[Ed: Today we publish a brief comment by our contributor Roger Turner who took issue with an opinion piece by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, published in the DT on Friday 13th May 2022, contrasting it with a ‘reply’, a comment article by Professor Robert Tombs, published on Saturday 14th May. In view of the ongoing crisis regarding the NI Protocol, this is of topical interest.]
Written by Roger Turner
Being an ex-Merchant Seaman, perhaps Friday the 13th has an extra significance for me, but after reading this headline in the Business section of this past Friday`s Daily Telegraph, written by, in my estimation, a tried and tested good correspondent, in fact a veritable “Pillar”, a certain Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, with the headline: “Emmanuel Macron`s `confederation’ may be the perfect home for Brexit Britain” (paywalled link), I was, to put it in one word, disgusted!
Let me tell you what he said.
“He has revived Francois Mitterrand`s plan at the end of the Cold War for a European Confederation “let us be clear, the EU cannot be the only means of structuring the European continent”, he told Euro-MPs this week.
Macron proposes a constellation of democratic and liberal states that wish to trade and cooperate on friendly terms without having to accept the full EU package, with its ever more powerful executive in Brussels and with a supreme court in Luxembourg acquiring hegemonic jurisdiction.
What was deemed impossible during the Brexit talks – and before that, as the UK was dragged by perpetual treaty creep into a proto-superstate against its will – has suddenly become a fashionable possibility, because of Vladimir Putin`s attempt to overthrow the European order by force.
The UK was told that there could be only a binary choice, either in (or almost in without voting rights, like Norway) or out, and little different from Vietnam, Brazil or Madagascar. Put crudely the Barnier line was that any form of bespoke arrangement was cakeism, a threat to the indivisible unity of the EU.
Macron`s “European political Community” is designed to tackle the conundrum of Ukraine, a disguised way to head off fast -track EU accession of a country deemed too big and unruly to be digested.” (paywalled link)
If that wasn’t bad enough, AEP goes on – here are more of the points he made, a bit abbreviated:
“[…] Obvious questions about Brexit […] Macron did not explicitly name the UK, but said the arrangement should be open to “those countries which have left the European Union”, which is the same thing. He did not mention Greenland.
The idea clearly has a head of steam […] Italy`s former head last month proposed a confederation of 36 states […] backing of Mario Draghi. The centre for European Reform says the plan has support from EU`s President Charles Michel and the council secretariat, though not from Commission officials:
“The move is highly significant. There is a strong desire for a rapprochement with the UK and they might even be willing to rewrite the Protocol, if there is a different Prime Minister […] Johnson now too toxic” (paywalled link)
AEP’s article is too long to relate all his weaselly seductive reasons, e.g. why we should now get into bed with whom – he even mentions Macron’s “choice to call the UK – the enemy”. He writes:
“Macron seems to be proposing a relationship with Europe that middle Britain has long sought […] This new European organisation would offer democratic nations, which adhere to our core values, a new space for political cooperation on security, energy, transport, infrastructure, investment and free movement of people” (paywalled link)
AEP forgot to mention ‘diversity’ and ‘net zero’! He ends his piece thus:
“For Britain it is full of seductive possibilities, the answer for millions of us who want the sort of relationship with Europe that Canada has with the United States, it is not such a scandalous thing to ask after all.” (paywalled link)
I said at the beginning I was disgusted, perhaps particularly that the DT should print such thinly disguised “Remain leaning”, dangerous drivel, by, as I said, a journalist of such standing as AEP.
Came Saturday’s DT and relief was in sight. I don’t know if the main DT editorial staff were “aghast” at what they had found printed under their collective name in the previous day’s Business Section, but they quickly drummed up the eminent historian Robert Tombs who roundly condemned the whole sorry idea, in none less a space than the main leader on the centre page, under the title “Britain’s future is to be Europe’s only great power, not a satellite of Macron’s continental empire” (paywalled link).
I will now quote some of Mr. Tombs’ observations:
“Now President Macron has suggested a “European Confederation” which we might graciously be allowed to join. Gullible commentators have presented this as a bold new vision and even as a concession to Britain. In fact, it is France`s ideal European system, which it has been touting for the last forty years.
It means an inner eurozone core dominated by France and Germany – what Macron likes to call “sovereign Europe” with rings of satellites extending to the outer reaches of Europe`s sphere (Norway, Turkey, North Africa, Britain …).
The satellites would be pulled inexorably into the orbit of core EU over which they would have no control. This is the ultimate reiteration of the subordinate status the EU has been trying to foist on Britain since 2016. We would have to be extraordinarily naïve to fall for what would be worse than EU membership. It would moreover smooth the path for the breakaway of Scotland and Northern Ireland.” (paywalled link)
Professor Tombs continues:
“Our security , both strategic and economic requires us to be global. This has been our trajectory since the 18th Century. De Gaulle said this when he kept us out of the Common Market: we were “sea going, bound up by trade markets, food supplies with the most varied and distant countries”. Europe is one partner among many, and our back door, we will help to keep it bolted by aiding countries that we wish to be our allies to defend themselves. We would even in extreme circumstances, give intelligence naval and air support, but we must not be drawn into an ineffective EU based system which has repeatedly shown itself to be, at best indifferent to our interests, most obviously in Ireland. Our front door faces West and our high road is the ocean.” (paywalled link)
Professor Tombs is also an enthusiast for the “Anglosphere” although he bewails the loss of Canada and New Zealand (‘synthetic guilt and self loathing’) and says they must be “worked upon as a matter of urgency and their own survival”. He also praises the Aukus agreement as a start, but worries why we are making such non-entity trade agreements. He says we import 250,000 tons of meat from the EU, why make an agreement to take only a small portion from New Zealand (12,000 tons annually?) for instance. Answers please, Ms Truss …!
These two comment articles make a background to the ongoing NI negotiations. Will Johnson chose to follow AEP’s counsel and fall for Macron’s sweet-talk, or will Professor Tombs’ arguments stiffen his spine? We shall see …
I believe that the first name of the current EU Dictatorship was ‘The Common Market’. Don’t let us fall for that again!
I saw this post in TCW today and thought it might raise a smile!
Man is driving through central London and comes to stop behind huge traffic jam close to Palace of Westminster. Another man is walking up the line of traffic carrying a large bucket, stopping at each vehicle and speaking to each driver. When he gets to his car the driver winds down his window and asks “what’s going on?”. “Well” says the man with the bucket “terrorists have taken over the parliament building and holding all the MPs hostage and asking for a £100million ransom or they’ll burn them all inside the building. So I’m going to each car to get contributions for the terrorists demands” “OK” says our driver “what’s the contribution that drivers are making?”. Reply from collector with bucket “Around a gallon of petrol each”.
Lisa you beat me to it! I saw it too this evening and thought it was worth sharing! I laughed and laughed when I read it. I bet it gets shared widely. Ive already sent it round the family!
Clearly the EU miss our money! They should be so lucky! Boris Johnson cannot ship our borrowed or newly printed ‘britishmarks’ out of the Country and into Ukraine and who know where else fast enough! While people at home wonder how they will make ends meet and survive, BJs ministers tell them to ‘eat cake’ by working more hours or getting a higher paid job! What could be more Marie Antoinette than that fatuous comment?
The ‘enemy within’ resides on the benches in the House of Thieves! They are even less to be trusted than the perfidious tyrants running the EU Commission and possibly far more greedy! Going back anywhere near the EU in any shape or form would be even more suicidal than the current trajectory being pursued by Johnson and Co! Oh for a real patriot to steer the British ship of State back into Nationalistic, self-interested waters! The current lot only know how to take orders from outside the Country to the detriment of the British people! traitors all of them!
PS I have ticked the box to save my name and e mail address in this browser but it seems not to be happening. Neither can I use my ‘autofil’ option as I used to. Answers on a postcard please!
I am sure you will all pick this up but saves a trawl.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/05/british-info-warriors-kill-abroad-and-sabotage-politics-at-home.html#more
It’s always good to see the likes of the Guardian accusing others of propaganda, reconfirming that complete lack of self-awareness that characterises the Left.
Well if that’s any way factual I don’t think much of their ‘supposed’ perspicacity in considering that Boris Johnson would be either in favour of or capable of delivering a Hard Brexit! Neither could he ever have been considered capable of or interested in cleansing the Civil Service ‘from top to bottom’. Boris Johnson has always been overhyped, and overplayed! He is a ‘showman’. All talk and wind and very little substance!
However I can believe the propaganda machine operates largely as described! None of us has any idea of the lengths and depths to which these spooks will go to play their ‘Great Game’!
Tut, tut,
Oh those naughty dedicated Brexiteers who outwitted those unpatriotic Surrender conspirators who set out to reverse the mandate the Grass Roots Peasants had ordered from their elected parliament!
Game set and match I would say and they have mine and I would say the majority who voted for a “Complete and Total” return of Sovereignty that had been so traitorously ceded to a foreign power.
I`m afraid we really have to see politics and probably the whole of life as a great game and deception deceit and trickery are the rule for many.
Even now the Covid lockdown “scandal” of our politicians has been revealed as a game played in both political camps and indeed how many in the general population have followed the rules to the absolute letter.
I do think Johnson should order all those fines to be returned and any criminal records expunged.and those who levied the rules so nastily and vigorously be chastised – no room for little hitlers.
‘Johnson is now too toxic’ to Macron ???
Oh well, in that case, perhaps we better hang on to him after all !!!!
The troll HA is sad, with nothing better to do all day than making stupid rather vicious comments. I usually totally ignore him, except I have to say, I went to Arromanches Normandy just before the lockdowns. A young Frenchwoman with a pram came up to us seeing we were English and thanked us for what we did during the war.
The ones that are evil, all of them as far as I can see, are those who have power: politicians and their string pullers. Macron is one of the vilest.
Apparently Russian tennis players are also evil; who knew?
“…. will Professor Tombs’ arguments stiffen his spine?” That assumes he actually has one, and that’s not the only part of his anatomy that appears to be missing when it comes to dealing wirh his “friends and partners” in the EU. 🙂
My fear is not the obvious machinations of Macron or the EU, we expect them to pursue what they perceive as their interests. It is the e enemy within that is the clear and always present danger. The Tories made a dog’s dinner of Brexit because they felt they were having to deliver Brexit rather than wanted to. The EU runs through the Tory party like a stick of Blackpool rock. They, the City of London and the Whitehall mandarins are the ones to watch like hawks.
If I recall correctly AEP couldn’t make his mind up about Brexit and thus we shouldn’t take any notice of what he says.
When I read this stuff I am always reminded of the pigs in animal farm dressing like humans and selling boxer to the glue factory etc. This confederation sounds like EU2 without the bother of any democratic pantomime. Just the kind of scam Johnson will be keen to sign up for. I see no benefits of brexit because Remain will not allow it. The policy is unchanged since treason May let the EU write her surrender treaty. Call it BRINO. Remain by stealth. Rejoin by stealth. Truly an enemy within.
HarryAgain- Agreed but for one line.
To save THEM from European tyrants. Er, and the Napoleonic wars?
Napoleon was as bad as Hitler and had similar territorial ambitions.
By the end of the year the e.u will be lucky to have any power at all the way things are going. As for alternative supplies huge tankers and pipelines and new infrastructure will have to built to transport liquified gas, not to mention the little difficulty of converting it back to gas and storing it. No gas, no electricity no industry , and it’s game over. Perhaps though Biden is going to send all those mystical ocean going tankers across from the U.S he was talking about recently, now there’s a thought, looks as if Milford Haven will be very busy in the future.
As for AWP and JW in the DT they have been totally wrong on most things for the last 15 years AWP forecasting the end of the e.u or the euro for most of that time , still it fills the DT’s comments section which is usually the most interesting read.
The EUSSR has limited facilities to import LNG by sea due to the Merkel economic sabotage plan. (ie Russian gas dependency)
LNG will be landed at Milford Haven, transit the UK and the North sea (In reverse normal direction) to refill European gas storage facilities all through the Summer months when usage is low.
You watch.
Roger – I used to like AEP, he has a lot of potential but sadly I think that he has been got at. Today I think that AEP sits in his cubicle churning out globalist propaganda; probably thinking about his pension.
As for the Telegraph that AEP writes for, I now call if the Beano.
Yes, true Flyer, but that doesn`t mitigate the danger of a correspondent of a leading newspaper businees section (and I believe it still has some or even a lot of clout in the business world) plainly advocating a surrender policy to all and sundry.
I am pointing out the juxtaposition of the management of the DT when they realised, just what one of their own was up to.and they realised they had to make some sort of immediate retraction, perhaps even Robert Tombs contacted the DT himself and told them they had “gotta do something”
I consider A E-P`s act egregious (just couldn`t remember the word for the article) I`m sure he wasn`t playing the devil`s advocate
Roger The DT is a Tory rag. It has to keep the credulous Tory readers onside as well as keep in with the Tory party which has shot off to the Left. Thus Robert Tombs article may be there to appease the credulous Tory reader onside.. It is a business after all and I presume it is losing readers left, right and centre like all other papers except the Daily Mail.
Do remember that the DT received several million pounds from Bill Gates during covid – doesn’t demonstrate that national papers have sold their souls?
My guess is that most of the DT readership are retired people. Very, very few young and middle aged people read a paper anymore. Doubt very much if many influential businessmen read a paper today either.
It is my guess that AEP doesn’t necessarily believe one word he writes and he is known for his doom laden predictions perhaps intended to stir debate. After all the MSM is nothing more than a kind of showbiz.
Time and time again the French have proved they are not to be trusted.
There’s no sign of gratitude for us expending blood and treasure to save them from European tyrants on numerous occasions either.
An evil race. They will never change.
Trusted with or over what exactly?
The UK declared war on Germany in 1939 to save Poland. D-day landings were launched from the UK for logistical reasons. Neither the US, who were using the UK as a base, nor the other nations (Canada etc), were acting for altruistic reasons. The people to whom gratitude is owed are dead and are honoured by memorial and services in France and elsewhere. What other form should gratitude take for dead people?
In the Brexit negotiations the British government showed itself to be spineless and easliy manipulated and prliamwent as duplicitous and anti-democratic. As a characterisation of the British should we say the British will never change? The French change as much as any peoples.
As to their being “evil”, the attribution is absurd and presumably serving the commentor’s otherwise insecure ego and identity.
Robert Tombs, referred to in the article, recently gave a talk – I was present in the audience – explaining how Britiain only ever won wars in alliance with others. The one time it went solo it lost – the American colonies.
Thanks SY for taking this persistent troll to task, particularly for the apparent indiscriminate scattering of really damaging words like “evil”, I know I have used it in the past to describe the EU as the “evil Empire”, particularly in the context of the confirmation by Borosso(?spelling) to Cameron that the EU was an Empire and their overall and continued conduct to the UK and other members, particularly Greece.
I noted in my piece the use of the word “enemy”, I think by A E-P, particularly as I have been known to use the word Enemy in regard to my views on the conduct of the EU on a long term and continuing basis to the UK nation..
I have long been disappointed that our negotiators over the piece have never really differntiated that our relationship with our “Friends and Partners in Europe” (who mostly, with some exceptions we get on with fine) as against those who do behave as our actual enemy in the EU. and I do agree with some who have already posted on here that fingers should be pointed at our “enemy within” who have sought constantly to ameliorate or nullify our legitimate negotiating strategy which must always be in the protection and maintenance of the Sovereignty of this nation and its grass roots electorate overall who elect those negotiators.
Finally I think Trump put it nice and succinctly to Mrs May , I believe when he is said to have said”You don`t go in hard enough” ,
Roger. at 12.16pm.
Unfortunately we can not have Trump as P.M.
I still think it would be possible to have Lord Frost as P.M.
I suspect Macron might find him even more ‘toxic’ than Bojo !!! (More balls for instance.)
Yes. I see your point made 12.33pm that the Telegraph Business Section still carries weight.
Thanks for that Pauline,
I do see the danger that A E-P`s views could gain traction, the DT wouldn`t continue to use him if he didn`t cut the mustard even occasionally and the more daft seemingly his ideas to me, the more dangerous.
It has at least got some MSM oxygen of publicity and that`s a sight more than the unofficial press that gets cancelled out of hand.
Incidentally I can only read and comment on my piece on my steam driven Lap Top, my Ipad cancells me and I get a return to sender like notice – constantly no matter how many times I click it, it has happened with Bitchute and Oddessy before (I cannot get them on Ipad at all, but can on lap top – no bother) This is the first time it has happened on ID, I can still get all Viv`s usual stuff, but I`ve a feeling I`ve offended somebody – goodee!!!!
Pauline regarding failure of Ipad, I`ve now been set straight by my family, who won`t touch Apple with a barge pole.
They say my Ipad is hopelessly out of date. and that must be true as they have demonstrated I can still get full service on my Iphone.
You, as they say “live and learn” – perhaps I`ll have to be satisfied with that at my tender age.
More nonsense. The French take better care of the allied war graves than we do. How you can lump wrong ‘un politicians, and they are to be found throughout time worldwide including in our own country, with ordinary people, is beyond me.