Daniel Hannan: 'Of All The Bad Arguments For Being In The EU, The Worst Is To Humour Barack Obama'

From The Telegraph
By Daniel Hannan

Let's see how the Brits like being colonised…

Diplomats the world over tend to be the EU's biggest fans: the system, after all, was designed by and for people like them. The US State Department has been consistently Euro-integrationist since the 1950s, pouring resources into various European pressure groups that shared its aim. Back in those early days, its concern was to build up the Western alliance. The EEC was seen as a way of strengthening Nato and keeping countries out of the Soviet camp. We can argue about whether that rationale was valid even in the 1950s; it certainly hasn't been since 1989.

After the end of the Cold War, the Brussels élites started picking fights with what they called the world's hyperpuissance. They channelled funds to Hamas, declined to get tough with the ayatollahs in Teheran, declared their willingness in principle to sell weapons to China, refused to deal with the anti-Castro dissidents in Cuba, started building a satellite system with the Chinese to challenge American 'technological imperialism' (J Chirac), hectored the US about its failure to join various global technocracies and complained about domestic American policies, from cheap energy to the use of the death penalty. Most Americans, even some in the State Department, have started to grasp, Frankenstein-like, that the EU is turning against them. So now they want the most pro-American member state, namely the United Kingdom, to get stuck in and moderate these anti-yanqui tendencies. Would we mind abandoning our democracy so as to help them out?

Well, sorry chaps, but yes, we rather would mind. Of all the bad arguments for remaining in the EU, the single worst is that we should do so in order to humour Barack Obama, the most anti-British president for nearly 200 years. It's not even as if he reflects American opinion toward the EU. To treat Philip Gordon, or any other Foggy Bottom stripey-pants, as the authentic voice of the US on this issue would be like treating UKREP as the true voice of the UK.

Still, since he's decided to wade in, I have a question for Mr Gordon, and for other American Euro-enthusiasts. When are you planning to pool your sovereignty with Ecuador, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba? 

Daniel Hannan is a writer and journalist, and has been Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the European Union is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free.