Oh, yes, indeed, this blog has been consistently wrong about almost everything for almost as long as it has been running which, in six day's time, will be 8 years! Today, I am proud to announce that it has been completely wrong about Europe. Well, actually, I wasn't really wrong about Europe, it's just that those slippery continentals cannot be relied upon to act rationally, that is, in the way that I forecast - silly people! The other day I remarked to my regular commenter, Ortega, that I was amazed that the Spanish were failing to throw all their politicians into the bullrings of Spain and then set the bulls loose. Equally, the Italians have let me down badly by displaying the sort of phlegmatic stoicism that we British consider to be solely ours by right, even if nowadays we are given to behaving like a bunch of Hollywood starlets caught wearing out-of-date fashion.
Mr. Beppe Grillo, the, er, well-known Italian comedian - I hesitate to define him thus because he has enormous competition as a comedian from the entire Italian political community starting with the most hilarious of them all, 'Bunga-Bunga' - won a surprisingly large vote in their recent election and now he is proposing that Italy should leave the EU altogether. However, a recent poll (sorry, I cannot recall where I saw it) indicated that whilst Italians are fed up with the Berlin-Brussels axis they are not prepared to leave it. It is understandable, I suppose, if you follow Belloc's aphorism, "And always keep a hold of [German] nurse, For fear of finding something worse". So my faith in a new Italian risorgimento has been disappointed and I am forced to look elsewhere for someone, anyone, with the strength of purpose and the political courage to drive a stake through the heart of this monstrous conglomoration.
To my considerable surprise I find myself doing a fast, unbelieving double-take and looking at - Germany! Oh yes, Germany, as Ambrose E-P tells us in The Telegraph, has seen the birth of 'UGIP' - no, no, not 'UKIP' (United Kingdom Independence Party) but 'UGIP' ('United German Independence Party'). Of course, they don't actually call themselves that, instead they have adopted the rather stodgy name of 'Alternative for Germany', perhaps it sounds more exciting in German! Anyway, these stalwarts are giving Mrs. Merkel the same sort of problem that Cameron gets with UKIP - the threat that they will outflank her to the Right:
The latest ZDF poll shows that 65pc of Germans think the euro is damaging,
and 49pc think Germany would be better outside the EU. This is no doubt "soft",
yet what is clear is that the all-party consensus on EMU gives voters nowhere to
turn.
The rebels may struggle to cross the 5pc threshold for seats in the
Bundestag, but they do not have to take seats to plague Angela Merkel over the
next six months. She is already in trouble. Her Free Democrat (FDP) allies have
crashed to 4pc in the polls.
In the same way that UKIP has forced elements inside the Tory party to shift Cameron slightly to the Right, so to Mrs. Merkel may be forced to take an increasingly hardline attitude to the 'Meds' - starting with Cyprus which is seen in Germany as merely an illicit haven for Russian oligarch funds. Der Spiegel takes a cautious view as to the likely electoral success of 'Alternative for Germany' but does not underestimate its power to create considerable leverage from the sidelines:
Even if the party does get on the ballot, it remains unclear whether it will attract significant support. So far, it remains a single-issue party -- and even on that single issue there is a lack of clear consensus on exactly how to proceed.
Still, with concern in Germany growing that the country has become the de-facto paymaster for the rest of the euro zone, Alternative for Germany could attract a fair number of protest votes from frustrated conservatives. Judging by the increasing difficulty Merkel has faced in pushing euro bailout packages through parliament in Berlin over the last 15 months, the level of frustration on the center-right could be growing. Indeed, Lucke has said that he is in touch with a handful of euro-skeptic parliamentarians from the Free Democrats, Merkel's business-friendly junior coalition partner.
So, with considerable surprise I find myself turning East and muttering fiercely a paraphrase of Claudius' fervent plea in Hamlet: 'Do it Germany!'
