Mar 20 2007
“This House says ‘Thank God for Brussels’” - the 50th birthday EU debate
Last night??I was invited to oppose the motion, with the help of Michael Spencer (Chairman of ICAP) and Ruth Lea of the Centre for Policy Studies.?? Peter Sutherland (Chairman of BP), Sylvie Goulard (President of the French European movement) and Chris Huhne MP were there to thank God for Brussels.
The audience included a number of continental enarchs and ??European journalists, representatives from Denmark, France, Ireland and other EU countries, British civil servants and some very sensible Londoners. A vote was taken prior to the debate, with?? 114 voting for the motion, 60 against, and 43 don’t knows.
??After a couple of hours of hard pounding away at the Brussels citadel, we shifted the balance to 99 against, 121 in favour??with no-one remaining unsure.
The EU’s 50th birthday is a time to review why it has all gone so wrong from the UK’s point of view. The main arguments last night centred around three issues:
1. The claim that the EU has kept the peace in Europe for the last 62 years. The proposers of the motion just kept asserting this nonsense. They were unable to answer the question which country would have invaded which country if they had not been in the EU, and silent on the point that anyway NATO forces led by the USA stayed in Europe for most of the post war period to gurantee the peace settlement. They ignored the fact that many European countries were outside the EU for much of this period but they did not go to war either. They ??were unable to deal with the EU’s warlike activities in the Balkans in recent years which shows that the EU itself wants to become a military power capable of military intervention.
2. The claim that the EU has been good for the prosperity of European people. The proposers were unable to counter the fact that the USA and several of the English speaking countries have grown faster than the EU. They ignored the E600bn cost imposed on EU business by EU regulation, the waste and inefficiency of the EU bureaucracy, and the tendency of the EU to be anti enterprise and pro high tax big government.
3. Our claim that the EU is undemocratic. The proposers were scornful of the people of Europe, complaining that they did vote wrongly in referenda when they turned down the Euro or the EU constitution. Peter Sutherland believes the people - and the UK - should catch up with the European elite, and come to understand they know best.
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
Nothing much has changed. The arrogance and undemocratic attitudes of the Europhiles still prevails but with greater intensity, despite all the arguments. But when did they ever allow the facts to stand in the way of their dictatorial vision for a United States of Europe?
Good to see that you so clearly won over the majority of the uncommitted in the audience.
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I think things are changing - the argument against is being decisively won. Check comments online, not merely in the blogsphere but on online newspapers (ir as Jihn says elsewhere on Any Questions). The net is allowing people to check things for themselves instead of relying on the MSM & this is allowing a lot of thinking the previously unthinkable.
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John,
I’ve always thought the claim that the EU somehow guaranteed peace in Europe to be completely bizarre. Even if it were a solution - doubtful - then it would be a solution for a problem that never existed in the first place.
I would put my faith in democracy to maintain peace. Off-hand, I can’t think of a single real shooting war between two genuine democracies. And the tragedy is that, slowly but surely, the EU is destroying our democracy (with a bit of help from Blair).
I see that even Lord Carrington does not like the way the EU meddles with our own affairs. All I can say is that I look forward to our own Independence Day, when we can finally get out of the wretched thing.
Chris Wright
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