Don’t honour a Brussels office block – give the Nobel to Maggie
Britain’s former prime minister has done far more than the EU to foster peace in Europe, argues Boris Johnson.
The last time I looked, there were about seven billion people on this planet.
There are all sorts of candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize . Across the
developing world, you will find gaunt and patient aid workers who have
consecrated their lives to ending tribal conflicts. There are bone-nosed
eco-warriors who are fighting to save the peoples of the rainforest from
destruction. There are women who are struggling for female emancipation in
Saudi Arabia. In tyrannies from Uzbekistan to North Korea, there are
journalists risking their lives so the truth can be heard. There are good
people battling every scourge, from famine to gun-running to piracy to human
trafficking.
So we can only wonder what madness took hold at the judging lunch the other
day, when that committee of Norwegian worthies was asked to appoint this
year’s winner of the prize.
Perhaps they were drunk; perhaps it was one of those morose Scandinavian
afternoons when the sun has sunk and there is no alternative but to hit the
aquavit. Whatever it was, they must have been out of their minds to ignore
all human candidates and
award the prize to the European Union. And for bringing peace to
Europe! You might as well offer recognition to Lance Armstrong for his role
in promoting good sportsmanship. You might as well suggest that Sir Jimmy
Savile deserves some other posthumous gong for his egregious “charity” work.
The EU’s
part in creating peace in Europe has long been exaggerated, and I am afraid
its signature policy is now in danger of producing the exact opposite.
There is, on the other hand, one living human being who would have perfectly
fitted the bill. She has done more than just about anyone to preserve peace
and democracy in Europe. It was her 87th birthday on Saturday and it would
have been a nice thing if the Nobel committee had recognised her at last. It
might have made up for the shameful decision by her university to refuse her
an honorary doctorate – and we forget now that those ungracious Oxford dons
were protesting about her decision to charge foreign students for
university, when those very fees are now essential to higher education and
keep the dons in sherry.
Yes, instead of giving the prize to a clutch of ugly plate-glass office blocks
in Brussels, the Nobel committee should have awarded it to Margaret
Hilda Thatcher.
To understand why Baroness Thatcher deserves the Nobel prize for peace in Europe, you only have to think about the absurdity of giving the gong to the EU. It wasn’t the Common Market that brought peace to Europe in 1945. I am afraid it was a series of other institutions: the Red Army, the US Marines, the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. They genuinely helped to pacify the continent, though you wouldn’t think of nominating them for a peace prize.
It wasn’t as if the EU was the body that helped to keep the peace during the Cold War. Most people would agree that was the work of Nato, and the threat of retaliation against Soviet aggression.
It wasn’t the EU that went toe to toe with Russia over the stationing of Soviet missiles in Europe. It was Reagan and Thatcher. It was her ideas of free market democracy that inspired the peoples and politicians of Eastern Europe – and in some cases still do. Why not honour her, rather than a bureaucracy?
And look at where that EU machine is taking us now. The catastrophic programme for monetary union is continuing to impoverish the people of Greece and much of southern Europe. When the German chancellor paid a visit last week, to inspect the effects of the EU-imposed austerity measures, they had to protect Angela Merkel with 7,000 police – the largest such operation in history, and still there were protesters dressing up as Nazis.
In Spain, there are now thousands of young people fleeing for a better life in Latin America. The whole European economy is being held back by the fear that the euro will break up, when the ghastly truth is that a break-up is probably the best hope of salvation.
The solution on offer is more economic integration – a solution that is apparently supported by the British government – when that process of fiscal union will mean a hollowing out of democracy.
The reason the Greeks are turning out dressed as Nazis is that they feel as trampled on and as humiliated as they did when the swastika flew over the Parthenon. We are now proposing to give formal control of eurozone tax and spending policies to the EU institutions – a shorthand for German control. Far from ending tensions between EU countries, the euro project is now massively increasing them.
It is often said that two democracies have never been to war with one another. But when you make a mockery of democracy, and effectively hand tax and spending decisions to a foreign power, then you are creating the conditions for serious mischief. Vince Cable yesterday warned of “absolutely incalculable” consequences if the eurozone should rupture – but what does he think is happening now? We are already seeing neo-fascist parties in Athens and the agony of Greece is unabated.
All this Baroness Thatcher foresaw. She warned in her 1988 Bruges speech of the dangers of trying to create Identikit Europeans, when the peoples of EU nations were so different in their habits and productivity. She warned of a one-size-fits-all monetary policy and she spoke out strongly against the lack of democracy in the project. She has been completely vindicated.
According to José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the Nobel prize is for all of us, in the sense that it is directed at all 500 million European citizens. Well, on behalf of millions of us, I suggest we turn down this meaningless award for an institution that has got things so badly wrong, and insist that it be handed instead to a woman who got it overwhelmingly right. Thatcher, not the EU, understood the route to peace in Europe.
To understand why Baroness Thatcher deserves the Nobel prize for peace in Europe, you only have to think about the absurdity of giving the gong to the EU. It wasn’t the Common Market that brought peace to Europe in 1945. I am afraid it was a series of other institutions: the Red Army, the US Marines, the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. They genuinely helped to pacify the continent, though you wouldn’t think of nominating them for a peace prize.
It wasn’t as if the EU was the body that helped to keep the peace during the Cold War. Most people would agree that was the work of Nato, and the threat of retaliation against Soviet aggression.
It wasn’t the EU that went toe to toe with Russia over the stationing of Soviet missiles in Europe. It was Reagan and Thatcher. It was her ideas of free market democracy that inspired the peoples and politicians of Eastern Europe – and in some cases still do. Why not honour her, rather than a bureaucracy?
And look at where that EU machine is taking us now. The catastrophic programme for monetary union is continuing to impoverish the people of Greece and much of southern Europe. When the German chancellor paid a visit last week, to inspect the effects of the EU-imposed austerity measures, they had to protect Angela Merkel with 7,000 police – the largest such operation in history, and still there were protesters dressing up as Nazis.
In Spain, there are now thousands of young people fleeing for a better life in Latin America. The whole European economy is being held back by the fear that the euro will break up, when the ghastly truth is that a break-up is probably the best hope of salvation.
The solution on offer is more economic integration – a solution that is apparently supported by the British government – when that process of fiscal union will mean a hollowing out of democracy.
The reason the Greeks are turning out dressed as Nazis is that they feel as trampled on and as humiliated as they did when the swastika flew over the Parthenon. We are now proposing to give formal control of eurozone tax and spending policies to the EU institutions – a shorthand for German control. Far from ending tensions between EU countries, the euro project is now massively increasing them.
It is often said that two democracies have never been to war with one another. But when you make a mockery of democracy, and effectively hand tax and spending decisions to a foreign power, then you are creating the conditions for serious mischief. Vince Cable yesterday warned of “absolutely incalculable” consequences if the eurozone should rupture – but what does he think is happening now? We are already seeing neo-fascist parties in Athens and the agony of Greece is unabated.
All this Baroness Thatcher foresaw. She warned in her 1988 Bruges speech of the dangers of trying to create Identikit Europeans, when the peoples of EU nations were so different in their habits and productivity. She warned of a one-size-fits-all monetary policy and she spoke out strongly against the lack of democracy in the project. She has been completely vindicated.
According to José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, the Nobel prize is for all of us, in the sense that it is directed at all 500 million European citizens. Well, on behalf of millions of us, I suggest we turn down this meaningless award for an institution that has got things so badly wrong, and insist that it be handed instead to a woman who got it overwhelmingly right. Thatcher, not the EU, understood the route to peace in Europe.
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