The family gathered around the bed of the Miss EU `super state” constitution, waiting either for an unlikely miracle, or for someone with the courage to switch off her life-support machine.
It was not the courage of realism, as chosen by French and Dutch voters, overcoming the fantasy of their leaders” ideology, as much as the relatives negotiating behind the backs of those who have the right to her legacy- to implement the deceased will in a way that would deprive those who voted no of their inheritance.
European Union rules make it clear that one nation vote to reject the constitution is a declaration of its death, hence the rejection by two of the original six nations ( Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Italy and Luxembourg) who started the European Common Market to the constitution hammers the final nail in the coffin of the daft idea of a United States of Europe.
The body can only be buried legally after determining the cause of death, which means a postmortem. But in the case of the EU constitution, which died as a result of two crashes in France and Holland, it is impossible to carry out an accurate postmortem on a referendum.
Unlike elections, where you can examine the percentage of votes on a certain issue or program, a yes/no vote in a referendum will never give you an accurate reason as to why the voters said no to a Super European state.
Was it the complexity of the constitution itself that few if any could comprehend? Or was it the fear of losing national independence?
Was it the fear of losing the Christian cultural identity of Europe as 80 million Muslim Turks could invade? Or was it the leftist Europeans with their socialist protectionist agenda, fearing the advance of Anglo-Saxon economic liberalism?
Referendum has always been the tool of dictators to consolidate their grip on the helpless nations of the Middle East and Africa, as former British Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher once said when she stood guard of conservative liberal Anglo-Saxon liberalism against the bureaucratic tyranny of Europe. She warned against a federal Europe that would resurrect last century”s European ideologies that resulted in two world wars, the flames of which spilt over to Asia and Africa.
It was no surprise, that nations, who suffered most from the tyranny of such ideologies during the last war, were the ones to reject the attempt to dupe them, in a Middle Eastern style referendum.
As the EU presidency is passed to Britain at the end of this month, for six months, the developments present Prime Minister Tony Blair with grave difficulties.
Instead of doing the honorable thing by falling on his sword, French President Jacques Chirac instead, presented his Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin as scapegoat and appointed one of his cronies, Dominique de Villepin, who has never been elected by the people to any office. His C.V. indicates that he would follow his master in a new crusade against Britain.
Prime Minister de Villepin, has lead the demagogic campaign against the allies war to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein – an old friend of President Chirac and a good customer of French weapon systems-. A protectionist and supporter of the concept of creating a super European state to balance the dominance of the United States of America as the world”s only super power, de Villepin will revive his anti-Anglo-Saxon stance.
This means that Chirac is prepared to start a political war against Britain, seen by the French lead European left as America”s Trojan horse into the continent. He will start by ending three billion pounds rebate won by lady Thatcher in 1984, from Britain contribution to the EU.
Then he is expected to join Germany, and EU commission, as voiced by Jaques Santer, in putting pressure on Blair to go ahead with a referendum in Britain over the EU constitution, in order to spread the blame of rejecting it beyond France”s borders.
However, Mr. Blair is too cunning and too clever to fall for this one, especially that a no vote is expected with larger majority than that of the Dutch. Downing Street leaks already suggest a move in Westminster next week to indefinitely postpone a referendum on the constitution. ` There is nothing to vote over, as French and Dutch rejection means constitution in its current form is dead,” a Downing Street source said.
Mr. Blair already has a unique chance, when he sets the EU presidency agenda next month, to fend off accusation of giving away national interests, once seriously defended by lady Thatcher. He can reclaim policies affecting British businesses and economy from the hands of Brussels bureaucrats, like employment, taxation, employment laws, and controlling immigration and asylum laws. Most important, Mr. Blair, who promised to make poverty in Africa history, surly realizes that two EU agreements, namely the common agricultural policy and the common foreign aid policy, amplify instated of reducing African farmers” poverty by closing European markets before their products. Opting out of the two agreements would only help implementing his promise to Africa.
Mr. Blair should also be aware of Europe”s bureaucratic tyrants reluctance to switch off the life support machine, and let the idea of United States of Europe die in peace; instead they are trying to save some of what they see as its, still usable organs, hoping that Dr Victor Franknestein, could transplant them into some other body and come up with some creation. It is worth remembering that Dr Frankenstein”s creation, in Mary Shelley”s novel, did walk and performed bodily functions, but it couldn”t think or be relied upon to perform any useful task. Moreover, when it acted independently, it destroyed its creator, his palace and the laboratory that created it.