The EU is our own Hotel California: We can check out, but we'll never leave
This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday column
I’m sorry to break this to you but it looks as if we’ll have to endure not one but two EU referendum campaigns.
The second one, by the way, will definitely end in a vote to stay in.
The ‘exit’ campaign was last week cunningly taken over by Tories who don’t want to leave the Superstate and will use a vote to leave (if it happens) as the basis for yet another round of negotiations with Brussels.
Boris Johnson and Michael Howard are ancient liberal Europhiles, who have learned how to seduce the Tory Party with speeches that sound Right-wing but aren’t really. It is painful to see this cynical seduction technique at work, and watch the old ladies fall for it.
Neither is what he seems. Lord Howard led a Left-liberal putsch against the genuine EU opponent Iain Duncan Smith in 2003. Mr Johnson is an act, not a politician. He is a keen Europhile, and to conceal it from his fans he will do so many U-turns between now and referendum day that they will look like a series of S-bends.
Both men’s weird declarations of support for Brexit were cunningly hedged.
And the London Mayor was careful to state: ‘I will be advocating vote “leave”... because I want a better deal for the people of this country to save them money and to take back control.’
Read this carefully (as you always should) and you will realise there’s no clear declaration that he wants our national independence back. But there is a desire for a ‘deal’. Likewise his supposed reversal last Saturday wasn’t really as clear as it looked. Be assured. If there is a majority to leave there will be a second poll and a search for a new deal.
What sort of deal? Lord Howard was more specific. In an article which was lazily reported as a ‘blow for David Cameron’, he explicitly said that he saw a vote to leave as a way of restarting negotiations on how to stay in: ‘There is only one thing that just might shake Europe’s leaders out of their complacency: the shock of a vote by the British people to leave.’
He added: ‘We would be sorely missed. If the UK voted to leave, there would be a significant chance that they would ask us to think again. When Ireland and Denmark voted to reject EU proposals, the EU offered them more concessions and, second time round, got the result they wanted.’
Lord Howard went on to explain how happy he would be for Britain to be a semi-detached part of a two-tier EU – something very much on the cards as the EU moves into its next phase of integration, two or three years hence. ‘We – and others – could say to the integrationists, “We don’t want to stop you doing what you want to do as long as you don’t make us do what we don’t want to do.” ’
You read it first here. The EU is like the Hotel California. You can check out. But you can never leave.
This referendum, which was never supposed to happen at all, is a sham for which I refuse to fall.
What sort of hero condemns women to death?
The BBC’s new thriller The Night Manager must be one of the strangest things ever broadcast. Its apparent hero, played by Tom Hiddleston, is portrayed as a tower of moral purity. Yet the first thing he does is to betray a living, breathing woman (who trusted him with her life because of his honest British appearance) in pursuit of an abstract ideal. Apparently, he hates arms traders so much, this is the sort of thing he does.
Predictably, the woman, played by Aure Atika, is barbarously murdered (in the book, I’m sorry to say, her dog is murdered too, a detail the BBC spared us). The arms dealer, equally predictably, gets away with it.
This skewed moral system in which people claim to be virtuous by having severe, righteous views about foreign countries, seems horribly common among our cultural elite. Is this why our foreign policy keeps getting its head stuck up its own fundament?
Again and again, in pursuit of some supposedly noble goal, we plunge entire countries into lakes of fire and blood, and then stand about looking puzzled and claiming it wasn’t our fault.
Inscribed in stone, above the doors of all government buildings, should be William Blake’s bitterly true maxim: ‘He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars: general good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer.’
Country dwellers are often mystified by the appearance of strange little dumps of used fertiliser pellets, which appear now all over the place by night. I can explain. These are left by the owners of urban cannabis farms (Britain’s most successful and profitable agricultural sector) who dare not use their own bins for fear that even the British police – among the most relaxed in the world on the dope question – might notice and take action against them.
Education that doesn't add up
The reports flood in, as they do almost weekly. The standards of mathematics teaching have plunged disastrously. The professions are dominated by private school products, two years ahead of their state school contemporaries.
Yet nobody ever reaches the obvious conclusion – that we should return to selection by ability in the state system and reopen the great private schools to the taxpayer-funded Direct Grant system which lifted so many poor children to success.
Why are our elite so prejudiced against this obvious remedy? Even on their own terms, their position makes no sense.
Every week I hear more alarming things about our prisons, especially the almost universal availability of mindbending drugs, whose users often become violent. These are now flown into cells, through broken windows, by drones. The authorities seem powerless to stop this.
No surprise there. As we make no effort to stop drugtaking outside prison, it is hardly surprising prisons themselves are even more lawless. Alongside these cases are alarming numbers of mentally ill people, cast out into the non-existent ‘community’ by the wicked decision to close most mental hospitals.
Older, experienced staff are quietly disappearing and turnover among new staff is unsurprisingly high. Huge jails are often left overnight in the charge of tiny numbers of officers.
I predict a major catastrophe soon. And it will be the direct result of decades of liberal penal policy, which uses prison only as a last resort and so ensures that a large number of inmates are hardened criminals, incapable of reform, before they ever get there.
If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down
Mr Hitchens - Yes, the whole thing is a charade orchestrated by a disingenuous elite, committed to retaining the EU gravy train for washed up politicians. However, please remember, there IS going be a referendum which will, at least, give us an, outside chance to get out of the corrupt EU. So, rather than making predictions that, when they come true, might give you a smug feeling of 'I told you so' stop whingeing and put your considerable influence and notoriety behind one, or both of the 'Out' campaigns. You sit on the national stage and are in a great position to dissect and destroy the 'In' campaigners scaremongering lies. Who knows, we might be able to exploit the current contempt for the mainstream parties. Whatever the referendum is, it is our last chance and we must do everything we can to take it
***PH writes: Twaddle. I have no influence, as I demonstrated for all time in 2010 when I begged and pleaded with my readers not to save the Tory Party...and they saved it. Anyway, he misses my point. Our 'last chance' was 2010. Without a major political party committed to leave, a referendum will not achieve secession. Why would a Parliament, 80% of whose members favour staying in do as a referendum tells them? And thanks to the preservation of theTories in 2010 there will be no such party, now or ever. Its all very well lecturing me for standing back now. Where was he in 2010? Voting Tory, probably, to 'get Gordon Brown out'. I care greatly about this issue. That;s why I won't invest a quarter-ounce of hope in this fraudulent plebiscite. If he wants to, that's his affair. But he shouldn't lecture me for not being fooled.. *****
Posted by: Ron Fenton | 28 February 2016 at 05:32 PM
The 'Political ideology' bit of Johnson's Wikipedia entry is interesting:
'Former Lord Mayor Ken Livingsone claimed in an interview with the New Statesman that while he had once feared Johnson as "the most hardline right-wing ideologue since Thatcher," over the course of Johnson's mayorality he had instead concluded that he was "a fairly lazy tosser who just wants to be there" while doing very little work.'
Posted by: S. Coleman | 28 February 2016 at 04:55 PM
I'm sorry to break this to you but if the LEAVE vote wins on June 23rd then according to the Prime Minister, that will be it, a final decision by the people on Britain's EU membership - we will be on our way out. If he drags his feet and tries any further what will clearly be seen as false 'renegotiations' then he will be seriously dividing his Party. There is no way 100+ anti-EU Tory MPs including at least six Ministers can now go back on their pledge. Cameron will not be able to get away with it. New Labour will no longer be supporting him.
Posted by: Terence Courtnadge | 28 February 2016 at 03:38 PM
Peter Hitchens is a popular and well-followed columnist. However, his article places the hand of gloom, if not death, on the Brexit campaigners. I would have thought he would be encouraging the voters to go for Brexit, not frighten them into voting for the status quo.
***PH writes: If he thinks that, then he hasn't been paying attention. I have said for some time that the only way out of the EU is through the election of a majority government committed to that aim. A referendum cannot in practice override a Parliament 80% of whose members wish us to stay in the EU, and it won't. ****
Posted by: Tom Collins | 28 February 2016 at 02:57 PM
L Porter | 28 February 2016 at 01:15 PM :
*** The EU is far from faultless (mass immigration, free-trade, overly-centralised, PIGS – are issues that have me close to voting OUT) but would leaving it really result in an appreciably better situation? ***
If the same as now UK political establishment and its party franchises continued to rule ... the answer is, unfortunately, no.
Posted by: C. Morrison | 28 February 2016 at 02:13 PM
The English anti-EU campaigner David Noakes stated that the first Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty was rigged by 20 per cent, and when that didn't work, the second one was rigged by 40 per cent. Of course only those incorrigibly cynical about the integrity of modern western civil society would have any truck with the notion that such systemic corruption might characterise the conduct of the Brexit referendum(s).
Posted by: Colm J | 28 February 2016 at 02:10 PM
Regarding people like Johnson joining the "Brexit" campaign. I knew it was a con, I knew the Tories were up to something. All makes sense now.
Drugs in prisons: Well, where do you start with this one? Do the authorities do enough to keep our prisons clean of harmful narcotics? No they don't and have no intention of doing so. The plan to privatise all our prisons is well advanced. And what do private companies want? They want to make profit! Profit, to them, is repeat business, the prisons have to be kept full (otherwise, the government gets sued). These companies want these people (prisoners) back in as soon as possible. What are the chances of a drug addled addict committing further crime? 100% I'd say.
Posted by: Eric Leach | 28 February 2016 at 02:05 PM
Regarding people like Johnson joining the "Brexit" campaign. I knew it was a con, I knew the Tories were up to something. All makes sense now.
Drugs in prisons: Well, where do you start with this one? Do the authorities do enough to keep our prisons clean of harmful narcotics? No they don't and have no intention of doing so. The plan to privatise all our prisons is well advanced. And what do private companies want? They want to make profit! Profit, to them, is repeat business, the prisons have to be kept full (otherwise, the government gets sued). These companies want these people (prisoners) back in as soon as possible. What are the chances of a drug addled addict committing further crime? 100% I'd say.
Posted by: Eric Leach | 28 February 2016 at 02:04 PM
Anonymous | 28 February 2016 at 08:41 AM :
*** The point of the Outs winning the referendum is that we can have on record - once and for all - that the people wanted Out and were ignored. Can you not see the importance of that? ***
Like with the imposition of foreign wars, privatisation and mass-immigration, those who rule are already aware of what most of the public think and would prefer ... but the political establishment couldn't care less, really.
They don't fear the ruled, because as far as they're concerned the worst that might be expected to happen is one of their establishment-party franchises being replaced with another establishment-party franchise come election time.
Such complacency derives from their ready access to effectively unlimited public and corporate funding for campaigning, control of the mass-media, a collaborative bureaucracy -- and should all else fail, there's always NATO.
With the mass-media at their disposal (and as PH has pointed out, the referendum rigged in any case), if the "out/no" side wins they will be able to spin what initially seemed to be a negative result for them, into having been a mild request for some sort of token -- and temporary, but don't mention that -- alleged "reform" of the EU.
Nothing significant; just a few throwaway plastic baubles to pacify the natives....
And as for "the record", to all practical purposes it will end up showing whatever they want it to.
Posted by: C. Morrison | 28 February 2016 at 02:01 PM
Our host is correct about Howard and Johnson.I also expect to see a second round of voting in the unlikely event that the people choose to leave.
We are already seeing scaremongering by the New world order,i am just waiting for the likes of Clinton and Obama to weigh in again.
I hope Peter and others realise that we are run by this liberal NWO who have a goal of one world government with its one world bank and one world army.
I am against the EU but also believe that the only way the EU could ever succeed is if it has its desired single government that has the same laws,minimum wage and benefits across the whole continent.This would spare our country a future population of 80 million.(2040 I believe and its not so far away).
Posted by: Paul Taylor | 28 February 2016 at 01:59 PM
The Conservative Party like the Labour Party as with football clubs has life long supporters . To deceive the Conservative supporters it has created a mainly fake anti- EU group which will pretend to be for us leaving but when a new deal is offered will than tell us we should remain.
The reason why we can not escape and why Turkey will join the EU is explained in the 1976 movie The Omen. 67 minutes into the film on youtube
Posted by: David Brown | 28 February 2016 at 01:54 PM
Roy Robinson.I totally agree with you,its highly unlikely that Britain will vote to leave the greater German empire but even if we did the country would still be run by a multi millionaire liberal establishment.The banks and big business would have nothing to fear,we would still live in a socially liberal country where crime pays and immigration continues.
Posted by: Paul Taylor | 28 February 2016 at 01:51 PM
Hotel California. Great minds think alike. Exactly what I wrote on a forum some weeks ago. Always reading your blog.
Posted by: La Mancha | 28 February 2016 at 01:26 PM
PH;
*** “you will realise there’s no clear declaration that he wants our national independence back” ***
I do wonder just what kind of 'Independence' Britain would have outside of the EU, given that we have no empire, barely a navy, would be as much at the beck and call of Free-Trade and the Corporations as in the TTIP-EU, would remain confronted by the economic might of the Asian sweatshops, and will still face the onslaught of American pop-media as we have for a century.
Is the issue democracy? In which case, why value what has time and time again returned the disreputable in an event that reliably shows the ignorance and short-sightedness of the mass of British people?
Is the issue law? In which case, does it matter where a law comes from? Surely all that matters is that it is just?
The EU is far from faultless (mass immigration, free-trade, overly-centralised, PIGS – are issues that have me close to voting OUT) but would leaving it really result in an appreciably better situation?
*** “Mr Johnson is an act, not a politician” ***
Of course.
He is a politician suited to an age that confuses PMQs with reality, and Satire with journalism (ie: HIGNFU). Not because he is some intellectual giant, but because PMQs is itself pantomime in which 'honourable' members compete to be the back end of the horse.
And this won't get any better with the advent of the internet – as now media needs to fill 24 hours with drama in order to win ratings. It was bad enough when it was just daily newspapers, but now its CNN and Twitter, with attention span plummeting and immaturity going sub-orbital. The politics of ADHD...which is essentially just the medicalising of the discarding of manners, reason, and deferred gratification.
And leaving the EU will not save us from one jot of this...which makes the whole referendum a smoke-screen....
Posted by: L Porter | 28 February 2016 at 01:15 PM
Posted by Anonymous - "...The point of the Outs winning the referendum is that we can have on record - once and for all - that the people wanted Out and were ignored. Can you not see the importance of that ?"
Couldn't agree more.
Whatever duplicity follows the referendum should the vote be 'out' (and there will be some), having not been asked for a generation, you can't refuse to state your view just because it might be ignored.
Don't be fooled by the personality/figureheads (Boris, Gove et al) but focus on what you want to say, and, having finally been given a chance (planned or not) say it load.
Posted by: Peter N | 28 February 2016 at 01:04 PM
What is this two tier EU? Germany on top and everyone else underneath? The existance of the EU makes the Napoleonic wars and the first and second world wars a total waste of time!
Posted by: Jonathan T | 28 February 2016 at 12:47 PM
daodao | 28 February 2016 at 07:53 AM :
*** Either to stay, eventually with "ever closer union" to become part of a modern version of a single Großdeutsches Reich ***
Germany does what it is told by its masters across the Atlantic.
The EU and NATO are no more tools of a continent-wide German ruled empire than Cameron and Blair are loyally humble servants of the British people.
Posted by: C. Morrison | 28 February 2016 at 12:36 PM
Nigel Farage demoted Suzanne Evans, probably because she chose to join 'Vote Leave' whereas Farage favours 'Grassroots Out".
Since then Farage has suggested that 'Vote Leave' support a second renegotiation in the event of a vote for Brexit, so I checked out their website to determine exactly what it was they were campaigning for:
"We should negotiate a new UK-EU deal based on free trade and friendly cooperation. We end the supremacy of EU law. We regain control. We stop sending £350 million every week to Brussels and instead spend it on our priorities, like the NHS and science research."
Some seem to have interpreted 'deal' as negotiation, which of course will happen even if we leave the EU.
Boris Johnson has also talked about negotiating a new relationship with the EU which has been seized upon and interpreted as inferring another referendum when he's never suggested anything about another referendum.
Subsequently Johnson has clarified his position, that out means out, but this was assumed to be a U-turn because our Dave ruled out a second referendum in the Commons, suggesting our Dave did also think that Boris did indeed favour a second referendum.
Or did Cameron simply know that the public perception was that Boris favoured a second referendum, so he took the opportunity to promote a misrepresentation and then close the door on it.
Regardless, yesterday (27th Feb) Douglas Carswell was asked (by myself) "Can we please clarify; does 'Vote Leave' want a second referendum in the event of a 'Leave' vote?"
Carswell responded "No, out means out".
PH is of course correct to suggest that the bickering as to which Brexit campaign should become the single officially recognized campaign is a distraction.
Posted by: Chris Redmond | 28 February 2016 at 12:20 PM
Whilst I share your suspicions about the motives of some of the Brexiteers, we have to remember that this is a referendum, not an election. A vote to leave will not see Messrs Howard or Johnson moving into No 10 the morning after.
Yes, it is possible that if we check out, at that referendum, more hurdles will suddenly appear to try to prevent us from leaving. What is certain however is if we don't check out, we will never leave.
Posted by: WFC | 28 February 2016 at 11:39 AM
I don’t share Peter Hitchens’ pessimism. The EU is a slow motion car crash. The push for an early referendum has always been motivated by the need of the Inners to get the referendum out of the way before enough UK citizens become Outers. Constant exposure to images of razor wire fences and UK politicians feigning gratitude for meaningless pieces of EU treaty paper is converting the undecided to Outers faster than the government can import new Inners to skew the vote (and that is quite fast!).
As the chaos and mayhem sweeping Europe continues to spread, the time period behind the first vote and Peter Hitchens’ predicted second vote, will only serve to create more Outers.
Posted by: John Main | 28 February 2016 at 11:25 AM
It was interesting to read this article, because I made a similar comment on Accyweb, (a local forum) on the 20th of February.
I am strongly with the 'OUT' campaign, but believe we will never get out of the EU.
There will be conflicting information given by the ton, and it will make it difficult to determine what is the truth and what is fiction.
We are like the chinese prisoner in a cell with two doors......one door leads to freedom, the other door to a gory certain death and we will choose inactivity over being bold, because inactivity is safer.
Posted by: Margaret Pilkington | 28 February 2016 at 11:17 AM
Why can so few people see the benefits of selection in education? Here in Lincolnshire, the grammar schools take children from the surrounding 'feeder' schools who have passed the 11+. In fact, these local primary school children are given preference over others who apply. I think it is a better example than Kent because there isn't a house price divide here so the children who attend reflect a true mix of the local population. There is also a chance for children to transfer to the grammar school in Year 10.
It seems to me that people do not want to see selection as a solution, even though they accept selection in many other areas of life: university, jobs, sport, etc. Surely educating our children is too important to be the exception.
Posted by: Rebecca J | 28 February 2016 at 11:11 AM
With respect to selective schooling I'm generally in favour however I think it has to be more sophisticated that two stream. I'd envisage a choice of several streams to play to strengths so maybe; Science, languages, sports, technical and humanities. That way it helps play to the individuals strengths and isn't just clever or thick.
However whatever the system I'd like to know what Mr Hitchens' solution would be for the data that showed the 11+ didn't work. There were too many bright but poor children who never passed the exam and so missed out on the opportunities Grammar school offered. Whereas less bright but better off children did pass.
This was why the comprehensive system was brought in ( well one reason) and would be a problem that still existed if selective education returned.
Posted by: Ian Scott | 28 February 2016 at 11:11 AM
I really hope you are wrong about the second referendum. But fear you may be right.
Posted by: John Le Sueur | 28 February 2016 at 10:52 AM
I am afraid In or Out Britain will always remain the same neo-totalitarian dump inhabited by the same apathetic rabble and controlled by the same bunch of Oxbridge four letter words.
Posted by: Roy Robinson | 28 February 2016 at 10:25 AM