EU Referendum: Flexcit, Obama And Boris

“America would welcome it if Britain should apply for full membership in the [EEC], explicitly recognising that the Rome treaty was not merely a static document but a process leading towards political unification.”(George Ball Under-Secretary of State for JFK 1961)

It's been well documented, even by its own internal Wilson report, that the UK public broadcaster is less than impartial when it comes to reporting on the EU accurately.

And it's also well documented that the United States is keen on UK membership of the European Union for reasons that are less than altruistic as the above quote illustrates very clearly. The US was always going to interfere, it wishes to have a relationship with a nation state with whom it has historical connections but which is subordinate to a supranational body.

All of the above has been perfectly evident from years of experience and from the studying

the mistakes and lessons laid bare in the wonderful 1975 Referendum book by David Butler and Uwe W. Kitzinger which with unerring and unintentional accuracy predicted many of the same problems 40 years ahead. The book is freely available on the internet,

With this in mind therefore we note this report from the BBC:

The BBC's opening website paragraph is this:

At a town hall meeting in London, US president Barack Obama told 500 young people to "reject pessimism, cynicism and know that progress is possible".

Obama hasn't mentioned specifically the EU, but the phrase of "rejecting pessimism and cynicism" makes it transparent of what his message is, given his previous statements during his current stay in the UK.

And then follows a relatively long piece BBC about Obama which includes interviews with an "international relations student" who's "a non-binary person", an "ethnic minority president of the Oxford University Conservative Association" and "a campaigner on disability and violence against women". All of which sounds very progressive and positive.

When we consider the recent fuss about the "debate" - if we can call it that - with Boris Johnson's ill informed intervention regarding Obama's comments on UK membership of the EU, describing the lame duck US President as "part-Kenyan", the inference and context of Obama's recent comments becomes obvious. The debate is being framed as a well meaning progressive Cameron against an idiot colonial and out of date Boris.

Obama is using well rehearsed emotional issues to attempt to isolate the Brexit campaigners as those who are not normal without, in this report, having to mention the EU. Thus the BBC doesn't have to show "balance" in this particular piece as part of its referendum reporting.

In this sense the referendum is going according to plan. It is a repeat of 1975. It's not like we weren't warned. We knew the BBC would be unfair, we knew the media be unfair, we knew Cameron would lie and we knew American and other countries would interfere.  We knew this.

And that was the point of an exit plan - it allowed us to launch an effective pre-emptive strike. By having a progressive positive plan we would have negated the effectiveness of an American President's intervention.

Instead we are increasingly being lumbered with Boris, a politician without a clue who this blog has long been less than convinced that he is a Eurosceptic Tory - if that term is not an oxymoron.

It's within this context it becomes increasingly difficult to tell whether Boris' current disastrous intervention in the referendum campaign is the result of idiocy or perhaps more cynically an attempt to hijack the leave campaign and deliberately ruin it, The latter would be very much in keeping with his and his family's well established pro-EU views.

The outcome though as it currently stands is the leave campaign loses, Failing to learn these lessons of the obvious mistakes of the past are now coming to pass....again.

Burying Bad News

After yet another cancellation due to the Algerian crisis, after much dithering hitherto, it appears that Cameron will now deliver his much awaited EU speech on Monday. As Your Freedom and Ours notes the same day as President Obama's second inauguration ceremony.

It really does display a special kind of ineptitude for Cameron to make such a mess of this as he has, an ineptitude that almost places him in genius territory. It's hard not to escape the conclusion that after all the build up, Cameron is aware of the mess he is in, so what better than to hide the speech behind another more prominent story that will dominate the headlines.

As a consequence of such weak indecisive leadership, another nail has been firmly driven into, not only the 2015 election for the Tories but also their existence as a party.

The End?

I've always been reluctant to call time on the Euro, the capacity of the EU elite to do whatever is necessary to save the project should never be underestimated. However there does seem an air of acceptance of its fate and subsequently there's panic and posturing to pass the blame for its inevitable collapse.

China and the US are urging the EU leaders to sort the mess out, seemingly preparing to pass the buck to Europe for any fallout as a result of a Euro crash:

Reflecting the anger of Americans who are blaming Europe for the current economic turmoil, the President called for eurozone leaders to show global markets they are taking responsibility for the crisis.

Merkel is shifting the blame onto Greece for failing to get its house in order and EU Commission Barroso has waded into the mix:

European Commission (EC) President José Manuel Barroso left the door open for eurobonds on Wednesday, as he delivered a stark assessment of the eurozone described as “the most serious challenge of a generation”.

Barroso must know that, despite approving the current bail-out of Greece, the German Constitutional Court has specifically outlawed, in its recent judgement, eurobonds in the future as highlighted here:

While the German constitutional court may have approved bailouts last week, anyone who says this was good news for the eurozone did not read the fine print in that 29-page document.

That's the opinion of Wolfgang Munchau, a longtime FT editor who writes a weekly column on the affairs of the European Union.

In an editorial published yesterday, he points out that the constitutional court virtually ruled out permanent mechanisms like the European Stability Mechanism (the would-be successor to the EFSF) and the economic authority necessary to back up eurobonds because they would impinge upon the sovereignty of the German state. An expansion of the EFSF is only legal because it is temporary.

Panic and preparation for the blame game appears to be in full swing The end is clearly on the cards - it's all over, please get on with it.

Obama Tells Europe To Get Stuffed

In a humiliating blow to the EU (post-Lisbon), Barack Obama has backed out of an EU-US summit, scheduled for May in Spain. even the incentive of the Champion's league final was not enough to tempt him. The New York Times reports:

With President Barack Obama’s decision to skip a United States-European Union summit meeting next May in Madrid, Europe’s egos were badly bruised. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, and José Manuel Barroso, the E.U. Commission president, were angry and embarrassed. They saw Mr. Obama’s nonattendance as a snub.

It could signal an emerging shift in the trans-Atlantic relationship, analysts and diplomats believe.

As the United States moves ahead in redefining its role in the post-Cold War era — believing it is high time that Europe took care of its own security — Europe is caught in a quandary. It hankers after a past that relied on U.S. protection, but it wants to break free and become a global player in its own right.

I wonder if the EU is now regretting supporting Obama when he won the Presidential election? It's not as if it's the first snub.

Can't Get The Message Across

I confess that I only rarely take an interest in American politics, though I did follow the Obama election. I've never been a particular fan of him; more overblown rhetoric than substance.

'Change we can believe in?' Yawn! We've heard it all before and no doubt we'll hear it all again this year by the Tories.

His first year has been underwhelming to say the least, brilliantly encapsulated by the Democrats losing Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat.

On a rescue mission of his Presidency Obama has given an interview and admitted voter neglect (my emphasis):

“If there’s one thing I regret, it’s that we were so busy just getting stuff done …that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are.”

Hmm so they've voted against you because you failed to get your message across? Now that sounds familiar:

"To achieve that we need a leader who can articulate that vision and let our country and the party move on."

or:

Labour ministers have a collective responsibility for the government's lamentable failure to get our message across.

or:

The Conservative party's rout in the local elections was because the party failed to communicate with the electorate, Prime Minister John Major said.

The people of Massachusetts have voted for Scott Brown not because Obama's lost that sense of communication about core values, but precisely because they know what his message is and they don't like it.

Failure to get the message across is the language of a doomed government.

Brown's handshake cock-up

While in Afghanistan, Brown attempts to shake hands with British troops but it doesn't quite go according to plan, as they were already saluting:



It seems remarkably similar to an incident with another Western Leader earlier this year:



I don't think it was a deliberate snub for Brown on behalf of the troops, but more of an indication of how completely clueless Brown is when it comes to our Armed Forces.

Hattip: Guido

EU President Rompuy-Pumpy 0.008% Legitimate

Hattip: Daniel1979