Security Council Seat Lord Malloch-Brown Eureferendum
I have been pondering this for a couple of days, and I am saddened that my first real post for a very long time should be to question one of the icons of our fight to regain our sovereignty both from the EU and our own political class.
Whilst I have always greatly admired the work being done by the best EU sceptic blog by miles, and have no desire at all to question the knowledge of those who write EU Referendum. I do find the odd occasion when something in a particular post sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. Not wrong of course on the basic facts, but on the interpretation of those facts. I fully understand that for me to even question this blog is akin to a stickleback nibbling at a pike. However:
One such post was written on Tuesday ” Is This Really News”
Apparently there is problem with the MSM coverage of the Lord Malloch-Brown comments on the possible loss of our seat at the UN.
The major point appears to be that when he made these comments last October he was not then a Foreign Office minister, but was an exalted employee of the United Nations, in fact he was a Deputy General Secretary of the UN at the time. It is reported that he told Brussels diplomats that the EU was heading toward one single seat within the UN institutions. I think heading is the important point to make, because the statement was qualified, when he said: “I think it will go in stages. We are going to see a growing spread of it institution by institution. It is not going to happen with a flash and a bang.” And on a personal note, he apparently added that he hoped that it would happen “as quickly as possible. I’m a huge fan of it.”
Now to be honest I really cannot see where EU Referendum is going with this one, a senior employee of the United Nations has made it clear that at some time it is very likely the EU would be heading towards one single seat on the UN council. Of course as we all know the EU cannot even apply to join the UN at this stage, but if the Reform Treaty is ratified that will all, change and we will find ourselves in a totally different game.
Some idea for the reasons become clearer when we read the following:
“Presumably the rush to produce this non-story was triggered off by Wee William huffing and puffing and demanding explanations. It might be better for the lad if he got down to some serious work in politics (or leave the Front Bench) and read the new Constitutional Reform Treaty. There is plenty there about the common foreign policy though nothing about permanent seats on the Security Council.”
So is this then an attack on Mr Hague, rather than a serious comment about the possibility of our eventually loosing our seat on the UN Security Council. If so I do find the argument somewhat lacking in the usual depth of though I have come to expect from this blog, the post continues:
“He might ponder over the fact that it is the Security Council that decides who can and who cannot have a permanent seat and there are countries that have been clamouring for some time:
That might well be the case, but has a senior UN employee taken the trouble to visit Brazil, India, Japan, and make a speech extolling the virtues of their becoming a member?
The real weakness in the argument can be seen by the following:
Mr Hague might also like to ask himself (or somebody else) how a junior member of the British government who is not the British representative at the UN is going to affect a reform in that organization?
But when those comments were made Lord Malloch-Brown was not a “junior member of the British government” was “an exalted employee of the United Nations” He obviously was not then speaking as a British Minster but as an employee of the UN.
It is quite clear that EU Referendum has a thing about the Shadow Foreign Sectary, but I do not find this particular post has any authority, especially if you consider that this blog is in the forefront of EU Sceptic thought and it’s writers are fully aware that the way the EU increases its influence over time, is exactly the way described by Lord Malloch-Brown “the EU was heading toward one single seat within the UN institutions” “I think it will go in stages. We are going to see a growing spread of it institution by institution. It is not going to happen with a flash and a bang.”
There are much better posts on the blog about the problems with the Conservative position on the new treaty, Mr Hague and the treaty itself. Some of which directly conflict with the thrust of this particular post
The closeness between the EU and UN was reaffirmed as recently as March when the UN deputy secretary general gave a speech to the EU parliament in Strasbourg. He then acknowledged that the EU was “one of the great supporters of the United Nations and a believer in the strength of multilateralism”, declaring that “the European Union and its institutions are superb partners of the United Nations”.
The “closer union” is facilitated by the the new treaty, which gives a legal personality to the EU. This allows the Union specifically (Point 42) to conclude formal agreements with the bodies such as United Nations.
