EUkipping the fudge factory!

UKIP's got £100,000 coming it's way care of Stuart Wheeler, who in turn has just been kicked out of the Conservative Party. In a way Wheeler has a good name for one who is caught between a rock and and a hard place. He's wheeling himself between the two, or he was.

I'd have more sympathy for him if he came clean about his intentions. He has a go at the Tories for fudging but seems less than enthusiastic all round for UKIP. He doesn't want out of the EU, just reform, although failure to reform would mean out. Not a ringing endorsement for UKIP, exactly. He told the BBC this -

"Their (UKIP's) position is far nearer to what I would like to happen than anybody else's. I do want the Conservatives, if they are in power, to try very hard to get the European Union to accept a much looser relationship and to put us back into a position more or less where we were when we first joined - a wonderful trading relationship but not much else. I think they should try to do that, but more than likely they will fail and then we would have to get out."

It's this deluded view that people like Wheeler have of the European Union. "A wonderful trading relationship but not much else". When was this ever on the table apart from being a figment of the Great Grocer's imagination when he fobbed off the Tory Party with this canard. Ted Heath's EU dissembling was on a par with Nye Bevan's treacherous spin in his suggestion that National Insurance had everything to do with a funded insurance policy.

Wheeler must be living in a fool's paradise if he thought that the "Common Market" was anything other than an economic and political entity.

I voted against this political empire in Wilson's referendum. Not because I'm anti-Europe as the so called pro-Europeans would have it, but because I read the Treaty of Rome and found it to be fundamentally against British interests. It is also fundamentally against the interests now of every other EU country, but they were not involved in that referendum.

Personally, I would like to see a Commonwealth of Europe which would be a trading bloc of loosely tied nation states. Pan-European issues, like climate change, could well be covered but the hours that we work and the whole detail of internal governance should be without the control of an external "commission". Stuart Wheeler won't get his looser relationship by supporting UKIP's unilateral stance. It will only come when a concerted effort across the whole EU is made to change the meddling of this monster.

The Taxpayers' Alliance has a YouTube presentation on the Common Agricultural Policy which costs us all £398 per year. They call it a fudge. That's being generous. It's more like something cooked up in one of those Hell's Kitchens that Gordon Ramsey visits. "I've eaten that *!@!"!!* for *******'s sake!"

McCain's Michigan conundrum

I've been sent a link to this article about McCain's campaign decision in Michigan. It goes to publicise the ridiculous funding arrangements that Americans find themselves in. McCain has dropped out because he opted to accept public funds. That put a limit on his spending. Obama is without the public spending hurdle, so can spend what he likes.

The whole thing is nonsense and allows a complete manipulation of the ballot. Another insane thing is the ballot access issue. Smaller parties have to sign up huge numbers of people just to say they want a particular party on the ballot. None of this helps democracy. It just helps the ruling elite. One thing both McCain and Obama should agree to is getting rid of anti-democratic trickery.

Interestingly, the article in The Hill alludes to McCain having dificulties in Michigan over unemployment. Local Republican congressman Thad McCotter said McCain was hurt in Michigan by how its economy has fared under the Bush administration. Telling indeed. But just having to drop out from active campaigning, for whatever reason, shows how hard it will be for McCain to make it in November.