The back room dealing seems to have decided that he must be: first, from an EU country that is a member of all the deals -- the Schengen agreement, the single currency, the defence commitments, the lot. Second, from a country that is not too big, yet not too small. Third, is someone who in the past has successfully done a six-month stint in the rotating presidency of the European Council, but is still young enough not to look like a reheated left-over. Fourth, is from the centre-right grouping in Europe. The point of that is to allow the new EU foreign minister to be drawn from among the euro-left. And fifth, is acceptable to Angela Merkel. In fact, you can forget points one to four. The only point that really counts is the fifth point, that the new president is acceptable to the German Chancellor. Such is her power she is already being called 'la grande électrice' -- the great voter. There are only two European figures who seem to match all those points: Jan Peter Balkenende, prime minister of the Netherlands, and Wolfgang Schussel, former chancellor of Austria. In fact, most people reckon that only Balkenende really matches all the points, but Merkel is reckoned to think Schussel would make a good candidate, so he is in the running. Luckily for both the men, 'global name recognition' has never actually been part of the job description, despite what the Blair camp has been pushing all these months. If either Balkenende or Schussel tried to walk into the US State Department, they'd most likely be tackled and cuffed by security as unknown aliens. Some are worried of course because the thing Balkenende is best known for outside the Netherlands is looking like Harry Potter. His appearance might detract from whatever gravitas the euro-elite hope to add to the office. I don't think they should worry about that. Since the new president's new foreign minister would be drawn from the left, that means David Miliband is well-placed to make it as the foreign minister. He looks like Donny Osmond. And what he looks like with that banana in his hand is anybody's guess. President Potter, by contrast, would look just fine. With the Czech president ready to sign the thing, Cameron has been forced to say more than just 'we will not let matters rest' if the treaty is in force when and if he becomes prime minister. And what he is now saying, in effect, is that he will not have his government do anything to change the effects of the treaty on Britain. His line is now that the Tories will promise to pass a law giving a 'referendum guarantee' on all future transfers of power to Brussels. There are about three big things wrong with that statement, but start with number one: it implies that the transfers of powers to Brussels in the Lisbon Treaty and earlier treaties should therefore stand. All Cameron is now saying is that he will stop any more powers shifting to Brussels without holding a referendum. So this is his position: under Lisbon, Britain loses control of its home office and justice policies, its foreign policy, its control over intelligence and the surveillance of citizens, it hands the fate of individual British people and businesses over to a new supreme court called the European Court of Justice and to arbitrary extradition to foreign courts, and so much more, and worse. But what Cameron is now saying is that all that is okay, he can live with that. His position is that he is willing to surrender Britain to Lisbon. He won't try to take back any of those powers handed to Brussels against the will of the people. Instead, he will just promise not to let any more go to Brussels, at least, not without a referendum. But no law passed in Westminster can be immune to change by a future government. Even if such a promise of a law to force referenda on future issues had any point -- and it hasn't, and I will get to that in a moment -- it could be changed by whatever government succeeds a Cameron government. It is a meaningless promise. More, one of the many powers the Lisbon Treaty hands to Brussels is a new power which will allow the treaty to be self-amending. That means that the necessity of the European Union institutions getting permission from the member states for an increase in powers will now no longer be necessary: the Lisbon Treaty is not only Britain's new constitution, it is Britain's new constitution which can be changed by groups of foreign powers gathered behind closed doors in Brussels. And Cameron is willing to let that stand, because 'senior Tories' -- unnamed, but try the names Clarke and Helseltine -- 'accept it would be futile to hold a referendum on a treaty that has already been ratified across the EU.' Tripe. One, Cameron has led the British to believe he will give them a chance to vote on the treaty, and it is contemptible now to let the Tory euro-quislings lead him to betray this trust. It would not be 'futile' to hold a referendum, it would be principled and just. Second, Martin Howe QC, who recently contributed to the drafting of the Conservative Party's Bill for a Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, told me earlier this month how a future Tory government could proceed to get fundamental changes made to the Lisbon Treaty: 'An incoming Conservative government should proceed at first by reasoned argument, politely asking our European partners to agree to the changes which it seeks by pointing out the advantages of an improved and more harmonious relationship in the future between the UK and its partners. It should also emphasise that the Lisbon Treaty has no political legitimacy whatever in the UK because it was pushed through Parliament in breach of Labour's election commitment to hold a referendum on the European Constitution -- of which Lisbon is just a re-hash.' 'If reasoned argument falls on deaf ears then an incoming Conservative government would be politically and morally justified in taking stronger steps to secure redress for the offensive imposition of the Lisbon Treaty without a vote of the people. Until its grievance is remedied, the UK should veto any further treaty changes and any other increases in EU powers which require unanimous assent, such as budget increase. If other member states try to abuse their powers under the Treaties by forcing through measures under QMV [qualified majority vote] which are targeted against us, we should not hesitate to disapply those measures under our own law.' Yet Cameron, or whichever euro-quisling has his hand up Cameron's back and is moving his mouth, says such a clear and forceful move by a British government would be based on 'isolationism' and not 'realism.' That was a bad choice of words by the Tory leader. Some of us have been covering this story so long that we recognise the vocabulary. It is the vocabulary of deceit which the Howe-Heseltine-Clarke team of euro-collaborators worked out to undermine Margaret Thatcher's attempts to resist European demands for Britain to hand over ever-more power to Brussels. Britain remains, despite these years of Blair-Brown government, one of the greatest economic, financial, trade and military powers of the world. Cameron would like us to believe that if we do not please some team of Belgium-Finland-Portugal and whatever other little chaps who may gather around France, then Britain will be 'isolated.' It is not possible to isolate Britain. Even if Britain left the EU altogether, it would not be possible to isolate Britain. All European countries trade freely with each other, even the ones such as oil-rich Norway and bank-rich Switzerland, who are not and do not want to be members of the EU. As for being 'isolationist' -- Cameron needs to tell his party just when he decided 'independence' is to be condemned as 'isolation.' And in all of this, what is to become of William Hague? He has over these past years staked out his position against the euro-quisling collaboration pushed by men such as Heseltine and Clarke. Will he, can he, stay on a front bench where such surrender has become policy? If he does, he will be no better than Cameron. And Cameron is no good at all. Some of us out here corralled in the press bar have noticed we hear UKIP politicians quoting Lenin: 'Worse is better.' By 'worse,' they mean Tony Blair as the new 5-year President of the European Council. UKIP reckon a President Tony would be a vote-getter for them. I'd say they are right. But I'd also say -- and I've heard it from both the Continental left and the British right - that Blair is going to be stopped. The price may be David Miliband as EU foreign minister. When Lenin said 'worse,' did he ever imagine 'worse' could be bad enough to include Miliband? It is because Blair is the only European politician whose vanity Sarkozy can count on to aggrandise the office. I'm dead sure Sarkozy reckons that after he is through being president of a country which is second-rate in terms of international influence, he can become President of Europe. That would let him claim to be the equal to the American president and the Chinese dictator. But he wants to make sure that no dull Dutch or Finnish technocrat takes the job first and shapes it into not much more than a five-year term as a conference-convener. Sarko intends to inherit a presidency with grandeur, and he knows that among European politicians he has only one equal in the love of the gilded life: Tony Blair. If the French president can get Blair into the office first, he can be sure that Tony and Cherie between them will inject enough limousines, private jets, state banquets and ceremony to keep him happy when he arrives to take over. What Sarko dreams of is being the 21st century Sun King. He knows Tony will lay out a path to euro-Versailles for him. Just how much grandeur does Sarkozy imagine Europe owes him? Yesterday the EU Court of Auditors published their accounts of his spending during the six months France held the rotating EU presidency last year. The accounts show the French president was spending European taxpayers' money at the rate of about £900,000 a day, making the total spend for the 26 weeks in which France held the presidency equal to £154m. Among the most absurdly immoderate of the spending binges by Monsieur le Roi Soleil-Rotating President was his EU-Mediterranean summit, which cost £15m for two days' frolics. Calculations for the cost per head of the big-event dinner was £4,500. Imagine Sarkozy having the run of the European president's entertainment budget for a full five years. Michael O'Leary, chief executive of Ryanair, spent €500,000 of the airline's money to help lock up a Yes vote in Ireland's recent referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Among other things -- among too many other, and ghastly things -- the treaty will allow the EU to impose direct taxation. Today a document leaked from the European Commission to Open Europe has come to light. It shows that among the means by which Brussels intends to raise revenue for the ever-increasing EU budget is by levies on flights. Given how much fuss O'Leary has been making over a €10 tourist tax imposed on airfares in Ireland, I can expect he will get even more steamed up when the Commission loads something similar on airfares across 27 countries. Earlier this month, O'Leary and other Irish airline executives issued a statement claiming that since the €10 tax was imposed last April, monthly traffic at Dublin airport has fallen by 15 percent. That represents a loss of three million passengers in just a single, small EU country.Try it at a multiple of 27 countries and a loss of tens of millions of Ryanair passengers. To quote Ayn Rand: 'Evil requires the sanction of the victim.' Or as some eurocrat might put it: 'Thanks, sucker.'
30 October 2009 3:55 PM
Certain victory for President Whatshisname
Tony Blair, or 'Mr Flash' as he is now known in Brussels, is not going to get the new EU presidency. The man shaping up to get the post is...well, what he looks like is becoming clear, but just who he is remains uncertain.
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Cameron surrenders
David Cameron's position on the Lisbon Treaty has just moved from the deceitful and ambiguous to the dishonest and contemptible.
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29 October 2009 7:04 PM
Comrade UKIP
I'm at the European Council here in Brussels, it's 8 o'clock and the Euro-heavies such as Sarkozy, Merkel and the rest are about to go into their private, flash dinner. It is a bit like waiting outside the Sistine Chapel for the white smoke. At some point, the prime ministers and presidents are going to have to decide among themselves if Blair is going to get the EU presidency or not. Not that they will tell us tonight...
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28 October 2009 5:03 PM
L'Europe, c'est moi, at £900,000 a day
It's been pretty clear for some time -- well, clear to me at least -- that there is one overriding reason why President Sarkozy of France has been pushing for Tony Blair to be made the first President of the European Council, in effect, to be made the first head of state of this new country called the EU.
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Lesson: never cooperate, never collaborate, never compromise
Collaborators always learn too late.
Sunday, 1 November 2009
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