Well Done, Prime Minister. Continent Isolated, Britain Right!

Alphen, the Netherlands. 10 December. T.S. Eliot wrote, “We are the hollow men. We are the stuffed men”. The most telling image from this week’s European Summit was British Prime Minister David Cameron sitting all on his lonesome in the Council chamber. Not only did it show the childishness of our Dear European Leaders, but also the extent to which this summit was really more power politics than principle. Time will show Cameron to have been right and our Continental friends should realize that the massive majority of Britons have no problem with standing alone. 

The summit was not about the Euro – nothing was done to fix that. Rather, it was about the rebranding of the European Union into an Empire. A German Empire led by Berlin with its French Passe Partout acting as agent. The hollow men and women of the twenty-four other member-states wished to do nothing that might offend Europe’s new headmistress, Chancellor Merkel. So, David Cameron was made to sit on his own in one corner of the room like some offending schoolboy. For Cameron it must have been like being back at Eton.  It was pathetic to observe, as I did – I was one hundred metres away.

President Sarkozy, employing the gracelessness with which we have come to associate with a man who does a great nation no honour, suggested that Cameron had made “unacceptable demands”. If he means by that that Cameron had acted to protect Britain’s core financial services and by extension the British people from a Euro-saving tax 85% of which would have been paid in and by Britain then I suppose that is ‘unacceptable’. Can you imagine a French president agreeing to such a punitive tax on a critical French industry? No way. Can you imagine a French president opening the door to an aggressive set of European regulations that would in time destroy said industry? One only has to look at the ninety-plus cases the French are facing in the European Court of Justice for breaking EU rules to know the answer. 

There is no such thing as a free tax and the result would have been the British people paying for a currency disaster that French newspaper Le Monde says rightly has nothing to do with the British. Moreover, Britain is already the second biggest net contributor to the EU mainly because of a previous Franco-German power play when they stitched up a deal on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that forces the British taxpayer to subsidise French farmers. Sarkozy even had the temerity to suggest that banking deregulation had caused the Euro crisis. This may have something to do with the fact that in January the French will have to honour €52.9 billion in government bonds, a further €35.9 billion in February and by April a further €50 plus billion.

Taken together the refusal of ‘Merkozy’ to address Eurozone sovereign debt, Chancellor Merkel’s insistence that the European Central Bank cannot act as the lender of last resort and the failure to address Europe’s appalling growth-strangling over-regulation now dooms the Euro to failure. No amount of effort to shift the blame for failure onto Britain and Cameron will work because time, and not much time, will demonstrate who really is responsible. 

Of course, the usual suspects came out of the woodwork back in London to attack Cameron. The BBC’s flagship radio news programme ‘Today’ embarked on one of the most politically one-sided set of interviews and commentary’s I have ever heard. Retired diplomats such as Lord Hannay suggested that Britain will now be excluded from ‘process’. Lord Hezeltine even suggested that Europe is in its inevitable way to forming a United States of Europe. What planet are these people on?

They miss three simple verities. First, most political moments are indeed ‘process’, but every now and then a ‘moment’ comes along that is strategic. At such moments a stand needs to be taken and this was indeed a strategic moment. Second, a profound ideological split exists between a statist Europe beloved of the French and the more free market British who are much more attuned to global realities. To have signed a deal on those terms would have subjected Britain to European statist nonsense effectively ending all hope of the flexible economy Europe (and Britain) needs if it is to properly adapt to this globalized age. Third, and above all, not only the future of the Euro was at stake, but also the future power map of Europe.

The choice was between a legitimate Europe made up of democracies and a power Europe led by Germany and France. The deal on offer to Britain was in effect to become a super-Belgium subject to German and French whim. Berlin and Paris have done everything they can over recent years to exclude Britain from their power core and this was to be the final act. Britain will never accept subjugation to their leadership and rightly so.

Through the centuries there have been times when Britain has stood alone against the hegemony of one or two powers in Europe. This is another such moment and we British are again called on to make a stand. So be it! The one inspiring thing that came out of the Brussels summit was to see a British Prime Minister stand on an issue of principle. Now Britain stands clear in opposition to a Europe it does not believe in.  That is the best negotiating position London can possibly have. 

So, be sure of one thing Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy this game has only just begun. In Prime Minister Cameron you are facing at least one European leader who understands that.

Well done, Prime Minister. Continent isolated, Britain defiant…and right!

Julian Lindley-French

Stiffen the Sinews, Prime Minister

Alphen, the Netherlands. 8 December.

Dear Prime Minister Cameron,

We are both off to Brussels today. You are going to attend some minor event at which you are expected by your German and French hosts to play a minor bit part. I will be attending (and you will love this) a meeting on the cost benefits of a common European defence policy. Who says our Continental friends lack a sense of humour!

The EU Brussels Summit will be the most important European moment since Maastricht when the Treaty on European Union 1.0 was signed. Over the years it has slowly been expanded and now its tentacles reach into all aspects of British life. Each iteration of Euro-spread has seen a British prime minister draw a line in the sand only for it to be washed away by the oncoming tide of European regulation. Having made its strategic choice not to join the EU-defining single currency back in 1991 Britain’s semi-detachedness is no longer defensible. Either Britain joins the Euro or leaves the Union. There is no middle ground anymore and you must understand that is the reality implicit in this tous azimuths summit.

Indeed, what you will confront in Brussels masquerading as an attempt to save the confounded Euro is an attempt to effectively change the Union into an Empire. You must at all costs resist this. Your premiership depends upon it. What is at stake in Brussels is a precedent over the use of power by two EU member-states via the denial of sovereignty to the rest. This is a defining moment towards which the entire European movement has been travelling since its founding back in 1950.

Sadly, in the spin apparent on the airwaves and in the column inches you have instead decided to retreat and then mask your failure from the British people. You insist that because no formal transfer of power will take place between London and Brussels no referendum need be put to the British people. This is legalistic mumbo-jumbo and you know it. Implicit in fiscal union is a profound shift of power from London to Brussels via Berlin and Paris. The implications of a shift of power are just as fundamental as any formal transfer of power...in fact more so.

You say you will not make any “unreasonable demands” and that this is not the time to negotiate. When will there be a better time to negotiate? Do you think Germany and France are not fighting like mad for their narrow national interest? Of course they are. Indeed, their collective strategy is to a) give the impression that there is no alternative but their joint leadership - there is; and b) to pretend that Britain is irrelevant - Europe's second or third biggest economy (depending on exchange rates) and largest financial market.  And yet you seem to imply that somehow it is not cricket for Britain to fight for its national interest. They will laugh at you in Brussels. As President Sarkozy said this week, “...it is a joke, David”. As you old Etonians would say “play up, Mr Cameron”.

And here is the rub (I will indeed become Shakespearian). Yes, saving the Euro for now is an important mission, but not at the expense of Britain’s sovereign will and strategic influence and you must realise the distinction between the two. This is about power and you must enter that room in Brussels clear in your head that you will not sell Britain’s crown jewels. Indeed, the real mission is not to save the Euro per se, but rather to resolve the financial crisis caused by the appalling duplicity of those who established the single currency. That can only be done at 27. If Berlin and Paris insist on a separate treaty of the 17 Eurozone countries then it is a power grab – pure and simple and should be seen as such. Behind it will be a principle of German and French power leadership in Europe that Britain must resist today just as it has always resisted.

By all means be constructive where you can but in return you must insist on a new relationship for Britain with the EU built on a set of quid pro quos. The more Germany and France insist on other EU member-states ‘opting-in’, the more you must insist on ‘opting-out’. The more EU state sovereignty Berlin and Paris want to bring under their control via the supine European Commission the more you must insist real power is ‘repatriated' to London. Specifically, you must demand an end to the German and French-inspired Commission attempts to impose their statist ideology on the City of London. You must also insist that the Working Time Directive no longer applies to Britain and all aspects of the Treaty on European Union that deny Britain real control over its borders are also repatriated. Above all, if they go for full exclusion of Britain from all aspects of EU economic governance you must make it perfectly clear that you will call an in-out referendum.  For that is what is at stake. The alternative is taxation without representation.

If you think that distasteful and too narrowly self-interested then just go to the web-site of the European Court of Justice. There you will find a page devoted to member-states breaking their treaty obligations when it suits their national interest. Germany has twice as many cases pending before the Court as Britain and France three times as many. For all the talk emerging from Berlin and Paris about the need for ‘discipline’ you can bet your bottom Euro that it will not apply to them. And remember, you have many more friends on this side of the Channel than you seem to realise if for once you can think strategically rather than tactically – your biggest failing. The mere sight of you fighting will galvanise other Europeans thus far intimidated by the German-French fait accompli.

I am not wont to quote Henry V but I think this summit warrants a little paraphrasing, Prime Minister. “In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of ‘jaw’ blows in our ears then imitate the action of the Tiger”.

Stiffen the sinews, Prime Minister.

Yours sincerely,

Julian Lindley-French

PS I will let you know how our talks about a common European defence policy get on. Don’t hold your breath!

Pearl Harbor: A Date Which Will Live in Infamy

Alphen, the Netherlands. 7 December, 2011. Seventy years ago today at 0600 hours Pacific Time on December 7, 1941 Captain Mitsuo Fuchida launched Operation Z from the Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft carrier Akagi, flagship of the attack fleet. Fuchida led one-hundred and eighty-three dive bombers, torpedo aircraft and fighters in the first wave of strikes against the US Pacific Fleet anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Minutes later a further one hundred and sixty attack aircraft took off from five other carriers – the Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu, Shokaku and Zuikaku.

Some two hours later the surprise attack had sunk four US Navy battleships, with four others badly damaged, along with three other ships sunk and seven damaged. One hundred and eighty-eight US Navy and US Army Air Corps aircraft had also been destroyed. Sadly, two thousand four hundred and two US military personnel were killed and one thousand two hundred and forty seven wounded. Fifty-seven civilians were also killed and thirty five wounded. The Japanese lost twenty-nine aircraft and five midget submarines with sixty-four personnel killed and one captured.

Two days later the British battleship HMS Prince of Wales was sunk together with the battlecruiser HMS Repulse, with the loss of eight hundred and forty Royal Navy sailors. For the British the tragic irony of Pearl Harbor was that the Japanese High Command had been inspired by the British naval air attack of 11-12 November, 1940 on the Italian fleet base at Taranto. This attack was launched from a task force under the command of Rear-Admiral A. L. St G. Lyster RN and which included the fleet carrier HMS Illustrious.  Twenty-four aircraft from 813, 815, 819 and 824 Squadrons Fleet Air Arm successfully crippled the Italian Fleet.

Strategically, the Pearl Harbor attack was a failure. Captain Fuchida failed to deliver the knock-out blow the Japanese had hoped for. The Japanese Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, may or may not have said, “…all we have done is to awake a sleeping tiger and fill him with a terrible resolve”. However, he is on record as writing; “This war will give us much trouble in the future. The fact that we have had a small success at Pearl Harbor is nothing”. His words were indeed prophetic. All but two of the eight American battleships were raised and returned to war service. Critically, the three US fleet aircraft carriers, Enterprise, Lexington and Saratoga were at sea and unharmed. US carriers were to prove decisive in the destruction of the Japanese carrier fleet at the Battle of Midway six months later between 4 and 7 June, 1942.

The US has been criticised many times since Pearl Harbor for poor leadership, usually without cause. In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor President Roosevelt showed himself to be a master of strategy. First, he decreed that the war in Europe should take priority even though the American people were clammering for revenge over Japan. America’s great European age in many ways began in the Pacific. Second, American industrial might was mobilised and proved the decisive factor in the winning of the two wars – one in Europe and one in the Pacific. Third, the manner by which the US conducted the island-hopping war in the Pacific was a true revolution in military affairs leading to entirely new ideas about the use of naval power and how to manouevre a mass force over strategic distance.

The fourth strategic lesson of Pearl Harbor is one perhaps that is only now becoming apparent. America’s grand strategy, and thus global stability, is dependent on two strategic partnerships both of which must be invested in and both of which require America’s partners to be as far-sighted as President Roosevelt. Europe remains America’s natural strategic partner, albeit one lost in a visionless parochialism. The other? Japan.

As an Englishman and a European I remember the sacrifice of brave Americans on a day that President Roosevelt rightly said will live in infamy.

Requiescat in Pace.

Julian Lindley-French