The Bewilderness

Defrauding Italy is not praiseworthy

The European Union has a problem with fraud in most of its spending programes. Some countries have no fraud at all. Their farmers are completely honest. The Commission should make more of this good news!

But, does fraud become farce when certain countries with a problematic record on honesty in the public sphere are criticised for being "overzealous" in hunting down and reporting fraud. Come on down, Italy! The country will now be monitored for being too diligent.

Only in Europe!

 

The approaching Juncker moment

Cameron appointed Lord Hill as his Commissioner prospective, a pro-European Tory and a former special adviser to Kenneth Clarke. After the isolation, the Prime Minister may have viewed this appointment as an ameliorative measure. It cut no ice with the head of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz. Forgetting the limits of his constitutional power under the treaty, Schulz thundered that Hill would never become a Commissioner because he was a Eurosceptic Tory. Having only the power to vote down the entire set of Commissioners, Schulz soon sulked and backtracked muttering that gender balance was more important. Yet, for Britain, an important moment, reinforcing the Juncker moment. The visceral dislike and instant assumption of British Euroscepticism as an ideological taboo for EU positions means that negotiation for reform is unlikely to happen.

Now, Juncker is seeding the press with further comments on the British position and possibly preparing to render Lord Hill a non-entity. The choice of portfolio marks a clear sign of European perceptions in regard to the position of the UK in Europe. A minor portfolio suggests that Brexit is considered a positive option and there will be no compromise on a halfway house. A decent portfolio marks a negotiating concession. And if Britain doesn't leave, we are then sidelined as a walkover: this is known as the Miliband option and is the preferred future of the supine Liberal Democrats (the party without a backbone so they can U-turn as fast as possible).   

Not yet commissioned

Further word from the carve-up of spoils. The French have displayed no interest in the gender balance of the Commission batting away demands that at least half of the Commissioners should be women. "Non! Nothing to see here!" rumbles Hollande. They have their eyes on a prize. It isn't an inspiring or hopeful prize but when you belong to the European Union, you tend to get excited by such matters. To outsiders, it looks like your standard missionary position whereas if you are inside, orgasmic. 

I am, of course, speaking of no other portfolio than the Economic. After all, such paragons of growth as the French are enthusiastic about spreading the manure across the Continent.

In the event that Britain were to leave the EU, it would not be the French or Germans who would benefit but probably the Irish. Peter Casey makes a case for the island as a smuggler's paradise since no country would impose a border between Ulster and the Republic. They could try, but it would be unenforceable. 

If only the European Commission had the wisdon of Cnut.

The Consensus

The next stage on the Juncker wagon is the apportionment of spoils ("Commissioners") amongst the 27 countries. The new President could jump either way: keep Britain onside and build a bridge or gift Cameron's appointee with some trivial portfolio last held by Malta or Estonia, showing that if you oppose, you will be punished. Cue the chorus of Europhiles who will say ,anyone who doesn't agree with the European consensus>; Cameron this time;  is a poor player at diplomacy and should just agree to all the backroom deals and the consensus.  

Don't rock the boat! It may capsize!

Another Magna Carta from a new set of barons

With Scottish independence, there is another flurry of interest concerning our constitutional arrangements. These usually come around the time of some anniversary and never go anywhere. The interest usually comes from the Left and they all sit round a table with some fancy label, setting out our rights for us and then telling everyone that they are doing it on our behalf. The they tell us how bad and evil the Tories are for being authoritarian and centralist. Yet, the same MPs and the same parties (usually with Liberal and Labour in their titles) prove to be more authoritarian and centralist than the Tories ever were. So why should we trust this present endeavour?

They are going to crowdsource the new Constitution so we all get a say. I can just see it now. An internet site where we all have our say and a Committee of worthies to vet the result (just so it doesn't get out of hand, you know, undesirables putting in absolutes of freedom of speech/press, perhaps!). Then the final Constitution would include everything the worthies held worthy and nothing that the rest of us asked for. But we have had our say so a referendum probably isn't needed.

It is the European disease: electorates are there to validate what politicians think; they are not there to think for themselves. 

An unchecked and unbalanced Lord Chancellor

In olden days, the defence of liberty within the diverse halls of the British constitution was far simpler than today and one could marshal one's forces to defeat the powers of darkness. However, New Labour was defeated and its authoritarian madness has been partially implemented through subterfuge.

Now, the expansion of state power is undertaken through subtle alterations to laws that nobody reads; chipping away at the checks and balances which limit the power of civil servants or politicians to exercise their power. Administrative law becomes an arcane fiefdom that is not available to the man on the street who find themselves at the mercy of the informal British nomenklatura.

So, no surprise that the House of Lords Constitution Committee opens an inquiry into the powers of the Lord Chancellor after he gained powers, by parliamentary order, to limit judicial review if it is undertaken in the public interest. This power has been viewed as an encroachment upon the independence of the judiciary.

It is a measure of the disquiet felt by the peers that they have widened their review to take in the powers of the Lord Chancellor.  

The Committees are mine, my precious

The European federalists do not have the intelligence to understand that forcing their opponents to work within the system would have diluted their message. It would be much harder for Farage to claim that he opposes Europe if his MEPs were benefiting from its patronage. The federalist parties have helped the Eurosceptic cause. Undesirous of facing such unsanitary views as voting within the committee system, they have overridden the De Hondt system of allocation for committee places in order to exile the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD). This has been attacked as a "breach of protocol".

So they were so busy blocking democrats, they missed out the Neo-Nazi on the Civil Liberties Committee. Rather like having Saudi Arabia on the Human Rights Council at the UN, though Europarl has the decency to look embarrassed.

The centre holds for now

The hallmark of an incestuous political class that guards its influence like a Norfolk family protecting its genes. So, when we see four European Commissioners elected as MEPs under the auspices of their political family, we should not be surprised. They can join a new Parliament where the Europhile forces are less dominant and must resort to procedural chicanery to maintain the status quo. Still, the re-elected President, Martin Schulz, must be a brazen hypocrite for his actions:

In his acceptance speech, Schulz winked at those who did not vote for him and deplored the backroom deal. He vowed to be the president of those who have not supported him. “I hope to win the trust of those who did not put their trust on me today,” he said.  

Perhaps his resignation could go some way to restoring the trust of elected members in the Parliament. However, the pro-European coalition has less room for manoevre and will need to maintain a disciplined coalition that drowns out disaffected groups. A President who vouches for the democratic legitimacy of the European Parliament will work to silence the voice of MEPs who differ from ever closer union.

Yet, Herman Van Rompuy has acknowledged that the EU is seen as meddling and divisive, that there is a greater need for variable geometry and that a debate on the direction of Europe is required. Still, he remains wedded to the sacred nostrums of the political class and they are now pondering how to wed ever closer union with economic legitimacy. For, if they are unable to reignite growth in the EU and reverse its decline, that rump of Eurosceptic disaffection in the European Parliament will only increase.

Then, a Brexit would appear attractive: removal of a Eurosceptic tribe to preserve the core grand projet and the Presidency of Herr Schulz.

Have the Arabs reached the dark valley of the 1930s?

A curious question arising from the impact of the jihadist mini-state in the Levant was its ideological base and impact. With the renaming of this captured territory from a geographical designation to the totalising 'Islamic State', we see the ambitions writ large. No longer is this an Islamist expression, it has now declared itself the Caliphate, the direct successor to the Porte and the only political expression of Islam allowed.

The most immediate outcome of this declaration is the demand that jihadist groups pledge their loyalty to the new state, undercutting Al-Qaeda's aging leadership in Waziristan. It also becomes an explicit rejection of Westphalian politics and presents an ideological competitor to the West for Muslims. No longer do extremists have to moderate their responses to the political systems in which they operate; they can claim obeisance to another master; a totalitarian sitting in Tikrit and Mosul.

Most important is the long-term consequence of this new direction for fundamentalism in the Middle-East. Just as the sovereignty of Middle Eastern states is undermined by political and ideoligical current such as pan-Arabism that cut across existing borders, the new concept of the Caliphate could add a further transnational perspective that undermines the countries in this febrile region. The process of radicalisation has deepened in the last three years under the pressures of war and economic decline, which have weakened the traditional ties of tribe, nation and party.

There are echoes of the past in this process, though the story is not yet complete. A totalising ideology, the breakdown of traditional societies and a people haunted by grievances, impotence and defeat. As jihadists have increasingly rushed down that path to the extremes, we see further signs such as a single Manichaean worldview and the implementation of an eliminationist rhetoric with an emphasis on purity or death.

We should be thankful that, so far, they have been unable to seize the resources of a strong state machinery that could multiply their dark fantasies tenfold. Just as the symbols of hammer, sickle and swastika were attractive to one generation, so black flags and the AK-47 become the temptation of another. Let's hope they divide and war against each other.   

Time to brew the sweet smell of that Brexit coffee

Labour supported the Conservatives in opposing the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker to President of the European Commission. As a federalist, they were also unwilling to support further integration. Yet the headlines of "Britain isolated" brought some rich comments from Ed Balls on television this morning. As he stated, never had he seen such a "cack-handed" negotiation. (This seemed rather surprising, since there are so many examples from the previous Labour administration: General Practitioners, Treaty of Lisbon, etc etc).

Whilst the news from the continental press remains quiet in the aftermath of this repeat (Britain versus the rest), Labour's opportunistic spin falls on sterile ground, given the messenger (just as Cruddas bemoans his leader's leadership in the Sunday Times). The two initial conclusions from the appointment of Juncker is that there is no European constituency for the repatriation of powers and the appetite for real reform is retreating.

Given the choice between ever closer la la land and reality, the European Council chose a make-believe country called Europe and took the brakes off Brexit.