Poor old Cameron. He has been off this week in Europe for his first real challenge as Prime Minister, standing up for Britain in Europe. He talked a very tough game before he went, claiming that he would seek a budget freeze rather than the absurdly high 6% increase that had been mooted. He thinks he has agreement on a 2.9% rise (although mutterings this weekend suggest it might be a bit premature to say it is agreed) and Downing Street proudly announced this as an important victory, amongst other agreements which Cameron claims he has made. Cameron is right that 2.9% is not a bad result, given the 6% where negotiations started. I am sure it was a hard earned victory to get the tentative agreement on that. But this only goes to underline how inferior we have become next to Europe.
As we know, our own country will face unprecedented cuts in public expenditure over the next few years, and while we face the often unwelcome decisions this will result in, we are told that the European Union is raising its budget by 2.9% and we have to pay for it.
How, then, in this context can 2.9% be announced as a victory?
The fact that it has been touted as such merely emphasises the real relationship we have with Europe. In many respects, we are a mere state in a federal union. The federal government has just told us that their budget needs to increase. We have tried to explain that we are trying to deal with the biggest public deficit since the Second World War, but their decision is final. We simply do not have a say.
Of course, not having a say is something the British public have become used to, particularly on the subject of Europe. Indeed, since the last and only referendum on Europe took place in 1975, you would have to be 53 or older to be a person who actually has had a say on Europe. The European project has changed irrevocably since then, with a great deal of British sovereignty signed away to Brussels.
It remains an unjustifiable disgrace that the country has never been consulted.
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