Prosperity Mr President? The EU is the slowest-growing trading bloc in the world

President Obama says the UK needs to stay in the EU to promote ‘peace, prosperity and democracy’. Sadly, the EU does not promote any of these.

Peace in Europe is promoted by NATO. Look at the Balkans war. Though appalling genocide was going on under the noses of EU ‘peacekeepers’, the EU was unable to bring the conflict to an end. It was only when NATO – led in large part by the UK – stepped in that the carnage was stopped. 

And take Ukraine. It wanted closer links with the EU, but the EU’s ‘all or nothing’ policy made Putin fearful that this buffer state would turn into a Western enemy. The EU could do nothing to resist the occupation that followed.

Prosperity? The EU is the slowest-growing trading bloc in the world. Partly that is because of its sclerotic common currency, the euro – a political project that was pursued in the face of economic commonsense. 

Democracy? Power in the EU centres on the Commission, a group of appointed, not elected, politicians and officials. The public do not directly elect the national politicians who sit on the Council of Ministers – nor, for that matter, the panels of finance and foreign-policy ministers. And the vast majority of people in the UK have no idea at all who their Member of the European Parliament is. Not that the Parliament has any power to initiate legislation anyway. Our own legislation, and our Supreme Court, are overridden by EU institutions. 

For such a powerful nation, America is remarkably naive about foreign policy. The Administration seems to think that the EU is a kind of NAFTA, a loose free-trade agreement. In fact it is a political union – and one that no American would, on closer inspection, ever wish on itself or its friends.