Beneath the Boot of European Democracy

 The recent row over whether or not the UK should accept a diplomat with the rank of Ambassador from the European Union has sparked off a memory. One morning in July of 2019 I received a totally unexpected invitation from a friend to attend a lunch hosted by a City-based organization that raises and disperses money for charities, at which the Austrian Ambassador to the Court of St James was the invited speaker. So on a sweltering day I dug out my lightest-weight suit and my 'City' tie and journeyed via an uncomfortably warm Piccadilly Line tube to Green Park, to a venue where I enjoyed a light lunch of smoked salmon and some interesting company.The Ambassador, a genial soul and an apparent anglophile totally fluent in our native language, gave us an entertaining talk about the diplomat's profession, somewhat long on generalities and short on specifics, covering recent events in Asia, Africa and Europe -he had previously worked as a diplomat in Japan and Iran, and was the former Austrian ambassador to Hungary. Predictably, he made clear his regret at the prospect of the UK leaving the EU, and in response to questions from the audience listed several disadvantages from which he believed the UK would suffer, internationally, if we left. At the time, I would have loved to ask the Ambassador how he viewed the impending demise of his job once the EU inevitably acquired its own Foreign Ministry and its own EU embassies and ambassadors. But it would obviously have been ‘inappropriate’ (that dreadful contemporary catch-all term) for me to have posed such a question, being merely an invited guest. Thus my memory of that occasion was re-kindled by the recent EU ambassadorship controversy.

UNION OR EMPIRE?

Anyway, when I returned home from the luncheon I decided to do a bit of research, and  found an online record of an interview with this amiable diplomat. In this interview, he insisted the UK should not be afforded ‘preferential’ treatment by the EU, giving as his reason that he traced the origins of the eventual demise of the Habsburg Empire back to the year1866, when the Emperor Franz Joseph conceded to his subject province of Hungary a special position within the Empire, and the Habsburg domains were accordingly re-named Austria-Hungary.

This fascinated me for two reasons – the first being the rather revealing fact that the Austrian Ambassador likened the EU to the Habsburg Empire. An Empire which, behind its glittering facade of romantic Vienna and Strauss waltzes, was in reality a creaking, despotic autocracy. An autocracy, furthermore, with eleven different subject nationalities all kept in line by a brutal secret police and a muzzled press, where dissidents ended up quite literally tethered in chains within prison dungeons for decades – always supposing they were fortunate enough to evade the noose or the firing squad. An Empire whose soldiers, when they invaded Serbia in 1914, delighted in taking snapshots of hundreds of Serb women in national costume whom they had unceremoniously strung up on gallows. An Empire, nevertheless, for which this genial EU-nation functionary appeared to feel a certain amount of nostalgia. The second reason for my interest was because he likened the United Kingdom to Hungary, which was then one of the subject Provinces of that Empire. Hmmm…..

Now, for people of my generation and before, the ideas of democracy and liberty were absolutely fundamental to our vision of the United Kingdom. Schooled in our  national history, we were aware of the steady and peaceful progress of British democracy from the ‘Rotten Boroughs’ of the 18^th century, via the various parliamentary Reform acts, to universal suffrage.

NO GUILLOTINES NECESSARY 

Nowadays, however, the concepts of democracy and liberty are paid little regard by anyone under the age of thirty. Of course there were no 19^th century heroes of (or martyrs to) democracy in the UK, for that the modern generation to look up to, like Garibaldi or Manin. Unlike in most of Europe, no-one in Britain had to fight or die on the barricades. A reasonable degree of moderation and common sense amongst the British ruling classes in the 19^th century meant there was, fortunately, never any need for ‘barricade’ episodes in the United Kingdom in order to achieve reform. The fact that, almost uniquely, we achieved a degree of liberty and democracy without guillotines, firing squads or street fighting is simply taken for granted by everyone.

But the larger truth is that the UK’s contemporary politicians have now succeeded in destroying the public’s trust in, and even interest in, the concepts of freedom and democracy. Destroyed that trust through their own behavior:  with a perpetual barrage of lies and falsehoods, cynically broken ‘promises’, and bogus election manifestos which are the public equivalent of ‘Of course I’ll still love you in the morning, darling!’

They say a fish rots from the head down. Well, the all-pervasive smell of rotten fish in UK politics signifies that the cynical, greedy Crony Capitalism of one side of the UK political class is regarded with just as much contempt by the ‘man on the Clapham omnibus’ as the other side’s Cultural Marxist ‘Identity Politics’ of universal victimhood. There is zero public respect left for any of these clowns.

The inevitable consequence?  When asked, very nearly half of the voters of the UK indicated that they preferred to retain our membership of a totally undemocratic supra-national organization hell-bent on abolishing national identities and on achieving Superpower status, rather than voting to regain the United Kingdom’s own identity as a democratically-controlled, independent, sovereign state; something that they no longer placed any value on, or believed in.

Can I really find it in my heart to blame those 48%?  People are, in my experience, led by example. Thanks to the example set by our UK ‘leaders’, qualities such as Loyalty and Honesty are now seen as merely things bought, or rented temporarily, by the company or organisation which employs you. Instead of being emotions you should naturally feel towards the nation that nurtured and educated you.

IT''S NOT OVER YET 

But although the referendum victory has finally been acknowledged by the Powers That Be, the phenomenon of the EU remains something the people who voted for our freedom still can’t afford to ignore. Although we are, allegedly, no longer a participant, it seems to me that the ongoing consolidation of this post-democratic Great Power on our doorstep -a Great Power that appears to look back to an age of despotic Empires holding absolute sway over lesser states, and one that will inevitably show symptoms of political and economic instability in the years to come- is an undoubted worry with regard to our national and economic security,

And there are still many in the UK who have already stated that they fully intend to work for our return to participation in the EU project.

WHO NEEDS DIPLOMACY?

But to return to the origin of this piece – why not let the EU have its own ambassador, embassy, and consulates? It only reflects reality. Then simply decline to continue recognising the credentials of all the formerly independent EU states, and request that they close their London embassies and their consulates forthwith, since they're now redundant. Then we can close our UK embassies in all those EU ‘provinces’, thus saving the UK taxpayer many millions of pounds. All the UK now needs in the EU is an Ambassador in Brussels, and Consulates in its provinces; I'm sure nobody will mind….

And when the World Health Organisation and the United Nations inevitably demand their own Ambassadors and Embassies, we can save an absolute fortune by closing the rest of our embassies all over the planet. There is little doubt that those among the diplomatic corps who share the world view of His Excellency the Austrian Ambassador would wholeheartedly approve.

AUBREY