Give Peas a Chance!

Oh my dear good Lord above, the European Union wins the Nobel Peace Prize for "advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights" Alfred Nobel's great bequest to the world has been awarded to the undemocratic, population-enslaving destroyer of formerly proud nations. You've got to be kidding, right?

After a year notable for riots in many capital cities, the installation of puppet administrators in place of elected governments and the looming inevitability of a disastrous break up of the European monster, Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso issued a joint statement:

"This Prize is the strongest possible recognition of the deep political motives behind our Union."

There you go - they no longer even have the decency to lie about their intentions. Europe is ours, they are saying and we will do with it what we wish. Now hand over everything to us.

Reasonable observers of the farce have come out, open-mouthed in incredulity:

Martin Callanan MEP, leader of the European Conservatives group, said it was "a little late for an April fools joke".

Nigel Farage, UKIP leader, said "This goes to show that the Norwegians really do have a sense of humour. The EU may be getting the booby prize for peace because it sure hasn't created prosperity. The EU has created poverty and unemployment for millions."

In the Daily Telegraph, Tom Chivers commented, "Without wanting to go into whether or not that's a good idea (it seems a bit strange, even to me), does this confirm at last that the prize's organisers have stopped worrying so much about whether the recipients are actually deserving, and instead decided simply to pick people who will annoy Right-wingers?"

Now it's maybe not for me to bandy about words like 'bribe' and 'nobbled' and 'did you know that Thorbjørn Jagland, head of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, is also Secretary General of the Council of Europe?' but somebody has to, so it might as well be me.

The EU rides roughshod over the lives of the people of Europe. Member states are powerless without bloody revolution to take back the most insignificant of powers. It levies higher and higher taxes; for what else is the membership levy?

And on the subjects of peace and harmony and dignity it shows callous disregard for the most fundamental of human rights, the right to self-determination.

The Nobel Peace Price

Will they have to give the prize back when war breaks out all over the mainland? How much peace has Europe brought to British farmers and fishermen? How peaceful is your day when you listen to yet more news of yet more heavy-handed intrusion into yet more lives?

Peace? I'll fucking give them peace!

Acute angina? Thank you very much!

Apologies to regular readers for the paucity of posts thus far this week; there's nothing like a day in the Acute Medical Unit to focus the mind on the important issues of the day. Thank goodness I had the presence of mind to take my Kindle along as I was rushed into an assessment which took the best part of a day, on and off.

Actually, rushed is a tad specious, as it took four days of discomfort and a bit of nagging from somebody-who-knows-better before I deigned to allow the NHS to confirm my diagnosis. In fairness they were all very thorough, patient[sic] and courteous, batting aside my concerns that I was wasting their time and my entreaties that I was only there because I was nagged. The diagnosis? Indigestion... we think.

So, there's nothing to see here, move along the corridor smartly and try to avoid staring at the mad-haired Scots lady trying to manoeuvre a fag past her nasal oxygen cannula whilst reciting... well, it could be anything really, it's in Scottish. Avert your eyes, also, from the grossly be-tattooed, multiply pierced, heavily pregnant teenager and her attendant posse of identically clothed 'individuals' - they're the future, they've got rights, you know. (There should be an exam, really there should.)

With all due respect for the long-suffering staff, the last place you want to be if you're ill is in a hospital. But I'm not, so it's all good. And I did get to put in a spot of reading. Whatever you think of UKIP and in particular, Nigel Farage, you can't deny he has to be one of the most colourful and charismatic politicians out there, right now. In the AMU I was reading Flying Free, his engaging memoir in which he sets out his stall for a retrenchment, at the very least, of our role in Europe.

I've blogged about Europe before; about how I was just one year too young to make my feelings known in 1975; about how I never trusted the shifty Ted Heath and about how I have yet to hear a single fact-supported argument for the travesty of democracy that is the European Union. Nigel's book pointed me at a number of avenues for further research and I append a few links below.

But I don't need to 'do the math' as they say. I don't need to study dry old economic theories and European war histories. I don't need to peruse a balance sheet of pros and cons.I don't need to do any of those things to know that Europe is pure poison. Free movement of people across borders? I used to have that anyway; it was called a British Passport. In fact, even as a post-war, post-empire nation, Britain had far more respect and possibilities than we will ever have again if the spectre of costly, corrosive, creeping Euro-Everything is not halted.

And just as against the Nazis - whose European ambitions were so close to those of the EU Commissioners - the English Channel is a natural border between the European mainland and the last free country this side of the Atlantic. All you need to know about the three main parties is that not one of them has made any serious noise about withdrawing from Europe. What they have all been complicit in is handing over ever more power  while flatly denying it.

Now I'm not saying that UKIP is the answer to all our ills, but surely a party willing to draw the line has to be a better bet than all the governments willing to hand over £19.2bn per year, or if you prefer, £53m per day, to the unelected, unimpeachable, bureaucratic nightmare of Brussels.

Yeah. Fuck you, Britain!

If you have a spare hour, have a read/watch of some of these:

http://www.ukipmeps.org/uploads/file/ReferendumStichUp.pdf

http://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news/2777-nigels-birmingham-speech

http://campaignfortruth.com/CTE/realfaceinfo.htm

http://www.forvik.com/index.php/documents/the-eu

See you at the referendum!

Europe, in or out?

A very easy decision to make? Or a logistical nightmare?

Politicians afraid of making decisions will lead you to believe the latter. So much of this or that is dependent on European stuff an' t'ing. If we pull out we risk exclusion and worse. Our trade will be affected, our world standing will be eroded... will we sink forever or just thrash about in the shallow end? How will we feed ourselves, defend ourselves, feel good about ourselves?

The plain and simple answer is right there in the midst of that thrashing about, shilly-shallying and dilly-dallying like a procrastinator's wet dream. The time is not right, they say. It's what they've always said. If you put off until the day after tomorrow what you should have done the day before yesterday, pretty soon it's the middle of next week and before long a month of Mondays has passed you by like the flicking corners of a school exercise book stick-man cartoon and you're starting all over again on page one.

Sometimes (often) it is far better to make a decision and live with the consequences than to agonise about whether to make the decision at all. Occasionally procrastination is fortuitous - wait long enough and the problem goes away. But Europe isn't going anywhere and for better or for worse it has declared its hand. The Nazis Eurocrats want nothing less than a fully fledged Federal Superstate.

~~> And we don't. <~~ 

Right there. There's your answer.

We don't want what Rompuy wants, what Barroso wants, what Merkel wants.We don't want to be involved with it and we don't want it imposed on us. The only real option is out, right out and stay out. Daniel Hannan has been pushing and prodding at this for yonks; it's about time somebody listened.

Britain on its own would have no hiding place, nobody else to blame, nobody to pick up the tab, nobody else to bail out. We could stand on our own two feet, as we have for centuries. Britain on its own could finally start to make a real difference for its people, unshackled by the Über-Socialism of an aspirationally challenged European Juggernaut. (Did you ever notice how much German you need to describe Europe?)

If only we had what the balls for it.

All Prime Ministers want to leave a legacy but few of them have a real choice in what that legacy is. David Cameron has a real opportunity here to do the right thing for Britain and be remembered, possibly even revered, as a deliverer. Churchill saved us from the Nazis, Cameron could save us from their natural successors. Gotta be worth a punt, eh, Shiny Dave?

Or shall we put off the procrastination for another day?