Britain should play its part to end this Greek tragedy by standing up for the underdog.
For all of my adult life, support for the European Union has been seen as the
mark of a civilised, reasonable and above all compassionate politician. It
has guaranteed him or her access to leader columns, TV studios, lavish
expense accounts and overseas trips.
The reason for this special treatment is that the British establishment has
tended to view the EU as perhaps a little incompetent and corrupt, but
certainly benign and generally a force for good in a troubled world. This
attitude is becoming harder and harder to sustain, as this partnership of
nations is suddenly starting to look very nasty indeed: a brutal oppressor
that is scornful of democracy, national identity and the livelihoods of
ordinary people.
The turning point may have come this week with the latest intervention by
Brussels: bureaucrats are threatening to bankrupt an entire country unless
opposition parties promise to support the EU-backed austerity plan.
Let’s put the Greek problem in its proper perspective. Britain’s Great
Depression in the Thirties has become part of our national myth. It was the
era of soup kitchens, mass unemployment and the Jarrow March, immortalised
in George Orwell’s wonderful novels and still remembered in Labour Party
rhetoric.
Yet the fall in national output during the Depression – from peak to trough –
was never more than 10 per cent. In Greece, gross domestic product is
already down about 13 per cent since 2008, and according to experts is
likely to fall a further 7 per cent by the end of this year. In other words,
by this Christmas, Greece’s depression will have been twice as deep as the
infamous economic catastrophe that struck Britain 80 years ago.
Yet all the evidence suggests that the European elite could not give a damn.
Earlier this week Olli Rehn, the EU’s top economist, warned of “devastating
consequences” if Greece defaults. The context of his comments suggests,
however, that he was thinking just as much of the devastating consequences
that would flow for the rest of Europe, rather than for the Greeks
themselves.
Another official was quoted in the Financial Times as saying that
Germany, Finland and the Netherlands are “losing patience” with Greece, with
apparently not even a passing thought for the real victims of this
increasingly horrific saga. Though the euro-elite seems not to care, life in
Greece, the home of European civilisation, has become unbearable.
Perhaps 100,000 businesses have folded, and many more are collapsing. Suicides
are sharply up, homicides have reportedly doubled, with tens of thousands
being made homeless. Life in the rural areas, which are returning to barter,
is bearable. In the towns it is harsh and for minorities – above all the
Albanians, who have no rights and have long taken the jobs Greeks did not
want – it is terrifying.
This is only the start, however. Matters will get much worse over the coming
months, and this social and moral disaster has already started to spread to
other southern European countries such as Italy, Portugal and Spain. It is
not just families that are suffering – Greek institutions are being torn to
shreds. Unlike Britain amid the economic devastation of the Thirties, Greece
cannot look back towards centuries of more or less stable parliamentary
democracy. It is scarcely a generation since the country emerged from a
military dictatorship and, with parts of the country now lawless, sinister
forces are once again on the rise. Only last autumn, extremist parties
accounted for about 30 per cent of the popular vote. Now the hard Left and
hard Right stand at about 50 per cent and surging. It must be said that this
disenchantment with democracy has been fanned by the EU’s own meddling, and
in particular its imposition of Lucas Papademos as a puppet prime minister.
Late last year I was sharply criticised, and indeed removed from a Newsnight
studio by a very chilly producer, after I called Amadeu Altafaj-Tardio, a
European Union spokesman, “that idiot from Brussels”. Well-intentioned
intermediaries have since gone out of their way to assure me that Mr
Altafaj-Tardio is an intelligent and also a charming man. I have no powerful
reason to doubt this, and it should furthermore be borne in mind that he is
simply the mouthpiece and paid hireling for Mr Rehn, the Economic and
Monetary Affairs Commissioner I mentioned earlier.
But looking back at that Newsnight appearance, it is clear that my remarks
were far too generous, and I would like to explain myself more fully, and
with greater force. Idiocy is, of course, an important part of the problem
in Brussels, explaining many of the errors of judgment and basic competence
over the past few years. But what is more striking by far is the sheer
callousness and inhumanity of EU commissioners such as Mr Rehn, as they
preside over a Brussels regime that is in the course of destroying what used
to be a proud, famous and reasonably well-functioning country.
In these terrible circumstances, how can the British liberal Left, which
claims to place such value on compassion and decency, continue to support
the EU? I am old enough to recall their rhetoric when Margaret Thatcher was
driving through her monetarist policies as a response to the recession of
the early Eighties. Many of the attacks were incredibly personal and
vicious. The British prime minister (who, of course, was later to warn so
presciently against monetary union) was accused of lacking any kind of
compassion or humanity. Yet the loss of economic output during the 1979-82
recession was scarcely 6 per cent, less than a third of the scale of the
depression now being suffered by the unfortunate Greeks. Unemployment peaked
at 10.8 per cent, just over half of where Greece is now.
The reality is that Margaret Thatcher was an infinitely more compassionate and
pragmatic figure than Amadeu Altafaj-Tardio’s boss Olli Rehn and his
appalling associates. She would never have destroyed an entire nation on the
back of an economic dogma.
One of the basic truths of politics is that the Left is far more oblivious to
human suffering than the Right. The Left always speaks the language of
compassion, but rarely means it. It favours ends over means. The crushing of
Greece, and the bankruptcy of her citizens, is of little consequence if it
serves the greater good of monetary union.
Nevertheless, for more than a generation, politicians such as Tony Blair,
Peter Mandelson, Nick Clegg and David Miliband have used their sympathy for
the aims and aspirations of the European Union as a badge of decency. Now it
ties them to a bankruptcy machine that is wiping out jobs, wealth and –
potentially – democracy itself.
The presence of the Lib Dems, fervent euro supporters, as part of the
Coalition, has become a problem. It can no longer be morally right for
Britain to support the European single currency, a catastrophic experiment
that is inflicting human devastation on such a scale.
Britain has
historically stood up for the underdog, but shamefully, George Osborne has
steadily lent his support to the eurozone.
Thus far only one British political leader, Ukip’s Nigel Farrage, has had the
clarity of purpose to state the obvious – that Greece must be allowed to
default and devalue. Leaving all other considerations to one side, humanity
alone should press David Cameron into splitting with Brussels and belatedly
coming to the rescue of Greece.
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