Gibraltar near Spain

as John Lennon once sang. A very long time ago. I visited Gibraltar once, also rather a long time ago, and I remember that the Gibraltar government spokesperson continually referred to members of the delegation I was with as having "flown down" to Gibraltar - i.e not having gone in through Spain. One or two members of the delegation did in fact choose to enter Gibraltar through Spain, to demonstrate that they believed Gibraltar was part of Spain. But they could only do this because both Spain and the UK were, at the time (1998) members of the EU and thus obliged to keep their borders with other member states open. Before that, in the 1970s and 1980s, when the UK was a member of the EU but Spain had not yet joined, there was harassment by Spain at the border, with consequent difficulties for the Gibraltar economy. Before that, when neither the UK nor Spain had yet joined the EU, the border was blockaded and there was regular sabre-rattling by Spain. But at no time even then did Spain actually try to occupy Gibraltar militarily by force. They didn't dare.

As soon as the UK formally leaves the EU Spain can close its land border with Gibraltar and also blockade it by sea. The UK would then have to respond in some way, in the interest of the British people of Gibraltar, who have as we know chosen to remain British whenever their opinion has been asked. However, that does not mean war. One Spanish soldier's boot across the border, or one shot fired into Gibraltar from a Spanish gun, would however oblige the UK to retaliate on behalf of its citizens. As Michael Howard said yesterday, Theresa May as prime minister would have no choice. This is simply how it is. Spain knows this very well. Why has Spain never tried to take back Gibraltar (ceded to Britain in perpetuity by the Treaty of Utrecht) by force before? And what happened when another state occupied a British territory, 35 years ago this week? Some of us remember the Falklands.

I make no remark on the merits of all this, or indeed of the Treaty of Utrecht. Bismarck I think it was who coined the term Realpolitik. 

the will of the people, then and now

what is the name of that rule about the length of time it takes in any online debate before you get called a Nazi? No doubt someone will remind me. I don't really care though - either what the rule is called or whether anyone calls me a Nazi.

The notion of democracy often comes into those debates too. Hitler, it is said, was democratically elected. Er, so that's all right then? The Holocaust and all? Hamas, it is said of more recent times, was democratically elected too. Oh, OK. So the terror attacks - oh, please yourselves.

Let's shed a little light. It is interesting to discover, as I have this week, that the 1930s President of Germany, Hindenberg, who died in 1934, left a will, later destroyed, whose contents were known to at least one person other than the Nazis, and whose contents, as reported, have now come to light. From The Times (£) today, this: (editorial errors - were the subs having an off day, or don't they have subs any more? all theirs)

Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934. A few hours later, the Reich Government announced that the offices of president and chancellor would now been combined under Hitler, as the supreme Führer. A plebiscite was called, to allow the German people to express its collective opinion of Hitler’s unprecedented new role as both head of the government and head of state.

Hitler got wind of the existence of the will, and gave orders to “ensure that this document comes into my possession as soon as possible”. Colonel Oskar von Hindenburg, son of the late President but a loyal Nazi, duly handed his father’s will over. It has never been found.

Four days before the plebiscite, however, the Nazis announced the discovery of Hindenburg’s “political testament”, which gave an account of his political career and included complimentary references to Hitler; it may have been a forgery.

Hindenburg’s apparent endorsement of Hitler from beyond the grave came at a crucial moment. On August 19, 1934, a fortnight after Hindenburg’s death, some 38 million German voters approved Hitler’s usurpation of power, with fewer than five million voting against it. The following day, the Nazis brought in the mandatory oath of loyalty for every member of the German army. Hitler was now all-powerful.

Why then, Hitler's assumption of absolute power was done by the will of the people, through democracy, I hear you cry. (Hamas did it by throwing the opposition out of windows, but that is another story). Er, no. Democracy and a plebiscite are not the same thing. That is why in a more banal but also important context, a referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union would be wrong. I am against referendums in principle (though if one is called I vote) because governments are there to govern. Candidates get elected, or should, on the basis of their policies and what their parties stand for, or are perceived to. And some at least of that depends on how engaged the electorate are with the democratic process - how interested they are in what their elected representatives do on their behalf.

I don't know who elects the President of Germany, in the 1930s or now, but whoever does or did what did they think about Hindenberg's naming of Hitler Chancellor of Germany, apparently against his better judgment, when old and ill and perhaps under pressure? These things can happen in democracies.

A plebiscite, a referendum, is a platform for ranting demagogues. I'm against them.

Postscript: does anayone remember Al Stewart's history songs from the 1970s? Not being a historian, I learned a lot from them. There was one called "The Last Day of June 1934", which conotained the lines "On the night that Ernst Roehm died the voices rang out... grown strong like the joining of wills".

Yes. Think on. Democracy or demagoguery? Good faith or bad?

that hokey cokey idea

we Europeans know all about that. Among the more famous Europeans are the popular German beat combo known as Kraftwerk, and here they are (kind of) on this very notion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwaxWoJPUC0

Where was I? *wipes eyes* Ah yes, Mr Cameron and his in-out-shake-it-all-about referendum notion. Plenty of balderdash has been written about it in the last day or two, including this from the unlamented, barely literate former Reading councillor John Howarth, prop. Public Image Limited (remember "Your Better Off With Labour"?) who calls the proposal for a referendum a "fundamental failure of leadership" and then goes on to say it is a good thing. Sort of. Barely coherent, inverted pyramid of piffle. Well, I am not a fan of referendums, thinking that peoples elect governments, who should then get on and govern and not keep stopping to ask "Am I doing OK?" Cammo's proposal is clearly party before country, but he has never pretended it is not. Howarth suggests that one of the Great European Powers might say "non", which has of course happened before. But "non" to what? Angie from Berlin has already offered talks. "Non" in a context like this is hardly Francois Hollande's style - as Howarth would know if he had the first clue about contemporary French politics and could lurch out of the 1980s for long enough to see some sense. Poland? I fancy not. Whatever next?" Maggie, Maggie, Maggie! Out, out, out!" Do me a favour.

It seems to me that the referendum proposal is a stroke of genius on Cammo's part. He himself has already said he will campaign for a Yes vote, as of course he must, anything else being lunacy. Ed Miliband has been wrongfooted and now looks a total arse. And at the same time Cammo has bought off the more barking elements in the Tory associations up and down the land (and maybe they won't notice gay marriage in all the excitement of biffing Johnny Foreigner) and mollified some of his relatively sensible back-benchers who think they might lose to UKIP - oh, and has pulled the rug from under UKIP itself, a good thing for British politics given that UKIP are nearly as racist as the Greens - so what's not to like? And maybe, just maybe, as a result there will be a UK government, sooner rather than later, that is pulling in one direction. Well, I say well done Davey-boy, and it would almost be worth going back to live in the UK to have a vote in the referendum. A yes vote, naturally.

General de Gaulle and Marshal Petain
 

Poland talks to the UK like a Dutch uncle

Radek Sikorski, the Foreign Minister of Poland, has a piece in The Times which gives the UK a right talking-to on Europe in general and the EU in particular.  He describes himself as a Thatcherite free-marketeer, and that is not me, but he talks a great deal of sense.  I've reproduced it in full below, as a link would bring you up against the paywall, and to encourage you all to read it.  It's written very well too - I know Sikorski's English is excellent, but if he wrote this himself, and I am sure he did, he puts most native anglophone pundits and politicians to shame.

It’s interesting what happens on your first day as Foreign Minister. Helpful officials flutter around you like butterflies. One produces a secret red file marked “How to be a Foreign Minister". Inside are papers on the do’s and don’ts of office. But decades of bureaucratic experience are best summed up in the immortal lines of Yes, Prime Minister: “Once you start interfering in the internal squabbles of other countries, you’re on a very slippery slope. Even the Foreign Secretary has grasped that!"




It is in that fine spirit that I mean to interfere recklessly in the UK’s internal affairs. I want to offer some thoughts on a subject of considerable British sensitivity: EU membership. And I want to try to change some minds.



Let me be clear where I am coming from. I am Polish, from the Solidarity generation that helped to bring down the Soviet empire. I have lived in the US and am a fervent believer in free markets. Lady Thatcher — may she live for ever — acknowledges me in her book Statecraft. In other words, I tick every box required to be a lifelong member of the Eurosceptic club. But I believe in the the modern European project. And Poland will do its utmost to help it to succeed.



Several myths about Britain and the EU need to be dispelled.



Myth No 1 Britain’s trade with the EU is less important than its trade with the outside world.



Fact In 2011 the UK trade deficit with China was £19.7 billion. You ran a deficit with Russia, too. Roughly half of UK exports go to the EU. The UK has until recently traded more each year with Ireland than with Brazil, Russia, India and China put together. Trade growth with new EU members is even more dynamic. Between 2003 and 2011 British exports to Poland increased threefold.



Myth No 2 The EU forces Britain to adopt laws on human rights that are contrary in spirit to British tradition.



Fact These rulings come from the European Court of Human Rights, which is not part of the EU but part of the Council of Europe, a noble British creation that pre-dates the EU.



Myth No 3 UK is bankrupting itself by funding Europe.



Fact The monstrous EU budget is about 1 per cent of the GDP of all EU members; UK public spending is nearly 50 per cent of Britain’s GDP. Your annual net contribution of £8 billion- £9 billion is similar to France’s and less than Germany’s. That is less than £15 per UK citizen. Moreover, some of this money comes home. UK companies have profited enormously from EU cohesion-fund investments in Central and Eastern Europe. That improved infrastructure benefits UK exporters: higher prosperity in those member states mean new markets for the UK.



The UK Government estimates that every household “earns" between £1,500 and £3,500 every year thanks to the Single Market. That is between five and fifteen times the UK’s net budget contribution. It’s a bargain.



Myth No 4 The UK is drowning in EU bureaucracy.



Fact Yes, 33,000 people work for the European Commission, serving an entire continent. But more than 82,000 people work for HM Revenue & Customs alone. Spain has almost three million bureaucrats. In contrast to any of its members, the EU is a slimmed-down operation.



Myth No 5 The UK is drowning in EU legislation and Brusssels directives.



Fact We all have a good laugh when we hear about bendy bananas or euro-sausages. But these are not the fault of the European Commission. Usually they are proposed by member states trying to protect their former colonies or their national products.



Directives are not Brussels diktats, but regulations that British officials have agreed, approved and signed off. In any case, law inspired by Europe accounts for only 6.8 per cent of primary legislation passed by your Parliament.



Myth No 6 The European Commission is a hotbed of socialism.



Fact Whether on Open Skies or business subsidies, the EU has helped to dismantle national monopolies and stopped national politicians subverting competition rules.



Myth No 7 The EU stops hardworking Britons working longer hours than feckless continentals.



Fact The average Pole works 40.5 hours a week. The average Spaniard 38.1. The average for all the EU27 is 37.2. The average for the UK? 36.2.



Those are the myths. Now let’s look at the arguments. Because Britain’s market is too valuable for the rest of the Continent to ignore, Eurosceptics say, Britain could negotiate a trade deal that preserved all the advantages of the single market without any of the costs of membership.



Don’t count on it. Many states would hold a grudge against a country that had, in their view, selfishly left the EU. While you account for about 11 per cent of the rest of EU trade, 50 per cent of your total trade is with the EU. No prizes for guessing who would have the upper hand in negotiations.



Any free trade agreement would have a price. In exchange for access to a single market of 500 million people, Norway and Switzerland make big contributions to EU cohesion funds. They also have to adopt EU standards without any say in how they are written. At the moment, Norway’s net contribution to the EU budget is higher, per capita, than Britain’s.



Britain’s leaders must decide once again how best to use their influence in Europe. The EU is an English- speaking power. The Single Market was a British idea. A British commissioner runs our diplomatic service. You could, if only you wished, lead Europe’s defence policy.



But please don’t expect us to help you to wreck or paralyse the EU. Don’t underestimate our determination not to return to the politics of the 20th century. You were not occupied. Most of us on the Continent were. We’ll do almost anything to prevent it happening again. Europe’s leaders will step up integration to make the euro work. We believe the euro will survive, because it is in members’ interests for it to survive.



Since I first came to your shores more than 30 years ago, Britain has become much more European. You have the Channel Tunnel and are used to duvets. Even your cooking has improved. Yet public opinion and your politics is more Eurosceptic than ever.



Your interests are in Europe. It’s time your sentiments followed. Britain is famous for practical good sense and policies based on reality, not myth. We hope you return to this tradition soon.



Radek Sikorski is the Foreign Minister of Poland