Undemocratic EU blind to its own failings as Brexit blame game continues: Bernard Ingham

Let us first examine its position in the world. Would a rational institution, faced with a destabilising land-grabber like Vladimir Putin to the east and President Donald Trump upsetting the apple cart in his own blundering way out west, fiddle about trying to save the founding Treaty of Rome from the ashes?

It simply will not do blaming the UK for destabilising the EU with Brexit. The people of Britain took a majority stand three years ago against the EU’s undemocratic ambitions and all Brussels has done since is jeer, sneer and be awkward.

A responsible and self-confident institution would recognise its limitations and failures and try to remedy them in the interest of its own and international security. Instead, it compounds the problem – or at least Emmanuel Macron, the French president does – by campaigning for a European army.

This pretentiousness – when Europe collectively fails to pay its whack to Nato – is beyond parody.

Then there is the Irish “backstop” red herring. This was invented by Brussels as a spoiler and, as such, has so far frustrated Brexit.

Now Parliament is abuzz with a claim that the EU is in breach of the Vienna Accord on the Law of Treaties banning a state from forcing another to sign a treaty in breach of its constitution.

We may now discover Boris Johnson has international law on his side in telling Brussels this confounded interference in our borders is dead. That will cause a terrible kerfuffle in Dublin which is already fearful of a no-deal Brexit.

We cannot, however, count on an upheaval in the Republic moving the federalists of Brussels.

Their entire record suggests that they expect member-states to obey their commands even to the point of voting again to get the right answer.

They also know that the UK – and Westminster – is reeking with fifth columnists called Remainers in various guises – Tory, Labour, Liberal Democrat, assorted nationalists, Greens etc.

And now Boris has a bare majority of only one and is uncertainly propped up by the Democratic Ulster Unionists.

And so these Continental anti-democrats sit on their hands – telling us the clock is ticking away – hoping that our home-bred anti-democrats will prevail.

To some this may seem crafty. Instead, it is merely another example of their irresponsible immaturity in a dangerous world.

The objective of any sensitive member of the human race today should be to heal not exacerbate international sores.

That is what Boris seeks to do, one way or the other, by Halloween.

He does not want a breakdown with the EU.

Instead, his entire objective is a practical settlement that secures the interests of the 500m people in Britain and west of the Russian border.

Theresa May got no credit – and much abuse – for her attempt to play a difficult hand over Brexit.

Yet, taking everything into account, she did at least try to do her duty in the face of intransigence on both sides of the Channel.

If anything, Boris’s position as Prime Minister is worse. Can his positive energy, ebullience and sense of humour prevail against the odds?

The problem is that the EU is blind to its federal failings. It has expensively pursued ever closer union for nigh on 40 years without a political mandate. It is not just that its single currency has devastated southern Europe. Nor that a chronic wetness allied to freedom of movement has created a serious immigration problem that threatens Europe’s liberal culture.

Not even the rise of extremist political movements across Western Europe – and most dangerously in Germany – apparently gives Brussels pause for thought.

Instead of aiming for a Europe of nation states freely co-operating together, it is bent on welding them by stealth into a dictatorial United States of Europe that will suppress what is left of national identity and culture after the African and Middle Eastern exodus.

Its unabashed appointment of federalists to the top Commission jobs underlines its blindness to the reality of the world in which we live.

The UK is pointing the way forward, especially as we intend to remain engaged in Europe post-Brexit.

Hence the big question today is not whether Brexit will succeed but whether European politicians and bureaucrats have an ounce of common sense left in them.

Do they realise what their intransigence towards Britain looks like to the wider world?