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Wednesday, February 02, 2005
The UK and the EU
On the brink of disaster?
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In Rival Power Blocs I wrote: “Excluding Great Britain, which hasn’t yet fully signed on to all the features of EU socialism, the EU’s economic vitality exists only in smaller member states.”
Peter Liniker, editor of petesworld.org http://www.petesworld.org/ emailed the following comments, which describes what’s in store if the UK is sucked into the stultifying collectivism of the socialist nomenklatura in Brussels:
The UK economy is indeed largely unplanned (apart from our socialised healthcare) and the unions have been kept in check since Thatcher stood up to them, but regulation is being heaped on to business like never before - mostly from the EU, partially also from Labour interpreting more general EU derived legislation such as the Human Rights Act, increasing the cost of doing business.
The EU is a strange beast in that everything decided within it must necessarily be some sort of a compromise solution rather than a principled decision. There are veto powers where national governments can reject “directives” in various areas of politics such as taxation, defence, healthcare and so on. These vetoes are being whittled away by the successive treaties agreed over the years, culminating in the Constitution which leaves national government to deal with whatever Brussels is not currently interested in interfering in.
Past governments - both Tory and Labour - have for reasons quite beyond my comprehension consistently played down the negative effects of EU membership and at the same time signed away our veto rights again and again. I suppose Labour would be more in favour of the EU on principle than not, but how the Tory governments justify support I cannot understand as most of their party members are anti-EU. (It is my opinion that we should exit asap and create a free trade area with former colonies where all members would benefit economically and from a common language and legal traditions, but I don’t see that happening).
Signing up to the Constitution I think would be a point of no return as it would commit Britain to socialism forevermore. Currently about 65% of the electorate are fairly firmly decided against signing up to it - there will be a referendum, probably in 2006. So unless Labour can pull a similar same trick to that Edward Heath pulled in the 1973 referendum where the most nationally trusted media outlet at the time - the BBC - portrayed an entirely positive message on joining the EU, it will hopefully be unlikely that they can change too many peoples minds.
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