Is Euro-scepticism dead?
My friends at EU Referendum are on the point of giving up. In a despairing post, Richard North fancies that he sees the carcass of souverainisme stretched out before him: “Euroscepticism is dead. It is not official yet, and the putative corpse is still breathing. If it was a human being, it would be on life support, showing no brain activity.” I can see his point. I have also railed often enough about people’s acquiescence in the destruction of their freedom. Then again, as the grea-*test*-('") of all Englishmen puts it: “Oft expectation fails and most oft there Where most it promises, and oft it hits Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.” In the run-up to Maastricht, I made the mistake of giving up on my countrymen. An undergraduate at the time, I campaigned frenetically, organising rallies, firing off letters to the press. But I remember feeling utterly alone. People agreed readily enough when pushed for an opinion; but no seemed to care. Then, just as I was on the point of giving up, something extraordinary happened. On 2 June 1992, Denmark voted against the Maastricht Treaty. Overnight, the mood changed. People felt that it was possible after all to defy Leviathan. They were ashamed that it had fallen to a nation of five million people to do what the Mother of Parliaments ought to have done. Europe shot to the top of the political agenda and stayed there for the better part of a decade. Now the wheel has turned again. People have slumped back into despondency. It doesn’t much matter what we think about Brussels, they say: it makes no difference. Newspapers have taken their cue from their readers, pushing the whole topic off their pages – which is why, for example, the Lib Dems are getting away with their nauseating lies about supporting a referendum. Opposition is left to a couple of blogs such as this one and EU Referendum. Now, it seems, this one may find itself alone. Richard North writes: “This blog was started in the heady days of 2005 when we thought we might get a referendum on the (then) “Constitution for Europe”. But, with the certain ratification of its replacement, the Lisbon treaty – with or without Ireland – and no prospect of a referendum, our job is done. As politics descend into the realms of the soap opera, increasingly divorced from reality, we end on the low note of abject failure.” Snap out of it, Richard! Heaven knows, I have been the target often enough of your hearty (but wholly unreciprocated) dislike. But, when the mainstream newspapers have virtually given up reporting on the institutions that generate 80 per cent of our laws, outlets like yours are critical. This blog, for one, plans to stay in business. Now who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me? http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/danielhannan/may08/wehavelost.htm
My friends at EU Referendum are on the point of giving up. In a despairing post, Richard North fancies that he sees the carcass of souverainisme stretched out before him: “Euroscepticism is dead. It is not official yet, and the putative corpse is still breathing. If it was a human being, it would be on life support, showing no brain activity.” I can see his point. I have also railed often enough about people’s acquiescence in the destruction of their freedom. Then again, as the grea-*test*-('") of all Englishmen puts it: “Oft expectation fails and most oft there Where most it promises, and oft it hits Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.” In the run-up to Maastricht, I made the mistake of giving up on my countrymen. An undergraduate at the time, I campaigned frenetically, organising rallies, firing off letters to the press. But I remember feeling utterly alone. People agreed readily enough when pushed for an opinion; but no seemed to care. Then, just as I was on the point of giving up, something extraordinary happened. On 2 June 1992, Denmark voted against the Maastricht Treaty. Overnight, the mood changed. People felt that it was possible after all to defy Leviathan. They were ashamed that it had fallen to a nation of five million people to do what the Mother of Parliaments ought to have done. Europe shot to the top of the political agenda and stayed there for the better part of a decade. Now the wheel has turned again. People have slumped back into despondency. It doesn’t much matter what we think about Brussels, they say: it makes no difference. Newspapers have taken their cue from their readers, pushing the whole topic off their pages – which is why, for example, the Lib Dems are getting away with their nauseating lies about supporting a referendum. Opposition is left to a couple of blogs such as this one and EU Referendum. Now, it seems, this one may find itself alone. Richard North writes: “This blog was started in the heady days of 2005 when we thought we might get a referendum on the (then) “Constitution for Europe”. But, with the certain ratification of its replacement, the Lisbon treaty – with or without Ireland – and no prospect of a referendum, our job is done. As politics descend into the realms of the soap opera, increasingly divorced from reality, we end on the low note of abject failure.” Snap out of it, Richard! Heaven knows, I have been the target often enough of your hearty (but wholly unreciprocated) dislike. But, when the mainstream newspapers have virtually given up reporting on the institutions that generate 80 per cent of our laws, outlets like yours are critical. This blog, for one, plans to stay in business. Now who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me? http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/danielhannan/may08/wehavelost.htm