December’s European Union summit concluded with a loss of face and funds by Britain, the complete ignoring of the massive fraud and corruption endemic to EU bureaucracy, and a most obvious yawning leadership gap.
Commentators have been devastating in their criticism of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s performance during his term as president of the EU.
Reporting for the British tabloid the Daily Express, Leo McKinstry railed: “The Blair machine has been in overdrive, trying to present Tony Blair’s abject surrender to the European Union as some kind of triumph for his diplomacy. But this shameless propaganda effort is not working, for it is blindingly obvious that his deal on the EU budget is disastrous for Britain, requiring us to hand over even more of our cash to Brussels” (Dec. 19, 2005). McKinstry was referring to Mr. Blair’s willingness to sacrifice Britain’s annual rebate from the EU, originally negotiated by Margaret Thatcher.
He went on: “[Blair] has given away £1.7 billion of the rebate over the next seven years, in return for precisely nothing. Just as disgracefully, he has agreed that Britain’s annual net contribution to EU coffers should increase by a massive 63 percent to £6 billion, in the face of all the evidence of endemic waste and corruption within the EU.”
This performance by Prime Minister Blair would appear to be welcome grist for the mill of the Euroskeptics who comprise a good half of Britain’s electorate. EUobserver.com stated, “The budget shenanigans have simultaneously succeeded in losing Britain friends and influence abroad while the surrender of even a small part of the rebate has enraged the Euroskeptics back home” (Dec. 19, 2005).
What is even more appalling, the very policy that has largely destroyed Britain’s agricultural industry and disenfranchised many Third World countries from the EU market remained untouched at this latest EU summit. McKinstry called it “the fraudulent Common Agricultural Policy, which swallows 40 percent of the entire EU budget despite the fact that only 4 percent of the EU’s citizens work in farming” (op. cit.).
Commenting on Blair’s legacy, McKinstry declared: “Essentially, he has sacrificed the interests of his own country purely to boost his reputation with European leaders. His was an act of staggering vanity and colossal national betrayal. …
“He has become Europe’s representative in Britain rather than Britain’s representative in Europe. …
“In the context of modern politics, ‘a good European’ is a politician who is willing to destroy his country’s freedom and independence for the sake of European integration.” In other words, the British prime minister and his government have played right into the hands of a European leadership that wants to see Great Britain become a vassal state of the EU.
But this latest EU summit was notable for one other glaring deficiency: a seeming total lack of determined, robust leadership at any level.
EUobserver.com put it this way: “But though it is easy to criticize the lack of British leadership, we must ask, in fairness, whether Europe actually wants to be led at the present time at all. We may have a Europe of the 25, but it is a Europe of 25 troubled and fractious countries, uncertain as to their future direction on almost all fronts. … Yet what Europe does need, clearly, is leadership. Leadership that is capable of forging a transnational consensus and commanding respect among the electorates of member states. This can’t be other than political …” (emphasis ours).
The EU simply lacks a forceful leader at its helm. Without that, it is a ship all at sea, without a pilot to direct its political course.
EUobserver.com posed the burning question about the EU’s immediate future: “Who indeed will succeed in drawing this sword from the stone? That is the real question for 2006.” The Trumpet has long pointed out, as Herbert W. Armstrong did before us, that the Continent is primed for a “Mr. Europe” strongman to take control.
In the meantime, watch for Blair’s pro-EU policies to distance him from his citizens. Not only are his days in office numbered, so are Britain’s as a member of a united Europe. If Blair is replaced by a leader willing to stand up for Britain against the EU, then the UK and EU may well part company.