A Tangled Web

Leftist Hysteria



Neil Clark in the New Statesman (subscription) is apopletic about the prospect of the UKIP doing well in the European elections on June 10th because of its stated desire for closer links with Uncle Sam. In typical leftist style he castigates America as the great Satan (please bear in mind that this is the same Neil Clark who recently appeared on BBC Radio Five Live and insidiously justified the 9/11 atrocity whilst, ostensibly, condemning Islamic terror) responsible for all the world's cultural and economic ills.



Let me put Mr Clark straight on a few things:



1. The European Union is nothing like either the WTO or NATO. It is true to say that the WTO has the authority to constitute three-member arbitration panels to decide if countries are violating trade rules, and compel them to rectify such transgressions. NATO is first and foremost a military alliance dedicated to the protection of member states. Neither

organisation has a progressively integrating political structure with the objective of rendering national sovereignty redundant. Thus, the rules and regulations emanating from the WTO and NATO do not have the capacity to interfere in every aspect of daily life.



2. Joan Collins' reference to the erosion of Britishness is not founded in US cultural influence (as Clark implies). It is founded on the massive changes to UK domestic law on everything from our trade to our environmental policies. The loss of childhood innocence, briefly mentioned by Clark, has nothing to do with American culture and everything to do with the ethos of allowing children to do whatever they wish: an integral component of leftist theories of juvenile discipline.



3. I fail to see how becoming a member of a trading bloc with greater freedom of capitalism, a more prosperous market place, and a continent dominated by the country with which we have the longest-standing cultural, social, and ethnic linkages is tantamount to the destruction of national independence. On the other hand, continued membership of an entity (the EU) that holds the ideal of 'ever closer union' as its sacrosanctus adfecto is the one sure way to losing what we have left of a recognisable United Kingdom state.



Disciples of the left target the USA with scant regard for the fact that, without the USA, they would not be free to write the rubbish they do today.