It's not often I get the chance to forward stuff, but this just strikes a chord here...
Sorry it's quite long, but the good yarns are like that!
Subject: Frederick
Forsyth's analysis of the EU
A long time ago a very wise old
man advised me thus: “If
ever you are confronted by a highly complex situation and a decision
cannot be avoided, never rush to an early emotional judgment. Subject
the subject to the four-pronged ARID.
It stands for Analyse, Research, Identify and then Decide.
Analyse
We all now face the decision:
should we continue as obedient members of the EU or should we sever
the link? Let me try to apply the old man’s advice.
Any country other than a shambolic
anarchy must have a government.
That said, most governmental systems
end with the five-letter “cracy” derived
from the Greek for “rule”.
There are about 10.
We know about autocracy, rule by a
single tyrant. There is theocracy, rule by the priestly caste, such
as Iran.
Add stratocracy, rule by the army
(Egypt) and plutocracy (by the very rich). We have seen gerontocracy,
with the reins of power in the hands of the extremely old - the
Soviet politburo in its last days. And aristocracy, rule by the
nobles, long gone.
But two are with us and visible.
One is bureaucracy, government by the
officials, the constant competitor for power with rule by
the “demos”: the
people. Democracy. It is by far the hardest to establish. It is
the most fragile, the easiest to fake with rigged elections,
meaningless ceremonies and elaborate charades.
I estimate about 100 phoney
democracies worldwide.
But ours is parliamentary democracy
so let’s give it a glance. Of course it is indirect. We cannot
expect the electorate to go to the polls for every tiny decision. So
we divide the country into 650 constituencies with one MP for each.
The party with the most MPs in Westminster governs for five years. At
the pinnacle is the Cabinet and, with encircling junior ministers,
forms the Government, which I will call the power. But there is
more.
The power is held to account, not
five-yearly, not annually or monthly but every day. Doing this is the
official Opposition but also the backbench MPs even of the government
party. This “holding
to account” is
vital.
Assisting these critics is hopefully
a free and unafraid press. I have travelled very widely, seen
the good, the bad and the very ugly and have come firmly to the view
that with all its flaws the British parliamentary form of democracy
is the best in the world. Not for those in power but for the people
who between elections still have a voice. It is against this template
that we can judge the system of the EU.
Research
After the war a group of men,
politicians, thinkers, intellectuals and theorists, formed around
Frenchman Jean Monnet, became convinced that what they had witnessed
at close quarters - the utter destruction of their continent in a
vicious war - must never, ever, happen again.
It was not a bad view-point, indeed
it was a noble one.
They then analysed the problem and
came up with two solutions.
The first was that the various and
disparate nations of Europe west of the Iron Curtain must somehow be
unified into one under a single government. They accepted that this
might take two, even three generations but must be done. This was not
an ignoble vision.
It was their second conclusion
to which I take exception.
The whole group was mesmerised by one
fact. In 1933 the Germans, seized by rabid nationalism, voted Adolf
Hitler into power.
Their conclusion: the
people, any people, were too obtuse, too gullible, and too dim ever
to be safely entrusted with the power to elect their government.
People’s democracy was flawed and should never be permitted to
decide government again if war was to be avoided. Real
power would have to be confined to
a non-elective
body of enlightened minds like theirs.
In the 70 years since, the theory has
never changed. It remains exactly the same today.
The British Cabinet has power and may
delegate that power to a wide range of civil servants: police chiefs,
generals, bureaucrats. But it itself remains elective. The
people can change it via the polling booth.
Not so in the EU.
The difference is absolutely fundamental.
They realised, those founders, that
there would have to be façades erected to persuade the gullible that
democracy had not been abolished in the new utopia.
There is indeed a European Parliament
- but with a difference. In London it is the Commons that is
the law-giver; the Upper House is the vetting and endorsing chamber.
In Brussels the EU Parliament has no
lower house, it is the endorsing chamber. It ratifies what the real
power, the non-elective European Commission, has decided.
The broad masses would also have to
be convinced that the purpose of the Monnet utopia was economic and
thus about prosperity. This untruth has prevailed to this day and is
the main plank of the establishment propaganda in our present British
decision-making.
In fact the final destination of
the EU is entirely political. It is the complete political,
legal and constitutional
unification of the continent of Europe into a single entity: the
State of Europe.
This clearly cannot make war against
itself, thus guaranteeing peace. Albeit without democracy.
It is amazing how many intelligent
people have fallen for this fiction. Thus David Cameron can tell us
with a straight face that he repudiates the three pillars of the EU -
the doctrine of even closer union, a single external border but no
internal ones (Schengen) and a single currency (Eurozone) - but still
thinks we will sit at the top table.
He believes the EU is about trade and
tariffs. No,
that’s what we thought we joined.
Identify
Back in the 1960s one British premier
(Macmillan) after another (Heath) came to the view that with the
empire departing into independence and the USA becoming more
protectionist our economic days were numbered. If the world beyond
the oceans was not Communist it was Third World, meaning
impoverished. Both premiers became convinced the future lay
east across the Channel.
Back then the union was six
countries: Germany, France, Italy, plus minnows Holland, Belgium and
Luxembourg.
Wealthy, especially Germany, booming.
Just the trading partners we needed.
So under Heath we joined the Common
Market. As a trading nation for centuries we were delighted to do
so.
Then the lies began. It would never
go further, we were told. The Six became the Nine but all in Western
Europe.
Heath lied to us. He said there would
never be any question of “transfer
of significant sovereignty”. He
had read the whole Treaty of Rome. No one else had. He knew this was
just the tip of the iceberg.
Then in 1992 came the Maastricht
Treaty. We were told it was just tidying up loose ends. More lies. It
was transformational. It created the European Union. Slowly, decree
by decree, rule by rule, law by law, our ancient right to govern
ourselves the way we wanted to be governed and by whom was
transferred from London to Brussels. Today 60% of all laws are framed
in Brussels, not London.
The lies multiplied. The entire
establishment, much espoused of power without accountability, has
become hugely enamoured of the new governmental system. Less and less
need to consult those wretched people, the voters.
It is no coincidence that the five
professions that worship power - politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats,
quangocrats and lawyers, plus the two that lust
for money, bankers/financiers and tycoons - today
constitute almost the whole of the stay-in campaign.
Almost to a man.
And the lies proliferate. “There
is no intention to proceed to a superstate.” Really?
Read the Treaty of Rome.
That is the whole point of the EU.
What is not said is that in a unified continent there can be no place
for the independent, autonomous, self-governing sovereign
nation/state. The two are a contradiction in terms. Only here
in the UK is that denied. In Brussels it is accepted as wholly
obvious. “The
end of nation” is
regarded as a work in progress. Endgame is foreseen as a decade,
maybe two.
Decide
The referendum decision of June 23
will be the
last ever, the
decision permanent.
So this is your choice.
This is about the country in which
we will spend the rest of our lives, the land we will pass on to our
children and grandchildren.
What kind of a country, what kind
of governmental system? People’s
democracy or officialdom’s empire?
Our right to hold
power to account or
just two duties: to
pay and obey?
For me it is simple and takes just
five words. I
want my country back.
Frederick Forsyth.
