Mr. Morpurgo’s Op-Ed piece in the columns of the Sunday Times (paywalled, unfortunately) was most revealing, both in terms of the way this Author thinks, and his attitude towards those who had the temerity to disregard his advice, along with the advice of thousands more of the Europhiles, that to leave the European Union was a mistake of the greatest proportions. It was also evident that he fervently hoped that the decision of the majority vote of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (GB&NI) to leave the EU could and should be reversed at the earliest possible date.
Michael’s writing is normally aimed at children, and I for one feel that he should have stayed with his target market; namely kids: and forget about his prospective move into politics and the fate of the Nation into which I was born as well as he. He claims ancestry by way of England, Belgium, Germany, France, Holland, Wales and Scotland. I am reminded of the old story about a brash traveller on the boat train from Southampton who claimed similar ancestry as this writer. One of the men who was sharing his compartment flicked down the side corner of his ‘Times’ newspaper, and remarked, ‘Sporting woman, your mother; Eh?’
I read of his admiration for this political construction, and how the EU had arisen from a Europe decimated and despoiled by war, and how the ideal of a Common Market naturally progressed into the monstrous bureaucratic monolith of the EU which it has become today.
Well, Michael, I hate to pee on your dreams, but the IDEA of Europe began during the First World War. Two men, mere civil service bureaucrats had great difficulty in persuading foreign ship owners to hazard their vessels with cargo destined for the Western Front without extra insurance, and hatched the idea of a bureaucratic European Allied regime, above all Nation States who joined this strange Alliance, who would then take such decisions out of the hands of those individual Governments. Their plan bypassed the roadblocks of competing Governments, and their inconvenient ideas about Democracy, and the voters’ right to know, and hence, their ability to kick those politicians and Governments out of Office if the voters were sufficiently incensed, or displeased. As others have written, the plan lay dormant until the ashes of Europe ceased smouldering after the catastrophe of WW2, when the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty was signed by Germany, France, Irish Republic and others: and those seeds blossomed into life, and morphed, Treaty after Treaty, Nation after Nation, into the political construct known to most as the European Union, but to those of us who can see a little more clearly: as the European Empire. But this is no dictatorial rule by one man, this is a Rule by a Cabal of Unelected Politicians, answerable to no-one, with a vast bureaucracy beholden unto them alone, with a Parliament which was neutered before it was even set up: and as of quite recently, access to the Armed forces of the Nations which make up that Union
We were taken in to the Common Market by Prime Minister Edward Heath, who lied, lied and lied to the Great British public in his efforts to overcome French resistance, and finally he succeeded, by his throwing British fishing resources into the European pot. The British people were asked, in a 1975 Referendum, if we wished to stay, and the massive propaganda machine rolled over any protesting voices, and the vote was to stay within the market. A few voices were raised, but it was a losing battle, and the ‘Stay In’ vote won.
The European Monolith moved slowly and steadily onwards, ever removing more democratic accountability, and with the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union came into being, with the accompanying loss of majority voting for Nation States such as the United Kingdom. We were just a noisy nuisance, we still wished to create an uproar, but, we were just ignored, outvoted and rejected.
And this, and this alone, is the cornerstone of my long-held and deep aversion to anything to do with the rule of Brussels over the Nation State of GB&NI. We have no say, as the electorate, in the political decisions, the multitude of Regulations, the enormous amounts of Taxpayers’ cash which is siphoned off into the multitudinous schemes run by the Brussels Bureaucrats. We do have a say in the makeup of the European Parliament, but that Parliament is nothing more than an echo chamber; true, a very expensive echo chamber, but the words spoken in that place have absolutely no impression on the Commission, the Council of Ministers, the people who rule the European Empire.
I do not believe I am alone: in fact I know I am not alone. 17.4 million voted like me: to Leave, to rid ourselves of the overbearing fist (albeit in a velvet glove) which can override our own domestic political processes: BY LAW.
I yearn for a time when, if we as a democratic nation decide that we want to remove our Government, we could do so by the simple process of a General Election. The late MP Tony Benn, with whom I had absolutely nothing in common, once stated the five questions which must be asked of anyone striving for a position of Power.
“What power have you got?”
“Where did you get it from?”
“In whose interests do you use it?”
“To whom are you accountable?”
“How do we get rid of you?”
All five questions are applicable to Brussels bureaucracy and of both the Council and the Commission.
It is self evident what their power is.
They run the political, monetary and physical state which is the European Union.
All of the Commission, and all of the Council, are appointed
They use their power to extend their rule, their decisions, their fiat.
Their positions are invulnerable to protest, no vote can touch them. Once they gain a seat on the Commission, no one can eject them. The Parliament can disavow them, but it has tried, and never succeeded.
So, Mr. Morpurgo, in answer to your eloquent plea for a return to the ‘Status Quo’, I would state the following:-
What will be different once we leave this diseased Body Politic? Well, you will still be able to travel all across your beloved Europe; but you might have to get a sticker in your new passport saying you have a visa. You will still be able to buy your favourite wines, or cheese, or in fact anything which Europe produces and which you favour, but you might have to pay a smidgen more for that privilege. You will not be able to amble through the EU passport holders’ lane, but; big deal. You may well decide to leave these shores and reside in some corner of a foreign field; if so, good luck. I prefer England: I prefer Great Britain & Northern Ireland; the weather may be dull, but it, like GB&NI it is never overbearing! We will once more be an Independent Nation State, We will no longer be told what to do by a bunch of foreigners who have no status in our Government. If the rest of Europe wants to stay tied to that bunch in Brussels; the best of British to them.
Us? We’re leaving!