Wrapped up in a Union Jack

On Wednesday, David Cameron received a bit of a beasting at the hands of a group of rebel Tory MPs.
Our Dave is scheduled to attend an EU budget conference in the not-too-distant future. The stance he had leaked in advance of the upcoming  budget negotiations was that he intended to be tough but proactive;  demanding any rise in the budget be restricted to a real terms increase, and promising to exercise the UK's veto if the Eurocrats insisted on sticking to their proposed six or seven per cent increase.
Making common cause with the Labour Opposition, the Tory rebels, on the other hand, insisted that the only change to the EU budget should be in a downward direction.  Not unreasonably, they opined that the Eurocrats should endure the same pain and austerity that most of Europe has been living through for the last couple of years.
Much to the horror of the Government, the rebels and their cohorts won the day. The reaction of the Parliamentary Press corps tells you much about what is wrong with this country and its politics;and more particularly the traditionally supine attitude our political elites adopt in any negotiations with Europe.
Far from hailing the no vote as a triumph for Parliamentary democracy, they almost universally characterised it as a defeat for the Prime Minister. Instead of celebrating the supremacy of Parliament, they wrung their collective, little hands, with worry at the reaction of Frau Merkel and her cohorts and placemen. Apparently, they were correct. Our beloved Fuhrerin has let it be known that she is deeply unhappy at the prospect of any veto - parliamentary democracy notwithstanding - and will not look kindly on our Dave if any more vetoes are thrown into the ring. You can almost hear the scrabbling sound as our leader and his advisors attempt to retain the moral high ground bestowed by the Parliamentary vote, even as they rapidly retreat to the familiar territory of fudge and compromise. 
There they will be greeted with open arms by Nick Clegg. Sensing that the national mood has swung emphatically against the EU, but not quite able yet to admit just how deeply the loathing has penetrated the national psyche, Clegg has described the move to renegotiate our position and reclaim powers from the EU as "a false promise wrapped in a Union Jack". 
In Clegg's worldview, we are safe only as long as we cling to Frau Merkel's apron strings.  If we insist on reclaiming important elements of our sovereignty, we could face the ultimate sanction; expulsion from the European Union.  
For Clegg, and indeed for most Europhiles, Great Britain is a small, slightly worn and grubby island anchored off the west coast of Europe whose only chance of future prosperity and influence comes from remaining part of Greater Europe. Our departure from the EU would be the first step onto the national equivalent of the Liverpool Care Pathway. Starved of the nourishment provided by the communal teat we would eventually wither on the vine and simply  fade away.  In the scenario most frequently used to frighten the children, we would be banned from trade agreements, ignored by the great supranational companies that drive world trade and our people, goods and services would be ostracised and ignored. 
Naturally, companies like VAG, Ford, BASF  would be only  too happy to obey Merkel, Baroso or whoever and withdraw from one of the world's major developed markets, one that represents billions of dollars in  revenue to them. Equally, the rest of the world would also sit on its hands. No American, Canadian, Australian, South African, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Russian or Brazilian would rush to fill the void and their corporate pockets should such an unlikely scenario be played out. Members of the Commonwealth, which with 54 countries and 2 billion inhabitants, is getting on for three times the size of the EU, would also be bound to ignore what is still the mother country for most of them. That, by the way, is the same Commonwealth with a current growth rate of around 7% GDP annually compared with the EU's less than stellar zero per cent.
So, if Frau Merkel and the rest decide that they really don't want us to contribute billions to their club any more, we can happily go our own way knowing that we have a ready-made market waiting for us. A market whose citizens, for the most part, speak our language, whose legal and administrative systems are a mirror of our own and whose undoubted good will is confirmed by their electing to join and remain within the Commonwealth sixty years after we first began the process of dismantling the old British Empire.

Conspiracy or coincidence? Now we know

I am not too sure what state Denmark is in these days, but one thing's certain; there's something rotten in the state of Great Britain.

Just a few days ago, I wondered whether the announcement of a potential merger between BAe and EADS (Airbus as was) followed rapidly by news that a group of EU  ministers  was, apparently,seeking  to accelerate the integration of the EU's defence industry and forces amounted to a conspiracy or was merely coincidental.
Well, as more details of the deal and the principal players have emerged, it's fairly obvious to everyone but  our senior politicians, that this another of those cosy stitch-ups so beloved of our elite; the kind in which all questions and queries are poo-poohed as being unworthy of consideration because the people who know best ( i.e. the politicians, bankers, civil servants etc) have already reached a gentleman's agreement on how the deal will go down.

One such leading player is a chap called Jeremy Heywood. He is a former employee of Morgan Stanley, who now happens to be Cabinet Secretary, the senior Civil Service adviser to the Prime Minister. Since, in a previous incarnation, he was a very senior employee of Morgan Stanley - one of the prime movers of the merger and therefore in line for a very healthy chunk of change in the form of fees - this also makes him very much a fox in the hen-house. 

When Bae was put together from some of the biggest names in Britain's defence and other technology industries, the Government retained a Golden Share which would enable it to block any takeovers or mergers that could be detrimental to the security of the country. In other words, for just such a situation as has now arisen. But, instead of wielding this Golden Share like a ref waving the red card, the PM and his inner coterie is, so it's said, relaxed about the merger. In fact, Vince Cable sees no problem with foreign ownership of any British company and Nick Clegg is so relaxed that he's almost comatose. This despite all the evidence, much of it recent, that foreign owners regularly strip their British victims of assets, patents, intellectual knowledge and, ultimately, jobs. 

Why is this. Why, when across the Channel French and German politicians, civil servants and businessmen are busy framing provisions, erecting barriers and generally doing everything in their power to ensure that any EADS/BAe tie-up benefits their countries and their workers are their counterparts here so laid back as to be horizontal? Are they simply getting into the correct position to be walked all over by the Europeans as usual? The answer probably lies in the golden revolving door that seems to connect the top echelons of politics, the Civil Service and top financial institutions. Sir Jeremy has greased his way from one to the other and  will probably make the return journey once the merger has been finalised and a decent interval of time has elapsed. En route, he is likely to bump into fellow Civil Servants and politicians, making the same journey to the great Gravy Train, among them Sir John Scarlett, the Secret Service's  former Head of Creative Writing who is, coincidentally, a cheer-leader for the merger as an employee of Morgan Stanley.

Talking of which, it now emerges that the current CEO of BAe, Ian King, may have other than pure business reasons for rooting for the deal; millions of them, in fact. According today's papers, any takeover of the company will trigger a 'change of control' clause which would entitle Mr King to exercise share options and other benefits worth a cool £18 million. Of course, no one is suggesting that a windfall equivalent to three time the average lottery payout would influence Mr King as he heads into the foothills of retirement in a couple of years time. 

At least it is possible to see what is in the deal for King, Scarlett and Heywood; pots of money. But Cameron, Cable and Clegg ( three big C's!!!) what do they get out of it. Well, in the case of Clegg, anything that hastens European integration is alright by him. He seems to have no real emotional ties to this country. Or certainly, none that outweigh his devotion to the European movement. In Clegg's world, aliens are not the immigrants from Eastern Europe who have flooded the UK in recent years. The people he really struggles to understand are the 70% of the  indigenous population who do not share his Utopian view of a federal Europe. 

In common with many politicians, Cable long ago gave up on the idea of the UK as a  military or economic force. He is straight from the Edward Heath school of politics which sees post-Imperial Britain as a waning power whose only hope is to tie itself to the coat-tails of a big brother. In his mind, blocking EADS swallowing BAe would simply be postponing the inevitable demise of Britain as a manufacturing nation. 

As for Cameron, well he is the heir to Blair.  He believes the pursuit and exercise of power is and end in itself. If, despite the wishes of the majority, Europe is where the seat of power is likely to end up, then that is where he needs to be; probably as President of the EU or some similar position. The irony is that the man he modelled himself on has recently indicated a renewed ambition to become European President. So, Cameron might find Blair's bum occupying the hot seat before he gets a chance to sit in it himself.

 In the meantime, he will maintain his Eurosceptic stance in order to placate the general population, while nodding through anything that helps bring Great Britain closer to greater Europe. Thus, he will make the appropriate noises about protecting British interests while allowing a British company with a brilliant record of innovation, creative thinking and excellence to be absorbed into a French/German conglomerate, eventually to disappear without trace like erstwhile champions such as ICI and GEC, 

Defence merger - conspiracy or coincidence?

Should Britain allow its Defence Industries to be foreign-owned?
It's a question that, not so long ago, would have elicited a  robust response involving two fingers accompanied by two words, the second of which would have been OFF.
That was in the days before successive governments sat back as key utilities such as water and power slipped into foreign ownership. Currently, UK utilities are owned by Australian, US French and German companies to name just a few.  
Is this important? After all, the conventional wisdom is that  the only way for Great Britain to "punch above its weight" ( has their ever been a more fatuous and patronising expression, by the way?) is to accept and embrace foreign ownership as an inevitable result of Globalisation; which, as we are all constantly told, is never less than a force for good and a sovereign boon to Mankind.
Hmmmm. EDF (Electricite de France)is one of our largest energy suppliers. Its majority shareholder is, and will always be, the French Government. If you believe that is not significant try comparing EDF electricity prices in France and Great Britain. Alternatively, look what happened to gas prices here, compared to Germany, when the Russians threatened to turn off the taps a couple of years ago. 
History demonstrates that once British companies are foreign-owned, whether through takeover or - the preferred term - merger, and the owners are forced to cut jobs or investment because of a fall-off in demand, they invariably choose to make them  somewhere other than their home market. 
Which brings us, albeit circuitously, to the proposed merger of Bae and the Franco-Germa-Iberian company  EADS, perhaps better known as Airbus. 
There has been plenty of Press reaction to this proposed tie-up, most of it split along the usual partisan lines. Generally-speaking, the anti EU Mail, Telegraph and Express were against the idea while the Europhile Independent and the Guardian were, equally predictably, not so against it. No surprises there. 
Just before news of this proposed merger ( we get 40% and they get 60% but, somehow, this still constitutes a merger?) broke and dominated the headlines, slightly less ink was expended reporting a meeting of many of the EU's leading and lesser lights at which one of the topics discussed was, Taddah!!!, the future of the European Defence Industry and, ancillary to this, the development of a fully-fledged EU Army which would become the main beneficiary of the output of said European Defence Industry. Both of these developments, by the way, would also underpin the rapid growth of the EU Foreign Office ( for want of a better expression) under Baroness Ashton which is rapidly usurping or challenging UK embassies in key parts of the world. And, as Manuel Barosso, the totally un-elected President of the bits of the EU that Van Rompuy doesn't lay claim to be President of, said, it would accelerate the whole process of Federal integration which every body - except the British , Dutch, German, Swedish, Greek and Czech electorates - is gagging to see happen as soon as possible. 
Now, back to the original question: is the fact that this Conference on this topic was rapidly followed by the Bae/EADS merger proposal a coincidence? 
If not, is it simply the next step in the propaganda process whereby politicians and officials seek to convince the British public that integration into Greater Europe is so inevitable that it is pointless thinking of trying to succeed in the great big world without the security and comfort of the EU blanket wrapped around us?