The Republic of Éire didn’t quite make it to the centennial celebrations.The Irish Times mourned the passing: ‘Having obtained our political independence from Britain to be the masters of our own affairs, we have now surrendered our sovereignty to the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.’
Yesterday in his maiden speech in the House of Lords, the Lord Bannside, formerly DUP leader the Rev Dr Ian Paisley, called for the reunification of Ireland under the Crown. He cited a letter in the Irish Independent inviting ‘Her Majesty to come over and take the whole of Ireland under her control’.
Provocative, perhaps. But only an explicit offer of the sovereignty also suggested implicitly by Dan Hannan MEP when he advised Ireland to re-adopt the pound sterling as its national currency. “Immediately,” he prophesied, “Eire would be able to start exporting its way back to growth. And, because the UK and Ireland move in a synchronised, mid-Atlantic cycle, trade substantially with one another and have similar economic profiles, the problem of inappropriate monetary policy would disappear.”
He continues: ‘This might be a lesser evil than continued euro membership, of course, but it is an evil none the less.’
Yet even as the UK stands ready to assist quite generously from the empty basket of our own financial woes, the bail-out is being dubbed the ‘Oliver Cromwell Package’ which Mr Hannan notes ‘reflects the atavism of a certain kind of Irish Europhile: anything that Britain does to Ireland – even offering it money – is part of a wicked plot. But it also reflects a justified concern about the loss of national independence.’
But don’t worry. Gerry Adams is flying to the rescue. Sinn Féin deputy first minister Martin McGuinness explains: "The decision by Gerry to leave one of the safest seats in Ireland to seek election to the Dail in Louth and to play a central role in the battle for Ireland's economic recovery is leadership in action."
What kind of eternal purgatory is Ireland in that its only hope of salvation is an unrepentant murderer and terrorist?
The Celtic Tiger must be very sick indeed.
But it is the karmically inevitable contagion which follows Brian Cowan’s lies and deceit about the Lisbon Treaty.
If you recall, the wise and proud people of Ireland rejected the Treaty, and so they were ordered to vote again until they gave the right answer. It shows a marked lack of political discernment that the Irish Times didn’t realise at that point that Irish sovereignty had ceased to be.
For the UK, this bail-out is about assisting a long-time friend and trading partner whose history, culture and traditions are tied to our own: for the EU, this bail-out is about saving the euro, and so saving ‘Europe’.
Are Ireland’s politicians so incompetent and obtuse that they could not grasp that the abolition of the punt heralded the end of national sovereignty? Did they not understand that there can be no ‘pooling’ of the essential sovereignty by which the independence of the state is defined?
Why were they not honest about the euro and Lisbon being concerned with the depriving the Dáil of the right to make its own decisions on behalf of the Irish people? Why would the people who still talk of the potato famine as though it were yesterday and of Cromwell as though he were a demon from hell ever wish to surrender their right to the ‘self-determination’ which has been on the lips of Irishmen for centuries?
The control of money is at the core of politics, self-government and sovereignty itself. The monarch’s head upon a nation’s currency is a symbol of that sovereignty: the denarius that bore the head of Caesar belonged to Caesar; the sterling that bears the head of the Queen means that her authority in Parliament is absolute; the euro that bears the insignia of the European Union shall be rendered unto the European government because it belongs to the European government. The introduction of the euro was not only the crowning of economic integration, it was a profoundly political act, because a currency is not just another economic factor but also symbolises the power of the sovereign who guarantees it. Since this power is guaranteed by the European Central Bank, the ECB is Europe’s Caesar. Whatever other token national symbols the currency displays, they are as nothing compared to the supra-national power and authority of Caesar’s European Bank.
William Gladstone observed: ‘The finance of the country is ultimately associated with the liberties of the country. It is a powerful leverage by which the English liberty has been gradually acquired. If the House of Commons by any possibility loses the power of the control of the grants of public money, depend upon it, your very liberty will be worth very little in comparison. That powerful leverage has been what is commonly known as the power of the purse - the control of the House of Commons over public expenditure.’
Those who control the credit of a nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.
This is not a time for the UK to be selfish with its widow’s mite: it is incumbent upon the wealthier nations of Europe to provide aid to the poorer members. However, compulsory taxation at a European level is not the way forward; it is leaning towards Communism. Christianity talks of freely giving with a cheerful heart - ‘what’s mine is yours’. Communism, on the other hand, asserts common ownership - ‘what’s yours is mine’ - and has nothing to do with loving your neighbour or caring for the poor. Indeed, the Bible asserts that giving should not be under compulsion (2Cor 9:7).
Thus does ‘ever closer union’ transgress the laws of economic morality. Those EU countries which have transgressed that Maastricht criteria by which the credibility of the euro is sustained have a stark choice: large cuts in public expenditure or increased taxation. Neither is a recipe for growth and job creation. The Single Currency removed the ability of member states to reduce their interest rates below that set by the Central Bank. This will have the effect of deepening the present recession. Ireland, Greece (and doubtless Portugal, Spain and Italy) will become increasingly uncompetitive and face prolonged unemployment to force down wages. This is a moral issue, since such policies ‘trample on the heads of the poor...and deny justice to the oppressed’ (Amos 2:7).
Thank God we may still render sterling unto Her Majesty.
No Caesar here!
