Well done Donald Tusk for showing why Britain is right to leave the EU
Today, in the latest episode of Explosive Brexit Rows That Last Until Teatime, the much-watched programme in its 27th series produced by the European Union and the British government, a lot of people are rather annoyed or super excited, in modern parlance, by a tweet issued by Donald Tusk.
The EU Council President tweeted: “I’ve been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those who promoted #Brexit, without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely.”
If you are feeling uncharitable you might say that the “special place in hell” is right down the corridor from the place in hell housing those who invented the European single currency, and right next door to the room for those who pressed ahead with EU integration after Maastricht rather than letting the thing evolve into something much looser. Or directly opposite the special place for those who mishandled the migration crisis.
But that would be uncharitable and wrong, so I will not say it. These are our friends and neighbours, and allies in Nato, and we should not wish anyone to hell over a mere disagreement about politics and trade deals. Post-Brexit the British, or the Brexiteers, need to start learning how to turn the other cheek, smile politely and rebuild friendships rather than attacking.
There is, of course, a special category of British ultra-Remainer who supports Tusk against the British government. It is sad to see otherwise intelligent people get themselves into this sorry state via the onset of advanced europhilia. The hashtag “imwithtusk” has even appeared on this side of the Channel this afternoon. Such displays demonstrate once again that the Brexiteers, for all their many mistakes, have been extremely lucky in their opponents. Backing eurocrats like Tusk when they are being rude and unhelpful is not a route to domestic popularity for the lost europhile case in Britain.
Of course, the “special place in hell” remark was drawn from a speech Tusk made alongside Ireland’s leader Leo Varadkar. You’ll be in terrible trouble with the British press, Varadkar whispered to Tusk at the end of their press conference. The pair giggled. The names of towering figures such as Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle came briefly to mind by way of contrast. Mind you, the UK has hardly been Churchillian in its handling of Brexit.
Incidentally, I should mention in case you missed it that Varadkar turned up for his meeting with Jean Claude Juncker today bearing a large card saying “Thank you from Ireland.” They posed for pictures looking at the signatures and messages. One can only guess at the contests of the card: “All the best!”, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”, and “Make mine a double, Jean Claude!”
That big card is the kind of cringe-inducing EU gesture that reminds me why – for as long as I can remember – the EU has been a toe-curlingly naff organisation. In one sense this is a puzzle. The EU’s many countries – including in particular France, Italy, Spain, Greece – are not remotely naff, so why does the EU come across in its propaganda aimed at the populace like the less serious cousin of the Eurovision song contest?
It is rooted, I suspect, in the enterprise being multi-national and only a recent invention fumbling to form an identity. European civilisation is ancient and noble, but riven with contradictions, complexity and conflicts, so the EU must avoid any mention of difficulty, stay vague and focus on the flag with the stars and other embarrassing exhortations.
It has been that way from the start. In the 1980s I recall them sending a double decker bus stuffed with leaflets and a large map to our school to promote what was then the EEC. This was a “totally crazy euro fun, get yourself two pen pals, one in Lille called Henri and one in Bonn called Herman, and they are like totally crazy” festival on wheels of euro naffness.
Anyway, Tusk himself is always up for some “crazy euro fun” on social media, especially when it involves winding-up British leaders, MPs, commentators, or most important of all British voters.
Alongside his kick at the Brexiteers, Tusk pulled the plug on the life support machine of the doomed People’s Vote campaign. It’s over, he said, when the leaders of the UK’s two main parties don’t want a referendum rerun and MPs in favour of it cannot even get enough backing together to lodge an amendment.
It’s the rude remark about “a place in hell” that will get most attention, though.
Tusk is no lightweight. He is a proper wee toughie with much more at his disposal than a tart line in tweets. He was a member of the student arm of Solidarity, in the run-up to the fall of Communism. To him the EU embodies more than trade. It is security and freedom, progress from the tyranny of Poland’s recent past.
No wonder he finds the British annoying. For the British the EEC and then the EU was always mainly about the trade and holidays. A generation of europhiles, young in the 1970s, high on brie, bread and Macon Villages, disagreed of course, but for the bulk of the electorate here the arrangement was always a pragmatic compromise rather than a grand mission of historic import.
Tusk has been needlessly rude – as have plenty of the Brexiteers in response – but ultimately he deserves thanks from those of us, me included, who want to leave the EU. He has advertised the fundamental incompatibility of Britain with their flawed project. A majority of the British never wanted what the EU has become. His incredulity and anger is a product of genuine incomprehension about why a country would choose – like Japan, or Canada, or Chile, or New Zealand, or soon hopefully Britain – to be truly self-governing and make its own laws.
As the Tory MP Nick Boles tweeted in response to Tusk: “Donald Tusk has just encapsulated perfectly why I do not believe the UK can remain a member of the EU. We must leave, with a deal, PDQ.”
Iain Martin,
Editor and publisher,
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