Andrew Duff, the arch-federalist Liberal Democrat MEP, has circulated a paper to selected journalists, setting out his updated views on achieving political union. With reality and economic disunion slicing huge gobbets of guts out of the federalist dream, Duff tries to shore up his goal, before the economic abattoir slices the EU salami style. Forced to abandon so many at the gate, Duff redefines the core as Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and France: all the rest are too Eurosceptic or too endebted to make the grade. The Federalist has to return to small acorns and takes the proffered solution for economic governance.
Duff does not represent the radical restructuring of the union: just a smaller foundation for fiscal union amongst a group of likeminded countries. All of the flaws embedded in the European Union (elite decisions, technocratic incompetence, and disenfranchisement) will be replicated.
Even in the extreme emergency of debt and disunion, the federalists are unable to think outside of their current framework. Their limited dreams reflect in madcap format the very restraints preventing European elites from recognising economic verities. These nutters have even made Nigel farage and Ken Livingstone agree.