European Union?

I get a sense that people are now seriously starting to question the validity of the European Union. The bureaucrats in Brussels/Strasbourg seem to have underestimated the reaction to forcing the Irish to vote for a second time on the Lisbon Treaty/Consitution. In democracies the powers that be, if they choose to hold a referendum, respect the decision of the electorate. That is not, and never has been the case with the EU.

But our politicians, and probably more importantly the media, slavishly follow the EU barely criticising or questioning its trampling underfoot of basic democracy. How can they just sit back and allow this to continue? If Brown loses the next general election, but decides to adjust his party manifesto and re-run the election, would this country be as docile and subservient as to allow it, as we have repeatedly allowed it in the case of the EU? Have we lost all sense of decency and honesty?

So where are the politicians, especially those who supported bombing Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere into submitting to 'democracy'? Well it could be said that people like 'Woy' Jenkins, Leon Brittain, Kinnock, Lady Mandy of Mandelson and others have been bought off, they became very wealthy as EU Commissioners. But why have all the others, and the media, merely rolled over?

My opinion is that the anti-EU movement, those whose sole focus is on getting out of the EU, has attracted too many freaks, oddballs and conspiracy theorists. Serious opponents of EU membership eventually become tired of having to share groups, platforms, meetings with the nutters who see a conspiracy around every corner, be it the Illuminati, Common Purpose or some other figment of a paranoid and hyper-active imagination.

This causes a couple of problems. It drives real Eurosceptics away from organisations campaigning against continued EU membership, and provides easy material for opponents who want to blacken the name of people and organisations campaigning against the EU. Your everyday voter on the street does not want to be told that we are being controlled by 6 foot lizards by a man in a dodgy lilac, or whatever colour shell suit, he will run a mile.

So where now for Eurosceptics? Well, UKIP sold out a long time ago. Compared to the Greens and the BNP they have not progressed since 1999. The resources that came with three MEPs from 1999 to 2004, twelve from 2004 to 2009 and now thirteen MEPs, have been squandered. Where it counts, in UK elections, they have been a disaster. Indeed, in my view the media intentionally backed off criticising UKIP in the Euro election campaign in order not to drive the protest vote to the BNP. Why else was virtually no mention made of Ashley Mote or Tom Wise when the expenses of MPs were in the spotlight? Indeed around 23 May 2009 Peter Oborne in his Daily Mail column said:

"NIGEL FARAGE'S United Kingdom Independence Party is shaping up as the major beneficiary of the European elections to be held next month. There is talk that it could even demote New Labour to a richly deserved fourth place. Yet UKIP's record on expenses-fiddling is at least as bad as the Tories' or Labour's, as I will reveal on this page next week. Don't vote for them".

Strangely Oborne's expose of UKIP's scandals did not appear in his column the following week. I wonder why?

My conclusion is that people who oppose EU membership must support a party that has EU withdrawal as part, but not the be all and end all, of its manifesto. Less than 8% of those who would like us out of the EU would put that number one on their list for a general election, they vote on health, education, law and order and other issues. So I urge you to consider the Libertarian Party if you value our traditional freedoms and liberty.