Andrew Hawkins, CEO of polling outfit ComRes is predicting a “no” vote in the Irish referendum on October 2nd: “Looking at likely Irish referendum result – difficult to call but on balance am expecting a ‘no’.” Let us hope he’s right. Polls are still showing strong support for the constitutional treaty, however.

The Irish are in a truly terrible state economically right now and may be looking back with nostalgia to the days when they received £6billion a year in subsidies from the EU, largely paid for by Germany. Those days are over and will not return.

They should consider instead that the mess they are now in was mainly caused by their entrapment in the euro currency system, which robs them of national sovereignty over their economy.

The most outrageous aspect of all this is that the Irish are once again voting for us too. Britain was denied its own promised referendum when Gordon Brown ratted on his manifesto pledge after doing a deal with Tony Blair over the presidency of the EU. This will go down as one of the great betrayals in British history, rivalling Lord Haw-Haw (William Joyce) during the war. He was hanged for it.

The German playwright Bertolt Brecht once wrote a poem in support of a peasant’s revolt. When he presented it to the leaders of the uprising, they told him, “Our people won’t like this. Can’t you change it?”

“There’s nothing wrong with the poem,” retorted Brecht, “Change your people.”

That’s what Ireland was asked to do after its initial “no” vote was rejected by Brussels. If French and Dutch votes against the original Euro constitution were so easily ignored, what chance have the Irish of overturning the bandwagon?

Actually, they only have to vote “no” again and demonstrate their contempt for Brussels for not listening to them in the first place. Whatever happens you can be sure though that the momentum towards European hegemony will continue.

Despite the spate of negative results in referendums on aspects of the European Union, the EU Commission and its heavyweight political supporters have not given up on their main aim: to convert the EU into a single country.

The proposed constitution — now called the Lisbon Treaty — would turn a grouping of nation states into a legal entity in its own right with the power to sign international treaties on behalf of member states and the right to overturn any nation’s laws. It includes an embryo army poised to requisition the forces of any EU country worth having, a currency, a flag, a “national” anthem, a passport system and the beginnings of a diplomatic corps with its own embassies around the world. It will also have a President of the “Council”, and a foreign ministry.

All it needs is a name.

The European Union is largely operated for, and on behalf of, Germany and France, the two original founders. What they want, they tend to get. In the treaty after next, assuming they find a way to browbeat Ireland into accepting most of the Lisbon Treaty, the question of the name of the new country of Europe is sure to figure. What might it be?

It would have to satisfy the egos of the Germans and the French and be mildly acceptable to the rest. One obvious name stands out: Frankia.

France was originally named after the Germanic tribe, the Franks, which gave us Charlemagne and other worthies of the “Holy Roman Empire”. It’s a name that would flatter both Paris and Berlin, and emphasize their status as joint controllers of the new European empire. The former French currency, naturally, was the franc.

The British would hate it, of course, and, assuming Labour governments are a thing of the past by then, would probably withdraw.

Frankia, in any shape or size, has never been in Britain’s national interest. Why do we, the most Eurosceptic nation in Europe, put up with this authoritarianism?

For the same reason we sleepwalked into two world wars in the last century. We preferred not to think about it until it became inevitable. Sometimes apathy can kill.

The Irish can do us a favour again by chucking the whole shenanigans in the bin. That simple act would give David Cameron the opportunity to call a vote in Britain after the General Election.

What happens then? A central core of countries will almost certainly decide to go it alone, sidelining Britain and Ireland, and possibly a few others as well.

Something like EFTA would re-emerge and we would go our own way, relatively free of continental interference.

We really do need that Irish “no” vote. So do the Irish.

John Evans

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