The Future United States of Europe

Are we an Independent Country?

Few people realise just how much the European Union controls our lives, and how remorselessly it is increasing its control, without democratic debate or effective opposition. We are no longer an independent country.

• EU law overrules British law, and EU courts overrule British courts.


• The House of Commons can debate EU Directives and laws, but cannot amend a word of them.   


• The EU has now provided itself with a police force which could in future be used to enforce these laws on us


• Britain cannot negotiate trade treaties with the growing countries of the world - we must let the EU do it for us.  

In 2001, a Bow Group leaflet (Who Really Governs Britain? - by MEP Nirj Deva) showed that 55% of UK legislation was originated by the EU.  The EU has been systematically extending its area of control ever since. No more recent British figures exist, but there is no reason to think that our proportion is any less than:

• The German Government, which calculated in 2005 that about 70% of its laws originated from the European Union.


• The French calculated that "80% of French legislation comes from Brussels. French law, formerly supreme, is now the result of compromises between France and the Commission and France's 26 partners." Eric Zemmour, Senior Political Reporter of Le Figaro 4 June 07.

Moreover, increasing EU control is irreversible under EU rules. Once an area of policy has come under EU jurisdiction, it can never revert to national control. The only way to halt or reverse the inexorable march of EU domination over us is to leave the EU.

The Lisbon treaty dramatically strengthened this trend. The planned EU Constitution was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, and bought back again under another name as the Lisbon treaty. It is just the latest in a long process of "ever-closer union" - treaty after treaty which transfers powers from the nation states to the EU. The public's hostility to the European Union is ignored.

 

EU Leaders are Determined on Political Union

The EU clearly aims at political union - a single European superstate, of which Britain would merely be a province. We joined a free trade area. Now the aim of our European partners, particularly Germany and the European Commission, is political union - a single country called Europe - the United States of Europe. They are very open about this (see quotes from EU leaders, below). The UK is often alone in opposing political union, and alone in trying to hide it from our voters. Both of our main parties claim to oppose political union, but they don't do anything to stop it. It is not enough to say we oppose further integration. What will we do about it?  

If we stay in the EU, we will eventually be dragged into a political union few of us want.    It is inevitable that we leave, sooner or later.

Too many political reputations have been based on unquestioning support for the EU.  Too many vested interests do too well out of it.  Political union is wanted by the politicians of Europe, but not by its people, and certainly not by the British people. 

Why the politicians are so determined is an interesting question.  Is it socialism by the back door, a lucrative retirement home for discredited politicians, or a yearning for a post-democratic age, without all that annoying accountability? 

 

The British Don’t Want Political Union – or the EU

Polls on the European Union show that more and more British people want to leave the EU. An Angus Reid poll in July 2011 showed that in the event of a referendum on the UK's EU membership, 49% of Britons would vote in favour of leaving the EU and 25% would vote to stay in. Any advantages once thought to derive from EU membership are now far outweighed by ever-increasing disadvantages.  Few of us are enthusiastic about keeping 54,000 Brussels bureaucrats in luxury, or paying an extra £10 a week in higher food costs because of the CAP.  We could make much better use of that money ourselves.

The EU is Incapable of Reform

EU s upporters claim it can be reformed.   Some even claim it can become more like a free trade area. They talk of "winning the argument". They don't admit that reversing the drive to political union would mean the EU turning its back on the basic principle on which it has worked since its inception - "ever-closer union". The only way we can "win the argument" is to walk away and leave the rest arguing. We have been trying to repatriate powers from the EU since 1973 - isn't it about time we gave up?

The EU will never agree to reform itself. Too many vested interests are doing too well out of the status quo. Blair agreed to increase the amount we pay out by another £2.5 billion per year - straight into the EU's unaudited and fraud-ridden funds. He got no reform concessions whatsoever in return, even on his main target, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Jacques Chirac, French President, July 2005 "I am not willing to make the slightest concession on the Common Agricultural Policy. The CAP is the future" .

We cannot hope to reform the EU. They will not become a free trade area. But if we leave, we can trade freely with them. See Britain Outside the EU

 

The EU is Undemocratic

Perhaps the worst thing about the EU is the complete lack of democratic accountability. EU leaders show contempt for their voters, who clearly "don't understand" the whole glorious concept. On losing the French Referendum vote, former French President Giscard d'Estaing said "It is not France that has said no.   It is 55% of the French people." (FT 23 May 2006)

Our democracy works - if we don't like a Government we throw them out. This is a right won through one thousand years of this nation's history, but thrown away at the stroke of a pen on joining the EU. European voters cannot throw out the European Commission - it is not elected. The European Parliament has little power. It does not form a Government, like ours does. The only way you change a Government is by voting for a different party, which then forms a new Government. There are no political parties which cover the whole of Europe. There is no elected Government of Europe, and no Opposition to offer an alternative. There are no newspapers or TV programmes that can speak to the whole of Europe. There are few opinion polls for the whole of Europe. Decisions in Europe depend on private deals between politicians, not on public opinion. There is a huge democratic deficit in the way the EU runs its affairs.

The European Parliament is not a real parliament, with the power to make or break governments. MEPs speak in the Chamber for six minutes per year, on average. There are no real debates - just set speeches which bear little relation to one another. In one week an MEP may vote over 1000 times - they often scarcely know what they are voting for or against, but blindly follow lists from the party whips. How else could they cover so many topics? There is no equivalent of PM's Question Time - no one can question the EU leaders. MEPs are selected from regional Party lists, so the power is with the Party machine, not the individual MEP. An MEP does not have a direct relationship with his constituents, who can vote him out.

The EU is turning on its head a principle which Europeans have spent 300 years fighting to establish - that rulers should be accountable to their people. The EU is accountable to no-one.     Eurocrats are well aware that the EU would never have got so far if they had had to consult their voters at each successive transfer of powers to Brussels.

  

MEPs' Lack of Accountability

In all the Member States citizens can find out how their elected representatives have voted when national legislation is passed- through press or TV reports, reading documents such as Hansard, or by attending the public gallery when legislation is discussed.  They can thus decide how to vote at election time.  After 50 years of the EC, it is still impossible for EC citizens to find out how their elected representatives have voted when legislation is adopted within the Council of Ministers, which, in most cases, is the institution which has the final say.  Unless you know how your elected representatives have voted when legislation is passed, you cannot exerce democratic control over decisions affecting you. 

The institutions are past masters at deceiving EC citizens about how the set-up works.  The “parliament” is a side show. 

 

European Union Leaders on Political Union

If you doubt whether the aim of the EU project is a United States of Europe, read the following quotations from EU leaders:

"The Constitution is the capstone of a European Federal State"
- Guy Verhofstadt, Prime Minister of Belgium, 2007

"Sometimes I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empire. We have the dimension of empire. What we have is the first non-imperial empire," José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, July 2007

"My dream is that one day we might be able to applaud a United States of Europe." Konrad Adenaur, quoted by the Europe People's Party , the largest grouping in the European Parliament, in a brochure "50 Years of European Integration", March 07.

"We are building something which is truly federal or a true union of states.   We must ...... go towards a United States of Europe". Pierre Moscovici, French Europe Minister, speech to EU convention, 28 Feb 02

"Monetary Union has to be complemented by political union - that was always the presumption of Europeans"   Chancellor Schroder, interview with UK newspaper, 22 Feb 02

  "The single market was the theme of the 80s; the single currency the theme of the 90s; and we must now face the difficult task of moving towards a single economy and a single political unity"  Romano Prodi , Head of the European Commission, speech to MEPs, 1999

"Transforming the European Union into a single state with one army, one constitution and one foreign policy is the critical challenge of the age" J Fischer, German Foreign Minister, speech to MEPs, November 1999

"In the next six months, we will talk a lot about political union, and rightly so. Political union is inseparable from economic union" Laurent Fabius, French Finance Minister, FT 24 July 00

Thus the preconditions have been laid for the development of the EU into a truly comprehensive political union. ... The EU is increasingly developing into a political union. Press & Information Office of the Federal German Govt, 2000 - booklet "The Federal Republic of Germany - 50 Years On"

"The single currency is the greatest abandonment of sovereignty since the foundation of the European Community... It is a decision of an essentially political nature. We need this united Europe .. we must never forget that the euro is an instrument for this project" Felipe Gonzalez , former Prime Minister of Spain, Apr 99

We now need an economic government .... Ultimately the corporate tax system as a whole will have to be harmonised.   Lionel Jospin, French Prime Minister, May 2001

  "The process of monetary union goes hand in hand - must go hand in hand - with political integration and ultimately political union.   EMU is, and always was meant to be, a stepping stone on the way to a united Europe. " Wim Duisenberg , President of the European Central Bank, 1997

"It is essential for the EU to become a political power and not just a group of nation states". Pierre Muscovici, French Minister for European Affairs, interview in Corriere della Sera, Oct 01

The national budget policies are still too often conceived on the basis of national interests. Romano Prodi, Head of European Commission, May 2001

"The introduction of the Euro is probably the most important integrating step since the beginning of the unification process. It is certain that the times of independent nation states are definitely over" Chancellor Schroeder

"Monetary union is the motor of European integration." Jean-Luc Dehaene, Belgian Prime Minister

If EMU does not go ahead, there will be great danger of seeing Europe drift progressively towards a free trade zone - precisely what we have been trying to avoid for 25 years. Yves Thibault De Siguy, Monetary Affairs Commissioner

The Franco-German matrix is, and always will be, the determining factor in the EU" Commissioners Lamy and Verheugen (DT 26 Jan 02)

"Europe's nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose but that will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation." Jean Monnet, founder of the EU

EU leaders are at least honest about their aims. Ours are not - they all claim that political union is not on the EU agenda.