Even the Left must exit the EU to avoid economic horror seen in Greece
Alongside calls for Brexit is heard a new word — Lexit, the left-of-centre movement to restore British independence
UNEMPLOYMENT is touching 30 per cent of the workforce, savage cuts to pension benefits are lined up, the economy has shrunk by a quarter since 2010 and tortuous negotiations with the country’s creditors are continuing into summer.
Some things never change and Greece’s Euro-torment is one of them.
This could be happening in Britain had we listened to the likes of Peter Mandelson, Michael Heseltine, Michael O’Leary and Nick Clegg 15 years ago and signed up to Europe’s single currency.
These very same people now insist that we have no choice but to vote Remain in the referendum on European Union membership.
One glance at the horrors inflicted on Greece because it lost control of its currency and interest rates gives some idea of the quality of these gentlemen’s advice.
The economy has shrunk by a quarter since 2010 with tortuous negotiations continuing into summer
As with the campaign to join the euro, we are now told that a grand cross-party alliance of “top people” wants us to stay in the EU.
Increasingly, however, the Leave coalition is linking traditional Conservative Eurosceptics with those on the Left who, seeing the carnage wrought by the euro, are rapidly concluding that there is nothing remotely “progressive” about either the euro or the wider EU project.
Alongside calls for Brexit is heard a new word — Lexit, the left-of-centre movement to restore British independence.
Related stories
These are people who, seeing the chaos in Europe’s economy and non-existent border controls, have seen the wisdom of the warning by the former British Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell that EU membership would mean “the end of 1,000 years of history”.
This prospect looms larger as the euro disaster means steps are being prepared to turn the 19-nation single-currency bloc into one country.
This is how European integration proceeds — by failure.
The Common Market didn’t work properly so we needed the Single Market, which in turn needed the single currency.
Now that this, too, has failed, Europe needs a single government.
If you believe David Cameron, the UK is safe for ever from getting entangled in this new construction.
Sad to say, this pledge is almost certainly as worthless as all the other “guarantees” issued since we first joined the European Community in 1973: That Britain would always have a veto, would make almost all its own laws, would always control its borders . . . and so on.
Indeed, the last time we were allowed to vote on membership, 41 years ago, the then Government assured us that, regarding the prospect of a single currency: “This threat has been removed.”
For a few years only.
There is nothing remotely progressive about either the euro or the EU project
It is tempting to heave a sigh of relief that we are outside the eurozone — no thanks, as I said, to the above-mentioned grandees and to vote to stay in the EU in the amiably semi-detached relationship described by the Prime Minister.
That would be a mistake, for three reasons.
ONE, the “special status” that supposedly emerged from David Cameron’s “renegotiation” is largely illusory and may well be struck down anyway by the European Parliament.
TWO, the crisis in the eurozone is going to get worse, not better.
If Italy proves the next domino to fall, it would make what has gone before look like a small-scale flap.
THREE, the proposed eurozone government will dominate the EU and ensure decisions are made in its interest and not those of the non-euro countries.
Be under no illusions: A vote to Remain is a vote to stay in an economic earthquake zone.
Leave’s opponents say Brexit campaigners cannot tell what the future will look like.
I have news for them — neither can Remain, beyond the likelihood that an EU future will be none too pretty.
It wasn’t meant to be like this.
The euro, launched in the great wave of idealism that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, was meant to symbolise the best of the new Europe.
Instead, it sums up the worst, flattening troubled economies under harsh austerity regimes.
As the new currency emerged in January 1999, we were told it heralded a new era of opportunity, prosperity and social harmony.
More than 17 years later and unemployment in the eurozone averages ten per cent of the workforce, against five per cent in both Britain and the United States.
The euro sums up the worst, flattening troubled economies under harsh austerity regimes
Along with Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus have needed bailouts of one sort or another, accompanied by harsh austerity measures.
Italy’s economy is little bigger than it was at the launch of the euro.
Finland, once renowned for Nokia and Angry Birds creator Rovio Entertainment, has seen its economy shrink by seven per cent since 2008.
As for the social harmony, that claim rings hollow today as extremist parties are on the march across the Continent.
Europe isn’t working.
Greece, bankrupt, economically destitute and full of migrant shanty towns, is the perfect symbol of the EU’s failure.
And its likely future.