UKIP ‘parks tank’ - the world laughs.
08
April
So, they’ve made good on their promise to “park their tank on David Cameron’s abandoned lawn”
Well, sort of. Guys? It’s not a tank. Even the Telegraph puts ‘tank’ in quotes. It’s an APC of some sort (no, I can’t tell what type, although I know some that can).
Politicians break promises during a cheap publicity stunt? doesn’t this take the whole level of naffness that seems to surround UKIP to a new level?
Go on UKIP, you morons - keep tilting at the Brussels windmill in a vain effort to “save” this country. Meanwhile the real danger, The Rt. Hon. A.C.L. Blair, MP, is busy looting, raping and pillaging the constitution while your backs are turned. Were UKIP to reunite with the Tories rather than engage in these pathetic public spats, Labour would be in genuine trouble. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so damned pathetic.
The problem with Europe isn’t that it exists, it’s that it follows the same bureacratic centralist model that Whitehall has adopted. Decisions made in secret, enforced by diktat, with no mandate or support from the populace.
To a decentralising democrat like me, it’s a godawful mess. But I don’t propose to abolish Britain (or even England) because I dislike Whitehall, I propose to reform it and decentralise. Brussels employs less staff than many city councils, it needs to be reformed, opened up, democratised and have it’s tasks, powers, aims and objectives clearly defined. The loons that object to being “governed by foreigners” and similar are completely missing the point.
Whitehall does more damage to the Westcountry than Brussels does. Let’s reform both, shall we?
1. Elaib | April 8th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
It was meant to be fun, with a point, do take a little humour with your coffee.
But to your more serious point. Yes absolutely, the PM is the most serious threat facing us in the short term. The actions of his government, particularly but not confined to the Home Office are ghastly and destructive. But, much of what is done is done with the active or tacit support of the EU.
You are again right, I know no member of UKIP that wishs to dismantle Europe, all they want to do is to part company with the institutions that are the EU. Unlike you they, and I have given up on the thought that it is in any way reformable. Your admirable desire to reform and decentralise is wishing on a star - or maybe 12 of them. How would you propose to go about that? I am sure you haven’t the faintest idea, and there’s the rub, as far as I can see from 7 years experience working within and around the institutions there is no way of divrerting the behemoth. To my mind unless we leave then the vital task of dealing with our own excrable government is merely changing deck chairs on the Titanic, worthwhile no doubt but finally futile.
Canards like the number of staff employed by the institutions suggests that you need to discover how the EU works. Tru Mark Leonard’s book, “Why Europe will run the 21st Century” for starters, it is all explained very succinctly there. It works like a centralised whitehall policy directorate, all the active work is done by so called “national” civil services. All those health and saftey advisors prosecuting EU legislation count as UK employees, but what they do is EU work, and what goes for them can be replicated many thousand fold. What is more I am sure that you know that as well as I do I am sure.
So lets reform both, well, maybe you can reform one, but theother, it just isn’t going to happen.
2. MatGB | April 8th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
I read Leonard’s book last year while on holiday in Greece, very good indeed.
However, I do seem to see a lot of people misunderstanding his basic point; he was arguning not for internal dominance by Brussels, but that the EU system of inclusive governance and the rule of law would spread and include more and more states.
You can see that with the hoops Turkey, Serbia, Croatia et al are jumping through to gain membership, the way other countries improve their domestic standards in order to trade properly, etc.
As to how to reform? We have, in theory, a democratically accountable Govt, which has a seat on the Council. We also have many reps in the Parliament.
Democractise issues, force the Council to meet in public.
You are of course right that I quoted a canard, but I see so many with the anti-arguments that, well, might as well.
You say that sorting out our domestic governance is futile until we leave, I argue the exact opposite, it is because our domestic governance is, essentially, sytemically flawed that those sytemic issues also apply in Europe. Blair’s “It’s a tidying up exercise” claptrap over the Constitutional Convention, a great missed opportunity (who the hell approved the appointment of Valerie Wossname?)
As for humour? Go read my post yesterday on DK’s blog. I get the point that it was supposed to be funny. The thing is, it wasn’t. It was just silly.
3. ContraTory | April 8th, 2006 at 10:33 pm
The referendum on the EU constitution in France and Holland stopped the “Old Europe” leviathan in its tracks. It is now reformable, particularly with the new members on board. It might take years or even decades, but the alternative does not bear thinking about. You don’t have to take to (an inadequate number of) lifeboats, if you reduce speed and steer clear of the iceberg in the first place.
4. MatGB | April 9th, 2006 at 12:40 am
Precisely. That France said no (for reasons utterly opposed to those of the UK antis) is a shot to the bureacrats and politicos that just don’t get the problem.
It’ll take awhile, but it’s going to happen.