The Dangerous Guy Verhofstadt

Alphen, Netherlands. 27 January. One of the beauties of a blog is the ability to react immediately. I have just been watching former Belgian Prime Minister and Euro-fanatic Guy Verhofstadt on a Dutch TV programme called "Buitenhof".  It is one of those political talking heads programmes that clog the airwaves of most European countries of a Sunday.  The main topic was of course Cameron's big speech on Europe this week.   It was strange to see my country being discussed at length with no Brit present who could offer a real insight into the strategic and political implications of the speech but hey ho! 

 

However, most galling was to watch the fanatical Mr Vershofstadt use blatant disinformation to make his case for Britain to stay in the EU and thereafter for a federal Europe that would, he said, come to look like the US.  He claimed that British trade with the rest of the EU represented over 53% of GDP.  Wrong.  It is 48% and declining.  He also failed to point out the EUR60bn trading deficit Britain suffers with the rest of the EU. He claimed that all the opinion polls show that the British people are clamouring to stay in the EU.  Wrong.  A poll for this morning's Sunday Telegraph shows a surge in support for Cameron and most of the polls suggest strong support for a referendum, a big majority in favour of repatriation of powers and a small majority in favour of leaving.  He asserted that the whole of British industry is warning Cameron not to push for a referendum. Wrong.  Most of British industry and commerce as represented through their respective trade bodies are strongly in favour of a reduction in EU regulations. 

 

Mr Verhofstadt is not simply a fanatic but he represents something very dangerous about the Euro-elite.  If the European people, including the British, are going to be subjected to this kind of propaganda the Europe that emerges could be something sinister.  It was after all Goebbels who said that if one repeats a big enough lie long enough people will start to believe it.

 

If you want to make your case for a federal Europe, Mr Verhofstadt, stick to fact not fallacy.

Julian Lindley-French

Poland's anti-British Anglophile

Alphen, Netherlands.  25 January. 

Dear Mr Sikorski, you are at it again.  You described Britain yesterday as a "country under special care" and that Poland would be happy to replace Britain in Europe's ruling triumvirate.  As you well know 'special care' in English implies a mental impairment. 

Here is just a bit of political education for you Mr Sikorski (your manners it would appear are beyond repair).  First, France and Germany have never let Britain be part of what you call rather clumsily the "ruling triumvirate".  There was no noticeable British presence at this week's fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the 1963 Elysee Treaty, the founding document of the Franco-German duarchy.  You must be an eternal optimist if you really believe France and Germany would ever let Poland into their club.  Will you have a real say over the Franco-German plan for deeper union which is to be rolled out this coming May?  Somehow I doubt it.  Second, it is strange to hear a Polish foreign minister seeking to create a new balance of power in Europe by offering to replace Britain in your triarchy. Surely the lesson of Polish history is that European integration should act as an insurance against the kind of power politics you clearly espouse.  Third, facts speak for themselves.  According to the IMF Poland had a 2011 economy worth $514bn, whereas the British economy was worth some four-times that at $2.4 trillion.  Poland has a population of 38.2 million against the British population of 65.5 million with a Polish GDP per capita of $13,469 against the British $38,811. 

So, good luck with your 'leadership' drive Mr Sikorski, but you will have to defy the gravity of the very power politics you clearly espouse if you are to succeed.  It may also be time that your President remind you that you are a foreign minister and that such language does no credit to your great country.  All your comment reveals is that you care little for minor political principles such as democracy and even less for the need to prepare the EU for the twenty-first century.  Instead your vision of the EU seems akin to a kind of centralised Union of European Socialist Soviet Republics.  Now there's an irony.     

You claim to be an Anglophile.  With friends like you we British really do not need enemies.  Good luck with your continuing hunt for a good job in Brussels.  I am sure the French and Germans will oblige.

Take special care with your language,  Mr Sikorski!

Julian Lindley-French

  

Euro-Realism: Well Said, Prime Minister!

Alphen, Netherlands.  23 January.  In November 1942 Winston Churchill famously said, “This is not the end.  It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning”.  For two years I have waited for Prime Minister Cameron to stand up as a British leader and make a speech that establishes Britain’s Euro-Realist principles and gives the EU a wake-up call.  At a time of immense change both in the EU and the world Prime Minister Cameron this morning delivered that speech.  The message was as succinct as it was blunt; if EU leaders choose a legitimate union of nation-states and begin the reforms Europe desperately needs if it is to compete effectively in the twenty-first century then Britain will be a part of it.  If EU leaders choose instead the path towards a false union, a sclerotic, uncompetitive and unaccountable Brussels bureaucratic tyranny, Britain will leave, but only after a fight!

 

This was a principled, grand strategic Euro-Realist speech, not the little Englander euro-sceptic speech as characterised by the hopelessly-biased BBC and its supporters on the political left.  This was a British prime minister, leader of one of the world’s top powers, standing up for principle against the danger of an inadvertent, but nevertheless very real threat to democracy at this tipping point in Europe’s governance.  A road to tyranny set out all too clearly last night by former Belgian Prime Minister, and well-known elitist Euro-federalist Guy Verhofstadt, when he talked of the German-style Basic Law for a federal Europe which he said is coming.  Cameron also challenged the lazy notion that Soviet-style centralisation under the rubric of “ever closer political union” is either inevitable or good.  He stood up for ‘heretics’ like me who have had the courage to stand up for the Europe we believe in and been ostracised for speaking truth unto power. 

Critically, his speech offered five Euro-realist principles.  First (and foremost) he called for a competitive Europe.  The EU will fail it it tries to ring-fence Europe from world change and reality.  Second, he envisioned a flexible EU that no longer forces member-states into a single intolerant template.  Third, he demanded that power flow in two-directions between Brussels and the member-states, a commitment of a decade ago that has been conveniently forgotten by the Euro-federalists.  Fourth, he reminded all Europeans of the absolute centrality of real democratic accountability, not the false-legitimacy ‘offered’ by the appalling European Parliament.  Fifth, and finally, he reminded Europeans of the need for an EU built on that most British of traits – fairness.  Whatever new arrangements emerge within the Eurozone in 2014 the new EU that is coming must be fair to all and seen to be so. 

Above all, Cameron had the courage to trust the British people, unlike Ed Miliband the Labour leader or Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats.  Equally, he charged that same British people with the responsibility that now lies before them.  Britons have asked for a choice; they have now got it and when they make that choice it must be a considered choice.  By 2017 or 2018 when the referendum comes the current phoney war over the future of the EU will be over and Europe’s future direction will be clear.  EU leaders had better understand that it is the political context of the referendum which will decide the vote, for the majority of the British people are by no means anti-Europe.  If EU leaders act like Verhofstadt and are dogmatic and intolerant of legitimate British concerns then the vote will indeed become an in-out referendum.  Miliband and Clegg had also better understand that the offer of a vote now having been made to deny the British people would be electoral suicide. 

What Cameron offered was a British vision for Europe, one that should be taken very seriously. Indeed, far from being a speech that charts a path to a Brexit, if other EU leaders are sensible they will recognise that what Cameron said chimes with millions of ordinary European citizens on this side of the Channel.  Now a sensible, popular and lively debate must begin on the critical issues Cameron raised which will not only define Europe but Europe’s place in the world.  It is a vision for a Europe that puts citizens not elites front and centre and the just pursuit of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.  It is a call for an end to the nation-state crushing, freedom-destroying elitist political fantasy that the EU has become.     

Two kilometres from here is a small British war cemetery.  Five young Britons killed for the freedom of Europe lie interred in clay.  Cameron rightly reminded Europeans (and sadly the Obama administration) of a simple truth; Britain’s role in making the Europe of today was critical and Britain’s role in making the Europe of tomorrow will be equally critical.  It is not Britain that is turning inward away from a dangerous world; it is the EU as currently constructed. 

Well said, Prime Minister!  Now mean it!

Julian Lindley-French

 

Malgeria: Pause, Think, Plan, Act

Alphen, Netherlands.  21 January.  It is being called the “soft underbelly of Europe”, an entire sub-continent from the Maghreb to the Middle East that stretches down to the transitional zone between Saharan and Sub-Saharan Africa known as the Sahel region and beyond to Nigeria.  It encompasses both Algeria where the attack inspired by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) took place on BP’s In Amenas gas plant, and Mali where French forces are currently struggling to contain a heavily-armed Islamist/Tuareg insurgency, many of whom were Gadhafi's mercenaries in Libya’s recent civil war.  In fact, the phrase ‘soft underbelly of Europe’ was first coined by Winston Churchill in November 1942 to counter growing pressure from Roosevelt and Stalin for what would have been a disastrously premature Second Front against the Axis powers in Europe during World War Two.  And, clearly, the region in question is not Europe.  Therefore, before sustained action is taken the events in both Mali and Algeria must be placed in context and blanket terms avoided that too often reflect a lack of real understanding.  What is happening is important but this is not the start another global war on terror. 

 

Two critical factors must now be gripped.  First, the Tuareg uprising is an unintended consequence of the Western-supported toppling of Libya’s Gadhafi, fuelled by the small and heavy arms now awash across the region which as a result is in danger of tipping the balance between state and anti-state forces in Mali.  Second, the nature of the insurgency and its links or otherwise to the strategic brand that is Al Qaeda and the so-called “global jihadist consciousness” need to be better understood.  The links may or may not exist and may or may not be strong but it would be a mistake to create a monster where none exists by dignifying criminality with some kind of religious, ideological grand strategy. 

Clearly, Islamist groups and criminals seeking to exploit and expropriate Islam have been growing rich in recent years though the retreat of the state across the northern half of Africa.  And, there will be some groups who clearly see the creation of ungoverned spaces as potential bases to attack the West to legitimise their activities in the eyes of followers.  However, just as the threat of global jihad was exaggerated post 911 it must not be exaggerated here.  If that happens the likelihood is that the West again will craft another failed strategy that again uses a hammer to crack a nut, and in so doing strengthens the nut.

The strategic aim of policy should be clear; the preservation of the state in the region with aid focussed on the reconstruction of state apparatus.  This is a struggle between the state and the anti-state and it is a vital Western interest to ensure states survive.

The strategy must in turn have six elements all of which should have been learnt from experience in Afghanistan.  First, a consistent intelligence picture must be developed across the region to better understand the extent and nature of the insurgency, the key movers and shakers and what if any links exist to outside forces, such as Saudi-based funding.  This will enable the intelligent use of force and resource over time and distance critical to strategy.  Second, Western elite military forces should be held as a mobile strike and support reserve to deal with specific crises and thus prevent state collapse.  Third, local (police), regional and national forces must be trained, equipped and properly paid to provide both the vital legitimacy and mass of boots on the ground to better stabilise and reconstruct.  This will help disaggregate insurgencies and criminality locally by helping to break any link between local grievances and AQIM that may exist. 

Fourth, a detailed mapping of aid activities must start with a focus on those programmes that deliver results via a strategic and co-ordinated aid policy with all concerned governments pooling their efforts.  EU this is a time for you to pull your finger out and for once turn theory and talk into successful practice.  Fifth, establish a new aid architecture that reinforces state legitimacy and efficiency via a Contact Group that incorporates Western and regional governments, African Union, Arab League, together with the EU, UN and World Bank.  Sixth, establish a proper auditing and reporting system built on sound output (not input) metrics for measuring aid performance and distinguish between aid (short-term) and develpment (medium-to-long term). Too much Western taxpayer’s money has been squandered over the past decade by peppering with money dysfunctional and under-performing programme in an attempt by governments to pretend heat was light.

The French were right to intervene in Mali to prevent a Rwanda/Sierra Leone-type genocide.  However, Western governments, in particular European governments, must now pause, think, plan and only then act.  The many lessons that have surely been learnt in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan must now be systematically applied in North Africa and beyond. 

Something must be done; but 'it' must be done properly. 

 

Julian Lindley-French

Euro-Realism, not euro-scepticism, Mr Cameron

Alphen (NB),
Netherlands, 17 January.

Dear Mr Cameron,

Tomorrow you will make the most important speech of your premiership on Britain’s relationship with Europe here in the Netherlands.  Yesterday in Parliament you gave me some encouragement that you have finally grasped the huge strategic significance of what is happening here on the Continent.  It is precisely these strategic factors you must focus on in your speech.  Indeed, at this critical moment in Europe’s history you must endeavour to communicate two vital messages not just to Britons, but all Europeans.  First, the drift of the EU towards bureaucratic tyranny represents a danger to democracy.  Second, Europeans must again look outwards to the world and become competitive across all economic and strategic domains.  Euro-Realism must be your theme tomorrow, Mr Cameron, not euro-scepticism.

 

Living here in the Netherlands with my Dutch wife as I have done for many years there is much frustration with Britain.  On the one side there are the Euro-fanatics who will go to almost any lengths in pursuit of the ‘Grand Europe’ they seek.  Joseph Goebbels once said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”.  Now, I am not for the moment equating European federalists with the Nazis, but be it here or in Britain the use by the pro-Europe lobby of fear is disgraceful. 

On the other side there are millions of ordinary Europeans looking to Britain to offer some alternative to the ‘ever more Europe at any cost’ creed.  All they want is for their nation-state to remain the centre of Europe’s political gravity with national governments and parliaments firmly in control of their interests and their futures.  And yet all they hear from Britain is an incessant and self-defeating “we want our money/laws back” whinge.  There is no sense of a Britain willing to fight on the bigger, principled questions of balance, liberty and democracy. 

We both know that the Eurozone will soon commit a terrible error and cross a dangerous political Rubicon.  Once crossed too much power will be placed in the hands of an elite few with the unelected and unaccountable strengthened at the expense of liberty.  Democracy itself may well be at risk if all people can elect in future is hollowed out politicians in hollowed-out states.

Britain must therefore do what it has always done; prevent the emergence of an unholy alliance and over-mighty power on the Continent.  However, Britain can only do that if London takes a strategic and historical view of Europe rather than the narrow, short-term, parochial view so far offered.  What is happening is far more than a simple issue of cost.  Be it Phillip II of Spain, Louis XIV, Napoleon, the Kaiser or indeed Hitler, Britain’s job has always been to prevent the hegemony of any one single power over Europe in whatever form it casts itself.  The rhetoric might have changed but behind all the Euro-speak the same old European geopolitics are at work and Britain as ever must lead the resistance.  That is the kind of leadership for which millions of concerned Europeans are looking to Britain.  It is something past British leaders would have immediately understood, but which hitherto has been utterly absent from your own leadership.

Britain must also fight for a Europe that again looks up and out to the world.  The killing of two European citizens yesterday by Islamists and the kidnapping of forty others is but one example of a European strategic neighbourhood replete with dangers.  You were right to support France’s efforts to stabilise Mali, although Paris deserves far more.  Sadly, the flip-side of the Eurozone crisis is a Europe that is fast becoming neo-isolationist and neo-pacifist as evinced by the effective scrapping of credible armed forces in many European states.

In that light Britain’s agenda must be twofold.  First, to make pragmatic, common cause with all those who want to repatriate powers from Brussels, and that includes Germans, Dutch and many others.  Second, with France start to lead Europe back to strategic seriousness in what will be a dangerous instable European neighbourhood in a dangerous world. 

Yesterday I watched with interest your Fresh Start group of MPs present you with what a long and frankly not unreasonable list of ‘competences’ you wish to see returned to London from Brussels.  In essence they were asking for the return of many of the same powers that will be integrated in the coming EU treaty changes that will emerge after the September German elections.  However, unless such demands are embedded in the broader Euro-realist agenda I have outlined they will have no chance of being agreed.  Win the argument over principle and you may have some chance of winning the argument over particulars.

Winston Churchill once said, “every time Britain has to decide between Europe and the open sea, it is always the open sea that we shall choose” Were life that easy.  Remember, Mr Cameron, Euro-Realism, not euro-scepticism tomorrow.  Good luck!

Yours sincerely,

Julian Lindley-French

Why Obama is Betraying Britain

Following my comments in Trakai a senior American contacted me to ask me why I thought Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gordon’s comments amounted to a betrayal of Britain.  There are four reasons:

 

1.           European Geopolitics: This is the most strategic of European moments.  Behind the Euro-speak good old-fashioned European geopolitics are at work.  Whilst modern, democratic Germany is vastly different to past Germany the impulse in Berlin to unify Europe around Germany remains and Washington is naive in the extreme if it thinks otherwise. By pulling the negotiating rug from under a weak prime minister's feet the US has at a stroke prevented Britain from building a balancing coalition in Europe and thus play its traditional role as the balancer.  Evidence of Realpolitik is apparent in Berlin's repeated refusal to fully comply with the EU’s Services Directive critical to the hallowed Single Market in an area where the British are strong and Germany relatively weak.  This is not German-bashing, simply strategic fact.

 

2.               Bad Timing: Britain is not negotiating about its future in THIS EU; it is beginning to negotiate a position vis-a-vis the New EUrozone EU.  This new EU will be built around Germany and created pretty swiftly (by EU standards) post-September and the German elections. The Obama Administration by making this very public and humiliating intervention at this critical moment has effectively cut the ground from under Cameron’s 'definitive' speech on Europe, now scheduled for 18 January in the Netherlands.  The fact that Cameron is making this critical speech abroad and not in Britain speak volumes as does the fact he was forced to move the date by the Germans!  A sign of things to come? 

 

3.          The Politics of the Moment: David Cameron is one of the least strategic prime ministers in British history and he needs all the help he can get to see the big strategic picture, craft policy from it and have the political courage to stick to it.  Indeed, Cameron has wavered repeatedly over recent weeks depending on which group has spoken to him last.  The Administration has critically undermined a key negotiating lever of an already weak prime minister by effectively forcing Cameron to abandon the Armageddon option; leaving the EU.  There is now no pressure on Germany or others to agree to give Britain any concession now that Berlin believes it has the tacit backing of the US.  Berlin also believes that sooner or later the British people will be forced to join a project an overwhelming majority have never wanted nor will ever want.  

 

4.          The Future: This EU is now all about Germany and the (understandable) German desire to pretend it is about ‘Europe’.  The rest are either too weak or too broke to matter.  This is the bottom of the strategic and political cycle for Britain which will in time recover some influence.  Therefore, only Britain with US support can ensure an enduring political balance in Europe.  Critically, there are those in Berlin keen for Britain to play just such a balancing and legitimising role.  A sign of good faith would be for Berlin and Washington together to encourage Britain in such a role.

 

The bottom-line: The British are already the 2nd biggest net contributors, with the EU costing the over-stretched British taxpayer £52 million a day, reinforced by an annual £52bn trading deficit with the EU.  As such the relationship between British costs and British benefits in THIS EU is already dangerously unbalanced.  As the German-centric EUrozone consolidates the bloc will inevitably act in unison reinforcing the economic imbalance with political fiat.  Even with the so-called ‘treaty-lock’ (whereby any more shift of powers from London to Brussels automatically triggers a referendum) Britain will be cast into a permanent minority.  Therefore, the only way for Britain to remain in the Union equitably over time is to negotiate now for a repatriation of powers in direct proportion to the German-led integration of Eurozone national powers that is about to happen.

 

Next Steps: The US should engage in quiet diplomacy to reinforce Britain's position vis-a-vis Germany (and to some extent France) in the implicit (and not so implicit) European power politics.  First, because Britain’s ancient liberties matter as much to Britons as America’s to Americans and for good reason.  Second, because Britain has always rightly, distrusted Continental ‘grands dessins’ that focus so much power in so few hands via an utterly unaccountable and undemocratic Brussels.  Such power gambits have never ended well in Europe.  Therefore, the US must now make a very public commitment to ensuring that Britain's interests and influence will be properly protected in the coming EUrozone.  If not Britain’s position will become untenable and in time no amount of American and German bullying will prevent Britain from leaving the new EU. 

 

 The Special Relationship would then be well and truly dead.  This is about Britain’s long-term future; free-standing nation-state and American ally or province of a German-led, Brussels-administered EU or more taxation with even less representation.  Now, there’s a delicious irony.  Revenge is indeed a dish best served cold.  Britain deserves better than that America.

Julian Lindley-French

 

Cameron, Get Berlin to Write your Europe Speech

Alphen, Netherlands.  14 January.  What a mess!   On Friday the Austrian Chancellor Werner Feymann said he can no longer trust Cameron because he says one thing in the European Council and another when talking to the British people.  On Saturday Cameron's former strategy advisor Steve Hilton said in the US that Downing Street is not only dysfunctional but only learns much of its news from BBC radio.  Today, Cameron suggested that his long-trailed, 'definitive' 22 January speech on Europe will now take place here in The Netherlands.  This was news to Dutch Prime Minister Rutte who up to an hour or so ago had no idea Cameron was about to pay a visit. 

Cameron's incompetence is breathtaking.  The PR-Meister had originally planned to make his great EU climbdown (sorry, speech) in Germany.  However, Cameron's advisors had forgotten to tell him that 22 January is the 50th anniversary of the Elysee Treaty, which not only sealed Franco-German reconciliation but established the basis for the British-excluding Franco-German relationship upon which the EU is built.  Not surprisingly my contacts tell me Berlin is not all happy with the date Cameron has chosen for his speech and emboldened by their new relationship with Washington (a sign of things to come?) is telling the PR-Meister to move the date of his speech.

So, expect a 'technical reason' over the next 24 hours as to why the speech has to be shifted so as to comply with German demands.  In fact, it would make much more sense for Berlin to simply write the speech for Cameron.  At least it would make sense and we would all know Britain's fate without having to watch two more years of Cameron's amateur dramatics pretending he is fighting Britain's corner. 

 

Sadly, watching PR-Meister Cameron trying to climbdown over Europe as per Washington's instructions of last week leaves a bad taste in the mouth.  My once great country is now led at a critical juncture in its history by the most lightweight, pusillanimous and downright disingenuous prime minister in modern British history, and that is saying something.

 

There is an old saying that suggests countries get the politicians they deserve.  Nothing from my copious knowledge of British history suggests we were that bad.

Winston Churchill he ain't!  You could not make this stuff up!  

Julian Lindley-French