Friday 22 January 2010

UK closing embassies + EU opening embassies = coincidence? No fucking way

Some "coincidences" are just too enticing to ignore. Weeks after the Lisbon Treaty saw Europe's burgeoning overseas diplomacy service finally gain legal status, it has been announced that cash-strapped Britain will be forced to close many embassies because it can no longer afford them. While that was announced it was quietly glossed over that 50 EU embassies are to open.

The Conservatives claim that the Foreign Office has drawn up a "secret list" of posts to be closed. Much of the financial shortfall is down to the fact that £ Sterling has plunged on the foreign currency exchanges over the past two years. Coincidentally, this is around the the time Foreign Secretary David Miliband abolished the Overseas Price Mechanism, which made up for budget shortfalls due to currency fluctuations.

A Labour peer revealed yesterday that anti-extremist activity in Pakistan was being wound down thanks to the budget shortfall. The government says that it will make up the shortfall thanks to the crucial priority the Afghan-Pakistan border region has for British security; the future of our many embassies is less clear, yet more obvious: The EU's Foreign Affairs will rush in where Britons can no longer afford to tread.

As usual with these events, once we get used to living without embassies in unglamorous nations and political backwaters, the closure of British missions will become more and more widespread, with the ever-eager EU taking up the slack. We might even make a few quid selling off our abandoned premises to Brussels. Before long, our independent diplomatic service will consist of a couple of "cultural centres" in Paris, Washington and Beijing.

The Conservatives of course are having great fun at the misfortunes of their Labour stunt doubles. Yet David Cameron and George Osborne promise an even harsher age of austerity than that Labour threatens.

Can we have a commitment from the Conservatives to keep our embassies open, however the Pound Sterling performs?

No? Didn't think so.


What will happen eventually is that the UK is going to be broken up and Scotland, NI and Wales will go their separate ways. Upon which England will finally leave the EU and stand alone once again on the world stage. It is a sad future but regrettably the only realistic one we face. Hence we will leave, I do not doubt this, but it will be at the price of the union. To Scottish nationalists I can only say this; it is all very well when you gained independence of your own accord, it gives semblance to a patriotic notion of consciousness. But having it served on a plate from a foreign interlocutor is just not very noble. Though you may gain independence, as will we, you will not have done it on your own and that, I must say, I find less than honourable (no doubt I will receive a lot of criticism from scots who disagree with my harsh future - fine, that is what discussion is all about).

Finally, I find it a bit sad that EU Referendum has not written anything about this yet. Mr. North and Co. are usually very up to date on issues pertaining or relating to the mischievous footnotes of the "democratically negotiated" EU treaties. But, alas, it has yet to materialise.

Note to the reader: I try to keep the cursing to a minimum on this blog for I do not find it a respectable activity to partake in, nor does it convey the message one tries to put forth without a semblance of sensationalism. This time however I have employed the f-word in the title of the post, for I cannot believe what set of low-life and treacherous morals a man bears when he happily sells of his country to the highest bidder. For make no mistake none of the politicians who voted through the Lisbon Treaty in parliament did so on the strength of it actually helping Britain. No, I have read it, so have most people vaguely interest in the EU, and it was clear for all to see what precisely would happen to nation states when passed. This was Judecca-politics of the most disgusting kind. I have not doubt however that they will all get what they deserve in the end.

Update: Victory! EU Referendum has now mentioned it. And defeat on my part for it turns out that they indeed have written about it, lots of times. I should have known... The student remains the student and the master remains the master.

1 comment:

Anoneumouse said...

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2005/06/do-we-now-get-referendum.html