Day 5514: A Great Deal of Europe but not Mr Balloon's Dreadful Deal

Friday:


In this week's the Evening Standard, Mr Matthew "Gideon's Voice on Earth" Anaconda wrote that the EU referendum could: "turn Mr Balloon from a good PM to one of the greats".

This is utter bunkum.

For starters, he ain't no bleedin' good to begin with!

And, for seconders, at best this wretched referendum will decide between whether Mr Balloon has wasted all our time (and money!) to keep the Status Quo or if he's going to be the first Prime Monster since Mr Pitt to have to explain to a reigning monarch how they managed to LOSE A CONTINENT!

So, as the Conservatories perform their farcical DANCE OF DEATH between their loathsome Europhobic back benches and their cowardly-but-pragmatic cabinet ministers, it is increasingly clear that the case for Europe must rest on its own merits.

Do we REALLY have to do this PANTOMIME? All of the Papers have thrown up their hands and said how DREADFUL a deal Mr B has got, so he will troop off back to Europe and return with an "even better" deal ("even better" – i.e. more foul) JUST so he can wave it in the face of his backbench and keep Teresa Nuts-in-May and Bojo the Clown onside.

What has he actually achieved? Let's play the Once-in-a-Generation Game and ask: "What's on the Euro-Conveyor Belt tonight, Brucie?"

• An "emergency brake" on benefits – being publicised as stopping people taking out before they've paid in, but sold under the counter as stopping those entirely-imaginary "pull factors" that mean bunches of migrants fleeing a massive war (that's our fault) are "pulled" to come to a cold, wet island full of xenophobes.
  
  
• A "red card" to stop European legislation and protect British sovereignty – how EXACTLY would Mr Balloon feel about giving the power to any 15 counties "red carding" HIS legislation? Sovereignty is a funny old thing, though. You actually get MORE by sharing. Europe may seem very distant, but at least at the moment you HAVE a say when you vote for the Parliament. The Europhobes talk BIG about "sovereignty" but actually they want you to have LESS voice, less voting power.
  
  
• A guaranteed "opt-out" from "Ever Closer Union" – Here's the thing about "ever closer union": it doesn't JUST mean Britain becoming more like France, Germany or Italy… it means France, Germany and Italy becoming MORE LIKE US too. And it's a BIT bleedin' rich to opt out of it, when "ever closer union" was ACTUALLY the compromise Britain demanded because all of our little-englander politicians got huffy about "towards a federal Europe". A FEDERAL Europe of CO-EQUAL states would actually SOLVE a lot of those problems about Sovereignty. But it would also mean finally accepting that Britain IS equal and not top of the heap (an attitude that can only lead to us ending up top of the RUBBISH heap!).
  
  
• And "protection" from the policies of the Eurozone – which means freedom from responsibilities for the BANKERS of the City of London (like THAT never got us into FINANCIAL ARMAGEDDON!) and, essentially, the right to make SWEETHEART Google-tax deals (did you know TART was originally a short form for SWEETHEART – so Master Gideon is Google's… well, you can work it out).
  
  
• And thankfully NOT a Cuddly Toy, because I am SO not on board with this pandering.

Europe has brought us PEACE and PROSPERITY – and both in levels UNDREAMED OF in a THOUSAND YEARS.

Europe has given us freedom to travel, and in safety, and to retire to warm climes while still claiming our British pensions. It has enshrined our Human Rights – the Human Rights that Churchill espoused after the Second World War so that the Holocaust would never happen again. It has championed our workers and our free trade. It has brought us continent-wide health protection, and joint action on the things that threaten us: crime, terrorism and climate change.

Europe has brought us FRIENDSHIP.

The OUT campaign cannot even be friends with EACH OTHER!

Or rather OUT campaign S – plural, multiple, or paranoid schizo – since they cannot even agree to BE one campaign. They literally cannot organise a piss-up in THREE brewery. Nigel Farrago cannot even manage to get to Question Time by car – do you REALLY believe he could make the trains run on time?

And what EXACTLY to the OUTERS want to DO with the Country once they've achieved their dream? (A dream to some; a NIGHTMARE to others!) Some of them want to trade – don't we do that in Europe? Some of them want us to "stand tall" (whatever that means) – do we not take a leading place in Europe? Some of them want to go back to an imaginary Nineteen Fifties – I've SEEN Dr Woo; it's MAKE BELIEVE! If you want to experience the Nineteen Fifties, try the former Communist states… in Europe! Some of them, even – whisper it – want to pull up the drawbridge and keep the migrants out – do we not migrate TO Europe? Are we to bar from returning all of those MILLIONS of BRITISH people who've gone work or retire in Europe? Because their England-for-the-English phobias (trading Polish plumbers and Hungarian handymen for grumpy geriatrics) would actually make our migration figures CALAMATOUSELY WORSE?

The way to make this country GREAT again is NOT to run away from our responsibilities, is not to deny that we have a DUTY to the rest of the World, but instead to stop SKULKING at the BACK and TAKE OUR GODDAMED PLACE in the fellowship of nations, and for GOD, HARRY and SAINT BLEEDIN' GEORGE DO our BIT to LEAD IN Europe.

PS:

Also, what Andrew says about Britain Stronger In.