This article appeared in The Times 19 June 2001 but is worth revisiting, its sentiments are clearly against unaccountable governmental systems, more akin to management than a political government, which are increasingly removing our powers to elect those who would rule over us. As such it defines many of my problems with the elitism that is found in the EU as it becomes a much greater force in our daily lives.
WE CREATED THIS BUREAUCRATIC MONSTER
The Gothenburg street fighters were driven to violent protest Roger Scruton’s sympathies waver when he sees riots against unaccountable legislators, particularly the bureaucrats of the EU. By Roger Scruton
I awoke to politics in May 1968 in Paris. Observing the street battles between truncheon-wielding policemen and stone-throwing students, I was moved for the first time by political indignation. It was not the police who inspired this feeling: on the contrary, I applauded their determination to give as good as they got. I was indignant at those well-heeled children of the bourgeoisie, who were burning the cars and stoning the sons of the real working class.
Since that moment, I have changed in many ways ; but not in the outlook that then crystallised. I became aware that nothing is of greater political value than the rule of law, that authority is not an evil but an indispensable good, and that private property is the precondition of freedom. Law, authority and property were all threatened by the spoilt brats who chanted in the streets below my window. And whenever now I come across balaclava-wearing youths confronting cordons of policemen, I instinctively conclude that, whatever those youths are against, I am for it.
Observing the recent protests in Seattle, Prague and Gothenburg, however, my instinctive opposition has begun to waver. Of course, many of these are the same kind of people who revolted me in 1968 - privileged layabouts protesting against the system that guarantees their privileges, including the privilege of protest. But I share their opposition to the things that anger them, and recognise that violent protest is probably the only instrument through which they can make this opposition felt.
For the people of modern democracies are being steadily disfranchised, and the institutions responsible exist in a haze of unaccountable decision-making, where nameless Olympians sit in judgment on all mankind. For the first time in living memory, the majority of the laws of our country are made by people whom we cannot eject from office.
We know who Tony Blair is. We know what he thinks, how he behaves and what is his ultimate agenda. On the strength of this, we can vote for him or against him at an election. His party and government have a legislative programme, but it can pass into law only after the scrutiny of Parliament, and only after committees and revising bodies have had their say, against a background of public debate in which all of us participate.
But do we know who is in charge in the WTO or the European Commission? Have we a clear perception of the personalities who wish to legislate, from the security of those offices, for the people of our continent? And if we do, have we the faintest idea how to influence their decision or, failing that, to vote them out of office?
The fact is that trans-national bureaucracies offer an unprecedented opportunity to obtain power without accountability. And the participation of our elected governments in the resulting farce is something against which we should protest, since it is a betrayal of trust. Our politicians were elected to legislate for the people of this country. They were not elected to endorse laws made outside the kingdom, by people who are effectively accountable to no one and who need never make themselves known.
That issue of principle is surely what underlies the protests against the EU and its dictatorial commission - now responsible for the major part (and by far the worst part) of our legislation. But it is not only the EU that is at fault. All over the world, the habit has arisen of granting legislative or regulatory powers to institutions that are answerable to no particular electorate, but that can impose laws on us all.
The WTO is one extremely dangerous instance. It has put in place the mechanism whereby America can penalise any country that tries to protect its local agriculture from US agribusiness. It has therefore sounded the knell for local markets, local food production and the kind of restrictions on the free flow of food that might be necessary to save our planet. But how do we, mere citizens of a democracy, register our protest?
Other trans-national institutions have a comparable imperialist agenda. Even the World Health Organisation, devoted to the seemingly blameless cause of helping the developing nations to overcome contagious diseases, spends far more time and energy trying to legislate against smokers. It now seeks to control the fiscal policy of national legislatures, since nothing less than this will satisfy the anti-smoking fanatics who occupy its seat of power. You don’t have to approve of smoking to believe that tobacco legislation and taxation should be decided by our elected government in Westminster, rather than by unelected bureaucrats in Geneva.
Of course, there are problems that can be solved only by treaty, and treaties must have legal force. But every treaty signed by our government is a diminution of sovereignty, and an erosion of the democratic franchise. Hence the ruling principle must be to retain national sovereignty until it can be conclusively shown that a wider jurisdiction is necessary, if the problem is to be solved. There is another reason for this, which is that mistakes made by national legislatures can be rectified. Mistakes made by trans-national bureaucrats - the CAP being one supremely telling instance - cannot.
So yes, the demonstrators are right. They have been disfranchised, and what can they do except protest? Voting makes no difference, since no politicians - not even Margaret Thatcher - seem willing to take a stand against the new forms of global governance, once in office. And when national governments hold referendums - as the Danes, the Swiss and the Irish have done - the bureaucrats immediately signal their intention to disregard them.
But still, I remember my reaction to the student rioters in May 1968. What angered me was not their goals, but their determination to impose their goals on the rest of us. This determination is shared by the new forms of bureaucratic government. And maybe it is shared by the protesters in Gothenburg. After all, it is the original sin of politics.
If we value democracy, it is surely because it places procedures above goals, and consent above force, in the scale of political values. Maybe the greatest disservice done by the EU to the future of Europe is that it is causing us to value goals above procedures, and therefore, as in Gothenburg, force above consent.
