Fifty years ago, Britain joined the EEC (European Economic Community). Much was made then and since by Europhiles, who claimed Britain should have joined much earlier, and by many others that by then we had joined much too late. Of course, Britain did try to join earlier, in 1961, not long after the EEC was formed in 1957. And then again in 1967. But France’s Charles de Gaulle was having none of it, rejecting both pleadings. He did not want another cockerel crowing in his farmyard.
There were many sound reasons – beyond the obvious ones of the woefully undemocratic implications of EEC membership – for Britain not to have joined from the get-go. This started in 1950, with the proto-EU being formed with the European Coal and Steel Community, the brainchild of the arch-federalist consummation of Robert Schumann and Jean Monnet. (The six members of this supposedly ‘economic’ pact – Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands – soon went onto to form the EEC.) At the time, the Korean War was the world’s new major conflict and international crisis. The costs of natural resources and minerals soared – as they always do in war time. But Britain was well placed to weather the storm, as its Commonwealth network kept the country well-supplied at reasonable prices.
Europe was also suffering from huge political instability after the war. France had four presidents in just one year (1946); Italy was not much better. Both had powerful communist parties seemingly poised to take power. In Germany, fears of revanchism remained strong. By comparison, Britain was a model of constancy.
But joining the EEC in 1973 made even less sense. By that time, Europe’s golden period of economic growth (after the obviously painfully low starting point in 1945) was over. This was especially true of France, which revelled in its hallowed trentes glorieuses of growth and prosperity during this time. It took an ignorant establishment of economically illiterate politicians and misty-eyed Europhiles to drag Britain into the EEC in 1973, under the insidious and deeply dishonest leadership of Edward Heath. Rarely has the Tory Party more readily lived up to its reputation as the Stupid Party. And for those who doubt Heath’s mendacity, one can find it chronicled even in the writings of the hardline pro-EU lobby. M’lord Christopher Tugendhat, Tory grandee and erstwhile vice-president of the European Commission, admits in his book from last year, The Worm in the Apple: A History of the Conservative Party and Europe from Churchill to Cameron, that Heath refused ‘to be frank with the British people’ – to put it very mildly from an admirer of Heath. The 1975 referendum to stay in the EEC met with the usual establishment herd mentality, fooling the electorate with lies and a campaign budget some ten times the size of the leavers’. Even though the Tories were put of power by then, only five of their MPs voted against EEC membership, including the admirable Sir Richard Body and Teddy Taylor.
The Tories took us into Europe and the Tories under Major took us even deeper in. But they also took us out. (Well, most of the way, if not all). Can they be trusted to keep us out and to cut the last mooring lines between us and the EU – the binding ties of the NI Protocol? It’s looking doubtful. The dangers are real and will be explored in another blog.
The much more interesting question is, What are we going to do outside the EU? Any ideas?
‘Go Global’? I would prefer Little Britain, or even better, Little England.
Winston Churchill always advocated strong economic ties with the continent, and never, ever forging tight, permanent alliances with any of it’s actors. Or so I read his biographies.
Pity he can’t come back and have a few midnight chats with his “Tory” successors.
Can the Tories take us out of the EU? Oui!
Will they? Non… Non… Non…
They love it.
The Tory party needs to be RECLAIMED and REFORMED in order to retrieve our HERITAGE.
Situations change.
1945 – the communist replacement from East Germany to North Korea.
2023 – the racial replacement from Black Africa to South Asia.
The British are white people, just like the Germans and French.
Our civilization is not Islamic or Hindu. Our culture is not Gangsta-rap or Vodou.
Getting rid of the EU woke pathocrats is one thing, but what about our own and north America’s?
Demography is destiny.
Time for an historic rethink from Ulster to Ukraine, Quebec to Canberra, Athens to Rome?
There could have been an association between the ECSC and the then four White Dominions in the atmosphere of recovery from the Nazi war. See the contemporary literature – Salvador de Madariaga, John Bowle, Hendrik Brugmans, Lewis Way, Geoffrey Barraclough, John Mander, John Biggs-Davison, Richard Mayne, &c. The drug-addict Eden felt it in his “bones” we could never enter “Europe” (a continent to which these islands belong, and politically engaged ever since the Roman Empire). De Gaulle felt that the British contribution was an American-supported effort to trip the French jockey off the German horse, while Macmillan used his “rejection” as an election boost. Pygmy Britain is now left with a mess in or out of the EU.
Various contributors to the United Europe Idea could be added: Axel Firsoff, Christopher Dawson, Denis de Rougemont, T. S. Eliot, Hugh Thomas, G. K. Young, Giovanni Lanfre, Oscar Halecki….
We do not have long to save the European heritage of the English, Welsh, Scots and Irish from Africa and Asia.
Munday, Munday …
Sorry, Gloria; I’m not drunk enough yet for a meaningful reply to yours.
@ johnhenry
Don’t get too sick in transit.
I have to say it’s a bit odd to see an Indian call himself British. I’m not saying I oppose it; I understand they were born there; and I’m not British so I don’t care. But if some white guy said he was Chinese or Nigerian, I’d think he’s crazy.
When I think of British, I think of white dudes with blonde, red, and light brown hair; they have bad teeth; they drive around in little weird looking cars; they have a queen (now a king); they like tea and crumpets; they drive on the wrong side of the road; and they’re polite or rude depending on their social class, and if they’re from a higher social class they’re probably polite but haughty; they are not African, Hispanic, Indian or Chinese.
People always talk about America, when it comes to immigration; but America is quite unique. People who went to America in the 19th century basically all had the same values; there were problems, of course, especially when the Irish arrived (dirty, rude, drunk, and catholic) but they were able to learn, adapt, and eventually adopt the American culture. Even the Chinese in America (the old chinese class) were people who escaped from the CCP; they didn’t entirely fit in, so they erected “China towns” but they didn’t cause problems; they respected the constitution; so in many ways America was able to take a number of different racial groups and succeed at creating harmony because they all shared similar values. (everyone except blacks that is, who for some reason decided to go the gangster route). But anyways, it seems to me that the UK and Europe is not giving any consideration to whether North African Arabs, who subscribe to Sharia law, can adopt western values. Or whether some Chinese student employed and seeking citizenship can fit in when the CCP is recruiting them for espionage.
Japan was criticized by the Guardian recently for not allowing massive immigration. Japan has one of the lowest rates of crime in the world; they respect each other; they all get along for the most part; even the Yakuza are polite; it’s the most polite gang in the world. Homogenous culture and values produces good outcomes.
multiculturalism will end in bloodshed, and homogenous societies like Japan will look on, shrug, and say “I told you so”