Dutch EU Commissioner Timmermans: For me, the British still belong inside Europe
On the day Nigel Farage abandoned the UKIP ships captaincy, with the UK ship still not negotiating the EU harbour exit to go and “rule the waves” (so all Kippers hope), Dutch top politicians, and official spokesmen from both Dutch liberal parties (The LibDems-like Social Liberals of D66, and the Free Market & automobile-loving Liberals of the VVD) made pronouncements which in effect support what the British Liberal Democrats have said all along since the Brexit Referendum result became clear.
First VVD party leader and coalition prime minister Mark Rutte, who since 2009 had developed a close working “Green Right” relationship with David Cameron, both as opposition leaders and, from 2010, as prime ministers, lambasted the ship-jumping behavior of both Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage (and, implicitly, the cavalier way Mr. Gove got rid of the Brexit leader he supported, Johnson). Speaking on the Dutch equivalent of Newsnight, he described the goings on in the Leave side of the Tory party and Farage’s step as “scandalous”. Having instigated a Referendum which was always going to have serious economic repercussions, and which would polarize society (big referenda always do), Johnson/Gove and Farage, having won, first started backtracking on leading theses of the Leave campaign, and Johnson and Gove for days did not give (did not have) a clue what should happen next. Then Mr. Gove got rid of Mr. Johnson, and then Mr. Farage abandoned the leadership of the only nationwide pro-Leave party which appeared to have remained intact after the Referendum.
Dutch prime minister Rutte described this as “playing games with the UK while it is collapsing politically (two main parties in a shambles), economically (rating agencies nixing the UK’s standing) and socially (millions of youths seeing their future, opportunities taken away; working class voters versus the “toffs” of Westminster and Brussels). That is the height of irresponsibility as a politician and/or minister, political leader”. “This isn’t a children’s game you just can walk away from”, he remarked with blazing eyes.
In a video mini-interview on a pro-Brexit/ Pro-Nexit website meanwhile, D66 MP (EU spokesman, and campaign leader in all national campaigns of 2009-’15) Kees Verhoeven called both Mr. Johnson and Mr. Farage “Political pyromaniacs, arsonists”; who went into a self-initiated Referendum campaign with patently false promises and analyses; who clearly had no plan whatsoever about how to proceed now they have won, and what negotiating aims to set. So now that the going gets tough and the Brexit hit the fan, they just walk away to cover their ass, leaving the British people to fend for themselves. They turned out to be (not saviours but) cowards, Mr. Verhoeven said.
Thus both Mr. Rutte (VVD and prime minister) and Mr. Verhoeven MP (D66) said exactly the same as LibDem leader Tim Farron said on the Dutch Newsnight (and evening news) today about the defection of Farage, and the way Johnson/Gove and now Farage had handled the Referendum.
And speaking on the Dutch Newsnight, Dutch vice president Frans Timmermans of the European Commission said that he supposed the British course was firmly set for Brexit; but that when they would get second thoughts about that, he thought the British should be welcomed back with open arms. “To me, Great Britain still belongs in Europe”, he said.
Mr. Rutte, speaking from six years EU summit experience and the recent Dutch (rotating) EU presidency, said the Dutch and British shared many corrective and reforming aims about the EU; Mr. Timmermans personifies the cutting back on unnecessary EU meddling and red tape, and the Juncker Commission had made big strides on that; he clearly is very sorry to see that British support go.
Mr. Rutte emphasized the precarious EU security situation (Putin, Erdogan/Assad, ISIS), the EU still facing an ongoing massive migrants crisis (first Syrians, now Africans), and the Brexit hit to recovering EU economies (including the UK). Playing games in such a situation was totally the wrong way to go about these problems, he implied.
* Dr. Bernard Aris is a historian, a D66 parliamentary researcher and a LibDem supporting member.
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12 Comments
At some point, when they’ve stopped the self-indulgence of their internal squabbles, the government (and Labour) are going to have to face the electorate with some kind of plan.
Perhaps a lot of the squabbling is to defer that day as long as possible.
Meanwhile, it feels like the SS Britain is drifting slowly towards a whirlpool, while the crew have either abandoned ship or are fighting each other over the captain’s hat.
Unfortunately as each day passes the outlook gets worse and worse; it is truly depressing. The media are also caught up in an unreal displacement activity, while the unholy alliance of arsonists to the left (Corbyn and coterie) and right (Gove, Johnson etc) disclaim responsibility and do not care. For them government is for others who have to cope with the mess that they have created; if the political system is rudderless, so be it.
Some EU leaders feel it is better to end the uncertainty by urging the UK to start the process, others, not believing that anyone or any country would really embark on such self-destruction call for time for reflexion believing that Brexiters would have to step back, but there is no sign of this.
Meanwhile, I feel a stranger in my own land.
It is essential that we give the campaign for Brexit the respect it deserves.
Article 50 must be triggered as soon as Turkey is accepted into the EU.
According to Dutch press reports, both EU Commission president Juncker and ALDE parliamentary party president Guy Verhofstadt are letting loose (in the present Europarliament debate about the 6 months Dutch presidency which just finished, and the Brexit crisis) against the irresponsability Martin (above) so justly decries.
Verhofstadt has a nice one about Farage; according to him Farage stepped down “to have more time to himself to spend the lavish Europarliament salary”.
It is indeed remarkable that Farage (who famously never attended the Fisheries Commission, but used the desperate British fishers on his Thames cruise where Bob Geldof confronted him) keeps accepting the lavish salary, while insulting every opponent in the parliament.
Pandemonium at UKIP would become complete if founder professor Alan Sked returns to the party now Farage (the “racist mountebank” he calls him) has stepped down… A third British party turning itself into a shambles…
The twitter smiley of the only British MP of UKIP, in reaction to Farage’s stepping down, is a harbinger of a faction fight…
Bernard
Well now we have your considered opinion on Ukip and Farage, and the British situation, how are GeenPeil doing ?
Actually,the British Conservative government created this mess. No one in the leave camp had any wider political power and David Cameron in fact claimed he would carry on as PM no matter what the result was. The referendum was not an election and was not even expected for at least another year . It was the policy of a sitting government. The question was Remain or Leave, Not who will lead the country or the Conservative Party or Labour or UKIP or The Lib Dems. The sensible thing would be to dissolve parliament as there is most definitely a constitutional crisis or seek cross party consultation to find a way forward.
Hopefully. The British people will finally understand the dangers of electing reckless Tory governments which follow incompetent economic policies. and seem to be fuelled on the arrogant belief that they can rule over the electorate rather than represent it. Some Lib Dems were saying in the build up to the last general election that the Tory party was far more irresponsible and dangerous than the Labour Party and that the Lib Dem Leadership were ignoring this.
if as solip1suggests article 50 is timed to coincide with Turkish entry to the EU then it will still be pending a century from now.
Turkish entry will happen about the same time that Austria and Greece become Muslim majority countries and Spain becomes Protestant.
This lie about impending Turkish entry is a pretty strange reason for “respecting the leave campaign”
Glenn, actually there was an effort in the general election campaign to point out the dangers of “Blukip” – which have now been realised in full despite UKIP’s failure to win more than 1 MP. It didn’t really gain any traction – though it deserved at least as much as the “SNP fear”, but you can’t say we didn’t try.
Joe;
The danger wasn’t just or even chiefly “Bluekip”. It was actually the normal conservative party as lead by a weak David Cameron with incompetent omnishambles prone George Osborne as chancellor.
Clive,
I think solid was being a trifle ironic!
Sorry! Solip! Autocorrect!
To: J. Dunn
GeenPeil is having a tough time because, thanks to EU rules, prime minister Rutte can (and does) confront them with the only two possibilities now open to the Netherlands as member state:
1) not signing the Association Treaty EU-Ukraine; that means we’re out of that whole thing and the EU continues to implement the Trade bit of it (90%) unamended. So the Dutch objections of the majority who voted against the treaty get no mention at all; or
2) Rutte says he is fighting to get a diplomatic note (or whatever the technical name or procedure is), mentioning the Dutch objections: no automatic accession/membership talks for the Ukraine; no binding security obligations (no NATO-by-the-back-door) etcetera.
The people who took the initiative for asking the referendum (using GeenPeil/Geen Stijl as the provider of the computer application to gather signatories) have freely admitted (in the NRC Handelsblad newspaper, days before the Referendum day) they did not read and did not care about the content of the Treaty; it was just a stick to beat the Eurocrats/Binnenhof Toffs dog; and the SP Parliamentary party (leftwing Corbynite populists with an unconvincing leader) went along for the same reason, without objecting that there could be more effective tools to reach that aim. There were and there still are, but they have used this substantially inapropriate one (Trade is outside the member state’s remit, and is 90% of this Association Treaty).
Some GeenPeil people went over and accompanied Farage for some days in his Brexit campaign in the South of England, but because in the UK nobody knows them, I think that had next to no impact (preaching to the aleady converted).
So GeenPeil get a reality check; and Nexit is pie in the sky… The parliamentary elections coming up (in March 2017, or some months earlier if VVD and PvdA cann’t finish their coalition cordially) will be the only available platform for debating the Dutch EU membership, and post-Brexit EU reforms.