Bruges group meeting

I attended a Bruges group conference this weekend, at King’s College. The people were all over the age of sixty: sellotaped glasses, walking sticks, that sort of thing. A constant refrain was the call for speakers to speak up – bellowed from various corners of the room. The man behind me fell asleep, spoke in his sleep, and snored, before being woken up.
The Bruges group is highly eurosceptic; its patron is one M Thatcher. but John Redwood, the only MP present, at least had some interesting things to say. He said he voted against the EC in the referendum in 1975 because he had read the treat of Rome which talked of ever closer political union; he would have voted for good relations and a free trade agreement with the other countries “but that was not on offer”. He described the current EU as a threat to democracy. He said he, as Welsh secretary, had sat in on about 20 meetings of the council of ministers and that the way decisions were made was a disgrace to democracy. “We met in private, there were no opportunities to vote the legislation down, no one asks ‘Is your new law necessary”. Ministers were stressed by “arbitrary deadlines” set up by unelected bureaucrats; “thousands of laws” are passed in this way, he said..”And you cannot correct, amend of repeal these laws.”
He said the British parliament was packed with “eurofederalists”, and that the public was apathetic. He urged his audience to engage their friends and begin a letter-writing campaign to MPs.
He also urged unity between the different factions within Euroscepticism: “Sick of factionalism, splintering into ever smaller groups as people compete to hold on to the true faith. The Tories were on board and would vote for a referendum and “Eighty percent of the public are on our side.”
“Nobody under the age of 50 has been able to vote on the future of the EU. The EU has changed enormously since 1975. People are given referenda on whether they want regional assemblies or small town mayors, but not on whether they approve of this new Europe.”
He has a point.
Another speaker, Marc Henri Glendinning of the democracy movement, talked about how the referendum vote would be won. They would be distributing leaflets to 150 target constituencies; and holding a mock referendum in a key constituency. Overseen by the electoral reform society. “ He said the pro referendum side needed 85 MPs to switch sides – they already had 230 comprising Tories and Welsh nationalists and a few labour and Liberal MPs. “Over 400 will vote against a referendum, but 185 of those are MPs in constituencies with fewer than 5,000 majority. “And these could be persuaded if their electorate felt strongly. If we can break 30 LibDems we could persuade the new liberal leader to back the Tories.”
“Winning the right to a referendum is necessary but not sufficient.” In others words it was just the beginning. He also urged linking up with pro referendum groups in other countries, and that this was not a Little Englander issue but about the people against the oligarchic elites that rule Europe.
He is right.
They need thousands of pounds though, despite the backing of the owner of rubik’s cube. “Are there any rich widows out there,” he said, surveying his audience.
“Speak up,” bellowed the man behind me.
Another speaker said - rightly again - that British ministers and civil servants go native when they go to Brussels, intoxicated by being effective members of a cabinet that rules 500m people. Instead of representing the UK in Brussels, they came back with new found loyalty to their chums in Brussels and start representing Brussels in the UK.
That, too, is correct.
That said, the conference degenerated a bit after that.
Christopher Booker – who has written books on fiction – compared the EU to Sauron’s Mordor and the constitutional treaty to the evil ring that corrupted its wearer and controlled the bearers of the lesser rings owned by elves, dwarves and men. He intoned the inscription that great fictionalist JRR Tolkien said was inside the Ring:
“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.”

He said this melodramatically, in all seriousness, and no one laughed.
And then Ruth Lea, an economist and former treasury official, who had said sensible things about the need to renegotiate the relationship with Europe along the lines of the Swiss relationship to the EU – a respectable position, with a case for it – then let herself down by denying that global warming was a plot by the EU to accrete more powers. This prompted some interest among the audience, and later, as I left, I heard the whipless MEP Roger Helmer talking in his best bedside voice to a number of oldies. “Well, you know, most of the new Tory candidates deny climate change.”