Toby on Tuesday

 ‘Less European?…’

 

There have been some wonderful lies cooked up by the Eurofanatics who have caused such havoc to our country during the past generation. The most lurid of course is the old threat that, if Britain left the EU, somehow 3 million jobs would instantly disappear. This presumes that all trade with the EU would cease overnight, even though we import infinitely more from the rest of the EU than they buy from us and they would be desperate for a trade agreement. Of course this was the mantra of the late Nick Clegg and his now departed, if not regretted, LibDem friends. But perhaps the most colourful is the claim that Britain would, after Brexit, somehow cease to be European and therefore could no longer take part in the high camp annual ritual of the Eurovision Song Contest.

I chuckled over this to myself last week when I read through the list of Eurovision contestants. 40 nations entered of which only 28 were actual EU members and just 19 were trapped in the downward spiral of the doomed Euro currency. So over half the nations entering Eurovision do not actually use the Euro and they are the ones likely to survive the existential crisis caused by this doomed project. Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, which wisely stayed outside the EU in the 1970’s, do not see themselves as any less “European” for having escaped its clutches, while the entries also included Armenia, from where Kim Kardashian’s family come and whose genocide at the hands of the Turks in the 1920’s is only now being acknowledged, Israel, Russia and even Australia! In fact of the first five winning entries, only three (Sweden, Italy and Belgium) are even in the EU and only two (Italy and Belgium) actually use the Euro currency. So UKIP’s claim to love Europe and European culture while detesting the EU and all its works is well-founded when you see the Eurovision line-up.

And for those trapped inside the prison of the Euro currency, with all its dreadful consequences, their songs sounded like cries for help. The beautiful Maria Elena Kyriakou stunned us all with her voice and the words of her song,

“I’m begging you take me
out of this firing hell
Come back and save me -
What happened wasn’t fair.
Nothing left. All that I have
is one last breath.
Only one last breath!”

If that isn’t a cry for help from a suffering country martyred by Euro membership, I don’t know what is. In truth, Eurovision is a wonderful image of what the future of the Continent could look like. A shared civilisation, stretching (in David Cameron’s words) from the Atlantic to the Urals, without the failing grip of the so-called “European Union”, but including Russia, even Israel and with strong ties to Britain’s own Commonwealth – Australia and the rest – on which Ted Heath so foolishly turned his back in 1972. This is the great prize that UKIP is seeking as work starts on our In/Out referendum. On Saturday, the UK’s entry finished 24th. Who knows, if we ultimately left the EU we might even, like Russia and Australia, find ourselves in the top five!

Until next Tuesday!
Toby