European Disunion

Falklands Are a 'Colony?' Tell that to the Falklanders

2012-02-17T09:37:00.000-08:00

The Falkland Islanders don't want to be sold out by their fellow citizens.

Much has been made of Sean Penn's latest verbal escapade, and there's not much more that can be done, other than mentioning this. I just thought I'd bring you all some good news from the South Atlantic that flies in the face of Argentina's pretensions: the people of the Falkland Islands have held a voluntary procession along the islands' main thoroughfare, waving British flags and calling for their UN-enshrined right to self-determination to be respected, by both world leaders and right-on celebrities alike. One local, noting that the inhabitants donated several pounds per person to the Haiti earthquake fund which Sean Penn was deeply involved with, deliciously told told the American celebrity - known for his world around the world - that 'we have rights too.'

British people were the first to permanently settle on the islands, and, barring brief interludes of abandonment or conquest, the islands have been British for all of their recorded history. Aside from some in a small community of Chilean citizens (who held a similar demonstration to declare their support of the UK), almost all of the residents have British passports and full British citizenship. Their simple gesture proves at a stroke not only that the usual accusations of colonialism and jingoism are wrong, but that to call for their handing over to Argentina is to set yourself against the democratic will of the people.

The Prolier-Than-Thou Cult of Celebrity

2012-02-06T09:39:00.000-08:00

Wear a picture of a smoking mass-murderer? You're 'hip'! Wear a picture of a Tory? Crossing the line there, pal...

Am I the only one who thinks that an odd assemblage of music personalities falling over themselves to be prolier-than-thou actually rather funny? First we had a long list of self-appointed men of the people publically forbidding Republican presidential candidates from using their lyrics, following on from our own home-grown storm in a teacup when UKIP leader Nigel Farage attempted to use Tubthumping by British alternative rock (and anarchist) band Chumbawamba. The band reacted with 'total and absolute outrage and horror,' helpfully adding 'Nigel Farage is an arse' by way of justification. Oh, and Morrisey banning David Cameron from liking his music. Now, we have Noel Gallagher explaining comments he made about Lady Thatcher, which, he claims, were misconstrued.

Originally, media reports had him praising her, stating that 'under Thatcher there was a work ethic,' and it was better culturally, to boot. He even seemed to take a dig at modern celebrity culture, noting that under Labour and the 'coalition thing' all people want to go is get on television. Sadly, for those right-wing celebrity watchers who thought someone from the music industry was finally coming out of the world's deepest closet, it was not to be: he later claimed that his comments were misinterpreted, saying on his blog that 'all great working class art...came about in spite of that woman and her warped right-wing views, not because of it.'

In doing so, he's obeying two rules that prominent critics of Thatcher have to adhere to: one, they have to be tremendously rich. Three years ago, he was worth $27,000,000 (£14,000,000), which definitely puts him in the '1%' category. He then added 'if anyone's reading this - particularly from the Inland Revenue - I haven't got fourteen million quid in the bank...not in cash, anyway.' Not what I'd call a man of the people, but he certainly fits in well with New Labour. Two, his experience of the Thatcher years is limited. Unlike most of her critics, he was actually alive at the time, which I guess is something - but I doubt he was a prominent conniseur of working-class art at the time. Examining the finer points of proletarian expression is not that high on the list of priorities for a twelve-year-old, just below buying a skateboard and climbing trees. Not to mention finding a new source of milk after that warped right-wing witch took it all.

Still, Noel Gallagher's personal views aren't important. This is: if the left is as committed to stamping out societal inequality as it claims, so much so that it has put numerous examples of 'affirmative action' legislation in place to disadvantage white males, why does it not tackle what is perhaps the most glaringly public inequality of all - the total lack of right-wing celebrities? About sixty per cent of the European population is right-wing, according to election results (look at the domination of the EPP, bearing in mind that EFD, and ECR are also right-wing affiliations). Almost all the US electorate is right-wing by British standards. So why is there no celebrity worth mentioning who espouses anything to the right of Nick Clegg? There's the occasional waft of right-wing rhetoric from some virtual non-entity (as proven by the fact that you can't guess who that could possibly be), but the number of radical left-wing ideologies in comparison to moderates and right-wingers is hypocritically disproportionate.

Believe it or not, this is a serious problem. The chief argument for affirmative action is to represent society accurately. How accurately, then, can celebrities - doubtless the biggest influence on most people's opinions today - reflect society if one half of it is excluded, and the other is represented by its most radical elements, such as Michael 'capitalism is evil' Moore and Sean 'those who criticise Hugo Chavez a dictator should be jailed' Penn?

Report Claims Conservatives Are Less Intelligent Than Liberals

2012-02-03T07:20:00.000-08:00

Does not having to read that sign make me a liberal? Picture by Peter Facey.

It’s the oldest trick in the book: to claim that your side is, by definition, more intelligent than the other side. Since time immemorial humans have been lambasting their critics and conquerors as being of somewhat less-than-average intelligence. Now, a group of Canadian academics from Brock University in Ontario have gone one stage further: they’ve had it published in a journal.

A ‘controversial’ report, published in Psychology Science, claims (with a fair few mealy-mouthed caveats) that conservative people tend to have lower IQs than their more liberal counterparts, and then went on to offer an explanation – that people who have an ‘innate’ lack of intelligence gravitate towards authority and order, as they are less capable of managing their own affairs and their own morality. If you approach conservatives from the classic (false) belief that they think all change to be bad, it makes a token degree of sense. But surely there’s enough empirical evidence to prove that all such studies are bunk?

Not only does their claim that left-wingers are more tolerant ring hollow when coupled with insinuatinfg that everyone else is innately thicker - a contradiction wonderfully exemplified by the unintentional self-satire from triumphant left-wingers in the comments section of the Daily Mail - but it fails to take into account some self-evident truths. There are ready wits and gross ignoramuses on both sides of the spectrum. Einstein, one of the greatest minds of all time, exhibited great fondness for socialism, yet some of his most worthy predecessors - virtually all the leading thinkers before 1800 - would have been ultraconservative, by today’s standards. The levels of racism and xenophobia expressed by some of our more esteemed Enlightenment thinkers and early philosophers would land then a hefty fine and a prison sentence, yet they were not stupid - not by any stretch of the imagination. Much of their work frames the modern world. And, if it is determined by innate intelligence, as the report specifically states, how and why can a person’s viewpoint can change over time?

That’s just on an individual scale - on a grand scale such a study makes even less sense. There are five hundred million people in the European Union, two thirds of whom (according to election results and European Parliament blocs) are right-wing. Are two-thirds of the European population mentally stunted? Or, as several of the aforementioned triumphant lefties in the comments stated, ‘tards?’ No. They’re perfectly functioning human beings, thank you very much, and aren’t any less so because their cross on the ballot paper doesn’t square up to that of someone else. Take a look through the comments of the Daily Mail article for the ultimate proof of how the study is wrong: watch, as the people who - it claims - are more tolerant and open-minded turn condescending, spiteful, and bigoted when someone dares voice an alternate opinion.

The 'Citizen's Initiative' is an Exercise in Hot Air

2012-01-28T06:55:00.000-08:00

The 'Citizen's Initiative' is an exercise in hot air. Picture by JLogan.

We have just weeks to go until the European Commission launches the biggest experiment in participatory democracy anywhere in the world. It is called the 'citizen's initiative,' and, fittingly coming into play on April Fool's Day, is widely hailed as a landmark in democratising the European Union, and making it more accountable to the people. Political commentators and analysts have been gushing over it since it was first announced, welcoming it as revolutionary, uber-democratic, and impressive: a new era in direct participation, apparently.

Well, it may be revolutionary - this is the first time EU citizens have been given the ability to direct Commission (that is, executive) policy. But uber-democratic and impressive it is not. In fact, aside from the vaunting and adulation, it's pretty much worthless. It is a petition-based procedure: if a petition gets gather at least one million signatures from at least quarter of the EU's member states, the Commission will then take it upon itself to consider legislating in that field. That's right, consider. There's nothing legally binding to do anything other than think about it. If the Commission doesn't want to do it, it won't happen - regardless of how many people put their names to paper.

Second, that is an awful lot of signatures for a petition to get, taking into account language barries. Especially across seven states. What happens if the same petition pops up several different times, each in different languages? Each of them only has a few hundred thousand signatures, but together they have well over a million. What then? Do they count? At the Commission's convenience, most likely. If they are true to past form when it comes to public consultation, a la Irish referenda, they'll adopt anything they do like and ignore anything that they don't. You can bet that 'greater fiscal control for the Commission' will get passed with 'popular approval,' and, say, 'let's see Barroso's million-euro expenses forms' won't because it doesn't meet the criteria.

Thirdly, all the vaunting and adulation is missing the point - this isn't 'democracy' at all. This is evidence of a lack of democracy. Why implement a petition-based system where citizens have a chance at directing policy and legislation - if the lawmakers agree - when you could just make the lawmakers elected in the first place? That's true democracy - choosing who you want in government and telling them what laws to make. Not jumping through hoops to please unelected officials who might then deign to ignore you regardless.

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In other news, a stunning example of why proper democratic oversight is sorely needed has been brought back from the EU's Valhalla. Jacques Santer, who resigned - along with most of his Commission - amid allegations of mass-corruption in 1999 is now chief of the debt-selling 'SPIV' - the fundraiser for the European Union's 'new' (read: latest) bailout fund.

A Massive Blow for Parliamentary Neutrality

2012-01-17T10:06:00.000-08:00

Martin Schulz has just taken over the Presidency of the European Parliament. The German leader of the Socialist parliamentary group was far and away the most obvious candidate to take the role, ahead of Green MEP Rebecca Harms, Conservative MEP Nirj Deva, and Liberal MEP Dianna Wallis. It was, in EU fashion, something of a stitch-up: the two dominant parliamentary blocs, the centre-right EPP and the socialists, had already agreed to share the presidency. This is more comparable to the Blair-Brown handover than it is a 'free vote' of MEPs, as Mr. Schulz insists. With most British politicians in the EU still suffering 'collateral damage' as a result of David Cameron vetoing their proposed European treat - or, as it ought to be known by analysts, 'pulling a French one' - the other contenders really didn't stand much of a chance.

But Schulz's appointment isn't just about foregone conclusions making a mess of democracy. It is of vital importance, from a democratic standpoint that the Presidency of the European Parliament remains neutral; something that Mr. Schulz is not, by any stretch of the imagination. Not only is it the only one of the six EU presidences to be subject to a popular vote, but it is also the only chamber of EU government that citizens get to see in action. Where the Commission and the Council are headed (or populated) by unaccountable, appointed individuals, the President of the Parliament is always an MEP. And, where the Commission and the Council are often highly secretive and sealed off from the media, the Parliament is always open - it even has its own television channel (Europarltv), the only glimpse into the workings of the European Union that citizens of Europe are likely to get. Parliament is also the only venue for views which differ from those of the Commissioners (who are almost exclusively from the centre-right EPP) can be aired. In other words, a vital asset - one whose premiership should be put beyond the reach of one side or the other.

The position itself is one of tremendous power. Although it may be largely ceremonial in the grand scheme of things, in the chamber, the President is king. This was exemplified by a 'riot' in the Parliament back in 2008, when eighty MEPs protested the decision to hold the Irish referendum again with banners and placards. The President of the Parliament ordered the banners confiscated, the MEPs escorted out, and had some of them disciplined. The punishments included fines of up to one thousand euros and explusion from the chamber.

But it was all decided arbitrarily. Although several MEPs had called for the protestors to be removed, the final say was the President's. In the end, thirteen MEPs faced discipline: one of them, according to Nigel Farage, had 'never shouted in her life.' And another, Andreas Molzer, was, as pointed out to Parliament by Mr. Farage, actually in Frankfurt. The President of the European Parliament has the power to evict MEPs at a whim, even when their innocence - for the crime of 'protesting,' no less - can be readily proven. That is not power that Mr. Schulz should wield.

Mr. Schulz was one of those MEPs that called for the protestors to be removed. He called them Communists and Nazis. Insults which he has employed repeatedly, although takes offence to when deployed against him. He once famously called a Dutch MEP a 'fascist' because he said that details of Barroso's expenses - over one million euros per annum - should be made public (the video has since disappeared from YouTube channel. But you can still see its husk here in all its uncontestable glory). He's as far from neutral as it's possible to get in the European Parliament. So why does he now hold the post where neutrality is most important?

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In other news, the European Commission has claimed that 'it knows better' than ratings agencies when it comes to the financial viability of its rescue fund. It cited 'secret evidence' which, it claims, shows that European economies are in a much better financial position than it cares to admit. Although it sounds like bombast, we shouldn't dismiss this announcement too readily - after all, it knew Greece was fiscally incontinent a long time before it told anyone else.

Diane Abbot's Comments are Decades Out of Date

2012-01-05T08:10:00.000-08:00

Map of Africa, pre-conquest. Divisions clearly visible.

Make hay while the sun shines. I have a feeling that the right-of-centre commentariat is going to make enough hay out of this one to fuel a medium-sized powerstation for a week. Diane Abbot, former Labour Party leadership contender and current MP for Hackney, has came out and made the kind of sweeping generalisation that, were she a Tory, and were any other ethnic community the object of her ire, would have prompted calls for her resignation from more than a lone Conservative MP. In a response to someone on the social network site Twitter, who made the profoundly sensible point that the term 'black community' is a load of bunk (and who, incidentally, is black), she tweeted: 'white people love playing divide and rule. We should not play their game,' and then tagged it 'tactic as old as colonialism' for good measure.

She denies what she said is racist, which it isn't (it's prejudice: racism, pre-PC, meant something rather more extreme), and apologised for the way it had been 'interpreted.' But there is no other way that a sentence beginning with 'white people love...' could be interpreted. If an MP stood up in the House of Commons and said 'black people love...,' there would be a collective intake of breath and there would be no fewer than three Guardian articles commissioned. But, racist or otherwise, it's quite wrong.

I am a white person. I do not wake up in the morning and think: 'how can I subjugate black people today?' At the risk of falling into a cliche, I do not have all too many black friends (at least not as many as a quota would suggest I should), but I do know and speak to black people regularly, and, funnily enough, the thought of emphasising their Ghanaian and Nigerian passports to stoke division and make it easier to oppress them does not enter my mind. I doubt it troubles many other members of the 'white community,' either. It is not the government's policy, and nor do white people have a collective conscience: our 'divide and conquer' tactics are entirely in Ms. Abbot's head.

She may have noticed that the only one, as far as I'm aware, to call for her resignation - loveably on the basis of 'offending' his constituents - is one Nadhim Zahawi, MP for Stratford-upon-Avon and an Iraqi-born Kurd. An African think tank, which purports to 'strengthen principled Afrikan Unity in struggle for Global Justice,' derided her generalisation. Her one prominent defender, George Galloway, happens to be white. There is no finer illustration of just how irrelevant racial lines really are in modern, mainstream Britain: her attitudes to race relations, where people only think in terms of their 'community' (which, in the case of the 'black community,' is a lot more diverse than the race relations industry gives it credit for), are stuck in the same century as those colonialists she thinks still exist.

The 'Three Millions Jobs' Claim is a Massive Lie

2011-12-26T13:48:00.000-08:00

Tony Blair is known for his exaggerated claims.

If you're thinking that the pages of the Guardian are looking a little bare of fiery pro-euro commentary at the moment, you're right. They are. It seems it all the avowedly pro-euro commentators that produced them are giving up on the British electorate, In their efforts to escape a world of unashamed and unabashed 'nationalism' and 'xenophobia,' some, such as Richard Cohen, go to America. Others go to Oman. Adrian Croft has written a piece for the Oman Daily Observer, which almost sounded neutral until he wheeled out the phrase 'vocal band of EU-haters.' He goes on to make some familiar pro-euro claims for the benefit of the Omani readership, repeating the somewhat accurate but nonetheless misleading claim that 'half our trade is with the EU' assertion, before dragging out the oldest and most roasted chestnut of all: that over three million jobs depend on our EU membership.

This is a claim that anyone who's waded so far as ankle-deep into the EU debate will have heard more times than they can care to count. But there's a problem with it. No-one actually said it. The original statement, made by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research on behalf of Britain in Europe, a think-tank of high-flying politicians including Tony Blair and Kenneth Clarke, was that three point five million jobs were involved with trade with Europe, which, including every piece of paid employment that's in any way to do with a product exported to or imported from the Continent, is a different thing entirely. The NIESR's then-head, Dr. Martin Weale, was so outraged by how the pressure group twisted his words that he likened them to Nazi propagandist Goebbels. His exact words were 'in many years of academic research I cannot recall such a willful distortion of the facts.'

He, of course, was only referring to how they'd disfigured his statements: even if it was true that three point five million jobs depend on trade with the EU, that says nothing about the pros and cons of EU withdrawal. There is no reason to believe that if we left the EU this trade would cease. There are one hundred and sixty-two reasons to believe the opposite: the countries of the world, who, although they are neither members of the EU nor the European Economic Area, still manage to trade freely with both. Often, the trade that countries in this group generate is, in most instances, much smaller than that between the EU and the United Kingdom. It includes Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Haiti, for example. Plus, many of them have a trade surplus with the EU - i.e. they make more money from trading with the European Union than the EU makes from trading with them - whereas the UK is currently running at a deficit of £48,000,000,000.

It is inconceivable that EU countries would cease trade with us if we left - one, most countries on the planet have never been members of either the EU, or even the single market, and yet they can import and export as they please. Two, they'd lose a lot of money from lucrative export markets. There is a historical precedent for those who still aren't convinced: an island, a part of Denmark with the population of a small town, left the EU's predecessor, the EEC, in 1985 following a popular referendum. Yet they still trade with the EU and EFTA.

And if you still aren't convinced, here's a quote from Tony Blair himself:

'Of course Britain could survive outside the EU...we could probably get access to the Single Market as Norway and Switzerland do'

How Can the Government Tackle 'Honour Crime?'

2011-12-06T13:37:00.000-08:00

What lies behind conservative Islam's veil of secrecy?

It's amazing what you learn from the Guardian. For instance, I didn't know that Islam allowed gay marriage. But, in a list of religious groups opposed to gay marriage in the States, it wasn't mentioned. All the white western faiths were - Baptist, Catholic, evangelical, Protestant etc. - were. Admittedly, the list made no claim to being exhaustive. But, still, when it comes to religions who 'don't like the gays,' Islam is a big one to miss - especially considering that numerically smaller religions, such as Presbyterianism, did make the grade. Isn't it about time we dropped the unwritten rule that no-one can portray Islam as anything other than sweetness and light, and started examining it for what it is - an ideology? And a repressive one at that?

The article in the Guardian came out on the same day as statistics showing a marked rise in the number of 'honour-related' violence in the UK. The government didn't publish these statistics - they were obtained from most UK police forces, using the Freedom of Information Act, by the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (which, for anyone waiting to slap the 'racist' label on me, is ran by Iranian and Kurdish women). There were almost three thousand reported attacks in 2010 - an increase on 47% in 2009. One a day, in the West Midlands alone. In Northumbria, the number trebled. And this is likely, as Diana Nammi, IKWRO's director, says the 'tip of the iceberg' - the most likely to be affected, and the least likely to report it, are the women and girls in inner-city ghettoes, with little understanding of English and an ultraconservative upbringing. Some police constabularies refused to divulge this information - or were incapable of doing so - due to the reluctance of 'communities' to talk.

Other commentators tentatively point out that it's not a 'race issue.' No-one's saying it is. It's a cultural one. Conservative (predominantly Bangladeshi and Pakistani) Islam being that culture. Compare how many instances of it there are in the 'white community' as opposed to the 'South Asian' one and the correlation becomes obvious. But it does affect everyone, as this makes quite clear (well worth a read - even includes quotes from Jack Straw). So what is our government, or the police, doing about it?

So far, they have no national strategy - that's precisely what IKWRO is calling on them to introduce. As for the police, 'we have reviewed every force with a questionnaire and the 2008 strategy has been completed,' said Mak Chishty, North Area Commander in the Metropolitan Police. 'We're now in consultation on a new strategy. All frontline staff have received awareness training and every force has a champion on honour-based abuse. I'm confident that any victim who comes to us will receive the help they need.' Trouble is, 'awareness training' doesn't make a blind bit of difference: being 'aware' of the problem just means that you know it exists and implies have some level of understanding about it. Awareness needs to be applied before it can actually help you solve it.

Furthermore, there is precious little information on how the police intends to reach out to victims: their overall strategy seems to be to wait for the abused to come to them. But that's unrealistic: such a feat on the part of a victim, especially a young one, would be incredibly difficult. As Diana Nammi points out, the abusers are often hailed as heroes, and the victim is often forbidden to leave the house. In addition to this, many are monolingual and have poor command of English: others may be from an ultraconservative upbringing and believe that the abuse inflicted upon them is just what a Muslim woman is subjected to.

What could the government do? It doesn't help that many of these women have entered the country on spousal visas, which makes it incredibly difficult to receive legal aid. As many of them are unemployed or financially dependent on their husbands or male family members, this money is not a luxury: they need it to be able to fight their case. Surely it would not break the bank if some of the legal aid money spent on convicted paedophiles and murderers was instead used to help abused women escape violent and possibly murderous relationships? In the longer term, it could enforce the knowledge of English and literacy in ghettoised communities - thereby affording all who live within recourse to the protection of the law and the safety of wider society if they need it, and exposing fundamentalist Islam to mainstream society. All forms of extremism react negatively to a healthy dose of normality.

In the meantime, until enough people tell the government to pull its finger out, the most that anyone can do is lend a helping hand. Charity, after all, begins at home: we should never rely on the state to sort out all the ills of the world. Here's IKWRO's website, if you're interested, with advice on how you can help out and get involved, as well as further information about the charity and its work.

Democracy Is Worth Defending

2011-12-06T09:24:00.000-08:00

Even the EU's liberals are arguing against democracy

That is Guy Verhofstadt, former Belgian Prime Minister and now leader of ALDE - the alliance of liberals and centrists in the European Parliament, the largest supra-national assembly of parliamentary liberals anywhere on earth - arguing for the abolition of the current German government. In his view, the needs of the people - and, more importantly, the euro - could be adequately serviced not by elected politicians, who have a tendency to bow to public demand, but by a panel of experts - technocrats is the fashionable term - selected by unelected officials. There, in the flesh, is a senior liberal politician in Europe railing against the existence of democracy as we know it.

It may look like a one-man rant, but it's really not. Mr. Verhofstadt's ideas of crushing democracy in an attempt to save the euro project are reflected by policy decisions of all manner of European institutions, both national and supra-national. We've already seen how easily the elected governments of Greece and Italy can be replaced with wholly unelected cabiners of commissioners and economists, without seventy million inhabitants getting a say in the matter. We've already seen the European Commission and the European Court of Justice - tell me, when was the last time you saw the name of anyone in either institution on a ballot sheet? - meddle with national budgets before the elected parliaments ever get the chance to see them. And now there is talk of the Commission being able to set the budgets of member states itself, and impose economic and fiscal reform from afar.

If you were Greek, Irish, or Portuguese, you'd now be reading about how your taxes could be set thousands of miles away in Brussels by people you've never ever heard of, much less voted for, who you have absolutely no power over nor ability to remove from office. How much you get in your pension pot could be determined by unconcerned functionaries who owe nothing to any electorate, and whether a local road-building project goes ahead hinges on the flick of a pen several clouds higher than any democratic process. But you're probably from the UK or America, in which case, I hope you're astounded.

We often hear quotes about democracy or how precious it is. Well, for once, those quotes aren't bumper stickers. We genuinely do stand to lose much of our democracy if we don't get our act together now. The Greeks and the Italians have already lost it, and look what's happening to them. If you're a Tory, would you want someone like Gordon Brown to stay in power in perpetuity? Or George Osborne, if you vote Labour? The only thing that makes either tenure worth enduring is the prospect of voting them out at the end of it. What if you couldn't, and what if the pain they inflicted was ten times harsher? That's exactly what will happen, if we don't pull our fingers out, and declare that the erosion of democracy can go no further.

Another National Scandal

2011-12-04T08:16:00.000-08:00

Do law-abiding fathers have less rights to see their kids than convicted criminals?

It's long been a refrain of the right that abusers have more rights to see their children than law-abiding fathers, and now it appears to be broadly accurate. A report produced jointly by the probation service union NAPO and Protection Against Stalking has found that up to six hundred convicted criminals have used legal aid - paid for out of public funds - to try and re-establish contact with their children. Many are serving sentences for domestic violence and other family-related crimes. There is one instance of someone convicted of paedophilia fighting for the right to see their own children - the ones that they abused.

However, divorced fathers who have committed no crime have recently had their legal right to see their offspring taken away from them, on the grounds that it would be 'too disruptive' to the children. The courts have enshrined what Louis de Berniers calls a 'divine right of mothers,' which awards custody of children to the mother as a default option. There are ninety-nine thousand five hundred and fifty divorces in the UK each year. In ninety-one per cent of these, the father or the man will lose custody. Half of all men who get divorced in the UK can expect to lose all contact with their children within three years.

There's no way that almost all men who go through the divorce courts are a threat to their children, so why are hundreds of thousands of them losing access for no good reason? And why are the ones that genuinely do present a danger fighting to force their children to visit them in prison out of the public pocket! Such a dichotomy is a national disgrace, in the proper sense of the word: a stain on the concept of fair and equal justice.

There are so many levels to this - criminals getting legal aid, not victims; caring fathers feeling like they have the entire system arrayed against them, whilst equally-caring mothers breeze through; law-abiding and loving parents having to spend everything they have on the right to see their children to no avail, whilst dangerous and abusive ones get it for free - and the law is wrong on every single one of them.

The Latest IPCC Report is A Lot of Hot Air

2011-12-04T04:45:00.000-08:00

US researchers. Basingstoke. 1953.

I don't usually come out in support for one side or the other for the climate change debate. Both warmists and deniers have been caught out fiddling their statistics on numerous occasions. Both of them receive billions of pounds of funding from governments, green energy firms, and big oil, respectively. There is little sense in calling for a colossal reduction in economic output on the off-chance that it might make a dent in CO2 levels in a relatively small part of the world, but nor is there any in doing nothing at all, either, given that we know - whether through man-made reasons or natural cycles - that the earth will warm up or cool down at some point.

All either camp has achieved with all the public funds and petrodollars poured into their campaigns in the last thirty years is finding ingenious yet wholly impractical ways to piss into the wind. It would be far better to take all the money that both camps fritter away each day on pointless research and PR, and invest it in technologies that genuinely help us cope with the climatic changes that we know for a fact have occured at various points throughout the earth's history.

That said, sometimes one side or the other does produce some outrageous research that really deserves to be put to rest, before it gains any traction in legislatures around the world. The IPCC - that assembly of UN scientists set up to study and warn governments of the effects of global warming, and now warns them of climate change instead - has reiterated its claim that the Himalayan glaciers are melting, two years after it was forced into an embarassing climb-down when a similar claim - that they would all melt by 2035 - was exposed as false. It measured ten glaciers in the Himalayas between 2002 and 2005, and found that they were all shrinking.

It's impossible to call the study's findings 'wrong' until you've undertaken a similar study yourself - something unfortunately beyond the capabilities of this blog. But their methodology certainly leaves something to be desired. Their sample size, for instance: ten, out of fifty-four thousand. That's 0.018518518518518517%, a ridiculously small percentage on which to base a conclusion. Also, the World Meteoroligical Foundation defines climate as the trends in weather over a period of thirty years, not three.

The climate is changing. It always has been, always will be. Whether or not humans are causing it, and whether or not we should turn the clock back half a century in an attempt at mitigating a small part of the damage, is besides the point. But hot air like the Himalayan report isn't helping anyone: it's only prolonging the tribalist divisions and the resulting inertia.

BBC Sports Coverage Is Down to Popularity, Not Gender

2011-12-03T12:43:00.000-08:00

Women's Gaelic football. Not big in non-Olympic years.

Television presenter Clare Balding - one of those chosen by the BBC to cover the Olympic Games in London next year - has criticised its coverage of female sport during non-Olympic years, saying that it is possibly 'sexist.' She accused the Beeb of failing to devote enough time to female events and female participants, asserting that excellent sportswomen are often overlooked due to the amount of resources spent on rugby and football and other big international championships.

It's not the first time that the BBC's sports coverage has courted controversy. Earlier this week, it was criticised for an all-male shortlist of contenders for Sports Personality of the Year. Notable feminists made much hay out of that particular ray of sunlight, including Harriet Harman (deputy leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, in case you'd forgotten).

There is a lot to criticise regarding the BBC's decision: why are there no fewer than three golfers in the top ten? Why do tit'n'bum mags get to put forward candidates when abs'n'stubble ones don't? Why do people who've had quite average years by their standards still make the cut? But to assume 'sexism' as the default explanation is to miss the vital issue. Which sports are covered on which television channels depends on their popularity - not the gender of the participants.

Few men would say that Chrissie Wellington, arguably one of the best endurance athletes in the world and current Ironman Triathlon World Champion, should be automatically excluded from the running because she is female. It is a matter of popularity. How many people watch the triathlon world championships, compared to those who watch the Premier League? The difference is well into the hundreds of millions.

Let's take a look at some of the (eminently deserving) candidates that Ms Harman put forward, other than the Chrissinator: Jessica Ennis, Rebecca Adlington, Keri-Anne Payne, Sarah Stevenson. Most people know the first two, but many do so because of their appearance on advertisements or an unfortunate encounter with a comedian. Not many who've heard either name can claim to be avid watchers of the sport. And it's not just women who miss out because their sport isn't as popular as others. Does Harriet Harman know who the current male athletics champion is? Or the taekwondo one, for that matter?

The BBC, for as long as everyone has to pay for it, ought to cater for everyone. Considering that everyone with a television pays the license fee, their sporting preferences notwithstanding, they should all be able to flick on and see their favourite sport given due time and attention. But to expect less popular sports to be given undue time and attention just because they happen to have excellent female participants is unrealistic and unfair.

Federalists Have Gone Too Far for the Polish Opposition

2011-12-02T01:49:00.000-08:00

Radek Sikorski: overstepped the mark?

Just when you thought that European politics couldn't be any more unstable, Poland's main opposition party, Law and Justice, has called for Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski to be summoned to the State Tribunal - the Polish equivalent of impeachment - after a controversial speech on European integration. The speech, in which Mr. Sikorski extolled the virtues of a greater German role in dealing with the eurozone crisis - on the grounds that 'no-one else can do it' - and called for the Commission to be given greater powers over national budgets, has been interpreted by Law and Justice as a call for a reduction in Polish national sovereignty - an act that many consider tantamount to treason.

In a interview on public television, conservative liberal Law and Justice party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski stated his intention to bring the Foreign Minister before the State Tribunal - which decides whether or not politcians have overstepped the bounds of the country's post-war constitution. He also added that 'most Poles do not want Polish independence to be a twenty-year interlude,' and declared that he would hold a 'march for independence' later in the month, following the sabotage by federalist activists of protests by smaller, fringe groups, on November 11th.

The State Tribunal has the power to remove politicians from office, to bar them from any other senior positions, and even render them ineligible to vote. But far more importantly than that, the spectacle of a federalist politician going before it is likely to fuel anti-federalist protests in other countries, who have long called for their politicians to be impeached, and bring discussion of treason trials - hitherto reserved for the hardline elements and the comment board commentariat - into mainstream thought. This could have a chaotic effect on politics in the Adriatic, the Balkans, and Greece, where major media outlets have already taken to denouncing politicians and lawmakers as traitors and saboteurs. If the European Union opposes measures, if brought against Greek politicians, then it could put the Greek people and their technocrat rulers in direct conflict. That's one recipe for disaster.

Of course, all this is why Mr. Sikorsi isn't likely to go to the State Tribunal - at least not because of the opposition leader. But it has underlined the limits of what federalists can do in their traditional heartland, and indicated that they want to go much, much further.

Britain's Colonial Past Is Not Responsible for the Embassy Assault

2011-11-30T12:09:00.000-08:00

Nixon and the Shah.

It's often held as a truism on the Right that the most oppressive regimes on earth can get free PR if they say something vaguely anti-American. It doesn't matter what crimes they're guilty of. As long as they stand firmly against the antics of the US of A, and maybe nationalise an oil company or two, there's no end of commentators willing to take the blame from their shoulders and heap it on the West instead.

Today, in The Independent, Robert Fisk does just that. He presents a long list of reasons for the Iranian students' assault on the British Embassy in Tehran yesterday, spanning a length of time that quite comfortably takes the oldest readers of this blog back to their early teens. In fact, he goes right back to their grandmother's time, seeing the seeds of unrest in the actions of Baron de Reuter back in the mid-1800s. Then, a brief tour of Iran's WWII history - specifically its invasion by the Allies on account of the reigning monarch's Nazi affiliations - before going on to the eventual reinstatement of the shah in the 1953 coup. In doing so, he lays the blame for yesterday's ransacking of the British Embassy directly at the feet of the British themselves.

The actions of yesteryear invariably impact the attitudes of today, that is true. But portraying the upheaval as a direct reaction to events that happened half a lifetime ago is tenuous, at best. Back then, British Armed Forces were bested by the Mau Mau: do we ransack the Kenyan embassy, for old time's sake? Do we celebrate D-Day by hounding German diplomats out of their offices? No. The world has moved up and on. Iran has, too, although they are often loathe to believe it.

'Right To Be Forgotten' Forgotten

2011-11-29T03:06:00.000-08:00

What do online companies know about you?

The EU does do some things worthy of admiration. Make no mistake: it would be better for them to be done by elected individuals, rather than unelected functionaries. But sometimes unelected functionaries have the right of it. Such as when they propose a 'right to be forgotten' online.

The European Justice and Fundamental Rights Commissioner Viviane Reding first came up with the novel idea back in March, in a speech before the European Parliament. It aimed to extend data protection rules, which already apply to written information and government-held data across much of Europe, onto the Internet, granting the citizens the right to see all data stored on them by online companies - searching, social networking sites, etc. - and to request its deletion.

It would have restricted employer's ability to scour the private lives of potential or current employees for any sign of not-quite-automative behaviour - or a personality, as it's known - to those willing to buy in to such an instrusive system, and would have greatly reduced the amount of information that online companies hold about you (the amount is truly frightening - and it's not solely limited to what you think you've told them. Anyone with a Facebook account feel free to try this), if you so wished. Anyone who didn't mind giving their personal information to websites in return for a more personalised service would have been free to continue under the previous system. No-one would have lost out.

At least, no-one who's not a lobbyist, a marketing executive, or an e-millionaire. The proposals has been brought down following an intense lobbying campaign. Would that the Commission was democratic so we could vote out those who were prone to such things, but, sadly, it isn't - so it looks like the 'right to be forgotten' is dead in the water. Unless our national parliament takes up the cause.

David Cameron Should Copy the Latvians on Fuel Poverty

2011-11-28T10:46:00.000-08:00

Cutting tax for energy companies may not be a popular solution. But it will save thousands of older people.

If the coalition is really committed to keeping the elderly and the impoverished warm this winter, it should look to Latvia. The country's one-hundred member parliament, the Saeima, has just voted 84-0 to scrap the excise tax on natural gas. The move will cost the government some seven million euros - substantially more than it sounds for the tiny Baltic nation - but at least it can rest assured that poorer famileis and pensioners will no longer be faced with crippling heating bills as the winter weather rolls in.

Can we say the same here? Three million pensioner households are already living 'in fuel poverty' according to the National Pensioners Convention, and last winter twenty-six thousand elderly people died due to the freezing conditions. The system intended to stop it all is at crisis point. The government has cut the basic amount to £300, on the premise that there is no money left (they still find billions for Spain, though, don't they? Or infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa) and there are more expat Britons claiming it than ever before. The coalition has so far refused to pursue the most logical and effective option - a cap on fuel bills - on the grounds of promoting 'green' energy use (pensioners, you see, are famed for their flash sports cars and widescreen TVs).

So what else is there to do, but follow the Latvian example, and cut taxes on energy and energy production? I realise that many green activists and protestors may not like the idea of cutting taxes on 'big business,' but this will save lives. If energy companies can indulge their customers with lower prices, they will do - there's little else that they can do, in terms of competitive advantage, and expensive utilities is one area where the cheapest usually wins. All other considerations - customer service, satisfaction, etc. - aren't as important compared with the prospect of saving a few hundred quid.

This Commission Power-Grab Should be Resisted

2011-11-25T02:49:00.000-08:00

Your taxes could be decided from the 13th floor of Berlaymont. Picture by Matthias v.d. Elbe.

Prepare for the most flagrant breach of democratic values in modern European history. Yes, even bigger than the installation of an unelected cabal as the governments of and Greece and Italy. The European Commission - that is the EU's central, appointed, unaccountable executive - has called for the ultimate power over national fiscal and economic affairs to be bequeathed to it. The proposals will, if implemented, see the Commission reviewing and editing fiscal plans put forward by national executives before elected legislatures ever read them. Countries - any country, even one that does not need international assistance - is liable to summary inspection by EU officials if the Commission wishes, and will have to submit reports on how it is carrying out reforms ordered by the troika. The Commission will also confer upon itself the power to 'recommend' to the Council of Ministers that any country be forced to accept a bailout, and the economic overhaul that comes with it, regardless of whether they actually need or want international assistance.

Jose Manuel Barroso, the President of the Commission, says that there are no conflicts between the plans and democracy, insisting that as elected governments will approve it it's okay. But this argument relies on a colossal misunderstanding of democracy, the whole point of which is that we decide who holds the power to govern us, not those who do the governing. Besides which, once wished away, you cannot wish power back again: those who you deferred it to will be understandably reluctant to hand it back. Mr. Barroso stands to become the most powerful official in the European Union if the plans go ahead, and the Commission its most powerful institution. Will either of them willingly surrender either of those titles if people who they do not answer to tell them to?

The President has no desire to indulge a 'philosophical debate,' so I won't make one: but I will say that the power over economics and finance is the most fundamental of all, the one that ought to be most in alignment with the populace. For to control the money is to control the government. No policy can ever be implemented, if no funds are allocated to it. No law, no legislative programme. Whoever controls finance can reach right into the heart of families, and alter and adjust taxes, tarrifs, pensions, and public sector salaries. What if they could do all that without regard for the people their decisions affect?

We don't need to wonder upon that question: we know. If you're like me, and you think that Gordon Brown was economically illiterate, then you'll probably agree that the only thing that made his credit card spree bearable was the near-certainty that he'd be booted out come the next election. What if there was no election? If you're a solid fifth-generation Labour vote from north Wales, you're not going to like George Osbourne much, either. What if he, too, was immune to public sentiment? What if all you could do was wail and scream and gnash your teeth as they destroyed your pension and took away your job? What if all the public opposition in the world made not a jot of difference? That's the situation that were expose ourselves to if we - or our governments - allow the Commission's proposals to go ahead.

Riots in Greece and Italy Set to Escalate

2011-11-20T07:12:00.000-08:00

The US Embassy in Athens: the scene of violent confrontations on Thursday. Picture by ChristosV.

The Italians and the Greeks were always bound to turn against their technocratic premiers as soon as the glitter of seeing Berlusconi and Papandreou booted from office wore off. What with the governments embarking on the same policies that had caused their predecessors to become unpopular in the first place, making the powerlessness of the electorate more apparent in the process, it was only a matter of time, and now that time is up.

Italians marched on Bocconi University - of which Mario Monti, the new Italian Prime Minister, is President, and where both he and senior cabinet minister Corrado Passera graduated - in their tens of thousands, throwing eggs at club-wielding riot police. Almost simultaneously, similar demonstrations were held in Athens, with protestors waving banners and ordering the EU and IMF to leave. Not only does this mark the end of the brief honeymoon that the parachuted-in premiers had with their disenfranchised electorates, it also marks the end of the bluff that has so far kept Greek and Italian anger aimed squarely at internal affairs. The imposition of unelected governments not only removes a layer of democracy that kept the people insulated from the harshest demands of the troika, but it also removes the mask behind which the troika operated.

As long as there was an elected politician in place to take the blame for the mess and take the fall for the decisions, the EU-IMF-ECB could limit its role to the occasional appearance on the sidelines. But now, with former European Commission men and bankers in government, it is forced to declare its hand more openly. Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy are publically issuing orders for the new Italian government to follow. News of the Bundestag scrutinising Ireland's budget before the Dail even knew it existed has already reached Italy. Mr. Monti himself denied that his policies were being implemented at the behest of outside powers, but with troika inspectors trawling through his policy announcements and him doing exactly as they instruct with scant regard for national feeling, his assurances ring hollow.

The riots are only going to get worse before they get better. The negative consequences of austerity measures are expected to hit home in 2012, yet any positive effects are only expected to materialise in 2013, at the earliest. In the meantime, the eurozone crisis continues to escalate, blowing over the Alps into France and lapping at the pillars of Spain, Belgium, Cyprus, and already-stricken Portugal. Further government collapses beckon as European economies slide back into recession. All this against a backdrop of unelected governments enforcing unpopular policies is always - a terrifically bad idea. Historically, in the absence of democratic recourse, the response is almost always violent.

We Need Genuine Integration. Not Cooking Classes

2011-11-18T15:08:00.000-08:00

Indian sweets: tasty, but no good at tackling racism. Picture by Ian Muttoo.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has announced his intention to secure government backing for a college of Indian food. Open to all British nationals, the college is aimed at training up a generation of British specialists in 'Asian and Oriental cuisine' in order to fill a gap in the market, that has came about due to increased regulation on the import of chefs from abroad, and forms part of a new government push for greater integration and community cohesion.

It may succeed in its first objective: the amount of non-Indian staff in Indian restaurants is woefully inadequate, from a diversity point of view. Equality campaigners ought to be up in arms. As well as an ideal route for the unemployed to gain skills for jobs: in fact, a handy way of reducing youth unemployment, providing employment for thousands and boosting a flagging industry. Indian restaurants and takeaways - who, according to a paper entitled 'Creating the Conditions for Integration,' asked for support - could even be persuaded to contribute financially, in return for essential workers that are becoming increasingly difficult to hire from outside the UK. So the public need not be left out of pocket.

But I hardly see how it's going to succeed in the latter. There's more to culture and integration than simply knowing how to cook foreign food. You do not gain insight into the Indian community by cooking a samosa any more than you get a greater sense of Britishness if you prod your pie and mash. You don't find different cultures in a korma. Or, at least, you shouldn't. The only way to discover a different culture is through interaction with people. It needs to be a meeting of minds, rather than a clash of condiments. And a genuine meeting of minds, at that - not a falsified, fleeting one in the confines of a curry kitchen, but a real one, in the real world. Friendships, associations, and marriages.

To put it simply, the government can do more by doing nothing. It takes no effort to encourage integration - no effort at all. See how children do it. All it takes is the absence of labels. In the adult world, that's not viable: there will always be labels of some kind. But the government can do its bit to reduce the effect they have on society by not actively 'promoting' (read: exaggerating, emphasising, enforcing) difference at every available opportunity.

Italy's Cabinet Has Changed Beyond Recognition

2011-11-17T03:58:00.000-08:00

Two of the new ministers meet the President. Picture by Presidenza della Repubblica.

There's little left of the Italian governmental system - save for President Giorgio Napolitano - that the appointment of EU-backed Prime Minister Mario Monti hasn't driven a freight train through. The President, traditionally seen as being above direct involvement in political affairs, has now created a government from scratch. The office of Senator-for-Life , formerly reserved for eminent persons in their respective fields who have made a marked contribution to Italian life, is now a springboard for propelling people into high office. And an unelected man - technocrat, expert, official, what does it matter? – now holds the second and third-highest offices in Italy. Prime Minister Monti, or ‘super Mario’ as he’s been prematurely nicknamed, expects to stay on as Italian premier until 2013 - an idea that may sound like bluster, until you realise that, in absence of elections and as the head of a government of national unity, there’s no-one to argue with him.

His cabinet, which was announced yesterday, consists of technocrats, bankers, diplomats, and soldiers. Out of sixteen ministers, none of them are elected. Only one or two of them have ever held elective public office in their lives. Many of them have also crossed paths previously, at some point in their professional or political careers: two of them worked at the same bank. One of them - a laywer, now justice minister - once counted Romano Prodi amongst her clients. He was the President of the European Commission, throughout Mario Monti’s time there.

It’s not only the faces that have changed, but the cabinet itself. Mario Monti actually holds three separate posts: one, as Prime Minister. Two, as Finance Minister. Three, as the newly-created minister for international co-operation and integration. Quite what that is remains to be seen. Six ministerial posts have vanished, including the implementation of executive policies, the civil service, youth, federal reforms (a post previously held by Umberto Bossi, the leader of the Northern League, Berlusconi’s coalition allies, who has accused the Monti administration of lacking democratic legitimacy and has thus refused to support it). There was also a ministry for the simplification of legislation, and another for families, both of which are no longer extant.

Then there are three new ‘super-ministries. One is a combination of industry and enterprise and transport links and infrastructure, headed by Corrado Passera. The other combines employment and equal opportunities under Elsa Fornero. Another combines sport and tourism under Piero Gnudi. Civilian control of the army has been removed, with the promotion of Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee and key founder of relations between NATO and empowered EU institutions that were created by the Lisbon Treaty.

Overall, the government has been streamlined, simplified, and placed into the hands of a few unelected, mostly unheard-of individuals who have never faced a public ballot. They are former EU officials, bankers, consultants, chief executives, and military men. If anyone defines this as anything other than undemocratic, they don't need debate: they need a dictionary.

A Tale of Two Technocrats

2011-11-14T02:16:00.000-08:00

Berlusconi and the Bush family in happier times.

No-one knows what's going on in Europe. Least of all Lucas Papademos and Mario Monti. The two men were, until recently, enjoying their comfortable retirement in the sultry southern Meditteranean sun. The former had resigned his post as vice-president of the European Central Bank shortly after the first Greek bailout - the buffers the whole eurozone crisis was supposed to stop at - to be an advisor to then-Prime Minister Georgious Papandreou. The other was previously the European Commissioner for Competition (1995-1999), and then European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Services, Customers, and Taxation, from 1995-2004. He then became active in the Spinelli Group, a federalist think-tank which he co-founded. Now, less than three days later, they are both premiers of European states.

It is a double blow for the former leaders - Papandreou has been replaced by his advisor, and Berlusconi by a man he refused to recommend for a third stint as European Commissioner. But what does it mean for the Greeks and Italians? One thing I will say is that both men are extremely competent. Mario Monti is a true capitalist - i.e. the kind that opposes, rather than indulgies, monopolies - and has a good level of experience in dealing with beaurocratic procedures. Lucas Papademos is renowned for his economic ability. But, nevertheless, they are still unelected: their countrymen have lost their last chance to have a democratic say on economic policy. As national unity governments provide little, if any, parliamentary opposition, they are pretty much stuffed as far as the democratic side of things goes. Their country's fiscal matters - not to mention their family budgets - are now dictated to them by the troika, through the austerity measures which their governments are compelled to implement. That means they no longer have any say over public sector salaries, pension funds, tarrifs, and, most importantly, taxes.

It is especially poignant for the Greeks, as the man installed as head of them is one of the select few men who might actually be responsible for their plight. From 1994 to 2002, he was Governor of the Bank of Greece. It was his role to convince the European Commission that Greece was ready for euro membership, using figures which we now know - and which the government knew at the time - to be bogus. Ten years later, he was vice-president of the ECB, and was thus in a position to safeguard Greek citizens' interests at the highest table. However, he sold them out for the sake of 'solidarity' - a word which roughly translates to the Greeks as 'being screwed over for the sake of France and Germany.'

He may be popular now, but it is highly unlikely that this will continue for more than a couple of months. Papandreou, the object of public anger, is gone, but it won't be long before the Greeks realise that they are still getting the same economic policies, even stronger now given the absence of an elective opposition. Greek national radio had already taken to calling their elected Prime Minister a Nazi stooge for his bending the knee to Franco-German, and, to a lesser extent, EU interests - what are they supposed to make of an unelected one, when he does the same?

You have to admit, the whole thing does look a teeny-weeny bit like a coup d'etat. Yes, it was the Italian President that appointed Mr. Monti Senator-for-Life, and the Greek party leaders did get to wrangle over how long the incoming technocrat's term should be, but the process is the same: elected leader goes out, and a new one is inserted in his place with the approval - or at the behest of - outside influences. In both instances, the democratically-elected head of a government has been stripped of his office and replaced with an unelected individual. There was no campaign - there was no election. There were no votes. The two were merely picked up and placed in the Prime Ministerial office of their respective countries.

Meet the New Boss...

2011-11-08T12:25:00.000-08:00

The EU is taking of Greece's political and economic structures.

'Solidarity goes two ways,' says European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn, the EU's highest economic official. As the European Union purports to have stood by Greece, so Greece must stand by European union. To that end, both the outgoing Prime Minister, George Papandreou, and his immediate successor, as yet unnamed (my money's on Lucas Papademos, a former vice-president of the ECB), have been asked to sign a declaration stating that the bailout terms agreed on October 26th - at a meeting summarised here - will be fully implemented. They will do so alongside the leader of New Democracy, the chief opposition party, Antonis Samaras, and the head of the country's central bank.

It's a fine way for the EU to tie up all loose ends ahead of elections on February 19th. If both PASOK and New Democracy sign up to the deal, there is no way that a change of government can result in a change of policy. There can be no further democratic recourse from a people still smarting from the scrapping of the referendum. The heavily indebted nation will accept more loans whether it likes it or not!

That's the plan, at least. The leader of New Democracy, a conservative neoliberal party, has refused to sign the paper. He accepts the inevitability of the bailout nonetheless: he thinks for this very reason that a written declaration would be pointless. But, to an EU desperate for reasurrance that a second bailout - for a country that they said would not receive one, let alone need two - will go ahead, that counts as outright opposition. And outright opposition cannot be tolerated.

Wolfgang Schauble, the German Finance Minister, said that if the government and the opposition could not both agree that they could fulfil their 'commitments,' the sixth tranche of EU loans - worth eight billion euros - will not be paid. That is a threat that has been flaunted before. It was deployed twice against Papandreou, oh-so-long-ago, to make him back down on his referendum plans. But, successful at getting politicians to do what you want though it may be, it, too, is fraught with danger. Simply put, if the next tranche of loans is refused due to a government refusing to play ball, there won't be a government to play ball with.

The government would have no funds to pay public sector workers: the worst case scenario is more than half the country's workforce going unpaid, and almost half of its total economic output lost. The result would be simply catastrophic. It would almost certainly lead to mass-unemployment and a colossal reducation in living standards, just at the point where the country's debt crisis comes to a head. Anyone who thinks that traditionally fragile democracy could be preserved in those conditions is deluding themselves.

The EAW Makes a Mockery of Justice

2011-11-06T08:18:00.000-08:00

Fair Trials International takes on the European Justice Commissioner over the EAW.

Punishment without the requirement of evidence is a bad idea. There is no need to validate that statement: it's a given. Alongside the right to a fair trial and freedom from arbitrary detention, the need for evidence was a fundamental pillar of all justice worthy of the name for three hundred years. That was, until the European Arrest Warrant - pioneered by Liberal Democrat MEP for the Southwest Sir Graham Watson - turned the clock back.

The arrest warrant - valid throughout all twenty-seven EU member states, including the UK - requires a member state in receipt of one to arrest a suspect and extradite them to the state that send it. However, it does not require the presentation of evidence, nor does it particularly guarantee a fair trial, or even any trial at all. There have been instances where individuals summoned for police questioning have been denied bail, and go on to spend months - or even years - in extremely harsh conditions whilst they await trial. Many of them are later acquitted, or are convicted for minor infractions.

The lack of justice in EAW proceedings has been highlighted by a number of NGOs, human rights groups, and supra-national institutions, such as Fair Trials International and the United Nations. Now, due to the experiences of a 40-year-old secretary, it may finally become public knowledge in the UK. In 1996, Tracey Molamphy - who is suing the Portuguese authorities - was on holiday in the country with her then-boyfriend. The ordeal began when he attempted to convert one hundred and twenty pounds sterling into escudo. The notes were suspected by authorities of being counterfeit, and the couple were arrested and held for twenty-four hours before they were allowed to board the next plane back to England. Ms. Molaphy assumed that that was to be the end of it: but, twelve years later, she was detained at Munich airport by German authorities, and strip-searched. The Portuguese authorities had charged her with being an accessory to fraud, a crime which carries a maximum penalty of five year's imprisonment.

She spent two weeks in a German prison: even her boyfriend saying that it was he who ought to be in custody, not her, could not save her. She had to spend twenty thousand pounds of their savings before the case was finally dropped. She was released. Many others are not so fortunate: one thousand UK citizens faced the travesty of justice that is the EAW last year alone. As the case of Ms. Molamphy illustrates, any person can be sent from one country or another without charge or evidence, and, upon arrival, they are denied almost all of their key principles of open and fair justice. Don't even think about writing to your MP: it is a travesty that UK courts are powerless to stop. Only through the abolition of the EAW or our withdrawal from the European Union can we protect British citizens from such horrific abuses.

I would add that while contacting Sir Graham Watson himself will not help matters - the existence of the EAW is beyond electoral pressure - but it does help to relieve stress. If you could spare a minute of your time to let him know of your reservations - particularly if you live in the southwest - then please do so. His email address is graham.watson@europarl.europa.eu, and, if you want to spend your money on a worthwhile cause, you can also call his Brussels office on 003222847626.

From the People, Without the People, Against the People

2011-11-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

Do not underestimate the importance of democracy. Picture from here.

Barely a few days ago, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou was riding high on a wave of popular acclaim when he announced that a referendum would be held on the country's EU-IMF-ECB-imposed austerity. The resignation rumours which have dogged him since day one of the crisis were at their lowest ebb in months, and, having swept the carpet of public outrage from under the opposition and sacking all of his chiefs of the defence staff and twelve other senior officers to reign in the 'state within a state,' his position looked as assured as it ever was.

But on Wednesday, he attended an emergency summit. On Thursday, that referendum was cancelled. The day after, the resignation rumours raced to the surface. Ministers who had not been consulted asked why, the media was filled with open comparisons of the government to Nazi-era collaborators, and, having stoked the flames of public anger, he now finds them raised higher than ever. He is set finally to resign, and his most likely replacement is a man who opposed the referendum ever since he first heard about it: his Finance Minister, Evangelos Venizilos.

If there's one service that Mr. Papandreou over his short and somewhat inhereted career has inadvertently done for us, it's laying bare crisis the extent to which the Greeks have lost control of their own government, and how much far European democracy has retreated or been pushed back. The meeting that the Prime Minister attended consisted of seven key individuals other than himself. Two of them - Sarkozy and Merkel - were elected politicians. Two of them were representatives of financial institutions. Three of them were appointed European Union officials. Yet they have more control over the Greek government's fiscal policy than the Greek government itself. They represent two things: a) how fragile popular democracy really is, and b) how quickly notions of sovereignty can be erased if they cause problems for how the elite want things to be run.

It is easy for people not to care about sovereignty if they don't see how it affects them. As long as they've got food on the table, a roof over their heads, and something good on telly they won't see a problem. As for democracy, well - if they can still cast their vote, why does it matter if it works in practice? It's always going to be there. It's easy - too easy - not to care about that, either - until you realised the horrific consequences of losing it. The Greeks are now well aware of these consequences. Britain is not. To best illustrate them consequences, conservatives - cast your minds back to Gordon Brown. Labourites, reflect on the premiership of Lady Thatcher. How often did you say or think of just how good it would feel when they were finally voted out and you'd finally get the economic government the country was crying out for?

Well, what if that election never occured? What if you never got to vote them out? What if you didn't get a say? What if Maggie and the Bottler were there to stay, whatever anyone thought about it? Welcome to Greece 2011: only the spending was ten times higher and the cuts ten times deeper. They are realising just what happens when the unaccountable and the unelected take over the reigns of government. They realised it too late.

Will we?

Censorship of Tintin is Wrong-Headed

2011-11-04T10:52:00.000-07:00

President Roosevelt's Four Freedoms. Picture by dbking.

'I would oppose the banning of any book,' says human rights lawyer David Enright, right after he calls for the banning of a book. Or, more correctly, banning the sale of Tintin in the Congo to children. You can probably guess why. As is commonly known, the book was written by Hergé, a Belgian cartoonist, in 1930. Hence it's attitude towards black people - particular the inhabitants of the Congo, run as a private enterprise by King Leopold II from 1885-1908 - is less than hyper-modern. David Enright and several other commentators have stated that the book has a propensity to warp young minds, and want it removed from the children's sections of book shops forthwith.

The odd thing is, the author thinks the books have the potential to warp young children's minds and 'undermine' decades of progress - yet he himself confesses to reading them when he was younger, and, judging by his impressive CV as an anti-racism campaigner, they obviously did him no harm. The progress he says Tintin can undo if allowed to fall into the hands of the impressionable was made with the books on the shelves - long before any modern liberals popped up with their censorious antics. The civil rights movement grew up with the books as bedtime reading. It was incredibly popular with the same schoolchildren who went on to pass the Race Relations Acts 1965, and every piece of anti-racist legislation since. Progress was not hindered by the presence of Tintin books back in the 50s, when racist attitudes were far more prevalent. How will not be undermined by it now?

Other than that, the proposal is strikingly illiberal. Calling for children's books to be removed from the children's section because you don't think that children - the people supposed to be reading them - should actually being doing so is censorship, at the end of the day. It is making it unnecessarily complicated for the people most likely to want a book to actually find it. If one person - or, for that matter, any number of people - take exception to its content, then they don't have to trouble themselves by reading it. But no-one has any right at all to impose their personal moral values and opinion of the text onto anyone else, for the simple reason that no-one's personal moral values and opinion of the text is worth any more than anyone else's.

To paraphrase the article itself, the UK has come a long way since books were arbitarily removed from shelves because they were perceived to violate social norms, or, worse, because someone said that they violated social norms. Self-appointed moral arbiters - no matter how well-intentioned they may be - cannot be allowed to undermine that progress.

David Cameron: Do Not Declare War

2011-11-02T12:43:00.000-07:00

Iran's elite 'Jerusalem Force' are thought to be as well-trained as US squaddies.

British officials have admitted today that they will commit the armed forces to US-led action against Iran. Owing to the failure of sanctions to make a dent in the regime's resolve, and renewed fears over its nuclear weapons programme, military officials have confirmed to the Guardian that they are drawing up contingency plans for an air-and-sea based campaign, to be launched in support of an American invasion. The news follows a meeting of Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir David Richards and his Israeli counterpart, Benny Gantz, that was supposed to be secret, but has since been revealed by major Israeli news agencies. Apparently this was part of an annual event, aimed chiefly at maintaining relations - the secrecy supposedly standard British practice. But whether that's true or not, the timing - weeks after an Iranian-sponsored plot to assassinate a Saudi diplomat on US soil - couldn't make the urgency of this message any more clear: David Cameron, no more wars!

We have been coerced and cajoled, and outright cheated into war on two separate occasions. Our armed forces found themselves fighting some of the fiercest battles in living memory against a background of chronic mismanagement and thoughtless budget cuts. The objectives of these wars continually change - perhaps to disguise the fact that we're not even close to achieving any of them - and it's a safe bet that most people across the country - and most politicians - couldn't actually put their finger on what they are, much less why are we doing them. And then there's the question of how: one which not even the military top brass seems able to answer. The cost is continually mounting. Lives continue to be lost or disfigured through conflict or its aftermath, and billions that could be better spent at home, on better things besides, are being poured down a financial hole. Ten years of war have not installed a credible democracy, they have not eradicated the poppy crop, they have not seen the defeat of the Taliban. With Osama bin Laden - the architect of 9.11 - killed, Britain - which lost almost seventy people in the attack - no longer has a stake in this fight. We should pack our bags and leave as soon as the structures are in place to cover our withdrawal.

But, if continuing a war without a point is nonsense, then there are no words to describe starting another one against a much bigger country and a much bigger army when our own military forces are taking defence cut after defence cut after defence cut. The Taliban currently number around ten thousand 'hard core' fighters, and tens of thousands more part-time soldiers and seasonal recruits. They had no air force, and no army. The Iranian armed force, in comparison, have two hundred and thirty thousand professional soldiers and two hundred and thirty-five thousand conscripts. There are also millions of government-sponsored militia in the Basij, and a capable (if not by any means good) air force and navy besides. Our overstretched and under-resourced army cannot realistically be expected to take on such a force without heavy casualties: even in support of US army, the sheer number of servicemen and women killed or wounded would be horrendous compared to what we've experienced so far, and that's saying something.

One million people marched in London against the Iraq War. They were roundly ignored by Blair. Let's hope that David Cameron is a better man, and does not commit armed forces which he has done more to emasculate than anyone else in post-war political history to the third senseless war in quick succession.

Feminists Don't Need Men

2011-10-31T15:34:00.000-07:00

Empowerment doesn't mean nudity. Picture by Carolmooredc.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former Finance Minister, IMF chief, and front-runner to beat Sarkozy in next year's presidential election was knocked out of the presidential race after a slew of alleged sexual offences. Now all charges have been dropped, and feminist group Femen, seeing this as an example of money men being able to bend the rules, has decided to take to the streets in protest. Topless.

Eastern European feminists seem more inclined to get their kit off than their western counterparts: earlier this year, Czech parliamentarians produced a seductive calendar to celebrate the election of more women than ever before to the legislative chamber. It certainly puts the old adage that feminists are all ugly to bed, so to speak, but it's doing no favours for their cause. How can you make a stand against male exploitation of the female body if you're standing naked on a city street? How is a calender a means of celebrating female empowerment? The explanation, is, as always, 'celebrating female sexuality' or even taking control of it: but that's perfectly possible to do it with your clothes still on. It is quite clear that their brand of 'sexuality' does not appeal to most women, who are quite comfortable keeping their clothes on, thank you very much - and not being any less attractive for it

The propensity to get naked is one of many factors undermining modern European feminism. Along with the sexism, double-standards, and an unhealthy obsession with finding 'offence' in places where most women would just see the increasingly unisex routine of domestic life or some self-styled lad's attempt at a joke, they are becoming increasingly detached from the women they purport to represent.

There are vast areas of the world where the treatment of women is barely up to medieval standards: in fact, to call it medieval would be an insult. Many of these places were comparatively better in the Dark Ages. These are all places where feminist is needed. It would help the modern feminist cause a great deal if they would focus their efforts somewhere that feminism is sorely needed, rather than wasting their time extrapolating from statistical anomalies or individual events in places where the two instruments that women need to further themselves - education and the vote - are already assured.

The Folly of Immigration Idealism

2011-10-31T14:30:00.000-07:00

Not overcrowded? Picture by David Rayner.

Britain is not full. There are still plenty of open woodland spaces, plenty of parkland, plenty of moors, and a wilderness the size of Belgium for people to inhabit. In a very literal sense, Britain is not full at all. Sadly, what David Blunkett - and proponents of immigration in general - don't seem to understand is that being able to build a few hundred thousand new houses does not equate to being able to support a few hundred thousand new people. You need schools. You need jobs. You need a plethora of public services, a whole variety of amenities, and ready access to utilities. And these things are full.

In London alone, primary schools are already short of places for fifty thousand students. Nationally, twenty per cent of all primary schools are full, and one hundred thousand are taught in overcrowded classrooms. And it's not just schools: there are already five million people on the waiting list for social housing, and, on average, they are waiting several years. To add to this, the budget is about to be slashed by 50%. Electrical grids are overburdened to the extent that the government has predicted rolling blackouts unless a radical solution is adopted. Nothing needs to be said for the creaking local authority infrastructure, outdated railways, and Victorian sewage systems.

Immigration activists are wrong: there is no fear of 'foreigners.' In fact, many people that xenophobes and immigration activists alike would consider 'foreign' are as opposed to mass-immigration as the white British population. There is, however, a fear of numbers. Big numbers. Numbers that are as unsustainable in reality as they would be in the back of a maths book: numbers that simply don't add up to a prosperous society, but rather a pressured one, with ever-increasing numbers competing for ever-dwindling school places or one of the few council houses remaining. Where is the sense in adding more people to a system which can barely cope with the ones already here?

The EU Cannot Defend European Interests

2011-10-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

Turkey has deployed gunboats: the EU has deployed Stefan Fule. Picture by Stefano Sopelza.

One of the most enduring - and convincing - arguments for the European Union has been the constant presence of superpowers. The US, China, Russia, and now are raft of others are all vying for the title, and European nations - federalist orthodoxy holds - are like pawns in a great game. Individually, They can be toyed with at will. Individually, they can be controlled, cajolled, enrounded, exploited, and, between the major players, they won't get a word in edgeways. The solution - apparently - is to pool their resources and their government. To integrate. To unify. It's consistently been a thorn in the side of advocates of national democracy: no-one can deny that Europe's GDP as a whole has been rapidly declining since the 70s, and that the economic might of the countries that comprise it has declined further still. It was an argument that seemed to have all the corners covered.

But Turkey seems to have found the chink in its armour. In light of the Cypriot state's ongoing quest for hydrocarbons, the Turkish government has deployed warships in the eastern Meditteranean and contacted the government of occupied Northern Cyprus about delineating a continental shelf - an illegal move, as the talking chessboard would say, given that Northern Cyprus has such a low degree of international recognition. The deployment of gunboats always contains an implicit threat of hostile action, and EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule - who is still tasked with doing all he can to get Turkey into the European Union as part of his job description - is spooked. He appeared at a press conference Wednesday, saying that there was no place for hostile intent, and that all sovereign states had the right to exploit natural resources within their Exclusive Economic Zone.

However, his speech exposes the limitations of the EU as a defender of European interests: other than remind the Turks that Cyprus is a sovereign nation - which it isn't, as far as Turkey is concerned - there was nothing he could do. If the EU is so powerless and impotent faced with the might of a Turkish gunboat, it is hardly going to be an effective guarantor of sovereignty against China and Russia. A far cry from the representation of a solid bloc of nation-states, the EU is just another layer of pointlessness on top of an already pointless gesture.

Czechs Will Still Not be Bullied

2011-10-29T05:48:00.000-07:00

Prague Castle is the third largest in the world. Picture by Tepold.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus has always been a Eurosceptic. He i, in fact, the sole Eurosceptic among European heads of state, following the plane crash that tragically killed Polish President Lech Kaczinsky in April last year. He has constantly attracted the ire of enraged Brussels officials: hundreds of MEPs walked out of the European Parliament chamber rather than hear him speak - ironically on the subject of listening to other people's views. Daniel Cohn-Bendit once stormed into Hradcany Castle, replaced the Czech flag on the President's desk with an EU one, and briskly informed the President: 'no-one cares about your opinions.' The co-president of the European Greens was perhaps infuriated that the Czech head of state is also a climate sceptic, whose book, Blue Planet in Green Shackles, is sold internationally. Mr. Klaus even had the gall to take the fight directly to the Guardian.

That might by why his party, Občanská Demokratická Strana (Civic Democratic Party; ODS) is now firmly committed to holding a second referendum in light of French and German proposals fundamentally altering the nature of the eurozone. According to federalists, the Czechs have had their referendum before: they voted to join the European Union, back in 2003, knowing full well that joining the euro was a legal requirement of all new member states. But the federalists themselves are no strangers to holding referendums again when they don't get the answer they want, and, as Czech Prime Minister Petr Nečas explains, the eurozone has changed beyond recognition since then.

Citing a proposed German-led treaty change in a speech at a party congress, Mr. Nečas said 'the conditions under which the Czech citizens decided in a referendum in 2003 on the country's accession to the EU and on its commitment to adopt the single currency, euro, have changed.' The stable, prospering currency they opted into in 2003 is now wracked by the prospect of a Greek default and more bailouts of Italy and Cyprus. Estonia, its newest member, has seen support for its membership of the single currency collapse due to massive inflation. The economic advisory council - a body which includes a number of eminent economists - has already warned the government to prepare for the euro's disintegration. If 'there is a change to fundamental rights that would result in powers being transferred from national organs to European organs,' a referendum will be held.

The EU-funded Centre for European Policy Studies has already criticised talk of a public ballot as 'purely populist,' and accused the government of doing it solely to shore up their domestic poll ratings - an accusation also levelled by the opposition Social Democrats. It does, however, admit that the 'disease...of introvertism and isolationism' stands a good chance of winning if a referendum goes ahead. There is an overwhelming 73% majority against joining the eurozone, as of April, and Vaclav Klaus's economic opinions are taken seriously. The liberal-conservative economist was one of the principle figures in the the Czechoslovak economic reforms after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and opposes the bailout of large financial institutions with public funds as a matter of capitalist principle. Four-fifths of Czechs take a similar view.

The koruna looks set to be around for a while yet, and the Czechs can retain their title as the most democratic nation in Europe.

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This is the third update posted today: the other two are on the changes to the law of succession, and the European Commission taking every country in Europe to court.

David Cameron Might Just Have Saved the Royal Family

2011-10-29T03:53:00.000-07:00

Both have the potential to be role models to the young.

The sixteen countries with Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state have voted unanimously to reform the succession laws. Male primogeniture - where a younger son can ascend to the throne ahead of an elder daughter - will be abolished before the birth of another royal heir, as will the rule that states an heir to the throne cannot marry a Catholic. The agreement was concluded at a meeting in Australia, where David Cameron called the rules 'outdated' and 'at odds with the modern countries we have become.' He has most definitely won back a small proportion of his female voters, and he may have just saved the monarchy.

The existence of the monarchy is pretty much assured for the rest of the Queen's lifetime. It is probably guaranteed to outlast the reign of Prince Charles, assuming that he comes to the throne. After that, however, it is in the badlands. Just over half, according to the Mirror, think that there will still be a monarch on the throne in half a century's time. Its primary supporters, the Boomers, will mostly be gone, and the current thirty and forty-somethings will in all likelihood have retired. The reins of society will belong to today's teenagers and twenty-somethings, and, while they are not openly hostile to the idea, the monarchy is less entrenched in their minds than it is in previous generations: no longer will it be able to stay silently out of view and expect the perception of its ceremonial importance to endure. They will need convincing. They will need to know why the monarchy is relevant to them: the quickest and easiest way to ensure that it isn't is for it to preserve archaic traditions.

The scrapping of outdated laws that no-one, save for older Anglicans, sees the sense in any more brings the monarchy into their century.

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This is the second update of today. This was the first one. There will in all likelihood be another, on the latest news from the Czech Republic - and its avowedly Eurosceptic President Vaclav Klaus - on the eurozone crisis.

Commission Takes Europe to Court

2011-10-29T03:31:00.000-07:00

The European Court of Justice: the Commission's weapon of choice.

It ain't over till it's over. That is not so much the European Commission's motto: -more of its modus operandi. In a major crackdown on national laws that clash with European directive, it has referred or threatened to refer twenty-seven European Union member states to the European Court of Justice. For those that don't unnecessarily complicate things, that's all of them. The alleged infractions are wide-ranging, from conform to environmental directives to an inability to properly implement the Blue Card scheme. The announcement of legal measures against all EU states marks a major increase in the Commission's willingness to take action against perceived incompatibilities between national and EU law.

The possible reasoning for this is two-fold. The long-standing President of the Commission is just about to enter his eighth year in office, and calls for 'more Europe' have never been louder. As the head of executive body of the European Union, an institution which his predecessor once called 'the European government,' the task of transliterating these calls into political reality falls to him. The eurozone crisis has also kicked off the biggest debate in modern times over exactly how the EU should be ran. No, it's not between Euroscepticism and federalism: at the higher echelons of Brussels government, Euroscepticism doesn't even get a look-in. It is between federalism and its slightly more reserved sister, intergovernmentalism.

Historically on the back foot post-Maastricht, intergovernmentalism - where decisions are made by elected heads of state and government ministers through negotiation and compromise, and nation-states generally play a greater role in EU institutions - has been steadily gaining favour amongst the commentariat since the eurozone crisis began, in light of the greater role played by national heads of state and finance ministers. The Commission has appeared either impotent or as part of the triumvirate: compared to previous years when it was at the forefront of economic and constitutional affairs, it has done relatively little. It has not involved itself in the intricacies of the deals and backroom negotiations between heads of state. It has mostly been playing second fiddle to the IMF and ECB when it comes to the arrangements themselves. And, most importantly, it has not stumped up the cash: national governments have, from public funds and our own pockets, of course. Some are beginning to question what its role actually is, and whether it should be downsized - or even whether it is strictly necessary as an institution.

Intergovernmentalism is often seen by committed federalists as a moderate form of Euroscepticism - it is a central tenet of so-called 'soft Euroscepticism,' the belief that EU membership is a good thing but that EU institutions should not hold all the power. It would also see the Commission taking a lesser role in governing the continent, seeing its executive function greatly reduced and its ability to enforce legislation greatly reduced. To the Commission, intergovernmentalism is the fracturing of Europe, the return of national interest, and the diametric opposite of what the European Union is and is supposed to be, and they're determined to stop it at all costs.

The recent surge in court cases is less an attempt to assert its dominance: more a statement that it does have a vital role to play in enforcing European unity. Divorced from most economic decisions, it is going all-out on its role as 'guarantor of the Treaties.' The claim that UK's environmental laws aren't as strict as the Commission says they have to be is only the start of a wider campaign: the Commission is determined to enforce its authority. And that means yet another challenge to the democratic sovereignty of nation-states.

Comrades, To Our Houses!

2011-10-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

Occupy everything? The London branch aren't even occupying their tents. Picture by David Shankbone.

It's always mildly depressing when a right-winger criticises the Occupy Wall Street protestors. Since when did capitalists and free marketers think that bailing out any financial enterprises that fail with billions of pounds of public funds was halfway sensible? It's not 'capitalism' - capitalism requires risk. It's a bastard capitalism, where incompetent individuals who make bad decisions do not have to face the consequences, but can instead can pass them on to the taxpayer. It's contrary to standard capitalist thinking, and downright offensive to laissez-faire advocates. But, nonetheless, it's a good thing for them that no prominent right-winger has publically came out as a supporter of the Occupy movement - especially its London branch. They'd look more than a little bit foolish now.

The Telegraph TV crew pulled off a masterful coup against 'the 99%' through the use of thermal imaging technology: most of the tents said to be chok-full of protestors raging against the establishment were, in fact, empty. One image shows a whole row of them, virtually indistinguishable from the pavement: they clearly haven't been occupied for quite some time, if at all. It is another blow to the credibility of a small protest movement that has so far forced married couples to leave through a side entrance and caused the closure of the cathedral for the first time since the Second World War.

To call them 'self-important' would be to pay them a complement: if they vacate their tents at night, they clearly prefer the trappings of capitalism to the cold pavement. Their cause can't be that important to them. 'Self-righteous,' maybe. But 'self-obsessed' fits the bill better: 'look at me, look at me, I'm pretending to protest about a cause and am closing down one of London's major tourist attractions and ruining the wedding plans of countless couples in order to do so. Is it time for my close-up?'

The protestors then confounded the folly with their hostility to Daily Telegraph reporters, and by doing little to alleviate the concerns of local businessmen - who, whether they like it or not, are the working people who get up early every day and mostly scrape by. All of this smacks of a camp of intellectual snobbery which has little understanding of or care for their stated goals: not genuine protestors, merely trendy self-styled 'activists' of the worst kind.

The 1975 Referendum Is - and Ought to Be - Irrelevant

2011-10-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Callaghan (left): the only Prime Minister ever to give us a euro-referendum.

'We had a referendum on that issue in 1975, which produced a very clear result,' says Laurence Mann, David Cameron's senior aide on European Union affairs. Mr. Mann joins a long list of pro-membership campaigners, commentators, and politicians (especially those of the anti-vote persuasion), to fall back on the 1975 referendum as 'proof' that the electorate's view of the European Union chimes with theirs.

It's a nice idea, that the continuing government policy has some measure of democratic legitimacy. But it is logically impossible. Basic chronology and all our understanding of space and time itself tells us that we could not have had a referendum on European Union membership in 1975, as, in 1975, the European Union did not exist. The European Economic Community existed. This isn't just semantics: that was a different body entirely, with almost no legislative or political power in comparison to its modern counterpart. No overbearing and unaccountable Commission passing law, no chief executives styling themselves as 'the government of Europe,' as Romano Prodi did. No Lisbon; no Maastricht. No courts, no bank, no euro. The electorate of 1975 voted on a trading bloc. Not a supra-national government.

That electorate itself has also changed substantially. The only people who had a say are those who , in 1975, were eighteen or over. A fair few of them are now dead: those that aren't are at least fifty-three, and many of them are quite a bit older. The referendum was held a whole generation ago: no-one who isn't a Boomer has ever had a say, on either the EU, or our relationship with it (and, before you say that we have the chance every general election, please bear in mind that all parties are pro-referendum when canvassing for votes).

The referendum of 1975 is not only a generation out of date, its subject was an entirely different relationship - with an entirely different organisation. The planet has changed beyond recognition. The Soviet Union is gone; American domiance is slowly ebbing away; and the Second World War - the idea that inspired so many of the Boomers, understandably, to push for greater union - is now studied in school textbooks, rather than the officious pages of bomb damage assessments. So many other international organisations now have the preservation of peace as their goal as to make any peacekeeping purpose of the EU wholly redundant: if the combined might of the UN, NATO, countless multi-lateral agreements, and a proliferation of regional bodies aren't able to do it, it's a pretty safe bet that the EU wouldn't be able to do it, either. For political purposes, this a completely new world: and it's a world that should be given - and demands - a vote.

The Referendum Vote: A Belated Farce

2011-10-21T11:21:00.000-07:00

David Cameron turns his back on the electorate.

The story of the 'referendum vote' is looking more and more like the saga of a a belated farce. Originally intended to be a free and open debate on whether the government should hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, scheduled for next Thursday, it is now plain and clear that it is nothing of the sort. MPs will, in all likelihood, vote against the public having their say, in spite of all polls in the last five years saying that the public want otherwise. Prime Minister David Cameron has made doubly sure that the embarassing outcome of a popular ballot does not occur, by introducing a raft of measures against anyone who may consider voting for it.

It is a sad day when a Prime Minister orders his MPs to block a public vote. But that is precisely what Mr. Cameron has done, having issued a three-line whip to all his MPs. The threat of deselection hangs over the heads of all who do not vote accordingly. The debate itself has been brought forward to Monday - less time for MPs to browse through the angry barrage of emails that would have landed in their inbox - and the referendum itself will no longer be a standard, two-response question. It will instead have three responses. Two-thirds of the possible responses are 'In,' ensuring that those who want to remain in the EU as it is do not have to be a majority: they merely need to have a higher proportion of the votes that either of the two reformist reformists to win. Britain's future could be decided by as little as 34% of the populace. Not that all that matters much: in the unlikely event that the vote swings against the party line, and MPs vote for a referendum, for Mr. Cameron could refuse to hold one. Even if he did, history dictates that it would be repeated or ignored until we delivered the 'right' result.

There is only one argument as yet used for this astoundingly undemocratic arrangement -the Prime Minister's personal belief. David Cameron has repeatedly stated that he 'does not believe that an In/Out referendum is right.' Key word being believe. Like its immediate precursor, this government has repeatedly refused to hold an independent cost-benefit analysis. It has simply reverted to the old Labour line, saying that they don't need to carry one out as 'the benefits of EU membership are self-evident.'

This line of thinking is remarkably child-like: 'I have irrefutable evidence. It is so irrefutable that I do not have to show it to you.' It would never be accepted in open debate: if someone went on BBC Question Time, for example, claiming to have proof that could settle the argument 'once and for all,' proudly boasting of evidence that could vindicate their claims and make their opponents look patently ridiculous, would you not be a tiny bit suspicious if they then turned around and said: 'No. I'm not going to show you. You know what it is?' If you knew what it was, you wouldn't be asking! It is doubtful that this evidence even exists: if David Cameron possessed the power of proving his case utterly and beyond refute, why would he - or any else, for that matter, hesistate to use it?

Unless he can prove it - or even back it up with facts and figures, something else he has thus far been unable or unwilling to do - then his 'belief' is worth little. It certainly should not be the grounds on which we decide our nation's future for another generation or more.

Estonia Grows Disillusioned With the Euro

2011-10-19T09:30:00.000-07:00

The sun has gone down on the Estonia-euro honeymoon. Picture by Htkava.

Ever get that feeling you've jumped onto a sinking ship, only to look back and find you're already out of sight of land? The Estonians are waking up to just that pleasure. Less than one year ago, the arrival of the euro was greeted with street parties: five thousand people lined the streets of Tallin to exchange their krone, and the president himself ceremoniously withdrew a 5 euro note from a hole-in-the-wall. The entire nation of one and a half million people was breathless in anticipation of finally having a say in the world. This was, in the eyes of many, what they had escaped Communism to do.

That overwhelming wave of support is, however, receding faster than a European banker's hairline: according to a poll by Turu-Uuringute AS, only 55% would favour the single currency, were there to be a second referendum (which, since they gave the 'correct' answer the first time, there won't be). There is a growing sense of disillusionment, disappointment, or even anger: many of those who turned out en masse to vote in a referendum on euro membership feel mis-sold. The rush to join something that could give them a greater say in the world was overpowering: a 'no' vote was a vote for isolation and intimidation. But the euro hasn't turned out to be the economic renaissance that they were told it would be; quite the opposite, in fact.

The government can point to some economic success: IMF estimates state that Estonia was Europe's fastest-growing economy, at a whopping 6.5%. But, given that Estonia's chief export market is the eurozone itself, that can reasonably be expected to fall quite sharply, and at any rate, none of it has made a blind bit of difference to your average citizen in Tallin. For not only do they have the fastest-growing economy of all European nations, they also have the highest inflation. Food bills for families - as well as the price of basic utilities - have skyrocketed. Real wages have fallen for the eleventh quarter in succession. Their contribution to the EFSF, the EU's new bailout fund, may seem minor, at £2 billion. But this is the poorest country on the continent: that's almost one fifth (14%) of their national economy and a third of their annual budget.

To add to this, there is a disconnect between the central bank and the people. Ulo Kaasik, deputy governor, is one of the most orthodox in Europe: he still thinks that Greece can get back on the path to recovery in exactly the way the EU intended, all semblance of economic reality be damned. But the people remain highly sceptical: 58% of them oppose further Estonian involvement. Estonians are, in the words of Anti Poolamets, 'paying our money to much richer states for their mistakes.'

Eurosceptics, such as Mr. Poolamets, may be a small force in Estonian politics - the novelty of coming in from the cold does not wear off fast. But nonetheless, their words are likely to find resonance with the Estonian public, who can see third of their annual budget at the beck and call of the European for no explicit purpose. In the absence of explanations from their government or their central bank as to how piling more debt onto an indebted country is ever going to help matters, they just might turn to more maverick voices that say that, in entering the eurozone, the country took the wrong turn in its search for a voice in the world.

Capitalism Has Not Failed: Far From It

2011-10-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

If he didn't laugh he'd cry

Here we go again - another band of professional activists who complain about the influence of companies and big business whilst decked out in the latest designer gear. It's one thing - and an eminently sensible thing it is, too - to suggest that taxpayers shouldn't be liable for the losses of every large private banking enterprise that goes to the wall, especially when their collapse was caused by willful miscalculation or over-reliance on risky investment. The threat of not being backed up by public funds, and incurring all losses privately, ought to make them think more carefully about who they lend money to. It is quite another to say - as some have - that capitalism, or free market economics itself has failed. Especially when you're waving one thousand shades of smartphone in the air.

To all anti-capitalist protestors, there is one stock answer: go to your local corner shop. There, in ten foot by ten foot, is the greatest abundance of food and drink in the history of civilisation, all affordable with pocket change. If the anti-capitalist element of the Occupy Wall Street protests can direct me to a non-capitalist society, at any point on the timeline of human history, that has provided such a wealth of choice within the reach of virtually all its citizens, then I'll pack my bags - I'm moving. But they can't. Because there isn't one.

They might try to argue that these things are nothing to do with capitalism at all, but merely the result of communication and transport links around the globe that far surpass anything our ancestors possessed. That's partly true: it wouldn't have been possible without those things.. But nor would it have been possible without capitalism. We have examples of non-capitalist states, from our own age, where the variety of food is abysmal in comparison. In more extreme examples, it extended to anything the ruling party didn't confiscate and reserve for the 'plum jobs.' We have seen, in Africa, capitalist free-market breadbaskets - where food was previously in abundance and affordable - reduced to starvation. Zimbabwe, whose dictator, Mugabe, is a self-confessed socialist, is a prime example. There is a striking - if not absolute - correlation between African countries that have suffered the worst famines and those which employed socialist economics at the time: Ethiopia, Somalia, Angola, and Mali are all on the list.

It's not only food: housing, too. More people own homes now than at any other point in human history, even if you take the current dip in home ownership into account, and multiply it several times over. Would this have occured without the emergence of capitalism and the growth of the middle classes into the demographic majority we see today? It is highly doubtful: especially if we look the rates of homeownership in states that have followed a different economic trajectory where capitalism is not as firmly established. Across much of the Meditteranean, which was dominated socialist or fascist dictatorships well into the 20th century, renting is the standard option, and owning a house is a rare privilege.

And innovation, variety, is the preserve of capitalist states: why do those anti-capitalist elements of the Occupy Wall Street protests wave so many varities of smartphones about? Why do they wear so many different brands? Wouldn't they prefer it if the manufacturer only made one model, as in socialist states? Apparently not.

If you are going to insist that capitalism and free market economics has failed, fair enough - that's your democratic right (though there's not a non-capitalist country in the world that's a democracy). Protesting social inequality is also fine - even though it's better that some be much richer than others, and all have a roughly equal chance of getting to the top, than it is for all to be equally poor and kept that way, as is the case in every truly socialist state (i.e. one without a free market or private enterprise) that ever existed. But please realise: you're doing it whilst you are a walking argument to the contrary.

Does Macedonia Want to Join the EU?

2011-10-15T04:59:00.000-07:00

Will a resurgent self-belief and Turkish pressure lead to disdain for EU membership?

The recent confusion over Macedonia's ascension process into the EU is publically put down to to an upsurge in authoritarianism in the Balkan nation, and an outpouring of patriotic fervour that has seen relations with Greece and other Balkan states awkwardly - and needlessly - complicated. The EU's annual report has discovered that Macedonia has made no progress: indeed, it has backtracked on media freedoms and has halted all its efforts to improve the rule of law. But the scorn hasn't all been poured one way: Macedonia has retaliated in kind.

The sunshine state's president, Gjorge Ivanov, was waxing lyrical in a letter, seen by the Macedonia Online. In it, he lambasted the long-standing EU practice of refusing to use the denonym 'Macedonian' to describe the country and people. This was not so much an attack on the EU itself as it was an extension of the Macedonian-Greek feud: the fires lit by the sudden appearance of a statue that looks suspiciously Alexander the Great in Skopje's main square have not yet dampened, and the question of the contested name is as unresolved as ever. Macedonians have become ever more defensive of their national identity at home, and it is no surprise that Ivanov seeks to defend it on foreign shores, as well.

But the latest bout of rhetoric appears to be somewhat orchestrated. Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski is rumoured to have helped fund an anti-Bulgarian film that portrays the country as responsible for the exile of Jews from the former Yugoslavian state, and then his Finance Minister, Zoran Stavrevski, fired a broadside at the EU in general, saying that: 'it would be better for the EU to simply stop this crisis by making Greece's bankruptcy official.' He also laid the blame firmly for the closure of the Greek-Macedonian border - due to public sector strikes - on the EU's shoulders. Raising the prospect (or, rather, lack of) of financial compensation from the EU for the strike, he said 'the EU knew for more than a decade that Greece is in bad shape. They knew it, and allowed it to happen.'

President Ivanov's letter was addressed to Jose Manuel Barroso himself, EU chief executive and overseer of the ascension process. In defending Macedonian identity, Ivanov has set the EU up firmly as those who would do it harm. And Mr. Stavrevski has apportioned blame in a manner that, avowed Eurosceptic that I am, even I would consider unfair. None of this is remotely sensible if you actually have any intention of joining the EU, nor if you are trying to stir pro-EU sentiment amongst the populace. And all three politicians must be aware of this.

The reasons for this at first appear bewildering: why would Macedonia turn its back on what was once considered its best opportunity for a generation? It was only one date before the latest outburst that Silvio Berlusconi offered his full support to Macedonian entry, so it's not exactly a lost cause, yet. But closer inspection soon reveals the hand of Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's Prime Minister. He has already promised to reward the Macedonian national football team for their home defeat of Armenia - striking a chord with the proud Macedonian nation, for whom their football team is a major source of pride - and to throw a lifetine to the economically-troubled Balkan nation by tripling current trade levels between the two countries. Not only this, but he has gone one step further than Mr. Berlusconi: he not only recognises Macedonia's right to join the EU, but also its right to use whatever name it pleases.

It's fairly natural that the two countries should share some kind of affinity: they are both mutual enemies of Greece. They both have (or had) ambitions to join the EU. And both feel that they have been spurned, and that Greece is partially responsible. Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Gruevski met in Skopje last month, and the public dynamic was palpable: they acted as sounding boards for each other's grievances, an effect which is amplified a thousand-fold by the united-we-stand attitude of their respective populations.

If you were Mr. Gruevski, which would you choose? Membership of a club that refuses to recognise the existence of your nation owing to pressure from your bitterest rival, or alliance with a similarly-spurned state which welcomes your claim to nationhood with open arms? It looks like a done deal. Throw in Macedonia's large Turkish minority and an increasingly militaristic and independently-minded popular culture that will brook no compromise, add few sweet words from Tayyip Erdogan, telling the Macedonian populace what they want to hear. the EU has, for the majority of Macedonians and their politicians, lost its glamour.

That doesn't mean that EU membership is off the cards - indeed, for the moment, that appears the most likely route for the country to take. Montenegro, which received the green light to open the first chapters of ascension negotiations, has signed an ascension co-operation deal with Macedonia just this morning. But it appears that the ruling elites in Skopje are fearful that in order to gain entry to the EU the ethnic patchwork of Macedonia will have to surrender one of the most unifying aspects of its national unity - its name. And, for any Balkan nation, that's a big sacrifice to make. The east may well, in time, prove a more attractive and more fulfilling option.

Britain Doesn't Have the Resources to Cope with Immigration

2011-10-13T13:19:00.000-07:00

Aren't we overcrowded enough already?

How can you be racist against immigrants? Immigrants are not a race. They are a socio-economic group. You can't be racist against immigrants any more than than you can be racist against any other socio-economic group, i.e. cab drivers, or the poor. You can be racist against individual communities, colours, and cultures, of course, but immigrants as a whole? No - simply because being an immigrant has nothing to do with your cultural or ethnic identity. You could be Polish. You could be Ethiopian. You could be a Brit abroad in Spain. You do not gain shared identity simply by moving from one country to another. That's why the assumption that racism is the cause of all opposition to immigration irks me so much: always has done. It makes no literal sense.

Mehdi Hasan doesn't call his opponents 'racist' over at the Guardian, but he does use another refrain older than the air - one that all those who have waded into a discussion about abortion will be familiar with. Steve Jobs, he says, was the son of an immigrant, and he made a valuable - some would say priceless - contribution to society. Ergo, we should allow in as many people as possible, as there is every chance that they may make an equally valid contribution to society, regardless of their ethnic origin. The argument appears to have some degree of strength: I am firmly of the belief that anyone, as all our brains are created equal, can be anyone and do anything.

But the argument has an obvious flip-side that makes it completely redundant. Just as it's possible that the descendant of an immigrant might be the next Picasso, there is an equal chance that they will be the next Stalin. As in the abortion debate, both sides will read out their lists of the best and worst examples of humanity, and achieve precisely nothing in doing so. You can't get anywhere with that line of argument. It is a closed circuit.

It also makes the mistake of assuming that much anti-mass immigration rhetoric centres around individuals. It does not. Relatively few people opposed to mass-immigration has a problem with individuals - especially not beneficial ones, the sons of graduates. An individual's requirements will ultimately be limited: they will take up a limited amount of space, they will use a limited amount of energy, they will need a limited number of school places, etc. The resources of a state will never fail to meet the needs of an individual. It is numbers we have a problem with. Especially large ones. If the resources of the state are failing to meet the needs of the existing population, then why is it logical to expect them to cope with large numbers of additional people added on. They can't and they won't.

The UK has a below-par electrical circuit. The demand for energy will outstrip supply within the next eight years. People are waiting years, even decades, for social housing - five million are already on the list. One hundred thousand pupils are already in overcrowded schools: one in five primary schools across the country is 'full' or 'above capacity.' Take a look at the infographic for London. The number of people out of work has risen to levels not seen in almost twenty years, and there is not likely to be any dramatic increase in the number of jobs available. House prices are ridiculously high: a lot of my friends will not own homes before they are thirty. Where is the sense in calling for more people to be added on top of this?

The Myth of EU Funding

2011-10-11T14:52:00.000-07:00

The EU pays £9.2 billion net into the EU budget annually. That's the GDP of Mali. Picture by Guaka.

The myth of EU funding goes a bit like this: that the EU pays for projects within Britain, that we then benefit from, out of its own budget. That is often touted by supporters of membership as one of the main 'pros' to being in the 'club.' It is a complete abstraction of the truth, however. The EU is a bit like a government in that it has relatively little cash of its own: its assets, although vast - over one million square feet in the 'European Quarter' in Brussels alone - are not even enough to cover its daily expenditure (the title is as indispensable as the book). Its budget relies on the contributions of member states - a select few member states, officially designated by the European Union as 'net contributors.'

So, it is not EU money we are receiving: it is the public funds - originally raised through taxation - of countries such as Germany, Italy, Spain, and even ourselves, which have been paid into the EU budget and dispersed across the continent. That community sports centre down the road that the EU stuck its flag on wasn't actually funded by the EU. Or, at least, the money wasn't the EU's in the first place. It was funded by the income tax of a French worker, handed to the EU as part of France's net contribution. That may sound like a pretty neat arrangement: until you realise that we are in exactly the same boat as said French worker. Britain is one of these 'net contributor' countries - in fact we're near the top of the list. There's no point denying it: both the EU Commission and the Treasury admit this. That translates to £19.7 billion gross to the European Union's budget every single year: we get £10.5 billion back. Ignoring the fact that a lot of this came from us in the first place, and that none of it came from the EU itself - merely was handed over from national public funds for the EU to dole out as it pleases - that still leaves a net loss of £9.2 billion.

That's enough to pay for all Army field units (£8 billion), the entire Royal Air Force (£7.7 billion), and the entire Ministry of Defence equipment budget (£6.1 billion). It could pay for over half of all devolved spending in Wales (£15 billion), most of the Ministry of Justice (£9.7 billion), and the current level of investment in school buildings (£4.5 billion) twice over. Council tax, which as of 2006 amounted to £22.4 billion, could be cut by almost half. Quite a lot of money to be losing every single year, especially when you consider that the money we get back has already been taken into account.

If anyone tells you about what the EU does in your area, they're lying. You paid for some of it, other countries paid for the rest of it, the EU paid for less than a fifth, and, for all that, we're still nine point two billion pounds worse off! When someone tells you - correctly - what all that £10.5 billion we were given back was spent on, and shows you all the benefits that it brings, kindly remind them that we could have all that twice over, had we simply not paid the money in in the first place.

The Way Forward for UKIP: Localism

2011-10-10T10:23:00.000-07:00

Will UKIP be local people's sole champion? Picture by Ian Roberts.

I thought I'd noticed a proliferation of UKIP campaign literature in my local area recently - the odd sign up in a window, a parliamentary candidate's car parked in a lay-by on a major road, clearly labelled with party symbols, and at least one small bill-board put up on a high garden fence so that everyone driving along that particular stretch of road can see it. Credit to the campaign organisers: they've gone all-out. It turns out that UKIP is leading the charge against plans to build almost a thousand new homes in the area. In doing so, it has potentially tapped into a wealth of public indignation: information about a meeting has already slipped through the letterbox and a public march has already been organised. The sight of that ubiqutious pound sign on a major local road stirred a thought in my head: is this where UKIP's future lies? It could be.

Over the past few years, local electorates have been divorced from their political representatives in Westminister. The imposition of top-down parliamentary candidates, shortlists, and the practice of 'parachuting in' friends and flatterers has all debased the local roots of government. Increasingly, 'local' MPs have little or no understanding of their constituencies. Many of them are from different parts of the country entirely. Local concerns are, unsurprisingly, not important to them: or, at least, not as important as the weekly routine of putting in an appearance at their London pad in order to conduct some parliamentary business - along party lines - and then going home again. In the absence of any meaningful political representation, local people are often having to take up the fight themselves.

Local issues are not a national concern, but they still apply to everyone. Everyone has something in their local area that they're not too happy with, which MPs just seem to ignore. In the absence of any way for local people to select who they want on the ballot box, with candidate choices being imposed from party head office, there is precious little that local communities can do about this. There is a gulf - between the parties, the politicians, and the people - and it is in this gulf that a localist party can thrive. UKIP should not make the same mistake. It should carpe diem, as they say in Rome. Returning power to the people to make decisions over the things that most directly impact them should not just be something that UKIP members trot out on auspicious occasions, such as winning their first local council: it should be a campaign mantra.

And there's never been a greater time to introduce it, either: the French Socialist Primaries in France have exposed to a European audience for the first time the practicalities of open primaries. The Tory Localism Bill has done little to alleviate the concerns of local communities. I'd be surprised if even half of the people on your local high street even know of its existence. It has been roundly criticised for having a 'presumption in favour of development.' And we must shake the image that the only people who care about this sort of thing are old men in tweed jackets. My village is not rural: it is less than ten miles from a major town. The people who care are families who fear that if development goes ahead there will not be places for their children at local schools. Commuters, worried about congestion. People who moved out for a more suburban lifestyle, only to see it destroyed overnight by a few 'investors.' These are the people that localism is important to: they are being ignored by the major parties precisely because of the 'pipe-smoking local historian in an anorak' stereotype.

People, ultimately, don't care about issues in the country at large - except, to some extent, the economy (although they care about the local economy far more). The parliamentary parties, in their pursuit of national glory, have all turned their backs on local electorates: there's little that people can do now about local issues, except a stern letter to the MP, who may or may not have any interested at all in the business of his constituency. There's sufficient wiggle room between the parties and their local supporters - i.e., their supporters - for an ambitious and charismatic localist party to drive a wedge between them. And, whatever people may think of UKIP, if they're the only ones - as they are in this case - offering you something that would really make a difference to your everyday life, they're at least going to be tempted, aren't they?

Is It Time to Rebrand Che Guevara?

2011-10-09T05:06:00.000-07:00

Che Guevara: No Inspiration

Today is the 44th anniversary of the execution of Che Guevara. The Cuban guerrilla leader was shot nine times in total at 1:10pm, Bolivian time. Good riddance to bad rubbish, as far as I'm concerned; here was a man would have seen the whole of Cuba burned in nuclear fire to satisfy his ideological longing for a new society. In his own words, 'the victory of socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims.' He was a raving narcissist; a maniac who spoke of creating a 'cold-hearted killing machine.' He should be but a footnote in Latin American history, studied only by Marxist ideologues, military historians, and psychologists. He would be, were it not somehow fashionable to be seen in public wearing T-shirts emblazoned with his face.

All the rage among students, celebrities, and professional activists thought it may be, it is the moral equivalent of (and I call Godwin's Law here, as for once it's applicable) walking out of the house in the morning with a tattoo of Heinrich Himmler. In 1959, a Romanian journalist and poet was treated to a view out of Che Guevara's newly-constructed window: it looked out over the execution yard of La Cabana prison, from the revolutionary ideologue's head office. The show he was called to witness was the execution of one of around nine hundred men that Guevara sent to the firing squad in his brief stint as prison commander. Another episode in this grisly drama, recorded by Pierre San Martin, a prisoner himself at the time, recounts how Hollywood's favourite Marxist personally executed a fourteen-year-old, almost blowing off his head with a single round from a pistol. His 'crime' was defending his father from the same summary justice, but, as Che would later remark to Llana Montes, a journalist who had the audacity to remark that he'd moved into one of Cuba's most luxurious houses, 'we don't need proof; we manufacture the proof.'

Che Guevara is hardly an appropriate role model for future generations. Yet celebrities - people who thousands of young people around the world try to emulate - all adorn themselves with 'revolutionary chic.' You can hardly go a day in any major city without seeing someone wearing one of the many variants of that Alberto Korda photo, with Che Guevara peering out with a self-righteous stare at the 'promised land' of socialism. The face of a sadistic and self-confessed mass-murderer. Yes, Guevara is - regrettably - a symbol of 'youthful rebellion' - a notion that that murdered fourteen-year-old wound find absurd. Yes, his face is one of the iconic photos in the world - and, yes, there is a certain amount of irony in it being mass-produced in sweatshops for some of the most successful companies on earth (Guevera himself did heartily approve of slave labour). But do we really need to see it everywhere we go? In three minute's time, forty-four years ago, the first of nine shots would strike the Cuban revolutionary leader, and, one minute later, he'd be dead.

That should have been the end of it.

Vaclav Klaus: The Greatest European Leader?

2011-10-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

President Vaclav Klaus has his fair share of detractors

Spare a thought for the redoubtable Vaclav Klaus. He is no stranger to controversy: long used to being the only dissenting voice amongst world leaders of the subject of climate change, he was also one of two heads of state in Europe to openly criticise the notion of European union, until April last year, when Polish President and fellow Eurosceptic Lech Kaczinsky was killed in a plane crash. Now he stands alone. But that didn't stop him publishing Blue Planet in Green Shackles, and it won't stop him now.

Vaclav Klaus is an invaluable asset to the cause of national democracy: he has a CV that is more than impressive, including, among other things, the complete - and successful - restructuring of a nation's finances. Unlike most Eurosceptics who see the EU as heading in the same way, economically, as the USSR, Vaclav Klaus has been there: he saw the collapse of the Soviet Union first hand. It was he who was tasked with rebuilding the Czechoslovak economy after decades of Communist disintegration, and was elected Prime Minister in the Czech Republic's first free and fair elections in a generation. He has served as President since 2003.

Mr. Klaus has had a real and tangible effect on the economy of his country: this much can be seen walking the streets of Prague. His fears about the direction of the European Union are no less real and tangible. He has fought tirelessly against the notion of 'ever-closer union,' telling the Irish MEP Brian Crowley that he should accept the result of the Irish vote. At the low point in Klaus-EU relations, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the leader of the European Greens who once described all opponents of the EU as 'mentally weak,' stormed into Hradcany Castle - the ceremonial home of the Czech presidency - and replaced with the national flag with an EU one, ordering Mr. Klaus to ratify the Lisbon Treaty on the grounds that 'he did not care about his opinions.'

Nonetheless, Mr. Klaus continues to express his Eurosceptic views: he is in Budapest today, at the 20th summit of the Visegrad Countries, where he said: 'Barroso is not coming up with any other proposal than if more and more Europe has brought about the current problems, let us try more and even more.' In other words, the EU cannot propose itself as the solution to problems it has caused. His Polish counterpart, Bronisław Komorowski, was quick to react, saying that European integration was the 'only way to get out of the crisis.' But, still, very few of Mr. Klaus's detractors can boast a CV half as impressive, or as extensive, as his, either in the fields of economics or politics. Like him or not, his opinions on the European Union are based on decades of expertise: they cannot be dismissed lightly.

What does Britain have to do for someone like that right now?

EU Trade Deal Causes Friction

2011-10-07T15:42:00.000-07:00

Freetown: home of the ubiquitous bike-taxi

Here's something to cheer you up. You know the stereotype: man, balding, beer belly, tweed jacket, speaks with a posh accent and smokes a pipe? The charicature of the single market opponent according to pro-EU orthodoxy. Now it can be refuted utterly! For the Sierra Leone Motor Bike Riders Association has taken to protest in the only way they know how. Not likely to be mistaken for Colonel Blimps with caviar and a country house any time soon, they have been tearing up dust ahead of their president's proposed signing of the European Partnership Agreement. They can't exactly be accused of being Little Englanders, and they're doing their best to offset all the EU's reductions in C02 emmissions from now until 2050. What's not to love?

Well, the serious side, of course: they fear that tax revenue would fall drastically were the agreement to be signed, and are also afraid of the country's industry being held to ransom or exploited by increasingly harsh demands and unfair competition. By signing the EPA, the government would pit the small-scale industries of Sierra Leone against the multinational companies of the EU, although many of Sierra Leone's products are not up to international standards and exporting is not a major focus on their economy. Their companies would simply be unable to compete with major European firms. Civil society oganisations have already stressed the consequences of this in an article carried by Awareness Times, one of the sub-Saharan country's most popular newspapers.

Unbeknownst to the vast bulk of the European populace, the EU is also currently using standard gunboat diplomacy to strong-arm Namibia and eighteen other countries into signing a newly-revised version of the Market Access Regulation - the Commission device for the regulation of trade between the EU, Africa, the Carribean, and the Pacific. The choice is simple: accept the EU's new terms, or lose your duty and quota-free access to the single market. As the European Union represents one hundred million euros of foreign trade, sixty-four per cent of the total export market for the small African nation, many of the bikers are urging caution on the part of government, lest the same happen to their country when its agreement also comes up for revision.

Greek Ex-Army Joins the Protests

2011-10-04T11:34:00.000-07:00

Communists, the army, and discredited central government? Greece has been here before.

Prime Minister Georges Papandreou is rumoured to be considering stepping down, and hundreds of retired army personnel stormed the Ministry of Defence chanting 'down with the junta.' They rampaged throughout the building, one of the only government buildings in Athens that had not been occupied by protestors, tearing off doors and pulling down security systems designed to check for weapons. It eventually took the Chief of the National Defence of the General Staff, Air Chief Marshal Ioannis Giagkos, to persuade them to leave, at four 'o' clock in the evening. The Defence Minister, Panos Beglitis retailiated, saying that they would be 'immediately repressed' if they acted in an anti-democratic matter. 'What with?' was the question that immediately sprang to mind.

Will the existing military intervene to quash violent disorder? Yes, temporarily. But what affects their retired comrades now will affect them later - and you don't often get people fighting for their pensions to be taken away. That's a rule that applies everywhere. Including Greece. 'The executives of the Greek Armed Forces are monitoring with increased concern the latest developments regarding issues related to their needs after retirement,' says a letter from the Association of Support and Cooperation of the State Armed Forces. Most worringly, if you're Papandreou, is that their confidence in the state's intentions has been 'shaken.' That's never a good thing to hear if you're Prime Minister of a state that only came out of a military dictatorship twenty years ago, and the military is still regarded as a 'state within a state' - even by the Defence Minister.

The CIA has previously warned of the possibility of a military coup if further austerity measures were implemented. That was back in May. There have been billions of euros in additional austerity measures since then. And nothing gets army types more riled than the suggestion that the country is no longer in command of its own affairs. Papandreou has made such a suggestion. This is the quote that Eurosceptics - and virtually all Greeks - have been waiting for. The FT Deutschland, says that he had spoken about resignation to several close aides, on the basis that 'Greece no longer takes decisions itself.' It has been dismissed as 'nonsense' by his spokesmen. But they would say that, wouldn't they? Rumour sticks - especially in a country on edge.

There are too many factors at play, and information has not yet disseminated by the mass-media. It is impossible to come to any conclusion, as yet, about what might happen next. But, if we compare these latest events to the peaceful marches that army personnel conducted back in 2008, it is impossible to deny that there is a clear escalation, and not one that bodes well for the Greek government, and the stability of Greece in general. Events will start moving quickly now: Greece perpetually sits on the edge of running out of money. At current rates, it will no longer be able to pay all its public sector workers - including army personnel - by the end of the month. And that certainly is not a good position to be in.

Now Is Not the Time for More Expansion

2011-10-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

An anti-Soviet protestor, a former Maoist, and an expansionist walk into a bar. Picture from the EPP.

What will it take to disentangle EU leaders and their outdated ideas of eastward expansionism? On the very day that Greece announced it would no longer be able to pay salaries and pensions of public sector workers - 40% of the total workforce - by the end of the month without the next tranche of EU-IMF loans to the already-indebted nation, Donald Tusk was in Warsaw, talking of 'buying Belarus.'

The headline isn't quite true: the actual idea floated was to inject nine billion euros into the private bank account of dictator Alexander Lukashenko, in the hopes that he'd relinquish his iron control over the country. Donald Tusk is, for those of you who haven't heard of him, the Prime Minister of Poland, and, by virtue of that role, he is also the EU's 'rotating president.' I've written about him - and his avowedly imperialistic plans - before. He first made the suggestion back in April, and he was just as passionate about his ideas then.

But, given that the crisis in the eurozone is continually escalating and 'communitarianism' - the idea of a single, centralised beaurocracy ruling over a federal Europe - faces its biggest challenge in more than half a century, it was reasonably safe to assume that any such ambitious projects would have been put on the back-burner, and their proponents would have simmered down until the problems on their own doorstep were adequately patched-up. Make sure your own house has foundations before you seek to renovate others, and all that. But no: sense doesn't quite penetrate the ubiquitous blinds of Berlaymont.

Rather than scale back his plans, Tusk has expanded upon them, no pun intended, by saying that 'the Eastern Partnership project will perhaps one day merge with the Balkan project.' In other words, the staggered accession process currently underway in the Balkans will also be applied to post-Soviet countries, up to and eventually beyond the borders of Ukraine. If that sounds positively terrifying, then hear this: Barroso, the EU chief executive who is now entering his eighth year in office, has endorsed the plans. And in quite glowing terms, as well: he even called Tusk 'wonderful.' That's a ringing endorsement from the man who, ultimately, has the final say.

Never fear; Tusk is only in office until December. Then, Denmark promptly takes over. Left-wing though its new government may be, it includes an assortment of Eurosceptic ex-communists in the Cabinet, who, seeing the EU as the 'vehicle for European capitalism,' will hardly like expanding it any further. None - or very few - of Tusk's ideas will likely bear fruit. However, the very fact that he has the intent to push the boundaries of EU expansionism when it faces, in the words of Mr. Barroso, 'the greatest crisis in its history' speaks volumes about the depths of insanity that some committed federalists are currently plumbing. That Jose Manuel Barroso himself endorses it? Doubly so!

Communists and Caviar

2011-10-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

Communist propaganda on a wall in Rhodes. Picture by Piotrus.

And so the crisis in Greece rumbles on. It never actually stopped: it just slipped off the radar a while. On Thursday, a fleet of luxury cars and motorcycle outriders rolled into the blocked streets of central Athens; the leather seats were jam-packed with official representatives from the 'troika' of creditors. The EU, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund all sent in their delegations, only to find them blocked on the steps of the Finance Ministry by a united front of government staff. One thousand three hundred and fifty of them, from seven government ministries, had formed a human chain around the building, preventing officials - including Evangelos Venizelos, the Greek Finance Minister himself - from entering. The meeting was eventually rescheduled for the Deputy Prime Minister's office.

The new developments come at a crisis point. It is impossible to stress how dire the situation is, but I'll give it a go anyway. The mass-strikes have left the government crippled. The Ministry of Finance is virtually closed; the functioning of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Interior Affairs has been seriously impaired, and almost all the other major institutions are affected. The capital, which is home to half the country's population, had no public transport on Wednesday, and the Deputy Prime Minister says that the ability to pay more tax has been 'exhausted.' Nothing to do with the tax office being on strike - there's so little money left that any taxes raised would not cover the budget gaps. The Finance Minister says that the sixth installment of loans to the indebted nation is 'assured.' It had be be. Without it, Greece will run out of money to pay salaries and pensions by the end of the month.

The Finance Minister officially thinks that talk of a default is 'naive.' The markets and the Communists occupying government buildings throughout the Greek capital think otherwise, however, and they are in full agreement: it is the only sensible option. Which is all too well, considering that is now the most likely option, too. The longer the Greek government and the European Union insist on maintaining the fantasy that Greece's debts are somehow repayable - all the while forcing more debts upon it - the bigger the problem they will eventually create. What happens when the money runs out? There has to come a point where European leaders will eventually say 'no' to the constant bankrolling: their electorates have already done so. What does that mean for a Greece that is wholly dependent on their loans to pay the wages of almost half of its workforce?

EU Irregularities Expose the Unaccountability of the System

2011-10-01T12:58:00.000-07:00

EU budgetary irregularities: one and half times the economy of San Marino.

One and a half billion pounds of the EU budget was wrongly spent last year. £1,545,976,112, to be precise. Of this, just under three hundred and twenty million pounds is believed to have been afflicted by fraud. That's the verdict of a report released by OLAF, the European Union's own anti-fraud office.

It sounds like quite important news. The reason it didn't make front pages? Well, two things: one, the not-so-startling information that the EU costs each and every household in the country two hundred and fifty-five pounds a year was much more deserving of a headline, and, two, in the grand scheme of things, that money is almost inconsequential. According to the immortal title of the book by Olly Figg, the EU spends roughly that amount every single day.

Though this amount of money may be irrelevant compared to the weekly outpourings of various EU institutions, for whom fiscal incontinence is a virtue, it's still important to put things into perspective. The EU's population as a whole is almost ten times greater than that of Britain alone, yet the scale of suspected fraud alone in the EU - general irregularities put aside for the minute - is over two hundred times that of the Parliamentary expenses scandal which so rocked the political system here in 2009.

There are some mitigating factors: for one, there are considerably more officials involved. The EU itself is staffed by some sixty thousand people, and, as most of the irregularities occur when the money is passed (back) into national or private hands, the EU cannot be held directly responsible (even if its fiscal incontinence and general lack of auditing doesn't help). But, even if this suspected fraud is all discounted, the scale of it compared to that found in the UK is still immense. It could pay for both the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, twelve thousand police constables, and almost twenty thousand Army privates.

These irregularities are not merely budgetary inconsistencies in some pointless beaurocratic arm that does not involve you: it all comes directly from your pocket. You've heard the claim 'the EU gives us money for projects and enterprises?' Well, it's true: only the money in question was not owned by the EU originally. Like governments, the EU has relatively little money of its own: it relies solely on the contributions of member states, paid for out of their public funds, which is, ultimately, drawn from your bank account and household budget through taxation. The EU isn't wasting its own money, the EU is wasting your money. And, as Britain is one of only a few member states that actually make a net contribution to the EU, which is rising by ever-increasing amounts every year, and gets considerably less back than even its fellow members of that small clique, the amount of your money that it's wasting as opposed to that of any other EU national is massively out of proportion.

So think about that next time you see the EU funding 'the smelly foot dance:' that's your money that it's taking. With the help of national governments, of course. The people put in command of these funds are unelected, unaccountable, and faceless: the number of people in the country that can name them could be counted on one hand. Can you name them? At no stage of proceedings, other than the state where elected national governments rifle through your pockets, does democracy or transparency enter the system. Is it any wonder that so much money is misplaced in such a bloated and unaccountable organisation?

Urban Communities Do not Need Lecturing on Immigration

2011-09-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

A tale of two worlds.

Kakistocracy (n): government by the worst, government by the most unsuitable, e.g. those most unaffected by immigration telling us how much we should cherish it. Enter Kevin McKenna. The former executive editor of the Daily Mail in Scotland, and a self-confessed socialist, has also identified himself as one of the last voices in the country to speak plainly in defence of multiculturalism and immigration. Published in the Guardian, his article is of a kind that journalism has almost forgotten: open and unashamed in its defence of an unpopular idea that is now in headlong retreat. It is likely one of the last to come out in favour of multiculturalism in a major national newspaper: the Guardian, one of the last nationals to be unambiguous in its stance, has steadily disowned the idea over the last few years, and now criticism of it by its online readers - the vast bulk of its readership - is the norm.

But you wouldn't think it: reading through the article, you'd be mistaken for thinking you were in 2004 again just when the 'sudden' and 'unexpected' rise of the BNP was making waves across Europe. Multiculturalist articles were ten to a penny, and they all followed the same format: a dramatic opening paragraph, with green rolling fields and perfect sunshine, a brief example, glowing praise, and then an impassioned dismissal of all critics as swivel-eyed neo-Nazis who couldn't get their heads around what was seen by many as the 'inevitable' progression of society. And they were all written by the same sort of people.

'Champagne socialists,' they are called - incorrectly, as most are not socialist - are without exception well-educated - often privately - and live in a rich clique of central or suburban London. They all live in townhouses, and many even have their own holiday homes: some - shock, horror - come with manicured nails. I've been around people from similar backgrounds to this 'set' for most of my life, and should probably stop mocking them. But I'm a firm believer in the principle that people should only speak on which they know. And, of, the consequences of immigration, those who are often the most vocal frequently know nothing.

A cursory glance at their 'benefits of multiculturalism' will reveal this truth: spices, curries, takeaways, a greater array of food to fill their oversized kitchens. Languages none of them will ever speak more appealing than the dissonant flow of Estuary English as they job around the park with a ridiculously short-legged dog in tow. The vivacity of colour in the local coffee-shop; faces of black, Asian, and Latin descent smiling as they sip a cuppa on a cold autumn morning. Immigration is not, in their eyes, an influx of people and their dependents. It is an influx of sights, sounds, and smells, which are better by the very virtue of being different. If you had this view of immigration, you'd probably think that anyone who opposed it was a backwards bigot, too.

They can't see the other side: they don't see the problems facing an unskilled labourer who has to compete with other unskilled labours charging far less. He has dependents here. He has a home here. He may have a mortgage. He may rate. Lowering his wages to compete with footloose workers from other countries, is not an option, no matter how many times the 'Islington set' recommend it to him, or berate him for being 'lazy.' They don't see the problems that parents can have getting their children into a school that was overcrowded and creaking before large-scale immigration arrived: how needlessly difficult it is now. Hopelessly underfunded schools struggle to cope. Students come and go, speaking a plethora of local languages, and there are far more of them than the school was ever built to cope with.

They don't see the problem with their neighbourhoods being transformed overnight; being shut out on their own streets. They will never have to wait decades for a council house. They will never go walking said small-legged dog in the morning and see a sign pinned to a tree that says 'This is a Shari'ah Area: Women and Gays Keep Out.' The only one that will spit on the animal as 'unclean' is the bigger labrador from down the road, not a religious fundamentalist who walks with his fellow religious fundamentalists down the high street with the same swagger as an eccentric boyband.

The urban intelligentsia can deny it all they like: virtually all of London is a completely different place now to what it was ten years ago. And that may be alright if you're looking in on the poorer, or even the well-off boroughs from outside. All they see is a variety of takeaways. It is not so good if you are an increasingly isolated family who has watched their neighbourhood change beyond recognition, fighting for rapidly-dwindling housing and education resources, with no possibility of leaving.

Kevin McKenna is a resident of a white, middle-class, urban neighbourhood: a sedate part of town, at the best of times, and a small one where the public services are still more than able to cope. He is telling the poorer communities of Inner Glasgow what is and is not good for them; how much they have benefited. But they should be the judges of that.

Does the EU Have Power over our Army?

2011-09-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

Nigel Farage has mentioned Gaddafi to van Rompuy once before.

The EU seems to possess an invisible hand in British military matters. I have written about this before - one of the very first posts on this blog, in fact - where I noted something amiss in the way that European states had all suddenly shifted their stance on Libya, after a speech by Herman van Rompuy. It is van Rompuy again who has shed some light on possible EU interference. He stated publically, in a video message to the UN General Assembly, that 'we (the EU) did it (intervene in Libya) via our member states.' In other words, the member states were not acting of their own accord, but on the instruction of the European Union.

This may be just more arrogant grandstanding by a man whose organisation is desperate to prove itself worthy of its seat. He may simply be claiming EU credit for something that was not of their doing. In the same speech, as Nile Gardiner reports, he claimed that the EU was the fatherland of democracy. I suspect that he meant Europe. But, however dubious the claim, the fact that it was made at all should raise eyebrows: the head of the European Union teling us that they were responsible for military deployment, not our elected government, lays bare the level to which democratic control of our institutions has been subordinated to the whims of unelected individuals.

The speech is important in other ways: the Presidency of the European Council now speaks on behalf of the 'Union as a whole.' There was some controversy earlier this year when the European Union announced that it sought a UN seat: permanent representation of its own, rather than relying on whichever elected national head of government held the 'rotating presidency.' And now it has finally won that right. That does not mean that national representation has been ceded - yet. But it has certainly been diluted.

Also, in regards to van Rompuy's claim that - via its member states - the EU brought down Gaddafi, here's him facing Nigel Farage in one of their increasingly irregular spats. Diplomatic tact, maybe. But he doesn't seem too keen to take Gaddafi down in that picture, does he?

EU Leader Proposes Protectorateship

2011-09-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

Mr. Rutte meets Barroso. Picture by Minister-President Rutte.

The Netherlands has begun to mutter darkly what we suspected all along - namely, that the endgame for the Commission's increasing dominance over heavily-indebted nations of the eurozone is political control. Or, to use the words of Mark Rutte, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, to place them under 'guardianship.' This is possibly the most flagrantly anti-democratic proposal to spill from the mouth of an EU leader for some time: it will essentially mean the economic affairs of countries that fail to comply with stringent EU demands to get their economies in order will be placed under the control of a small cabal of unelected officials. That's a treatment usually reserved for disputed territories and warring Balkan states: not for liberal democracies in the centre of Europe.

In fact, there's a lot in the letter - co-signed by the finance, economy, and foreign ministers - that ought to make a Eurosceptic, and indeed any democrat, weep. Not only would the country have its budget drawn up and much of its political affairs overseen and scrutinised by an appointed Commissioner, but it would also lose its EU voting rights and all EU structural funds unless it complied with every edict that the Commission cares to hand down. So not only will any nations who let their finances spiral out of the strict EU parameters have economic sovereignty removed from them, but they will also be stripped of their ability to influence in any way the decisions that are made on their behalf.

Think what is usually associated with austerity measures: tax rises, price hikes, and spending cuts. Now imagine that all of that was under the control of someone who could not be voted out of office. They would not need to consider the populace of the country in the slightest whilst they systematically decimate their infrastructure and services. As someone who approves of the theory behind the public spending cuts in Britain, if not in any way their application, I still say that that is fundamentally unjust situation. Whatever you may think of David Cameron, he is elected: the people in control of far harsher austerity measures in what are likely to be far poorer countries will neither be elected nor accountable.

It is a good thing, then, that Mr. Rutte leaves another option for these indebted states: withdrawal from the eurozone. It's also a good thing that, as yet, there is little word of widespread endorsement from other member states, or the European Commission itself. This will probably turn out to be nothing more than one idea out of many that leaders come up with as they try to keep the eurozone afloat. But, even so, the intent to deprive a nation of any semblance of democracy coming, as it does, from an elected European leader, belongs to another era.

The Danish Election Changes Nothing

2011-09-19T10:35:00.000-07:00

Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen. Feminist, socialist, far-left activist. Eurosceptic.

'Denmark last night elected its first female Prime Minister, ending a decade of populist-backed right-wing rule which had earned the country a reputation for pursuing some of the most anti-immigrant policies in Europe' writes The Independent with an air of measured jubilance. And it's true: Denmark's right-wing government was defeated, and the left-wing regained their dominant position in the Folketing after more than ten years.

This is indeed a moment to celebrate if you happen to be left-wing. The Economist notes that the string of defeats by left-wing parties is over. The EU is fully expectant that Helle Thorning-Schmidt, will be more compliant with EU law, as the daughter-in-law of Neil Kinnock and a former socialist MEP. For the feminists amongst you, not only is the Prime Minister female, but the Cabinet will be too: there are three parties tipped to join the coalition that will be necessary for the Social Democrats to effect, and two of them are led by women. Even the names of these parties are enough to make a Republican weep, let alone their policies.

There's the Radical Left, who aren't actually all that radical, nor that far left. They are called the Danish Social Liberal Party in English, which is a whole lot more accurate, considering that they put themselves flatly central on the political spectrum. Then, there's the Socialist People's Party (SF), who are committed Marxist socialists who operate firmly from a left-wing perspective. Just left of centre-left, in fact.

Then there's the Red-Green Alliance, one of many instances of far-left parties joing forces in pursuit of electoral success. They are comprised of Left Socialists (VS), Socialist Worker's Party (SAP), and two Communist parties: DKP and KAP. Three things that all Tea Party sympathisers do not want to find at the foot of their bed. If you were looking north across the Thames, and imagined the river as the X-axis of a political spectrum and the way you were facing the Y-axis, they'd be somewhere around Liverpool.

Left-wing commentators around Europe and the US are right to be celebrating: they have won, and there's not a whole lot we can do - or should want to do - about that. They now dominate Danish politics, and have ejected a right-wing government from office which always had the Danish People's Party, one of few parties frequently described as far-right that actually does espouse far-right policies, lurking in the shadows. The border controls that so troubled the Commission and Court are set to be scaled back or removed, and it is unlikely that the DF will play a part in governing the country until the next right-wing party limps to victory.

Butthings are not as simple as they seem. Helle Thorning-Schmidt herself limped to victory: she holds ninety-two seats out of one hundred and seventy nine, giving her the slimmest possible majority of five (effectively down to two when the representatives of the Danish Commonwealth, who typically do not vote on Danish domestic affairs, are removed). Her coalition may be united in its left-wing views, but that, in practice, means next to nothing. The centrists may approach the communists - both factions of them - with a cool scepticism, and the different flavours of socialist in the mix might make one hell of an icecream headache later. If this likely coalition is vaguely similar to the one that Thorning-Schmidt eventually comes up with, it will be about as united as your average hotpot, continually wracked by internal feuding. It's the left's worse-kept secret that socialists and communists are perpetually suspicious of each other, and whenever they have ended up in government together the result has always been ideological chaos.

It is too early to claim victory on the European front, either: only five out of twenty-seven member states of the EU are governed by left-of-centre parties. That's ninety-six per cent of the population. Germany seems likely to swing to the left, which will take that down to a rather more modest eighty-two, but still, it is far, far too soon for commentators to be calling time on the right-wing's resurgence. The Commission might blow a few million on celebrations - and the Court of Justice may breathe a sight of relief - now that the Danish People's Party has left office, but that does not mean that the new coalition is without its share of Eurosceptics. Quite the opposite, in fact. The Danes have simply swapped one right-wing Eurosceptic party for two left-wing ones. They are a reincarnation of the old socialism, the kind that Labour espoused back in the 1980s when it was still the main Eurosceptic party in Britain. The kind that viscerally opposes the EU. I'd love to see the EU denounce them as Nazis and fascists.

The reasons may be different - the Red-Green Alliance opposes the EU as the 'vehicle of European capitalism' - but they are still Eurosceptic. The social democratic federalists may have won the election, but they have not won the country.

Little Greenlander

2011-09-17T03:32:00.000-07:00

The mighty Greenlandic empire. Picture by Uffe Wilken.

Who are those beer-swilling, pot-bellied lager louts of Guardian mythology, the sort of people who would still like to give 'Johnny Foreigner' (a phrase I have never heard a single righty actually say) a good seeing to when he looks at their mate's missus, or pushes in front at the bus queue? Let's take a look, shall we? They are all shockingly racist, have homophobic views, throw bottle-caps into the hats of homeless people, and wind their windows up if they can smell curry. They are 'Little Englanders.' There are nutters, lunatics, saboteurs. They are Eurosceptics.

The Guardian orthodoxy holds that these are thoroughly unpleasant individuals, Colonel Blimps that you would never introduce to your mother. It's a wonder that a civilised, upper-middle class society like Chisick even allows them out. They lack any reason or logical thought behind their ramblings: the basis of all their political beliefs is their in-built irrational hatred of all things that don't watch footie and eat pork, and their lust for the empire, those days when Britain ruled the waves and could straddle the world from Cork to Cape Cod. They only oppose the EU because they want us to rule a quarter of the world again: if they weren't such old-fashioned imperialists, they'd see all the good its done and be loyal supporters of the idea, rather than the 'saboteurs' (to quote Der Spiegel) that they actually are.

Well, that's the orthodoxy, anyway. The reality, as you might have guessed, is somewhat different. As yet, only one political entity has ever left the EU or its predecessors: that is Greenland. As any history graduate knows, and quite a few people who aren't history graduates, Greenland did not actually have an empire. At all. At any point in its history. In fact, it has been a colony of Denmark since its rediscovery in the 1700s, which was in itself united with Norway until 1814. What 'lost empire' are they pining over, I wonder? Are they 'Little Greenlanders' for voicing opposition to the EU? Of course not. If any public figure, whether journalist or politician, ever claimed that - and, as far as I'm aware, no-one ever has - they'd be ridiculed.

Yet the claim that all who oppose the EU are 'white man's burden' imperialists still persists, over twenty years after it was emphatically disproven. The charge of being a 'Little Englander,' a term which was originally used to denote those who opposed British expansionism, still threatens to ruin the careers of those who are so bold as to voice the wrong opinions in public. Isn't it time that the Guardian and other media outlets who frequently make use of it finally put this patronising and incorrect insult to bed, and lay their cards, their argument, on the table rather than hiding behind out-dated slurs?

Rebels Recognised as Libyan Government; Leader Killed

2011-07-28T17:04:00.000-07:00

The Libyan rebel commander, Abdel Fattah Younes, was killed after being arrested by his own side.

Less than a day ago, Foreign Secretary William Hague expelled all remaining diplomats of the Libyan government in favour of emissaries from the National Transitional Council. Now, an armed gang has entered the building where Abdel Fattah Younes was staying, and shot dead three people: among them, the rebel commander-in-chief himself. The leader of the armed gang has apparently been detained, and called before a judicial committee.

The assassination was initially blamed on pro-Gaddafi forces, but that explanation was quickly replaced, and the attack put down to one of a number of 'armed gangs' in rebel-held areas. However, supporters of the generals have maintained that his assailants were rebel soldiers themselves, motivated possibly by accusations of being a double agent that had dogged him for days Ugly tales of unacceptable links with the regime - in which Younes was formerly defence and interior minister - have begun to surface. This has all the hallmarks of a classic fracturing within the rebel ranks, something which could leave Britain's attempts to reshuffle its foreign policy towards Libya up in the air.

It only goes to show the turbulent nature of revolutionary politics: we are not talking about men sitting safe in their armoured cars, or secure in the marble halls of a presidential palace. We are talking about men on the frontline, where every member of their court could be an assassin, for whom being captured or killed in war is a real possibility. It was premature and foolish of David Cameron's governance to announce that the Libyan rebels were now the official government. You don't need 20/20 hindsight to see this, either: Younes had in fact been arrested by rebel soldiers earlier in the day over allegations of connections with the ruling regime. When William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, announced triumphantly that the Libyan rebel council had 'sole government authority,' the wheels were already set in motion for the dismissal or impeachment of their leader.

This will certainly stall the rebel's advance, which is somewhat hyped in the media, and will possibly lead to a return of the stalemate that prevailed throughout April - something that will surely be a massive blow for the NTC, given that they are running out of money fast, and can no longer afford to actually govern the parts of the country that they rule (virtually all of the eastern half and some mountainous areas south of Tripoli). I highly doubt that the rebel council will collapse instantaneously, but this could well cost them all their recent gains, and could even restore them to pre-Misuratah borders. If that happens, then a fair proportion of senior ministers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will have rightly been shown up, and Britain's foreign policy regarding Libya would be in a right mess. That situation would have been easily avoidable, if the government had simply listened to the prevailing winds in Benghazi.

I suggest that a new policy be implemented: if a government wants to throw its weight behind a foreign cause that has absolutely nothing to do with us, it should find out what is going on on the ground first and use that as the basis of all decisions, rather than chasing media headlines and 'NATO commitments?' Of course, if such a policy were implemented, I doubt we'd be involved in any foreign wars at all...

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This is the second blog update today; I posted one on Islamists preventing foreign aid from reaching the impoverished people of Somalia. Blogging will be light over the next two weeks as I'm off to Scotland, where my Internet access will be sporadic, at best. I shall still be able to do one or two updates in that time (one of which should be a post about how environmentalist policies ruin the lives and livelihoods of rural people in the northwest), however, and will pen a large article on the future of Euroscepticism in the UK, which will hopefully be worth the wait.

Somalia's Famine is not Caused by Western Hands

2011-07-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

Someone - but necessarily us - must oust the Islamists before prosperity can return

I can't work out who has the worse job: Maryan Qasim, the Somalian government's former women's minister, or Farah Ahmed Qare, the commander of their navy. The government, I should add, controls barely a few square miles in central Mogadishu. It has no access to the sea and whatever control it has over the ports is sporadic at best. Most of the women have long since fled into refugee camps, and those that remain do not venture outdoors. There isn't much that the provisional government - or its embattled ministers - can really do to assist the impoverished, war-torn people of Somalia, other than write articles for the Guardian.

'I believe the international community has failed to tackle this crisis and thus we must do more now, before it's too late,' she writes, before setting out an ambitious programme. 'What is needed right now is for the international community to act immediately to save the millions who are starving. Food, water, medicine and shelter are all urgently needed. Aid needs to be delivered strategically to minimise the distance people are travelling in search of food and water.' She is not the only one calling for the west to do more - Somalia's Prime Minister, who perhaps has the worst job of all, insists that the United Nations is 'holding back aid.' They're either not distributing it or simply not sending it, according to him, and that's why it's not reaching the people on the ground who desperately need it.

But there is another explanation, according to Al-Jazeera. One of the most authoritative sources on the subject, they have reported what Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, a Al-Shabaab spokesman, said on Islamist radio (there's a contradiction in terms if ever I saw one). It pretty much explains why aid isn't getting through - it's been banned. 'The declaration of famine is political and is a lie with hidden agendas,' the Islamist rebels have decreed. They insist that the famine is merely a 'lack of rain,' and have forced all agencies out of their 'area of control' - pretty much the whole of southern Somalia.

This may be due to ideological reasons - aid is too 'western,' a claim which has some basis in reality seeing as the oil-rich billionaire monarchs of Arabia don't seem to be sending any - or it may be their attempt at punishing the west for the killing of their leader, Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad, on the 25th June. But, either way, it's their fault the supplies aren't getting through. Not ours. So, with all due respect to Maryan Qasim, her attempted lecturing of the west falls on deaf ears: as long as local players are opposed to the presence of western aid agencies and NGOs, there's nothing us westerners can do to alleviate the situation.

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Blogging will be light over the next two weeks as I'm off to Scotland, where my Internet access will be sporadic, at best. I shall still be able to do one or two updates in that time (one of which should be a post about how environmentalist policies ruin the lives and livelihoods of rural people in the northwest), however, and will pen a large article on the future of Euroscepticism in the UK, which will hopefully be worth the wait.

Lithuanian Euroscepticism Can Never Prosper With Paksas at its Head

2011-07-27T04:34:00.000-07:00

Rolandas Paksas: tainted by his presidency.

If there's one man in Europe who's bounced around the political spectrum more than anyone else, it's Rolandas Paksas. Barroso may have came a long way since the Maoist revolutionary days, when he expounded the virtues of populism and anti-imperialism on the historic cobbled squares of Portugal. Now, he stands in the press room of his eight hundred million euro head office and speaks of building empires. But he still can't match the erratic career of the former Lithuanian Prime Minister and President

Rolandas Paksas was a member of the Communist Party - which, to be fair, was the only legal political party for a considerable part of his career - and its post-Soviet successor, the Democratic Labour Party, before joining the centre-right free-market Homeland Union. He then joined the Liberal Union of Lithuania, and then founded the Liberal Democratic Party. He holds a seat for the Liberal Democrats - or Order and Justice as they call themselves - now, although it is now as an MEP, rather than as a member of the Lithuanian legislature.

His party, Order and Justice (TT), were one of the most successful anti-establishment parties. Combining liberal conservatism, national conservatism, Euroscepticism, and, to some extend, classic liberalism, the party was the very definition of populism: it achieved a major electoral success less than one year after its foundation. The leader's experience as the former president of his own construction company and a distinguished aerobatics champion back in Soviet days - not to mention Prime Minister of the country - won over the Lithuanian people. Rolandas Paksas took the presidency after a run-off with Valdas Adamkus.

So, what, then, could possibly be holding the Eurosceptics in Lithuania back? Their leader is more eminently qualified than any other in Europe; he perhaps has a better CV than most heads of state. He has served in both of the senior positions in his country, has economics experience, is a former sportsman, and appeals to every faction of the Lithuanian political spectrum. Eurosceptics here seem to have it made. Their popularity is also rising steadily, as it is in other European countries; so what could be wrong?

The answer, unfortunately, is that their successes and their failures are inextricably linked. Rolandas may have been President, something which should, ideally, give him a massive electoral advantage over all of his opponents. It is certainly something that no other Eurosceptic and few other party leaders can boast. However, it is precisely because he was president that he faces his biggest disadvantage now.

This isn't on the orders of the European Union or some strikingly illiberal figure within the Lithuanian parliament: this is owing to his own actions in 2004, less than one year after he took power. He he was found to have rewarded a major political ally - an aviation tycoon who had poured four hundred thousand pounds into Mr. Paksas's campaign - with Lithuanian citizenship. He was forced from office, and put on trial: he remains the only European head of state ever to have been impeached. One of the terms of that impeachment was his banning from the Seimas: another was him being forbidden from running for the presidency for five years.

In January of this year, the European Court of Human Rights (which has nothing to do with the European Union) ruled that the lifetime ban on him running for parliament was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, but the stench of the impeachment still lingers over the aerobatics champion. And, for as long as that stench lingers, Lithuanian Euroscepticism will have its wings clipped.

Bringing Home the Bacon

2011-07-26T03:01:00.000-07:00

In the EU, all bacon will look like this.

Nothing like a bit of blatant populism. The EU is getting quite good at it. Having seen the advantages that come with doing what the people want, it is now introducing new legislation - to improve the taste of bacon. The new measures, which will be introduced within four years, will aim to prevent the taste of the classic breakfast favourite from being diluted by imposing strict limitations on its water content: existing legislation holds that it must have no more than ten per cent. The EU's new directive will bring this down to five.

This is liable to cause just as much of a laughing stock - no pun intended - as the curvy banana rules (which did exist, by the way - EC Commission Regulation No 2257/94). The press is currently fawning over the European Union as the saviours of breakfast: 'Bacon could be tastier – and frying pan froth eliminated' reads the Telegraph. 'Good news! EU to make bacon tastier' says Yahoo! Now, I love bacon as much as the next guy, but there's a problem with this law that people won't necessarily pick up on in all their fry-up fan euphoria - it's source.

None of the media outlets that have so far reported on the subject have seen fit to disclose where the idea for this new law came from. But, as the European Commission - the EU executive - has the sole right of initiative - the ability to pass and repeal laws, exclusively - it's likely that it has come from them. The European Commission has never faced a popular ballot. No member of the public has ever cast his or her vote for them. The EU chief executive, Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, was only elected by the European Parliament as his was the only name on the ballot sheet. I'm all for bacon regulation - no, really - but the fact that laws are now being passed by unaccountable individuals rather than our elected representatives leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.

Especially so, when you consider that the EU's involvement is not strictly necessary. This law could well have been passed by our own elected parliament, or agreed multilaterally by elected ministers and officials from European countries. There is no need whatsoever for the involvement of unaccountable supra-national institutions and the unelected individuals that reside within them. Although this may be a law that you agree with, there are one hundred and seventy thousand pages of EU law that concern themselves with far greater, more important things than what's on your breakfast table: and they are all passed and repealed by individuals entirely outside of the democratic process, that no elected government - no matter the public opposition - can repeal.

The next time you have to choose between 'bacon' and 'bacon with added water,' spare a thought for all the democratic processes that have been harmed in the making of your product.

Euroscepticism On The Rise in Latvia

2011-07-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

Andrius Kubilius, Prime Minister of Lithuania, left.

How unpopular does a government have to be before almost all registed voters - on a turnout of 45% - decide that enough's enough and sack the lot of them? I don't know, but President Valdas Zatlers does. The now-former head of state of the Latvian Republic dismissed the parliament in May, over widespread corruption fears, and accusations that oligarchs - with close personal connections to the legislature's one hundred members. He later lost his re-election bid, although the referendum that his actions led to has just finished, and 94% of voters have decided to take the radical step of dismissing parliament, leading to snap elections in September.

For years, Latvia has been dominated, like so many other European countries, by a contest between two establishment parties; one on the centre-right, one on the centre-left. Vienotība (Unity) and Saskaņas Centrs (Harmony Centre), respectively. Together, they picked up 57.26% of the national vote in the 2010 election: not a monopoly to be trifled with. Yet here, like so many other countries, there are disturbances in the established order of things. That comes in the form of the LNNK - the unfortunately-named For Fatherland and Freedom party.

Previously a party in their own right, the LNNK joined with the (genuinely) far-right All For Latvia! in July, and now the allied parties boast eight seats in parliament. And that looks set to rise. They were formerly competing for fourth place with the Par Labu Latviju! alliance, a centre-right group of parties that are widely seen as the oligarch's wing of Latvian politics, but following the corruption scandal that led to the dismissal of parliament, it seems unlikely that they will prosper at the polls. A lot of their former votes, being on the centre-right of politics, will instead turn to the LNNK.

Unlike Par Labu Latviju!, the LNNK has the ability to enter into debate without being suspected of being a front for rich business interests, something which will help its credibility in the eyes of voters to not end. It is also considerably more radical; the blend of traditional conservatism, liberal conservatism, and nationalism will prove an attractive combination to a variety of people than the reactionary, capitalistic politics of Par Labu Latviju! could ever reach - which, again, have been tainted by the corruption scandal. And part of this radicalism is more staunch Euroscepticism; and, given that Latvia is one of the member states where the EU is most unpopular, that is surely a vote-winner.

LNNK has a long way to go before it can think of taking over even a slice of the government - all the parties combined received seventy-four thousand votes at the last election, and came in fourth overall. The Union of Greens and Farmers (ZUZS) came in third - with one hundred and ninety thousand. But Euroscepticism is once again on the rise in Latvia, and, coupled with the public mistrust of the oligarchs, the conditions could be ripe for the LNNK to emerge as a top contendor in national elections. I shouldn't be too surprised to see them enter the government at some point in the near-future: one more country with 'right-wing populists' in government to add to the map.

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I apologise for the lack of blog coverage over the last two days. The European media has been dominated by events unfolding in Norway. On the day that the terrorist attacks occured, Cecilia Malmstrom had made a speech about why Europe needed more immigrants - this was originally what I planned to write about. By the time I completed it it would have been too insensitive to publish it. Normal service has been resumed.

We'll Make No Money from the Bailouts

2011-07-22T03:57:00.000-07:00

These loans are beginning to look suspiciously like grants. Picture by the European People's Party.

Cast your minds back one year. The original bailout for Greece - what was supposed to be the final one - was just being signed off, and European leaders were celebrating, convinced that they'd nipped the eurozone crisis in the bud. National leaders went back to their electorates after 'secret, dark debates' telling tales of how they'd profit from the return on the loans. More sceptical warnings that the loans would not be paid back - that restructuring or default would ruin them, or that they were not commercially viable, hence the involvement of states, rather than banks - were roundly ignored.

As it turns out, the sceptics now stand vindicated: Ireland and Portugal's interest rates were slashed on Thursday, to between three and a half to four per cent, with the deadlines by which they have to repay the loans increased from seven and a half to fifteen or thirty years. Greece's interest rate and repayment time was similarly reduced and increased, respectively, as part of a new bailout. The move may well be beneficial to the recipients of the bailout funds, and both the Portuguese and Irish premiers have saluted the eurozone's decision, welcoming it with warm words and appraisal. But for the countries - including Britain - that have had to stump up the cash? Hardly.

What they expected to receive is now even smaller, and will take a lot longer than they thought before they make a profit. Whether they actually make a profit or not is dependent on there being no major debt restructuring or default, as is already being discussed in Greece. As Enda Kenny, the Irish Taoiseach, said of the move: 'ultimately it reduces the cost of our debt.' Which means that it also reduces the total amount that the creditors - i.e. you - will receive. Ireland's decrease alone is estimated to be worth £800,000,000 every single year, according to calculations by Irish officials. And the chances that we'll receive any profit at all could be drastically cut if there is continued talk of restructuring or default: Greece now looks almost certain to default on a least part of its debt, and if Ireland and Portugal follow suit then the money we could make from our 'loans' will be reduced further.

It may appear somewhat ruthless to talk of helping indebted countries in terms of what we can get in return, but we ought to remember that these aren't small sums we're talking about. Britons have spent well over twenty billion pounds so far on the bailouts - the equivalent of several hundred pounds per person, taken out of public funds. If we aren't getting something in return, then it's perfectly right to ask 'what is the point?' Why should Britons pay up massive sums of money when there is practically no benefit to them? We've all heard how a eurozone collapse would be disastrous to the UK economy, and it would be wrong-headed to say that it would not have an impact. But why should British taxpayers be involved in that, when the eurozone countries can handle it themselves?

And - lest we forget - our help is not strictly necessary. As the second Greek bailout - in which we did not participate - proves, we are not needed to help prevent a eurozone collapse. We are wanted. We should ask, as the people from whom the money ultimately comes from, what we get in return. And if the answer is 'nothing,' or, more accurately, 'very little - none of it guaranteed,' we should cease to involve ourselves in the affairs of the eurozone bailout scheme.

Hague Scuppers EU Militarisation Plans

2011-07-19T13:25:00.000-07:00

William Hague: is this a line in the sand?

That's the one thing I enjoy the most of writing about the European Union; the way in which they attempt to conceal their actions behind closed doors. It makes it impossible to know precisely what they're up to, but, thanks to the largely free media and activists, there are enough small snippets of information on their actions for the keen eye to be able to put the pieces in the right places come up with a larger picture.

I have previosly written about the possible resurrection of an old Weimar Triangle idea about increased European Union military centralisation that - it appeared - was quietly put on the backburner when Baroness Ashton, a major figure in the new plans, was distracted by the Arab Spring and renewed controversy over her position and rank. Well, there is yet more evidence that the plan has indeed been resurrected; an article has appeared in EUObserver about possible plans to centralise command of all EU missions into a single headquarters.

The two things look completely unrelated at first: one talked about pooling of resources and the creation of new EU battlegroups, and one talks about the creation of a single, central HQ. However, the connection is not tenuous; at the bottom of the article, almost as a footnote, is a quote from Alain Juppe, who says that a 'very large majority was in favour' of the proposal of an EU headquarters, 'pushed by the Weimar countries.' This appears to have been another part of the French-German-Polish militarisation policy. However, there is no need to panic: William Hague has done something quite impressive, more than making up for this.

In an area where unaminity is still required, Britain - in which one of the five EU command centres is located - has vetoed the proposals. He didn't do it for Britain - he did it for NATO. But it was nonetheless quite a bold move. France and Germany are not to be trifled with; with the added power of the Polish rotating presidency, and the EU's foreign policy and defence chief, it takes a brave man indeed to resist their will. This effectively means that the EU's attempts to create a single headquarters for its armed forces have been blocked permanently.

The Government is Ignoring Male Victims of Abuse

2011-07-17T11:47:00.000-07:00

It's high time men organised a march of their own. Picture by Hugh Lee.

Has anyone in government read this? The story of the Russian burglar who was overpowered and used as a sex slave for three days by a female hairdresser who just happened to be a black belt in karate? If not, I highly suggest that they do: they may finally realise that women can be just as violent and abusive as men, and that all laws should apply equally to both genders. But apparently the government hasn't seen this or countless other stories - and are also unaware that one in four domestic violence victims are male. Because a new law being considered by the government could give partners the right to 'vet' people on the Internet to check their past behaviour and criminal record, and, by 'partners,' I mean, of course, women.

Only women have this right, which is reason enough to not pass the law in my view: there's no good reason for it to not be available to men, especially given the above statistic. Men can be victims of domestic violence too, and - even if feminists laugh - it is a serious crime. There are men who have been falsely accused of rape or thrown out of their own house - or even denied access to their children - on the basis of false allegations, made by women who have a track record in that sort of thing. Surely men have a right to know, as well? If you are going to make people's criminal records available for worried or curious Internet dates, both men and women should be subject to equal treatment.

But, even assuming that both genders had equal access to this law, it is yet another example of legislation based on the media headlines it could generate rather than the actual value of the law itself. People on the Internet do not exist solely on the Internet; the same people you meet online are the people that you could meet in your local pub, or in your supermarket. It's all very well to check up on men online, but what about when women meet these same men on the street?

People online often use aliases - especially if they're up to no good. They could provide false contact information, untraceable emails, and all kinds of trails that lead precisely nowhere. A woman could apply to have their details revealed to her, and find that they have no criminal record whatsoever - not knowing that the person whose details she's uncovered is not the person she's dating, who, in fact, has a long record of domestic violence.

It would also be relatively easy for a woman to ask for information on a man even if she was not dating him. Casual dating requires no official documentation that you show to police - thus the standard of proof would be very low indeed. A woman could theoretically ask for information on any man for whom she had a name and existant contact details - it's not hard to see how that could be misused. She could be checking up on a new neighbour, for example, or a male acquaintance, for no other reason than to satisfy her own curiosity. Or more malicious purposes.

If a man had equal right to do this, then, of course, the same arguments would apply to men: a man could dig up the dirt on a female friend just as easily as it could be done to him, with just the same standard of evidence. But that's just it. Men don't have equal rights to do this. It is only available to members of the female sex. And therein lies this law's biggest flaw: it may do something - albeit not much - to protect women who meet their partners online. But male victims of domestic abuse - almost half of the reported total of domestic abuse victims in the UK - are just as ignored as ever, laughed off by a cosy alliance of feminist pressure groups and politically-correct politicians who refuse to admit that the problem exists, and would much rather pander to media headlines of 'protecting vulnerable women' than produce a law that works - for both genders.

Jakobsen: EU Must 'Face the Truth'

2011-07-15T14:09:00.000-07:00

The glass streets of the United Arab Emirates. Picture by Saudi.

Why would a man who is eminently qualified to talk of European economic affairs, being the chief economist at one of Denmark's leading investment banks, need to go as far afield as Jordan in order to get his views on the euro published? It is an intruiguing question, and one which may be harder to answer than it seems: there could be all manner of reasons for Steen Jakobsen to write for Al Bawaba, rather than a European national. If I hadn't seen for myself how the Arab press was consistently better at reporting the feud over Denmark's border patrols, which - as anyone here who reads the Times of Oman will know - is still continuing, despite the fact that European news agencies have scarcely mentioned it, then I'd be inclined to put the explanation that it's 'because he disagrees with the consensus' down to paranoia.

But, whatever the reason, the fact remains that Al Bawaba has a very interesting article and European papers do not. The comparison between the euro and Denmark's national football team might be lost on most people unfamiliar with the sport - how it will ever be relevant to the website's Arab readership I don't know - but nonetheless it is well worth a read. It's a breath of fresh air for anyone who is tired of reading the same old EU denials, and for any EU supporters who are tired of the 'I told you so' attitude that comes as standard in most 'Eurosceptic' articles since the euro crisis was announced (just for the record, we did tell you so).

'Let me help: if your income is less than your expenses and you can’t borrow money, you are done, finito, insolvent and in default'

This is an obvious fact for most people - but, not, it seems, EU economists who are still insisting that Greece will not default. That sentence pretty much says everything in one clause, and adds the rest just to prove the point. Greece has more going out than it has coming in and it is finding it increasingly difficult to borrow money to fund this; hence, it is unthinkable that it can pay off its debts. Greece has one of the worst track records for defaulting on its debts in the history of man: it has spent half its time as a sovereign country in a state of default. Expecting it not to default is the ludicrous opinion here, not the opposite.

The 'extend-and-pretend' nonsense, as Mr. Jakobsen calls it (by which he presumably means the bailouts, or the continued insistence that Greece will pay off its debts) must be discontinued, and in its place Greek must accept that default is the only viable option. Citing examples of European economies that have been in similar economic straights before, he concludes that default may not necessarily by a bad thing; Finland and Russia, for example: the former is now having to bail out Greece, against the will of the largest party in terms of electoral base, and the latter is now one of the BRIC nations.

If Greece defaults now, there will be short-term pain for long-term gain. The smoke and mirrors tactics that the EU is currently employing - with five hundred billion pounds of European public funds - only serve to make things worse. Mr. Jakobsen puts this much better than I can: 'that is another lesson from Greece; the longer you avoid facing the truth, the more you solve debt with debt, the deeper the hole you are digging.' He says all that really needs to be said. Now just to get the European Union to listen.

Ashton Missed The Trick. And So Did We.

2011-07-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

Individual nations can do the job just as effectively as the EU ever can.

Earlier this year, Poland set out the priorities for its stint at the EU's rotating presidency: strengthening cohesion, strengthening co-operation, expanding the 'eastern partnership' framework, raising the European Union budget, and fighting the 'new Euroscepticism' that it said arose from states pursuing their national interests. Donald Tusk, Poland's Prime Minister, presented an upbeat, optimistic image of his presidency: Poland's enthusiasm for the project would invigorate other countries and confront growing scepticism of EU institutions. There was no public mention of their more militaristic aims: in fact, it wasn't for The Voice of Russia, the citizens of Europe would have heard nothing about this. Says it all, really, that Russia - a country with one of the least free presses in the world - knows more about this than we do.

Back in late 2010, when Hungary had just taken over the rotating presidency, defence ministers from Germany, France, and Poland wrote a letter to EU foreign policy chief Baroness Catherine Ashton. Britain's sole contribution to the EU's senior ranks, Ashton is also in charge of the European Defence Agency, and was called upon by the three countries to 'strength co-operation' among EU militaries. This 'co-operation' included the construction of new multinational units that could be deployed alongside the EU's standing army, Eurocorp.

The Arab Spring, however, effectively ended Ashton's involvement: there was little she could find the time for, and the plans got put on the backburner. Well, now they're back. Germany and France are a formidable alliance at the best of times - the 'engine of integration' according to Jacques Delors - and now with the EU's new major player and the rotating presidency they're in a position to put their plans into action. There is clearly some ceremonial importance to the new battleground: 'Poland' will take command of it (Polish officers, at least, who will be under the command of the EU whilst on active deployment) as well as contribute the largest number of men. But there is also a practical side to it: one thousand five hundred soldiers will be a welcome addition to the EU's rapid reaction force, and can also serve alongside their standing army, Europol. It will also be suitable for deployment to 'crisis areas' in the European Union and beyond.

There's one problem that the EU could encounter if it attempts to deploy the new battlegroup, however: that problem is the German High Court. In 2009, it ruled that that deployments of troops outside of Germany must be approved by the Reichstag. We shall see whether, if this EU battlegroup is deployed, whether that ruling is abandoned, or upheld.

The BBC's Blatant Bias is No Excuse

2011-07-10T05:26:00.000-07:00

The BBC is clearly biased. But does it matter?

The People's Pledge references Rod Liddle's video commentary on the Sunday Times, on its Facebook page. The topic this time is the bias of the BBC - the sort of topic that many conservatives, and non-establishment figures in general, have waited years to see addressed. Lord Pearson of Rannoch, former leader of UKIP, Britain's foremost Eurosceptic party, is one of those that weights in with his opinion.

BBC bias has long been the elephant in the room for opponents of our continued membership of the European Union; it is all to easy to accuse it, the dominant source for news and information in all of the British media, of being the one thing stopping us from leaving. What other explanation is there, when upwards of sixty per cent of the British population want out of the EU, for our remaining within it, other than our esteemed national broadcaster? The BBC sets the tone and topic of the debate for the rest of the media, and somehow the EU is never included. That's the conclusion that many Eurosceptics - and indeed anyone outside the dominant consensus in each of the three main parties - has come to over the years, and it's easy to see why.

There are countless examples of BBC bias towards Eurosceptics; arguably contrary to its charter, it does receive funding from the European Union, as revealed in Hansard. Lord McIntosh of Haringey, then the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, replied that 'the BBC's producers' guidelines make clear that co-funding from any third party is not appropriate for programmes aimed at a general audience. But the BBC does receive some EU funding for some specialised educational and support material (such as basic literacy and IT skills training for adults).' The BBC's commercial subsidiaries also borrowed almost one hundred million pounds from the European Investment Bank. The full details of this are covered excellently by EUReferendum.

The European Investment Bank is supposed to promote the EU's objective of integration. That's according to its own mission statement. Would it loan money to an organisation that might act against this interest, as a truly unbiased organisation would? No, it would not. The BBC's bias is fairly clear-cut in my view. But, still, despite its immense power, the BBC cannot be used as a reasonable excuse for Eurosceptic inactivity; yes, its presence is regrettable, but it does not hold a monopoly on news, and, even if it did, to accept defeat at its hands would be to severely underestimate the power that we hold in ours.

Think back to 2008, when the Irish 'No' campaign was in full swing. The EU and EU-affiliated institutions poured hundreds, literally hundreds of millions of euros into the 'Yes' campaign. The amount of airtime and advertising space that they could buy dwarfed that of the 'No' vote. Allegations of conspiracy swirled around the head of Declan Ganley, the 'No' campaign's main sponsor, about his less-than-savoury connections. An investigation into his funding was ordered, and it was even suspected that he was a CIA stooge. Yet, for all this, the 'No' vote was, lest we forget, ultimately successful. And the problems that faced the Irish campaigners were not at all dissimilar to those that a similar campaign would face in the UK.

There was massively biased media coverage, unprecedented interference from Brussels, an almost complete cross-party consensus, and a classic smear campaign to contend with. They were actually compared to paedophiles. And yet, despite at first being behind in the polls, the 'No' campaign pulled out ahead and went on to win a landslide. By the logic of the 'if the BBC is against us we can't win' argument, the Irish 'No' vote should never have occured. But it did. And the European Union knows the reason why. It is not the intervention of big business. It is not Declan Ganley's millions. It is not Brussels simply being wrong. It is grassroots activists making a mess of things for the 'Yes' vote by exposing the EU's biggest lies. Bloggers, primarily, but street protestors and campaigners, as well. They all played their part in derailing the EU machine, and, despite the biased media and the hundreds of millions of euros in the pocket of the 'Yes' camp, they did so successfully.

The EU was so incensed by the problem that it even tried to 'regulate the Internet' in order to shut them up, proposing the creation of a regulatory body that could ensure, in the words of Marianne Mikko, the drafter of an official report on the subject, that bloggers could not 'pollute' cyberspace with 'malicious intent.' As Daniel Hannan observed at the time, 'the mainstream media was uniformly pro-Treaty, whilst Internet activity was overwhelmingly sceptical.'

If grassroots campaigners could defeat the European Union in Ireland, a country where membership of the European Union continues to be immensely popular, think what they could do in Britain, where scepticism or outright opposition to the European Union is almost universal. The simple lesson that we can learn - not just from the Irish referendum, but from France and the Netherlands, too - is that we do not need the media and politicians on our side to make a difference. Anyone can make a difference. Whether they choose to do so online, on street corners, or in Trafalgar Square is up to them: but we can no longer use the BBC's bias as an acceptable excuse to do nothing. If we believe - sincerely believe - that membership of the European Union is bad for the UK then we must make the point regardless of who will oppose us; whoever has something to say ought to say it, and, if they are a natural-born leader, then people will follow. We must continue to call for referendums. We must continue to call for withdrawal. Whatever the BBC thinks.

Multiculturalism Has Failed The Sudan

2011-07-08T14:27:00.000-07:00

South Sudanese voters go to the polls in the independence referendum.

It is not part of any political ideology to state that limited resources plus many different groups leads to competition. It is fact. It is also fact that competition leads to division, and division leads to conflict. It doesn't matter if the different groups hold no animosity towards each other; humans are intrinsically tribal creatures, and will ultimately favour their own group - their own civic tribe, if you will - if they have to compete. This, too, is political and social fact. When the groups do hold animosity towards each other, and the resources in question are the most vital of all - food and water - you have a recipe for chaos.

And this is exactly what happened in Sudan. Despite all the columns that will be written about the subject, despite all the endless newspaper accounts, and despite all the speculation and analysis, that is the one angle that will not be covered by any major newspaper, I guarantee it: not a single journalist will ever cast even a quick glance over the theories that, somewhere, somehow, at the heart of Sudan's problems lies a failure of multiculturalism at its most extreme.

That is, at the end of the day, what multiculturalism is: the belief that different nations will somehow learn to share the same geographic territory, and share each other's ideas and beliefs with tolerance and respect. It is a Utopian ideal, and, like all Utopian ideologies, does not take into account its limitations. For one, it is unrealistic to expect anyone to share limited resources - social housing and education places, for example - with people from outside their 'civic tribe.' Second, it is unfeasible to assume that cultures will simply integrate. All historical and current evidence shows that communities that share a language, culture, or beliefs stick together and stay as communities; a brief look through east London is evidence enough of this. Thirdly, it is a two-way thing: one culture cannot, will not, show respect to another if it is not reciprocated, especially if the beliefs and values of both are diametrically opposed. You cannot reconcile female servitude with gender equality, nor homophobia with sexual freedom, even if you do try to sweep the problem under the carpet.

South Sudan is neatly divided between a Muslim north and a Christian south. Socially, politically, and economically, the divide runs clean across the country. Such a clear division does not apply in western multicultural states: in fact, western multicultural states may have hundreds of different nations, and inner-city estates may have patchworks of areas - streets, roads, or blocks - inhabited predominantly by a single ethnicity. But, nonetheless, the same rules apply. I am not proposing that Britain will end up like Sudan any time soon, or perhaps ever, but I am saying that South Sudan is a perfect illustration - if perhaps a simplistic one - of what can happen when multiculturalism goes disastrously wrong, as, due to its inherent Utopian flaws, it always will.

Britain will not see twenty years of civil war; but it will see - has already seen - social strife and racial tension, due to stoking the flames on both sides; righteous anger over apparent injustice and inequality for both the disaffected youths from ethnic communities and the abandonment of the original white inhabitants, who have seen their communities radically transformed in a short space of time, despite their constant objections, in favour of a tide of multiculturalism and diversity, have made a mockery of what was once a very fine ideal. Multiculturalism has failed Britain; it has failed the people of Britain. It may not have failed it on such an epic scale as South Sudan, but ultimately a Utopian ideology that is impracticable in one place will be impracticable in all others, for humans are the same the world over.

Does Portugal Need a Second Bailout?

2011-07-06T14:02:00.000-07:00

Eurosceptics have been right for the last twenty years.

In all the coverage of Moody's downgrading of Portugal's credit rating to below junk, it is very easy to miss this little nugget: Portugal, like Greece, may yet need a second bailout in order to get its finances back on track. It hasn't been in any of the British newspaper headlines, which have focused solely on the downgrade itself, but Moody's has been quite clear: without a further EU-IMF bailout, Portugal will not solve its debt crisis.

The Guardian writes that there is a growing sense of despair in Brussels. It seems broadly accurate. The Netherlands threatens to deport Poles and other eastern Europeans who refuse to find work and the Danes significantly boost their border presence, and now the euro comes under a renewed assault as the bailout of yet another country has been called into question, at the same time as the legality of German participation is brought before their Constitutional Court.

The bailouts are an abject failure; that much has been proven. Schengen and freedom of movement is under a sustained assault from 'populists' (i.e. democrats) who are facing up to the fact that Utopia has no place in a modern European state. And, to make matters worse for the European elite, elected and unelected, the German government, the chief paymaster of the bailout scheme, may have been stumping up the cash illegally, against that country's constitution, which was put in place after the Second World War and will not be breached lightly.

That might explain the increasingly bizarre reactions from EU officials: Barroso weighed in earlier and deployed an argument that's usually reserved for national democrats and 'populists' in the European Parliament, lambasting the ratings agencies as 'anti-European.' Wolfgang Schaube called for the 'oligopoly' of the ratings agencies to be broken, and Greece said that there was 'no justification' for the measures.

Thick as Thieves

2011-07-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

Greece and the EU: thick as thieves

EU conspiracy theories follow a certain trend. There is always a reference to international markets. There is often collusion between financiers, governments, and newspapers, or some combination thereof. And, funnily enough, the conspirators are always 'Anglo-Saxon,' whether that is British or American, or both. So many of the people that govern Europe automatically put their failings - or those of their policies - down to the intervention of foreigners. They always speak of suited financiers in the skyscrapers, as if British and Americans were collectively plotting against them from their glass towers. Yet there is a real conspiracy, and it is right in front of their eyes: it is not made up of high-powered money-men in their big American muscle cars, but panicked and tired-looking Greek ministers in the parliamentary building in Athens, whose cars are currently being set on fire by hordes of angry Greek protestors waving Communist flags.

'...Greek authorities also revised the planned deficit ratio for 2009 from 3.7% of GDP (the figure reported in spring) to 12.5% of GDP...Revisions of this magnitude in the estimated past government deficit ratios have been extremely rare in other EU member States, but have taken place for Greece on several occasions' - European Commission report, ‘Greek Government deficit and debt statistics’

'The exceptional combination in Greece of lax fiscal policy, inadequate reaction to mounting imbalances, structural weaknesses and statistical misreporting led to an unprecedented sovereign debt crisis' - European Commission communication

These two quotes come from the same source - the European Commission, the EU's executive body - and were written in January and May 2010, respectively. It is hard to see how the European Union could have been so blind. Greece was blatantly cooking the books in order to gain access to the eurozone: Greek officials have since admitted it, so we know this to be true.

'The Commission has been provided with incorrect figures for six years. Indeed, part of the responsibility was on Greece, but the Eurozone also lacked the tools to notice that' - George Papandreou, Greek Prime Minister

So there you have it: there is the conspiracy. In Greece. It's tempting to say that it is all the fault of the Greeks, as it was the Greeks who choose to lie and cheat their way into the eurozone in the first place. But it is not all their fault. As the Greek Prime Minister said, the European Commission - which vets any potential eurozone members - said, the European Commission should have noticed. It did notice.

'We knew that Greece was cheating, it was clear as soon as they joined that there was something wrong' - Karel De Gucht, European Commissioner for Trade

The Greek Prime Minister has now admitted that his country's statistics that allowed it entry were false, and the Commission at the time highlighted many of these outrageous claims and yet did nothing about them - at the very least they were suspicious, and it's entirely possible that they knew. And at least one 'knew' that the figures were false, and implied that there were others - perhaps everyone else, perhaps only a few, but there were others.

Over five hundred billion pounds - half a trillion - has been allocated in order to attempt to solve this crisis, an attempt that is currently failing. And even that may not be enough. Greece is on the edge of political chaos; yet more countries may fall. You have paid hundreds of pounds in tax money over the years to sponsor this, and, as countries restructure their debts or default, you will never see that money again. We are all paying the price for the EU's colossal errors in judgement, and - most importantly - we cannot vote out the people responsible.

True Finns: the New Largest Party

2011-07-01T09:35:00.000-07:00

The streets of Finland are paved with Euroscepticism.

After their failure to be included in a coalition government after their 'surprise' electoral success, the True Finns, a socially liberal but fiscally conservative party which campaigned almost entirely on an anti-bailout ticket have now accomplished the unthinkable; they, a Eurosceptic party according to mainstream European Union parties, have now displaced all other factions to become the single largest force in Finnish politics. That's according to YLE News, which says that their overall support has now reached almost a quarter of the national vote.

That doesn't look too fantastic, but in a country with a myriad of different parties each with a similar share of the electorate that's enough to put them five points ahead of the social democrats - and, even better, their failure to prevent Finnish involvement in the bailouts has actually seen them bouyed at the polls, with support rising so much since the election they are now actually ahead of the National Coalition - one of the member's of the country's current government, which is comprised of themselves and the Social Democrats.

It's also worth noting where those new voters come from: the Centre Party has lost half a percentage point since the election, to its lowest level of support in history, the Swedish People's Party saw a 0.2 per cent fall, the Green League is polling at 7.2 per cent, and the Christian Democrats fell to just 3.1%. Their fall corresponds almost exactly with the True Finn's rise. In other words, the True Finns are attracting votes from all the other centrist and right-wing parties in order to become a broad over-arching movement representing pretty much everything from disaffected liberals to staunch conservatives.

The European Union officials and national politicians who conspired to shut them out of power, wrongly thinking that they were a protest vote, have now been emphatically silenced. It comes after quite pathetic attempts to smear them as 'nationalists.' The people in Finland know a nationalist or fascist party when they see one; and this isn't one. It's not surprise that the usual scare stories have simply failed to work. Perhaps now the pro-EU faction might have to deal with them on even, equal terms, with logic and reason rather than insults. Because if the rise of the True Finns has shown us anything, it is that the effect of these insults and slurs are beginning to wear off: no longer does the word 'racist' seen any potential voters running for cover. Not even in small, cold Finland, a country with a fascist, Nazi-affiliated past, can be put off from voting for 'unconventional' parties merely on an accusation.

They want facts; they want a counter-argument. They want to know why they should pay for the failures of Greece and for the euro, and the reply 'because all opponents are Nazis' or some variant thereof will no longer do it. The failure of the European Union and its supporters to provide either of those things has cost it dearly; it has allowed the popular discontent since the coalition agreement was made - without the True Finns - to swell. Euroscepticism now dominates the Finnish political landscape.

Van Rompuy: EU is a 'Corner of Paradise'

2011-06-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

Herman van Rompuy: dazzled by bright lights. Picture by the European People's Party.

The five thousand riot police currently barricading the Greek parliament building, expending round after round of tear gas and hundreds of stun grenades in a desperate bid to hold back an increasingly violent crowd that outnumbers them ten-to-one, could be forgiven for thinking that Syntagma Square was one of the worst places on earth. Tear gas makes it impossible for anyone without a gas mask to even get close to the city centre; hundreds have been injured; smoke rises from the Finance Ministry and other government buildings across the city and all semblance of law and order in the heart of the Greek capital has retreated to within their iron curtain.

But Herman van Rompuy, President of the European Council, seems to think everything's okay. At a speech in Brussels, about as far away from the streets of Athens as it's possible to get on the European Union mainland, he made the extraordinary claim that if the EU was a musical piece, the continuous beat would be 'prosperity.' His words showed no indication that he is even aware there is a problem, let alone has any clue what to do about it. There's a fine line between politically expedient rhetoric and the blatantly delusional: and the denial of any sort of crisis, the continued insistence that the EU brings only peace and prosperity to its member states, contrary to the images now being beamed onto television screens across the continent, comes under the latter category. It doesn't help that one of the things he spoke of highly was the EU's democratic standards - so says a man appointed as the result of a deal over a secret dinner to chair meetings of heads of state of which no public minutes are ever released, having faced no popular vote for this or any other EU position in his entire political career.

Herman van Rompuy's comments are, presumably, what happens when you get a load of people who essentially agree with each other, stick them in a room with no public oversight, and tell them to objectively analyse their policy. They might actually be objective, but, at the end of the day, the net result is always going to be the utter denial that there is anything wrong. The bunker mentality is being bounced around in an echo chamber, and delusion and apparent 'blindness' to reality will ensue. This is seen even in our own Houses of Parliament: they relate more to the 'honourable gentlemen' on the opposite benches than they do with anyone outside of Whitehall. In the European Commission and on the European Council, where much work - including that by elected officials - is carried out in secret with no media attention whatsoever, the 'bubble' is even more apparent. The gulf of opinion between the officials than run the European Union and the people that inhabit it has never been wider, and there is no better place to see than right now than on the fractious streets of Athens.

Is this what you call 'paradise,' Mr van Rompuy, where, after Greece 'votes the right way' and passes austerity measures required of its creditors - the EU and the IMF - protestors face a renewed assault by police? I don't blame the EU solely for the Greek crisis: European Commission officials did know that the Greeks were cooking the books and chose to do nothing about it, and at any rate a single currency for many economies and many finance ministers was always an unworkable idea, as we said, what, twenty years ago now? But, please, this is no-one's idea of paradise: for van Rompuy to claim so shows just how astonishingly out of sync the EU's views of the continent it purports to govern really are.

Opposition to the European Union is Not Racist

2011-06-27T05:52:00.000-07:00

Denying the existence of Europe: a lot harder from space.

Sometimes I wish I was anti-European. It would be far more amusing and far more productive to argue against a landmass, than it is to argue against the people and institutions that make up the actual object of my criticism, the European Union. Some of the words that they deploy make my brain ache: Europhobe? What is that, irrational fear of said landmass? How can you be racist against an organisation? That is what the European Union is, right? I never realised that the College of Commissioners comprised an ethnic group in its own right, that nomination to one of the twenty-seven seats changed your nationality or your skin tone. Euro-denier is my favourite one. I am well aware that Europe exists; in fact, I'm continuously told that I'm a citizen of it.

In short, I'm tired of all the deliberate misrepresentation of opposing views by people who have no other argument. Supporters of the European Union continually misrepresent both themselves, their opponents, and the EU itself. Definitions change as soon as policies do; and, when policies fail, a new word is coined, the opposition is denigrated with a new insult or accusation, and the whole thing starts again. I often wonder where Eurosceptic parties would be were it not for such misrepresentation: how many people, for example, would vote for UKIP if it was not labouring under unsubstantiated allegations of racism and chauvinism, and even Nazism? Probably a lot more than do now, that's for sure. The intellectual dishonesty of EU supporters has turned what was once a reasonably honest and open debate into a farce, where questioning the right of people you have not elected to make decisions that affect you makes you some sort of Nazi, and calling for greater transparency makes you a fascist.

It is a logical fallacy to suggest that all those who oppose Britain's EU membership are 'racist' or 'xenophobic.' How many times do we have to say it - getting along with other nations and peoples does not equate to being ruled by them. Opposing the EU is, by definition, not racist - for the EU is not a race. It is a political institution. Being racist against the EU is like being racist against NATO or the Scottish National Party - impossible. And the accusation that the only reason that people oppose the EU is because they are Brits still clinging to the notion of empire? How, exactly, do EU supporters explain non-British, non-imperial nations being far more Eurosceptic than Britain itself? Did the Greenlanders, the only people ever to leave the EU, vote to do so in the hopes of restoring their ancient empire? I doubt it. What of the Icelanders, where EU support has dropped to below 40%? Are they planning to invade the United States of America? No. No, they are not, yet they are still far more Eurosceptic than Britain or Britons ever have been. The usual narrative of 'all opponents of the EU are imperialistic bigots' doesn't fit with reality. Yet it still sticks.

And what of the remarkable claim that the European Union is really all about being good neighbours, and that Eurosceptics don't want Britain to have good neighbours? What do good neighbours do? They let you retrieve balls from their garden, and don't let their dogs poo on your lawn. That is 'getting along with your neighbour.' However, you do not let your neighbours rearrange the furniture, take down fences, or withdraw money from your account to pay for their porch, do you? That's exactly what the EU does - there are now one hundred and seventy thousand pages of EU law on British statute books that you can't do a damn thing about, the EU allows almost unrestricted access to the UK for EU citizens, and we - as net contributors, i.e. people who pay more in than we get out - are required to subsidise improvements to infrastructure and civic projects from our public funds. The claim that the EU is merely about being a good neighbour is yet another misrepresentation.

And Nazis? Fascists? Please, calling for greater transparency does not make you a fascist. I highly doubt that Bob Crow is a fascist. He's not far-right, either. 50-60% of the population of the UK oppose European Union membership in every poll ever taken, by any source - BBC, YouGov, Daily Mail, Eurobarometer, etc. Are 50-60% of the UK electorate Nazis or ethno-nationalists? No, I don't think so. Populist? Maybe that one's accurate, but there's nothing wrong with espousing the people over the elites, is there? Of all the EU supporters, Andrew Duff, Liberal Democrat MEP, has came the closest to describing what its opponents actually are. He characterised them as the 'generally pissed off.'

Those Bloody Foreigners

2011-06-27T01:55:00.000-07:00

Anglo-Saxons casually plotting to destroy the euro. Picture by Ouip.

Those of you who are still following the Arab Spring would have particularly enjoyed Assad's rant on state television the other day. The Syrian dictator finally gave in to pressure and played the usual card of Arabic dictators; blame it on the foreigners. The protests against him were, he said, in a speech eerily remniscient of Gaddafi before he lost control of Misrata, a plot by al-Qaeda and foreign influences in an attempt to destabilise the country. His government was, he claimed, becoming too strong. We may look upon the antics of the Arabic fruitcake and laugh: we are, after all, thousands of miles away from the trouble. No leader here would ever stoop so low as to blame foreigners for their own political or economic troubles, would they?

Well, yes, actually. The enraged fist-pumping theatrics of Bashar al-Assad thousands of miles away in the Syrian desert may receive considerably more air-time than the antics of officials currently engaged in making law in Brussels, but some elements of conspiracy theories doing the rounds in Berlaymont have reached us. They are either faintly amusing or slightly scary, depending on how you view them, but, if nothing else, they are the most revealing insight into the mentality of an institution in crisis, a mentality that the public - with no public records of debates and discussions and no popular elections - rarely gets to see.

As the European Union's engines of integration disassemble or stall, the rhetorical defence of the European Union by its supporters is becoming more and more extreme. Faced with the unravelling of a project that many of them are inextricably committed to, financially and mentally, European Union officials have turned away from rational and reasoned argument and turned instead to the cosy world of conspiracy theories.

A number of high-profile people seem to have abandoned all reason and logic altogether since the start of the eurozone crisis: aides to the Spanish Prime Minister claimed in February 2010 that the Spanish economy was the victim of a well-orchestrated speculator attack from 'Anglo-Saxon' economies. There was some plot to destroy the euro, hatched in the corridors of power in London and New York. The Spanish Public Works Minister declared that 'none of what is happening in the world, including the editorials of foreign newspapers, is coincidental or innocent,' implying that there was some collusion between governments, speculators, and Anglo-Saxon newspapers. This wasn't just them playing the 'foreign conspirators' card to shore up public support: they appear to have genuinely believed this. Armed with a few provocative headlines as 'proof' of their theory, the government set the National Intelligence Centre on the task of uncovering the conspirators.

The Greek Prime Minister declared that there was 'an attack on the euro zone by certain other interests, political or financial. We are being targeted, particularly with an ulterior motive or agenda.' He left out the Anglo-Saxon aspect, but the insinuation is clear: the eurozone crisis was not caused by a flawed concept or mistakes made by politicians, no, the eurozone was the victim of an international attack by a secret, unnamed collection of individuals who plot to destroy it. Jürgen Stark, ECB chief economist, takes the slightly more rational - if still completely unsubstantiated - view that the British media and financial interests were perpetuating the eurozone crisis in order to hide their own government's deficit. And this sort of wild fantasy is not limited to 'Europeans,' either. Britons, too, are giving credence to their claims of an evil right-wing plot. Denis MacShane, a former Labour Europe minister, declared that 'the Anglo-Saxon club of anti-Europeans is on the rampage.'

The European Union has a long history of using conspiracy and talk of 'plots' to explain away its problems. The comments echo earlier claims by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a German Green MEP, who once said that the Irish 'No' vote to the Lisbon Treaty was not representative of the views of Irish people, who secretly wanted the treaty. The reason, he said, was that the CIA had employed people to vote 'No' in order to prevent Europe becoming too strong. This conspiracy was heartily endorsed by Hans-Gert Poettering, former President of the European Parliament, and were even looked over by the European Commission, the EU's executive body. And Anglo-Saxons are also the subject of any conspiracy theory in the European Union where money is concerned; Sarkozy once claimed that British and American financiers were spreading false rumours about his love life in order to destabilise the French economy.

This shows more than anything else that the European Union - or a lot of high-ranking officials - are incapable of self-reflection. It takes a far greater leap of imagination and genuine conviction to state openly that you are the blameless victim of some international plot than it does to re-examine the nature of the euro's introduction. The euro is not perfect; Romano Prodi, the EU chief executive at the time of its introduction, said that there would be a crisis. But somehow the EU officials who succeeded him seem to have forgotten that; in their view, everything they did and continue to do has been flawless. If it wasn't for financiers and the British, the euro would be going fine.

The officials that make the decisions are so incapable of re-examining their own policy, and we cannot vote them out. Sounds like one hell of a recipe for disaster.

Does the Euro Aid European Democracy?

2011-06-23T05:06:00.000-07:00

Eurotower: the source of the eurozone's economic government

'It isn't just the euro. Europe's democracy itself is at stake,' says Amartya Sen over at the Guardian. To be fair, he's not talking about the euro or the European Union very much; the main focus of his article is on the behaviour of the ratings agencies - which, whether they're right or wrong, can hardly be described as democrat. But, nonetheless, his headline rises an interesting question: is the euro a help or a hindrance to European democracy?

First rule of questions in headlines - the answer is always 'no.' Membership of the euro automatically disqualifies elected national governments from control over important aspects of their national economy, thereby drastically reducing the influence of their electorate over their economic policy. That's not a political point - that's just what happens when a government uses a currency along with sixteen other countries. Its control over it becomes diluted.

Anatole Kaletsky once wrote an article in The Times that says precisely that. He sums up the argument in two simple phrases: 'a country that gives up its currency loses control of its economic destiny' and the euro 'prevents different countries adopting the variety of social and business models that voters demand.' He wrote, back in 2005, that 'a currency is to national economic management what a border is to political sovereignty.' An apt comparison now that borders have been re-established - and political sovereignty reasserted - temporarily and permanently, across what was once was border-free zone where the executive of the European Union, which never faces a popular ballot, set policy.

There's also one other point raised in that article regarding the democratic deficit at the heart of the management of the euro and the eurozone: if elected national politicians in the eurozone do not control the national economy or that of the eurozone as a whole, who does? The answer is the European Central Bank. To paraphrase Wim Duisenberg, first president of the ECB, in light of recent events, 'there is no central bank in the world as dependent on politics as the European Central Bank.'

The bankers may be economists, and it may have a governing council comprisoned of the governors of central banks from eurozone countries, but it is also unelected by the people - as any central bank would be - and is ideologically committed to the European Union as an institution. It is a European Union institution. The chief architect of eurozone economic policy, the ECB cannot afford to be unaccountable, secretive, and partial: but it is all three of those things.

There is a third, and final, aspect of the euro's anti-democratic tendencies: the existence of the post of President of the Eurogroup, currently held by Jean-Claude Juncker. The President himself is not exactly a democrat at heart; he once said that he preferred 'secret, dark debates,' and that 'when the going gets tough, you have to lie.' His job is similar to that of the President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy; he is the chairman of meetings of elected heads of state.

Although he - and the two other unelected EU officials at meetings, the Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, Olli Rehn, and the President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet - do not vote, they wield great influence over the affairs of the elected finance ministers who participate. He has also adopted co-ordination measures that have taken more of the power over national economies from elected national governments.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former French Finance Minister and President of the International Monetary Fund, who played a key role in the early bailouts and overseeing the world economy during the recession, did once say that the euro 'was a conquest of sovereignty.' It seems he was right.

2011-06-21T05:22:00.000-07:00

The fires of nationalism? Picture by Johann-Nikolaus Andrea.

The Commission is determined not to let Denmark go without a fight. Having declared its democratic independence over its own border policy, sealed by a vote in a sovereign, democratic parliament, the country now faces the wrath of the EU's executive body. The chief executive, Jose Manuel Barroso, has already weighed in. He warned of swift action against any member state seen to be defying the rules; the Commission 'will not hesitate' to enforce EU law. It was a thinly-veiled threat to Denmark; change course or we will take a harder line.

In reality, though, there's not much the Commission can do. It was able to refuse Germany, France, and Italy, and their three elected heads of state and two hundred million citizens, but only as long as they accepted its authority. Denmark refused to do so, which is why its parliament now has control over its own borders and those of Germany, France, and Italy do not. Barroso seems to realise this, and a letter written to the President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy, seems to hint at change.

No, this change includes no plans for the Commission to relinquish any power. But it does suggest that they may be willing to change the terms of the Schengen agreement in order to accomodate the will of elected heads of state. Rather than the ability to cross borders in the EU without documentation, even in times of crisis, the Commission has proposed the right to impose 'temporary border controls' if such a situation arises where they would be necessary. Like a wave of hundreds of thousands of economic migrants from North African countries.

The decision to impose these border controls will be made at 'European level.' This means either the Commission itself, or on the agreement of the twenty-seven heads of state on the European Council, and so control over border policy in the Schengen zone will not be returned to democratic, sovereign national government. But the Commission sees the need for change; how long can it hold back the tide, I wonder?

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This is the second article uploaded today - if you view this blog daily, you may have missed the first one.

Society Has More Power Than Law

2011-06-21T00:50:00.000-07:00

David Cameron at the G8 summit.

David Cameron is partially right about ostracising absent fathers - he may have been sweeping in his generalisations and discriminatory in only apportioning the blame to feckless men when there are countless examples of women acting in a similar manner, but, broadly speaking, he was correct. The idea of society regulating itself, rather than laws being imposed from on high, is a concept that's been absent from government for a number of years. Since 1997, in fact. It's about time it was reinstated.

For the last thirteen years, social liberals have had their way with the country, starting off with a massive majority, which lasted them all until Gordon Brown's dismal tenure. They initiated - or inflicted - some of the most ambitious changes to society in the last fifty years, and, in doing so, gutted many of the processes by which society self-regulates. Traditions, morals, values, codes, and individual responsibility all played a part in ensuring that people saw themselves in relation to others and had a responsibility towards others. New Labour did away with most of those things; tradition was marginalised, morals were replaced with moral equivalence, values were spurned and discarded, moral codes were frowned upon as illiberal, and individual responsibility was gradually eroded by increasing financial dependence on the state and government interference.

In 1997, the state's role was already being to expand rapidly, but the ascent of Tony Blair and New Labour took it to new heights. Before long, we had council officials telling us when to do our exercises and local government representatives telling us what to eat. They were advertising campaigns telling us what we should and shouldn't do - not what we can't do, but what we shouldn't do. The size and scope of the state ballooned under New Labour. The result, although it was one that even the opposition didn't draw attention to, was depressingly predictable: if you strip society of its ability to self-govern, what are you going to have to introduce? Laws. New Labour introduced three thousand new laws. Three thousand. That's one every day or so for the whole time it was in office.

So the ability of society to manage itself - as every society in the world has done since the start of civilisation, in some way or another - was greatly diminished, and a flood of new laws - often rushed through and poorly thought-out - filled the gap left behind by the fleeing standards that had once occupied that ground. Social liberals removed the aspects that allowed society to function without the excessive hand of the state, and then tried to prevent the ensuing social carnage by legislating against every new social predicament that they encountered. It was a bit like playing whack-a-mole. No sooner had they spied a problem that arose as a result of their social tampering, they had banned it, imposed a fine on it, or created a new quango to chew through a multi-million pound budget, whilst making it look like it was 'dealing' with the problem.

Unsurprisingly, all this achieved nothing. The quangos were nice, with flashy names and trendy slogans, but they could do nothing other than publish reports by think-tanks and renovate their offices. Most of their time was consumed by making themselves look relevant, rather than actually dealing with whatever problem they were tasked with solving. Their police did their best to enforce the raft of new laws, but, frankly, how are even they supposed to know what the laws are when there are simply so many of them? Remember the old saying, what isn't illegal is legal? The British people used to be able to put their finger on exactly what they could and could not do under the law; if it wasn't explicitly banned, you could do it. That went out the window. Now, it was hard to tell what was legal and what was not: if it could be misconstrued as 'dodgy' by anyone in a uniform, then it was probably wise not to do it.

There's a limit to how much the government can do. Society is far more unrestricted. Let's say that the father - or the mother - of a young child wanted nothing to do with their new family and wandered off? What can the law do about that? Fine him? Imprison him:? All menial things that will ultimately make no difference to a man who's quite prepared to do such a thing. Society, on the other hand, can hit these characters where it hurts: he may be able to pay off a fine or do a spell inside, it's no problem. He's just ran off from his family, he doesn't care. But he'll think twice about ever doing such a thing if he knew the cost would be his friends and his social life, or even his relatives, suddenly treating him with contempt and disgust.

The state - law - can enforce minor inconveniences. Society can take away things that really matter. Sometimes the most effective punishment can be one delivered freely by disgusted friends rather than one delivered by the over-extended arm of the state. Being silenced and spurned is a much more effective deterrent, too, than being hit in the wallet or locked up for a spell.

David Cameron should make it a policy of his - preferably separate from his 'Big Society' routine - to return as much authority to self-regulate to society. A lot of the problems in society at the moment - rising teenage pregnancy, runaway fathers, benefit cheats, gang crime, animal abuse, etc. would be solved - or be a lot easier to solve - if society turned its back on these people, rather than tolerating, or even glorifying them. The state can do nothing effective to people that walk out on their families, defraud the taxpayer, or beat up their dogs - society can. It is not laws that David Cameron should be promoting and enforcing; he should remove the state from the tiny aspects of our private lives, make some effort to promote personal responsibiility, and let society get a handle on itself again.

Civil War? No, Just Reform Fatigue

2011-06-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

Jean-Claude Juncker. Picture from the European People's Party.

Finally, some word on the Greek revolution from the mouths of the European Union officials who are largely responsible for the bailouts and the austerity imposed as a result. I had honestly began to suspect that they were ignoring the Greeks - or even that, in the Brussels bunker, they were blissfully unaware of rioting on the streets of Athens. Barroso and Ashton flying around the world lecturing Arabs on the benefits of 'involving young people in democracy' was, I thought, more than hypocritical nonsense: they actually knew nothing on the crisis on their southern periphery. It seems that I credited them with more scruples than is appropriate for a former Marxist who now earns three hundred thousand pounds a year, and a Labour politician whose only real contribution to politics was to block a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in the House of Lords.

They were well aware of the Greek riots the whole time. The eurozone president, Jean-Claude Juncker, has become the first EU official to make a statement: the man who once said that he preferred 'secret, dark debates' has now opened up to the world and declared that 'reform fatigue...affects him greatly' but that he and the European Union as a whole would not change course for 'there was no other way.'

There is some element of the bunker mentality here, as 'reform fatigue' is a hideous euphemism for guns-and-grenade attacks, bombing campaigns, and general carnage, and one that even European Union officials would usually think twice before using. But it's nowhere near as deep as I originally suspected: EU officials are more than capable of seeing the world outside Barroso's ivory tower. They just choose not to.

One other interesting aspect of this speech was that Jean-Claude Juncker seemed to take on much of the rhetoric of the Greek protestors: 'An entire people, perhaps except the very rich, are making a tremendous sacrifice, as are people elsewhere in europe. They see social inequality that is unfair, that it is the poorest who are paying too much of the bill.' What the...? He is a man largely responsible for the bailouts and the policies that have created such a perverse situation. He is not president of the eurozone, a top economist, and Luxembourg's Prime Minister for nothing. Shouldn't he be defending his own policies, rather than adopting the rhetoric of its fiercest opponents in an attempt to placate them?

All this seems to suggest that, deep down, he knows that his policies are not the 'only option' at all, but, in fact, one of many. Greece could default. Greece could restructure. Greece could leave the euro, recreate its own currency with more suitable interest rates, and devalue its way out of trouble? Each of these solutions have their own advantages and disadvantages, but to suggest that there is only one way, the EU way, is blatantly wrong. And Jean-Claude Juncker's apparent refusal or inability to make even a casual defence of it shows that he himself - and, presumably, others in the EU's circle - may be well aware that even they, with their two billion pound propaganda budget and seven hundred and fifty billion pound bailout fund, cannot defend the indefensible.

'Once this ongoing effort is completed, I can assure that we will be reverting to another kind of instrument to stimulate these countries.'

Denmark Should be Applauded

2011-06-19T09:36:00.000-07:00

Danish Volkspartei leader Pia Kjærsgaard.

Why is it that, when big European states start getting uppity about how democratic and wealthy they are, it takes a small one - usually Scandinavian, and often outside of the EU - to put them in their rightful place? Denmark has just become the first Schengen zone state to return control of its border policy to the citizens. The Danish border controls, reinstated on the orders of the Danish Volkspartei, in an effort to clamp down on illegal trafficking and cross-border crime, have now been sealed by parliament, and, so, too, has the right of the Danish people to set their own border policy through their elected representatives - with no unelected officials having a say in it whatsoever.

I've often said that Eurosceptic boils down to a fight between the elected and the unelected; and it seems that, in Denmark, the elected is winning. The restoration of the power to make border policy to the elected national government comes at the expense of the European Commission, the unelected European Union executive body that previously exercised that right across all countries in the Schengen zone. The Commission will no doubt release a press statement later denouncing the rise of 'populists' and warning of the rise of neo-Nazis. It earlier claimed that the Danish government was acting against EU law.

But that's the point. A national government may have broken the law in order to execute the will of 75% of the population (last paragraph is usually where you find facts in most newspapers). And you can hardly say that border controls are an unreasonable demand; pretty much every other country in the world, even other countries in Europe, have them. Surely that only underlines the fact that unelected officials have too much control over what our elected governments - i.e. governments elected by the public - can and can't do? It may or may not have been right, depending on your world view, but you can hardly blame the Danish government for breaking the law.

The legal route and already been tried, and it had failed. Germany, France, and Italy - each of them more than ten times larger than Denmark in terms of population and economy - with their three elected heads of state representing almost two hundred million people had asked the Commission to allow them to reinstate border controls. The Commission refused. There are twenty-seven individuals in the Commission, only one of whom is Danish. Who are they to tell millions of Danish people what they can and cannot do?

A government's first responsibility should always be to its citizens, not to unelected officials. The people should be the highest authority in any democracy; not unelected officials. The people, and the people alone, should be the sole source of law and legislation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't democracy supposed to be 'rule by the people?' Well, that's what this is. The people making decisions - quite reasonable ones - as opposed to unelected individuals. I fail to see how any democrat can disagree with that.

Islamist Ghettoes in the UK Cannot be Tolerated

2011-06-18T05:05:00.000-07:00

The burqa does not empower women.

The existence of places in the UK where individual liberty is under threat from fundamentalist extremists is a national disgrace. Thirty men stormed a gay pub in Tower Hamlets and savagely assaulted the occupants; women have been threatened with assault and even murder if they refuse to wear the veil; east London mosques are blatantly hiring radical preachers who call Jews 'animals' and call for homosexuals to be executed. Even Muslims who do not conform to the most extreme interpretation of their beliefs are liable to being beaten up by gangs of Islamist radicals.

And everyone with the ability to do something about it - whether that is picking up a pen, changing the law, or enforcing laws currently in existence - are carrying on, blissfully unaware of the problem, or try as hard as they can to ignore it. We build giant monuments to the burqa, that famous symbol of 'female empowerment,' whilst women are being forced to wear it against their will on pain of imprisonment or beatings.

There are those that claim that posters that advertise a 'gay-free zone' are the work of the far-right, even when a young Muslim radical was caught with them in his possession, and released without charge. The police, according to reports by several Muslims who have reported crime and one local councillor, do absolutely nothing about the issue - even when the offences take place in the public gallery of the town hall, or on a city street in broad daylight.

It's no wonder that Islamist radicals feel emboldened. I'm not going to stand with the few genuine racists on this issue, who say that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. There are a lot more moderate Muslims than there are extremists. They're the ones you'll see having a quiet drink in a pub with friends - even if it is just orange juice - and giving and receiving Christmas presents. They are out there. But radical Muslims also exist - and, whereas I am more than willing to admit the presence of moderates and to speak in their defence, the defenders of mass-immigration and multiculturalism, and all the various institutions that have ignored their rise, are not willing to admit that radicals exist. Not only is this an indefensible position given that the vast majority of terror plots discovered in the UK, although often logistically and financially supported from Pakistan, were intended to be carried out by British-born radicals, it is also dangerous; the longer we ignore the presence of extremism in British cities, the more brazen the extremists become.

In order to tackle extremism, we must first tackle the social conditions in which extremism arises. The problem, in my opinion, is monolingual, monocultural ghettoes. Compare the extremism of different generations of Muslim immigrants to see where I'm coming from. In 2009, a survey was conducted in various cities across the United Kingdom: based on over two thousand detailed interviews over a two-year period, the report, funded by George Soros (which may, understandably, affect its reliability in the eyes of some of the readers of this blog) concluded that, overall, British Muslims were the best integrated in Europe. 78% of Muslims identified themselves as British.

There was also a significant difference in the popularity of extremism among the different age groups, though, and this is what is important. While older Muslims do not countenance extremist views in any form, Muslims under thirty-five have different opinions. Take for example, the statistic that one in three Muslim students in the UK think that killing in the name of religion is justified, as discovered by an ICM poll for the Daily Telegraph. A Populus poll found that thirteen per cent of young Muslims said that they 'admired' organisations such as al-Qaeda. About twenty per cent of over-fifties would prefer to live under sharia law, compared to almost forty per cent of those under twenty-five. Munira Mirza has the right of it when she blames multiculturalism for the problem: 'the emergence of a strong Muslim identity in Britain is, in part, a result of multi-cultural policies implemented since the 1980s which have emphasised difference at the expense of shared national identity and divided people along ethnic, religious and cultural lines.'

The key difference between the older generation of Muslims and those new to the country is that the older generation had to integrate. They had to learn English and to take on a British identity, and were thus exposed to mainstream society - a society that many of them did become active and valued members of. However, the newcomers do not have to integrate. Due to multiculturalism, which encourages other identities and other languages, Muslims from the same national community (for example, Bangladeshis) have congregated in certain areas and have transplanted the local culture with their own.

They speak their own language - many of them monolingual, others simply unwilling to communicate - and have no exposure to the outside world at all. There are Islamic schools with Saudi curriculums. There are Islamic radio stations. There are Islamic television channels. Nowhere does mainstream British - or, if you like, multicultural - society penetrate their world. Extremist Islam is growing here not because of some innate tendency of Muslims towards jihad, but simply because it is unchallenged, and, due to monolingualism and monoculturalism - actively promoted, ironically, by the doctrine of multiculturalism in order to foster 'diversity' - it is the only option available to many of the inhabitants.

The extremists must lose their hold on the local communities, and, for that to happen, action must be taken to open up these ghettoes to mainstream society; prevent the publication of official documents in any language other than English, impose a two-child limit or child benefit, and ban those who incite violence - jihad, the execution of gays, abuse of women - from mosques and withdraw any public funding that these institutions may have had if they are found to have harboured extremist views.

A Greek Coalition Will End in Tears

2011-06-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

The Greek Revolution?

There is some speculation that the Greek Prime Minister is about to offer his resignation. The embattled premier, George Papandreou, has been attacked from both left and right as a traitor and as a vassal ruler, running the country on behalf of its EU and IMF creditors. 98% of the people blame him and his government for the financial crisis; hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets, and most of them are still camped out in major cities across the country, and eagerly await news of the Prime Minister's resignation speech.

But, however jubilant the celebrations in the public squares, there is more to this supposed 'resignation' than meets the eye. It comes after talks with the conservative opposition leader, where they proposed the formation of a national coalition government, which themselves took place after a formal visit by the President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy, who urged the opposition to unite behind the bailout plans. The conservatives agreed to a national coalition as long as Papandreou wasn't it's head - and so the Greek premier looks like he will get the chop.

Van Rompuy and the party leaders may think that a national government will bring stability. They couldn't be more wrong. They are making a huge mistake that will cost them dearly. The CIA has warned that if further austerity is imposed upon the country then there may be a coup d'etat. And what is going on now, if not for negotiations about yet another massive bailout plan, and yet more austerity?One third of the population, according to respected polling company Public Issue, now support a 'revolution.' There are tens of thousands of protestors camped out in major cities. There are armed left-wing rebel groups and far-right nationalists launching racist pogroms on the immigrant population. A coalition goverment would remove the last democratic means of expressing popular anger; if one party is held responsible for the crisis, it can be replaced. But what if both are involved? What then?

I should clarify that I don't support a Greek revolution, but there really is no other option for many of the tens of thousands of people already camped out in front of the parliament building. I'm not going to argue over who is responsible: I'd say that it's a combination of Greek political arrogance and the inherent faults in the euro, but that's not the point. The point is that the Greeks are a nation on their knees. The crushing austerity measures, the mass-unemployment, the constant political chaos, and the collapse in government administration after a wave of general strikes has set the stage; now all it needs is a single leader or leadership council to unite the 98% of Greeks who blame the government behind them, and it's all over.

Unless the EU, the IMF, and the Greek government seriously consider other options then the Greeks will have their revolution.