Samizdata

Former Italian prime minister Lamberto Dini, one of the people drawing up the new European Constitution on the EU Convention on the Future of Europe, has flatly and explicitly contradicted British ministers who claimed that the new constitution is only a ‘tidying up exercise’.

Anyone in Britain who claims the constitution will not change things is trying to sweeten the pill for those who don’t want to see a bigger role for Europe

If this constitution is adopted by Britain, control of much of how the state intrudes into society will be placed in a power centre far more remote and less amenable to the British public’s democratic influence politically. It is nothing less than the wholesale disenfranchisement of Britain, talking a moderately effective democratic system of accountability (albeit a long decaying one) and replacing it with European-wide ‘democracy’ that in fact places vastly more power in remote bureaucracies.

Although I never doubted that Tony Blair was simply lying through his teeth, can anyone now doubt that what the Labour government is saying is intentional falsehood pertaining to altering the most fundamental underpinning structure of the British state?

If the Tory opposition was capable of rational analysis, they would start realising that Blair has torn up the rule book and soon rolling back the tide of statism will simply be beyond the legal power of British politicians. If the Conservative Leader was to stand up in Parliament and say “a future Tory government will simply abrogate this constitution on Day One and repatriate democratic accountability to the British people”, then there might be some grounds for thinking they had actually decided not to just be Labour Party Lite as they blather on about ‘good public services’ and tolerate the likes of Chris Patten in amongst their numbers.

What I find so exasperating is the Tory’s refusal to think outside the box. Will they just meekly accept that once the primacy of the EU is complete, they will just have to adapt into their allotted role as a European style ‘Christian Democrat’ Party of the statist centre in return for a place for their snouts at the Euro-trough? Perhaps so. The Conservative Party is a noxious organisation so I cannot say I am surprised, but unless they quickly rediscover their radical roots, Britain as a self-governing entity is finished regardless of the lies to the contrary (just see the remarks of our honest enemy Lamberto Dini).

Unlike most of continental Europe, there is a significant anti-statist element in the mainstream of British society… I don’t mean people like me, who are essentially out on the ‘lunatic fringe’, but the sort of people who Maggie Thatcher tapped into in her excitingly radical but maddeningly inconsistent way. Once this swathe of society finally realises that they no longer have any meaningful outlet for their political aspirations, I wonder if they will just be content to shrug and surrender to the Europe wide majority who favour regulatory top-down statism? I think not.

The Labour Party and all who support Euro-wide statism have seen the way to put all the bits about the role of the state they value beyond British politics: their vision of regulatory statism is about to be locked in and in future, politics will just be about factional pleading for a share of the monies appropriated from the remaining productive sections of the economy. The only antidote to this is for anti-EU politicians to simply refuse to cooperate. The Tory Party would be more useful if they simply walked out of Parliament and declined to return unless the constitution is completely gutted (which of course will never happen). After all, so what if Labour used that opportunity to pass all manner of nasty laws? They have such a large majority they can do that anyway and so it is only by radical action that the Tories can de-legitimise what is being done… i.e. by provoking a constitutional crisis because we are bloody well in one already!

2. The Member States shall facilitate the achievement of the Union’s tasks and refrain from any measure which could jeopardise the attainment of the objectives set out in the Constitution.

If anti-EU activists ever manage to start mounting effective resistance to the EU and actually undermining its authority, do you seriously doubt that laws suppressing what we say and do will not follow?