Gary Monro’s blog

At most, only one of these two BBC stories can actually be true:

Blair says rebate ‘will remain’ (8 June, 2005)

Blair says EU rebate ‘has to go’ (21 June, 2005)

Which one could it be? They’re both so flatly contradictory that it leaves the casual reader baffled. Let’s read the text within the story and see if that sheds any light.

Blair says rebate ‘will remain’

The UK’s EU budget rebate remains justified and “will not be negotiated away”, Tony Blair has told MPs
He spoke amid claims other members want to freeze or axe the rebate, won by Margaret Thatcher in 1984, when leaders meet at a summit next week.

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, he said: “The UK rebate will remain and we will not negotiate it away. Period.”

Shadow chancellor George Osborne said it was not good enough for Mr Blair to say he would not negotiate away the rebate.

“What he needs to say is that he will not diminish its value in any way and that there will be no concessions and no fudging,” he added.

“Trying to extract the truth from this prime minister is like trying to nail jelly to a wall. He must be completely clear about what he means.”

Well, that’s pretty clear. In fact, I think that George Osborne is just causing trouble, trying to make a name for himself. I see little doubt about Blair’s intentions here. He’s pretty emphatic, I feel.

Let’s take a look at the other story then:

Blair says EU rebate ‘has to go’

Tony Blair has said Britain’s £3bn EU rebate is an “anomaly that has to go” - but he made clear that its removal had to be linked to farm subsidy reform.

Mr Blair said: “We have made it clear all the way through that we are prepared not just to discuss and negotiate upon, but to recognise that the rebate is an anomaly that has to go, but it has to go in the context of the other anomaly being changed away.”

(Emphasis mine).

Oops - sorry George. Looks like you were right to try to pin Blair down. Now we’re really confused. Which do we believe?

After the lies and deceits over Iraq - and, don’t forget, Blair was fully backed by his cabinet over these things - anything is believable but the problem here is not that Blair is covering up his lies it’s that he’s actually being forthright - blatant, even - with regards to two absolutely contradictory stances. And it’s not like there was enough time between speeches for his opinion to evolve into something else. He was a unilateral disarmer, a nationaliser and an anti-European before becoming a multi-lateralist, Thatcherite free-marketeer and Euro-fanatic - but the transformation did at least take a few years. This dramatic change of stance occurred in just two weeks.

What strikes me more though is that he must realise he’s taken a complete about turn over the rebate and yet has absolutely no qualms about it. Who does he think he is? Who does he think we are? His holding of two totally contradictory points of view suggests either staggering disregard for his reputation as an honest man (my, how I smile as I write that) or a split personality.

Either way, he shouldn’t be leading our country.

Okay, okay, I’m lying. Just thought I’d grab your attention with a statement that is obviously absurd…

Just stumbled on Ashley Mote’s site - he’s a British member of the European Union - and a Euro-realist (ie he doesn’t agree with their being a European union in the first place).

While our own politicians tell us that we aren’t handing over powers to the EU, that we’re still a sovereign and independent nation state, that we won’t be swallowed by that organisation and made into just another region of the Euro Super State other MEPs are more candid about their intentions:

“National sovereignty is a luxury of the past”
– Graham Watson MEP, leader of the liberal group in the European parliament, speaking after Tony Blair’s speech, 23 June 2005

“Presidencies may come and go but the European Commission is eternal”
President Barroso to Tony Blair, after Blair’s speech to the parliament, 23 June 2005

And then there’s this little snippet. Recall, if you will, that the EU is democratic. The MEPs in the European Parliament are elected by you and I and they create the laws that you and I then have to obey.

Okay, now if you know a little bit about how the EU runs you’ll know that that last statement is nonsense. Actually, the European Council - unelected, meets in secret, accountable to nobody - suggests new legislation, draws it up, debates it and then hands it to the EU for rubber-stamping. I know from a number of MEPs’ first-hand accounts that this rubber-stamping process is a farce, that the MEPs stand no chance of getting through the reams of paper presented to them and that, often, they just accept the legislation that the European Council produced and that’s that.

So I am not surprised to read this:

“The Council’s staff decide - and that’s it. The game’s over. If MEP’s want to influence decisions they have to find out what’s going on before it’s too late.” These are the words of a former civil servant who worked for many years with the EU’s Council of Ministers at the very heart of the European project. Alexander Stubb is now a Finnish MEP and - in his own words - an unreconstructed federalist.

Mr Stubb made these comments during a meeting of the Constitutional Affairs Committee on 21 April 2005, during a debate on proposals to create an EU External Action Service. Such a service is dependant on the new constitution being ratified by the member states, but the Commission has no intention of waiting for the democratic process to be completed.

His comments crystallised and confirmed the power of the Council of Ministers which always meets in secret. Each committee of the Council is composed of ministers or officials from the government departments of member states dealing with each topic under review.

On one famous occasion, some years ago, a British minister confessed afterwards to being astonished when he was asked to sign a communiqué on arrival. When he questioned the request he was quickly informed that the decisions had already been taken and he was there only to give his approval.

Mr Stubb has just confirmed that nothing has changed over the years. MEPs are still treated like mushrooms - kept in the dark and fed on rich manure.

When you read into this EU business very little surprises you. Most European politicians are quite open about their desire to see a united states of Europe, a single political unit that does away with the whole idea of national sovereignty and which answers only to an unelected European Council.

In itself though, this doesn’t disturb me. It’s completely potty of course but there’s no law against being a little mad.

What really disturbs me is the fact that politicians like Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Gordon Brown are only too aware of this and yet they still won’t simply admit that the EU’s final destination is a single state with the United Kingdom being no more than a couple of regions within that state.

I wonder why…

Samizdata is a pretty excellent blog and contains much quality writing. In fact, the comments section in Samizdata is sometimes better than some blogs!

A point which is borne out by the following post that actually originates from a comment somebody made on some other post on Samizdata. It basically calls for the anonymous suits behind this attempt to make us known in all our details to the authorities via the ID Card to themselves be exposed.

Here’s the text of the post, in full. I recommend you go there and take a look at the comments that accompany this post. It will be interesting to see where this all leads.