Major dismissed Maastricht rebels as 'fruitcakes' (Photo: Brian Smith) I have explained often enough on my blog and elsewhere why I was a supporter of the ideals of European unity and integration sixty years ago, and how experience led me to change my mind. So while I criticise Sir John Major for not seeing, when he was Prime Minister, the significance of the giant step towards the single European state inherent in the Maastricht Treaty, I have to compliment him on grasping at last why we “rebels” fought so hard against it. It seems that he has told Al Jazeera TV that the growing integration of the eurozone countries threatens democracy. He even forecast that France and Germany will “insist on moving towards towards fiscal union”. Sir John added: “By that I mean common control over budgets and fiscal deficits.” Isn't that precisely what John Redwood, Bill Cash, Iain Duncan Smith and the other Maastricht rebels told him would happen? And did he not call them “bastards”, “fruitcakes” and “ten apples short of a picnic”. What is more, he denied up hill and down dale that any of these things would happen. I remember all too well the last time that I discussed these matters with him at No 10 when I implored him to rule out the creation of a single currency as a matter of principle. He told me that there was no principle involved, it was just a practical matter. Principle or not, the euro is now not only preventing the Greeks, Italians and perhaps the Spanish too (before long) from acting to deal with their economic problems, but it is, as he says, threatening democracy. It is even threatening our economy and that of the wider world. Our European friends, says Sir John, have launched a “heat-seeking missile aimed at the City of London”. Of course he meant a wealth-seeking missile, but he was right about our “friends”. Sir John is described as a foreign policy adviser to the Prime Minister, which must please the Foreign Secretary no end, so I wonder what advice he is giving. Is it to spend our money on propping up a currency which cannot survive without eroding democracy, and to meekly allow those Franco-German missiles to destroy the City of London? Or will he be whispering: “Those bastards like Redwood, Cash, and Duncan Smith were right fifteen or twenty years ago and they are right again today.” That surely must be the logical consequence of his admissions in the Al Jazeera interview. There is no need to wonder what advice Boris Johnson would give. He has set it all out in the Sunday Telegraph. There he emphasises the point made by Sir John, that the administration proposed to control the economies of the eurozone countries would have “no democratic legitimacy”. Boris Johnson has now publicly joined the growing army of those who believe that there is a need for “an orderly realignment” with “either a bisection of the euro into north and south” or some way in which “countries are allowed to devalue”. Even that would not remedy the democratic deficit which he has identified. Once again I have to repeat Enoch Powell's warning that there cannot be a democratic European Union “because there is no European demos”. The only doubt now is how long it will be before our leaders realise that Enoch Powell was right.Sir John Major advises David Cameron on foreign policy. Does he tell him the truth about Europe?
Monday, 21 November 2011
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