The Bruges Group held a superb meeting on July 14 in London, and I’m sure everyone there left feeling much more optimistic about the future. The hall in St James’s , London was packed with around 150 people in the audience including UKIP leader Lord Pearson Guest speaker Professor Tim Congdon spoke on what he forecast was the death throes of the Euro. He pointed out that Greece, Ireland and Spain have now been shut out of normal capital markets and can currently get long term funds ONLY from the ECB. Greece would shortly be paying around 18% of its entire GNP in interest, with long-term rates at 9%p.a. . He contrasted this with the UK in its worst debt situations post 1815,1918,1945 where the most we ever had to pay was around 6% of GNP with long term interest rates at around 3% p.a. He said that this situation “can’t go on” , despite the statements to the contrary from the Euro elite, which were out of touch with reality. He refused to offer a prediction as to exactly what course events would take because he did not know, only that the Euro could not survive beyond 6 months. However, he did say that Greece will “definitely” leave the Eurozone ; France had threatened to quit the eurozone in May , forcing Merkel to backtrack on her promise to bail out Greece , but Congdon said that the German constitutional court “must find” that the Greek bailout was illegal under the Maastricht Treaty. What happens then? He also predicted that the Euro 750bn “stability” bail-out would “never be used” He said he was surprised that there had not already been a failure of a major north European creditor bank of the PIIGS. Any one of these, or a currency crisis could trigger the final crisis. However the end comes , he said that the end of the Euro will be “extremely messy” leaving the debtor states with huge and appreciating euro-denominated debts owing to the creditor state’s banks . Because the euro system was established without proper “plumbing” , in particular without a proper “chain of security” governing crises like this , the demise of the euro will lead to ugly and messy cross-border arguments between the member states about who owes what to whom and how much . Douglas Carswell, MP for Harwich ,is one of a tiny number of Tory MPs who openly advocateBritain’s withdrawal from the EU. Douglas is a leading advocate of “Direct Democracy” , by which power will be restored to the people away from Parliament , which no longer pays any regard whatever to what the people want, and is now only responsible for a small part of the governance of the people anyway. In short, Parliament is no longer fit for purpose. He pointed to Switzerland generally and the “Recall” system in the US as examples of the way to go. He pointed out that what we had to overcome internally were those bodies with a “vested interest” in the EU project and these were not a preserve of the left . He enumerated them thus: · The Quangos, which report to Brussels, not to Westminster · Big corporations and big business, which by their nature are international , and whose lobbying power allows them to influence trade and other policy to their advantage , stifling competition. Douglas called the Single Market a “Rigged corporatist market” · Politicians generally who are seduced by power · Officialdom, especially the Foreign Office. · The Judiciary He said that the way to deal with these vested interests was a far more radical approach – Direct Democracy. During Questions after the talks, Tim Congdon made the point that much in politics is “fashion” , and fashions change. In the 1930s “everyone was a communist” but that had gone out of fashion. European unity was a fashion of the post war years , but that had also now had its day. Tim congratulated Douglas for his work in the Commons in pushing for Direct Democracy and getting out of the EU generally, but commented that such efforts by Douglas and others within the established parties could go on for years without achieving anything . He asserted that it was essential in his view to “vote UKIP” as this was the only thing which would frighten the establishment into doing what the people wanted.
Friday, 16 July 2010
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