Crash Bang Wallace
Libertarian political blog from Mark Wallace; political opinion, breaking news and exclusivesIn memoriam: Ronald Searle
Posted on January 04, 2012Ronald Searle, the cartoonist who has died aged 91, may be most famous for his creation of St Trinian’s, but I will always remember him for his creation of Nigel Molesworth, the constantly mis-spelling, ungrammatical 1950s schoolboy and self-proclaimed “goriller of 3B”.
If you have never read a Molesworth book I can’t recommend them enough – and you can get a taster from the online version of the books here.
In memory of Ronald Searle, and in celebration of how his art is truly timeless, here is a Molesworth cartoon which applies as much to today’s Euro crisis as it did to Nigel Molesworth’s frustrations with his visiting French exchange student, Armand.
The caption, in the original (mis-)spelling: “It seem that Fr. and Eng. are divided by more than the Chanel”
A time for Eurosceptics to become the positive voice
Posted on December 12, 2011The reaction of pro-EU voices to David Cameron’s refusal to support fiscal union has been very revealing.
It has been revealing in that it has demonstrated clearly that the tiny pro-EU rump left in this country are actually happy with the idea that unelected EU officials should be able to overrule democratically elected Governments to dictate how member states’ financial affairs are run.
It has been very revealing that the EU establishment clearly never intended for vetoes to be used, and in fact is happy to circumvent them – ie that they have been a smokescreen all along.
It has also revealed what many of us have been saying in and around Westminster for some time – voters are sick of seeing British leaders roll over to have their tummy tickled at the EU negotiating table. Voters overwhelmingly agree with David Cameron on this one, and he’ll gain from that. Paddy Ashdown, by contrast, must be counting himself lucky that he’s no longer accountable to the electorate, so he can safely run round town shouting the EU’s message.
Most revealing of all, in my view, is the stark demonstration that the pro-EU side of British politics deeply and fundamentally lack faith in the abilities and potential of modern Britain. Without the protective wing of Mother Brussels and her trade barriers to shelter us, we are surely lost, they claim. Not for a second do they mull the idea that Britain has the capability to stand on its own two feet.
When they talk of retaining British “influence”, they mean that we can only retain influence in a reputational sense by sacrificing it in a practical sense. They mean that only by giving up our actual control over how we run our economy, our criminal justice system, our food production, our trading relationships and much more can we retain the cosy feeling of attending EU leaders’ banquets.
This is an insidious and depressing philosophy – talking Britain down, and automatically assuming that British scientists, entrepreneurs, business people and ordinary workers can never make their own way in the world. To use a 1970s term, they want a return to managing the nation’s decline.
For far too long the EU’s cheerleaders have been able to portray themselves as being on the sunny side of the street. They loved to make out that they were the friendly, positive optimists who saw sunny uplands in Britain’s future.
Contrast that to their message today:
“Suez seems mild in comparison. What sort of nation is it that rejoices in its own defeat?” – Labourlist
“At a time of economic crisis, we have made it more attractive for investors to go to northern Europe.” – Paddy Ashdown
“A Britain which leaves the EU would be considered irrelevant by Washington and will be considered a pygmy in the world.” – Nick Clegg
“In a world in which the influences of the old powers is diminishing by the day, Britain’s prime minister has attacked his closest partners and left our country weaker and more isolated” – Chris Davies MEP
There are plenty more bits of negativity where those came from, too. The peculiar and rare strain of politics that is Euro-enthusiasm is now essentially united around the core belief that Britain is a basket case. That’s not an idea which will set the electorate on fire with enthusiasm.
It is time to seize properly on this issue, and for eurosceptics to become the voice of positivity.
Where those who believe in integration see only weakness, we see great potential in Britain. Where they want protectionism, even at the cost of our economic health and starving bellies in the Third World, we want free trade and new enterprise. Where they look to secure a bed in the Little European retirement home, slowly dwindling away with the rest of the EU’s outdated economies, we want to reach out to trade with the whole world – India, China, Brazil and others.
When you talk to voters about the great issues of the day, they want to know what the future will look like for their children. Would they rather hear someone say “we think they’re done for, so we’ll give up their democratic rights in order to buy a seat in a declining economic bloc”, or “we’ll have faith in them to innovate and trade with the whole world”? The Lib Dems’ reluctance to collapse the Coalition and face an election rather answers that.
Reasons for a referendum
Posted on December 05, 2011One thing was always clear about the Government’s EU “referendum lock” – the EU’s defenders were always going to claim it didn’t actually justify a referendum. Whether they did it outright in the wording, or later in a tortured limbo around what that wording meant, is irrelevant.
So it has come to pass now that the first proposed treaty changes since the lock was passed into law have hoved into view. Nick Clegg has rushed straight out, his face painted blue with a delightful ring of yellow stars scattered across his cheeks, chin and forehead, to announce that proposals for fiscal union among the Eurozone countries are not eligible for a referendum as they don’t constitute a transfer of sovereignty from Britain to Brussels.
Underlying this is the argument being pushed by the Conservative leadership that, as Tim Montgomerie reported it, an EU referendum would “plunge Britain’s economy into chaos”.
But it is this latter argument which undermines the former.
As we can now see from the crisis hanging over us – a crisis that has emerged as a direct result of the Euro’s disastrous creation and the ongoing, eternal grind of ever closer union – losing sovereignty is not just about Brussels being able to directly overrule Britain. It is also about whether we are losing the ability to build a successful, sustainable economy on our own terms.
EU integration has made Britain more economically vulnerable to crises on the Continent, a problem which is compounded by the fact that it has also made such crises far more likely. At the same time as our exposure to EU risk has increased, the Single Market’s aggressive protectionism has forbidden us from diversifying by trading freely and fully with other economies around the world – particularly with the BRICs.
In effect, they have tied a weight to our feet, dragging us down into the ocean depths, and bound our hands, stopping us trying to swim upwards.
The decision by a core group of EU countries to integrate through a single currency has diluted our sovereignty by reducing the effectiveness of the measures the British Government might take to boost our economy. As we are currently seeing, you don’t have to be in the Euro to be screwed by its failure.
Can they seriously claim that fiscal union in the Eurozone – a step which is likely to bring down even worse disaster on all our heads – won’t have a similar effect?
We are tied to the Eurozone through our EU membership – as a result, their fate does affect our fate. That’s why we have a veto on these proposals for fiscal union. And that’s why the British people should get a referendum on whether that veto is used.
Only cutting the right head off the Eurozone Hydra will kill this crisis
Posted on November 08, 2011Appropriately, the key to understanding the EU’s continued failure to solve the Eurozone crisis lies in Greek mythology. The second of the Twelve Labours of Hercules was the slaying of the Learnean Hydra – a many-headed beast that had the nasty and inconvenient habit of growing two new heads every time you cut one off.
This meant that many who tried to slay the Hydra ended up exerting themselves only to make it even more ferocious and threatening. Hercules eventually triumphed because he discovered that one of its heads was mortal – only by cutting off that one could the Hydra be destroyed.
So it is with the Eurozone crisis. Politicians, observers and – most sinfully – the markets are so desperate for all the effort going into each “solution” to be worthwhile that they convince themselves that just cutting off one more head will solve the Euro’s problems.
Time after time, though, they have chosen the wrong head.
First, simply announcing no Eurozone country would go bust or could go bust was meant to do the trick. It didn’t.
Then bailing out Greece from its short term liquidity crisis would solve all of the problems. It didn’t.
After which, Greece’s austerity package being voted through their Parliament would provide a panacea. It didn’t
Then bailing Greece out again was going to put the crisis to bed once and for all. It didn’t.
Then the “bazooka” deal would unite Europe in defeating the fiscal threat. It didn’t.
Last week, only George Papandreou ditching his referendum proposal and resigning would bring the nightmare to an end. It didn’t.
Now, they have seized desperately on the idea that Berlusconi’s resignation will calm the markets and stop the carnage.
It won’t, and it won’t for a very simple reason: Berlusconi is not the problem.
Of course, he isn’t the solution, either – he’s a clownish figure who lacks the authority or the desire to solve Italy’s problems – but any idea that he is the only thing that stands between Italy and fiscal stability is a fantasy as deranged as his self-perception of being God’s gift to women.
The sad thing is that there is such desire to believe that cutting off each of these Hydra’s heads will end the crisis that the markets briefly buoy when each one approaches, only to fall back further when reality intrudes again.
With each false hope and every false promise, the credibility of the next “solution” is reduced, the panic becomes deeper and the cost of borrowing rises. For a stark illustration of this problem, just look at the trouble the EFSF is having raising money from the international markets. As Liberal Conspiracy point out, it is now paying 4 times as much to borrow as it was in June. It isn’t just Greece and Italy that international lenders such as China view as too risky to lend to - it’s the supposed solution mechanism for the crisis.
The underlying problem – the true mortal head of this economic Hydra – is that membership of the Euro has straightjacketed these economies from defaulting or devaluing to address their sovereign debt problems. But political leaders find this so unpalatable in their world of “ever closer union” that they turn a blind eye to it, and keep lopping off other heads, increasingly bewildered at the sprouting of more and more in their place.
Let me make a prediction (which is a risky business, but hey). If Berlusconi does resign, the markets will briefly rise only to dip swiftly once it becomes clear that weeks of political wrangling or even a General Election will be necessary to even form a new Italian Government, still less implement a viable austerity plan. This will radically increase the cost of Italy’s borrowing even further, leading perhaps to a crisis in other Eurozone banks and further bailouts in Benelux and France and almost certainly to an attempt at direct budget control by the European Commission.
Even Hercules was not strong enough to keep chopping off the wrong heads indefinitely. To find the right head and dispatch this Hydra before being eaten the Eurozone countries need to get on to the real issue quickly, and escape their state of denial.
CCHQ’s yellowish EU briefing
Posted on October 20, 2011CCHQ have just issued this briefing to MPs to explain why the people don’t deserve a referendum on our relationship with the EU, and would probably find a vote too “confusing”. It hasn’t gone down well with Conservative backbenchers at all, some of whom are suggesting the document has more than a few Lib Dem fingerprints on it.
That may or may not be true, but if the Conservative Party wanted to avoid those suspicions they probably shouldn’t have titled the paper “Britain in Europe” – which also happens to be the name of the pro-EU and pro-Euro pressure group run at one time by Danny Alexander…
Exclusive interview with Slovakian Euro bailout rebel Juraj Droba MP
Posted on October 13, 2011
The attention of the global media has been fixed – unusually – on Slovakia this week. With 16 of the 17 Eurozone nations already having committed their taxpayers to supporting a vastly increased bailout of Greece, Slovakia was the only one left standing. On Tuesday, their Parliament voted to reject the EU’s bailout plan, thanks in large part to an insurgency led by the Freedom and Solidarity Party – commonly known in Slovakia as the SaS – which led to the collapse of the governing coalition.
The SaS are a true classical liberal party, combining free market economics with civil libertarian principles such as drug legalisation. What is it that led them to bring down the coalition government of Slovakia rather than vote for the Greek bailout? What will happen next? To find out, I conducted a brief interview with my friend Juraj Droba, one of the 21 SaS MP sitting in the Slovakian Parliament and Vice-Chairman of the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee. Square brackets denote my own explanatory notes.
Q. Can you sum up for British readers why you and your parliamentary colleagues have voted to reject the bailout motion?
Many reasons – the moral hazard, the fallacy of trying to solve indebtedness with more debt which will only prolong the agony, the principle that poorer people in responsible countries must not pay for irresponsibility of politicians in richer countries. This money would not go to people, but to the shareholders of the French and German banks – these profited heavily over decades from high-interest risky loans guaranteed by the governments.
Q. Why do you think it was you and your colleagues in Slovakia who said No when all the other Eurozone countries said yes to the bailout?
We are a new party, composed of people who were previously successful in the commercial sphere. Our bottoms are not glued to the political chairs, we are ready to leave anytime and even sacrifice our mere political existence for a principle as noble as pointing out the main trobules with EFSF and ESM [the Euro bailouts].
Q. Is there any polling evidence of what the Slovakian voters think about the issue? Will this have an impact on the next general election in your country?
Over 50 percent majority did not want Slovakia to participate in the bailout. The impact on the early elections in March 2012 is questionable, several other issues are more salient than a somewhat remote and complicated EFSF.
Q. The EU is famous for making people vote again if they come out with the “wrong” answer. Will the parliament have a second vote on the issue – and if so, how soon will it be and what do you think the result will be?
Unfortunately, yes. It will happen this Friday and it will be carried with the votes of the opposition. The price we pay is early elections, because our Liberal party was removed from the government coalition.
Q. If the rest of the Eurozone goes for bailouts and further fiscal integration, can you foresee a day when Slovakia would want to leave the EU to go its own way?
No. Slovaks as people are rather euro-optimistic, as evidenced in polls. We still believe that euro is a good project. We are not against the common currency, we are against irresponsibility of governments and constant breaking of the basic rules…
Q. Have you or your colleagues been pressured from outside Slovakia to change your position and vote for the bailout – either from EU institutions, businesses or foreign politicians?
All of these combined. SaS leader Richard Sulik had a private meeting with Guido Westerwelle [German Minister for Foreign Affairs], the Prime Minister was harshly pushed by Merkel and Sarkozy, we as Liberals received a decent and polite letter from our partners from the ELDR [the European Liberal Democrats, who both the SaS and the UK Lib Dems belong to], foreign diplomats mentioned the issue at every possible meeting occassion with any of us, etc. The pressure even increased after this week’s No vote.