Nosemonkey's EUtopia

A quicky link to an interesting Spiked article from a few days ago, Euro-elites desperately seeking demos, which follows on nicely from Spain’s low voter turnout in last weekend’s referendum and my latest moan about the state of the debate. Some highlights:

The principal danger for the EU in the constitution referendums is not a ‘no’ vote, though this may be a problem in the UK. It is that too few people vote. For a constitution intended to forge a sense of common identity and belonging, disinterest would be even worse than rejection…

The right has attacked the constitution as eviscerating national parliaments, and paving the way towards a Brussels-based super-state… But the strength of this argument comes less from the public’s passionate euro-scepticism, than from a more generalised disenchantment with politics…

Meanwhile the left argues that the constitution goes too far in consolidating the neo-liberal economic model underpinning the EU’s Single Market…

Both critiques serve only to deepen public cynicism. The idea of a Brussels super-state panders to people’s sense of disempowerment – the invocation of a Trojan horse can only lead to a ‘don’t be duped!’ rallying cry. This is conspiracy theory masking as critique, with the same effect on public cynicism as the ‘no war for oil’ claim made over Iraq. Perpetuating this grubby vision of politics driven by private interests can only encourage a further withdrawal from politics.

The EU Constitution should instead be understood for what it is: an attempt to infuse the EU, and the whole project of European integration, with a degree of popular support…

The difficulty lies in the fact that, regardless of the wishes of Eurocrats and the fears of euro-sceptics, the EU is not a state. The state today must be democratic, and democracy is only possible with popular sovereignty. Yet there is no European demos, no European constituent political power.

There are some good points in there – no matter what opinion you may have of the thing.

Via the superb Siberian Light, yet more news of a really rather worrying revival of Soviet-style state propaganda in Russia.

Now I may well be over-reacting here, but for some reason the idea of a television station run by the military, explicitly aiming to promote “national pride”, which features children’s programmes is cause for rather a lot of concern. Smacks somewhat of the old-style Pravda, brainwashing and the like…

The fact that in the UK we’re currently talking about banning fast food ads for the effects they can have on kids (which personally I’d say is taking state intervention a tad far, but that’s probably the old Tory in me) at least gives some indication of how influential adverts can be on young minds. How likely do you really reckon it is that these children’s programmes are not going to have any subtle, militaristic messages behind them?

Come on George, as I’ve said before, we need you to say more of this sort of stuff.

Updated with exciting Russia-based bonus material!:

• “Russia, for the U.S., is a more reliable ally in the fight than many old friends”
• “The number of issues where Russia and the US disagree has increased”
• Debunking the case against Putin’s authoritarianism

Don�t get me wrong, I am not trying to cause offence or tarring all religious people with the same brush here. Plenty of religious people are lovely, I have no doubt. Hell, some of my best friends are religious.

But when a rabid Christian lobbying organisation intimidates a cancer charity into refusing a �10,000 donation, that�s the point when I really start to wonder about the whole bloody thing. (This is, you�ll be unsurprised to hear, the same maniacs who kicked up such a fuss over the broadcast of Jerry Springer: The Opera that BBC executives ended up receiving death threats, and who also have links to Robert Kilroy-Silk�s Veritas party.) Hat tip to Harry�s Place.

I really don�t understand the attraction of religion. I mean, most of us have given up on the idea of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny by the time we�ve hit double figures, right? As nice an idea as they no doubt are, they�re simply not very believable, when you get down to it.

�Behave yourself and Santa will give you pressies; be naughty, you won�t get any.� After a few years, you start to think � hang on, I�ve never actually SEEN this Santa chap, have I? This is all a scam, isn�t it? Yet so many of us still maintain our faith in that other great scam: �behave yourself and God will let you into Heaven; be naughty and you�ll go to Hell.� Yeah. Riiiiight. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Etc.

Anyway, the point is, what�s so wonderful about this God chap that so many people are prepared to cause so many other people so much grief and hassle in His name? And if He does exist, do they really think He�d approve of all their self-righteous bullshit? If the old beardy bloke is knocking around up there somewhere, I think it’s time for a few of those old thunderbolts we used to hear so much about. Time to get all Old Testament on their arses – they’re taking Thy name in vain, old son. (Oh, and while you’re at it, a cure to all diseases and a spot of World Peace wouldn’t go amiss – you are all-powerful, after all… It’s about bloody time, don’t you think? Cheers.)

Enter the Comments section, stage right, hoards of offended Christians utterly missing the point and asking me whether I seriously think this is worse than Islamic suicide bombers, no doubt�

Against my better judgement I bought The Independent on the way in to work this morning (purely for Ralph Steadman’s front page piece on his old buddy Dr Gonzo). Flicking through the rest, I spotted the most inane leader headline I’ve seen for a long time:

Europe’s leaders need to learn from Spain’s referendum if they are to win the EU vote

Now, call me a cynic (maybe my old Euroscepticism started to resurface for a bit), but my first reaction on seeing that was “what, learn to keep your populations ignorant of what the constitution entails, bombard them with propaganda, and try to convince them that the result is so absolutely guaranteed that none of the buggers actually bother voting?”

Actually, the piece is arguing “Spain, of course, was always exected to be the most pro-European of these countries [holding referenda]. Naturally, say its critics, because it has benefited most from the subsidies. This is unfair… If anything, Spain lost out most in terms of voting powers from the new constitution. That it has thrown itself so completely into ratification of the treaty is a tribute to the enthusiasm and energy of its new prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.”

With this bizarrely simplistic revival of Whiggish “great man theory“, the Indy (which frequently does deserve the derogatory “Europhile” epithet, even I’ll admit) then argues that, for Britain to replicate Spain’s yes vote, what is needed is for Tony Blair to start campaigning vigorously for it now. Sod the General Election. Sod the UK’s upcoming EU presidency. Blair should concentrate on spreading the good news about the beneficial aspects of the EU constitution.

Bollocks, should he. If he wants a yes vote he should leave well enough alone. After the last few years of lies and distortions eminating from Downing Street if Blair tells the country that something is good for them everyone would be entirely justified in believing precisely the opposite. In fact, no one from the cabinet is really to be believed any more. The worst thing for the Yes Campaign would be to gain the vocal support of Blair and his cronies.

What us pro-EUers really need is for the likes of Blair, Hain, Mandelson, MacShane and the rest to keep their bloody mouths shut, as every time they say something it’s so overly simplistic and arrogant-sounding that the Eurosceptics are instantly up in arms. The “patriotic case” for the constitution would once have been possible to convincingly construct – but not now that the government has co-opted it with the typically unthinking accusations that the constitution’s opponents are xenophobes, “little Englanders” and the like.

Yes, some of them doubtless are; others have actually thought about it more sensibly, analysed the pros and cons (often with a rather scary level of obsessiveness), and have genuinely concluded that it’s not in the country’s best interests to shift decisions which can affect our daily lives to the other side of the Channel. Those views should be respected, not ridiculed, and those who hold them should be engaged in constructive debate about the issues, not dismissed as cranks. And – most importantly – the spokespeople from the pro-EU side need to make sure that they are just as knowledgable and well-briefed as their opponents.

All too often, pro-EU voices in the mainstream media talk purely in terms of generalisations and platitudes, while the Eurosceptics tend to focus in on specific issues. This generally makes it seem like pro-EU people haven’t got a clue what they’re talking about, which discredits the whole argument, and anyone else making the pro-EU case. The assumptions made in some comments on this very blog are indicative of the growing assumption on the anti side that anyone pro-EU simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

The fact that the whole thing is so bloody complicated naturally means that there are alternative viewpoints. I disagree entirely with the conclusions of, say, The Scotsman’s Bill Jamieson, but I respect his conclusions because they’re based on solid research and a level of understanding of international finance which I doubt I will ever achieve. (Well, that and the fact he’s been a very close friend of the family for as long as I can remember and is always entertaining at the dinner table…)

What the Yes Campaign needs is not for politicians to come out and laud the bloody thing, but for respected, high-profile independent experts to come out in support. (Eddie Izzard, I’m afraid, isn’t quite what is needed – although he certainly helps a bit.) The Yes Campaign also really needed these pro-EU experts to have started emerging at least a decade ago to actually hold any weight in the eyes of the public. Those people who emerge in favour of the constitution now will look like they’re in it purely for campaigning; on the anti side there are the likes of Jamieson and Richard North who have been moderately high profile in their opposition to the EU for years. The fact that they have been demonstrably involved for such a long time means their view will hold more weight in the eyes of the public than some gadfly from the yes camp who pops up a few months before the referendum.

In short, the only thing the pro camp in Britain can really learn from Spain’s yes vote is how to make excuses. Much as the Eurosceptics are trying to save face by pointing to the low turnout (lack of enthusiasm, you see?) and lack of understanding of the document (if they knew what they were voting about, they’d vote no), British pro-Europeans will probably have to try similar tactics when the vote is lost here next year. Britain votes no, the excuses will be exactly the same – low turnout means it’s not representative of the view of the population as a whole, and lack of understanding means that those who voted no didn’t really know what they were doing.

In other words, nothing will have really changed – except for we will have pissed off a decent chunk of our European allies for preventing them from moving ahead. The responsibility for any no vote, however, will lie entirely with the inadequate explanations of the self-appointed spokesmen of the pro-EU cause. After decades of avoiding the uncomfortable facts about the problems of the way the EU works and delivering all pro-EU messages in a such patronising and simplistic tones, everyone is suspicious of any positive take on the thing. This has – combined with some brilliantly subtle distortions of reality from the Eurosceptic camp – also made it practically impossible to be truly honest.

If a British pro-EU spokesman now were to admit that “Yes, the EU probably is heading towards a more federalised structure,” this would instantly be interpreted (falsely, I hasten to add) as meaning “The EU is becoming a superstate, and all the traditional nations will be swallowed by this corrupt and bureaucratic behemoth”. Thanks to a combination of a superb job of subtle distortion by the anti-EU brigade and a piss-poor job of not so subtle over-simplification by the pro-EU side, such admissions can no longer be made lest they be utterly misrepresented and misinterpreted. Thanks to the lack of a standard interpretation of the terminology, honest debate about the EU has become impossible.

Either way, Barcepundit has a superb round-up of reactions to the Spanish vote.

In 1968, while tramping through New Hampshire on the presidential campaign trail, Richard Nixon asked one of his aides to pick a representative from the press pool, someone knowlegeable about football with whom the former vice-president and rabid sports fan could relax with while on a long car journey. At the airport the young journalist headed towards Nixon with the intent of shaking hands:

“But suddenly I was seized from behind and jerked away from the plane. Good God, I thought as I reeled backwards, Here We Go… ‘Watch Out!’ somebody was shouting. ‘Get the cigarette!’ A hand lashed out of the darkness to snatch the cigarette out of my mouth, then other hands kept me from falling and I recognized the voice of Nick Ruwe, Nixon’s chief advance man for New Hampshire, saying, ‘God damnit, Hunter, you almost blew up the plane!’
I shrugged. He was right. I’d been leaning over the fuel tank with a burning butt in my mouth. Nixon smiled and reached out to shake hands again, while Ruwe muttered darkly and the others stared down at the asphalt.”
_{(from Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72)}

This passage contains much of what was essential about Hunter S Thompson. An obsession with sports and politics, an anarchic recklessness that bordered on the lunatic and an inherent mistrust of anyone in a position of power all presented in the most innocent of ways, as if chaos formed spontaneously around him through no action of his own. He was found earlier today, dead of a self-inflicted gun wound at the age of 67.

Along with Tom Wolfe, Thompson was the foremost proponent of The New Journalism. His own brand of this, which he called ‘Gonzo’, relied on the active presence of the writer in his own, partially fictionalized, narrative. It’s inception came in 1966 with the publication of Hells Angels, a searching study of the growing cult of motorcycle gangs a major part in which was played by Thompson himself – he was later brutally ‘stomped’ by one of the gangs in question after an argument over money.

He started his writing career as a renegade sports reporter for the official newspaper of Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Shortly after his discharge (unsurprisingly, under a cloud) Thompson briefly worked in New York before embarking on a lengthy series of travels in South America where he honed his style in a number of pithy despatches capturing the seedy side of life south of the border .

Thompson will be best remembered for his 1972 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Now both protagonists are dead or missing (his sidekick Oscar Acosta – known in the book as ‘Dr Gonzo’ – disappeared in the mid-1970s) we will never know exactly how much of this drug-fuelled rampage, part travelogue, part sports report, part intoxicated breakdown of the state of the nation c.1970, was true. What is undeniable is its importance and influence among a whole generation of writers .

However, his greatest work is probably Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. Thompson’s blow-by-blow account of the 1972 election is breathlessly jet-propelled reportage that combines a fierce idealism with a brutally realist cynicism. It is the perfect example of Thompson’s character as writer – at once certain the worst would happen while powerfully indignant at the failure of the best. In true Gonzo style, Thompson did not limit himself to writing about politics. In 1970 he ran a suitably doomed campaign for Sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado on a ticket that included the legalisation of all drugs and renaming Aspen “Fat City”.

The late 70’s onwards saw a decline in Thompson’s work. He never produced anything as focussed or brilliant as the two ‘Fear and Loathing’ books though his last major published work, Kingdom of Fear, has traces of the old genius and the two collections of his correspondence (The Proud Highway and Fear and Loathing in America) are of some interest. Appropriately his best piece of writing in this period was his Rolling Stone obituary for Richard Nixon.

Thompson was a raving egoist. He was also, arguably, a one-trick pony whose prominence declined as the novelty wore off, kept going only by perenniel revivals of interest in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (indeed, his popularity in recent years is pretty much due entirely to Terry Gilliam’s 1998 cinematic adaptation). However, he should also be saluted for the inspiration his unique voice sparked in others, and the almost palpable rage he vented over the collapse of 1960s ideals in favour of Lyndon Johnson’s slick pragmatism and the dark savagery he saw embodied in Richard Nixon. He was the last writer to really display the world of politics as it should be, stripped bare of suits, civility and sanity. To many of us, he will be greatly missed.

Hurrah! As President Bush heads across the pond, The Periscope keeps up the good work of finding useful links and the like, and the New York Times reports that the Pres will make the sensible point that “our strong friendship is essential to peace and prosperity across the globe – and no temporary debate, no passing disagreement of governments, no power on earth will ever divide us.”

Meanwhile, The National Review celebrates these attempts to heal the transatlantic rifts with a simply brilliant piece of stereotypical nonsense which almost reads like a parody of the worst examples of American anti-Europeanism of the last few years.

It hits all the bases in an absolutely atypical over-exaggeration of all that’s wrong with ‘Urp – usually based on some kind of reality, but distored beyond all reason. In fact, it’s almost an exact mirror-image of the worst sort of “anti-Americanism” that has come out of the EU over the last few years – only more so:

• The EU’s economy is reliant on that of the US? Check.
• European militaries full of “rapists, thugs, robbers, and killers”? Check.
• Hypocricy of the likes of accusing EU states of basing their foreign policies on their “very large oil and other investments”? Check.
• Europe is anti-Semitic? Check.
• The problems in the Middle-East are Europe’s fault? Check.
• We have “fancy schools like Eton”? Check.
• We’re ignorant (“In Britain, only a small fraction of people under 30 knew anything about Auschwitz”)? Check.
• France “eagerly collaborated in the Holocaust”? Check.
• France is “playing enabler to anti-Semitic terrorism”? Check.
• France and Germany are obsolete (“if they were American sitcoms, would be cancelled”)? Check.
• France and Germany’s only policy motivation is “anti-Americanism”? Check.
• Policies not based on hatred are based on “arrogance”? Check.
• They also hate “the culture of the American people”? Check.
• French and German opposition to the war on terror is purely populist? Check.
• Everything is Europe’s fault? Check.

Fun fun fun. Even when Bush finally starts to try and rebuild old friendships, certain sections of the US (and, yes, also of the EU) have so completely swallowed all the bullshit that’s been bandied about that all they can do is spew it back out again. This is precisely why hyperbole is not a useful tool in political discourse. What should happen is approximately this:

Bush: Right, I admit it, there were no WMDs and no links to al Qaida, we just wanted to get rid of Saddam. Partly to open up Iraqi oil again, partly – genuinely – to bring democracy to the country. And yes, I know it’s hypocritical to try to promote democracy in Iraq when two of our key regional allies are the military dictatorship of Pakistan and absolutist monarchy of Saudi Arabia, but we have to go with what we’ve got. Yes, I also know that Iraq hasn’t gone as well as it might, and that we buggered up the post-war planning something rotten, but we are trying. Honest.

France and Germany: Fair enough. We opposed the war primarily because we had a sweet deal going on with the Iraqi regime, but also because we genuinely thought your reasons were bollocks and didn’t like the direction your foreign policy seemed to be heading (yes, partially because it seemed to make us increasingly irrelevant on the world stage). And – yes – you’ve got a point, opposing your administration is a good vote winner where we come from. You’ve got us there. But still, we reckon you fucked it up pretty bad, and your utter lack of tact and diplomacy when talking about our attitudes at the time hardly helped matters. You could have won us round if you’d had a bit more patience and were slightly less aggressive. No one likes a bully, and that’s how you were coming across. It pissed us off, because we know you’re bigger and stronger than us, but sizable chunks of our respective populations still think we’re genuinely world powers. We know we’re not, but we have to make a show of it every now and again…

Bush: Yeah, my bad. So, you on side for clearing up the mess now?

France and Germany: Yeah, go on then…

*France, Germany and Bush skip off hand in hand for a great big love-fest, as Tony Blair sits on the edge of the bed holding the camcorder*

The other day, over at The Yorkshire Ranter, there was a piece about how Americans seem to think the British bloggosphere is effectively nonexistent. It was a prescient post, it seems…

Hell, I mean if abject failure Iain Duncan Smith says blogging’s got potential (especially for the Conservative party’s revival), it must be dead, right? This is coming from the man who said he’d lead the Tories to victory in the forthcoming General Election, but who is now a balding nonentity on the backbenches. This is also coming from a politician so on the cutting edge of technological change that his own website doesn’t appear on the first three pages of Google after a search for his name. Hardly the soothsayer UK political bloggers were after…

Judging by my own experiences of the UK bloggosphere, the whole thing is indeed largely pointless. A determined few, led primarily by Manic over at Bloggerheads via campaigns such as his latest Backing Blair lark are genuinely trying to make a difference. Around 80% of the rest seem to be either single-issue obsessives, vindictive arseholes or nowhere near as educated or clever as they think they are. The remaining 20% is made up of people – like me – who really just want to be columnists on a national newspaper. Why the hell do our opinions matter? Precisely.

As for this blog, despite having built up a respectable amount of traffic since I started updating it regularly at the end of August last year, it has thus far achieved precisely bugger all – beyond wasting my time and causing me a lot of irritation. Although I know that several thousand people read the bloody thing each week, the majority of the interaction via the comments section and emails etc. seems to come from fellow bloggers – many of whom are never going to agree with me about anything.

I seem neither to have convinced anyone about my point of view on anything nor to have provoked any real thought, as most comments seem utterly to have missed the point. The only thing which is nice is the occasional word of praise from someone who agrees with me entirely. There is, apparently, no middle ground – even though I’d count myself as a political centrist and support no single party, so should be able to find common cause with people from across the political spectrum.

It could, however, be different with other political bloggers. As I have no agenda (despite what some may think) beyond wanting to think about the issues a bit and work out where I stand, coming high up the Google rankings for various search terms is merely a minor ego-boost (after all, I’m writing this under a pseudonym – it’s hard to be overly impressed that my “Nosemonkey” persona is doing well, and Nosemonkey’s success is unlikely to get me any work under my own name). For political parties and MPs blogs may be useful for promoting their policies and profiles online, but I doubt they will ever win fresh converts.

Unfortunately, for politicians to blog presupposes that any normal member of the public can actually be arsed to look up anything political on the interwebnet, rather than merely buggering about downloading movies and hunting for free porn. Most people interested in politics (who make their presence known online) seem to be committed to one particular party and one particular world view. They are frequently dogmatic and vehement in their support for their chosen ethos, and either contemptuous of those who disagree or unwilling to actually pay sufficient attention to alternative arguments before responding with a stock answer which is only vaguely related to the initial topic. These people are not likely to be won over by reasoned argument, or even to visit sites written by people with whom they disagree other than to look for a fight.

The blog of EU Commissioner Margot Wallstrom is a prime case in point. Her comments section has thus far seen two kinds of response, and two kinds of response alone: (1) Uncritical support from random passing EU citizens who think what she’s doing is an interesting new approach, and (2) General attacks (rarely, if ever, confined to the topic of her postings) on both her personally and the EU in general from strongly anti-EU bloggers and their loyalist readers.

The ratio between positive and negative comments is approximately 1:10 – the anti-EU lot are there in their droves, apparently determined to make the poor woman so fed up with the whole thing that she simply gives in. Exactly the scame scenario can be seen over at the Yes Campaign Blog‘s comments section, and – on and off – in the comments sections of most UK politicians’ blogs (bar that of the widely popular Boris).

The damage that these attacks by people who disagree can do was especially apparent during the Hartlepool by-election, where the rabid tactics of anonymous posters trying to undermine the chances of Lib Dem candidate Jody Dunn were quite possibly a factor in her losing the election. There was also some unpleasantness (some of which could have resulted in libel writs were it to have taken place in traditional print media) revolving around online campaigners against Lib Dem MP Sandra Gidley – and the ongoing Gidley Watch blog is another example of the pitfalls for politicians if your opponents decide to get obsessive. The experiences of Dunn and Gidley prove amply that blogging is just as likely to be a curse for politicians – the benefits do not necessarily outweigh the potential pitfalls.

In short, Duncan Smith is talking out of his arse. Again. And UK political bloggers really do have a long, long way to go. Maybe Tim Worsthall’s idea of a UK political blog roundup may help change things and get us bloggers (of whatever political persuasion) acting a tad more constructively together to build up proper online networks and sensible debates, but it has to be said that from what I’ve seen so far I’m not too optimistic…

Sunday update: Think I’m a whinging cynic? Have a read of Martin Stabe’s more considered analysis of the British bloggosphere.

The Periscope is going to be keeping tabs on Bush’s trip over the next few days, and already has lots of useful links.

It will, however, be a visit I shall probably avoid mentioning too much, as it appears that certain visitors to this blog are determined to misinterpret every single last thing I say whenever it comes to the transatlantic relationship (and various other areas for that matter). I really can’t be arsed to get into more pointless spats with people who think I’m some kind of anti-American maniac due to their inability to bother reading what I’ve actually written rather than what their ill-formed preconceptions lead them to think I’ve said. (Can you sense some exasperation here, perchance?)

In other news, European Commission President Jos� Manuel Barroso has been a bit of an idiot, and got involved in a dispute about electioneering. He is, of course, supposed to be obliged not to poke his nose into partisan politics as the supposedly neutral effective figurehead of the EU. This Commission really hasn’t been doing too well thus far, and is hardly helping the cause, it must be said…

Oh yes, and for those of us hoping that the Iranian situation can be resolved nicely via diplomacy may be interested by the news that Moscow is backing Tehran all the way on this one, and is determined to continue helping the Iranian nuclear programme. Or is this just another Putin ploy?

The Bruge Group is often responsible for spouting abject pap and inanities about the EU. This particular piece of nonsense, however, is based on so much non-logic that it is almost unbelievable.

Step One: Make a wildly over-the-top analogy in the very first sentence of a long and supposedly analytical piece on the constitution, and act as if that analogy is so accurate that is in on the level of indisputable truth.

To wit: “What is the meaning of the “constitution” of something resembling a new Soviet Union in Europe?”

By the simple addition of the word “Soviet” (which actually means, lest we forget, one of the legislative assemblies of the former USSR, and is not anything but superficially comparable to the various local, regional and national assemblies of any of the EU states), a hint of something sinister and anti-capitalist enters the analysis from the get-go.

Step Two: Ignore any concept of political philosophy or the history of ideas, ignore any concept of logic, and forget all you were ever told about that old nonsense about how the progression “All dogs are brown, Alfred is brown, therefore Alfred is a dog” makes no logical sense.

To wit: Now that we have “established” that the EU is effectively Soviet, that means it must be Marxist (which is obviously bad and with no redeeming features).

So now we claim that “The philosophical root of Marxism is found in Hegel,” which – in itself – is a moderately fair over-simplification of an incredibly complex philosophy of political economy.

Next, we claim “So is the philosophical root of racism [found in Hegel], and so too is the root of totalitarian nationalism,” thus heavily implying that “because we claim x and y have the same root, z, this means that a – which we claim also to have the same root as x and y – will necessarily follow the same paths as x and y. Even though x and y did not follow the same paths, and a neither has the same root nor is actually related to either x, y or z.”

Step three: Introduce an “if” factor which has no basis in current reality, and combine this with your implication based on a flawed over-simplification, from step two, to predict a worrying course of events.

To wit: “If the EU/NSU [I think they mean “New Soviet Union”] bans the nation-state, it risks leading either to the anarchy, the gangsterdom, of class, race, tribal, linguistic, or religious self-interest or to the authoritarian imposition of empire.”

Because after all, the EU is “Soviet”, and because “Soviet” means “Marxist” and because Marxism was rooted in Hegelian philosophy, which was also – we claim (based on very little actual fact) – the root cause of racism and totalitarianism, therefore the EU must inevitably lead to racism and totalitarianism.

Genius.

Of course, the only relationship any of this incredible and turgid rubbish has to either Hegel or Marx is that it, like both of those political philosophers, swallows whole a teleological, linear approach to history which presupposes that there is some kind of overarching, unchangeable destiny controlling all events. It is on a par with a medieval peasant assuming the crops failed because God was angry, rather than because he forgot to water the bloody things.

I hereby declare The Bruge Group to be populated either by ill-educated morons or by devious bastards deliberately trying to distort the debate over the constitution with calculated and flagrant misrepresentations of the facts. If pushed, I’d probably opt for the former.

Via The Transatlantic Assembly, a link to an interesting new blog, The Fundamental Principles of the European constitution. Don’t know how this one kept below the radar, but it looks to be trying to provide an overview of the various debates over ratification throughout the EU. The danger for us UK-based EU-watchers is that it is very easy to assume everyone else will approve the thing. Not necessarily so. This new blog could be a very handy resource.

Elsewhere, Publius takes a look at justice and the EU constitution, which follows on nicely from my last post, and actually gives both pause for thought about some of my (entirely theoretical) claims and something approaching confirmation about some of my contentions of the legal protection against the state that the constitution may provide:

“depuis le trait� de Maastricht, c’est-�-dire depuis que des objectifs politiques ont �t� assign�s � l’Union europ�enne, la collaboration en mati�re judiciaire est un des objectifs de l’Union…. [mais] Tout cela n’est pas chang� avec la constitution europ�enne, qui respecte donc la libert� interne des Etats-membres…

“Il y a toutefois une nouveaut� importante : la deuxi�me partie de la Constitution pr�voit une “charte des droits fondamentaux de l’Union”. Les articles II-107 et suivants viennent �lever au niveau europ�en des droits qui existaient d�j� dans un autre ordre juridique, celui de la cour europ�enne des droits de l’Homme : pr�somption d’innocence, tribunal impartial, r�gle non bis in idem… Rien de tr�s innovateur, mais l’existence de ces droits dans la Constitution est �videmment un plus, parce que progressivement, ils pourront �tre sanctionn�s au niveau europ�en : on s’approche (� tout petit pas) de l’unification entre cour europ�enne des droits de l’Homme et cour de justice des communaut�s europ�ennes.

“Le texte est porteur de promesses, et non de d�cisions. De nombreuses choses seront constitutionnellement possibles, mais cela ne suffira pas � vaincre les r�ticences des Etats, qui disposeront de moyens l�gaux importants pour diff�rer ou emp�cher l’adoption d’une loi d’harmonisation… n�anmoins, il y a des choses tr�s int�ressantes, et la possibilit�, � long terme (� mon avis, au moins 20 ans) de voir se constituer quelques bases, en proc�dure civile, en droit et en proc�dure p�nale, d’un “droit europ�en” commun � toute l’union.”

Roughly translated:

“since the treaty of Maastricht, i.e. since political objectives were brought within the EU’s remit, collaboration on issues of law is one of the objectives of the Union… [but] each State maintains its own rights and its own legal organisation. None of that is altered by the European constitution, which thus respects the internal freedom of the Member States…

“There is however an important innovation: the second part of the Constitution envisages a “charter of the basic rights of the Union”. Articles II-107 and following raise to a European level the rights which existed already in another legal order, that of the European Court of Human Rights: presumption of innocence, fair trials, the concept of double jeopardy… Nothing very innovative, but the existence of these rights in the Constitution is obviously one more step, because gradually they could be sanctioned at the European level: one approaches (very gradually) the unification of the European Court of Humans Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Communities…

“The text is full of promises… Many things will be constitutionally possible, but that will not be enough to overcome the reservations of the member states, which will have important legal means to diverge from or prevent the adoption of harmonised, EU-wide legal rights… nevertheless, there are some very interesting possibilities, and the chance, in the long run (in my opinion, at least 20 years) to see the basis of some foundation – in civil litigation, civil rights and penal procedure – of ‘European rights’ common to the whole union.”

Let’s hope so, eh?

A few days old, but blogging Eurosceptic Labour MP Austin Mitchell raises some very good points (as well as a few suspect ones) about the way the government is treating the constitutional referendum.

It does, it must be admitted, rather appear as if the government is trying to prevent a proper parliamentary debate about the constitution. A proper debate should, considering that the government claims that people are anti-constitution because they don’t know about it, be a great opportunity to raise public awareness. So what are they playing at? Over to Austin:

“The carefully stage managed Maastricht debates look like a festival of free democratic debate compared to this exercise in obfuscation and suppression…

“To facilitate this Bum’s rush we are being deprived of essential information. Government promised a commentary on the Constitution as a Command Paper in advance of Government’s second reading to be available to key opinion formers. As of now the paper hasn’t emerged. Merely 500 photocopied pages from the Commons Vote Office. Most people, even most MPs, won’t see this.

“The Constitution itself is an enormous, almost unreadable, document of 448 articles, 36 protocols, two annexes and 50 declarations, all with the excitement and intellectual coherence of cold porridge. Yet government hasn�t yet given us its own analysis or its views on the many new provisions which have been smuggled in.”

I disagree with many of Austin’s conclusions about the contents of the constitution, but it is very hard not to agree with his fundamental point:

“[the government] should listen to the views of Parliament and people and allow full and free debate in Parliament before any referendum… You can’t win wholehearted consent by confidence tricks, half truths and closing down debate.”

Via Vodkapundit, a similar take on the EU / US relationship to mine from the other day (the basic point of which seemed, judging by the comments section, to have been missed by some readers). Interesting stuff and worth a look:

Take the “Greater Middle East” and imagine Europe and the United States working in tandem rather than vying with each other for influence. Imagine a well-choreographed “good cop, bad cop” tack on Iran, with the United States providing the muscle, lack of which has consistently stultified the Europeans as they tried to sweet-talk Tehran into abandoning the bomb. Or Israel/Palestine. In the past, the United States and France have worked at cross-purposes, with Paris keener on competing than on collaborating with Washington in the Middle East. Together, the European Union and the United States could ensure that this promising post-Arafat moment does not vanish once more in the roar of terrorist bombs.