Yet still there are those in the media who feel they have something to contribute to the aftermath of “that speech” – and still the same old, tired, arguments are aired which continue the process of misinforming the electorate. In today’s papers are articles by Janet Daley (Telegraph); Tony Blair (Mail); Andrew Rawnsley (Observer); John Rentoul (Independent); David Miliband (Telegraph); and Nigel Farage (Mail).
Daley’s piece is a contrast twixt the messsages of Obama and Cameron – and as the outlook for this country is black enough without ploughing through her opinions on the problems America is currently experiencing, I propose we disregard those and concentrate on her opinion of Cameron and his speech. She is another who it appears has swallowed hook, line and sinker the Norway meme as she too is another who believes that Cameron’s speech was “eloquently argued, irresistibly persuasive to British ears, and logically faultless”. Logically faultless was it, Janet? One can only urge her to consult a dictionary on the meaning of those last two words. Writing that Cameron has a dream of the European Union as an open, flexible, freely diverse fellowship of nation states, each of them democratically accountable to its own electorate, and all of them able to cooperate in whatever ways suited their individual needs at any given time – which is what we all thought we would have, ie a common market – Daley continues:
“But does he not appreciate that this is the very antithesis of the founding principle of the EU? That its deliberate object was to curtail the power of its separate member states and the dangerous impulses of their volatile electorates, whose inclinations had a tendency to end in mass murder? It is not a travesty of the European project to say that it was a conspiracy of the European elites against their own peoples: it is the literal truth. Of course, the EU, with its unelected centralised governing bodies, overrides the democratic wishes of the nation states. That’s the whole point. This was a post-war French and German idea, devised to prevent any possibility of the hideous conflicts that devastated the continent during the last century. Its imperatives – the irreversible political integration of member states, a guarantee that national governments could never again go rogue, and the disempowering of electorates – arose directly from the 20th-century experience of criminal national leaders. The nation state, driven by the will of its own people, had been the demonic enemy of peace and the EU would put an end to it, once and for all.”
One might question the logic of the first part of that extract on two points: (a) were not the dangerous impulses of volatile electorates that had a tendency to end in mass murder not formed and directed by politicians; and (b) might not this time round the objects of said mass murder, rather than being the people, be the politicians? Leaving that aside, the remainder of Daley’s comments can only show that Cameron’s dream is totally unrealisable, As I and others have written, almost to the point of exhaustion, were one power to be returned to one member state it would start an avalanche of similar requests resulting in the end of the “project” – and those behind said “project” will never allow that to happen.
Readers will forgive me if I gloss over the offering of Tony Blair as it is what one would expect. Digressing again, someone wrote recently that Blair can never say or write something without forgetting that he is no longer addressing the House of Commons – very true that.
Andrew Rawnsley’s offering is long and while being a summary of what has already been said by others, does repeat one or two points worth consideration, but in castigating Cameron for a speech at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons, he writes:
“David Cameron has taken a great leap into the dark, which would not be so serious if he were not making his country jump with him.”
Er, when any Prime Minister of this country, because of the dictatorial aspects encapsulated in our present system of democracy, says jump, regardless of the subject, does not the country have to jump with them?
John Rentoul, in his offering, castigates MilibandE while praising Blair – which is hardly a surprise, Rentoul being one of the latter’s sycophants – explaining that Blair has nothing to fear about opinion polls nor that which he has previously said. No, the only thing Blair has to worry about is what those that can crown him President of the EU actually think of him.
David Miliband on the other hand (just love the picture) offers what may be termed a typical Europhile view; for example, maintaining that under the Lisbon Treaty national parliaments are more able to become “engaged” with the EU – yet forgets to mention that national parliaments are “handcuffed” in that EU law has primacy over national law, even national constitutional law. Reminding Cameron that any attempt to rewrite the commitment for “ever closer union” may as well be filed in the bin immediately, he continues with his own version of Euro-FUD by threatening that were the UK to cease EU membership we would be seen as a “fringe irritant” of Europe. Besides a tad of “spin” and thus informing us that EU membership only costs us £1 per week, each, MiilibandD then perpetuates Cameron’s lie about Norway but arguing from the point that we help write the rules of the single market – no, “we” don’t, but Norway does.
Finally we come to the offering by Nigel Farage – where to start? He also castigates MilibandE for not taking the opportunity of demanding the promised referendum now – no “ifs”, no “buts” and continues that he (Farage) considers this to be a political failure on Labour’s part and also a betrayal of their core voters. One can only counter by asking was Farage’s error not to criticise Cameron for his “Norway lie” a political failure and also a betrayal of his and his party’s core voters? Praising his party’s performances in Rotherham and Barnsley, Nigel Farage forget to mention that there were a lot of people who could not be bother to make their voices heard in the belief that all policial parties are the same. Suggesting that we need to sort out the bread and butter of UK politics, it is perhaps too much to expect a politician, especially one who considers himself a libertarian, to start with our system of representative democracy on which all political parties “feed”.
When considering the articles mentioned above – and those that have gone before – one can only ask when, oh when, will other journalists join Christopher Booker in providing us with reasoned, informative articles. When will the media, which is self-flagellating in order to prove that they are a free and fair press, be prepared to give air and paper time to those bloggers – and “the man in the street” – who disagree with “accepted opinion”? One can but repeat the question: how can the British people vote with any confidence and knowledge in what is a referendum about this country’s sovereignty and the right to self-government, the right of the people to decide their own future, when politicians and media lie to us?
As an afterthought, I leave it to readers if they wish to omit the letter “k” from the word “skewage” when considering the media output to which I refer.
