UK Pressed out of EU - Kevin Hannon

“For those who govern, the first thing required is indifference to newspapers.” -- L. A. Thiers

The Levenson Enquiry is presently investigating the methods of the UK tabloid press. Daily we discover how the lives of hundreds of people were made a misery by phone hacking, media harassment, and
irresponsible news stories. Even parents who had suffered terribly from the death or disappearance of their child were made to suffer further tortures, and even humiliation at the hands of our tabloid press.
Destroying lives, not reporting news has become the main purpose of many UK newspapers; they grow fat on pain not on truth.

I predict there will be further enquiries into the activities, purposes and effects of the UK’s vicious, irresponsible and semi-criminal tabloid press. Enquiries will be conducted years in the future by
historians trying to understand the dynamics of the UK relationship to the EU.

Historians will try to understand and explain why UK governments for decades had a policy of captious obstructionism and semi-engagement with the EU. They will be puzzled that a country whose greatness and prosperity were built upon international trade should so relentlessly ignore or obstruct the construction of what became the richest trading bloc in the world, namely the EEC, later the EU. They will find it hard to believe that a great trading nation did not do all in its power to be at the centre of the construction of a revivified European civilisation; built as it was, not around wars and ideologies but around the rule of law, freedom of movement for people and freedom of trade.

Future historians will view with bewilderment the sequence of Euro-sceptic governments that culminated in the second decade of the 21st century in the UK being an isolated irrelevance to the development of the Euro-zone and EU. They will view with astonishment the inept diplomacy, the UK public opinion clinging to the past, the failure of successive UK governments to fully commit to the EU, the endless insistence on special treatment.

They will decide that the UK hostility to the whole EU enterprise was fully and clearly revealed during the Euro-zone financial crisis of 2011-2012. In that existential crisis all the world could see that the leaders
of France and Germany repeatedly stood shoulder to shoulder and worked tirelessly to overcome the crisis. Similarly, all the world could see that the EU Commission, the European Central Bank, and most EU governments accepted an absolute need to work together to hold together the Euro-zone and EU. And some countries outside the Euro-zone but in the EU, noticeably Sweden and Poland, even went so far as to put money into supporting the Euro stability fund.

Historians will contrast the solidarity, activity and commitment of most EU countries and institutions during the 2011-2012 Euro crisis with the response of the UK government. They will note its insistence on providing no financial support to the Euro-zone whilst also insisting that Euro-zone countries sort out the crisis because the EU economy was essential to the well-being of the UK. They will note its opportunism in attempting to use the crisis to get more EU exemptions and special privileges for the UK. They will note how the UK government was willing to block the future development of the EU in order to get special treatment for London as a financial centre. They will note that an act of Parliament was passed in 2011 specifically designed to block any strengthening of the UK relationship with the EU. The Act provided for a referendum on future UK-EU treaties thereby hugely increasing the power of the media in EU treaty ratification. An extraordinary act of self-derogation for a British Parliament, and a signal to all of Europe that the UK media would in future hold the EU to ransom or to stagnation.

No doubt some future historians will feel dismay that at a decisive time for the future of Europe, the government of a once great trading power and famous parliamentary democracy cowered under the
menace of media demagoguery. That it had nothing to offer but sanctimonious selfishness from the sidelines. Some of them might even think back to a remark of Frederick the Great, king of Prussia 1740-86, who had negotiations with British governments centuries ago. “I am astonished at English policy. They think of the whole of Europe as existing only to serve them. They never consider other people’s interests, or use any arguments except money.”

When future historians do come to delve into why the UK failed to maintain its position as an important European power, and why it ended up being isolated within and irrelevant to the EU, they will doubtless
cite many causes. Long-term economic decline; the withdrawal of Parliamentary oversight over government; institutional instability when successive governments reformed, re-reformed and then again re-re-reformed public services; a loss of intellectual solidity in public education; enfeeblement of the armed forces; and excessive devotion to all things US, including its wars; and so on and so forth. But most of all, in their studies, they will be struck by the remorseless barrage of anti-EEC/EU stories in almost all the UK newspapers, tabloid and broadsheet, national and local. They will conclude that for decades on end it is was almost impossible for the British public to read anything good or positive about the EEC/EU in their newspapers. They will have read only stories of absurdities, of money wasted, and of UK governments at every major EU conference going forth across the Channel as elected St. Georges to slay yet another EU dragon; as if in a political fairy story for children.

All the world could see, for decade after decade, that if any UK government tried to be constructive and co-operative in the EU it would be portrayed in the newspapers as weak. When UK Prime Ministers went to EU conferences they knew that most newspaper editors stood behind them, pistol in hand , to shoot them down if they did not advance to a victorious confrontation with those nefarious Europeans. They had always to return from Europe with a train of exemptions, opt-outs, or rebates trailing behind their triumphal chariot to signify, like Roman conquerors, their victory over humiliated enemies.

What sensational books and articles future historians will be able to write about how the UK press for years hacked into telephone conversations and wrecked the lives of hundreds of people, famous and infamous.
They will also be able to write about how its savage propaganda hacked into the minds of tens of millions of Britons and wrecked their future as Europeans. Histories yet written will tell future generations of how the hacks of British journalism frightened UK governments out of the EU. There’s a story of power.

Why did the British press do that? What were the interests of the editors and of the owners who hired them? What damage did they do to the power, influence and prosperity of the UK in Europe? Why was the UK pressed out of the EU? Those are just a few questions for future enquiries into UK newspaper methods.

Kevin Hannon, Chairman West Midlands European Movement. (24.11.2011)
(Note: The word “history” comes from an ancient Greek word “historia” which means “enquiry” or “investigation“.)