Timely reminders

Ursula von der Leyen tweets "The situation at our border is not only #Greece’s issue to manage. It is the responsibility of Europe as a whole. And we will manage it in an orderly way, with unity, solidarity and determination". That's all good. I don't know if this will translate into any meaningful action but I think even the EU recognises the existential threat mass immigration poses. It has to put its money where its mouth is.

But then this is part of the beef with the EU. The migration crisis has mutated due to the war in Syria, but it's nothing at all new. This has been building for more than a decade. In this time we have seen a steady rise in anti-immigration sentiment and populism, where had the EU acted, it would not now be facing a crisis on several fronts. But it was never going to. The EU does not do responsive. 

We have seen this at our end of the EU where there were calls for action against fishing discards. It took almost a decade to secure even marginal reforms which are arguably no better than the original problem. You can always count on the EU to ignore the problems the people do want addressed while inventing new problems to advance its own expansionist agenda.

We see this today with the European Parliament playing host to climate puppet, Greta Thunberg, despite Brussels being in Coronavirus lockdown. This is what they think, in their isolated bubble, puts them in touch with the little people. So remote are they from the politics of real people, they mistake the voices of the corporate scale NGOs they finance in the eco lobby for the authentic voice of democracy. This as a pretext for a massive assault on national sovereignty and individual freedom.

Course, none of this is new, but it is helpful to have these reminders that, for all our government is making a supreme hash of the exit process, all the fundamental reasons for leaving this dysfunctional entity are still inescapably apparent. It's never going to reform. It's never going to be a democracy - and it's never going to listen. It only ever acts when it's far too late. What else could we do but leave?