In an extraordinary and direct intervention in the UK General Election, yesterday evening at 9.30pm the President of the EU Council once again interfered in the democratic processes of the United Kingdom. This time the EU has overstepped the mark in dramatic fashion.<\/p>\n
President Donald Tusk gave this speech to \u2018the College of Europe\u2019 [EU \u2013 Ed.] in the Belgian city of Bruges. It is the top item on the EU Council\u2019s website this morning.<\/p>\n
Key parts of the Tusk speech relating to the UK general election<\/p>\n
\n\u201cFinally, if you allow me, I want to tell you something I wouldn\u2019t have dared to say a few months ago, as I could be fired for being too frank. And today, it is simply too late to impeach Donald, at least the European one. In fact, I envy John Bercow, that he can finally, honestly say what he thinks about Brexit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will also touch upon this subject. I have heard repeatedly from Brexiteers that they wanted to leave the European Union to make the United Kingdom global again, believing that only alone, it can truly be great. You could hear in these voices a longing for the Empire. But the reality is exactly the opposite. Only as part of a united Europe can the UK play a global role, only together can we confront, without any complexes, the greatest powers of this world. In fact, I can say the same about Germany or France. <\/p>\n
And the world knows it. I have heard the same in India, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South Africa; that after its departure, the UK will become an outsider, a second-rate player, while the main battlefield will be occupied by China, the United States and the European Union. “Why are they doing this?” \u2013 I was asked this regretful question everywhere I went. One of my English friends is probably right when he says with melancholy that Brexit is the real end of the British Empire.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe UK election takes place in one month. Can things still be turned around? Hannah Arendt taught that things become irreversible only when people start to think so. So the only words that come to my mind today are simply: Don\u2019t give up. In this match, we had added time, we are already in extra time, perhaps it will even go to penalties?\u201d<\/p>\n
Donald Tusk, EU Council President, Bruges, 13 Nov 2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
\nObservations<\/h3>\n
Mr Tusk\u2019s was not an inconsequential speech made in some backwater of the EU\u2019s empire. Nor was it made at \u2018any old time\u2019.<\/p>\n
The EU Council President gave this speech last night at an iconic venue (see below), at a time when the UK is in the full throes of a general election campaign in which Brexit is the dominant topic. Mr Tusk knows full well that Britons are engaged in the democratic process of electing a new government.<\/p>\n
The United Kingdom continues to be a full member of the EU. Mr Tusk would not dare to interfere in a general election in Germany, or France. He should not have done so in the UK\u2019s election.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t vote Conservative or Brexit Party\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Tusk did not directly call on the British people not to vote for the Conservative or Brexit Parties, but no rational person could read his words any other way.<\/p>\n
He cannot claim to be oblivious to the consequences of what he did. In fact he even said \u201cThe UK election takes place in one month. Can things still be turned around?\u201d<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n
He went on to state that \u201cthings become irreversible only when people start to think so. So the only words that come to my mind today are simply: Don\u2019t give up.\u201d<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n
Never mind Russian election interference, this comes from the EU\u2019s top representative<\/p>\n
Forget all the talk of Russian interference in the West\u2019s elections, this was EU interference writ large. It represents outrageous meddling in the United Kingdom\u2019s democratic processes, from the President of the EU\u2019s top decision-making body.<\/p>\n
For the public, who can quite naturally be confused by the nature of all the many unelected \u2018Presidents\u2019 in the EU, we should explain Mr Tusk\u2019s position. As President of the \u2018European\u2019 (EU) Council, President Tusk represents the leaders of all 28 EU countries. The EU Council is at the pinnacle of the EU\u2019s sclerotic and confusing bureaucratic structures.<\/p>\n
In essence, Mr Tusk was speaking for all EU28 leaders.<\/p>\n
Margaret Thatcher, Bruges, and the intellectual minnow that is Mr Tusk<\/p>\n
Donald Tusk gave the speech at the College of Europe in Bruges. This is the same location in which Lady Thatcher gave her famous \u201cBruges speech\u201d on 20 September 1988, in which she warned :-<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe Community [European Community, precursor to the EU] is not an end in itself. Nor is it an institutional device to be constantly modified according to the dictates of some abstract intellectual concept. Nor must it be ossified by endless regulation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first guiding principle is this: willing and active cooperation between independent sovereign states is the best way to build a successful European Community.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo try to suppress nationhood and concentrate power at the centre of a European conglomerate would be highly damaging and would jeopardise the objectives we seek to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026working more closely together does not require power to be centralised in Brussels or decisions to be taken by an appointed bureaucracy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndeed, it is ironic that just when those countries such as the Soviet Union, which have tried to run everything from the centre, are learning that success depends on dispersing power and decisions away from the centre, there are some in the Community who seem to want to move in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n