We do not have to listen to Brussels fanatics any more
THE vote for Brexit represented a triumph of democracy over the dogma of European integration. For the first time in its destructive history Brussels was beaten by the force of national freedom.
That is why the European Union has reacted so furiously to the referendum result. The over-paid oligarchs, shaken by the challenge to their rule, have been desperate to stop the spread of liberty to other member states. At the same time they are determined to teach us in Britain a lesson for our impudence by seeking to make the process of withdrawal as painful as possible.
As they push for the start of Brexit talks they have chosen a phalanx of aggressive negotiators who are united by their belief in European integration and their disdain for British interests.
Heading the team is the former French foreign minister Michel Bernier, who favours bureaucratic intervention over free market capitalism. When he was appointed, one City of London analyst reacted with dismay. “I can’t see how it could be worse. It’s incredibly provocative,” he said.
Supporting this Gallic interventionist is Didier Seeuws, a Belgian official who used to be chief of staff to the notorious EU Commission president Herman Van Rompuy, that fervent opponent of traditional nationhood.
BUT when it comes to support for federalism all these ideologues are outclassed by the fanatical Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister. Last week it was announced that Verhofstadt is to be the European Parliament’s lead negotiator on Brexit, a position to which he will bring all his blazing antipathy towards national independence.
This is the man who is so immersed in fashionable liberal, anti-Western guilt that after the deadly Islamist attack on Brussels airport this year he blamed the “poverty and unemployment which prevails in so many communities”.
But he also exploited the atrocity to demand more political unity. “If we are to defeat those who wish to harm us,” he said, “we need collective European action.” That obsessive focus on federalism is typical of Verhofstadt.
A vehement advocate of a United States of Europe he has called for a stronger Brussels executive, an EU army and police force and the creation of an EU-wide tax system. “Citizens should pay less to their governments and more to the EU,” he says.
In all this frenzied rhetoric he cannot hide his disdain for us. “Britain without the EU is in fact a dwarf on the world level,” he said.
After the referendum he sneered that “Britain has chosen isolation in Europe against the advice of its friends and allies. Its post-imperial decline is complete.” The very idea that we should allow our fate to be dictated by the likes of Verhofstadt and Bernier is grotesque.
These federalists want humiliation, not harmony. Verhofstadt has even described us as “an adversary”. But we do not have to allow them to set the agenda.
If our new Government under Theresa May had the guts they could instantly end the whole fiasco by walking away from the negotiating table. In that case Verhofstadt and his cronies would be left to rant at empty space.
Contrary to what the “Remoaners” and the pro-EU
WHAT could the EU do about it? Send in its nonexistent army? Ask Verhofstadt to deliver another of his lectures?
It is precisely to stop any backsliding that a new crossparty pressure group called Change Britain has just been established, featuring such heavyweight figures as Michael Gove, the SDP founder David Owen and Labour’s Gisela Stuart, one of the stars of the referendum campaign.
As Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said in a message of support to the group, the Government has to listen to what the British people said in June. “Brexit means delivering on their instructions and restoring UK control over laws, borders, money and trade,” Boris rightly declared.
In truth there is nothing to negotiate before we leave. The Remoaners shriek that we must have a trade deal with the EU but this is just more scaremongering. The importance of trade agreements, as shrewd ex-Cabinet minister Peter Lilley has put it, is “grossly exaggerated. Countries succeed with or without them”.
Even without any agreement we would – like all other nations – still have full access to the single market, while any tariffs would still be far lower than our former contribution to the EU. We already trade intensively with countries such as the USA, China and India, none of which have concluded a formal deal with us. That trade will expand now we are liberated from Brussels’ misrule. Ours is a bright future. It is Verhofstadt’s sclerotic, doctrinaire EU which is facing decline.
‘Lengthy negotiations are unnecessary’