal Government Europe. I meant to blog about it and others already beat me to it. In the sidebar blurb William asks:

Public sector computerisation will cost Europe �88bn in 2005. But did we ever say what we wanted? Are e-government projects designed for citizens? Do we use them? Will they make life easier and meet our needs? Should we trust them? Unless we ask, how can they give us what we want? Thinking and saying what we want is more fun than griping, and more constructive too.

The answer to his questions is a resounding NO from where I am standing and I am not holding my breath at William's or anyone's chance to affect anything to do with the EU, however, can't blame the man for trying to voice his objections when he gets the opportunity to make them to the EU audience and add the bloggers voices to his own.

(55)

The EU Courts have just given themselves the power to impose European criminal laws, by which I mean to decide itself if an offence against an EU regulation is now a criminal matter, even against the wishes of an EU states own government and legal system. How anyone who is even a casual observer of the EU could not have predicted this was on the cards is a mystery to me.

So next time you hear someone tell you that the real power remains, and will always remain, at the national level, perhaps you might like to ask them if deciding if something is, or is not, a criminal matter is a core function of a state's legislative and judicial structures.

If people like Tony Blair and Ken Clarke want to dismantle Britain and make it a European province, well would it not be better if they just said as much and argued why that was the best course of action?

But Foreign Office sources said that, although the judgment raised the possibility of Britain having to create new criminal offences against the wishes of the Government, in practice EU member states would never agree to such a loss of sovereignty.

Any time you hear 'Foreign Office sources' say something will not happen 'in practice', of course that means the opposite is usually true. I expect within 18 months or so Britain will indeed be enacting criminal legislation imposed by European Courts on a regular basis.

(9)

Anatole Kaletsky, the economics journalist who, despite a fondness for Keynsianism, is one of my favourite columnists, believes Italy's departure from the euro and possible re-creation of the lira is a real possibility, one that needs to be taken with deadly seriousness by financial markets. He says the financial fallout from an Italian divorce could be disastrous:

While detailed consideration of these arguments is probably premature, the practical implication is clear: If the possibility of an Italian withdrawal were ever taken seriously by the markets, foreign holders of Italy�s €1.5 trillion public debt would face enormous losses, big enough to endanger the solvency of many non-Italian banks. In other words, the Italian Government is now in a position to kill the euro and wreck the European banking system merely by threatening to withdraw.

I think he is correct. As I said in my last posting about Hayek's idea of competing currencies operating inside the same country, it is folly to imagine that the cult of the all-wise central banker will not come a cropper some time or later. Many Italian entrepreuneurs might be very glad indeed of an alternate store of value if that country does indeed pull the plug on the euro.

Some scare stories deserve to be ridiculed but I think Kaletsky is on to something. Between now and the Italian national polls next year, it would be smart to keep a very close eye on the euro zone financial markets indeed.

(Thanks to the Adam Smith Institute blog for the pointer. It reaches pretty similar conclusions).

(22)

UK authorities may be faced with a bit of a struggle in extraditing a man, now in Rome, for his alleged involvement in the failed July 21 terrorist attacks on the London transport system, according to this report.

So could some nice person remind me what the EU-wide arrest warrant is suppose to achieve, exactly? Oh, er, wait a minute...

(18)

More from the "You couldn't make it up" department. David Carr is fond of saying that the satyrist's trade is hard these days, because reality has a habit of being so very much more satirical.

This is presumably the kind of thing he means:

Slovakia and Hungary are being served notice that the Commission is about to take them to the European Court of Justice for not complying with certain parts of EU legislation.

Apparently, neither country has implemented a number of directives on maritime safety. Slovakia is being warned about having no legislation to do with passenger ships and prevention of pollution.

Hungary has no "availability of port facilities for ship-generated waste". Actually, Hungary has no ports or ships, being land-locked, as is Slovakia. That, apparently, is not the point.

The history of the USSR is repeating itself as farce. EUSSR. And the USSR was pretty farcical to begin with.

Speaking of David Carr and the EU being farcical, whatever happened to Bertrand Maginot. I miss him. The imposition of environment-friendly port facilities on landlocked countries sounds like something he would understand perfectly. It would be interesting to hear his view on this issue.

(12)

It is good to know that in these troubled times, when we feel under attack from terrorist nutters, that those considerate folk in the European Commission have refused to take their eye off the ball.

Vitamin supplements will become more expensive and many health food stores will be closed as a result of an EU directive being upheld. I find it depressing, but not the least bit surprising, that Brussels regulators should feel that ordinary folk are too thick to figure out the risks and benefits of vitamins for themselves. It is a setback for people who want to take charge of their health, and must send a funny message to people who are also constantly urged by our regulators and politicians about the dangers of obesity, smoking, booze and driving too fast.

Even if you are a sceptic about the benefits of so-called alternative medicine, it seems a fairly basic point that the substances one chooses to ingest are none of the State's business. Period.

(16)

I realize that is not the sort of headline Samizdata readers are used to, but the EU politicians voted the right way today.

The European Parliament in Strasbourg has thrown out, by 648 to 14 votes, a draft law for EU-wide software patents. The patent scheme was being pushed by Microsoft and a number of other dominant companies. But smaller software companies like Red Hat opposed the idea, knowing full well it was an attempt to stifle the ability of new companies to enter the software market.

Because the competitive process spurs companies to innovate, EU-wide software patents would have reduced innovation by reducing the ability of start-ups to compete. For Microsoft, the draft law had considerable merit: it would have undermined the ability of the open source software industry to develop products. Frankly, Microsoft is a strong enough competitor already.

In the software industry, programmers are protected by copyright - you cannot legally copy another programmer's work without permission. That protection enables the market to come up with innovative new software. Software patents are a protection too far. Strengthening them with an EU-wide law would have increased the power of incumbents. The European Parliament's decision today is the right one.

Crossposted from the Globalisation Institute Blog.

(12)

Flying swans are the logo of the UK's presidency of the EU over the next six months. Apparently, the UK officials are proud to point out that it is the first time an EU presidency has had an animated logo. I mean, how amazing is that? Watch out Jacques!

The idea is a metaphor for leadership, teamwork and efficiency, which is particularly appropriate for the EU, given the system of rotating leadership. Migrating birds fly in a V formation. This is highly efficient, because all the birds in the formation, except for the leader, are in the slipstream of another bird. Periodically the leading bird drops back and another bird moves up to take its place.

What a load of bollocks! We are talking about a bunch of bureaucrats and appratchiks desparately (at least I can hope) trying to recover their footing which was temporarily disrupted by the recent referenda on the EU constitution. But not everyone thinks the logo is ridiculous, for example the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds likes it:

One of the concerns being tackled in the UK's EU and G8 presidencies, was climate change, which could potentially prevent Whooper and Bewick's swans wintering in this country.

I am having trouble keeping a straight face here. But seriously, how about streching the metaphor a bit and hope it might be the EU swan song...?

(12)

Listening to Tony Blair addressing the EU parliament is a rather strange experience. He calls for reform of spending and recognising economic reality whilst at the same time declaring that he is a 'passionate European' and saying that he supports the idea of an intrusive welfare state.

That Blair's views on the need to 'liberalise' makes him a Thatcherite radical in the eyes of many Continental politicians shows how truly doomed to long term stagnation and irrelevance the EU really is. It also shows Blair's wish to be all things to all people and why in the long run NuLabour cannot help but choke on its own contradictions just as the Tories have.

(15)

...on Waterloo Day, of course.

Addendum...

(36)

This BBC report about the anxieties and arkwardnesses now being suffered by the EU's leaders in the wake of their repudiation by the voters of France and Holland makes fun reading for all those of us who fail to see the point of the EU. What is it for? What good and worthwhile thing can the EU do that could not be done just as easily by the separate nations and governments of Europe with a fraction of the fuss or expense or grief? Why must the nations of EUrope homogenise themselves into one nation? For what? Against whom? The EU's leaders have never explained in a manner that makes simultaneous sense to all of EUrope's people.

Instead, they have tended to fall back on the argument that the EU is inevitable. Yes but is it desirable? That does not matter, because desirable or not, it is happening. It is reality. It is the future. Arguing that it should not be reailty or the future is to indulge in fantasy.

If the EU had a desirable and agreed purpose of the sort that the people of the EU might actually be able to get enthusiastic about � some purpose, I mean, other than that of giving the EU elite a superpower to be the bosses of � that would have made quite a difference in recent weeks. In crisis, all fundamentally effective institutions go to their core purpose. But the EU has no core purpose that its leaders are willing to allude to. All that the EU has is its precious momentum, its inevitability, and if it suddenly looks like it does not have momentum or inevitabitlity, then, in the word's of Germany's Vice President, a certain Guenter Verheugen, "the ground is shaking beneath our feet".

Shake baby shake, I say.

The EUro-momentum will no doubt soon be re-established, and this little democratically induced tremor may soon be forgotten. But while it lasts, I am enjoying it. I can even tell myself that it might be remembered for a while.

(21)

As several people have predicted would be the case, many of the EU's 'great and good' are just continuing with the Great European Integration project as if the French and Dutch NO votes never happened. But it does seem that the shock to the system those votes administered to the torpid media has indeed woken up a few people. It seems that the insects have not noticed that someone has picked up the rock they were under.

With almost Marxist historiography, Eurocrats dismiss the French and Dutch results as the product of "false consciousness". The peoples of those two countries plainly misunderstood the issue. They were really voting against Turkey, or against Raffarin, or against Anglo-Saxon liberalism - against anything, in short, except the proposition actually on the ballot paper.

[...]

During the recent referendums Yes campaigners argued that a No vote would be a rejection, not simply of the constitution, but of the entire European project. Let them now stand by their own logic.

With luck the Euroclass will continue to seriously underestimate the problem and thereby create enough real hostility that the whole European edifice will just start lurching from one political crisis to another until various bits start falling off... preferably UK shaped bits.

(29)

Jacques Chirac has announced that Britain must give up its rebate on its EU contributions as a £3 billion (5.5 bn US dollars) 'gesture of solidarity' with Europe, whilst at the same time adding the France would do nothing of the sort itself when it came to agricultural subsidies.

Tony, not surprisingly, sadly declined Jacques kind suggestion that he publicly commit political suicide in Britain. I guess they never saw that coming in Paris.

(31)

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso says:

Europe must avoid an ideological war between free-market capitalism and the welfare state after the rejection of the EU's constitution, [he] said on Saturday

Wrong. An ideological war is exactly what we need and it is long overdue. Pick up your spanners then go find some gears to throw them into.

(11)

As soon as the 'unthinkable' becomes thinkable it also, and immediately, becomes sayable as well:

Italy's labor minister called for a referendum to see if Italians want to temporarily bring back the lira after widespread popular discontent over high prices that many blame on the introduction of the euro.

Temporarily?

Meanwhile, rumours that the German government is looking to distance itself from the Euro are being 'officially denied'.

Of course, none of this means that the Euro is going anywhere anytime soon or possibly at all but it would be fun to start a sweepstake on which Eurozone country will be the first to cut and run. For what it's worth, my guess is France.

(54)

European Constitution. 2000 - 2005. R.I.P

The European Constitution died earlier this evening following a short but torrid illness.

The sad passing of the Constitution is unlikely to be a surprise to many people who doubted whether she would be able to recover from the savage beating she took in France last weekend. Indeed, it may prove to have been a merciful providence that she found herself in a terminal condition in the euthanasia-friendly Netherlands where she was emphatically put out of her misery.

For those who witnessed the last few undignified days of her life being dragged ignominiously around the squalid back-streets of Amsterdam, it will be easy to forget that the Constitution began her life as a daughter of the Europe�s elites; a cherished brainchild of the new aristocracy and the bearer of all their hopes and wishes for a secure and golden future.

Her all too brief life started out with glamour and hope and ended with controversy and acrimony. But, what she lacked in longevity she made up for in impact, holding an entire continent in her thrall. She was the �It� girl of Europe and there could scarce have been a single Prime Minister, President, King or Bishop who did not want to walk into a room with her draped across his arm.

But it was her qualities of impeccable breeding that gave rise to resentments as well as plaudits. For everyone that she seduced with her charms, she vexed with her arrogance. For all those that were willing to flirt with her, there were others that feared her embrace. In the end she was brought low by the little people she was born to rule over.

As much as any analysis of the Constitution is possible at all, then the final one must be that she was a puzzle draped in an enigma. Even those closest to her admitted that she was difficult to read and even harder to interpret. Despite all earnest attempts to present her as something coherent and friendly, she remained stubbornly opaque and inpenetrable; a capricious, whimsical, moody, temperamental, volatile, eccentric, arbitrary, erratic, fickle, inconstant coquette whose last act of defiance is to take her unfathomable mysteries with her to the grave.

The Constitution will be greatly missed by her many friends and admirers, and especially those among them who believed her to be the lifetime meal ticket they were yearning for.

Details will be published shortly of all ecumenical, humanist, non-denominational memorial services to be held in Brussels and Strasbourg. No flowers please but send donations to charities concerned with the rehabilitation of clinically depressed Technocrats (of whom there are now many).

(16)

Good on the Dutch.

Dutch voters overwhelmingly rejected the European constitution in a referendum Wednesday, exit polls projected, in what could be a knockout blow for the charter roundly defeated just days ago by France.

An exit poll projection broadcast by state-financed NOS television said the referendum failed by a vote of 63 percent to 37 percent. The turnout was 62 percent, exceeding all expectations, the broadcaster said.

Although the referendum was consultative, the high turnout and the decisive margin left no room for the Dutch parliament to turn its back on the people's verdict. The parliament meets Thursday to discuss the results.

(8)

Dennis McShane, former Minister of Europe, does not appear to have fallen away from the limelight completely, given his recent appearance on Question Time and his subsequent interview for UPI. Cheerleading for Europe with Dimbleby will not tax anyone, but McShane provided some more interesting comments that may cast some light on the current thinking about Europe within the Blair administration, or what backbenchers have to say if they wish to be considered for the next reshuffle.

From the first, McShane makes a point of viewing the French referendum in the faint tones of a realist who accepts a verdict of imprisonment. It is a counsel of acceptance and stoicism, of truth-telling and endeavour; that infamous stranger to the truth, Blairite candour:

"Britain will hold a referendum if there is a treaty to hold a referendum on," MacShane said. "But a French Non means the new Treaty of Rome cannot be ratified. It was always a mistake to call a Treaty a constitution. But a constitution needs the confidence of the people and powerful, united leadership. Europe lacks confidence and effective leadership today so it was not a propitious time to hold plebiscites on the new Treaty. There may be some who hope this Treaty can be made to fly but it would be an insult to France and her citizens to say the Treaty they reject will continue on as a dead man walking. We will have to begin again."

The critique proffered is interesting, since it borrows and begs arguments from the Eurosceptics, in order to incorporate them into pro-EU swaddling. McShane recognises the hostility with which the smaller countries attacked the removal of their representation on the Commission and yet, defends the existing Constitution as a "coherent response" to the problems of the European Union. However, the Constitutional answer (to a question that none of Europe's electorates ever asked) was found wanting. The leaders of Europe could not inspire their voters and the European economy was ruined by:

"... wrong decisions by the European Commission with its obsession on over-regulation and by the failure of the European Central Bank to respond to the economic standstill," MacShane said. "Political-constitutional advances have to be based on economic and social confidence. "

The Eurosceptic critique of the project needs to respond to the flanking movement of pro-Europeans like McShane, who borrow their ideas in order to promote different conclusions. Like some grinning, drooling revenant, that refuses to die, unlike the rest of the reactionaries that pass for social democrats these days, the Third Way has been resurrected as an unlikely combination of welfarism, market economics and environmentalism to provide a new moral backbone for coercion in the name of the public good that is Europe.

"The answer will not be found by the gentlemen of Brussels but by the willingness of political actors in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Britain and the rest of Europe to rethink out-of-date 20th century economic and social ideology. We need a new 3-way historic compromise between economy, society and environment. Unfortunately we only hear the shrill protectionism and rejectionism of those who know how to say No to the future rather than work collaboratively to build a new Europe."

"I hope this shock will force pro-Europeans to unite and defeat the reactionary forces of the left and right who have unleashed a politics of fear in place of the hope all Europeans need," McShane added.

It is too early to tell if this forms an altered vision of Europe, one that may appeal to moderates and one nation Tories. By acknowledging its current failures, McShane's arguments may provide a pleasing lure for those who argue that the European Union can be reformed. It also gives pointers to Blair's approach in the forthcoming British Presidency of the European Union. As such, the Eurosceptic movement needs to counter conservatives and reformers within the EU, forcefully argueing that such approaches will prove inferior to the development of a free-trading area.

(83)

We have already had people from the commission this morning talking about how they 'interpret' the French vote. What don't they understand? No is no.

If the government in this country or the commission try to breathe life into this corpse, then we in Britain we must have a say to deliver the final blow.

- Liam Fox, Tory Shadow Foreign Secretary

(31)

With the decisive French 'Non' to the EU Constitution, clearly the whole project for European super-statist integration has taken a hit unlike any in its history thus far. In many ways the most significant feature of this is that it has made the intellectual and social disconnect between whole peoples in the EU's constituent nations impossible to paper over. In short, the nation called 'Europe' is seen to be a fiction and the 'inevitable march of progress' has been shown to be an illusion.

So what happens next? The obvious move by Tony Blair is to cancel the UK's promised referendum as being moot now that the process has been derailed. Yet there are already frantic attempts going on by the integrationists to prevent that from happening, on the basis that it would be an admission that the process really is over.

Now this attempt to get the UK to vote anyway is really splendid news and I hope that other people who share my views that the EU is an abomination will remember Napoleon's dictum "never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake" as any UK vote will almost certainly be a vote against the EU which will just widen the rift in political cultures between France and the UK.

As I have stated before, unlike David, I wish that France had voted 'Oui' so that Blair could not possibly wriggle out of his commitment to hold a referendum and thus allow Britain to vote 'No', thereby making the UK a virtual 'pariah state' to the French, Spanish and German political elites and as a result making them perverse allies in the effort to disengage the UK from the EU. Oh well, scratch one possible optimistic scenario but the situation is now alive with all sorts of other interesting possibilities.

But it is still hard to see the rejection of the EU Constitution by anyone as bad news. How it will play out remains to be seen but the attempt to sleepwalk Europe into an ever more dystopian regulatory super-state just got a bucket of cold water poured over it. The game is afoot and provided the Tory Party do not go and live up to their nickname name by choosing some member of the Quisling right to lead them, maybe even that collection of risk averse Grandees will realise that taking on the EU is something that can reap huge political benefits. Labour too must be looking at the spectacle of the French power elite being bitten in the arse by millions of common people who want the political system to impose economic and social stasis to a background rap of splendidly unintelligible gibberish from sundry French intellectuals and thinking "there but for the grace of God...". At least some of them must be wondering if the downside of Euro-integration is worth the political risks.

The dismay is palpable. It is hard not to laugh.

(47)

To all French crypto-communists, syndicalists, marxists, trotskyites, leninists, stalinists, national socialists, socialist nationalists, primitivists, Trade Union dinosaurs, student activists, greenie nutters, neo-fascists, old fashioned fascists, quasi-crypto-troglodyte-Pol-Pottist-year zero-flat-earthers, looney tunes and enviro-goons... Merci Beaucoup!!!!

I could kiss every single one of you (but I don't know how to say that in French).

(49)

For what it may or may not be worth, Channel 4 News has just said that a leaked exit poll gives the Non side victory with between 53 and 55 per cent of the vote.

Meanwhile, the EU Referendum blog reports that it has read a document which explains that Non will not actually mean No:

In short, the authors conclude that, in the event of one or both countries voting "no", the ratification process should be neither suspended nor abandoned. They assert that all member states have expressed a commitment to proceed with ratification by virtue of Declaration 30, appended to the Constitutional Treaty. Member states cannot unilaterally or collectively decide to change the ratification process.

Thus, member states which have not already ratified should continue with the process whence, once 20 members have done so, the matter should be referred to the European Council.

In the meantime, the authors caution that "the European Union must not remain paralysed". Rather, they say, "it must continue and intensify its efforts to relaunch its policies, even by implementing in advance, where possible, the provisions of the Treaty that do not meet with open opposition".

Thus, the considered response in the event of a rejection of the constitution should be "full steam ahead". Member states should implement it even faster than they are doing already.

Very helpful. I wish I could be equally helpful in return on this question:

So what, precisely, do we have to do to stop this thing?

I read the EU Referendum blog in the hope of getting answers to questions like that. If they have to ask that, what is the chance that anyone else will have an answer?

(51)

Having been subjected to some robust criticism for my occasional cyncism about the whole modern democratic process, I am actually a little peeved to discover that I am but a mere dilettante:

If the French and the Dutch reject the EU Constitution on Sunday and Wednesday, they should re-run the referendums, the current president of the EU, Jean-Claude Juncker, has said.

"If at the end of the ratification process, we do not manage to solve the problems, the countries that would have said No, would have to ask themselves the question again", Mr Juncker said in an interview with Belgian daily Le Soir.

'No' is not the right answer, you see.

The whole bloody continent is heading for another war. Britain out now.

Sidenote: This Mr. Juncker chappie is the president of the EU? Hands up anyone, anywhere who has ever heard of him!

(39)

French voters go to the polls this weekend to vote on the European Union constitution, with polls so far suggesting that the "no's" will narrowly win and shaft the wretched project, although one should never, ever under-estimate the ability of the political establishment to scare voters into saying "oui". My hope, needless to say, is that the French vote against the constitution and throw a great big spanner in the works and prevent the creation of what will be, explicitly, a European superstate.

It is pointless at this vantage point to guess exactly what will be the impact on British political life if the French do nix the constitution. My rough guess is that Blair will secretly breath a deep sigh of relief, as will the Tories. I also think that the United States will also be glad about a no vote, although I am just guessing.

As Anatole Kaletsky writes in the Times today, the chronic underperformance of the euro zone economy is at the heart of much of that disenchantment (although other issues are important too).

Here's a key graf:

The relative economic decline of "old" Europe since the early 1990s - especially of Germany and Italy, but also of the Netherlands and France - has been a disaster almost unparalleled in modern history. While Britain and Japan certainly suffered some massive economic dislocations, in the early 1980s and the mid-1990s respectively, they never experienced the same sort of permanent transformation from thriving full-employment economies to stagnant societies where mass unemployment and falling living standards are accepted as permanent facts of life. In Britain, unemployment more than doubled from 1980 to 1984, but conditions then quickly improved. By the late 1980s it was enjoying a boom, the economy was growing by 4 per cent and unemployment had halved. In continental Europe, by contrast, unemployment has been stuck between 8 and 11 per cent since 1991 and growth has reached 3 per cent only once in those 14 years.

He has a point, although I am struck by the fact that in France, much of the hostility to the constitution is coming not from pro-free marketeers, as is the case in many respects in Britain, but from those who fear that the process will open up France's high regulated, high-tax economy to the icy winds of laissez faire. The ironies abound.

Of course, the fact of mere voters saying no to the EU juggernaut is unlikely to deflect the mixed assortment of deluded idealists, crooks, place-seekers and sundry camp-followers from trying to advance their aims. But a delicious irony would it be if the land of Bonaparte, de Gaulle and Asterix puts a major block in their path.

(29)

Xavier Méra has a piece up at Institut économique Molinari about the continuing and seemingly never-ending EU vendetta against Microsoft.

Concluding paragraphs:

That is not all. EU spokesman Antonia Mochan observed that the Media Player affair went "beyond the question of its name," which has now been settled. Indeed, Microsoft's rivals complain that the reduced version of Windows is not totally compatible with their programs. The EU's competition department has stated that tests are under way, and an EU source wishing to remain anonymous confirmed the plaintiffs' complaints about compatibility. It is perhaps this aspect, the least widely reported in the Media Player affair, which reveals the most about the validity of the charges made against the IT giant. In fact, if the commission ends up denouncing this state of affairs, it will once again be contradicting grievances it has put forward about Microsoft.

The point of the penalty is that the integrated version of Media Player allegedly damages competitors. Withdrawing it should therefore benefit them. If this is not the case, as they say and as the commission spokesperson suggests, that means these rival software writers are in reality third-party beneficiaries of the Windows Media Player system. It cannot be argued in the same breath that Microsoft both hurts and helps its competitors with the same product. It follows then that we cannot criticize Microsoft both for putting forward a Windows "N" that is "flawed" because it doesn't contain specific Media Player files, and for being an "unfair" competitor with its complete version.

In a trial where logic has not been taken seriously, arbitrary judgement has played a more significant role than reason and experience. As the accusation continues down the same path, the Microsoft case is coming to look more and more like a witch-hunt.

Well, it sounds to me more like that Microsoft, having been ordered to do business differently from the utterly reasonable and beneficial-to-all-except-rivals way that it wants to, may have introduced a little minor self-inflicted sabotage, Atlas Shrugged style, in order to make the EU regulators feel like the prats that they are.

Either that, or they are maybe indulging in that alternative version of sabotage that consists of doing everything you are told and nothing else, which always causes havoc. Few things ruin complicated technological systems more quickly and more completely than pure obedience. Okay, if that is what you bastards say you want, that is what you will get . . .

And I say that they have a perfect right to do all of that. I have always thought that bitching about Microsoft including Media Player in Windows is about as sane as complaining about a car company including hub caps on its cars, on the grounds that this discriminates against disappointed hub cap suppliers. Which it sort of does, but so bloody what?

By the way, the first version of this posting that I stuck up was entitled, in error: "The EU versus the EU (again)". (I decided to change it from "Microsoft versus the EU" to "The EU versus Microsoft", but only got half way.) But maybe this was not such an error. Self destruction is what the EU often seems to be all about.

(5)

For those of you not able to drag your attention from our fascinating British national poll (okay, I'll turn the snark button off now) there is always the European Union to keep us all amused. It emerges that the EU Commission has gotten a bit red-faced after it emerged that two saunas were installed in the new Brussels HQ out of consideration for its Scandanavian staff.

This seems a bit mean. It must be nice to unwind and loosen those muscle pains after a hard day churning out interminable directives and figuring out new ways to shaft Chinese textile exporters. In fact, I would like to make a modest proposal: perhaps all such officials could spend a lot more time in saunas, not to mention theatres, cinemas, restaurants, nightclubs, race courses and football grounds. In fact, anywhere but their own offices.

(43)

This Friday, Michael Jennings will be doing my last-Friday-of-the-month talk, about China. Emergence of, economic miracle, impact on rest of world, and so on.

And, as if determined to assist me in my efforts to publicise this event, the European Union, in the person of Euro-Panjandrum Peter Mandelson, has been uttering anti-Chinese fatuities:

The European Union has called on China to reduce its clothing exports to Europe or else face enforced limits.

That was the warning given by EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, as he launched an EU probe into nine categories of Chinese textile exports.

Exports of certain Chinese clothing items to Europe have surged by more than 500% since an international quota system came to an end on 1 January.

Heaven forbid that the people of Europe should be allowed to buy really cheap clothes, as much as they want. Clearly this is a retrograde step, and must be resisted.

"Europe" still lectures places like China as if places like China are the Third World, and Europe, obviously, is the first. But this has a very eighteenth century Asia feel to it, to me. Europe can no more prevent itself being swamped by, flooded with, etc. (although "sold" would be a better word) cheap clothes now than Asia could then prevent the incoming tide of pots and pans, cups and plates, and shirts, made in what was then the English workshop of the world.

This nonsense seems all to be based on some Agreement that was signed a few years ago. And it perfectly illustrates the folly of such agreements, which serve only to allow the supposedly protected industries to remain somnolent for a few more precious years, thereby to lose all touch with economic reality beyond the protections behind which they briefly shelter, to the point where the pressure of economic reality becomes so immense that it is impossible to resist, at which point the protection collapses and economic melt-down duly happens.

It also illustrates Public Choice Theory rather nicely. You can be sure that hundreds of desperate European shirt and trouser makers are even now busily conspiring to explain that Mandelson is talking sense rather than nonsense. Meanwhile the people whom Mandelson is trying to harm (everyone else in Europe plus many thousands of poor workers in China) will be too busy with other things to object very loudly. After all, each of us will only suffer a bit, and anyway, what can any of us do if the EU/Peter Mandelson has decided to harm us all, a bit. That is not news. That is Euro-business as usual.

In due course, the benefits to all of us of free trade with China will be concentrated into the hands of a few illegal clothes importers. But the clothes will not be quite so good or quite so cheap.

Reuters reports on the Chinese response here. My thanks to Alex Singleton of the Globalization Institute for the links, via this, which continues to happen at the ungodly hour that was originally promised. Tim Worstall comments on the same story at the Globalization Institute blog, making similar points to mine about the concentration of the (temporary) benefits associated with protection, but the dispersed nature of the costs, and about how previous restrictions have only stored up trouble.

Meanwhile, how else is "Europe" responding to the menace of people working too hard? By having a law against it.

(26)

It is a distinct possibility that the French Left will mobilize enough folks to vote down the EU constitution because, get this, it favours the free market too much. Well whatever, just so long as they vote Non, does it really matter that their reasons are completely antithetical to the reasons most Brits oppose the EU Constitution?

Or does it?

For people such as myself who do not believe that the EU can be reformed, it seems to me that far more damage will result to the EU by a British 'no' than from a French 'non'. Why? Because France is inseparable from the whole neo-Carolingian Franco-German 'Greater Europe' project and thus accommodating French political realities are inevitably what will happen in the aftermath of French rejection of the Constitution. Britain on the other hand is seen rightly or wrongly as peripheral in the long run and thus a British rejection could well lead to the increasingly held view amongst the Europhiles that only with the UK out of the EU, either completely or in effect, can their grand aspirations be achieved... and that sounds pretty damn sweet to me as I want the UK out of the EU altogether.

That said, a French rejection which leads to so extreme a second attempt to draught a Euro-constitution that even the Europhiles in Britain blanche from trying to sell it to the Eurosceptic Brits works for me as well. Only time will tell.

(19)

I attended a one-day conference on the EU Constitution today, drawing together an eclectic mixture of people from all parts of the political spectrum, both British and foreign, and all united on the need to get a decisive No vote in the event that Mr Blair decides to hold a referendum on one (let's pray it is not done by postal vote, god help us). I attended the morning session and drifted home for lunch with my head still ringing with one of the best speeches by a politician I have heard for years.

The politician's name is Steve Radford and he is a Liberal Party councillor in England. His party is the bit that refused to merge with the old Social Democrats and decided to keep the flame of Gladstone, Richard Cobden and Joe Grimmond burning bright. Well, if Mr Radford's performance was a guide, the Liberal Party is a very interesting outfit indeed. He denounced the European Union's economic tariffs most effectively by holding up a bag of sugar and pointed out that the price of the bag is inflated fourfold by tariffs. He denounced the rampant corruption, cronyism and lack of democratic accountability of the EU, a situation which will get only worse if the EU Constitution becomes a fact. He was passionate in making the free market case - all too rare these days, and frequently very funny.

It is refreshing to hear an actual big-L Liberal refer to the anti-Corn Law League and the great campaign to promote free trade by the likes of Richard Cobden. I don't know about all his views on other subjects, but if every member of the Liberal Party were like this man, I'd very seriously consider voting for it.

I hope we haven't heard the last of this gentleman.

(42)

Here are a few items concerning the various ghastlinesses of the EU.

First, a briefing paper from the Instituto Bruno Leoni, by Alberto Mingardi and Paolo Zanetto, about the Microsoft versus EU case. Pdf only, alas, but worth a look.

Microsoft stands accused by the EU of daring to supply an operating system that is too good and does too much and has been ordered by the EU to cripple it and to tell all its rivals how it does everything. Microsoft wants to call its crippled version of Windows "Crippled Windows" and the EU says it can't so there and has fined Microsoft Z zillion euros. To add lunacy to lunacy, the EU is now saying that when a multinational corporation wants to innovate, it must convince the EU that its innovation is a good idea. Never mind about convincing mere people. First, Mario bloody Monti and all his rapacious and power-mad cronies and successors have to be persuaded. So now, guess what, the EU is taking a swipe at the iPod. Microsoft said "the iPod is innovative � go investigate that". So the EU duly started an investigation into the iPod! No need for it. No reason. Not necessary. What's wrong with 78s? Hire a gypsy violinist.

I embroidered somewhat there, but only somewhat. The picture that Mingardi and Zanetto draw of the EU is not pretty. Expressions like "shake down" and "sting" are hard to avoid when pondering the behaviour of the EU towards Microsoft.

I would not normally have made myself read right through this piece, because it is too depressing. But I have been told to review it for here, where Mingardi adds some further comment on the case. Apparently Crippled Windows does not work as well as uncrippled Windows. Extraordinary.

And here are a couple of EU-related pieces in today's Telegraph.

Patrick Minford writes about the costs of EU anti-dumping rules. His title says it all: The EU's manufacturing policies are costing us a fortune. He is finishing a book. Thanks to Tim Worstall for that link.

And here is a news report about the EU's efforts to protect the government of Cuba from its dissidents. Do not provoke Fidel, says Louis Michel, the EU "development commissioner".

The EU would do better to concentrate on developing itself. I live in hope that the influence of the recent Eastern European additions to the EU, of countries where they take economic development seriously and seem to have quite a solid grip on what does and does not promote it, will improve the EU. But reports like those above make such optimism hard to cling to.

(22)

Though the pictures seem pretty, as a Christian, I probably would not care for the new book by Gerhard Haderer, an Austrian cartoonist. He depicts Christ as a "binge-drinking friend of Jimi Hendrix and naked surfer high on cannabis." What daring iconoclasm! In 1905, maybe. In 2005, apart from six nonagerian nuns living in enclosed orders and a few hobby-protesters, nobody gives a monkeys.

Yesterday if anyone had made the slightest suggestion that the furore that results from writing such a book qualified a man to be regarded as some sort of martyr for free speech, I'd have retorted that the "furore" had probably been budgeted for to the last euro by the publishers. "Regrettably, Herr Haderer, the market for Christian outrage is not what it was, and we cannot agree to your suggested advance." Or I'd have suggested that if he wants to play martyr he could try it with the Muslims, who are more likely to enter into the spirit of the game.

But by the holy bowels of Jimi Hendrix, the poor little poseur really is in danger of arrest. And do you know why? Because of the European arrest warrant, that's why. An Austrian cartoonist and writer faces extradition to Greece (Greece: why does that not surprise me?) for something he wrote in Austria. I assume that Austria has no law, or dead-letter law, against blasphemy. So he wrote something that was legal in Austria but not in Greece, and now he faces extradition to Greece. He did not even know his wretched book had been published in Greece.

I found this via Public Interest. Peter Briffa points out that when this law was introduced much was said by its sponsors about extraditing foreign criminals to Britain ... and very little about the extradition of British people to foreign countries for "crimes" that might well not be crimes at all in Britain.

Perhaps some legally knowledgeable reader can tell me if there is anything at all to stop this happening to, for instance, a British Samizdata contributor, if the authorities in some foreign capital should take a dislike to something he or she had written.

(20)

The Kyoto Protocol comes into effect today. It is a hollow victory for environmentalists. Over 150 of the world's countries are not participating in Kyoto cuts of greenhouse emissions. Only 35 countries have pledged to make greenhouse cuts. Only two of the EU15 countries are on track to meet their Kyoto commitments. Italy, a signatory to the treaty, says it won't seek further greenhouse gas emissions reductions after 2012.

The European Union is now calling for taxes to be increased on motorists to help Kyoto have a chance. But, as protests in France and Britain have shown, the European public is unlikely to find this acceptable. As a result of the British protest, the Fuel Duty Escalator - where the tax on petrol is increased yearly - was ended by Britain's finance minister Gordon Brown for fear of electoral disaster. So the EU is unlikely to meet Kyoto's requirements - despite the sanctimonious speeches of European leaders.

But the worst part of Kyoto is that it is, quite literally, a waste of money. It will have almost no effect, environmentally-speaking. The result of Kyoto's cuts will be that Europe will be poorer in the future. That will harm Europe's ability to invest in new technologies that will help improve quality of life and the environment. Kyoto gets religious-style worship, but it is bad news for the planet.

Crossposted from the Globalisation Institute Blog.

(18)

British citizens living abroad in Spain, as many now do, may be barred from voting in the forthcoming European Referendum, according to this article in the Daily Telegraph filed a few days ago. I hope the article turns out to be wrong, if only because the margins deciding this vital poll may be quite thin, as I fear during my gloomier moments. There are hundreds of thousands of Brits, many retirees, who have forsaken these shores for sunnier climes to the south. It would be unconscionable but entirely in keeping with how the EU operates, if they were to be denied the chance to have their say.

I have a sick feeling in my stomach that in the year we mark the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar, in which Admiral Nelson vanquished an early form of European transnationalism, the fate of British independence could be sealed due in part to a shoddily run referendum. I fervently hope I am dead wrong and there is high turnout for this poll when held.

(86)

This is an interesting titbit, in today's Guardian:

Peter Mandelson has attacked the BBC's coverage of Europe and accused Today presenter John Humphrys of "virulently anti-European views".

In a letter to BBC chairman Michael Grade, Mr Mandelson, the European trade commissioner, says the corporation has a "specific problem with the anti-European bias of some presenters" and said it was failing in its charter obligation to promote understanding of European affairs.

I seldom listen to the Today show, but it is clear from further remarks of Mandelson's that the Guardian goes on to quote that what Mandelson means by "anti-European views" is "anti-EU" views, which is a typically sneaky piece of EUrophilia. Has Humphrys been denouncing French cuisine, or Italian opera, or German engineering? Has he been saying that the French are all rude, the Italians rotten at driving, and the Germans all crypto-Nazis under a veneer of politeness. Has he been saying bad things about Estonians? No, of course not.

What Mandelson has accused Humphrys of is making EUroscepticism sound convincing, in the following rather interesting way:

The former trade secretary, who was appointed to the European commission last year, says the BBC gives too much coverage to moderate Eurosceptics and not enough airtime to extreme Eurosceptics such as UKIP.

So Mandelson has now become a UKIP supporter. How is that going to look? No doubt it is all part of some cunning plan designed to split the anti-EU camp and present it as all bonkers, xenophobic, etc., but it sounds to me like a somewhat high risk strategy. What if UKIP gets more airtime, in accordance with Mandelson's demands, and uses it to be rather persuasive?

I wonder if Mandelson also thinks that this man should have more airtime?

(35)

... is also sauce for the gander, so the old saying goes.

The preposterous EU proposal to extend the ban the symbols of the German Worker's National Socialist Party that is already law in France, Germany and elsewhere, has prompted a move to also ban communist and socialist symbols.

So now let us also ban Imperial Roman symbols (they were a slave owning political system), Christian symbols (Inquisitions, religious wars and sundry other nastiness), Confederate Flags... oh hell, let's just ban all symbols except the 'peace symbol' and the EU symbol.

Via Rex Curry.

(43)

There is a fine article by Tory MEP Daniel Hannan in the Telegraph called The EU's four-stage strategy to reduce Britons to servitude. It is an entirely accurate and reasonable article about the process of stripping British (and other European national) institutions of power and replacing them with Euro-level institutions.

He finished up with the notion that Michael Howard and the Tories will finally turn things around:

Mr Howard understands this very well. Not only is he a lawyer himself but, as home secretary, he clashed almost weekly with our judges - not least on immigration cases. He must have known that the EU would react as it did to his proposals: indeed, I suspect he was banking on it. He has said before that he wants to take powers back from Brussels but, until now, the issue on which he was planning to go into battle - the recovery of our fishing grounds - seemed rather marginal to most inland voters. Now he has found a casus belli where the country will be behind him.

It has been a besetting British vice that we ignore what is happening on the Continent until almost too late. But, when we finally rouse ourselves, our resolve can be an awesome thing. I sense that this may be such a moment.

But there is just one problem with that. The slide into the Euro-maw did not start under Tony Blair's government. In fact it would be no exaggeration to say that the UKIP would not exist today if significant numbers of Euro-sceptic voters were not sick of being lied to again and again and again by Tory politicians. As I said to a table full of captive Tory grandees when I spoke at an event commemorating the end of Exchange Controls, a great many Tory voters simply no longer believe that the Conservative Party actually wish to conserve the things they care about and I very much doubt that any amount of rhetoric by any Tory will win back the trust of days gone by. Many of those former Tories who joined UKIP did so not just to oppose the destruction of Britain as a separate political entity but also because they truly hate their former party and see UKIP as a way to destroy it by making it permanently unelectable.

So what Mr. Hannan says is all good stuff, but what makes him think people should trust the party of Michael Heseltine, Ken Clark and Chris Patten to actually turn things around?

(85)

I like airplanes, but am rather suspicious of this huge new Airbus that they have just rolled out, handsome though it does look and useful though it will surely be in many circumstances. In particular, I suspect that the A380 is costing Europe a whole lot more than is being officially suggested, and that Boeing decided not to build a similar aircraft for good, loss-avoiding reasons.

Well, I still do not know very much about Airbus finances, but this story certainly backs up the costing-more-than-they-are-admitting aspect:

TSUNAMI-struck Thailand has been told by the European Commission that it must buy six A380 Airbus aircraft if it wants to escape the tariffs against its fishing industry.

I realise that it is carrying the search for a silver lining to absurd lengths to say such a thing, but one good thing about this whole Tsunami horror is that it has brought this EU vileness rather more out into the open than would have happened otherwise. As it is, the combination of nastiness and lack of political sensitivity being shown by the EU is extraordinary even by their low standards. Do they not see that the Tsunami has somewhat changed things?

The Thai trade negotiators, not unreasonably, seem to betting that things are indeed now rather different. They seem to be calculating that, if they simply expose the nature of the deal they are now being faced with by the EU, the EU will back down in the face of worldwide disgust, not least within Europe itself. The Thais will get their aid. They will be allowed to sell their keenly priced fish products without punitive tariffs being slapped on them. And they will not have to buy six of these damned great airplanes unless they decide that they want to. All of which is a lot to hope for, but at least they may get more of what they want than they would have done if the Tsunami had no struck.

The EU Referendum Blog has more on this whole sordid episode:

The aircraft will cost Thailand some £1.3 billion � nearly the amount that all 25 EU members states have pledged in tsunami aid to the whole affected region.

Richard North also points out that Thailand was being shafted before the Tsunami in a similar manner. This is not about the EU getting nasty; it is about it remaining nasty.

But that is the EU, naked in tooth and claw. While workers from across world are on the ground, helping to rebuild the Thai economy, EU officials are also right in there � undermining the basis of any recovery.

And according to North, Thailand is not the only country that is being "encouraged" to buy Airbuses with EU trade policy concessions.

The irony is that by swapping a bit of freer trade for aircraft orders, the EU is agreeing, reluctantly, to do itself a favour. It is agreeing to impose the terrible burden of cheaper goods upon itself. But even when it does good things, it cannot seem to help stirring in bad things, like flogging unwanted airplanes.

(70)

We have said it before, but it bears repetition, that the coming EU referendum campaign will be the first internet campaign in our history and I remain convinced that the material on the net will have a decisive impact on the course of the campaign.

- Richard North, already quoted and linked to by Patrick Crozier as a response to my gloomier posting here

(27)

I find this all too persuasive. George Trefgarne sketches out how Tony Blair could win not only the next election by a mile, but then the Euro-referendum by enough to settle the matter for ever.

Key towards-the-end paragraph:

As the polls start to switch, other arguments are deployed by the pro-constitution lobby, of which the most potent is that the real choice is between ratifying the constitution, with all its disadvantages, or being reduced to a colonial outpost of George W Bush's America. Scare stories are spread that withdrawing would also mean the end to cheap flights to France and Spain. Then, in March 2006, a referendum results in a Yes vote, by 52 per cent to 48 per cent - and Teflon Tony will have done it again.

At the heart of Trefgarne's view of Britain now is the utter and continuing hopelessness of the Conservatives.

I confess that once upon a time I expected that America would be an issue to unite the Conservatives while still dividing Labour. But for many months now the Conservatives have been as split about America as they are about everything else. This means that they will remain a shambles for the foreseeable future, and that they will be in no state to argue persuasively against all that "colonial outpost of Bush's America" stuff, as and when it comes on stream. Even more than now, I mean.

(7)

TF1, a French TV station carries this [link disabled] video report of a debate within France's Socialist Party, concerning the ratification of the EU Constitution. Two campaigning websites each for and against are listed.

The 'No' camp is split with supporters of Henri Emmanuelli on the one hand, a corrupt politician who's main claim to fame was his position as Treasurer of the Socialist Party when many of its leading figures were being caught stealing public funds to finance the Party. On the other side are supporters of Laurent Fabius, part of what was once the reformist wing of the Socialist Party (in the mid 1980s). Fabius himself of course is one of the blood contamination killers, four Socialist politicians who allowed HIV infected blood to be used in blood transfusions, leading to the contamination of as many as 2,000 French haemophilliacs or half the total French haemophilliac population. I seem to recall that there was a screening method that was delayed, on the grounds of cost. Naturally, the politicians escaped punishment, other than a token criminal conviction for "involuntary homicide".

Details of the campaigning sites can be found here.

Sadly, with champions like this, the credibility of a "Non!" campaign would be somewhat stretched. Even in France.

(28)

Tony Blair has given himself until 2006 to win round a sceptical British public to a new European constitution after having signed the ghastly document yesterday in Rome. Whilst nothing is certain in this life and two years is a long time in politics, I think a third term in the White House for Ronald Reagan is slightly more likely than him succeeding on that count.

There will come a day when the obfuscation and doublespeak will finally come to an end and it appears that day will be in 2006. British people have it within their grasp to smash the brittle foundations of the European Union and I hope that there will be many people working to ensure that is exactly what happens regardless of what the apparatchiks of all three main parties want.

I see some interesting times ahead.

(56)

I take my good news where I can find it. The chaos in the EU corridors of power over the refusal by the EU parliament to ratify the proposed new line-up of EU Commissioners may only last a few weeks but hey, a few weeks in which the EU leviathan is unable to act is surely a net gain for humankind.

The fracas has been caused by opposition from PC types to the views of Commissioner-designate Rocco Buttiglione, who said that as a Roman Catholic, he regarded homosexuality as sinful. Well, he also said that he would not allow his moral views to support any laws against homosexuals, on the grounds that what is immoral should not necessarily be illegal. Such issues, he said, should be outside politics. I agree. If this man had supported bans on gay couples or use of State action against them, it would be an entirely different issue, but he said nothing of the sort.

By making that remark, the gentleman actually expressed a central feature of a liberal civil order. Many aspects of human dispute cannot, and should not, be dealt with by the law of the land. It is vital that there should be a space in which humans can disagree on moral matters without having recourse to law to make their views victorious. I support the wishes of gay men and women to get married, largely on the grounds that the State has no business telling us with whom we form binding relationships in the first place (so long as it involves consenting adults). But gay men and women should beware since the campaign to oust Mr Buttliglione as an example of how so-called liberals in positions of power in Europe are not really concerned about liberty, but power.

Where the EU is concerned, t'was ever thus.

(8)

Samizdata readers may have noticed a distinct absence of postings from me in the last couple of weeks. To those who miss my regular outbursts I offer my hearty apologies and the excuse of an unusually heavy workload. To those who rejoice in my absence I say, enjoy it while it lasts for I expect normal service to be resumed quite shortly.

In the meantime, however, I have noticed that the UK Times is carrying a banner headline that is so tempting that I am forced to drive a crowbar into the midst of my packed schedule and prize open enough space to briefly comment:

Barroso calls for help to avert crisis at the heart of Europe.

Don't all rush now.

(39)

The European Court has dispelled any residual doubt that it is little more than a politically motivated tool of the European Commission and continues its slow but steady construction of the means to make investigative journalism impossible in Brussels by ruling that Belgian police could seize Hans-Martin Tillack's computers and records to identify his sources regarding reports on EU corruption.

The Euro-court has made little attempt to hide that is has colluded with EU political interests in a judgement that cuts to the heart of journalists ability to report on wrong doing and corruption by politicians.

Euro-judges accepted commission claims that it played no role in the arrest of Mr Tillack, even though leaked anti-fraud office documents show it orchestrated the raid from the beginning.

Whistleblowing will not be tolerated. The superstate is not your friend.

(9)

If your political antennae have been sensitive to the undercurrents shimmering across the blogosphere, then you will have picked up the few postings alerting readers to the implications of the Civil Contingencies Bill. The dangers of this giant step towards authoritarianism have been publicised far more effectively both by David Carr and on Iain Murray's personal weblog, The Edge of Englands Sword:

Lord Lucas has described the Civil Contingencies Bill as comparable to Hitler's Enabling Act of 1933 which enabled him to transform Germany's Weimar Republic into his own personal tyranny. I have now read it, and I have to say that he is not exaggerating.

Readers could argue that this is an invocation of Godwin's Law and that, by quoting this passage, I have lost the argument. However, this opinion is that of Torquil Dirk-Erikson, "a noted Eurosceptic writer and learned silk". However, in considering the passage of this Act, it should also be noted that the European Constitution has a section on 'civil protection' as one of the coordinating powers for the European authorities.

The Government wishes to push through an updated Civil Contingencies Bill in 2004. It does not mention the EU, but the draft EU Constitution includes 'civil protection' as an area for 'coordinating action' and the current Treaty mentions the topic vaguely. The Bill also enables the creation of arbitrary imprisonable criminal offences. It enables regulations that can delegate powers to anyone or confer jurisdiction on any court or tribunal. This could be an EU body, unaccountable to government or the people.

Although the draft Constitution gives us a veto on a European Public Prosecutor (the Government says it 'currently' sees no reason for one) Blair has said that he opposes permanent 'opt-outs' or being isolated in Europe. Although the amended Bill states that it will not change criminal procedure, the Government is happy for the EU to have over-riding powers to do this via the EU Constitution.

These developments happen at a time when the Government is trying to introduce universal ID cards and a 'population register', and has just announced a national database to carry information on all children, not merely those 'at risk' (Sunday Times, 25.7.04). Again there are worrying parallels with European developments. Amazingly, MI5's website, which is listed in Preparing For Emergencies assures us that "the subversive threat to parliamentary democracy is now negligible".

One giant step along 'Chavez' Blair's road to a 'managed democracy'.

Cross-posted to White Rose.

(51)

As the British Conservative Party starts its annual conference today, I am sure a lot of party activists and Members of Parliament will wonder how they can deal with the threat posed by the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP).

The UKIP pushed the Tories into a miserable fourth place in last week's parliamentary by-election in Hartlepool, a seat vacated after disgraced former Cabinet Minister, Peter Mandelson, went off to Brussels for a cushy job in the EU (no doubt a place well suited to his talents).

UKIP has reversed its policy of not standing in election contests against euro-sceptic Tories. This looks like quite a calculated gamble to me. It means they have gone from being a bunch of slightly eccentric nuisances, as far as the chattering classes are concerned, to something a bit more serious.

The Tories to my mind have lost their bearings in the last six months. The decision by leader Michael Howard to flirt with Bush-bashing anti-Americanism, even to the point of letting colleagues work for the wretched John Kerry, looks like an act of supreme folly. But closer to home, the European issue remains the one the Tories have to get right if they want to survive as a serious political force.

It is going to be an interesting week for the Tories. And I am also looking forward to how the conference is covered by the blogs.

(85)

The hardening of the Frankenreich arteries is now so obvious that it cannot be ignored by even the likes of Will Hutton:

With all eyes fixed on the American presidential elections, the scale of the looming crisis in France and Germany has gone largely unremarked. But it may so change the political geography of Europe that British arguments for and against the EU will be made redundant. A pervasive sense of decline in both countries, only partially justified but none the less virulent, is destabilising not just the structures of the EU - but the political systems of France and Germany.

Only in the Guardian could someone express these views and still be welcomed in polite society. Having a column in that journal is like possessing a magic amulet. Say them anywhere else and you are 'xenophobic, racist and right-wiiiiiinnnng'.

It could all turn ugly; an unratified European Constitution, stagnating economies, new dark nationalist politics and a fragmenting European Union.

It all sounds most ominous. Britain should leave now while it still can, yes?

To imagine that Britain will be immune from this is absurd; what happens in mainland Europe will directly impact upon us as it has throughout our history. What is needed is an understanding that if European states don't hang together they will hang separately - and that because the European Union is the best we have, we'd better make it work.

The citadel is crumbling and the best way to save ourselves is to stand beneath the battlements and wait resolutely for the boiling oil to be poured over our heads.

Mr Hutton may have a magic amulet but that does mean that he is of any use in a crisis situation.

(20)

The European Union was the only diplomatic actor to sound a dissonant note after the atrocities in Russia. Whilst the chaotic information shed some light on the indifference of the Russian bureaucracy, Bernard Bot, the Dutch Foreign Minister, requested information on how the siege was handled by the authorities. Blasted as "odious", "insolent" and "blasphemous" by Russia, the EU has attempted to clarify this request as a mere fishing expedition for information, though it sounded critical, given its release in the aftermath of the atrocity. The BBC provide more information, including the telling note that the EU has adopted their methods by deleting the request from their official statement. Of course, the BBC provide a voice for the "insolent" Europeans.

But Andreas Gross, the Council of Europe's rapporteur on Chechnya, told the BBC he thought Mr Bot actually had a point.

"The Dutch minister was totally right because what we just heard on the news, that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin wants to enforce more security troops, he wants to have a new crisis management, that's not the point," he said.

"They have to understand what the people are who do not share their own point of view. And this is a political task they have to learn.

"And in this sense the Dutch minister made a very, very soft attempt to make them think about this, too," he added.

This is part of a telling pattern in the European Union's response to terror and genocide. There are no sanctions targeted on the regime of North Korea. The EU webpage on external relations with the DPRK shows that no action has taken place since 2002 and that Brussels has proved unable to condemn a regime that shoots, starves and gasses its own citizens in a slow-motion Terror. The entire relationship is a transfer of funds from the European taxpayer to the Korean communists for varied "humanitarian" projects. One detects the shade of Palestine wagging a finger, as another regime with the blood of innocents, is partially propped up with Euros.

The Russians may have shown a traditional indifference to human life. In Europe, it is clothed with the sweet stench of hypocrisy.

(17)

Clearly not satisfied with mere temporal power, some of Europe's ruling elite are now seeking divinity:

A campaign to sanctify the European Union through the beatification of its founding father, Robert Schuman, has run into stiff resistance from the Vatican and now appears likely to fail.

For 14 years investigators under the diocese of Metz have combed through the life of the French statesman to determine whether he merits the title "Blessed Robert", the first step to sainthood.

The drive for his beatification and eventual canonisation was launched by a private group in Metz, the St Benoit Institute, but has acquired powerful backers, including President Jacques Chirac.

I can find no information about the St Benoit Institute but the reference to 'powerful backers' leads me to suspect that they are merely the low-profile conduits for a project which has been germinated at a far higher and more official level.

I seldom comment of matters of religious doctrine or practice because, as someone without any faith to speak of, I do not consider them to be any of my business. However, this is not really about the practices of the Roman Catholic Church or even about the status of the late Mr. Schuman but more about Europe's elite seeking divine provenance for their transnational machine.

Is this how they now see themselves? As apostles of a blessed prophet working to establish a Church of Brussels? Would they prefer to be seen as the 'Annointed' rather than merely a political nomenklatura?

The presses of the European Fourth Estate may ring out furious daily denunciations of 'American arrogance' but I submit that it is next to impossible to find anything more wildly hubristic than a post hoc claim to the benediction of Holy Writ. Close your eyes for a moment and try to imagine the chorus of snorting, braying contempt that would be served up in response to George Bush seeking canonisation of, say, Thomas Jefferson.

I believe it was our friend David Farrer who first coined the term 'Holy Belgian Empire' to describe the European Union. He was joking, of course, and my how we laughed!

(3)

"Gold Plating" is the practice of getting an order (a 'directive') from our masters in the European Union and adding lot of additional regulations to it. Sort of...

"If this arbitrary order has not destroyed your business we will add regulations to it, and we will keep doing so until you are destroyed"...

..."Why are we trying to destroy you?"...

..."Well what else do we have to do, it would be lazy and unethical to just sit in our offices and not do anything".

The British Civil Service is supposed to love gold plating more than any other civil service in the EU. The British Civil Service having long prided itself on being more hardworking an ethical than Civil Servants in other nations (do not even think about bribing a British Civil Servant to save your business - he would rather starve than let you survive).

Examples are tossed about, supposedly a Directive on slaughter houses that started off as about 8 pages in Brussels (EU HQ) was turned in to about 7 pages in France - and about 97 pages in Britain.

No surprise that almost all of the little local slaughter houses closed down.

The BBC (and other such) still has the occasional item about how sad it is the all the local family owned places have gone, and how animals are now taken to great corporate factories (which actually have worse records for the quality and safety of meat). The little places may not have understood the paper work or been able to afford all the special people the regulations insisted they have (such vets - mostly from Spain) - but they did the job better. "Oh the wicked supermarkets" (they get the blame for destroying the "local food" from "local farmers" system that the media claim to love) "and now on to our next story about the need for more regulations concerning such and such".

Well the British Conservative party has promised to end gold plating and if a business thinks that a EU directive has been interpreted more strictly in Britain than in other parts of the EU (or just used as an excuse for another regulation orgy) they will be able to take the matter to court.

Well this is good as far as it goes. The promise to end gold plating is nice to hear (although I doubt the Civil Service would take any notice) and taking things to court might work sometimes - although the British courts (like the courts of most nations) are a mess (and getting worse - as they slowly reject what is left of the old 'out of date' principles of law).

However, it is also a wonderful way for the British Conservative party to look as if they are "doing something" about regulations and "standing up for Britain". After all by concentrating on 'gold plating' the Conservatives duck the issue of whether to defy ANY of the endless thousands of Directives that come out of the EU.

Too cynical? I hope so.

(6)

The Social Affairs Units has a great new digital publication called How to Maximise Your Expenses: Advice to new Members of the European Parliament.

Funny? For sure, but read it and weep.

(19)

The Royal Society has published its government sponsored report on nanotechnology. Professor Ann Dowling, the chair of the working group that wrote the report, produced a positive response in the press release:

The report does not find any justification for imposing a ban on the production of nanoparticles.

However, since these new technologies are uncertain and dangerous, the Royal Society called for the death of a thousand regulations. The Report concluded that all products including nanoparticles should be regulated by EU chemical regulation and the Health and Safety Executive:

Because of their novel chemical properties, the report recommends that nanoparticles and nanotubes should be treated as new chemicals under UK and European legislation, in order to trigger appropriate safety tests and clear labelling. Furthermore they should be approved – separately from chemicals in a larger form – by an independent scientific safety committee before they are permitted for use in consumer products such as cosmetics.

As the EU wishes to implement a new EU Directive (the Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals legislation - REACH) that introduces the precautionary principle to all chemicals produced within its borders, this sounds the death knell for nascent nanotechnology within Europe. The government has obtained the authority of the scientific profession (most of which works within the public sector) to justify conforming with EU regulation.

Will Europeans lynch their leaders when they realise they have been cheated out of an Age of Miracles?

(3)

One of the less trumpeted reforms of the European Union, brought about by the increase in the number of member states in May this year, is the reduction of British European Commissioners from two to one.

The news that arch-urophile Peter Mandelson is to replace both Neil Kinnock and Chris Patten gives me mixed feelings.

On the one hand there will be even less chance of dissent from the urophile orthodoxy. On the other hand one can hardly be too sad at the removal of Messrs Kinnock and Patten and their replacement by only one bureaucrat.

So what else is in the small print that somehow failed to get reported?

(3)

There is a stirring of campaign groups to oppose the EU constitution ratification in France. My latest posting on Combat links to the 'acceptable' opposition groups. To these we could add the far-right, who will no doubt be excluded from the 'official No campaign'.

Our biggest problem at the moment is the total lack of a mainstream anti-EU press. This is not that different from the Maastricht campaign of 1992, and at least the Internet is reducing the organisational advantage to the political establishment. We may also have funding problems, though this is not the concern right now.

At the moment, the main job is trying to establish who can vote and where. The big questions concern foreigners. Can they vote? Can they donate funds to the campaigns? I shall keep posting.

The good news today is a rumour of dissent in the French Socialist Party. The leadership has committed the Party to voting 'Yes', wheras many members would have liked to wait until the text was actually available in September before deciding.

(8)

I swear I was not going to bash the Tories this week!

I was actually trawling the French news and looked forward to writing about some appalling corruption scandal. Well this [link in French] is close enough.

It seems that the European People's Party (to which the British Conservatives belong) has done a deal with the European Socialist Party (to which the British Labour Party belongs) to ensure the election of a Socialist leader of the European Parliament: Josep Borrell Fontelles. In doing so they voted against the Polish former dissident Bronislav Geremek, who if this Communist denunciation is anything to go by, was obviously the right candidate to back.

So all the protestations that the Conservatives would defend British interests are a load of cobblers. These people are an insult to invertebrates.

It gets better, the French report says that the new President of the European Parliament (elected with the support of the European People's Party) is a man who comes from the left-wing of the Spanish Socialist Party and who had to quit Spanish politics because of a series of unfortunate misunderstandings over large sums of stolen taxpayers' money. I seem to recall that this was when the Governor of the Bank of Spain was filmed carrying suitcases of freshly printed bank notes to the Spanish Socialist Party Headquarters. The story was extensively covered at the time in El Mundo, the Spanish conservative daily newspaper. I forget if our new European Parliament President was personally involved (though the discreet shuffling of news reports suggests he may have been), but he certainly had to quit over that affair.

So the British Conservatives are fighting our corner within the European People's Party? Nice one Michael Howard, I know exactly where we stand on the Conservative Party's policy on Europe.

Support hard-core Socialists! Give fraudsters a second chance! Support even more European regulations and taxes! Vote Conservative!

(5)

Unless he was lying on national television again, or changes his mind like he did several times over the Maastricht Treaty, Saddam Hussein's best chum has announced that the French (and colonies) will be given a chance to vote on the proposed European Union constitution.

Lucky, we know all the dirty tricks that can be used in such a referendum campaign, they were all used last time by the Florentine François Mitterand, to get the Maastricht Treaty through. So we shall be campaigning in Guadeloupe, and Martinique, and the Isle de la Réunion, and French Polynesia, St Pierre et Miquelon and New Caledonia, and Wallis et Futuna if necessary to avoid losing by 40,000