My father-in-law is very engaged in the political discussions around the UK’s loss of sovereignty to the EU. This is his post for today:
“The European Union has achieved the great dream of the Great war generation,”
President Sarkozy said today at Verdun
No, no, no. Their blood was not shed for this.
The great War generation was fighting for freedom from tyranny. The European Union eats into that hard fought for freedom, tiny bit by tiny bit on a daily basis, with the support of our politicians.
From Roger Scruton’s “The Nation-State and Democracy”:
The result of Jean Monnet’s plan is there for all to see: an unaccountable bureaucracy presiding over a continent that has been cast adrift from its traditional aspirations and historical ties. Europeans have been disenfranchised by the European machine, which has at the same time resolutely refused to address the real problems of Europe’s future. Of course, these problems (demographic decline, adverse immigration, the imminent collapse of the welfare state) might have arisen without the project of Union: but one thing is certain, which is that the project has weakened the authority of European governments and put no rival authority in their place. The unaccountable nature of the European institutions, their ability to spend money on themselves and to clutter the continent with their fantasy projects, their endless production of absurd and malicious regulations — all these things have deprived the EU of legitimacy in the eyes of the European people. But the Union remains, immune to any action that its “citizens” can take, cushioned from all popular resentment by the national governments that shield it from the people. If proof were needed for the proposition that the nation-state is the friend of democracy, and transnational government the foe, then the European Union is it.
My Grandfather gave his life at Ypres, in the trenches, for my freedom from the aspirations of a tyranny that wanted to remove British Sovereignty. Our politicians have allowed that to happen without a fight. Shame on you all on this day.
Well said Greg.
