skip to main |
skip to sidebar
by Marc Glendening
In Britain any media story about disquiet and resistance to a new transfer of powers to the EU inevitably focuses obsessively on the Tory Eurosceptics.
The BBC, of course, always attempts to explain away opposition to a prospective Brussels power grab as being almost exclusively a 'right-wing' phenomenon.
This is in part a consequence of journalistic laziness, in part a cyncial campaign to try and culturally marginalise those who question EU power.
For many years the Democracy Movement has drawn attention to the nasty McCarthyite flavour of the campaign many on the New Labour left, people such as Denis MacShane and Peter Hain, have run against their opponents on the European issue.
The propaganda fantasy offensive being waged the Euro-McCarthyites will soon be hard to maintain. The real story now emerging is how many on the left across Europe are mobilising against the latest move being driven by Merkel and Sarkozy to give Brussels control over the Greek and other Eurozone economies.
As Ian Traynor of The Guardian commented on January 26 in his front page story: "The treaty would enshrine the German model of fiscal and monetarist rigour as binding on the eurozone, in a move that would, in effect, outlaw Keynesian economics."
Late last year, writing in the New Statesman magazine, the influential left-wing commentator Owen Jones, author of the excellent Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class, wrote similarly: "Left-wing governments of all hues will, in effect, be banned by this treaty. If the French or the German left returns to power in the near future....it will be illegal for them to respond to the global economic catastrophe with anything but austerity. An economic stimulus is forbidden - because the treaty has burried Keynesianism."
It is not only in Britain that the left is waking up to the fact that the top-down EU one-size-fits-all power system means the death of democracy in the member countries.
Francois Hollande, the French socialist candidate for president who is the clear favourite in his race against Sarkozy, has promised to re-negotiate the treaty as it makes it impossible for him to deliver on his promises as things stand.
This is why democrats across Europe, regardless of their broader political differences, should hope that the Gallic left do indeeed triumph over the EU-fanatical centre-right.
If Hollande does indeed become president and does deliver on his promise to challenge the undemocratic nature of the treaty, it will be interesting to see if the BBC harp on about the French being 'marginalised' as a consequence and the whole ensuing row being the product of 'right-wing' Little Gallicism.
--------------------------------------------------------------
written by Marc Glendening
by Marc Glendening
Despite having been reported to the police by Parliamentary authorities over allegations that he has abused his expenses, Denis MacShane MP is not keeping a low profile politically.
Those of us who have observed, and been subjected to, him over the years would expect nothing less. He is, in so many ways, a figure of great amusement yet the low political tactics he employs are worth becoming familiar with in order to better counter them.
He was in characteristic mud-slinging form on Radio 4's Start The Week on May 9th, when up against People's Pledge Advisory Council member Ruth Lea.
Ruth had introduced the People's Pledge and explained the case for an EU referendum to Andrew Marr. Not content with simply arguing against our right to be consulted on EU membership, Denis proceeded at every opportunity to refer to referendums as 'plebiscites'.
This was a classic MacShaneism; a crude attempt to smear any opposing EU-related view with the stench of fascism, the far-right, and, somewhat ironically perhaps in this context, political authoritarianism.
Smear tactics
The word plebicite is now exclusively associated with the ways in which Napoleon, Mussolini and Hitler attempted to give their totalitarian regimes and projects the veneer of legitimacy by holding rigged tests of public opinion. Plebiscites were no more democratic than 'elections' in one party states or Zimbabwe and Iran.
In invoking this highly-charged historical concept MacShane was doing what he does best; playing the person, not the ball. It was the classic Blairite tactic of trying to distract those listening from the actual content of your opponent's arguments and associate them instead with deeply unattractive and sinister imagery.
In this way, MacShane was also engaging in the post-modernist tactic of deconstruction; taking a fundamental truth and deliberately subverting it. He wanted to turn the tables on Ruth Lea by substituting in the listener's mind her argument for greater democracy with the insinuation that those who advocate an EU referendum are really advancing an anti-democratic position.
Low grade
At the Fabian Society conference on Europe earlier this year when an opposing speaker made an entirely factual and non-jingoistic reference to Britain's traditionally liberal system of law, MacShane interupted his remarks by boisterously and grotesquely breaking into a loud rendition of Land of Hope and Glory, complete with exaggerated conducting gestures.
He assumed, being in playground bully mode, that the audience, who were largely with him on the EU issue, would burst into hysterical laughter and join in the mockery of the other speaker. Instead, he was greeted by an embarrassed and richly deserved silence.
He is a past master of this sort of disingenuous, but dangerous nonsense. For years he has accused EU-critics of being 'xenophobes', 'little Englanders' and of the 'far-right'. When he has been challenged to name names - to have the courage to apply these cowardly labels to the likes of Tony Benn, Bob Crowe, Kate Hoey, John Cryer, Kelvin Hopkins, Gisela Stuart and the legion of other left EU-sceptics - he fails to do so and hides away.
Again, tres post-modern and Third Way to simply refuse to acknowledge and confront inconvenient contradictions head on; to put up or shut up.
Real debate
There are honourable believers in the goal of a politically united Europe. People such as Mark Littlewood, John Stevens, Dr Stephen Haseler and Richard Laming. They start from first principles and try to convince others on the basis of intellectual content.
Dirty Den, however, prefers instead to go down a road similar to that travelled in the 1950s by the communist-baiting and smearing notorious Senator McCarthy in relation to anybody who was on the centre-left. For MacShane, substitute 'reds under the bed' with 'xenophobes in the closet' or wherever he thinks EU-critics reside.
Denis, when will you have the courage to debate the EU and to take on the idea of an EU referendum without recourse to evoking the memory of fascism?
----------------------------------------------------------------
written by Marc Glendening
DM campaign director Marc Glendening has branded the MP and interminable EU-obsessive Denis MacShane (left) a 'Euro-McCarthyite', following an article the former Europe minister wrote for the Guardian about the recent protests at the Lindsey oil refinery.
Marc's broadside against MacShane was published on the popular Conservative-centred blog ConservativeHome - here below is the unedited version.
---------------------------------------------------------
DENIS MACSHANE AND THE 'EURO-McCARTHYITES'
The former Europe minister and arch New Labourite buffoon Denis MacShane has been up to his old 'EU-McCarthyite' tricks again.
In a recent Guardian On-Line article he attempted to obscure the key issue underlying the strike at the Lindsey oil refinery plant with a typical New Labour smokescreen.
Instead of tackling the key democractic question of who ultimately should determine employment policy in Britain, and on what terms foreign nationals should be allowed to work here, the MP for Rotherham hurled abuse at anybody who has had the audacity to take a position contrary to his own.
Instead of there being 'reds under the bed' he wants the British people to start out with the assumption that all EU-sceptics - whether they support the international free movement of labour or not - are really 'xenophobes in the closet' (or wherever he thinks we like to conceal ourselves).
So, William Hague has, according to MacShane, engaged in 'vulgar anti-European xenohobia'. No evidence is given of the usually mild-mannered shadow foreign secretary having done so. In fact, on the specific question of whether IREM should be allowed to bring in Italian posted workers, Hague holds exactly the same view as MacShane.
Cowardly mud-slinging
Labour MPs who supported the strikers and/or questioned the EU Posted Workers Directive were said to have engaged in 'nationalist-protectionist rhetoric'. Again, and in a rather cowardly fashion, MacShane did not name names. Was he possibly thinking of John Cruddas who has made, in highly temperate terms, criticisms of the way the Single Market is working regarding his party's tradional support base? If not him, who exactly, Mr MacShane?
Then the author, of course, had to have a go at the Daily Mail. I have debated MacShane and he never fails to spend at least a third of any speech ranting about the supposed evils of this paper. It's not my favourite reading matter of a morning either, but his obsession with it is rather bewildering.
According to him on this occasion, the paper has run a campaign of 'hate against non-Brits' (my emphasis). A very serious allegation. But again, not backed-up with any examples. It would be interesting to see what would happen if he does get unexpectedly brave and specify a journalist he believes has engaged in 'hate speech'.
Challenged to name names
I have written to him asking him to produce concrete examples to support these claims. I am not expecting a response. My real motivation in doing so is to help draw attention to the the pathological and poisonous campaign that many pro-EU advocates - particularly those in New Labour - have been running for several years now. Expect it to intensify the closer we get to the European elections. I want the waging of this type of dirty politics to itself become an issue.
MacShane has form here. Back in August 2004, when Europe minister, he claimed in an interview with the Daily Telegraph that EU-sceptics were 'motivated by a [yes, you guessed it] xenophobic hatred against the Germans or the French'.
I'm half-French, so does this mean, according to his logic, that I must detest, or possibly fear, at least 50% of myself as a necessary corollary of being opposed to the single currency and the CAP? Did MacShane have in mind those notorious Germano/Francophobes Frank Field and Michael Portillo when he said what he did?
More serious characters than MacShane have also recently been joining in the act: cue Peter Mandelson and Keith Vaz. Just as Senator McCarthy's campaign smeared a whole host of people who were mildly (and democratically) left-wing so as to prevent them being listened to by putting them beyond the pail of 1950s American polite society, so the EU-McCarthyites want all centre ground voters and mainstream media people to dismiss serious arguments put forward by those dare to question the post-democratic system of government emerging in Brussels.
Sinister intolerance
The new post-modern left, unlike its rationalist, socialist predecessors, uses culture war to intimidate opponents from advancing inconvenient positions and to prevent a proper debate based upon empirical reality from taking place.
EU-McCarthyism is an indication of the sinister intolerance with which many in New Labour and within the broader pro-EU movement now treat any manifestation of serious opposition.
Centralising ever more power in Brussels is one issue, like immigration, where the masses are simply not entitled to oppose the New Political Class. That's why the MacShanes were so adamant that nobody should be allowed to have a vote on the EU Constitution/Lisbon treaty.
When the French had the temerity to say 'no' they were castigated by the likes of Neil Kinnock who, without apparent irony, called the result 'a triumph of ignorance'. The fragrant Chris Bryant said it was OK for people to vote for the X Factor, but not about serious constitutional issues. Have you heard a single member of the New Political Class criticise the decision to disregard the result of the Irish referendum and re-run the contest because the result was not to the liking of the EU and Dublin establishments?
Democracy feared
An indication of the distrust with which the new left now views the traditional supporters of the Labour party, and the British people in general, was indicated by Denis MacShane in the Telegraph interview referred to above. In it he said that the British 'have got a dark streak of xenophobia and racism in our [he, of course, meant their] mentality'.
It would have been interesting to see the reaction in the Guardian had he attributed a mass state of mind and similar negative characteristics to another national or ethnic population group. This extraordinary quote is testimony to the political and cultural disconnect that now exists between the new left elite and the mass of ordinary Labour voters.
No doubt in the run-up to the European elections we will hear a lot of pious sounding cant from the Labour party about the danger of the BNP winning seats. They should take a good look at themselves in relation to this prospect, but no doubt William Hague and the Daily Mail will still be accused of having 'sewn the seeds' of populist fascism.
MacShane's insulting statement about the mentality of the British people also demonstrates why the bourgeois new left, like some nineteenth century Tories before them, fundamentally now fear the concept of democracy and will do everything to try to limit its exercise (without having the honesty to openly admit this, naturally).
Castigating EU-sceptics who are exposing to the British people the parallel system of government we now live under as 'xenophobes' is one of the ways the EU-McCarthyists do this. It's pay-back time.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
~ Article by Marc Glendening
In Britain any media story about disquiet and resistance to a new transfer of powers to the EU inevitably focuses obsessively on the Tory Eurosceptics.
