Mr. Oxton has swallowed a threadbare EU myth – ‘maintained the peace in Europe for almost 70 years’ (issue 267). The ‘European project’, or conspiracy, began in the 1950s as the European Coal and Steel Community, embracing Germany, France, Italy and ‘Benelux’. Together they produced less coal and steel than the UK.
What kept the peace was collective exhaustion and bankruptcy from WWII, fear of the Soviet Empire and membership of the American shield which was NATO. Only after the Soviet collapse did the EU we know begin to emerge. Meanwhile, a small-scale experiment in European federalism, the former Yugoslavia, bloodily dissolved.
That event exposes the fallacy of this EU myth: no-one abolishes civil war. Currently, there is a North-South cold civil war in the eurozone, as it inevitably evolves into a new German empire. Like previous empires, Germans are already finding it is very expensive. I am sure there will be no new hot European war, but financial and economic ruin is very likely. We should step away.
Michael Knight
