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December 1, 2008
Do you matter, or are you just a pleb?
Juan Manuel Barroso, President of the European Union, has announced that "the people that matter" in the UK wish to join the Euro. To make this even worse, he made a direct contrast in the same sentence with "I know that the majority are still opposed", It is impossible to analyze his words in any way that does not indicate that he believes "the majority" do not "matter".
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5267307.ece
I would like to think this was a slip of the tongue, but unfortunately it is rather an indication of the fundamental belief system of the Eurocrats. In my professional career I attended many conferences with diplomats and others from EU states, at which the role of "the elite" in forwarding "the European project" was a key theme. On scores of occasions I have heard it propounded that "the elites" initiated "the European project" and would always be its drivers. The contempt for the views of the Irish people shown in attempts to enforce Lisbon is a manifestation of a deep-seated anti-democratic tendency.
The irony is that I am a firm supporter of the EU. I believe European unity to be one of the noblest causes of my lifetime, I think free movement of people and trade is wonderful. I think we should join the Euro immediately. But I wish to see a democratic EU, with directly elected representatives (ie not fatguts Barroso) in the lead and subsidiarity genuinely applied.
The EU's self-appointed "elite" are not the drivers of the process; by engendering well-deserved public hostility on a continual basis, they are a brake on the process. Doubtless UKIP are today grateful for the existence of Mr Barroso.
Posted by craig on December 1, 2008 4:40 PM in the category UK Policy
Comments
I heard his interview on the radio this morning. It was no 'slip of the tongue'. It was articulate and erudite, and no listener, I think, could have been in any doubt about what he meant.
It's truly appalling, that an unelected, unrepresentative, eurocrat uses British airwaves and newspapers to continue to brainwash the British public that they, and their opinions and aspirations, have no importance. And yet, as you say, a united Europe is today one of the world’s very rare jewels. But managed as corruptly and as undemocratically as it is, it cannot last.
Posted by: ken ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 1, 2008 6:59 PM
This was my take on the defeat of the Lisbon Treaty in the Irish referendum and it is being proved truer by the day.
http://photopol.blogspot.com/2008/06/27-1-0.html
Posted by: Póló at December 1, 2008 7:36 PM
Sorry, but I disagree with you on this occasion. We have to accept the fact that there are some issues that we are not qualified to judge. As a physics graduate, I am perfectly happy to give you an opinion on Schrödinger or the probability of the LHD finding a Higgs boson; but I have absolutely no understanding of finance and economics. If and when we're given a vote on the Euro (I hope we're not) I should ideally abstain, but I shall probably vote in favour simply to counteract the 'no' vote of a BNP-voting Murdoch-influenced pleb.
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