Were you as embarrassed as me? I didn't follow the details of 'Empress' Merkel's visit this week, it was simply too, too, embarrassing. The sight of our tall prime minister in effect leaning over this little German dumpling (with a Krupps steel centre!) and covering her in lick-spittle was positively sick-making! Her occasional dimpled smiles which never seemed to reach her eyes was enough to tell me that she thought all this high falutin' nonsense, including tea with Her Maj, was uncalled for. And worst of all, it was all for nothing! Yes, she'd like the UK to remain inside the EU but she isn't going to lift much more than a little finger to help if the alternative is the effective dismantling of an apparat that she runs to Germany's benefit!
Time for Dr. North's cold shower:Yes, indeed, if you need an icey, northern blast to blow away the bullshit on Europe, he, and Christopher Booker in The Telegraph, are the ones to provide it. I will not attempt to paraphrase, Dr. North's words are short, brutal and true:
Nothing should have been remotely surprising about this encounter. As Booker has often tried to explain – ever since Mr Cameron came up with his notion, a year ago, that he could somehow hope to negotiate a new relationship for Britain with the EU, then put it to a referendum in 2017 – every point on his wish list was just pie in the sky.
It defied every bedrock principle of how the EU works: that, once powers of government are handed over to Brussels, they cannot be given back; that, under Article 48 of the Lisbon Treaty, he would never get the required majority from 27 other countries allowing him to negotiate; that the tortuous procedures now laid down for such a new treaty could not possibly be completed by 2017.
In other words, those millions of words that in the past year have been spoken and written by pretty well every politician and pundit one can think of have been devoted to discussing something that could never possibly have come about in the first place – as Mrs Merkel confirmed on Thursday.
'End of', as they say these days!
More later . . .
