Post Segments
English breakfast in Brussels is Kier Starmer
The Tory party faces wipe out at the next general election – unless Labour are so naive they still believe the EU is a friendly trading alliance. Once upon a time perhaps, but no longer – the Europe project has become a third attempt by Germany to control Europe, from day one for much of their establishment.
Judging from what comes out of his mouth, Kier Starmer will be eaten for breakfast by Ursula von der Leyen and her court of Eurocrats. They’ve already dismissed Starmer’s plans as ‘ delusion’; one of their favourite put downs. Mind, did anyone phone Michel Barnier? Who points out on TV and in print that he has long believed Kier Starmer has the capacity to become prime minister….and drag Britain back into the EU cage.
The EU is a very old fashioned concept which recreates eighteenth century Germany. In those days each princely state was a Zoll Verein, a customs association, effectively a customs union that charged import duties on goods from the many other princely states which made up the country. Most princely states joined in the founding wave on 1 January 1834 and the remainder joined gradually after wars led to political unification in 1871. Goods moved freely throughout the new single empire. A century later the Common Market revived such a customs union for the original six. Margaret Thatcher tried to create an open single market but the Zoll Verein is back and for half the continent since the collapse of the Soviet empire.
Ursula’s new plan for an EU outer tier simply follows her strategic plan for Germany drawn up six years ago when she was German defence minister. That’s why she could pull it from her desk drawer and dangle it before Starmer’s worried eyeballs. Drafted by her former colleague at McKinsey’s, Kathrin Suder, the plan assumes NATO and the EU are breaking up, therefore Germany must look after herself. As Europe’s economic Sun, Germany must bind the satellite Euro countries in close orbit though also ensure the outer satellite countries including the British Isles remain in orbit. Ursula’s move to the EU president’s job advanced this strategic plan, Vorausshau 2040. Briefings for Britain reported the plan at the time. https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/was-margaret-thatcher-right-after-all-dangers-of-a-resurgent-germany/
Why a French smoke screen?
The opinion polls and one suspects, pooled political and economic reporting by EU embassies in London, all point to a Labour victory at the next British general election. Are they right? That’s another question with an election some way off. The answer hides among an unusually large number of don’t knows plus those inevitable slips politicians make.
Starmer has wriggled since he let the cat out of the bag during a conference in Canada. What he said there was as follows….
“Most of the conflict with the UK being outside of the EU arises insofar as the UK wants to diverge and do different things to the rest of our EU partners.”
“ Obviously, the more we share values, the more we share a future together, the less the conflict, and actually, different ways of solving problems become available.’’
He then dropped his guard and confided: “Actually we don’t want to diverge, we don’t want to lower standards, we don’t want to rip up environmental standards, working standards for people that work, food standards and all the rest of it.”
The Times ran a swift denial piece for him on Saturday 23 September.
“ Labour does not want to undo Brexit,” Sir Keir Starmer has insisted, after the Tories seized on comments he made suggesting that he would not diverge from EU laws or do “different things” from Brussels if he came to power.
In an attempt to shut down the row Starmer said that there was “no case for rejoining the EU, no case for the customs union or single market” and all UK laws would be “made in this country for the public interest.” Although he added, “That does not mean that a Labour government would lower standards on food or lower the rights that people have at work.
“That’s been consistent Labour Party policy for years. Incidentally, that’s also government policy.”
The remarks were seized on by senior government ministers. Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, claimed the comments would “worry a lot of people that what he really wants to do is to unpick Brexit”. He told LBC, “We want to be good friends with our neighbours across the Channel, but I think any suggestion that you want to align our laws and regulations with the EU will worry a lot of the people who voted for Brexit.”
Mark Spencer, the environment minister, accused the Labour leader of “flipflopping” in his approach to Brussels.
“To keep obsessing, as the Labour Party do, over Brexit and looking back with pink-tinted spectacles and talking about following their rules, I think just takes us back in time,” But Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor, told the BBC that Labour’s position was clear and that while the party wanted a better relationship with the EU it did not want to relitigate Brexit.
“We don’t want to rejoin the EU in name or any other way; we accept the result of the referendum,” she said.
“That was seven years ago, more than seven years ago now. Times have moved on. But we do want to have a better relationship with our nearest neighbours and trading partners.”
She added: “Even Rishi Sunak has accepted that is possible, by re-entering the Horizon research programme. But there are other areas, for example making it easier to trade agricultural goods or helping our services sector with a mutual recognition of professional qualifications, helping our fantastic cultural industries tour round Europe.”
Ursula’s next gambit?
Starmer’s visit to Paris pigeon holed him alongside Macron. From Ursula’s point of view, Vorausshau 2040 aims to keep Britain controlled politically and economically by Germany. The last thing she wants is a successful country after leaving the bloc. The rest of the EU is just a handy lever. Macron is simply a smoke screen for Berlin. So far Ursula has been quite successful but some tricky choices wait in ambush for her.
One – don’t mention the Euro. The greatest danger for ordinary German taxpayers is a collapse of the Euro like a house of cards. Ordinary German families are liable for Euro Zone debts and shadow debts that make the collapse of Greece’s economy resemble a small financial storm. In theory Germany stands behind all Euro zone debts that total six times its annual GNP. Mind you, dear ordinary German taxpayers, there’s no law or treaty that says you have to pay other people’s bills.
Two currencies are in the searchlight because look very enticing for take-over, the Swiss Franc and the Pound. The Swissie has 13 trillion francs worth of assets under management globally. The pound is a veteran global currency significantly under-valued, at present a bargain. We don’t want pay their bills either, Kier. Germany would demand that we join the Euro as a price for rejoining so we’re liable as well for the Euro Zone’s debts. We would lose control of our money, economy and country. No thanks.
Two – Starmer wanted a second referendum and has filled his shadow cabinet with those of like mind. For Ursula he’s in the bag, one suspects a pushover. Starmer’s denials don’t match his political record. But how far can Ursula lure Starmer into the EU cage before the Labour Party becomes uneasy?
Three – Our world enters a dangerous time. The EU wants to become politically and economically independent of the United States. When the EU eventually distances itself from the Americans and NATO would the British people follow of their own free will? To do this fully Britain would either be kicked out or have to withdraw from the Five Eyes partnership. Thereby losing its closest allies since Churchill and Roosevelt met at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland on the 12 August 1941, where they signed the Atlantic Charter and postcards bearing Longfellow’s stirring lines that begin, ‘ Sail on oh ship of State! Sail on O union strong and great!…’
Four – I suspect the Germans and French calculate that they can easily lure Starmer far enough into the cage to give them significant leverage over Britain’s economy. Northern Ireland is the test tube where a part of the UK is bombarded with new EU regulations daily. Brussels has control. Only last month the European Court gambled that its judges could fine the whole UK some £ 28 million over an obscure EU regulation. Every little helps. It’s a try-on, Rishi, tell them to get lost and walk away. How? Say you’ll suspend the Windsor Agreement indefinitely. As a non-member, ultimately, Britain has left only one cure to this third German imperial ambition – scrap both agreements with the EU – but that requires political courage and strategic wisdom combined with balls.
Finally – Quitting the Five Eyes, NATO and the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific alliances would offer a new form of political suicide for our ‘leaders’ and the British people. Consequently, Ursula, Macron and the Eurocrat courtiers concluded, correctly I believe, that it was most unlikely all Labour Party voters would follow EU rejoiner Kier into orbit dressed up as associate status.
Those Mandarins
Nor should Labour swallow whatever they’re told by the Foreign Office. I don’t use the FCDO full name because it simply reflects a series of takeovers by a defeatist, brainwashed sect that emerged within the FO after Suez in 1956. Those converted believe that Britain as a great nation is finished and should not reinvent itself but instead allow itself to be gobbled up by a new European super state ruled by Germany. England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland would become provinces of a third German empire.
For the last fifty odd years our diplomats, mostly, were selected because they believed this gospel. Those diplomats who concluded that our country is better off finding its own way in the world dare not share this view, I have been told, because it could harm their prospects. While I blame Tony Blair for politicising the Civil Service – and the NHS, some people don’t need encouraging. Recently retired FCDO Permanent Under Secretary, Simon McDonald, told BBC TV that he made sure all staff knew that in the 2016 referendum he voted to remain: so much for the idea of impartial officials giving advice. He’s been on BBC TV again and managed to put his foot even deeper into the swamp, suggesting that officials can decide if elected politicians ought be supported. Has the EU gospel reduced our pool of mandarins to this? Such people are on another planet from the rest of us. Personally, I like some mandarins who share Kemi Badenoch’s view that the ‘ referendum result was the greatest vote of confidence in the project of the United Kingdom.’
The government and media fret about China’s penetration of our institutions such as Parliament and yet the Chinese are amateurs compared with the EU Commission. The latter have been buying influence in Britain for years, often through regular generous donations. If Kier Starmer and the Labour Party want to improve the Trade and Co-operation Agreement with the EU, they should scrap it and revert to WTO rules. Britain then would have the rest of the world as potential allies in any trade disputes with the EU.
