Hereward77

Oh, how terrible. Perhaps you should be using your energies attacking our real enemies.

Surely you know the strong similarities between communism and fascism. If you are such a "hardcore Eurosceptic", why haven't you read the excellent research done by Norris McWhirter, Rodney Atkinson and Christopher Story?

__________________
"The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in history."
David Rockefeller, New York Times, August 10, 1973

tito

Who are your enemies? UKIP?
My enemies are current political elite. My allies are UKIP. David Noakes is far from an ally to UKIP.

I don't believe I called myself hardcore once on this thread. As for Nazi creation, Churchill was a proponent of the EU (A union without Britain, however).

Hereward77

Yes, Churchill was a little too cozy with '"Uncle Joe" Stalin and rest for my liking. Yes, former Nazis were involved in creating the EU, it is a new Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. I suggest you read-up on the history of the German BND intelligence service (founded by Nazi General Reinhard Gehlen) and how it supported the fascist government of Croatia in the 1990s Yugoslav conflict.

__________________
"The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in history."
David Rockefeller, New York Times, August 10, 1973

tito

Even if I could be bothered to argue this absurd point, it would still be illogical. It would be comparable to me hating England for the crusades.

Hereward77

You can't be bothered to argue because you cannot argue with facts. Are you calling me a liar?

__________________
"The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in history."
David Rockefeller, New York Times, August 10, 1973

tito

No, I cannot be bothered to argue because I have seen the same argument many times and always leads to the same place; a bunch of people with their pride hurt go and start a newspaper.

I don't believe I called you a liar. Unless you think the hundreds of arguments proceeding on these boards as we speak are all just people calling each other liars.

Hereward77

I'm talking about the undemocratic origins of EU here. You have no argument.

__________________
"The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in history."
David Rockefeller, New York Times, August 10, 1973

tito

Yes, they were undemocratic. In the sense that the political powers were simply dreamed up by the power hungry European Community who were keen to use their false referendum as an excuse.

It was democratic when it was plainly the EEC (Although the intention was never to keep it this way), in the sense that we entered by referendum. However like I said above, this "EEC" became a political monstrosity without the authority of the people.

I fail to see where the Nazis came in, it seems they have as much to do with it as Napolean.

Hereward77

tito, stop covering for our enemies. Maybe we should rename you General Franco.

__________________
"The social experiment in China under Chairman Mao's leadership is one of the most important and successful in history."
David Rockefeller, New York Times, August 10, 1973

blank_frackis

You're correct in that all I was trying to do in this thread was argue against some of the figures. Some of the claims made on Mr Noakes' list are completely barmy and we all gain from having an informed discussion on the merits of the EU rather than spreading misinformation. As a rule, I find it impossible to sympathise with conspiracy theories about the EU's links to Nazis, Soviets, Freemasons, the Illuminati, Corporate elites or any of this other nonsense. It's not even clear to me what the consequence of this argument would be. The EU is what it is today, regardless of its origins and unless we're going to extend that theory into saying that every government of the 27 member states is composed of undercover Nazi moles then it has no impact on the situation today. Moreover, if we focus on the people who were actually involved in the origins of the integration project (Jean Monnet, Altiero Spinelli, Robert Schuman, etc) it's obvious that their opinions have no impact whatsoever on what has become the EU either. They were important in the creation of the ECSC, but the EU is not the perfect execution of one man's idea, it's the culmination of an incremental process which has taken half a century. Any other theory concerning its creation just isn't credible as far as I'm concerned.

As for me personally, I've argued in other threads for Britain maintaining its membership of the EU and the British government, together with other governments, working to reform its structure. This is why Hereward and Brittanist apparently have a fetish for following me around the forum writing a load of nonsense about "Europhile trolls" and whatever else - Hereward's even moved on to debating my taste in music for some reason. There are several reasons why I hold that opinion which I'll explain if anyone's interested, but needless to say we should be able to discuss our opinions in an adult way without trying to slander everyone we disagree with.

On the other hand there are many many valid arguments against the EU which I sympathise with. Firstly, the EU should be a primarily economic institution, I oppose expanding the economic framework into political issues. Secondly, I oppose the draft constitution for the reasons mentioned above. Third, I oppose both Britain's membership of the Euro and the Euro itself, I don't see how it's possible for a single currency, with a single interest rate, to operate across a diverse set of economies and benefit every constituent part. Fourth, the current budgetary setup, with the ridiculous amount of agricultural spending (though there are other less popular examples which are also important), is unacceptable. Fifth, there are serious democratic problems with the current EU framework, too much power is concentrated in the hands of national executives at the expense of national parliaments, electorates are alienated from the process, there is no transparency in Council of Ministers decisions... and so on. One of the main reasons why I object to arguments about Nazi conspiracies and whatever else, is that they overshadow the real problems with the EU that all campaigners (be they Eurosceptic, Europhile or "Euro-agnostic" should be addressing).

I have to guess that the reason some people are so enamoured with conspiracy theories is that you can reduce an incredibly complex issue down to some simplistic black/white story, with Nazi/Communist villains and easy to understand arguments.