There was never the slightest chance that David Cameron will achieve any significant “renegotiation” of Britain’s EU membership terms. This fictitious “renegotiation” is the fig-leaf with which Cameron has sought to appease euro-sceptics, promising an in-out referendum once the non-existent “renegotiation” is completed.
When a non-existent process can be deemed complete is an interesting question.
On Cameron’s side, it has only ever been a fig-leaf to buy time, though I do not entirely discount Britain’s extraordinary capacity to delude itself about its ability to “punch above its weight” diplomatically. The book of modern British diplomatic triumphs would be a slim volume indeed.
But the Emperor has made the mistake of pointing to his dangling naked penis. Cameron stated starkly that the election of Jean Claude Juncker to head the European Commission would be evidence that Europe would not adopt Cameron style reform.
Yes, David. Exactly. Thanks for pointing it out. Personally I never thought you were wearing any trousers anyway, but if anyone did you have now dangled it right in their faces.
Cameron has made it even more plain by linking Juncker’s election directly to Cameron’s thesis that national governments must always be paramount in Europe. Juncker’s election is in accordance with an agreement that the leader of the largest party in the European Parliament will head the Commission. Thus, as Cameron pointed out, the very process itself is an advance of Euro-federalism and Euro-democracy, irrespective of Juncker’s views. Absolutely. Cameron’s thesis that national governments must be paramount over European institutions has already been defeated in what Cameron himself made a symbolic fight. The complete fatuity of Cameron’s re-negotiation claims is exposed.
Personally I am very pro-EU. But whatever your stance on the EU, the outright dishonesty of the Cameron approach must be condemned.
I published a couple of weeks ago that Juncker does not share Barroso’s hostility to Scottish independence: as a former Prime Minister of Luxembourg he does not see the problem with small nations. The British media has been extremely keen to puff up the opposition to Scottish independence by foreign leaders. Cameron and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have invested huge diplomatic capital into persuading Barack Obama and Li Keqiang to make statements against Scottish independence, while standing next to Cameron for the cameras.
The media failed to pay the same attention to a much more significant occasion – Angela Merkel refused to do it. Standing right next to David Cameron at a press conference in Sweden, Merkel rebuffed intense British diplomatic lobbying when she refused to back the continued existence of the state the man next to her was representing. It was a stunning slight, as Merkel knocked back the same question fed to Obama and Keqiang with the sensible (though entirely untrue) reply that she never answers hypothetical questions. Cameron stared at the floor, discomfited.
There was never the remotest chance that an independent Scotland would be excluded from the European Union. And the two people who are most important in that decision – Jean Claude Juncker and Angela Merkel – have not been amenable to the FCO’s frenetic anti-Scottish lobbying. They both are in positions much more vital to Scotland’s future than Barack Obama and Li Keqiang – both of whom will change their tune post-independence anyway.
Cameron’s headaches are multiplying.
Germany sent 5,350 soldiers and police to Afghanistan of which (as of May 2013) 57 have been killed.
Seven members of the Iceland Crisis Reaction Unit (ICRU) currently work in Kabul. Three Icelanders were injured in a suicide bomb attack a few years ago.
Technicolour
Yes of course. I know it wasn’t the EU “declaring” war. Basically these wars are US led under the guise of NATO/UN/Nothing. But European countries who sent soldiers to Afghanistan (as peacekeepers hahaha) were (in order of numbers sent) UK, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain, Denmark, France, Belgium, Sweden, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Lituania, Albania, Portugal, Finland, Norway, Bosnia, Latvia, Ireland, Austria.
European countries who have a pro-corporate-state political class are…well all of them.
Any hopes that the EU will be a democratic improvement on the individual nation states is deluded. Being bigger and more distant it can only be less accountable. Any impression that the EU parliament is currently slightly more democratic is merely a reflection of it’s current impotence. The forces of darkness will focus if and when the power moves. We need to keep our political classes closer to were we live. The EU is the exact opposite of what we need.
What is the precedent for an accountable just giant government? None. I suggest the USSR, China and the US clearly support this argument.
Down with the EU! Radical Decentralisation Now!
Youre a very poor apologist for the disastrous Iraq war. Whether permitting a gesture is in order Jives:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK12wgs2mvA&list=PLZjJ47ARM6bdqKvDjG-wexDzhM183WAkP
I remember the former professional football player, Mark
“This war is fuckin’ illegal”
-The Ghost of Pat Tillman.
Is it not becoming quite likely now that the UK (as a whole) will leave the EU, and that the only way Scots will be able to stay in the EU is if they vote for independence?
Iceland is a wonderful example of how the people’s closeness to their legislature and politicians, can itself be the defining act.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qieVZb4Ml9I
This leader of Iceland makes much sense than any of ours.
Anyone remember the Cod War. They’re fighters, these Vikings.
Anyone remember Broon’s and BBC’s repeated threats against these most independent people.
They told them to fuck off, and now they’re on the up again…
Did Broon not end up calling the whole country a turrrrst or something equally deranged?
You still haven’t correcte “Obama and Keqiang”. It looks incredibly amateurish.
Oops, ‘correcte’ should be ‘corrected’.
Yes Herbie thanks and exactly right. Funny that the Icelandic democratic experiment does not make it into the corporate media very often.
“Iceland is a wonderful example of how the people’s closeness to their legislature and politicians, can itself be the defining act”
Yes, a fine example of the triumph of democracy over corporate looting. Still, they’re probably just ‘Little Icelanders’.
Under Mr Muddle’s and Mr Cleggover’s rule, there is talk of flogging off OUR parks and open spaces and of paying to use them by membership. Another YCNMIU.
Park Users Could Be Asked To Pay By Councils
Britain’s parks and green spaces are “on the edge of a precipice” because of funding cuts, says the Heritage Lottery Fund.http://news.sky.com/story/1291029/park-users-could-be-asked-to-pay-by-councils
Put out to test the waters by Dame Jenny Abramsky, of the Heritage Lottery Fund and late of the BBC.
Over my dead body Dame Jenny!
She has no financial worries except what to do with the loot.
~~~
With a £4m pension pot, the BBC’s Jenny Abramsky isn’t shy …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…/With-4m-pension-pot-BBCs-Jenny-Abramsky-is...
20 Apr 2008 – A BBC director will receive what is thought to be the public sector’s biggest pension pot when she retires this autumn. Jenny Abramsky, 61, will …
BBC splashes out on lavish £11,000 leaving party for Jenny …
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/…/BBC-splashes-lavish-11-000-leaving-party-n...
15 Aug 2009 – Bit of a do: Jenny Abramsky’s leaving party was funded by £11,000 of … she contributed to the BBC’s generous final salary pension fund – which …
Jenny Abramsky, are you retiring comfortably? – Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk › Comment › Personal View
13 Jul 2008 – The airwaves are buzzing at news of the head of BBC radio’s £4m pension package, writes William Langley.
Taboo archive video of Aegis contractors killing iraq civilians.
This is a response to the recent ‘Blackwater’ footage which is in reality footage from Aegis(British version of Blackwater) which was released by a disgruntled employee Rod Stoner.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c15_1333825385
Mea culpa – the music is a bit loud.
My contact is a contractor for this ex Para outfit on £filthy/day + expenses in a clandestine operation to ‘expose’ the Syrian army.
“We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: ‘Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.’ I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”
– Martin van Creveld, Israeli professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In an interview in the Dutch weekly magazine: Elsevier, 2002, no. 17, p. 52-53.
“FWIW, I’m going to claim 8 million died in Iraq, and anyone who disagrees with me is trying to play down the numbers killed by the evil imperialist bastards. So there.”
“A pretty pathetic line (which should not be dignified with the expression “line of reasoining”).
“exaggerate the numbers killed for political purposes. That’s the real sickness here, and it needs to be called out.”
yes you are a sick puppy anon.
It is too convenient to forget the discussions and national debate that happened in Germany before they grudgingly, remember they opposed the war with Iraq, were armtwisted, because now it was a NATO concern all in a sudden, not that NATO had a problem with it, just some of its warmongering members.
Idiots start wars, and they do it for money, because they have switched off, sown their mouth shut, letting themselves to be guided by their inner neanderthal( used to be Schweinehund).
How dare they, but they would wouldn’t they!
Israel offers to help Arab states fight ISIL
Israeli FM says ISIL is a ‘threat to all countries of the region’, calls on Arab states to ‘stand together against the threat’
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-offers-help-arab-states-fight-isil/262933845
Below the headline there is a nice photo of Kerry greeting Lieberman at the US Embassy residence in Paris yesterday.
Agent Cameron should have signed up to one of the negotiation master classes run by Charles Crawford, one of Craig’s erstwhile colleagues in the FCO. Crawford has been busy today giving one such class. He puts them on at the Guardian HQ at King’s Place.
https://twitter.com/CharlesCrawford
O/T I thought of you last evening!. The parliament channel were broadcasting Hodge’s Public Affairs Committee grilling some DEFRA dummies on the collapsed Norfolk incinerator project and the amount of compo awarded.
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/public-accounts-committee/inquiries/parliament-2010/defras-oversight-of-3-pfi-waste-projects1/
That note was for you Nevermind.
Mary
If you will insist on playing footsie with Nebel-mind, can’t you do it by direct email to him rather than in public on this blog?
You’re too old for this sort of fun and games and it’s downright embarrassing.
Latest on Vote Yes Borders
http://www.voteyesborders.com/2014/06/open-letter-to-jean-claude-juncker/
Thanks for the Aegis kink, Mark.
The CEO of Aegis (also ex-MP. appropriately enough, for Crawley, and serving MP for Mid Sussex) is Nicholas “Fatty” Soames, details of whose comfortable circumstances are seen here-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Soames
Soames was recently knighted –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-27834269
…mistyped email gave me new avatar, sorry.