Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 28 November 2018 - Brussels

Debate with the Prime Minister of Denmark, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, on the Future of Europe (debate)

  David Coburn (EFDD). – Mr President, George Orwell said if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever. The EU has tried to stamp the jackboot down on Britain with this recent so-called Brexit deal for democratically daring to leave. An attempted enslavement of the very nation that fought the Nazis and liberated Europe.

The EU is supposed to be about government by consent, not force. I asked the Parliament when we voted on an arrangement for Lake Lugano’s Italian-Swiss border why the same arrangement could not be made for Northern Ireland. No answer. Well it is because the EU are using the tragedy of Ulster as a bargaining chip. Well that’s not government by consent with friends.

In reality, I tried in vain to explain to Mr Barnier that the UK constitution explicitly forbids one Parliament binding another. The deal must be fair to stick. Well, he obviously hasn’t got that message through – obviously I got it wrong.

When the Brexit deal fails in the UK Parliament and we have a World Trade Organisation deal, a totally liberated UK economy will take on a command economy – Europe – and we will win. We will see that happen. A potentially despotic EU army controlled by unelected bureaucrats, more EU isolationism and regulation. Crazy immigration, a false currency, mass unemployment as you isolate your greatest trading partner, London, the financial centre of the world with which you can never compete.

The future of Europe is one of a division like the Berlin Wall. On one side we will have those countries outside the EU, particularly in the Anglosphere and its free enterprise, which will prosper and grow as it always has.

On the other side will be a command economy – the EU. Once again plunged into poverty, darkness and held back from real progress like the Soviet Union. It is the EU folly, along with the absence of a proper relationship which will cause Europe to collapse.

We should try to part amicably as friends. Orwell’s picture of the future is probably accurate. The EU, however, should not think too soon, that theirs is the boot rather than the face.