Toby on Tuesday
'A failed Utopia'
At last the Penny (or in this case the Euro) is starting to
drop. Thanks to the threat of Brexit, signs of sanity are starting
to break out in the whole crazed Euro project. Now Donald Tusk,
President of the European Council, is one of the five Presidents who really run
the EU. From 2007-2014 he was Prime Minister of Poland, leading a
deeply patriotic country that during the Second World War was the staunchest of
Britain’s allies and without the courage of whose pilots the Battle of Britain
might have been lost. Indeed it was over Poland that we finally
entered the war in 1939. And sandwiched as they are between Russia
and Germany, the Poles have learned to be cautious and circumspect.
So it is significant to say the least that during the past fortnight, Donald
Tusk has made two speeches that could in large measure have been drafted by
UKIP. They are a warning shot to the Euro-zealots throughout the Continent
and without our Referendum they would certainly have never been made.
In one he declared, “I don’t need to explain to anyone present here what
dramatic consequences, also economic, would be brought about by Brexit...But we
know that there are more threats, and the migration crisis has shown how
difficult it is today to agree a common European answer and foster common
determination in the decision process...We must and can avoid this
scenario. The condition is to depart from utopian dreams and move on
to practical activities...Forcing lyrical and in fact naive Euro-enthusiastic
visions of total integration, regardless of the obvious goodwill of their
proponents, is not a suitable answer to our problems. Firstly
because it is simply not possible, and secondly because – paradoxically –
promoting them only leads to the strengthening of Eurosceptic moods, not only in
the UK. As one of the key players of European integration Hubert
Vedrine recently said, ‘You see governments and parties all over jumping up and
down asking for more Europe, more Europe – if you want people to massively
reject Europe, just keep on.’ An ideological drive forward can end
in a disaster.”
And in the other, Donald Tusk again echoed UKIP when he stated, “It is us
who today are responsible for confronting reality with all kinds of
utopias. A utopia of Europe without nation states, a utopia of
Europe without conflicting interests and ambitions, a utopia of Europe imposing
its own values on the external world. A utopia of Euro-Asian
unity. Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we
failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe do not share our
Euro-enthusiasm. Disillusioned with the great visions of the future,
they demand that we cope with the present reality better than we have been doing
until now. Today, Euro-scepticism, or even Euro-pessimism, have
become an alternative to those illusions....That is why let us refrain from
exaggerated rhetoric, because exaggeration, in whatever direction, is a heavy
sin in politics.”
Together these two speeches represent an astonishing concession by one of
those at the very summit of the EU project. But Donald Tusk is an
historian. He has studied how ideologies can lead to disaster, how
the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution which all
began in those naive visions, full of hope, led only to death, bankruptcy,
tyranny, war and human misery. And he will know that the EU project
now runs the risk of the same outcome across the Continent of
Europe. The cry of “More Europe” will only deepen the abyss into
which it is now staring. The Leave campaign was the catalyst for
Donald Tusk’s two speeches which received so little coverage in our
press. And a big Leave majority on 23rd June can become the catalyst
for a truly reformed Europe, based on nation states working together,
co-operating, trading, playing to their strengths, keeping their identities,
rather than some over-arching supranational monster, sucking the life out of the
once great Continent. To save Europe from itself in this way will be
the true prize in this Referendum and fulfil Britain’s historic role as the
power which has always restored balance and equilibrium to the whole
Continent!
Until next Tuesday!
Toby