Could the EU invade Britain? Lessons from history

I was very pleased to have received one of Roger Helmer’s electronic newsletters today crammed full of interesting stories and facts about the EU. This particular piece caught my eye and I will reproduce it here in its entirety as I feel this needs the widest distribution possible.

 

In recent months my historian colleague Rupert Matthews has been looking at the political and constitutional debates that took place in the USA in the build-up to the attempts by some states to secede from the Union – a move that sparked the American Civil War. He wondered how they look compared to the position of Britain and the EU today.

 

In 1861 several states voted democratically to leave the USA. The Union government said that those votes had been held illegally, and resorted to war to keep the states within the Union. Roll forward to 2009, and look at the current EU. Could the EU deploy military forces to try to stop Britain seceding? The answer lies in the Treaty of Lisbon (aka the EU Constitution).

 

First, the newly created High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy will also head the European Defence Agency (EDA) and have a right of initiative for proposing EU-led military operations. Second, Article 28b allows EU armed forces to be used to deal with any “crisis”. An event will be defined as a crisis by the Council and Commission. Article 28a allows the EU armed forces to be used to protect the strategic interests of the EU; again these are to be defined by the Council and Commission. Finally Article 188r allows armed forces to be deployed to any part of the EU without the agreement of the government of the member state in whose territory they are deployed.

 

These provisions are scattered widely through the Treaty (probably deliberately), but taken together they create an EU armed force that can be deployed anywhere in the EU for any purpose decided upon by the EU Commission and Council.  Never mind getting Ireland to vote again – the tanks might be on the streets. Are we being unduly alarmist? Well maybe. So perhaps somebody could tell us why the EU wants these powers?

 

 

Very interesting stuff I am sure you will agree. It is precisely for reasons like this that we need a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, just as Labour promised us they would.