LITTLE MINDS AND THE MAN ON A MOTORCYCLE



European civil wars tore not only Europe apart twice in the twentieth century, but dragged the rest of the world into the fight. At the core of the European struggle lay the conflict between Germany and France. This led in 1950 to a rare act of inspirational idealism, the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community uniting European countries economically and politically in order to secure lasting peace. The six founders were Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. This was the embryo EU that grew into we have today.

It was not of course an act of pure idealism, commercial interests were interwoven into the EU from the very start, and it was commercial factors that influenced the British Yes vote in 1975. (Though Edward Heath, who negotiated our entry into what was then the common market, was essentially an idealist when it came to Europe). At the heart of the project was always ‘ever closer union.’ Whilst the essential driving force was social democracy,- notwithstanding the engagement of Christian Democratic, and right of centre parties, who had signed up, often reluctantly, to the social democratic consensus. Put another way, post war social democracy was the glue that held the European project together. Thatcherism sounded the death knell for this consensus and the spread of the ideology of neoliberalism has seen the social democratic idealism of the post war world consigned to the trash can. As George Monbiot points out ‘Neoliberalism is inherently incompatible with democracy, as people will always rebel against the austerity and fiscal tyranny it prescribes.’

By adopting the voodoo economics of neoliberalism the EU has signed its own death warrant. In place of the visionary leaders of the late forties we have little men and women who think like bankers and accountants, and dream only of balance sheets. They are wholly removed from the suffering created by the decisions they make. The result is a growing populist right and a populace disaffected with a project that looks increasingly at odds with their lives.

The European project conceived by people who, with all their faults, possessed vision and imagination, is being destroyed by ‘realists.’  A man on a motorcycle momentarily throwing into sharp relief the calibre of those sacrificing solidarity, social cohesion and idealism to appease a neoliberal God. 

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