A united states of Europe yes, Mr President…

Alphen, Netherlands, 8 June. 

Dear Mr President, last Thursday you rather stridently suggested we British should stay in the EU.  However, you failed to give us your vision for the EU or how and why a more federal EU would and could be in the American interest.  Indeed, you seem to have absolutely no idea what continued membership of the EU would mean for Britain or indeed the United States if the current brick-by-brick federalism continues. 

Let me give you a flavour of EU virtual political reality An hour or so ago I watched German Member of the European Parliament and all-round Brussels uber-insider Elmar Brok on the BBC. Brok actually said with a straight face that in the 22 May European almost-Parliament elections the vote I cast for a centrist party was in the firm belief that his fellow uber-elitist and uber-federalist M. Jean Claude Juncker should be the next European Commission President.  No, I did not and nor would I ever.  Indeed, had I known that my vote would have been hijacked in such a way I simply would not have bothered and how good is that for democracy?  Sadly, that is the kind of elite political deceit that passes for EU democracy these days.

No doubt, Mr President, you have been buoyed by your friend David Cameron telling you he is confident he will succeed in reforming the EU and thus render Brussels more streamlined, more competitive and more accountable to its many peoples.  Don’t hold your breath, Mr President.  Indeed, if M. Juncker gets his way the only streamlining that will take place will be the expulsion of all but the most die-hard of federalists from the European Commission. And, Mr President, you could expect an acceleration of the Commission’s insidious efforts to further dismantle the European nation-state via the legislative backdoor amid bogus claims about the 'real' intent of the EU’s copious treaties.

The strange thing, Mr President, is a) you seem to think a super-EU would be in the American interest; and b) you would not countenance for a minute American membership of an organisation in which so many of the elite seek the end of an independent America.  And yet you insist Britain and its citizens accept such a fate.  Have you not learnt anything from standing on the beaches of Normandy?  Do you really think the tens of thousands of my countrymen who fought and died that day and the many days thereafter did so simply to end up as vassals of a democratically-challenged bureaucracy called the EU?   

So, Mr President rather than simply instructing we British to “make the right decision” you need to work with us on EU reform.  Ironically, that means supporting Britain not just in the EU but also in NATO.  Thank you indeed for last week’s European Reconstruction Initiative and the $1 billion you have so generously offered to improve continental Europe’s collapsing armed forces.  However, the fact you have had to offer even more American taxpayer’s money for Europeans to defend themselves surely should have told you something about the future strategic and political reliability of ‘Europe’.  Can you not see that one reason for the strategic-illiteracy of so many European leaders is that they are lost in the interminable other-world of the EU?

You also seem to think, Mr President, that by forcing Britain to stay in an unreformed EU that it will somehow lead to a ‘Union’ that is one and the same time strategically-responsible, politically reliable and militarily-capable.  In fact all you will achieve is a Britain that is just like the rest of the EU; strategically-incapable, politically-irresponsible and militarily-incapacitated.  Let’s face it we have not got far to go.  Is that what you really want, Mr President?

The problem, Mr President, is that on matters EU the White House sounds ever more like some soft left Brussels think-tank.  Now I know who and why but believe me, Mr President, your advisers are talking complete tosh.  Therefore, Mr President, it is time you saw clearly the EU’s coming crisis for what it is – Britain’s political D-Day.  The United States must therefore again join Britain to seek a Europe governed by states legitimised by the citizens who vote for them and an EU which serves such an end.  A state called ‘Europe’ is not in the American interest.  Worse, the US could face a Europe that hovers indefinitely between the two ‘finalités’, a political swamp into which Europeans are fast sinking. 

So, Mr President, it is time for you to come off the fence.  If you want Britain to stay in the EU you must make it perfectly clear that you agree with Prime Minister Cameron and that the United States will throw its weight behind his reform agenda.  You must also tell your friend Chancellor Merkel that a Juncker appointment as European Commission President is not in the American interest.

A united states of Europe yes Mr President.  A United States of Europe most definitely no.

Yours sincerely,

Julian Lindley-French