Bernard Ingham: The four voices of gloom that will lead us to our doom over EU

As the EU referendum campaign continues its weary, dispiriting way towards June 23, I must alert you to four groups of people whose advice, whether to remain or leave, you should resolutely ignore. They are: economists, international statesmen, the British Labour movement and all commentators in the pay of Brussels.
U.S President Barack Obama speaks in front of the flags of Germany, the European Union and the U.S at the Hannover Messe Trade Fair in Hannover, Germany.U.S President Barack Obama speaks in front of the flags of Germany, the European Union and the U.S at the Hannover Messe Trade Fair in Hannover, Germany.
U.S President Barack Obama speaks in front of the flags of Germany, the European Union and the U.S at the Hannover Messe Trade Fair in Hannover, Germany.

Not one of this dangerous quartet has anything valuable to contribute to a nation that has long bemoaned the loss of its sovereignty to Brussels. For them democracy is expendable when it comes to their own convenience, leaning or advantage.

Let’s start with economists. It is difficult to imagine a worse case of failure as advisers. In my time as No 10 press secretary these soothsayers were worse than useless.

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The clever dicks wrecked Margaret Thatcher’s economic recovery when Nigel Lawson shadowed the D-mark behind the Prime Minister’s and Cabinet’s back. This brought a resurgence of inflation and soaring interest rates, which, in combination with the proposed poll tax, emboldened the Europhiles to get rid of her. These men are really dangerous.

Before she was shunted out she was forced against her better judgment by the prevailing economists’ fad to join the European exchange rate mechanism. We all know what happened to that. We had to ditch it at enormous cost on Black Wednesday, 1992.

The fact that the British economy blossomed almost immediately did not stop them from advocating our joining the single currency. The Queen was next to complain. Why, she asked, were we not warned about the 2007-08 crash? It is a good question as we continue to feel its effects. The economists have neither a good explanation nor a good excuse.

It is also reasonable to ask why economists as a profession, rather than as temporary Civil Servants in the Treasury, failed to alert us to Gordon Brown’s massive spending spree from the year 2000.

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This left us with a mountainous £156bn budget deficit when boom turned to the bust he thought he had abolished. That deficit still hangs round our necks, having merely been halved in five years.

Against that background, anybody who takes a blind bit of notice of economists these days needs to be placed in protective custody lest they do themselves serious harm.

As for international statesmen, we should remember before they open their mouths that, like President Barack Obama, they may know next to nothing about the detail of EU membership. This will not stop them recommending us for sake of tidiness to stick with an EU they would join over their dead bodies because of its democratic deficiencies.

It is a load of nonsense to suggest that Britain’s standing in the world depends on our membership of the EU. It is easier to argue it would be higher if we were free agents, always assuming we are not governed by crackpots such as Jeremy Corbyn.

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As for Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU Commission president may well now feel the EU interferes too much in its member-states. If so, it is a pity he did not do more to reform it when David Cameron was trying to re-negotiate our membership. But he knows it is more than his job’s worth to derail the whole Euro-caboodle on its way to a federal United States of Europe.

Like its leader, the British Labour movement has been as actively against EU membership as it is now formally for it. It used to see it as a capitalists’ club. Now it realises it will get far more feather-bedding social legislation out of politically-correct Brussels than a more conservative Westminster. Labour cares more for the unions than for our democratic sovereignty.

It goes without saying that we should take with a pinch of salt the advice of all those who have in one way or another worked for the EU and are now bound financially to support it through thick and thin.

Similarly, we should ignore the self-serving urgings of a host of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), especially in the environmental field, that are paid handsomely by the EU to urge it to do what it intends to do in any case.

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The trouble is that these vested interests seldom declare their obligations to the EU. We need a one clause Bill in the Commons now – the Lords is teeming with EU remittance men – to require them to declare themselves on pain of a fine equal to their annual income from Brussels. That would shut their treacherous mouths.

Don’t let economists, international statesmen, Corbynistas and the Brussels payroll vote ruin it.

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