Category Archives: EU

He has a book out.

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I was driving in the car this afternoon. I haven’t changed the CD in the player for weeks now, and I’m getting a little tired of it. Of course, I didn’t consider this before I set out on my journey, and I wasn’t about to monkey about with it whilst I was driving, that’s a really stupid and not inconsiderably dangerous thing to do, so I turned on the radio.

Immediately my back stiffened, I’d been listening to the football coverage on Sunday on radio 5 when I last had the radio on, so it defaulted to that station when I jumped from disc to radio. That was a mistake. It is hard to describe how monumentally irritating I find Richard Bacon. He is a man for whom the word ‘cock’ was invented. His interviewing style is especially irksome when it comes to covering anything with the merest controversy, his idea of ‘balance’ is to shout over all his interviewees putting a polar opposite view in his whiny voice. If he agrees with the interviewee he’ll do it the once, because the BBC demands ‘balance’, if he doesn’t agree with the interviewee (and it is obvious when he doesn’t) he’ll do it for the whole time the interviewee is on the air.

When listening to Richard Bacon I get this irresistible urge to tie him to a grating and to employ a cricket bat, baseball bat, snooker cue, tennis racquet, croquet mallet, etc, to see which makes the most satisfying sound as I smash it against his skull.

Worse still are his ‘sleb interviews, he is so sickeningly supine, obsequious and generally sycophantic that it makes one want to retch. This is especially true when the interviewee is a fellow BBC type. Today the interviewee was Hugh Dennis, a man who as far as I can make out has the BBC to thank for 80% of his income, what with Mock the Week, Outnumbered, The Now Show and sundry other stuff.

As an aside, when my annoy-o-meter hit 11 I switched stations to Radio 2, whereupon I heard the arse end of a record, and then the DJ trailing an interview with this bloke who has a new book out; Hugh Dennis. So we have a BBC employee schlepping round the BBC radio studios hawking his new book. I wouldn’t be surprised if he popped up/has already appeared on the BBC breakfast sofa, The Graham Norton chat show and one of the Radio 4 review shows. The BBC has form for this, but I understand that recently they investigated themselves over the practice and found that it was all fine.

That’s OK then. Jimmy Savile, anyone?

Anyhow, back to the interview, after the initial line of questioning which went something along the lines of ‘You have a new book out, how fantastic is it?’ and ‘You do lots of stuff for the BBC, how fantastic are you?’ and ‘You’re one of the country’s best loved comics, would you mind if I just slipped your penis into my mouth whilst you tell us all about your magnificence?’, we turned to the premise of the book. I forget the title of the book, it is a play on words on the title of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and it seems to suggest (bearing in mind I’ve not read the book) that being British is pretty cool; but only if you’re a part of the ever so clever metropolitan ‘liberal’ elite.

The starting point for the premise appears to be the opening ceremony of last summer’s Olympics. It was, as we all know, a triumph. I’m happy to accept that, I was sceptical about the Olympics and I was absolutely delighted to be proven incredibly wrong, the whole affair from curtain up to curtain down was a wonderful thing. Anyhow, Dennis was saying about how the opening ceremony got him to ponder the age old question of what it is to be British. Here things started to get a little lazy, Bacon was breathlessly talking about how we obviously all love the NHS and what a great thing it is, yada yada yada.

The conversation took a very odd turn here, with a line drawn between the bounce in the feeling that it was good to British (as long as you’re a part of the ever so clever metropolitan ‘liberal’ elite) and the increase in ‘anti-European’ sentiment, which is obviously an opinion held by those who are not a part of the ever so clever metropolitan ‘liberal’ elite.

No! I was screaming at the radio, it isn’t anti-European sentiment at all. Let me place this on the record once again; I adore Europe, it is the most magical place, there is nowhere on Earth with the diversity of our continent. Visitors from North America and the Antipodes are dumbstruck that you can drive your car onto a train in Folkestone, speaking English and doing something one way, arrive just over half an hour later in France, speaking French and doing something another way, and then driving east for twenty minutes, turning up in Belgium, speaking Flemish and doing that thing in another different way. It is amazing, beautiful, exciting, and the people in charge of the EU will not stop until every bit of joy and difference is squeezed out of it, they will not stop until everything is grey, uniform, dull and predictable, and they will not stop to ask us if it is what we want. It isn’t anti-Europe, it is anti-EU, they are two very, very different things.

It is all part of this bias which pervades the BBC. They really do believe that anyone who is opposed to the EU is a small minded bigot, they are incapable of considering any other point of view. They think that we are dangerous and unhinged.

It continued with accusations of opinion becoming insular. No! Not insular at all. The EU is a bloc, a cell. It locks us up, it prevents us from looking outside, it prevents us from expanding, from interacting. Opposition to the EU is precisely because we do not want to be insular, we want to be out there in the wilds, doing exciting stuff, getting dirty. The EU may be a bloody big place, but it is still a prison cell, with the way Europe’s economy is going it is akin to being locked inside a stately home as it falls into disrepair around you.

Then came the charge of isolationism. God, I hate that, it is so, so lazy. It is the EU which is isolationist, it is seeking to build a wall between its citizens, its member states and the rest of the world. They don’t want us to talk outside the club, they’ll look after that for us. We are a member of a bigger club, a better club, with more to offer, a club which exists to facilitate communication, business, ideas, real proper progress, it is the Commonwealth. You run a referendum on EU membership alongside a referendum on Commonwealth membership and see what the result is, you’d have to be certifiable to suggest leaving the Commonwealth, membership of it is nothing but virtuous. It doesn’t seek to dictate, it doesn’t seek to exclude or to control. It is the perfect model of what a multi-national organisation should be, it is neighbourly, friendly, egalitarian. There’s no ulterior motive, there’s no big political agenda, it is a group of countries working together to help each other out, nobody has to do anything they don’t want to, nobody is strong armed into doing anything, and we’re right at the heart of it.

Isolationism? Give me strength, we’re looking at expanding our horizons across the globe, not pulling down the shutters and pretending the world stops at Dover.

I get so angry with this lazy, prejudiced and wrong headed attitude, and the BBC promotes it unthinkingly. It isn’t about Little England, it is about Global Britain.

Needless to say I changed the CD as soon as I got home.

Wrong decision for the right reasons.

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I’ve written a couple of times about the whole gay marriage thing, and I will undoubtedly cover some old ground here, but never mind.

I’ll start by outlining what beliefs I have that are non-negotiable.

Firstly; As long as those entering into the agreement are adults, are capable of making such a decision and are doing so of their own free will, anyone should be free to marry anyone else.

Secondly; I have no time for the Church(es). I know some people care very deeply for them, get a great deal of spiritual wossname from them, but when I see organised religions I see institutions who have done nothing much beyond the spread of misery, hatred and war, and have displayed an almost limitless capacity for cruelty.

However, let it not be said that I am driven by spite. Whilst I have no time for ‘The Church’, I have no desire to wipe it/them off the face of the Earth. As I view them as practically private members’ clubs, I think that what they do is up to them with the proviso that they do not cause harm to others. However, would a refusal to conduct a same-sex-marriage constitute harm?

This is where things get sticky. You see whilst I appreciate there is a ‘conscience clause’ in play for the non-constitutionally established religions, and a bar to CofE churches holding same-sex-marriages (SSM), I can’t help wondering who makes the call. Let’s suppose for a moment the CofE was not subject to a bar. This is an organisation that doesn’t even know what to do with its own clergy, how the buns would start flying over this, who makes the decision? Arch-Bish Canters and Arch-Bish York? Diocese by diocese by the relevant Bishop? The Vicars and Rectors? The Head in the form of the Monarch? What a mess, and I can see churches tearing themselves apart over this, which would be tragic for homosexuals who have a faith. But as far as I’m concerned that’s The Church’s problem, I’m still in favour of SSM.

Much has been made of the ‘re-defining’ of marriage, but I don’t buy it. I’m willing to bet that if you got 100 people in a room and asked them to define what a marriage is, what it entails, what it should be, you’d be hard pressed to find two people with identical views. It is entirely subjective and can only be based on the attitudes of the two people engaging in the marriage. It is what it means to those two that is important, not what it means to everybody else. These views will be subject to one’s cultural, religious, political and a whole host of other beliefs and heritage. You might as well try to define what constitutes ‘nice’. I find it nice to listen to the music of Stiff Little Fingers, my mother did not find it nice at all when I was a teenager, I doubt she would find it nice now.

Then there is the argument about ‘defending’ marriage. Well if people’s definitions of what marriage is differ, how can you ‘defend’ it? If the marriage and what it entails is of almost exclusive interest to couple A, then if couple B next door have a different opinion on what their own marriage is about, does this somehow negate or devalue what couple A have? No, of course not. If the institution of marriage is to be ‘defended’ if it needs protection of its sanctity, then the divorce laws need repealing, because divorce undermines marriage more than two people who love each other ever will.

However, when you consider that adultery is a decent grounds for divorce, is it not anomalous that this is not to be the case with a SSM? If you promise not to put it about and sign a contract to that effect, then surely if you go and put it about this amounts to breach of contract. It seems inequitable to me. The issue of non-consummation is slightly different, in a traditional marriage it is grounds for annulment, but it doesn’t appear to be the case in a SSM. However, I would maintain that a couple’s bedroom life is no business of the state, but adultery is a breach of trust.

Some have said that the purpose of marriage is for pro-creation, homosexuals cannot pro-create under their own steam, therefore it cannot be a marriage. I hate this argument, firstly because it once again projects someone else’s definition of marriage onto everyone else. People get married for different reasons; love, companionship, money, political expediency (look at the history of our monarchs for crying out loud, pretty much all of them marriages of political convenience) and yes, to have kids. But should an inability to have kids preclude that marriage from happening? What about hetero couples where one or both parties is barren? What about the hetero couple who just don’t want kids? What about the widow and widower who fall in love in their sixties? Are they to be denied marriage on those grounds? Is their love and relationship somehow less valid?

Then we get the people who seem to think that religion ‘owns’ marriage. Funnily enough, it’s always their religion that owns it as well, rather than religion en masse. Well, this may shock you, but marriage has existed in a number of subtly different formats in countless different cultures and countries over the centuries. It’s been going on since before your religion existed. Your religion took it on and then imposed its own rules. Marriage as a construct is entirely human in nature, religion has merely added a bit of window dressing.

A lot of what this comes down to is a simple fact. Many people think it is entirely acceptable to have a say in who you sleep with, how you do it, the rules by which you do it and who you tell all the above to. Am I alone in finding that just a bit sinister?

What is it about these religious organisations? They set hard and fast rules about what we can do, and who we can do it with. Even harder and faster rules for their clerics in most religions. And they are absolutely obsessed with sex. Catholic confession, all about sex. Women’s dress code in pretty much all Abrahamic religion, all about sex. Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex. They can’t get enough of it. Why are they so interested in sex? Because they want to control it. Why do they want to control it? Because they want to control us, and if you grab someone by the bollocks (or indeed the clitoris) the rest of them is sure to follow. It’s good old control, nothing more, nothing less. If you can surrender primacy over your most intimate condition and dealings to someone, you’ll surrender pretty much everything else as well.

My distaste for and resistance to organised religion is about control, and the casual way that those in the religious establishment seek, and have sought, to wield it over people, based on threats that are physical, mental and spiritual. I have seen no argument against SSM that is not rooted in religious dogma, and as beliefs vary so wildly not just between faiths, but within them as well, I do not think it prudent to legislate along those lines in modern Britain.

When you look at my two opening statements and the waffle above, you’d have thought that my decision regarding SSM would be easy. It is not though. Because of my third (and individually most important) non-negotiable belief:

Thirdly; No group or person may impose their beliefs on any other group or person.

And this is where the whole thing falls apart for me. This is why I believe that tonight the wrong decision has been made for all the right reasons. This is why if I had had a vote this evening in the House, I would have voted no, and I would have done so with a very heavy heart indeed.

You can guaran-damn-tee that some extremist will take this to the European courts. There’s always an extremist. At this point in our society the extremists for homosexuality are closer to the majority of feeling than those extremists against homosexuality who would like to see it banned and its practitioners locked up. Nevertheless, there are still extremists, and they will take it to court because the church/synagogue/mosque will refuse to marry them. I fear they will win. I fear the ‘conscience clause’ will be ruled unlawful – and that blows my third non-negotiable belief out of the water.

Don’t think this is atheism, God and I get on fine and dandy, it’s His fan clubs I have a problem with, and I do not accept that they speak for Him. He is entirely capable of speaking for himself, if you accept the standard definition of ‘God’. As much as I dislike the churches, I do believe that they should be able to operate as they wish, free of hindrance or obligation, with the proviso that they do not harm others. Any faith that did not consent to marry same sex couples would go down even further in my estimation, but I believe passionately that they must be free to make that call.

It is not the concept of SSM I am opposed to at all, far from it. However, as bizarre as it seems, it comes down to our EU membership. All the time we are a member and subject to their courts, we will not be able to ensure that independence of belief, because I genuinely fear that the European Courts WILL rule the act of refusal to be discriminatory and illegal. It would cause huge damage to all involved on all sides, and would only spread more misery, division, suspicion and hatred. I really don’t want that.

I am convinced that the EU would love to pick a fight with the other big dogs in the yard. What if the challenge comes? What if the European courts find in favour of the homosexual couple who wants to get married in the religious building of their choice? To say that a religious venue MUST hold a wedding on request is as nonsensical as a religious organisation saying that a wedding can ONLY be valid by taking place on their premises.
What happens if the ruling is passed and a homosexual couple are turned away from a mosque? Do you force them? It would probably be the first forced marriage where the cleric is the wounded party. How would you force them?
This could, and I emphasise could, lead to a whole world of very real and violent strife. Whilst I wholeheartedly support the right of homosexuals to get married, I’d be so much more comfortable if I knew that exclusions would be accepted by all involved and not likely to be thrown out of the window by a power other than our own judiciary.
Maybe I worry too much, but it seems to me that this is the mess that results when the State gets involved in our private lives.

Outflanked.

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So, what did we learn courtesy of Dave’s little turn this morning? I reckon we’ve learned that our PM is pretty gullible or is wilfully misunderstanding that which is before him. The speech started with a load of waffle about the post war era and name checked NATO only once, perpetuating the whole ‘EU is the bulwark of peace’ myth, but as NATO has proven, the enjoyment of peace in Europe is not down purely to the EU, although I am happy to accept it has played a part. However I also have real concerns that the collapse, as it will come, as it inevitably comes for all empires, could be the cause of war in itself.

We’ve learned that our PM believes that the aim of EU is to secure prosperity. Really? OK, it may be its aim, but the idealogical dogma that pervades throughout means that it will not happen. The stats the PM trotted out during the speech back this up, the EU accounts for 7% of global population, 25% of global GDP (although how you can have global gross domestic product is a mystery to me) and is responsible for 50% of ‘social spending’. This is just unsustainable. There is no way that this ideology can lead to prosperity. I think it was Churchill who drew the comparison to nations taxing themselves into prosperity with a man stood in a bucket trying to lift himself off the ground by raising the handle. The scenes in Greece will be repeated continent wide before the edifice collapses, in just the same way as the USSR fell apart.

He believes the EU is an ‘anchor of democracy’. I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.

He believes that an independent UK would be stymied by isolationism. He’s right. However, I don’t think anyone is talking about isolationism, and he very conveniently failed to mention the one word that could prove our salvation, the word that will never be uttered by the pro-EUists, the word that will be kryptonite to the ‘innies’. That word is Commonwealth. We’re already a member of a club that is prosperous, that is (largely) democratic, and, more importantly, actually likes us.

He believes that he can reform the EU. He thinks he can usher in a new age of competitiveness, whilst ignoring that competitiveness is anathema to the vested interests in the EU, French politicians in thrall to farmer’s reliance on CAP for example. He wants to scale back on the directives, but the directives are life blood of EU, there can be no scaling back. Bureaucracy is king. He makes the mistake of trying to tell me that the EU is by the member states for the member states, but it just isn’t. It is run by the executive for the executive, this is why his claim that the EU is an ‘anchor of democracy’ is so laughable.

He wants to see more flexibility, but these are autocrats, there cannot be flexibility, only unquestioning obedience to the commissariats. These autocrats don’t want flexibility, for as soon as you allow people to be flexible, the autocrats surrender a degree of control. Everything must be prescribed, measured, regulated and controlled. They just aren’t going to sanction any flexibility.

He wants ever closer union, except for the UK. Cameron seems to think that ECU is good for some member states, but fails to understand, or purposefully ignores, the idea that the individual is subservient to the state in the EU. As far as the EU is concerned what is good for the state is good for the citizen and what is good for state comes second to what is good for the superstate – that being the autocrats.

He talks about democratic accountability, well forget it. They don’t want democracy. They’ve demonstrated this with the Irish referendum and the overthrowing of sitting prime ministers. Democracy returns the ‘wrong answer’ time and again. There is no motivation for any democratic accountability in the EU let alone any meaningful democratic reform. Jesus, this is an organisation with three Presidents and more than a score of Commissioners, over none of those appointments do you or I have any say. Democracy? Rubbish.

He glibly talks of referenda, saying of the EU electorate; ‘They’ve had referendums promised and not delivered’ Et tu, David? That was the point when I realised you weren’t ignorant and were actually malfeasant.

So, Prime Minister, tell me, if you’re in favour of a referendum, why did you whip your MP’s against it? Why no mention of this being a binding referendum?

You say we need to wait until 2017 to be sure of what we are choosing to be a part of or apart from. What we are choosing to be in or out of is simple. The EU will not change, it has no interest in changing. You cannot make it change.

This is hubris of the highest order from Cameron. He will be outflanked, the EU will introduce changes over the next 4-5 years making it even more difficult for us to leave. The EU’s campaign of propaganda to keep us in will start today.

‘It is time for the British people to have their say’ he says. He might as well have added, ‘Well, not quite, in four years or so, if you are all good little drones and vote for me. Then I promise, really really promise, that we will give you a straight in or out referendum, once we’ve ramped the pressure up on you, by telling you that leaving the EU will mean that a paedo will move into your spare bedroom.’

This whole thing is based on the assumption that he will gracefully deliver us a referendum if we vote him back into power. It is cynical, self-serving and given what has gone before in guarantees, I do not believe he can or will deliver on this promise.

Regardless, the EU keep UK in campaign will start today. Watch the EU funding pour into the BBC. See the scare stories come out as the insidious campaign to keep us in starts, paid for from the taxes that are taken from us.

What happens next? France, Germany and Spain made it clear pretty quickly that they aren’t about to negotiate. So a question, what happens when Cameron comes back from the negotiating table with nothing? What if he doesn’t even get to a negotiating table, because nobody consents to sitting round it. Is this referendum being sold on the basis of him getting a deal; therefore if no deal is offered, he can say the conditions for a referendum have not been met?

Just as what form Cameron’s proposed restructure of the EU looks like was vague in the extreme, his response to Miliband’s questions in PMQ’s was ambivalent at best. It would appear that he hasn’t considered the eventually that he will not have a deal to put to us. There’s his get out clause. Sorry folks, I tried. But hey, I got another five years at Number 10, so it’s not all bad!

Miliband was clear that there would be no referendum under Labour. Clegg has said that this is not the right time, but as far as I can see, the right time as far as Clegg is concerned is likely to be when hell freezes over.

It is obvious that the Tories will now sell this as a case of  ’vote UKIP get no referendum’, BUT, how many Labour voters vote for them because they are not the Tories, not because of their EU policy? How many Labour voters having heard Miliband’s response will be sufficiently exercised to go over to UKIP? Let us not forget, the famous Rotherham foster parents had gone to UKIP from Labour. How many people are supporting UKIP not because of EU policy, but because they are significantly different to the other three?

What happens if the Tories win the election, if the negotiations result in a package that can be put to the people, if the people then reject our membership? The EU don’t want us, but they don’t want to lose our money. What happens when the EU declines our resignation? What then? As far as I’m aware, and I stand to be corrected, the Lisbon Treaty says that withdrawal must be agreed by all member states. Well what if they tell us we can’t leave, in direct contradiction to a referendum result? They’ve got four years to put more obstacles in the way. Are they going to try to keep us in by force of arms? Will they see which way the wind is blowing and try to unseat a PM and get their own man in? Their own man is sat next to the PM on those green benches every Wednesday. Could an Act of Parliament enabling a referendum be repealed after Herself has signed it off but before it has been carried out?

Cameron taking a risk with his job here, but if he was going to be bold, he’d have been better off calling a referendum to run alongside the next General Election. Sure the LibDems would have created merry hell about it, but he could have called their bluff, had the government resign. OK the new fixed term parliaments mean it wouldn’t have led to a General Election, but it would have made life very difficult for both the LibDems and Labour if the Tories declined a request from Her Maj to form a government.

He’s fudged the issue. There are too many imponderables. Too many opportunities to sideline the issue and wriggle out of it, and when push comes to shove, after the ‘Cast-Iron Guarantee’ I just plain old don’t believe him.

My vote sticks with UKIP, because I will vote for what I believe in, not against that which I oppose.

Don’t believe a word.

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You have a troubled marriage. You married your spouse when things looked their bleakest, when your self-esteem was at its lowest possible ebb. The merest bit of attention was so incredibly welcome that you raced down the aisle with the first person who showed an interest.

Now, on the eve of your 40th wedding anniversary, you review what the last four decades have got you, and you realise that you don’t actually have very much in common with your other half. Your spouse laughs at your sensibilities, at your hopes and dreams, they insult you both in private and in front of their friends. Your contact with your friends and family is strictly monitored and limited. They are not made to feel welcome in your house, meanwhile your spouse’s friends come round as and when they please, staying for as long as they like, eating your food, taking your hard earned money out of your wallet. There is nothing you can do about it.

It is an abusive relationship, and you get to the end of your tether as it becomes clear the relationship isn’t working, it has become toxic, and worst of all your spouse has no desire to consent to a divorce.

And so we find ourselves helplessly wedded to the EU. Yet over the last couple of days it appears that there is the merest chink of light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve been told that perhaps, if we’re lucky, we could get ‘associate membership’ of the EU.

Quite what that means I’m not sure, but to stretch the marital metaphor further, I’m betting it is akin to being given a divorce, but remaining in the same house together, albeit in separate rooms, and being allowed to arrange your bedroom furniture as you see fit. However, you’ve still got to do the cooking, your spouse’s freeloading mates will continue to come round, they’ll be free to stay in your room if they like, and you’ll still be expected to pay the lion’s share of the mortgage, and to pick up the beer and sandwiches tab. Beer and sandwiches that we’ll be prohibited from eating because we wouldn’t be ‘full members’.

The only thing the EU wants more than our fealty and obedience is our cash. They may well be willing to let us slack off on some of the former, but there’s no way in the world they’ll drop a penny piece of the latter.

I’m also willing to bet that the few powers that we manage to claw back under ‘associate membership’ would be subject to punitive restrictions, ifs, buts and maybes. There’d also be a good deal of smoke and mirrors, and I’m betting that a lot of stuff that is filed under headings like ‘employment’ and so forth will find itself filed under ‘single market’, and as an associate member, I’m betting there would be bugger all we could do about it.

When Cameron makes his much trailed Europe speech this month, he’ll be full of tough talking and blah blah blah, but don’t believe a word of it.

One thing I will say in favour of being a full member of the EU is that at least we can act as some sort of brake, even if it is only temporarily. I’m certain that if we signed up to associate membership, we’d be stitched up like a kipper.

Have no doubt, Cameron would sell this as a huge victory, but it is a find the lady game.

The EU will not consent to us renegotiating our membership, threat of in/out referendum or no, without them coming out on top. They just won’t. The only way we will remain full or associate members of their club is on their terms, and if we go for associate membership, they will make us pay through the nose for it, ensuring we have the minimum level of sovereignty and access with the maximum level of compliance and responsibility.

Like all abusive spouses, they thrive on control and making their other half feel worthless and undesirable, and if they can’t have us exclusively, they’ll make sure we’re so ugly that nobody will else want us.

When Cameron makes his big speech, don’t believe a word of it. He will offer us a deal before going to referendum, rather than going to the table with a referendum result in his pocket. He will sell us short. He will not be out manoeuvred, because he is on their side, not his country’s. He will give us up willingly.

He will present it as his great statesman moment, and I hope to god his party membership see through this sleight of hand on Cameron’s part, because it is them he is really trying to shaft. I’m sure Farage will make a big noise about it when the time comes, and I hope he plays it well, because Cameron and his buddies are staking their future on Farage and UKIP dropping the ball.

There can be no re-negotiation, the EU have nothing to gain. The EU will give nothing. There can be no ‘associate membership’. We can only take back, we cannot ask for things back, for they will not be given. There can only be in or out.

This middle way of associate membership is the very worst of both worlds.

What are you up to?

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A big day today, and it’s all about the EU.

Obviously the big story is about the budget. There’s a two day talking shop where the PM, if we are to believe him (and it’s a big if), is to draw a financial line in the sand. Here and no further. Cameron is spot on when he says any increase in budget for the EU is quite wrong, and he has threatened to veto any budget that threatens our rebate.

On the face of it, that seems quite hard-line, but already I think he’s fudged the issue. The rebate is all very well, but there’s a wider issue here and we should bear in mind that the rebate is linked to the subs, if the payments go up, so does the rebate. It is unthinkable at a time when the Greeks are on skid row and the Spanish and Portuguese are building up a good head of steam to join them, when food aid is being delivered to the southern countries, when taxes are being hiked up at an alarming rate (the collection thereof being a different story), when unemployment, especially amongst the young, is rampant, and people simply don’t have any money in their pockets, that the EU wants even more money. When you set that alongside the fact that yet again, for the eighteenth year running, the EU’s accounts haven’t been signed off in the face of overwhelming evidence that our money is being scammed, misappropriated and just plain stolen, to hand over more cash is tantamount to incitement to commit fraud.

If we are to be good Europeans, then we must resist any attempt to extort more cash from us. Being a good European does not necessarily equate to doing what the EU and EC tells you to. Be under no illusions, the wellbeing of the member states and citizens resident therein is way down the list of priorities of the EU, if they make an appearance at all. Enabling the continued waste of money and promotion of corruption is not good for us, not good for our government and is not good for the populations and governments of the other countries. The EU is an organisation, if it ceased to exist then life would go on, we must escape this ideology that the EU is Europe, it just isn’t. It is no more representative of Europe than the Portman Group is representative of people who like a drink.

This is now turning into an abusive relationship, and it is time to gather up our most vital and precious belongings and move out.

Cameron has painted himself into a corner. If he comes back having been seen to have failed, he’ll be pilloried by his party and he’ll be dead in the water. If he comes back with a freeze on the budget either via negotiation or veto, he’ll be pilloried by the EU and we may find our relationship worsens. But, that being said, I think it will suit many other political heads of European state for him to be the lightning conductor. If he thinks it will be his Thatcher moment, he’s kidding himself. I’m not at all confident that he’ll come back with a widely, domestically, acceptable negotiated settlement, and I’m only moderately confident that he will use the veto.

A negotiated settlement is, on the face of it, the best outcome. He can use the veto, but the EC can also use their machinery to circumnavigate it and get their way anyway. But if we use the veto we become a pain in the arse again. Yes, the EC will probably get their own way in the end, but yet again we’ve been the noisy house guest and it takes us one step further to being shown the door.

Alongside this is today’s poll in carried out by the Observer. Even they have begun to accept the fact that the majority of us in the UK want out, their results make interesting reading:

Cameron would do well to take heed of the opinion held by his party’s membership, and Miliband will no doubt look at the figures from his membership with interest as well. I am flat out amazed that over a third of LibDems want out. The tide, it would seem, has well and truly turned.

Succinctly put, the party leader who addresses this issue best will stand a good chance of taking the next election. So why are they being so coy about it?

I think it is fear. Not of the European powers that be coming and doing a number on them, like they did with the Greeks, I don’t see how they could do that without us going to them cap in hand. I think it is fear of what would come after. I am confident that we could survive and indeed thrive outside the EU, but I understand the importance of the phrase ‘better the devil you know’, and I wonder how many of those polled who said we should stay in said that not out of a firmly held belief in the virtue of the project, but out of fear of the unknown. Let us suppose we walk, and let us suppose that it goes wrong and we find ourselves cut adrift and destitute. As a politician, obsessed with the concept of legacy, would you want to be the person remembered for taking us out and ruining us? I think it is an unfounded, but entirely understandable fear. Politicians are by nature small c conservative.

From my point of view, and for once I seem to be in the majority, I want out. I don’t care how. For the politician, the how is as important as the in/out question itself.

So, what of a referendum? Surely if a referendum is called through sheer weight of public opinion and an out vote is returned, a politician if they’ve maintained a neutral position or campaigned for an in vote, cannot be held responsible? Maybe. But the referendum is not without its problems. Firstly, politicians hate referenda. As far as they are concerned, they are elected to tell us what to do. If we get used to the idea that we can gather en-masse and make a decision, then that undermines their position.

Secondly, if you as a politician campaign vociferously for the losing side, you’re damaged goods. Out of touch, out of step and out of luck.

Finally, if a referendum is called you can bet that the EU will pump millions of pounds/euros into the ‘in’ campaign, they will have an effective bottomless pit of cash, and they will lie. They will tell us that business will not be able to export, that you’ll not be able to go to France on holiday, or to buy fags and booze, that we would be pariahs, that Jimmy Savile will come back from the dead and take up position as your babysitter, they will say anything to ensure that our cash tap remains stuck open. And it would be a one shot deal if the result was ‘in’. We’d never get another opportunity. If the result was ‘out’ then you can bet the EU would try every trick to have the result dismissed or to drag us back to the ballot box until the desirable result was forthcoming.

So, we find ourselves in a position where the politicians won’t take us out because of fear of failure, and won’t give us our say, not because they are scared of the result, but because they are afraid of giving us our say conceptually. Yet the poll results are clear, we want out, and it would be foolish of any party leader to ignore such a strength of opinion.

So the only viable option is for us to get ourselves kicked out.

Today sees the deadline for the giving of votes to prisoners as directed by the European Court of Human Rights. There is a debate on this in the House today and it seems unlikely that the MPs are in the mood to be told that prisoners must be allowed to vote by a super-national court, a court, which I understand, that we must agree to abide by as part of our terms of membership with the EU.

What will happen if we turn around and say ‘no’? What will happen if prisoners sue, win, get awarded damages and we refuse to pay up? Would the EU put up with our ignoring and flagrant breaches of the rules just to keep hold of our money? Instead of waiting to see how far they can push us before we snap and walk, how far can we push them before they’ve had enough and sling us out?

We’ve got, what? 18 months until the next general election? How far can we push and provoke the EU in that 18 months? Will it be a case of that we’ll see if we can get ourselves thrown out of the party by pissing in the pot plants and vomiting on the sofa between now and then whilst the politicians play a game of chicken, trying to time the call of ‘referendum!’ to get the maximum support in the run up to the GE? Crucially would we believe any promise given what has happened before?

I’m wondering if we’ll be thrown out before any referendum has to be called.

It ain’t irrational.

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An, errrrm, interesting piece in the ‘magazine’ section of the BBC website this morning where it conducts a very swift investigation into what our neighbours over the channel think of what is referred to a ‘the British problem’, that being are we in or out?

There’s the usual feeling from the BBC that any suggestion we leave is to be treated in the same way a suggestion that you go and take a dump through next door’s letterbox would.

But there are a few phrases contained within which exasperate and disturb me in equal measure:

A commentary by Michael Stuermer in the German daily Die Welt says it is “in the German interest to keep Britain in the EU at almost any cost”.

At almost any cost. Almost? So you’re saying you wouldn’t support the despatching of troops to these shores if we should be impertinent enough to try to leave this tedious little house party under our own steam. To be honest, if Germany needs to rely on us remaining in their western Soviet bloc, then they must be in real trouble.

Mr Quatremer argues that . . . “the new generation of Conservative leaders is fanatically europhobic”.

Excuse me whilst I go and change my pants, I seem to have wet them through laughing. Conservative leaders? Fanatical? Europhobic? Oh mate, you’ve seen nothing yet, I’m supposing you think Nick Clegg amounts to no more than a disinterested bystander?

The words used really could come straight out of Stalin’s propaganda office. Fanatical. Well, I’m not the one who is determined to sweep away all the nation states and bankrupt everyone in the process, no matter what. I really want us to leave the EU, and I wouldn’t describe myself as a fanatic, to call Cameron a fanatic is stretching reality to beyond breaking point.

Then there’s the use of the word ‘europhobic’. Once again, taking me as an individual with a much harder line than Cameron, I certainly wouldn’t describe myself as a europhobe. I love Europe, it is the most amazingly diverse place and there’s few things I find more entertaining that wandering around her cities, discovering new things or new ways of doing things. The languages, the food, the national personalities, all of it, I don’t think any other continent has so much to see and do in such a small space, it is wonderful.

However, Europe is not the EU, I don’t want us to get out of Europe, that’s a silly thing for anyone to say, akin to saying you don’t want to live under a blue sky. Get us out of the EU? Hell, yeah.

But even then, I’m not phobic. My fear of the EU is entirely rational, based on past and current behaviour and their plans for the future, even their stated ultimate goal. Do I fear it? Absolutely, but it certainly isn’t irrational.

Fool me once. . .

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Hmmmmm, the more I see of this government, the less I like it. Just as it was a damning statistic that Cameron’s campaign was unable to defeat one of the worst Prime Ministers this country had ever seen, it is equally as damning that Miliband’s Labour aren’t streets ahead of the Tories in the opinion polls at the moment.

The Liberal Democrats are so screwed that now most opinion polls now put them in fourth behind UKIP who are looking at present as if they’d take between 8-12% of the vote if the call came tomorrow.

Quite rightly the Liberal Democrats should be very concerned about this, but of course that concern is tempered slightly by the fact that not many Lib Dem supporters (as opposed to those who vote Lib Dem because they aren’t the Conservatives and Labour) are likely to find a natural home in UKIP.

This is not speaking ill of UKIP, far from it. UKIP’s smaller government, pro-sovereignty stance is clearly at odds with the centralist, big state, Euro federalist Lib Dems.

Indeed, going off on a tangent for a moment, this I believe is the port of major blame for the current malaise and disconnect between the political class and the electorate at the moment. Look at the opprobrium that Thatcher attracts even to this day, why is that? Because she stood for something. Whether you agreed with her or not, that was undeniable. When she was sat in the big chair, you had a clear choice, you had her way or you had the programmes sponsored by Foot and Kinnock. There was clear daylight between the two camps. Today we have two camps fighting for the same ground. They try to, well, I hesitate to say appeal, so I’ll go for not entirely piss off, everybody. Of course in the pursuit of that impossible aim they end up achieving the exact opposite.

Yes, Thatcher is pilloried in some sections, but ask yourself the question, if she was so unpopular, how did she manage to win so many elections? Simple, she pleased more people as thoroughly as the minority she pissed off thoroughly. What we have today is a massive car park, totally empty, with two posh college boys scrapping over the one parking space that is slap bang in the centre of the lot.

Have no doubt, the Tories are not at all happy to see UKIP get all this support. They may chuckle and shake their heads, give some throwaway comment about the loons, but as they feel it necessary to comment on UKIP, they obviously feel concerned.

We then come to the line about UKIP ‘splitting’ the Tory vote. This is bollocks, and is indicative of the arrogance of the big three parties; this feeling of entitlement that people’s votes belong to them. Uh-huh, sorry chum, those votes belong to the people that cast them. If people stop putting their vote behind you, that’s your fault, not the fault of the party that garners that support instead.

All those politics degrees washing around the party, and the Tories don’t seem to realise the way it works – you set out what you stand for, people look at it and decide to vote for it or not. If they don’t support it, then you picked the wrong policies, didn’t you?

Cameron continues in this impossible dance of being all things to all people, and ends up with all people thinking he is a twat. He’ll go too far for one lot and not far enough for the other, the result will be that everyone ups sticks and goes elsewhere.

Given his recent history, I hope you’ll forgive my cynicism when he says ‘What it is increasingly becoming the time for is a new settlement between Britain and Europe, and I think that new settlement will require fresh consent.‘

I don’t believe you, David. You’ve pulled this stunt before, haven’t you? The cast iron guarantee, the ‘veto’ that never was. Yeah, you really stuck it to the man by standing up and doing. . . bugger all.

You really expect me to believe this now? You really think I’m going to sit back and say ‘well done Dave, he’s going to do the decent thing’? No. Not this time mate. Even given your tin plated guarantee I didn’t vote for your mob last time, and it ain’t going to work now. Oh, sure I stood in the polling booth and hesitated for a moment, but I reckoned you didn’t mean it and put my little x next to UKIP. I was right.

For a moment I bought the veto thing and you went up in my estimation. That didn’t last long, let me tell you. So, you fooled me once, well shame on you. You’re not going to fool me a second time.

When I was a teenager we had a name for girls who acted like you; prick-tease. That’s just what you are, you’re flirting away, throwing all this shit out in the hope that we think you’re going to finally put out. Naaaaaaah, come on Dave. How many times do you think you can get me hard and then swan off before I stop coming over every time you flutter your eyelids? Come the end of the party you’ll be the one sat in the corner of the kitchen crying because nobody wants to be around you.

Even if a referendum of some sort does materialise, your personal feelings on the matter are clear, and I have zero confidence that you’ll produce. Rather than campaigning on your opinion, mainly because it is at odds with the majority opinion of your membership, you’ll try to nobble the course before the horses start running. You’ll never give us what we want, you might give us the choice between the status quo and more integration, but you’ll never give us the big one, and you’ll try to sell us your preferred option as some huge statesmanlike act. Like I said, prick-tease.

UKIP splitting your vote? Bollocks, you’re driving people into their arms. You see I have this feeling, I think the current UKIP bounce in the polls is down to many many people who voted Lib Dem stating an intent to not bother voting for anyone, coupled with a small number of disaffected Tory voters, but that number is growing, and it’s all down to you mate.

I don’t want you stop, by the way, I want you to carry on. In fact, go further, tell the world that there will never be an EU referendum as long as you’re Prime Minister, that should do it.

‘But, ooooooh, Wolfers,’ I hear some of you say, ‘that would mean Labour would win.’ Yes? And? Look, there’s no bloody difference between the two, I oppose the Conservatives as much as I do Labour. It doesn’t matter to me which glorious collection of incompetent arsewipes is in power, because I don’t want them there. I’m not about to settle for the least worst option, I want what I want, if I can’t have it then we might as well have Timmy the amputee badger in Number 10. In fact, he’d probably be the least worst option.

I’m implementing all the right policies, just not necessarily in the right order.

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The problem with a professional political class is that when it is their turn to hold power they have this irresistible desire to do things. Even more annoyingly they then contrive to do all the wrong things.

They just cannot leave things alone. Little wonder really when we hear the howls of outrage from the media when an MP sticks their head over the parapet and suggests a shorter week or day, or longer holiday. Here’s us all slaving until two years after we’re dead, and these bastards have voted themselves another week off. But on balance I’d rather have the MPs sitting on the beach at Dawlish, brooding on how they’ve got to spend a week screwing the wife instead of their SpAd, than have them sat around at Westminster doing things.

This government seems to be especially bad at doing things. That is to say that it seems to do rather a lot. The past few weeks has seen more u-turns than the London to Brighton rally for people with no sense of direction. In the normal scheme of things I’m not adverse to a u-turn, I see nothing wrong with a politician standing up and saying, ‘look, this isn’t working’ or ‘new data shows it won’t work, so we’re dumping it. Good job we figured it out now, eh?’ I understand that politicians are (for want of a better word) human, and humans make mistakes. Surely it is better for someone to realise a mistake and correct it than to pretend there’s nothing wrong and press on for fear of being seen as ‘weak’?

Of course this being Westminster the other side hoots and points, like infantile pupils in a lesson where one of their classmates has made a mistake, as if their shit doesn’t stink, and we then have the even more ridiculous sight of the u-turner wriggling around on the end of a fish hook trying to persuade everyone that it isn’t a u-turn, that this was what they intended all along, that the other side really weren’t paying attention, and anyway the Honourable member for Plaart spends every morning sat in the House Master’s study in tears because Ponsonby Majority put a weasel in his bed, again.

However this government has now gone beyond stretching credibility. Indeed it has stretched credibility so far it has snapped and flown back in its face leaving an unsightly red mark on the cheek. The latest one is the whole forests thing. It isn’t so much the argument over whether they should be sold or not, as long as they retain that foresty quality it doesn’t much matter who owns them, not selling them to the Rapacious Paper and Furniture Company Ltd would be a good start, but really beyond that I have no strong feelings. One of the reasons they were considering selling them is because of the cost of managing them. This is the sort of thing that drives me up the wall. Forests just stand there, being all green and full of trees and fox shit, how much managing do they need?

Yes I know some people will talk about arboreal disease and competition on the woody floor, coppicing and the like, but it always strikes me that this is the nature of, well, nature. It is typical human arrogance to suppose that man can do a better job of managing a forest than nature can. Nature has been doing it for millennia we’ve been doing it for the geological equivalent of the time it takes to eat a creme egg. Yes, some plant species will die out, but this is evolution, this is how things work. There is some woodland just a couple of miles down the road from me here, it has probably been there for ever, but if I went back in time two million years that spot of woodland would look very different to how it looks now, it will have evolved and changed, but like Trigger’s broom would, still be the same woodland.

Like these patches of woodland, we too are prodded and poked in a cack handed attempt to manage us, to make us fit some sort of utopian ideal that doesn’t exist, will never exist, has never existed and completely disregards our own nature.

Meanwhile, the man who has decided it is his job to fashion us into this ideal doesn’t seem to know if it is arsehole or Christmas time. I’ve been meaning to blog about his Euro . . . I was going to use the word posturing, but that suggests a degree of standing still, perhaps I’ll go for a mediaeval serf who is wibbling about the place because he’s eaten some grain with an interesting fungal growth infecting it. But every time I sit down to do it, we’ve got another message. Thus far over the last few days we’ve had:

  • No referendum
  • No referendum unless the transfer of power triggers one
  • A referendum after a renegotiation
  • A referendum before a renegotiation
  • A referendum ‘when the time is right’
  • A referendum after the next election
  • A referendum alongside the next election
  • A referendum that isn’t a straight in/out referendum (which makes me wonder what the question will be, perhaps ‘do you want to stay in the EU?’ With the options being yes and maybe.)

And now this morning we discover that he’s talking about imposing border controls on Greeks if Greece leaves the Euro.

*speechless*

Note, that’s the not the EU, that’s the Euro. By the same token we should be turning away Danes and Swedes because they aren’t in the Euro either. He just thinks we’re going to ignore our obligations under the treaties and have staff at the border say ‘Sorry, Stavros, you can’t come in.’

Really, this man is supposedly competent enough to run the country, and never mind a collection of trees, I wouldn’t trust him to manage A tree.

He’s even more mental, or just a liar.

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(Wolfers’ note: Apologies for the radio silence recently, this has been down to variously; work on the aforementioned project, which if not bearing fruit is seeing the blossom drop off and the little proto-apples starting to form, a holiday and a change of ISP which resulted in some down-time.)

I always remember my history lessons at school, it was a subject I enjoyed a great deal, this was down in no small part to an excellent and engaging teacher. I remember the great emphasis he put on the concept of self-determination in the context of the end of the Great War. Of course the important point was that nations had the right to self determination, rather than their population, but even as a teenager I was asking the question ‘what is a nation if not the population that resides therein?’

As is right it has been announced that the three thousand or so inhabitants of the Falkland Islands will be (once again) asked in a referendum if they wish to remain British or become part of Argentina. I’ve a shiny fifty peso note that says it will not be legal tender in Port Stanley any time soon. As is also right, the Prime Minister has come out and said that he will support the outcome of said referendum.

Well, that’s very magnanimous of you, Dave. I understand that acting upon the will of the electorate is a novel concept for you, especially given that you were so adamant we shouldn’t be allowed a say on our own futures, that you tried to whip all your MPs through the lobby to prevent us from doing so.

Yet in a startling display he’s come out and made what must either be one of the most delusional or deceitful statements I can remember a Prime Minister making. Yesterday he (or more accurately, his spokeswoman) said that ‘But in terms of our membership of the EU, he feels that is not something we should have a referendum on now. That is not something that the British people want right now.‘

That really is up there with Brown’s claims of abolishing boom and bust. The thing is with Brown I honestly believe he thought he had, I really do think that Brown was unhinged, with Cameron I think it was a bare faced lie because he’s so wedded to the project, I have little doubt that he is either a staunch supporter of the EU project, or having one of their placemen sat next to him, he looks at what happened to the leaders in Greece and Italy and figures that his fate would be the same were he to push that button. Either way, it seems obvious to me that his continuing employment as PM is a greater priority to him than the sovereignty and prosperity of the country he is supposed to serve.

Yesterday the Express was running a story that 80% of people now want a referendum on our membership of the EU. That doesn’t equate to 80% of us want out, I would imagine that a large proportion of that number want to be able to cast a vote explicitly in favour of the status quo, but their opinion is just as important as mine, and it seems only just to me that people should have the opportunity to say yes, no or meh.

Even if there’s a large degree of inaccuracy in the poll, that still equates to a public opinion that is clearly and hugely at odds with the PM’s assertions. Given the spike the PM had in his popularity in using the veto that wasn’t over the treaty that isn’t, surely his best bet of holding onto the big chair is to play this card, and the fact that he is so dead set against doing so speaks more about his claims of Euroscepticism than anything else could.

It isn’t going to be long until there’s a race between the big two to be the first to offer the referendum.

If the Tories came out and offered it first, would I vote for them? Not a chance, because I’m convinced that they and Labour, would have a question on the paper not a million miles removed from the voting reform referendum, it’s going to be ‘Do you want the status quo, or do you want to re-negotiate?’ And as anyone in business will tell you, there’s a world of difference between negotiating a deal and actually getting one.

I’m not going to be cancelling my UKIP membership any time soon, because I have no confidence in the big two to deliver.

And whose fault is that?

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A collapse in the eurozone would create the “ideal recipe for an increase in extremism and xenophobia”, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has warned.

No. Not quite. It is the imposition of an anti-democratic organisation, the pressure exerted on national governments to adopt the single currency and the promises of jam today and jam tomorrow that has put in place the conditions for extremism and xenophobia.

Your organisation, Mr Clegg, and let us not pretend that you are anything but an EU placeman, has ridden roughshod over the national identities of most of Europe. You have swept away history and heritage continent-wide. You have lied to and continue to deceive millions, you have denied them a voice. You have chivvied them, nagged them, and badgered them into putting your plans into place. Now your plans are bearing the fruit that so many predicted they would, you turn once again to the little people and warn them that if they don’t vote in line with your wishes that the bad people will get in.

Just look at Athens, will you? There are people wearing suits filing through soup kitchens, begging on the streets and rooting through bins to get food. You have a young workforce where more than 50% are out of work, and with the Greek economy contracting, no prospect of getting any.

The Greeks cooked the books to get in, you knew they were cooking the books, but because it was so fucking important for you to control a continent you let it ride. We now see Greek mothers giving their kids up to orphanages because they can no longer afford to look after them. Are you proud of that? Because even in the morally bankrupt world of politics you should be utterly, utterly ashamed. It makes me fucking furious. You have destroyed nations, you have torn apart families and ruined childhoods, and yes, I am thinking of the children, because when someone needs to, nobody is. Real children, with names and faces, not imaginary children picked out of some conceptual vortex, but real little people who will be struggling to understand why they’ve ended up in an orphanage when their mothers and fathers are still alive.

If I see one more fat, chinless, suited EUro-wankstain sat on TV telling how a Greek exit from the Euro will be a catastrophe. . . I don’t know what I’ll do. The catastrophe has happened, and it is because of you, and people like you. When you say catastrophe, you talk in terms of your hideous little project, I talk in terms of real lives – wasted for your hateful ideology. Your project is that important, isn’t it? The devil take the real people, we’ve got to find El Dorado. You arrogant, inhuman, uncaring, self-important fuckers.

The bad people will get in? They’re already there. How much worse can it get? Just watch the video from Sky News here. They’re already invoking the spirit of the Nazi occupation for fuck’s sake.

You disgust me, you really are beneath contempt.

How dare you threaten us with the bogeyman, you ARE the bogeyman. How fucking dare you? Who the hell do you think you are?

I would never, never counsel violence against anyone, but if this devotion to this ridiculous ideology continues, then the only outcome will be violence, and there will be many who will say they were just deserts when it is visited upon you and yours.

Go. Now. Let the nations of Europe be.

Many say this is the building of the USSR in the west. They are wrong, what we see is a larger scale repeat of Yugoslavia.