Eurocrats killing Europe?
The reaction of politicians across Europe to Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty smacks of astounding arrogance. Take Andrew Duff MEP, leader of the Liberal Democrats in Europe:
“We cannot accept this result.”
Yes, and why not Mr. Duff? Never mind that, in a democratic vote with a relatively high turnout, the only population given a direct say in the Treaty told the government to take said Treaty and insert it in an orifice. Never mind that whole democracy thing. After all, the Treaty is all about shifting power from elected to unelected bodies, so we shouldn’t be surprised…
Perhaps our own dear Foreign Secretary was in the mood for a little respect:
“I believe it is right that we continue with our process.”
So, that’s a no, then. Everywhere you look, you get the same reaction from pro-Treaty politicians: “Oh, come on, you can’t be serious can you? Those fucking peasants owe us. We lifted those ungrateful little shits out of the bogs, and we expect a return of service. All we’re asking for is for their permission to snatch yet more power from national legislatures and hand it to unelected committees. Just because they’ve actually got something to do with the freedom we helped them achieve doesn’t mean they should use it…”
The Irish reaction to the Lisbon Treaty is clear: the country that’s benefited most from Europe doesn’t want it. The commissioners in Brussles need to learn from that. In the only country where the government allowed the people a say, that people rejected the Treaty. These people are some of the most pro-EU in Western Europe; even the opposition leaflets carried the slogan “Ireland’s Place is in Europe.” When that happens, EU leaders should look around, question how welcome their proposals will be in less europhilic parts of the world - and quietly drop them.
And yet we see them squeal. Monumental buttocks continue to flap even as I write. Can’t they see how this damages the very idea of European unity that they love so much? They haven’t accepted defeat - but simply propose to move on regardless. The public don’t want an EU in the form the Lisbon Treaty sets out. That its authors reject this clear rejection adds fuel to the fires of discontent and the arguments of those who call the new EU undemocratic. Their behaviour is undemocratic - and so the whole institution becomes tainted with that poisonous charge. They become the bloated Eurocrats of stereotype, and the public begin to hate them.
You cannot impose a nation - or a supra-nation - from above. As Vamp points out here, only a public belief in international unity will make an imagined community real. That belief does not exist at present. Arrogant attempts to force it into life through words on paper won’t create that. They might even halt it.
The Irish Rejection of the Lisbon Treaty didn’t represent a rejection of the EU. All it demonstrated was their resistance to the imposition of an as yet unpopular form and idea from above. If the Eurocrats press on regardless, that might well change - into an active rejection of Europe itself. And they’d only have themselves to blame.
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