A précis of ten previous posts on this theme. This is the first in a series of posts, each of which gathers previous posts into a single theme. We provide a brief summary of each selected post. This first politics post considers political issues from both the UK and the EU.
A précis of eight previous posts on this theme. This is another in our series of posts reviewing our comments on major themes regarding the European Union. Each brief comment is followed by a link to the post to which we refer.
This post provides a précis of six posts on this theme, up to February 2018. In March 2017 the EU issued draft guidelines to their negotiating team. The guidelines went on to become directives and then a mandate, thus constricting the role of the negotiators and closing down any likelihood of a compromise withdrawal agreement.
Themes-4: Founded in Deception
Our seven summarised posts on this theme prove evidence of the EU’s deceptive tactics in aiming for its goal of a federal government for as much of Europe as possible.
These seven post summaries focus on UK politics, up to January 2019. The centre of our attention at that time was the draft withdrawal agreement that Theresa May had signed with the EU; we summarised our reviews of that document in later Theme posts.
The EU and its negotiating team have consistently bullied the UK over its decision to leave. We wonder why they choose this tactic rather than trying to persuade us, and others, what a lovely project they run. We gave some examples of their bullying tactics in these seven linked posts.
Economics has been a major area for our critiques, which is why there were two themes posts to cover it. It’s the area where Remainers made the most fuss, concerned about what the UK would lose through Brexit. Since they had little positive to say about the EU they were reduced to making threats about the damage they expected it to cause to our economy.
Continuing with this theme we summarised a further six posts. The first two reviewed an interesting book speculating about what might happen if the EU collapsed (the author approves of the EU). The remaining posts look in some detail at the status of the single currency, looking back from January 2019.
Starting with Edward Heath’s lies to the British people when he signed the accession treaty of the UK to the EU, we examined some of the deceits and lies that the EU engages in to promote its ambition to rule Europe.
The EU often expounds on its principles and rules. We are expected to believe that the EU adopts practices that are consistent with its own principles and rules; it doesn’t. Such things are for others to follow and, when it feels it is necessary the EU ignores them. The linked posts below illustrate examples of the disconnection between EU principle and EU practice.
The EU’s founders and current leaders hold the citizens of Europe in disdain and their elected, national governments in contempt for being elected, and therefore impermanent. They think what is needed is a unified, supra-national entity, or federal government, which has the powers to override the decisions of the governments of its member states. They have designed a system that is not subject to the whims of an impressionable electorate empowered with the right to evict their federal government.
The European Commission has published many papers extolling the virtues of the EU and outlining aspects of its plans, which amount to running Europe, though it won’t say this directly. In this summary post we link to posts that discuss this ambition and look at the evidence that leads us to our conclusion concerning the ambition of the EU.
Speeches given by the previous President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, were mostly public relations exercises but they offered insights into EU thinking and planning. We reviewed particularly his state of the union presentations from 2016 to 2019.
Themes-14: Withdrawal Agreements
The only agreement that matters is the final one, concerning the future relationship between the UK and the EU, which hasn’t begun to be negotiated, yet alone agreed, though much has been speculated. What was agreed between the EU and the UK Government’s negotiating teams, and then dismissed by the UK Parliament, is covered in the posts linked in this theme. Negotiations are continuing as we post this.
Over the years we’ve been writing this blog democracy has been close to the centre of our attention. The issue of democracy highlights, perhaps more than any other theme, the gap between the values that the EU declares it holds and the absence of such values in practice. It also shows up at its worst how the EU contrives to cover the gap with dishonest words, repeating without shame that the Union is a democracy while demonstrating, also without shame, that it is not.
This Theme expands on the previous two theme posts on Economics (Themes 7 and 8). The main focus of our linked posts was the Euro.
Themes-17: Unity and Unification
The declared purpose of the European Union is to unify the continent: economically, socially and politically. Unification has gone a long way but EU leaders do not believe they have achieved their ambition yet. Without unification the EU has no rationale
EU leaders fear being ‘found out’, which would involve European citizens understanding better the ambition of the EU and how close it is to being achieved. Actions that result from this fear make the EU fragile and vulnerable. In this précis and its linked posts we explore some of the evidence for these features, fear and fragility.
To achieve their goal of ever closer union, which they believe requires a federal government, the EU has taken many risks and had to deal with several crises. These two – risks and crises – formed the focus of our final two themed posts.
Throughout the negotiations leading to the UK’s final withdrawal from membership of the European Union, EU leaders have stuck rigidly to their ambition to neuter the UK as a potentially successful commercial and social neighbour. The evidence for this conclusion is plentiful and in this final post in our Themes series we reviewed some of this evidence.
This EU Won't Work 