Britannia Radio

21 April 2011 2:58 PM

Eurozone chief Juncker admits he wants all negotiations held in 'secret dark debates'

The thing about some of these euro-ideologues is that they are arrogant enough to admit out loud exactly what they are doing. And what they are doing is poisonous: manoeuvring the EU towards an economic government that is outside democratic control.

Yesterday Jean-Claude Juncker, permanent president of the eurogroup as well as prime minister and treasury minister of that banking boutique known as Luxembourg, was at a meeting organised by the European Movement. (The eurogroup is the technically-informal group of finance ministers of eurozone countries.)

If you are not sure who Juncker is, this will give you his drift: he brags he was one of the principle architects of the Maastricht Treaty. This was the treaty that turned the European Community from a group of countries into a political union heading for a single currency and a eurocracy with its hands on justice and home affairs in member countries. In short, Juncker's treaty was evil.

And it was everything you would expect the European Movement to support. I've covered the European Movement before in this blog, but it is worth recalled what it is, since it is exactly the sort of place in which one would expect to see Juncker performing.

The European Movement calls itself an an international organisation created in 1948 to 'contribute to the establishment of a united, federal Europe.' In fact, as Christopher Booker and Richard North disclose in 'The Great Deception,' research at Georgetown University has turned up US government documents showing that until 1960 the CIA poured Cold War millions of dollars into the organisation. Washington imagined a 'united Europe' could be a bulwark against the Soviet Union, so the Americans pumped dosh to the European federalists through fronts such as the Rockefeller Foundation.

Anyway, what Juncker was up to yesterday was talking about 'economic governance' -- the euro-elite use 'governance' as a eurphemism now, though they mean 'government' -- as he put it, 'in the euroarea and the EU.' The EU. That includes the United Kingdom. So Juncker was not afraid to admit he has economic government of the UK in his euro-sights.

'There are no such things as domestic affairs in a monetary union, the affairs of one are the affairs of all.'

But here's the thing: members of the euro-elite such as Juncker do not intend that this 'economic government' should be democratic. No, as he and his fellow euro-bosses are steering the EU towards centralised economic and fiscal policy, he admits: 'Monetary policy is a serious issue, this should be discussed in secret.'

He said that by discussing each and every monetary-policy issue in public 'you are inspring those who are players in the financial markets.' Yes, like the people who have to invest our pension funds, for a start. Juncker doesn't like giving the markets information: 'I am for secret, dark debates between a few responsible people.'

I just bet you are, Jean-Claude.

Because here is the thing. A national government can and should be able to discuss monetary, economic and fiscal policy in secret. Certainly there are some ideas that could rock markets if they became known too soon. But when it is a national government acting in private, and they come to the wrong decisions, the national lectorate can then throw them and their bad decisions out of office.

How do we get rid of Jean-Claude Juncker and his bad decisions? We can't. And you can bet we would not be able to get rid of any of the 'few responsible people' -- what, responsible Bulgarians, Germans, Spaniards, Greeks? -- Juncker thinks should join him in the 'secret dark debates' that would control our economic government.

He added: 'I'm ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democatic.'

The arrogance of the man. He finds the destruction of democracy amusing.

20 April 2011 6:35 PM

Christendom and Holy Week: remember who you are

Alas, I've been caught up in Finland and the rest this week, and neglected something far more

important -- this poem, by the Englishman G.K. Chesterton, which comes to mind at the start of every Holy Week.

I should have posted it last Sunday. But here it is now, to remind you that our culture was known as 'Christendom' 1,400 years before we were told to call it 'European.'

The Donkey

by G.K. Chesterton

When fishes flew and forests walked

And figs grew upon thorn,

Some moment when the moon was blood

Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry

And ears like errant wings,

The devil's walking parody

On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,

Of ancient crooked will;

Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,

I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;

One far fierce hour and sweet:

There was a shout about my ears,

And palms before my feet.

Listen and learn, chaps: advice from Enoch Powell on how to get a girl

Andrew Alexander's excellent piece today on Enoch Powell (read it on the Debate page: 'The Day Enoch exposed our Mau Mau shame'), notes that 'there were so many sides of Enoch which remain little known or ignored by the media.'

That's dead right. But I was lucky enough to get a glimpse of one of those little known sides.

Back in the late 1970s at a dinner party with Powell, the subject fell to what a man ought to do to attract a woman. (Look, this was a dinner party, not a political interview.)

Powell told the chaps around the table that a man ought to dress either like a soldier or like a banker -- as I say, this was back in the 70s, when bankers were solid, reliable creatures not the vampire squids of today -- because women looked for security in a man.

So I asked Powell which style he preferred himself for attracting women. He leaned back in his chair, tucked his thumbs into the waistcoat of his pinstriped suit, showing a gold watch chain as he did, and replied: 'Which do you think?'

19 April 2011 12:05 PM

Fair warning to LibDem MEP Andrew Duff

Those who remember their Charles Dickens will remember exactly why Madame Defarge knits: she is recording in code the names of those members of the elite whom she will ensure are killed when the revolution comes.

So I offer this as fair warning to the LibDem MEP Andrew Duff: I can knit.

Only this morning euro-fanatic Duff was at the constitutional affairs committee of the European Parliament behaving in a way only an aristocrat of the over-paid European elite behaves.

My sans-culottes informer inside the committee room reports to me that Duff used the

phrase 'the country I know best' when he meant 'Britain.' Those of you who follow this blog will know that 'the country I know best' is the phrase eurocrats are trained to use whenever they find they are forced to refer to their own country.

The idea is that Europe must ultimately erase national borders and national distinctions -- and, hell yes, nations. By obliterating mention of what are no longer sovereign states the European Project moves that much closer to its goal.

But that's for the eurocratic elite. What is an elected British -- repeat, British, wrap your mouth around that one, Duff --politician doing using that phrase here in Brussels?

Next in the committee some discussion came up about Hungary's new constitution. Put aside for the moment that fact that the constitution of Hungary ought to be none of the business of politicians from Germany, Poland, Italy, Belgium and all the other kinds of MEPs on the committee. There they were discussing Hungary's own new constitution, and my sans-culottes tells me Duff started praising a clause in the constitution banning the use of referenda for European treaties. Duff thinks this is a good thing: stop the people having a vote on ever-closer-union.

Well, yes, you wouldn't expect a member of the pampered, over-paid, over-expense-accounted, business-class travelled, over-staffed aristocracy of the EU empire to like the idea that every couple of years a mass of voters somewhere might put the brakes on their gilded carriages.

But I like the idea very much. And one day the revolution will come. When it does, Andrew Duff's name will be right there, recorded -- as justice demands -- in a tricot.

18 April 2011 12:14 PM

The euro hits a Nordic roadblock: Timo Soini and the fabulous Finns

In the words of General Stonewall Jackson, after yet another victory over Union forces: anyone who does not see the hand of God in this is wilfully blind.

Yesterday the formerly-eurofanatic Lutheran Finns shook the ground under the eurozone.

They went to the polls and gave such backing to the True Finns party and its leader Timo Soini, a eurosceptic Catholic-convert, that Soini may now be able to threaten the Portuguese bail-out and bring to a halt negotiations for a permanent eurozone bail-out mechanism, meant to be in place in 2013.

You may see a headline that the True Finns just came in third. Look more closely. The biggest party, the National Coalition conservatives, took 20.4 percent of the vote. The second biggest party, the Social Democrats -- who, under pressure from Soini's party, have moved towards euroscepticism on the bailouts -- took 19.1 percent. The True Finns were just one-tenth of one percent behind at 19 percent. They've come from near-nothing to being within 1.4 percent of the largest party.

That's what happens when solid northern European Protestant people are actually given the choice of voting for a eurosceptic party: they grab it. This surge in popularity for the True Finns will inspire eurosceptics across the Netherlands, Denmark, and into Germany -- and if the Tory party were alert in Britain, would inspire them. But since the Tories are never anything but embarrassed about what their core support wants, there will be no inspiration among Conservatives. Nigel Farage and UKIP, however, will be feeling perky.

The repercussions of the True Finns' spectacular showing don't stop with inspriation and a statisfying ability to annoy the eurozone elite. No, the repercussions will be more dramatic than that. In a note just out this morning from Lombard Street Research, Gabriel Stein says that the victory of the True Finns will make further bailouts much more difficult to achieve: 'conversely, it makes soverign defaults far more likely.'

And since you may not be following the nuances of the eurozone and its threat of defaults closely -- the British still have the blessing of an independent currency -- the one thing that is terrifying the ideologues pushing the European Project is that a eurozone member may default. That could mean the member would have to leave the eurozone. And that in turn could unzip the whole thing. Since the single currency was designed with the ultimate purpose of binding the members into irrevocable centralised government, that would rather derail the project.

So analysis from such a heavy-weights as Lombard Street Research that the Finnish victory could bring sovereign defaults 'much more likely' is nothing but good news.

Here is some more from Stein: 'The immediate reaction abroad has tended to be that the Finnish election result will complicate the work on the Portuguese bailout package. So it may -- but that is likely to be the least of it. One way or the other, Portugal will get its bailout. However, the conditions are likely to be stricter than previously expected.'

'Moreover, this comes at a time when there are significant voices -- notably in Germany -- questioning whether strict conditions and punitive interest rates on bailouts are not, in fact counterproductive.'

'A far more likely and significant result is therefore that any future package -- bailout, easing of terms, changes to mechanisms to deal with fiscal crises -- is now in doubt.'

'Remember that on these issues, unanimity is needed, meaning that every country has a veto. Nor is opposition to further bailouts restricted to Finland -- similar sentiments have been heard from politicians in other countries -- eg, Slovakia and (in a slightly different form) the Netherlands -- as well as, of course, from voters, notably in Germany.'

'So the main impact of the Finnish election is far more likely to be less acceptance of bailouts -- and therefore an increased likelihood of defaults that perhaps in any case were all but certain.'

I do love to hear that from a man of Gabriel Stein's standing: 'an increased likelihood of defaults that perhaps in any case were all but certain.'

Roll on, the defaults. In the words of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin: worse is better.

Or in the words of James Brown: I feel good.

11 April 2011 6:52 PM

Zzzzzzzzz: what passes for 'exciting' in Brussels

Good grief, do you see what I have to go through?

This is typical. It has just hit my inbox, headlined 'Save The Day' -- you know, like there was a jolly party being planned. It will give you an idea of what the people who have been sucked into this euro-scientology cult consider 'exciting.' Here it is:

'The EPC' -that is a big euro-loving Brussels think tank -- 'is gearing up for the summer semester with an exciting programme of events. To whet your appetite here are a few highlights of confirmed events and speakers in our busy events calendar:

18 April Visions for Europe Sixty Minute Briefing Is Europe's future green?

2 May Policy Dialogue on Competition regime for services of general interest

19 May (all-day conference) Policy Dialogue on The future of the European social model

31 May Breakfast Policy Briefing on The priorities of the Polish Presidency of the EU

8 June Policy Dialogue on Global challenges of the green economy & sustainability

16 June EPC Annual Conference on The State of the Union

That last one is going to be with Herman Van Rompuy, the Grinch-like Belgian who is the president of the European Council. Yeah, that'll be a cracker.

Now, look. I will be going to some of these things. In fact I was supposed to be going to one this morning, but work got in the way. I hope however that if I ever come away from a conference on 'a competition regime for services of general interest' saying, 'Wow, a highlight! Wow, exciting!' someone will simply have me put down.

Iceland, banks, democracy: justice. And how Brussels plans to stop it

Here is an edited version of my column from today's Irish Daily Mail:

Hooray, and will somebody buy that nation a drink? Iceland has said No again. At the

weekend the Icelandic people voted a thundering No for a second time to any idea that they should pay back loans made to the failed Icesave bank by gambler-investors at British and Dutch banks.

God love the Icelanders: what a sturdy, independent and stubborn little nation they are, all 320,000 of them.

Well, minus the ten in the government. That lot could seamlessly join the capitulators of our new Fine Gael and Labour Government. The prime minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, and the rest of the centre-left Reykjavik government -- under pressure from Brussels eurocrats, who can't resist interfering even in countries outside the EU -- want the tiny Icelandic population to refund the bank debt of €4bn, apparently to keep the European Commission happy.

But the Icelandic people themselves have no intention of cutting open their veins and pouring out their life’s blood to pay back money owed to foreign speculators, no matter what capitulations their government makes in international negotiations. You should note this. The second referendum on Saturday was not like our second Lisbon referendum where the text of the treaty on which we were asked to vote was exactly the same as the text presented during the first referendum.

No, after its defeat in the first referendum last year, the keen-to-capitulate Reykjavik government went back to the British and Dutch governments and worked out a pay-back scheme which would have been easier for the Icelandic taxpayers. That new deal is what they put to the vote at the weekend. And the Icelanders – God, they are splendid people – still voted No.

Why? As one well-placed Icelandic source told me: ‘The core of our opposition is our firm belief that we as taxpayers have absolutely no legal or moral obligation to pay for these debts of a private bank. Since this dispute started in the autumn of 2008, no one has been able to point to any laws saying that we must pay for this. No one: no legal experts, no politicians and no governments.’

Don’t you just long to hear even one member of our own Government say exactly that? Just one line of this clear, perfect truth: ‘Irish taxpayers have absolutely no legal or moral obligation to pay for these debts of a private bank.’

But of course we do not hear it. Even demands for an Iceland-style referendum on the bank debt are dismissed by Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fail as ‘populism.’ (The party of Bertie Ahern is now finding populism distasteful. That is grotesque.) Last Wednesday the group of independent Deputies in the Dail proposed a motion seeking a referendum on the repayments the last Government and this Government have promised. The motion was swept aside by the big parties.

I find the arrogance of that a punch in the gut, but I don’t really much care that we won’t get a referendum on the debt. I know what any referendum in this country is worth when it goes against the demands of Brussels. The Government would shred the results and just tell us to vote again. Or in the case of a referendum that did not involve a Constitutional issue – which is the kind of referendum a vote on the bank debt would be – the Government would simply ignore a ‘Can’t pay, won’t pay’ result and claim the voters didn’t understand the issues.

Any talk of a No vote in a referendum handing a powerful weapon to our Government for negotiations in Brussels is naïve. That idea depends on the assumption that our Taoiseach and Finance Minister want a powerful negotiating weapon to get this debt off our backs. There is no evidence that they want any such thing. Mr Kenny and Mr Noonan won’t even use the weapons they have already to hand – a default on bank debt, a determination to take a bail-out only from the IMF and not from the EU, an undertaking to leave the euro or even the EU.

Instead, our Taoiseach and our Finance Minister have been hovering around the edges of EU meetings, claiming they are using diplomatic skills and building up friendships in order to make headway with their requests for changes in our bail-out. In fact they are like a couple of provincial dorks hanging around the edges a swish cocktail party: just because nobody is being outright rude to the dorks doesn’t mean they are making social headway.

Why can Iceland fight against these bank pay-backs while all the main Irish political parties claim it is impossible for us to do so? Here is one reason, as seen by my source in Reykjavik: ‘We can do this because of our independence, since we are not in the EU and because we have our own currency. The EU has tried to bully us and will continue to do so but we are not in their clutches and I’m positive we will never be. We have great sympathy for the Irish, there is quite a lot of coverage in Iceland about the situation in Ireland. The situation shows us how much better placed we are outside the EU despite everything.’

‘The fight in Iceland in the weeks before the referendum was between the elite and the people. The elite wanted to accept the [Icesave] agreements. The No side was just ordinary people fighting for justice and standing firm. Also the No side was dominated by people who oppose EU membership while the Yes side was dominated by pro-EU people.’

While there is no doubt that the vote was primarily on the Icesave issue, ‘people in Iceland are saying that this was an exercise for a referendum on EU membership, and an indication of how that referendum might go.’ How it might go is to a No vote. The latest opinion poll by Capacent published last month in an Icelandic business newspaper showed 55.7 percent oppose EU membership while 30 percent want to join. Undecideds are at 14.2 percent.

Not, of course, that Brussels is willing to leave the Icelanders alone to make up their own minds about the EU. The EU elite are trying to move towards a ‘post-democratic’ form of government and the Icelandic attitude of vigorous people-power is exactly what they want to suppress. It’s just killing the Brussels elite that independent Iceland is now back in growth, its interest rates are falling and that its people make it clear they do not want to be ruled by the EU. (Iceland is only negotiating because of a political deal struck in the Reykjavik parliament a couple of years ago – there is no popular push for membership.)

So of course the EU is taking action to ‘explain’ to Iceland how it would ‘benefit’ from membership. The eurocrats have set up a propaganda onslaught in Iceland, using EU taxpayers’ money.

The fund is for propaganda, and bribes: last week at the European Parliament in Strasbourg Stefan Fuele, the European commissioner in charge of enlargement, said he was going to pump €28m into Iceland over the next three years ‘to support strengthening of administrative capacity and prepare Iceland for the management of structural funds.’

Translated from the eurocratic, that means ‘the Commission is going to give more Icelandic bureaucrats a fat-salary vested interest in getting a Yes vote on entering the EU, and remind the politicians how much politically-useful structural dosh they can throw around if they manage to convince the people to vote Yes.’

As for the propaganda, Mr Fuele said ‘the Commission is building up its own information and communication activities to facilitate well-informed public debate. The EU Delegation in Reykjavik is fully operational and actively involved in communication activities and an EU info-centre is planned.’

Translation: ‘We already have eurocrats in smart offices in Reykjavik monitoring who is on our side in the press and broadcasting, industry, labour and politics, and who isn’t. We intend to pump money to those on the Yes side and undermine the No side, just as we did so successfully in Ireland during the second Lisbon referendum.’

The only hope Iceland has to defend its independence against this onslaught is the

extraordinarily strong character of its people. The fact is a people can’t live isolated on the edge of the Arctic for 1,000 years without growing tough. I’d say Iceland has what it takes to defeat the EU machine.

However, there is one thing which could destroy the independence of that small island nation: treachery by their own government. For of course that is exactly what has destroyed the independence of this small island