Thursday 16 May 2019

The threat to Europe

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Angela Merkel said yesterday that Russia, China and the US are forcing Europe, time and again, to find common positions. This is true, but a much bigger issue is the movement of people into Europe from Asia and Africa. 

A common position on the part of the EU on immigration would force member states to alter the make up of their populations to suit other countries. This is existential. But with free movement of peoples this happens anyway. The immigration laws of one country are effectively the immigration laws of all.

British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt was a Remainer, is now a Leaver and very much wants to be Prime Minister. He angered Theresa May (but her power has ebbed way) when he broke with government policy to say that the UK needs to spend twice as much on defence. 

That sounds Tory but it is not. It is nonsense on stilts. Where is the enemy against whom we are defending ourselves? 

The threats to Great Britain are grave indeed but not ones with which Nato can help. They are terrorists and those who sympathise with terrorism (though we made peace with the IRA), nationalists who want to break up the country (same caveat), France and Germany who want to make us subservient to the European Union and, much the biggest threat, unprecedented numbers of migrants and refugees who potentially will make our country into another country.

The British government talks about the danger from Iran instead. Iran is not a threat to England. It is not a threat to Europe or the USA or to anyone except the Sunni monarchs in the Gulf and to Israel - and not really a threat to them. We sell the Gulf states arms, which creates jobs for British workers, but we should not take up their quarrel with Iran any more than we get involved in their quarrel with Israel. Nor are Israel's interests ours.


There are not enough Shias in the world for the West to worry about. Our allies the Saudis who spend billions spreading Wahhabism, on the other hand, are a big problem, though not a military threat.

Europe certainly should keep out of Middle Eastern wars and stop taking in people from the Middle East who take sides in these wars. Otherwise the wars will spill over into London. In fact, they already have.

Britain should probably keep out of European defence entanglements, come to that. Why are we in Nato other than for prestige?

Europe feels, probably wrongly in my opinion, that it needs protecting from Russia. Donald Trump said that Nato is obsolete before he rowed back because he accepts (rightly or wrongly) that having an empire has many advantages for America. These are reasons for the USA and Europe to continue Nato but I am not sure why Britain or Canada are in it, to say nothing of Turkey.

The trouble is that nowadays people think values are worth fighting for but are not sure if nations are worth fighting for. The unspoken corollary is that all democratic countries are really the same country.

4 comments:

  1. An excellent post. I agree with everything you've said.

    I especially agree about NATO. If it were merely useless it wouldn't matter so much but it is positively dangerous. NATO needs to die. And I agree about European entanglements, Since the fatal alliance with the French prior to WW1 European entanglements have brought Britain nothing but grief. Never ever ally yourself with the French (or the Americans). Never.

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    1. https://www.thelocal.de/20190515/germanys-future-depends-on-immigration-and-integration-merkel?fbclid=IwAR169NlAoUjeh5_k6CdutwrPudLQz9QH8CCq1HKxOBcABodrkR9YOLvuAQ8

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    2. 'During the speech, Merkel reminded the audience that 19 million Germans - just under one quarter of the total population of 83 million - have an immigrant background.
      'One of the major features of the German Constitution is the way in which it promotes integration and diversity, while also ensuring that these processes adhere to core German values.
      'Referencing the recent migrant influx, particularly from Middle Eastern countries like Syria and Iraq, Merkel said that while there have been and will continue to be difficulties, this represented the continued changes that have taken place since the country emerged from the ashes of World War Two.
      '"We have painstakingly understood that. (We continue to understand) how immigration is changing our country and how it will continue to change our country,” she said.
      '“We have learned that our country must be a country of immigration and of integration.”'

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    3. 'One of the major features of the German Constitution is the way in which it promotes integration and diversity, while also ensuring that these processes adhere to core German values.

      You have to love NewSpeak. Integration and diversity are of course polar opposites. If you have integration then eventually you'll have no diversity. If you have diversity then you can't have integration. But do contradictions like that bother people like Merkel? Not a bit! They have no trouble believing two things that are entirely incompatible.

      And "core German values" - meaningless twaddle.

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