Thursday, September 21, 2006

EU Serf's Guide to New Labour EU Sellouts

EU Serf has a good post about John Reid's imminent sellout on our EU veto in crime and justice issues.

Will he or won't he? This is how it normally goes:

1. Wild eyed federast asks for powers
2. British government minister refuses point blank
3. Another federast asks again
4. Government minister looks into it
5. Opposition & Media kick up a stink
6. Meeting held, British Minister stands firm
7. Public forget the whole affair
8. Government caves in
9. Look for robust language tomorrow and a treachery at a later date.

Serf's got it just about spot on.

47 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds depressingly accurate

Wrinkled Weasel said...

Federast? Not heard that one before but it is perfect.

Scary Biscuits said...

Point 3: is that federast or pederast?

Anonymous said...

The tories still haven't 'got it' on Europe, have they?

Keep talking about it Iain, it'll show you up as the hopelessly riven, pickled in aspic, backward bunch of Little Englanders you all are.

Croydonian said...

Federasts & europhiles - get with the plan, people.

Anonymous said...

"Wild eyed federast"

Some kind of gay hat?

Anonymous said...

I'd tweak the list:

8. Horsetrading.
8.1 Government caves in.
8.2. Minister says he is proud to achieved such a good deal and points to clause 45.2, para 8, second sentence where it says "a review may be undertaken in 4 years time" (ie when policy is entrenched)

Anonymous said...

This is a desperately depressing development . I recall one of the most telling symptoms of clinical depression is the sense that things are happening far away and that you have no active control.I am clearly more depressed than i thought because it feels exactly like that

We blandly contemplate a historical betrayal of 1000 years of our envied culture anddo nothing .Our Oak tree with its tap root deep down in the free spirit of the Englishness is being hacked away and we drift about the subject like pointless wraiths,. I despair .


Then I go back to my tea and biscuit and chat about Xavi Alonzo`s goal

nsfl said...

EU Serf has done well. His guide to NuLab capitulation reminds me of Daniel Hannan MEP's skewering of successive Brit govts' repsonse to EU power grabs:

Stage One is mock-incredulity: "No one is proposing any such thing. It just shows what loons these sceptics are that they could even imagine it." Stage Two is bravado: "Well all right, it's being proposed, but don't worry: we have a veto and we'll use it." Stage Three is denial: "Look, we may have signed this, but it doesn't really mean what the critics are claiming." Stage Four is resignation: "No point complaining now, old man: it's all been agreed."

I'm not old enough to have voted in 1975. If any of you voted 'yes' then, do you ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

James Higham said...

Yes, I had a look through this guide but too many are not committing themselves with stats and so i don't know how effective it is until they supply them. On the other matter - just trying to jolly your stats along even more. Forgive me.

Bel said...

At some point, probably before even the wild-eyed federast asks for powers, a journalist would have heard some rumour that such a thing is in the offing, and the Government would dismiss the whole story as false.

Anonymous said...

It is federast and it has been around for a long time, coined in the early nineties for the Conservative government of John Major. Alas, that entire sequence could have been written about either Major's or Blair's government and, probably, the putative Cameron one.

Anonymous said...

Permission to invade Belgium, Sir!

Anonymous said...

I started to agree with ali mcnab, no the Tories haven't got it on Europe.

But what they haven't got is how ridiculous the whole thing is. Boris Johnson's piece in today's Telegraph is a case in point.

Jeremy Jacobs said...

I was severely criticized for handing out these comments on an election leaflet at last years General Election.

The "words" told, you and so spring to mind..................

"For centuries the British people have worked hard to establish and maintain a democratic parliamentary system. Over the past 32 years however, it has been slowly and unobtrusively eroded by our membership of the Europ**n Uni**. The proposed EU Constitution will change the existing situation irrevocably. It will mean the end of Britain as a self-governingh, demoncratic and free nation and we will become completely subservient to the EU system and to Brussels. A vote for me is a vote to leave the EU".

OK, the Constitution vote in France and Holland has only delayed the Brussels machine. Here we go again.Pity the Conservatives are dithering as Dr Reid is prepared to sell this country further down the river.



JCJ

UKIP Candidate, Finchley & Golders Green, Election 2005

Anonymous said...

hope no one has said this, but wasn't that invented by the tories???

Anonymous said...

political teenager wrote: "Hope no one has said this ..." Why didn't you go back and read the comments, you lazy little self-regarding git? And then you contribute what you imagine is a sly political point. Spare us. The word federast came into general usage in the '90s. Who knows which individual used it first? It's been around forever.

Cameron scares me as much as Tony Blair scared me 10 years ago. The only thing is, after 10 years of Labour evisceration of our civil society, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, the family, our cohesion as a nation with the hosing in of aliens who do not share our values, there is much less left to lose now.

The next government, whether Labour or "Tory", will put an end to Britain.

Anonymous said...

Iain - I would have thought better of you. Pandering to the weird, swivel-eyed Europe-haters has cost the Conservative Party three general elections in a row, and has deprived the country of an effective opposition while Blair runs amok. I had read you as a pragmatic, modernising individual who wants to position the Tory party somewhere in the 21st century,and I share your contempt for idiots such as Simon Heffer. But here you go, highlighting the so-called "EU Serfs". Do you know what a serf was? If you do, you will know what an asinine title it is.
The Tory party does not stand a hope in hell of being elected as long as it genuflects to the weirdos of UKIP/BNP.
But I will continue to enjoy reading your blog. Just try to steer away from anti-Europeanism.

Anonymous said...

nsfl said...
I'm not old enough to have voted in 1975. If any of you voted 'yes' then, do you ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

Well I'm old enough and I voted no. I've always felt that the Germans and French make better enemies than friends. I've never met anybody who admits to voting yes.

Anonymous said...

If ali mcnab 2.34 and anonymong 7.21 want to trade our code of law in for a new European model, why do they not say so? There is a discussion to be had here, but it has nothing to do with hatred of Europe.

They are using this opportunity to do no more than gibber the same-old, same-old Little Englander, retired-Colonel-foaming-at-the-mouth stuff.

Their heads are so far up the fundament of Europe, they can't see a thing and they can't think straight. They are deserving of pity more than contempt.

Anonymous said...

I cannot remember how I voted in '75 - no doubt psycho-therapy and regression could drag it out of me. However, 3 points:
1. I mourned the death of Heath. As long as there was the tiniest chance of me becoming ruler I could dream of shooting him at the Tower for treason.
2. I toyed with voting ukip the election before last but their manifesto pushed all the racist buttons. No hope there.
3. Despite everything the Tory party is our last best hope. Don't rock the boat.

Man in a Shed said...

Perhaps Iain thinks this issue is of interest to the English voters as he's actually talked to them.

If you think the continuation of a British state is a good thing, then your not going to be a Europhile. (Unless your a confused Lib Dem.)

Anonymous said...

Anonymuse,

Anti-europeanism has it's place like everything else. Of course you might be happy to cede your rights to some vague gnomes in brussels, many of us do not wish for this to happen.

No doubt it escaped your limited attention span, but when we joined the E.U. it was supposed to be as a part of a trading bloc. Not as it is fast becoming a european superstate despite the fact that most of it's members plebs do not actually want this.

I'm curious as to what you actually think we need to hand over our hefty tithes to the E.U. for every year? One would imagine as a trading partner all one would need to do would be to umm trade. Furthermore as trading partners (which again if you have forgotten is what we signed up for and all we were allowed to vote on) Why do we need to enact large tracts of legislation which have no reference or bearing on TRADING.

Tugging ones forlock to Brussels is every bit as shortsighted and weirdo as the ones you are so hasty to cast in the role of moron. So actually Euro-serf is not quite as asinine as it might first appear to you.

Etzel Pangloss said...

Are we really about to ditch habeus corpus?

Or will it take some time..?

James Higham said...

To add to Verity's comment:

...A pun on pederast and Federalism used by French politician Jean Marie Le Pen against those who want the European Union to become a federation. The term was originally coined by members of the Bruges Group, a British euro-sceptic think tank founded in the late 1980s...

Anonymous said...

Hello Og:

"Their heads are so far up the fundament of Europe, they can't see a thing and they can't think straight. They are deserving of pity more than contempt."

I see.

The 'fundament of Europe'? And I deserve pity/contempt? Yes that is the kind of argument that has meant that the Tories have been, and shall remain, in Oppositon where they belong, and exactly why the Tories should keep talking about it.

Thankyou Iain Dale for allowing the British public to see what a hopeless mess the Tories are still in over Europe.

You lot keep thinking about the last 1000 years, we will look forward to the next 1000 years, so we will keep winning elections, and you will keep losing them.

Iain Dale said...

Ali McNab, do grow up. I am not anti Europe. I am anti EU bureaucracy and 'mission creep'. If you want to be governed by an unelected bureaucracy, that is entirely up to you. I for one do not. And nor, more to the point, do most British people.

Anonymous said...

Oh hello Iain,

I wasn't expecting that - I seem to have scored a point.

We could have a very long discussion about that, but for the sake of brevity I'll just say this.

What unelected beurocracy? We vote for the European Parliament, we ote for the governments who appoint the commission, and the council of ministers are voted for by the respective electorates.

The European institutions, say the ECB, are subject to a far higher level of scrutiny than the Bank of England. The ECB are answerable to four of the institutions - the Council, Commission, the European Council, and the EP.

If people are so worried about faceless bankers controlling our economy, I would ask them what do they think we have now?

How many people could name the MPC at the Bank of England? Can you without Google? I know I can't

I think this constant refrain of unaccountabilty is perhaps overplayed.

I make no bones about being pro-European, I'm proud to be so. If the British public are so set against Europe, how come the Tories have fought and lost the last three electionson an anti-European platform?

How many years to save the pound, Iain? Quite a few judging from the comments here.

Anonymous said...

Note that Ali Mcnab hasn't given an example of how we benefit from the EU being more than a trading block.

Sorry for the cliche but do you really think people should go to jail for using metric measurements? Can't remember when that law is coming in but it's within the next few years.

Jeremy Jacobs said...

Can't believe the rubbish written by certain individuals above - Equating UKIP to the neo-nazi scum of the BN*.

UKIP stands for freedom, democracy and free speech unlike the 3 federalist parties taking the "centre" ground at present.

Anonymous said...

no longer anonymous 10.33
er- who is going to go to jail for using metric measurments? Names, dates, etc - or is this yet more Europhobic drivel?

Yak40 said...

One can be pro-European without wanting to be ruled from Brussels, without wanting the Mother of Parliaments to be a rubber stamp for them.

There were plenty of reasons to fight and establish the independence of these isles over the centuries past and there is no rational reason to surrender it to Brussels now.

The UK's EU vote was for a trading block, it should go (or should have gone) no further than that.

Anonymous said...

Ali McNab and friend...

Calm down, and breathe slowly.

You do not seem to be able to distinguish between Europe (a region/collection of countries) and the EU (a mere political organisation).

Dislike of a political organisation, their aims (and results) is not akin to madness.

The fact that instead of being governed by our own government for our benefit, you wish to be ruled by an organisation that is specifically not allowed to benefit the UK rather points to a certain level of masochism and irrationality on your part.

Continue dreaming of the next 1000 years of EU rule. For some reason, that rather reminds me of another attempt to create a "united" federalist Europe in the middle of the last century.

And FYI, it wasn't so very long ago that Labour were fully in favour of pulling out of the EEC. Kinnock. Lefties. Hypocrites.

Serf said...

Pandering to the weird, swivel-eyed Europe-haters has cost the Conservative Party three general elections in a row

Well somebody has to pander to us.

I love the fact that Europhiles can write me off as a knuckle dragging, weirdo racist, based simply on the fact that I don't like the EU. It kind of sums up the weakness of their arguments, when the only possible retort is insults.

Name me one, significant benefit of EU membership that could not be gained by a free trade agreement?

Anonymous said...

Hello Rog

I'm not sure how you work this one out:

"you wish to be ruled by an organisation that is specifically not allowed to benefit the UK"

I want Europe 'ruled' for everyone's benefit - I would counter that to think otherwise indicates a certain selfishness, and closed-mindedness on your part.

I'm an internationalist, like many labour colleagues. I never could understand the Bennite anti-europeanism, but there you go.

serf:

The Social Chapter, the Working Time Directive, the Human Rights legislation, ESA, Cerne, European peace and harmony, funding to fix the poorest areas of Britain etc., etc.

Dr.Doom said...

Jeremy, the severe criticism you received, was indeed justified.

You haven't a clue what you are on about.
I needn't ask of your electoral success during 2005 as I have evey faith in any electorate of which you choose to stand.

Doom.

Anonymous said...

ali,

How can you possibly be an internationalist and support a regionalist organisation like the EU?

Terrorism, trade, the environment etc, do not stop at our borders, not do they stop at the borders of the EU.

The only way to build an internationalist agenda is to discard isolationism and regionalist orgs like the EU.

Dr.Doom said...

Flavious is absolutely wrong.

Let me quote him for accuracy.

" When we joined the EU, it was for a trading bloc."

No flavious, this is why the Conservatives continually get it wrong and lose elections.

We joined the EEC as a trading bloc, but Margaret Thatcher and John Major signed us up to the EU and it was crystal clear in it's interpretation.

'Political integration demanding subsidiarity to the collective Union.'

Please don't tell me that they didn't read the LARGE print because they did.

You who decry the EU do so because you are either ignorant of your own doings or you just don't get it.

It's your choice, but please don't think that everyone who defends Europe does so because they don't either get it or haven't a clue as to where we are going, or even why we need to share laws, trading or currency.

You look the fool if you don't understand.

Look what happened to William Hague.He knew exactly what we signed up to, but chose to play the UK victim card.

We aren't victims. We aren't fooled or lied to. William Lost everytime and was humiliated because he didn't really believe what he was saying.
If David Cameron attempts the same, he too will lose.Thatcher must be laughing. John definitely is.

Doom.

Dr.Doom said...

EU Serf asks for one.

Devaluation.

Doom.

Anonymous said...

Chad

Just another step forward Chad. Fabian.

Serf said...

To ali mcnab

The Social Chapter:
From the Conservative point of view an expensive mistake, but from the socialist point of view, we could have done this ourselves.
The Working Time Directive
I hope you are joking. Our Labour is no longer our own. Again could have done this ourselves.
The Human Rights legislation
This is getting boring, again bad idea, again could have been done without EU.
ESA
Nothing to do with the EU, independent organisation that includes Norway & Switzerland as members.
Cerne
See answer for ESA
European peace and harmony
Because without the CAP & Reach, Germany would have invaded Belgium?
funding to fix the poorest areas of Britain
Our money, recycled once 60% of it is used elsewhere.

Jeremy Jacobs said...

Dr Doom

I'm afraid it's you who doesn't understand what the evil EU is all about.

Think about the consequences for this country if your beloved Home Secretary agrees to what sbeing proposed in Helsinki today.

Anonymous said...

"Just another step forward Chad. Fabian. "

Hi Ali
No, regionalism is a complete roadblock to internationalism.

I understand your thinking, ie let's build a regionalist group at this level then hope to step up later, but it has failed as it simply ends in its regionalist group fighting for its own benefit.

That is why no framework exists to cede power from the eu to a higher international body.

If such a framework existed, you would be right, but it doesn't.

Dr.Doom said...

Jeremy, if you are attempting to change my mind over Europe, you are wasting your time. My mind is made up.

However, forum's such as this one have many people who's mind is open to change, so please feel free to help them with your knowledge.

Let me help.

Please explain why workers in this country are losing out to the social chapter.

I'm told that doctors can only work 48 hrs per week now because of the charter and as a consequence, the Government had to employ many thousands more.
At this rate we will have as many as Cuba and may one day, have a health service in comparison.

Some wish eh Jeremy.

Doom.

Jeremy Jacobs said...

Dr Doom

Cuba certainly has a brilliant health service, I know from first-hand knowledge - our system could be as good but in my view many things in the UK don't run well because bureaucracy tends to rule over common sense.

For more Euro "knowledge" please visit UKIP's site www.ukip.org -
I'm too busy working so I can give the control freak/narcissist Bliar 48p in the pound.

Have a great weekend.

Sir-C4' said...

The only way to save Britain from the Evil Empire that is Europe is to nuke off the face of the earth. Since 1066, Europe has been and always will be a parasite feeding off these Isles of ours.

Anonymous said...

"The Brussels-based European Commission has allowed British retailers to print imperial measures alongside metric ones until 2009 -- but shopkeepers are forbidden to say the words "pound" or "foot" during any sale. "

http://www.dispatch.co.za/2000/03/11/foreign/AIMPERIA.HTM