Euroscepticism is dead.
Euroscepticism is dead and the possible demise of the leading EU Sceptic blog EU Referendum.
Through these coming weeks, I intend to run a series of posts exploring why we are about to be confronted with a corpse, why euroscepticism failed and what we need to do about it (interspersed with our usual fare). Then, at a suitable moment, we may consider winding up EU Referendum.
I really hope the Dr North reconsiders as do many of his readers.
Sad news.
Perhaps the cavalry will arrive in the nick of time as in the best westerns.
I am sure that many appreciate your efforts to expose the horror that calls itself the EU. Your blog will be sadly missed.
You are even more indispensable here in the US, where facts and opinions about the EU, should they get published at all, are filtered through yet another layer of PC. Please keep up the good work.
I’d ask eurosceptic bloggers who find themselves in this position to reconsider their motives. The EU isnt going away, and UKIP was a lost cause from day one on, but these bloggers can -through their very scrutiny of all things EUropean- offer a constructive and necessary contribution to EU political debate. In fact, without them there may be no debate at all.
I’m not eurosceptic myself, in fact I’d like the project to succeed, but I’m no happier with the situation than are eurosceptics. The EU executive has to be directly accountable to the electorate. Member states could protect their national interests from a second chamber (comprised of, say, the EU Council).
I suppose what I’m getting at is that eurosceptics and (honest, non-sycophantic) pro-Europeans should be able to agree that the current situation is a mess, and on that basis should be able to co-operate on at least raising debate on the state of the Union.
I think we could really do with a cross-spectrum group blog -an EU Slugger O’Toole if you like- to get beyond the fluffy PC EU press releases and eurofriendly YouTube videos as well as the less than reliable anti-EU stories that pop up regularly in the British press.
Sanddef, thank you for your comment, the difference between most Eusceptics and reforming pro-Europeans, which I term as those who argue for a European Union but perhaps not this one? Is basically one of faith that the EU can be reformed.
Euscpetics in main believe the EU is incapable of reform in such a manner that would be acceptable. EUscpetics like me are concerned with the total lack of democracy within the systems. The EU operates by ignoring the public, in that it could not have been formed democratically because none of the citizens of the member states would have willingly voted to give up their own nation state. To debate at this stage the internal arrangement of the Union is to ignore the un-democratic manner that was used to achieve its present status.
To argue that we are were we are and we should move on from here, is clearly the truth of the situation, but it is a truth which ignores the fact that I for instance resent having been forced to become a citizen of the EU. I do not consider that the Commission has the moral or democratic right to make laws for me, I did not vote for them I did not vote for their polices and I did not loose the vote, as there has never been one. The only people I can vote for are my local MP and my local MEP neither of those people or their parties have ever stood on a platform of EU policies that I and the rest of my countrymen could either accept or reject.
To settle my resentment would require a step back and a complete reversal away from the integration motor of the EU. I would be content for some sort of confederation of states, but the EU has already developed beyond that point and I do not envision any moves that would undo the integration being acceptable to the central EU leaders.
In essence I do not want to debate how the EU should move forwards I want it to move totally in the other direction, I do not want my government or my nation state to be subservient to a greater EU federal style government. So the only answer for me is that my country leaves the Union and renegotiates a different settlement. This of course is a matter for internal debate within this country, as it our own politicians who have taken the steps towards integration it is they who will have to be forced to reverse those steps. As it stands it is looking increasingly as if that battle has been lost, the political elites have constantly refused to allow the British people to have a voice in the matter of ever closer political union. The latest reversal of a promise by all parties to allow a referendum on the EU Constitution is only evidence of how desperately they want to deny us the people a chance to scupper their plans.
I do not therefore see a basis for debate with those who find the idea of a united Europe acceptable and place their faith in un-building the present European Union and rebuilding it in a different form. That is why I consider myself to be Eusceptic, the EU has a pre determined structure to become a nation state, un-building would go against everything the EU is designed to become, so therefore it simply will not happen. There is no evidence whatever that it is about to happen or that it could happen, those areas which are generally offered as evidence of a different EU and evidence that the EU is moving in a different direction are actually only evidence of a difference in speed of arrival rather than a different final destination. In other words the argument is with the train diver about the time of arrival rather than the argument I want which is about the destination.