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.