A TIMES COLUMNIST GETS IT BADLY WRONG ON THE EU

Dateline: 11th October 1999

As befits a commentator who praised John Major's leadership just before the worst Conservative election defeat for 160 years, it is Matthew Parris, not the eurosceptics who are "adrift" on the question of the European Union (The Times 9th October 99)

Having grasped neither the essentials of British democratic self-governance (and how European Treaties have destroyed them) nor the historical aims and political structures of continental corporatism and fascism, Parris has the nerve to accuse of "extremism" those who resist (and not those who established) those policies in Britain.

Like many former Conservatives, I left the Tory party because it had become a corporatist party, doing the will of collectives of capital and labour and destroying the individuals, families and communities (and ultimately the nation itself) for whose freedom l.2million Britons died in two world wars. It is precisely such politics which characterised the corporatist structures of continental Europe under Nazi, Fascist and Vichy regimes and which now form the constitutional structures of the European Union - and with far more devastating effects for our democracy.

That is why (although it has been studiously ignored by the media) there has long been a cross party, anti fascist opposition to the European Union in Britain. It comprises libertarian Conservatives, democratic socialists and genuine Liberals (very few of whom are in Parliament). Its intellectual roots and 20-year analysis of the European Union will in the end prove more powerful than the rather simplistic instincts of the jingoists. Which is why Matthew Parris should do some basic reading before he lumps all opposition to the EU, even in the Tory party, under the same umbrella!