‘Europe has turned into a ship of fools, and they’re not looking at the rocks in front of them’
GREGORY Shenkman is a banker by trade and he has worked and lived extensively abroad. His paternal grandparents arrived in England from Russia via Germany in the 1920s.
He is “very grateful” they stayed here. Mr Shenkman spent 1995 to 1999 working in the Benelux countries, where he had “a good look around inside the heart of the EU beast”. What do you think of the European Union? I voted to stay in 1975, it seemed like a good idea back then. We all believed that it was an economic arrangement, which many of us now understand was largely false. When the global financial crisis came in 2008, the tide went out and all the rocks came into sight, especially in southern Europe, where they’d been living the life of Riley for nine years. The eurozone has become a disaster area and we should distance ourselves from it. This is a prime reason for Brexit. How much of an issue is immigration? If the EU can’t solve the immigration issue in the next two months, we will not have to think about sovereignty or economics. This failure will be enough to show the EU is a busted flush. I’m deeply concerned by mass immigration of people who are culturally alien to our whole structure of life in Europe – we need to absorb the ones we’ve already got before we take in more. Immigration in itself is a good thing but unmanaged mass immigration can be a disaster, particularly for UK people at the bottom of the pile.
Some would argue that the EU has kept peace in Europe for decades.
That makes me laugh. Our protection is down to Nato and only Nato. Peace in Europe was inevitable anyway until 1989, when we all faced the common enemy of the Soviet Union. Since then, Nato has continued to provide the security blanket. Anyway, the EU is hopeless at foreign policy. Whenever they get involved it’s a mess.
Do we send too much money to the EU?
That’s obviously true. Ten billion is the lowest number that can be put on it. It is only 0.5 per cent of our GDP, but why would you want to give that away if you’re not getting anything back?
Why do you think the Government is urging people to vote Remain?
I don’t want to be nasty about David Cameron. He’s good at being Prime Minister and he’s a pragmatist but if you lead a political party you must have a clear idea where you’re going: if you’re heading for the rocks you must steer away. Europe has turned into Plato’s ship of fools and they’re not looking at the rocks in front of them. A eurozone catastrophe is coming.
What do you think of Obama urging people to vote to remain in the EU?
America has always wanted Britain in there as we’re their closest ally. So it is in their best interest to keep their main ally in the EU. Do I think he was lined up by Cameron? I expect he was, but he would have pushed us to stay anyway. The US is not thinking about our interest here, but their own.