Betrayed

I was going to write this last night but was tired and I also needed to cool down from the anger at the sense of betrayal I feel.

An extraordinary piece of sycophantry by Mary Riddell in The Daily Telegraph the other day (see link below) carries the headline "Britain's on the wane, and the EU is our only hope of influence."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/maryriddell/6441189/Britains-on-the-wane-and-the-EU-is-our-only-hope-of-influence.html

If this was just the space filling of an airhead columnist, it could be dismissed but, unfortunately, it follows on from the “boy wonder” Miliband’s speech on Monday, which said much the same thing and I wrote about yesterday. Look also to what Lord Heseltine is saying in The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6891343.ece

Remember this is the man whom is likely to join a Camoron administration, if the “boy king” gets elected in June – taken together there can be no doubt that Riddell's defeatist diatribe represents the received view of the political establishment in Westminster. You only have to look at Camoron’s response today regarding Emperor Blair to know this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223357/David-Cameron-says-Tories-dont-want-Il-Presidente-Blair.html

In essence, they have given up, sold their souls, and are ready to surrender our place in the international community as an active "player", handing over the initiative on foreign affairs to the EU, while our vassal administration deals only with the domestic diktats of the unelected commissioners in Brussels. Decoded, these statements confirm our final retreat as a nation, the point where we formally cease to become an independent state and assume the role of a local authority, “the province of Britain” within the greater New European Empire.

As I’ve said before, one of the defining attributes of an independent state is its control over its own foreign policy. For our establishment to sell their souls, whining about this once great country being "on the wane", denying our heritage, our history, our gift of the mother of Parliaments and modern democracy to the world and casting our lot in with "Europe" is indeed the final surrender, the acknowledgement that we are no longer an independent state.

That we should be doing this, without – it would seem – a squeak of protest from the media, bar one or two enlightened social commentators or what passes for the pathetic opposition in Westminster, demonstrates just how far the political process in this country has degraded. Adversarial politics has died under the influence of political correctness and career politicians who have never known what it is to stand in the front line with a rifle, run a business and employ people, represent their member’s interests in a trade union or fight for local people’s interests against a BIG STATE as a local Councillor.

As I said, in 1919, Afghanistan went to war with Britain to recover its control of its foreign policy. Those were the days when people understood the nature of statehood, and the real meaning of independence. Today, it slips from our grasp like sand in your fist with the bulk of the population not even realising what has happened – or perhaps even caring, which I sincerely hope is not true. We have no voice; there is no political party in this country that truly represents what this once great nation stood for, democracy, liberty, self determination, the rule of law.

But, whether they know or care, we are now a second-rate vassal state. We are a province of the European Empire, shortly – if the Riddell’s and Milliband’s of this country has it right – to be ruled by the new Emperor Blair.

Thus, the EU will have achieved something neither Napoleon nor Hitler could achieve – the subjugation of the British Isles. With ne’r a shot being fired.

Nevertheless, the idea that, by surrendering our independence, we shall thus gain more "influence" is preposterous. The world is changing – as it always does – but the centre of power is moving away from its Eurocentric base, to the Pacific and Asia, where the economic dynamism, political will and military might are all too evident and the potential for conflict that once typified Europe becoming increasingly likely.

And, as the former major colonial power in the region and the one with more troops on active duty there, the United States aside, we have in our own name, enormous influence. Furthermore, as that former colonial power, we have an institutional memory – one shared by states such as India and Pakistan – that gives us a unique status and capability, but only so long as we retain our self determination and the respect that goes with that.

The rest of the member states that comprise the EU are, by comparison, bit players, losers, incompetents and lightweights. None of them, as anyone who can read a history book will so readily illustrate, have the capacity or understanding to become serious players in the region. We did not become "players" by accident. We had the temperament and the skills, the political will, sense of justice and moral Christian ethics inherent in our heritage.

This is not unimportant. In fact, it is of vital significance. With our troops committed to Afghanistan, we are in the epicentre of a region on the brink of war. Serious commentators in both India and Pakistan are predicting that these two nations will be at war within a decade. And two nuclear-armed nations carrying what Roosevelt called “big sticks” being at war is not a prospect any of us can regard lightly.

The EU's incompetence in this region, its lack of weight and gravitas, renders it a bit-player of very little consequence. Yet, just at the time when British skills and diplomacy are most needed, to head off a possible conflagration of appalling potential consequences – with knock-on effects of global proportions – we have sold our birthright to Brussels.

It sounds so melodramatic to say that we have been betrayed by our political classes. But that is exactly what has happened. We have been betrayed. But we betray ourselves by allowing it to happen – and by not caring. And there is a price to pay. The bill will shortly be presented. We will pay, but most of us will not even realise why.