During the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign, The Salisbury Review run my blog series ‘Referendum Watch’. My last piece, the day after the referendum result, warned:
‘Not that the establishment is likely to heed the will of the people.’ And here we are, with Davos-man Starmer playing the part of the EU’s nervous, whimpering puppy desperately trying to please its master, bounding gleefully and gratefully back into the grasping, outstretched arms of the EU.
The May ‘Reset with the EU’ is, as many readers will have already recognised, an abject capitulation by a Prime Minister who fetishizes technocracy over democracy. (This is the man who immediately, automatically, tried to crush the 2016 referendum by leading the anti-democratic forces trying to overturn its outcome.) Like the arch Euro-federalist Tony Blair before him, Starmer no doubt hopes that his servility will be rewarded by an eye-wateringly well-remunerated sinecure in Brussels after his time in British politics is finished. (Let us hope he fails in this regard just as Blair did: no Mr President of Europe for him.)
The EU that Starmer and his government (and many Lib Dem and Tory MPs) are so cravenly beholden to is a deeply insidious institution, utterly opposed to the pesky inconvenience that is democracy. It promotes itself through all manner of sly, oleaginous and disingenuous machinations, presenting an image of the pure saving force for Europe. One way that it has long pursued this has been through seemingly altruistic organisations and funding. It is nothing more than Euro-Imperialism, something every bit as real as Dollar-Imperialism.
A little-noticed report earlier this year exposes the scam. The EU’s Propaganda Machine: How the EU Funds NGOs to Promote Itself, written by Thomas Fazi and commissioned by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Brussels, reveals the extent of the EU’s web of cash bribery under the shining bright auspices of fabricated do-gooding.
Billions of euros are channelled into these NGOs, with two chief intentions. One is to promote the EU. Yes, all governments do this to promote themselves – but they are usually elected! More sinister is the other intent to suppress any voices antithetical to the EU. This attempt to eradicate dissent is a direct attack on free speech and freedom of thought – censorship on citizens from an entity that is not even a state, just an institution. For veteran EU watchers, this is not a surprise – it has long been part of Brussels’ gameplan – but Fazi’s report brings it fully and systematically into the light.
Some figures (in euros) capture the extent of this largesse to NGOs and affiliated supporters:
- 250 million over the last decade to the Centre for European Policy Studies, which works towards a federal Europe
- 250 million to Euronews, a pro-EU news network over the past ten years.
- 15 million over the last five years to the European Movement International, run by the likes of Guy Verhofstadt, the leading Belgian politician who personifies euro-federalism fanaticism.
- 2 million in the last three years to the NGO, The Union of European Federalists.
- 30 million over the last decade to the European Policy Centre, an organisation unrestrained in its zeal for the EU.
And on and on it goes. Collectively, the figures are staggering. Over 45 billion has been apportioned to something euphemistically called ‘Resilience and Values’. Some 1.5 billion of this has found its way to ‘Citizens, Rights and Values’ (CERV in French), 236 million allocated for 2025 alone. Since 2021, CERV has financed over 3,000 civil society organisations. One of my favourite fundings for pet schemes is the (relatively) modest 270,000 to think tanks in Italy, Bulgaria and Romania, coming together under the collective/collectivisation mission of ‘Whos and Hows: countering disinformation that pushes citizens away from the European project.’
Fazi rightly observes:
The Commission’s [external] support for local NGOs in member states is issued to undermine or attempt to delegitimize democratically elected administrations under the pretext of defending EU ‘values’. This constitutes foreign interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations.
Professor Frank Furedi, executive director of MCC Brussels, observes ‘the EU has amassed and extraordinary propaganda network of NGOs and compliant media, paid for by EU taxpayers, often working directly against the wishes of European citizens.’ This weaponisation of civil society organisations into ‘instruments of institutional propaganda’ is a deliberate attempt to undermine democracy.
No surprise, then, that with the UK government’s latest submission to Europe, the British establishment will be putting their hands deeper into their pockets to contribute to the EU’s drive against democracy.
The 50-page report can be found here: https://brussels.mcc.hu/uploads/default/0001/01/7ab59f9d3aca403f6fbd6ff2af284f236fddad7c.pdf
