DEMOCRACY? HOW QUAINT.

EU is growing into a country apart (The Telegraph, October 28th, 2004)

The collapse of the new European Commission might appear to be simply a row concerning the remarks of the Italian candidate about gays and women. But as we know from our own experience, such clashes can help shape history. In this case, it is a demonstration of the power steadily accumulating around an institution with a growing importance in the politics of an entire continent: the European Parliament.

Until now, the European Parliament has generally been a farcical body, best known for the ongoing scandal of MEPs' expenses, or the waste created by shuttling between separate buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg. There was one brief moment of glory when it ousted the corrupt Santer commission in 1999. Yesterday, however, it brought down a commission before it had even taken office. That is the sort of power that only a national assembly, such as the House of Commons, would normally expect to wield.[...]

...The EU is gradually taking on the style of a state, and one which enshrines values that tend to be politically correct and Leftish. It mutates old-fashioned liberal themes, such as separating church and state, into a sort of secular religion, to be policed from Brussels. These values inform its rapidly expanding institutional and legal structures, whether they be the Human Rights Act, which celebrates rights more than duties, or the deluge of regulations and directives that interfere in the discretion of both individuals and businesses. The EU's underlying values might seem rational, but they are quite often contrary to common sense. They are monolithic too, in defiance of the tolerant, diverse and cosmopolitan attitudes prevalent in European society for half a century or more.

But the most worrying thing is that they lack legitimacy. They are the creed of a new European political class, aloof from ordinary people but impatient for power and status. The European parliamentary elections in May are a good example of this. Turnout was down again across Europe and, in Britain, only 38 per cent of people voted in a ballot for which they have very little affection or respect. The paradox of yesterday's events is that they are a great victory for the European Parliament, but not for democracy.

The key to understanding the modern left is to realize that, by the 70's, they had pretty much abandoned advocating force and thuggery. The stick of physical coercion proved inefficient and upsetting to the squeamish, and it was largely replaced with the carrots of sex and social security. Today, their philosophical bedrock is not so much Marx as a cocktail of inaccessible science, psychobabble, deconstructionalism and an aggressive war on faith. Other than that, their goals remain essentially unchanged, particularly the destruction of democracy. But rather than trying to overthrow democracy directly and impose unabashed dictatorships, the modern left operates incrementally by taking more and more issues out of the democratic process through the expansion of vehicles like multilateralism, international law, judicial activism and the steady proclamation of new and original human rights. They dream of the day when legislators battle ferociously for the votes of the people, only to find when they win that there is nothing left for them to do.