If you’re anything like me – which you’re probably not, but hey – you wonder from time to time where all the seemingly interminable nonsense in Europe is most likely to end up. Do you ever wonder that? I mean, barely a day goes by when we don’t hear, read or watch some report or other on the shenanigans within the European Union or the Eurozone.
Well, prior to me publishing my next original post, I thought you might like to spend less than 10 minutes in the company of my old friend the Punk Economist, David McWilliams. Here he explains – towards the end of his presentation – why it could be unwise to base your understanding of the endgame for Europe on the pronouncements of, say, the Daily Telegraph, or UKIP. I think he has a point …
Mr Moraymint: I read your posts and you always speak my mind. So here is a little aside.
I have just returned from an extensive tour of southern Spain. Supposedly a basket case economically, I found to my suprise quite the opposite. Generally, people were chearful, well cloathed, well fed – generally doing and living very well. But based on what I saw and heard, a lot of people are outside the system. They despise their politicians even more than in the UK!!
I think this is the way forward, at least in the medium term. If the system won’t listen, then fuck the system – it won’t have my consent or money, and I’ll minimise its impact on me. A lot to like in Spain.
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I’m becoming ever more enamoured with idea of somehow living one’s life ‘off the state’s radar’, so to speak. The challenge is to discover quite how to do this in practice. Every inch of our life is now so observed, so counted, so measured, so recorded, so tracked by not only the state, but also very often the corporate world too, that it’s quite difficult to know how to start the process of becoming invisible. If I had my time again, I would be as tenacious as I could in achieving that invisibility. I wish to coach my children in this art.
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So, bearing in mind that there’s basically nothing in the normal channels that we can do to stop the EU machine, I was wondering how far people will go outside of normal channels to persuade our leaders that it is not in their interests to force the EU upon us.
What I do find surprising is how few people with terminal illnesses are willing to impress upon our leaders that they force this upon us at their peril.
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Yes, I confess there are days (quite frequently) when I wonder if/when there’ll come a day when people moaning about the state we’re in will transmogrify into people smashing up the place a bit?
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Like you I have wondered why our political class love the EU so much, but I think I know what is going on. Although they want the trappings of power – to be on the international stage, to be on TV, the money, the big cars (with police motorcycles around them, even better), international junkets, the directorships – the last thing they want is to actually be responsible for any decisions.
So the EU is ideal. Lots of jetting about to summits and dinners with no need to make a decision about anything at all. Brussels makes the decisions, so they are in heaven. If we were out of the EU they might have to make difficult decisions and be held to account. A disaster for a modern politician. He/she might have to actually know something and accept some responsibility.
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Agreed!
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moraymint,
Where’s Europe Heading?
Moraymint,
This, the EU project, has for sixty years been one that has been progressed through deception and so it goes on today. Do we wonder what the final destination looks like of course we do? Does it resemble the USA or the former USSR? That’s the unknown.
You mention the endgame and also the DT and UKIP and if I read you correctly you suggest they are just as much in the dark as the rest of us but don’t realise they are equally in the dark and are unaware as to how it might develop. Good point that. What concerns me most is the niavety of our politicians, particularly the PM. Does he really consider that somehow he can win back matters such as the current policy of “open borders” – something at the very heart of closer integration? Mr. Cameron is playing with hard men who don’t do the rules of cricket. Mr. Barroso in his youth was a Maoist and Mr. Van Rompuy a communist: a bit different from Eton and Oxford.
You may consider the following trivial but it’s not. Here’s today’s directive from Brussels – all vacuum cleaners will be required to operate with lower suction power and two weeks ago another of these ridiculous directives informed us that hairdressers working in salons will have the heel height of their shoes limited. This is the kind of crazy nonsense you would associate with North Korea: It’s micro management gone mad.
I revert here to “open borders”. The land mass of these islands and its infrastructure cannot sustain an ever ending stream of immigrants without social unrest from its indigenous population and any government who thinks it can is sleepwalking into dangerous waters.
I listened this morning to Mr. Cridland of the CBI warning of the dire results of the UK leaving the EU: three million lost jobs and each family £ 2,000 p.a. poorer while Dominic Lawson in the Daily Mail countered the argument by the costs of mass immigration. Of course I don’t know who is correct here – does the Coalition government?
No, Moraymint I don’t know the answer to the question you posed but I will just leave it this way and it’s for sure we need a United States of Europe as it is currently formed like a hole in the head.
Just an afterthought to relieve the doom and gloom of the above. – Why not launch a UKIP website on the lines of Conservative Home. Tim Montgomerie has made quite a success of his and it wouldn’t be illegal or cost too much – or would it?
Maureen Turner.
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Thanks Maureen, good stuff. I can hardly believe that vacuum cleaner and hairdressers’ heels stuff, but on the other hand …
Intrigued by the idea of a UKIP Home blog, but I think that for now UKIP are making a reasonable fist of being the real UKIP, so to speak. Don’t you think?
Stay in touch …
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I have little doubt that the European political elite including the LibLabCon are absolutely dedicated to the European project. However, having watched the video I am still no wiser as to how politics is going to trump economics.
As yet, none of the promises Germany has made have been converted into real payments and visible tax increases for the populace. If this happens AfD (Alternative for Germany) will start to gain meaningful support. Increased numbers of benefit tourists from elsewhere in the EU could also undermine public support in Germany for the EU.
Year by year, German industry exports more and more outside of Europe, As this progresses, the argument for a costly European political union weakens.
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Thanks Peter. I tend to agree with the point implicit in your reply: that in the end economics will trump politics. Quite what social disruption and civil unrest we shall have to endure as the politics is trumped is anybody’s guess. Our political classes’ behaviour verges on treasonous as they strive to impose their harebrained political fantasies on us all …
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Is this supposed to auto-open as u-tube or somesuch, please?
Mike O’Neill Isle of Dogs LONDON E14 3EG
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It should open on this page Mike. It could be that you’re a new visitor to this blog and I needed to approve your post. Can you see the movie now?
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While I agree with much of what is said, there will be a point when the majority (who have never voted for political union) say no.
If it continues, we will see the rise of freedom fighters (termed terrorists by the establishment) and there will be blood on the streets.
I for one, will NEVER submit to EU rule.
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Nor me Ski Carver … the European Union stands for the opposite of everything I have ever fought for (literally on a few occasions) during my life so far …
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Brilliant
great to see your back
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It’s good to be here; thanks …
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I think it’s always been pretty clear that no matter how much we might want this horrible union to fail it’s not going to go without a fight (possible literaly).
I’m not even sure that by the time UKIP gain power there will be enough power left in the British engines to pilot us out of the grips of this EU black hole. Still…. we have to try
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Yes Chris, the levels of momentum, tenacity and deceit innate to the European Union machine are truly alarming. Throw in the near €3 billion per year that the European Union spends on “communication” (propaganda to you and me) and it’s no wonder the Union marches on crushing all before it …
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