The EU Begins Its Long, Slow Collapse.

David Cameron stood with 27 other national leaders around the grave of the EU today and threw the first handfull of dirt on the coffin. Born out of the European civil war that raged between 1914 and 1945, the EU was a last desperate effort to stop the various European nations from tearing themselves to pieces. As such it was a noble enterprise but it began to founder as almost as soon as the politicians got their hands on it. The original premise was quite simple - a customs union between an original founding few that could be expanded, as circumstances allowed, to include all the family of European nations and put an end, once and for all, to conflict. The basis was economic, the driving force was enlightened economic self-interest. Of course politicians know very little about economics and it wasn't long before the EU became a vessel for their dreams instead. Economic union wasn't enough, they wanted a political union that would increase the scope of their ambitions and provide them with a bigger stage to strut across. The Euro, originally an economic tool, soon became a plaything for politicians with membership no longer dependent on economic criteria but on political "considerations." Essentially they took what was envisaged as economic sunlit highlands and turned it into a political swamp. Whole nations are now being thrown to the wolves by their "friends" and "partners" and entire polulations are being brought to the edge of destitution out of political rather than economic imperatives. The extent of the rot was demonstrated quite clearly when the EU decided to enshrine the neoliberal economic thesis - the very thing that has brought to world to the brink of economic disaster - in its constitution. This was an act of economic insanity, but was necessary to save politicians from their own blushes. What was originally created for entirely laudable reasons has now descended into an unseemly wrangle over a bloated budget designed to keep European fatcat bureaucrats and politicians in the lap of an undeserved luxury. Cameron is on the correct side for once, the pity is that he is there for all the wrong reasons. He is strangely keen to tighten purse strings for European MEP's when you consider how unconcerned he is with the expenses free-for-all at home. His motive is purely political - pandering to an anti-EU right wing of the Tory party that wouldn't recognise a sensible economic policy if it saw one.