IMO it’s rare that we see such intelligent interventions from official advisers or a willingness on their part to openly go against the grain of mainstream populism. There is absolutely nothing moral about going to war – all sorts of people get hurt through no fault of their own.

@60/61: the point is, Argentina had no better claim to the land than the UK (”it’s never been ours but we’re, erm, nearer to it than you”), and its inhabitants were British citizens who wanted to remain British citizens. It’s certainly the most morally clear-cut war the UK has fought since 1945: we *were* protecting the right to self-determination versus an unprovoked invasion by a military dictatorship. Supporting that has got very little to do with right/left-ery.

As Churchill and his war cabinet recognised in May 1940, had Britain negotiated peace peace terms then with Nazi Germany, the most likely eventual outcome would have been a mainland Europe subject to either complete Nazi or complete Soviet domination for decades to come.

Knowledge of the existence of concentration camps in Germany and of the gulags in the Soviet Union was already in the public domain in Britain although there was little appreciation then of the true scale of their horrors. The Moscow Show Trials of 1936/7 were not secret. An Anglo-German peace settlement would have been virtually certain to preclude the possibility of a second front by an invasion of the European mainland, absent a base in Britain from which to launch an invasion.

After the war, Von Rundstedt, c-in-c west in the German high command at the end of the war, was asked by Soviet interrogators to say which was the decisive battle of the war. To their disgust, he said: The Battle of Britain, and he was correct. Had Britain been neutralised by whatever means, Germany would not have faced the continuing threat of a second front entailing the commitment of all the military resources for western defences.

The signs are that Chamberlain foresaw the terrible likely consequences of starting a war in Europe, which is why he was willing to sign the Munich agreement in September 1938. In March 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded was was left of independent Czecho-Slovakia, he was obliged to accept that Hitler could not be trusted.

The immediate outcome was an unsolicited offer to Poland to guarantee its territorial integrity. The ensuing treaty with Poland is what led to Britain’s declaration of war with Germany on 3 September 1939 when the German government failed to respond to an ultimatum to desist from the invasion of Poland – an invasion btw which was supposedly a “liberal interventionist” measure to protect the civil rights of the German-speaking population in Poland.

I really don’t see any convincing parallels with the Falkland Is in 1982.

Instead 1soldier died for the right of every 12 people on the island not to pay tax to Argentina. Pretty poor exchange if you ask me

There is a curious sense in which that tends to be truish. Placed to do so, I was astonished to see declared “true-socialists” fervently supporting Britain’s cause in the Falklands war of 1982. It was down to middle-class sceptics – including, reportedly, Alan Walters, Mrs Thatcher’s personal economic adviser – to point out that for the financial and human costs of the war, each of Falkland Is residents could have been given verging on c. £1m to resettle somewhere else.

I tend to be reminded of Samuel Johnson’s reported comment: Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, which was probably a valid description of reality in his time when signing up to join the army or the navy was a ready means for avoiding prison or transportation or worse. As the Duke of Wellington said about the troopers who served in his command: “We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Wellesley,_1st_Duke_of_Wellington

Oh really? You’d better tell that to all those who are promising to flee to Dubai if they’re asked for a penny more tax.

It was, I think, always understood that some European governments and some politicians envisaged ever closer European integration, not least because closer integration was regarded by many as the only credible means by which Europe could hope to emulate the power, technological prowess and global influence of America.

An indication of popular European sentiment in the late 1960s and 1970s is the best-selling status of an influential political tract: Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber: Le Défi Américain (The American Challenge, 1967).

The book “sold 600,000 copies in France, unprecedented for a political essay, and was translated into 15 languages. This book was instrumental in creating a resurgence of French nationalism and drawing attention to the importance of transnational cooperation in Europe.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Servan-Schreiber

What is perhaps not fully recognised nowadays is the extent to which the balance of political sentiment in Britain has changed since the 1970s.

Sure, there were some Conservatives then who were unsympathetic or hostile to the idea of Britain joining the “Common Market” – like my local MP at that time – but the most vociferous opposition by a margin came from the political “Left”, who persisted in painting the “Common Market” as a “rich-man’s” or “capitalist” club. Conservatives who opposed Britain joining the Common Market were widely considered as verging on eccentric and certainly as unrealistic.

For the most part, business organisations strongly favoured joining. The performance of Britain’s economy was especially wobbly during the 1970s so it was entirely credible to present the case for joining the European Economic Community (EEC) – to use the formal title – as an affirmation of a preference for closer business and economic ties with relatively more successful market economies against the discouraging prospect of more socialism and centralist planning.

Tony Benn, minister for industry in Wilson’s government at the time of the referendum in 1975, was hugely active in making campaign speeches against the Common Market, calling for a resounding “No” vote. But the outcome of the referendum was a 67% “Yes” vote. Benn’s credibility was sorely damaged and Wilson seized on the opportunity to move him from the sensitive post of industry minister – where many had seen him as an embarrassment to the government – to the post of energy minister.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum,_1975

The convincing size of the Yes vote did little to quell the extent of hostility in the Labour Party to the EEC. That hostility was stoked and revitalised during Thatcher’s first government and emerged in the Labour manifesto for the 1983 election as a commitment to negotiate withdrawal from the “Common Market”. The Conservatives won the election with a majority of 140: Gerald Kaufman notoriously described Labour’s manifesto as “the longest suicide note in history”.

The scope of the EEC was famously extended and deepened by the Single European Act of 1986 and then by the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, both of which were negotiated and eventually ratified by Conservative governments. With this history, Conservatives who now present themselves as die-hard critics of the EU and all it stands for are apt to look amnesic and rather peculiar.

IMO there is always room for discussion about the powers and functions of the EU – especially with the lingering consequences of the financial crisis – but I regard the likes of UKIP in much the same way as I think of Tony Benn and his followers. For that matter, I’m none too impressed with Tony Blair either and dreaded the prospect of him being President of the EU Council of Ministers.

I’ve been around since Britain’s history of relations with the EU and its predecessors started. In consequence, I can if need be readily post a resume going back to the Coal and Steel Community and the Treaty of Paris in 1951 or Harold Macmillan’s announcement in 1961 that his government was intending to make an application to sign up to the Treaty of Rome, which it promptly did, only to have the application vetoed by De Gaulle in 1963.

In 1975, I campaigned with a friend for a “Yes” vote in the national referendum and was an official observer at the local count which yielded one of the largest majorities for the “Yes” vote in the country – my friend went on to become a Conservative MEP and I went on to become a bureaucrat, in which capacity I briefly met with Roy Jenkins when he was President of the EC Commission.

On this latest referendum business, what is puzzling me now is why doesn’t David Cameron have the courage of his declared convictions and commit a future Conservative government to holding a national referendum on the straightforward question of negotiating withdrawal from the EU on the mechanisms provided for in the Lisbon Treaty? That ought to finally settle the internal turbulence within the Conservative Party.

Why did Blair not have a referendum on Euro membership? Why did Brown not have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty? Because both knew rhey would lose. Support for Labour at a GE does not mean endorsement of its European policy. Look who did well in the European Elections which was on the subject of Europe…

“Proof by assertion; excellent. I’ve got far more in common with an educated Frenchman or Czech than a Daily Mail reader; YMMV.”

Whether you like it or not, most people in the UK don’t feel the same way. Otherwise we would be part of a country called European Union or something similar. National loyalty has always trumped class loyalty, must to the frustration of hardcore Marxists.

The Constitution included several hundred clauses. Saying that it is defined by Clause 1-8, which provided for five symbols of the EU, none of which were new and all of which remain in existence is just fatuous. Do me a favour and go and read the fucking Treaties.

Open Europe at least provides an attempt at cross-checking the Lisbon Treaty against the Constitution. If you can point me to an instance where they got it wrong in their analysis please do so.

There’s europhobe mendacity in all its blazing glory. (Open Europe? That’s like quoting Taxpayers Alliance on tax issues – you get the slanted, inaccurate version only!)

The Lisbon Treaty intentionally includes the internal institutional amendments that were part of the original constitution.

That is its whole raison d’etre.

What it doesn’t include is all the guff about anthems and flags and other nationalistic paraphernalia in the old Constitution which understandably put the Dutch and the French voters off.

“Particularly when no-one in this country has been consulted on whether they want to be ruled from abroad in the first place. And no, they haven’t.”

And they aren’t! The whole point of being part of the EU is that the UK gets to take part in the decision-making process too. The HRA, much-maligned by the right*, was practically a UK-authored document!

“Ruled from abroad”, indeed! Just goes to show who’s thinking in slogans rather than taking a substantive look at the issues.

@43

“(who actually tend to be wealthy and well-educated [, narrow-minded, selfish and largely interested only in making sure that they remain the privileged few] if my experience in Surrey is anything to go by)”

Correction in square brackets mine, you don’t have to thank me.

* – largely because it makes the more objectionable parts of the Murdoch/Dacre business model legally dicey

I had a waking dream the other day whereby instead of having two parties, we had two equally balanced houses – the Tories were permanently in charge of revenue generation policy (tax), Labour were in charge of spending it and PMQs was fortnightly, so everyone got a crack of the whip and mocking the others for their policies.

It was kind of like lawyers specialising in defense or prosecution, I suppose.

Then again, I also had a dream where I was interviewing Nigel Farage on local radio but he left because his microphone wasn’t working.

Proof by assertion; excellent. I’ve got far more in common with an educated Frenchman or Czech than a Daily Mail reader; YMMV.

Violations in these respects means that the rogue State will be suspended from the EU.

In December the Committee of Ministers meets and on the agenda will be an interim resolution requiring the UK to abide by its obligations, and specific actions to be implemented to comply or else.

If the UK fails to comply, the case goes to the ECtHR for the final resolution. The Court will then suspend the UK from the EU.

yet, as Bob B illustrated, they keep voting for pro-euro parties, over and over again.

The Tories keep drinking a lot of Kool-Aid I see.

YOU DO NOT GIVE DAVID CAMERON A PLATFORM. Especially not for an entire news cycle. He’s smarter and more likeable than you lefties. It’s terrible strategy, and yet you do it repeatedly.

Then why are you complaining? Worried your beloved leader might look stupid when exposed to his own back-tracking?

Difference is that they are at least in the same country. People tend to accept being outvoted by others in the same nation. There is not, however, an EU “nation” or a common feeling of European “solidarity”.

In any case I’m all for devolving power down to county level. That way the “hicks and yokels” from true-blue constituencies (who actually tend to be wealthy and well-educated if my experience in Surrey is anything to go by) wouldn’t be able to decide policy in Labour’s heartlands and vice versa.

Have you just realised that the Conservative Party was pro-EU in the past?

WELL I NEVER. It’s like you’ve uncovered some startling dark secret nobody ever knew. Have a biscuit.

However, back in the present, the Tories are Eurosceptic, and so are the electorate.

Didn’t a Conservative government negotiate Britain’s entry into the EC in 1973?

Who was it who signed us up to the Single European Act of 1986?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_European_Act

Which party was in government when we ratified the Maastricht Treaty of 1992?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty

For the 1983 election, the Labour Party’s manifesto included a commitment to negotiate Britain’s withdrawal from the European Common Market. In the event, a Conservative government was re-elected with a majority of 140.

Just asking.

http://www.openeurope.org.uk/research/comparative.pdf