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favorovIt's not the British people but their Utopian elites who are deeply ignorant - of comparative data, historical precedent and basic arithmetic. The reality for Britain in Europe is simple: united we'll fall, divided we might stand a sporting chance.
Vote 'No' for a federal Europe
By Mark Steyn
(Filed: 22/06/2004)
Business as usual among the Europhiles. "The flurry
of weekend opinion polling," quoth the Guardian,
"has revealed a British nation that is strongly
opposed to the European Union constitution and
also deeply ignorant about it."
Alas, the stupidity of the people is an
abiding problem of democracy.
Fortunately, the EU has come up with a
set of institutions all but entirely
insulated from it. At least for the moment.
But for the purposes of argument, assume
the Guardian is right, and the people are idiots. The
paper argues that the electorate's concerns - "Many
also fear that the British passport will now be
replaced by an EU one", etc - can be assuaged by
paying clos er attention to the fine print on page 239
sub-section XVIII paragraph D(iii)e.
Maybe so. But I think in this instance the best
example is that of hardcore Europhile Kenneth
Clarke and his famous boast that he'd never read
the Maastricht Treaty. The average
non-Guardian-reading moron may not have read the
European Constitution but suppose he's figured out
the salient fact about it: that it's the legal framework
for a new state. What else does he need to know?
When it comes to national identity, one is entitled to
a measure of ignorance. If you're a Peruvian and
you're happy being a Peruvian, you're unlikely to be
impressed by the Guardian arguing that that's just
because you haven't read all the sub-clauses of the
Bolivian constitution. I d entity is primal, not a matter
of footnotes.
The knuckle-dragging ignoramuses have figured out
that, if this new body is full of offices and institutions
- president, foreign minister, citizenship, etc -
traditionally reserved for states, it's a r ea sonable
supposition that a state is what it intends to be.
In that sense, all the things the Guardian says the
morons are wrong about, they're right about. For
example, those passports: given that passports
now come in standardised EU form, and e nti tle the
bearer to free movement, residency and voting
rights within the EU, they're already de facto EU
passports.
They may have different coats of arms on the front,
but essentially they're the same document - just as
the fellows at Columbia R ecor ds used to joke they'd
issued the Johnny Mathis Christmas album in a
dozen colours. Different sleeve, same record: that's
the EU passport.
Even in its attempts to reassure, the Guardian can't
help acknowledging Euro-creep: "Many people
believe, for instance, that the constitution gives the
EU immediate power to increase taxes in Britain - a
wholly unfounded belief."
"Immediate" power? What about, say, 2012? And,
even if Tony Blair and other enthusiasts insist the EU
is not a state, the final word may not be left to
them. We're told that Britain's Security Council seat
will be unaffected. Who says? Sooner or later, the
rest of the world will start to wonder why the EU's
foreign minister has two of the five permanent votes
at the UN.
For 30 years, as the EU has acquired the organs of a
state entity, the argument of British Europhiles to
the people has been: who ya gonna believe?
Me or your lyin' eyes? Say what you like about those
shifty duplicitous Continentals, but on this is sue i t's
successive British governments that have been
shifty and Monsieur du Plicitous who's been
admirably straightforward.
The new constitution, declared the Belgian prime
minister last week, is "the capstone of a European
federal state".
Why can't the British Prime Minister be that honest?
He could easily say: "Yes, it's a federal state. And
Britain's created more federal states than anyone on
the planet - Canada, Australia, India, the Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. whoops, that one did n't
work out so good, but you get the cut of my jib.
For two centuries, we've been the one-stop shop for
all your federation needs. Today, thriving British
federations can be found on every continent, except
our own. So who better than us to build the federal
state Europe's crying out for? We did it to New
Brunswick, now we're doing it to old Brunswick, as
Donald Rumsfeld would say."
But Mr Blair can't even make that argument. There's
a fascinating book by Alberto Alesina and Enrico
Spolaore called The Size of Nations, in which the
authors note that, of the 10 richest countries in the
world, only four have populations above one million:
America (260 million people), Switzerland (seven
million), Norway (four million) and Singapore (three
million).
All the rest are small jurisdictions with few people.
Small nations, they say, are more cohesive and have
less need for buying off ethnic and regional factions.
America is the exception that proves the rule,
because it's a highly de central ised federation. As
Messrs Alesina and Spolaore put it, if America were
as centrally governed as France, it would break up.
Yet that, in a nutshell, is what the new Europe will
be: a jurisdiction the size of America, but as
centralised as Fra nce.
F act: right now, even before this new constitution
takes effect, the state of New Hampshire has more
control over its tax rates than the United Kingdom.
Fact: right now, the Province of Quebec has more
control over its immigration policy than the Unit ed
Kingdom.
Thus, even if you were in favour of submerging
Britain within a pan-European state, the only
pan-European state on offer is doomed to fail.
So, if you believe in the British nation state, you
should oppose this new constituti on. If you believe
in a viable European federal state, you should also
oppose this new constitution.
That doesn't leave much except a pragmatic
argument: Britain can't make it on her own, any port
in a storm, etc. That line worked when Ted Heath
wa s in offic e. Today, the sunniest optimists project
the European economy to grow at no more than
about 1.5 per cent this year, or about a third of
America's growth rate. And, given the EU's deathbed
demographics, that gap is only going to widen.
Brit ain's GDP p er capita is now higher than France or
Germany's, and its unemployment rate is half.
It's not the British people but their EUtopian elites
who are deeply ignorant - of comparative data,
historical precedent and basic arithmetic. The reali ty
for Britain in Europe is simple: united we'll fall,
divided we might stand a sporting chance.
ee
Vote 'No' for a federal Europe
By Mark Steyn
(Filed: 22/06/2004)
Business as usual among the Europhiles. "The flurry
of weekend opinion polling," quoth the Guardian,
"has revealed a British nation that is strongly
opposed to the European Union constitution and
also deeply ignorant about it."
Alas, the stupidity of the people is an
abiding problem of democracy.
Fortunately, the EU has come up with a
set of institutions all but entirely
insulated from it. At least for the moment.
But for the purposes of argument, assume
the Guardian is right, and the people are idiots. The
paper argues that the electorate's concerns - "Many
also fear that the British passport will now be
replaced by an EU one", etc - can be assuaged by
paying clos er attention to the fine print on page 239
sub-section XVIII paragraph D(iii)e.
Maybe so. But I think in this instance the best
example is that of hardcore Europhile Kenneth
Clarke and his famous boast that he'd never read
the Maastricht Treaty. The average
non-Guardian-reading moron may not have read the
European Constitution but suppose he's figured out
the salient fact about it: that it's the legal framework
for a new state. What else does he need to know?
When it comes to national identity, one is entitled to
a measure of ignorance. If you're a Peruvian and
you're happy being a Peruvian, you're unlikely to be
impressed by the Guardian arguing that that's just
because you haven't read all the sub-clauses of the
Bolivian constitution. I d entity is primal, not a matter
of footnotes.
The knuckle-dragging ignoramuses have figured out
that, if this new body is full of offices and institutions
- president, foreign minister, citizenship, etc -
traditionally reserved for states, it's a r ea sonable
supposition that a state is what it intends to be.
In that sense, all the things the Guardian says the
morons are wrong about, they're right about. For
example, those passports: given that passports
now come in standardised EU form, and e nti tle the
bearer to free movement, residency and voting
rights within the EU, they're already de facto EU
passports.
They may have different coats of arms on the front,
but essentially they're the same document - just as
the fellows at Columbia R ecor ds used to joke they'd
issued the Johnny Mathis Christmas album in a
dozen colours. Different sleeve, same record: that's
the EU passport.
Even in its attempts to reassure, the Guardian can't
help acknowledging Euro-creep: "Many people
believe, for instance, that the constitution gives the
EU immediate power to increase taxes in Britain - a
wholly unfounded belief."
"Immediate" power? What about, say, 2012? And,
even if Tony Blair and other enthusiasts insist the EU
is not a state, the final word may not be left to
them. We're told that Britain's Security Council seat
will be unaffected. Who says? Sooner or later, the
rest of the world will start to wonder why the EU's
foreign minister has two of the five permanent votes
at the UN.
For 30 years, as the EU has acquired the organs of a
state entity, the argument of British Europhiles to
the people has been: who ya gonna believe?
Me or your lyin' eyes? Say what you like about those
shifty duplicitous Continentals, but on this is sue i t's
successive British governments that have been
shifty and Monsieur du Plicitous who's been
admirably straightforward.
The new constitution, declared the Belgian prime
minister last week, is "the capstone of a European
federal state".
Why can't the British Prime Minister be that honest?
He could easily say: "Yes, it's a federal state. And
Britain's created more federal states than anyone on
the planet - Canada, Australia, India, the Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. whoops, that one did n't
work out so good, but you get the cut of my jib.
For two centuries, we've been the one-stop shop for
all your federation needs. Today, thriving British
federations can be found on every continent, except
our own. So who better than us to build the federal
state Europe's crying out for? We did it to New
Brunswick, now we're doing it to old Brunswick, as
Donald Rumsfeld would say."
But Mr Blair can't even make that argument. There's
a fascinating book by Alberto Alesina and Enrico
Spolaore called The Size of Nations, in which the
authors note that, of the 10 richest countries in the
world, only four have populations above one million:
America (260 million people), Switzerland (seven
million), Norway (four million) and Singapore (three
million).
All the rest are small jurisdictions with few people.
Small nations, they say, are more cohesive and have
less need for buying off ethnic and regional factions.
America is the exception that proves the rule,
because it's a highly de central ised federation. As
Messrs Alesina and Spolaore put it, if America were
as centrally governed as France, it would break up.
Yet that, in a nutshell, is what the new Europe will
be: a jurisdiction the size of America, but as
centralised as Fra nce.
F act: right now, even before this new constitution
takes effect, the state of New Hampshire has more
control over its tax rates than the United Kingdom.
Fact: right now, the Province of Quebec has more
control over its immigration policy than the Unit ed
Kingdom.
Thus, even if you were in favour of submerging
Britain within a pan-European state, the only
pan-European state on offer is doomed to fail.
So, if you believe in the British nation state, you
should oppose this new constituti on. If you believe
in a viable European federal state, you should also
oppose this new constitution.
That doesn't leave much except a pragmatic
argument: Britain can't make it on her own, any port
in a storm, etc. That line worked when Ted Heath
wa s in offic e. Today, the sunniest optimists project
the European economy to grow at no more than
about 1.5 per cent this year, or about a third of
America's growth rate. And, given the EU's deathbed
demographics, that gap is only going to widen.
Brit ain's GDP p er capita is now higher than France or
Germany's, and its unemployment rate is half.
It's not the British people but their EUtopian elites
who are deeply ignorant - of comparative data,
historical precedent and basic arithmetic. The reali ty
for Britain in Europe is simple: united we'll fall,
divided we might stand a sporting chance.
ee
