John Major came on the radio this morning trying to be helpful to David Cameron in his campaign to stop Jean-Claude Juncker becoming president of the European commission.
Major suggested other European leaders might want to ‘make it up’ to Cameron if Juncker gets the job.
Major knows a lot about wishful thinking when it comes to Europe. The last time Britain was so isolated was during his ridiculous and futile ‘beef war’. It took a Labour government to repair relations and restore Britain’s standing and influence in Europe.
The sad thing is that Cameron is trying to defend an important principle, which is enshrined in EU treaties: that the democratically elected governments of Europe, not the European parliament, choose who runs the commission in Brussels.
But his public grandstanding and personalising of the issue around Juncker has lost him the support of governments that should be our natural allies. Terrible tactics; dreadful strategy.
Major’s quaint idea that Cameron might get something in return for any humiliation seriously underestimates the extent to which his approach has badly alienated our friends in Europe. German politicians from all parties and their media, both left and right, who are usually very restrained when it comes to criticising fellow EU governments, have been withering, urging Merkel to ‘stand up’ to Cameron’s ‘blackmail’. Where must this leave Cameron’s already far-fetched ‘renegotiation then referendum’ policy?
By repeatedly appeasing his anti-European backbenchers and their cheerleaders in the press, Cameron has left Britain isolated and our national interest betrayed. The more his backbenchers roar their support for his ‘robust’ stance, the weaker he becomes. At least John Major stood up to his Europhobes. ‘Bastards’, he called them. And, like Tony Blair, Major succeeded in blocking a commission president Britain did not want. Cameron would appear too weak to do either.
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Ben Bradshaw is member of parliament for Exeter
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Photo: World Economic Forum
Bradshaw himself doesn’t get it: as long as the members of the European Council (The PMs ) carve up the jobs and power between themselves in late night horsetrading, the directly elected European Parliament is undermined and weakened. That in turn diminishes people’s respect for the European project so fewer people turn out to vote and the cycle continues downwards.
Rational people can understand the principle of voting for different tiers of Government and of the necessity and practicality of having different functions and collective responsibilities dealt with at different levels. Only Westminster politicians seem to have difficulty in understanding that nation states were a brief aberration. The sooner the UK is broken up into seven or eight English regions, Scotland, Wales and Ulster within a democratic European federation the better.
Very well put Paul. National governments are constantly blackmailed by domestic issues. We vote for the European Parliament and we care it’s allowed to work for a better Europe, not as individual states’ men in arms.
“the democratically elected governments of Europe, not the European parliament”
Bradshaw, I have great respect for you and your work, but I have a request too.
Can you please rewrite the above quotation so that it reads “the democratically elected governments of Europe, not the democratically elected European parliament”.
There is no reason why you should omit the ‘democratically elected’ when talking about the European Parliament. Quite the opposite, we elect it using the proportional system that in most cases means not 1 vote is lost. Sadly, the house of commons is elected with a very divisive First Past The Post, where 49.99% of voters lose any right to have a voice at Westminster.
I’m sure you mean well, but I will respect you even more if you don’t use those little rhetoric tricks the Mail, the Sun, Ukip or the worst of right-wing propaganda use, to diminish an important institution. Thanks.
The people of Europe elected Jean’Claude Juncker in a democratic election. Any other president of the European Commission will have no democratic legitimacy.
As a pro-European, I hope that Cameron is successful in stopping Juncker. He is the wrong man for the job!
I might as well agree on that, but Cameron is doing it for the wrong reasons in the wrong way. Two wrongs rarely make one right, if he succeeds it will have bad consequences.
How can anyone govern a nation which has 246 different kinds of cheese? asked De Gaulle in 1960’s – whoever gets the presidential seat on the commission bench will be a brave (wo)man and fully deservant of their circa Euro360 000 salary and perks. Am I getting senile [worse] or did De Gaulle sometimes make a lot of, admittedy Fracophile biased, sense on many occasions?
His fav’ song was ‘La Mer’ so he couldn’t have been half as bad as some portray him.
Apart from a few mad ‘artistic’types, the French are very underrated by us here in UK.
Think about it – half of Paris stays and works in London for starters … just saying as if we are to continue in this Europe fiasco in Brussels we in UK may as well get some friends over there, non?