We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[Note: link to UK Times may not work for readers outside of the UK.]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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