The Europlastics are at it again today in the Telegraph, again in the shape of Jacob Rees-Mogg – aka Pooh Bear, on account of him being an MP of very little brain.
The response to Pooh’s piece is very simple and I left it in the comment thread. However it is reproduced below for the benefit of readers who are not minded to venture onto the Barclay Brothers’ online circus…
What part of surrendering political control (sovereignty) to the EU over a number of decades is it that Rees-Mogg doesn’t understand?
Parliament accepted the EU’s plan for ever closer integration without ever asking the people if we agreed. The Tories even championed enlargement so more foreign entities would help determine how Britain will be run. Now they don’t like being powerless and pretend EU control was not part of the plan.
The European project, even since the 1920s and Monnet and Salter’s plans for a United States of Europe, has always been about governance from the centre and outside of democratic control. It has never been a secret. The European Scrutiny Committee’s proposal to give Parliament an emergency brake is therefore ridiculous. It is fantasy politics, signing up to the rules then complaining about their impact.
The fantasy continues as the Tories pretend they can unpick 80 years of European efforts to create a United States of Europe with their unknown ‘reforms’. Britain can’t force a treaty change, it can’t convene an Intergovernmental Conference and it can’t persuade enough EU states to agree to sweeping away the very foundations of what they also signed up to.
There is one choice. In, or out. No mythical reforms, no fake renegotiations. No pathetic ‘Fresh Starts’ or Matthew Elliott wheezes. No more moronic pieces in the Telegraph talking about non-starter plans that can never be realised. Just give us a straight choice where the people decide in a BINDING referendum who should run Britain. Anything else is just game playing.
Autonomous Mind 
Rees-Mogg = Bullshit
AM = Bullseye
Well said
What is staggering about Rees-Mogg is that he comes to the House of Commons on the back of the reputations of his father, whence his pronouncements are treated with far more respect than they deserve, feeding the ego of a man who, at best, has a tenuous grasp of reality.
If any one of us here posted such utter tosh as has Rees Mogg, we would, quite rightly, be pilloried. But, because it is an “above the liner” speaking, he is allowed to get away with it.
There already is an emergency brake – that of a member of the Council of Ministers referring decisions on a limited range of topics to the European Council.
See here for details at the EU website and this discussion from the house of Lords.
Particularly this bit:
“6.49. The Freedom Association had concerns about the emergency brake. They saw it merely as a “rhetorical device to enable our government to suggest we have control over these matters, while making it easy for them to acquiesce privately to EU proposals” (p E153). Mr Straw stressed that there was a legal basis for the emergency brake, and that the UK would be prepared to use it if necessary. However, he agreed that the significance of the brake derived to a large extent from its existence rather than its use: the threat of its use would be sufficient to strengthen a Member State’s negotiating hand (QQ E502-506).”
A button which can effectively veto decisions so long as you have a good case is placed under a panel that says “In case of emergency break glass”. Everybody knows the first rule of EU club is “Nobody admits to an emergency”.
I’ve no idea where to look to find out if anyone has dared push it. And of course, even if the subjects the brake applies to could be widened that still doesn’t guarantee anyone would choose to push it due. Claiming in public that we are in control and rolling over in private would suit the Conservatives down to the ground.
Some good points, the most important is that the acquis cannot be unpicked.
The typical lightweight Tory Eurosceptic is an appeaser who lacks the backbone to call for withdrawal, and probably the intelligence to see the limitations in their own vision, They are so keen to stay within Cameron’s prescription of EU membership that they have to resort to ever more acrobatics to justify a form of it that will never be on offer.
They simply do not see that the institutions that will shape the new treaties (European Council, Parliament, Commission) are bound by the spirit of the EU treaties (ever closer union) as well as the letter of EU law.
As all are bound by EU law not to do anything that undermines this cosy slide into federalism, all their proposals achieve is to further muddy the waters and delay achieving their objects. (Which only withdrawal can deliver).
I get the impression that readers are getting fed up of the idea of a new, improved EU soap powder and predominantly comment that we should just get out.
This shows that anything can rise from a bad situation, as both Estella and Pip were in. People who walk around in a dull funk, zombies, vaguely aware of the world around them.