The EU project
From Mr Edward Spa/ton Sir: Matthew Parris's perverse anti-Americanism is getting a little tedious (Another voice, 2 February). The Americans are not dictating up to 80 per cent of our domestic legislation — the EU is. The Americans are not directing the balkanisation of our country into EU provinces (called 'regions') — the EU is. The Americans do not aspire to remove our currency and the power to control our own interest rates and taxation — the EU does.
Of course, people of an earlier generation resented that brash America had become Top Nation, but history did not come to a full stop, as was predicted in 1066 and All That.
We can be allied with the USA for as long as we like. While it will influence us, it will not absorb us politically — the EU will. It is the very raison d'être of the EU project.
Lord Palmerston said that Britain had no eternal enemies and no eternal allies — only eternal interests. That is true. The EU requires that we sacrifice many or all of these interests irrevocably to the judgment of neighbours, who have other interests, and the process is intended to be permanent — for an indefinite period', as the Rome Treaty puts it — a rather more leaden expression than 'a thousand-year reich', but the same thing essentially.
We do not have to join Nafta to avoid absorption by the EU. It is not an 'either or' situation. But even if it were so, Nafta would be infinitely preferable. It has no commission to make our internal laws or any aspiration to dissolve its members politically. In spite of its closeness to the USA, Canada remains a self-governing country with its own currency, not an American state or group of regions.
Edward Spa/ton
Etwall, Derby
Previous page
