Blair's trajectory to Europe

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The full text of Tony Blair's speech to the European Research Institute

Friday November 23, 2001 is at:-

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/euro/story/0,9061,604413,00.html



This shows expert news managment. While hardly mentioning the euro, Blair
attacks the political or constitutional reasons for staying out of Europe,
especially those of the weak Conservative opposition. He is thereby able to
conduct background propaganda without explicitly stating much about the
euro itself, which is being reduced to a technical discussion about
economic convergence.

Meanwhile the government is interested in the fact that there will be 40
million trips next year by people from Britain to countries using the euor.

Blair is clearly also convinced of the model he is promoting.


> The institute is a tribute to lateral thinking. It reaches out across
> different disciplines and beyond the academic study of European Union
> institutions.
>
> That kind of thinking is vital for Britain and for Europe in the twenty
> first century. The instability of the world today makes a successful
> Europe more necessary than ever. The aftermath of 11 September
> demonstrates the power and importance of nations working together not in
> isolation.

While Blair is fully signed up to the economic role of capital, this theme
of cooperation, is broadly progressive in global politics.


> We vacated a decisive role in shaping the single currency, its timing, the
> Maastricht convergence criteria and the European Central Bank.



> The greatest disservice any British leader could do to the British people
> today is to seek to perpetuate those illusions. There are those who would
> do so. But who can credit the international vision of those who offer the
> alternative of what they still call, bizarrely, the "new" Commonwealth?
> Who on earth can really believe fantasies about Britain becoming a
> "nuclear Switzerland" or the "Hong Kong of the Channel"?
>
> If this dismal history teaches us one clear lesson, it is this: the EU has
> succeeded and will succeed.



> We cannot allow 21st century criminals the benefit of 19th century
> national police and justice systems.



> And Europe is in Britain's international security interest. The events of
> 11 September showed the vulnerability of our democratic way of life. No
> single country, even one as powerful as the United States, can defend
> those democratic values alone.



> It is time for us to "adjust to the facts". Britain's future is in Europe.


So as Japan teeters inescapably into China's orbit in a 1.8 billion east
Asian free trade area, so Blair is spending his political capital on taking
Britain into Euroland.

These concentrations of economic and state power are progressive steps
towards a united states of the world.

It will help to demystify what are the politics and the economics of that
world state.

And just in case some believe from a narrow interpretation of marxism that
the only road to revolution lies through the nation state, that stickler
for Marxism, Lenin, wrote in 1914 "From their daily experience the masses
know perfectly well the value of geographical ties and the advantage of a
big market and a big state."

Blair is calculating that he has the tactical skills and the authority to
win the electorate over to accepting the economic unification of Britain
with Euroland.

Within a decade we could see three great centres of capitalist
concentration: Europe, the USA, and China.

Blair is vain enough to think he has a part to play in these world
historical events. Probably he does.

Chris Burford

London