Great Deception: Can the European Union Survive?

600 Pages·2005·5.103 MB·English

by  Christopher Booker, Richard North

2
Foreword and Acknowledgements

In the summer of 2005 the European Union was hit by an earthquake. For
decades Europe’s politicians had been working towards bringing the countries
of their continent together in ‘ever closer union’, the ultimate symbol of which
would be the adoption of a ‘Constitution for Europe’. Just when they seemed
on the edge of their goal, on 29 May 2005 the people of France responded to
the constitution with a resounding ‘Non’. Four days later the people of
Holland rejected it with an even more decisive ‘Nee’. The European Union’s
bewildered leaders were suddenly confronted with a crisis unlike anything
they had faced before.

When the original edition of this book appeared in 2003 our one regret was
that, although we had been able to reconstruct most of a long and
extraordinary story, history had not yet given it a proper ending. Not only did
the events of the summer of 2005 bring that story to something of a climax; it
was one which emerged naturally from all that had led up to it.

The purpose of this book is to tell for the first time the real story of how,
through what had come to be known to its insiders as ‘the project’, the
continent’s politicians had for half a century been seeking gradually to
construct and to impose on their peoples a unique system of government. Not
the least remarkable feature of this political experiment had been how few
people really understood its real nature, aims and origins.

The form of government it created was unique because it was designed to
place the nation states which belonged to it under a ‘supranational’ power,
unaccountable to any electorate, ruling its citizens through the agency of each
country’s own national authorities. Although the nation states and their
institutions of government remained outwardly intact, all these institutions,
from heads of state and parliaments to civil services and judicial systems, in
reality became increasingly subject to the decisions and laws of the new power
that was above them all.

It was because the system worked from behind the scenes through the familiar
landscape of existing national institutions that so few people recognised the
immense scale of the change which was taking place. Yet now in 2005 the
‘European project’ had suddenly run into what seemed like a shattering
obstacle. At last, however inchoately, the peoples of Europe had begun to
question what was being done in their name. The consequence was that, after
more than 50 years, the ‘project’ was not only facing a setback unlike any it
had encountered before. It appeared to have been confronted by a mass of
contradictions which might ultimately threaten its very survival.
We first embarked on writing this book in 2002 precisely because we sensed
that the moves to adopt a ‘Constitution for Europe’ might lead to such a
critical moment. The idea that we should one day write a proper history of the
‘European project’ was one which had already been with us for some years.
Since our collaboration began in 1992, we had spent much time reporting on
the practical impact of ‘Europe’ on life in Britain. It had soon become clear to
us that this was bringing about a much subtler and more far-reaching
revolution in the way our country was governed than was generally realised.
But we were equally struck by how little anyone really seemed to explain or to
know of how this revolution had come about.

When we began our detailed investigation, we were already conscious that
previous attempts to tell this story were strangely inadequate. What we were
not prepared to discover was just how fundamentally misleading almost all
those earlier versions would turn out to have been. Our researches threw up an
almost continual succession of surprises. As we drew on thousands of books,
documents, academic papers and other sources, there was scarcely a single
episode in the story which did not emerge in a new light. The historical record
revealed a picture of the story so radically different from any previous account
that we were sure anyone remotely concerned with this hugely important
subject might, like us, find it both startling and illuminating.

This view was confirmed, when our first edition appeared, by the private
responses of a number of well-informed readers. These ranged from historians
and respected commentators to a retired senior diplomat who had been
intimately involved in some of the episodes we described. With gratifying
enthusiasm, they commended the book for having reconstructed the story in a
way which at last made sense of so much that had previously been confusing,
and brought to light so much that had remained previously hidden.

The public response to the book could not have provided a greater contrast.
Not a single national newspaper found space to review it. Only the Spectator
published a spectacularly jaundiced ‘non-review’, by the author of an earlier
book on the subject whose views we had failed to treat with sufficient respect.
This silence was broken months later by the columnist Peter Hitchens who, in
the Mail on Sunday, expressed surprise at how comprehensively the book had
been ignored, and urged that it should be read by ‘every MP, every senior civil
servant, every journalist with any claim to understanding the current state of
the country’.

Despite such lack of publicity, the book sold more than 10,000 copies,
including those generously sent by a businessman, Paul Sykes, to every British
member of the Westminster and European Parliaments (there was no evidence,
alas, that most of them ever bothered to read it!). But inevitably, in leaving off
4
at the point when the constitutional convention finished its work in the
summer of 2003, our story was left frustratingly incomplete. It could not take
account of how the constitution reached its final form; nor of the dramatic
consequences which were to follow, when it was offered for endorsement by
the peoples of Europe in whose name it had been signed.We are grateful that
this new edition now gives us the opportunity to complete that story; and not
least that it also allows us to include some of the astonishing and chilling story
of the integration of ‘Europe’s’ defence forces which was only coming to light
as this book was going to press in the summer of 2005.

The real key to understanding the nature of the project which is the theme of
this book lies in appreciating just how the central idea behind it came to birth.
The foundation of our researches lay in uncovering just how directly the
European Union had drawn its inspiration from events during and after the
First World War, in particular from the thinking of two friends who had held
senior posts in the League of Nations, the Frenchman Jean Monnet and his
British colleague Arthur Salter. Monnet’s role in the story was not unfamiliar,
although, as we were to discover, it turned out to be much more influential
than previous histories had recognised. Salter’s part in the story, however, had
been wholly overlooked, and some readers may appreciate the irony that the
original blueprint for what was eventually to become the European Union was
sketched out by a British civil servant.

One simple test of whether someone has an informed grasp of where and how
the ‘project’ first came to be launched on its way is to ask ‘why was the EU
organisationally structured as it was, round a Commission, a Parliament, a
Council of Ministers and a Court of Justice?’. Not one of many previous
histories of the EU had offered an answer to this question. Yet in this, as we
discovered, lies the single most important clue to the ‘project’s’ essential
nature and purpose, crucial to any proper understanding of its evolution up to
the present day. Behind the scenes, the role of Jean Monnet in the evolution of
the ‘project’ was to remain so central, right up to the time of his death in the
late 1970s, that inevitably some of our most illuminating sources were books
relating directly to his part in the story.

The idea that we should one day carry out a full investigation of the history of
the ‘European project’ has been with us for some years. Since our
collaboration began in 1992, we have spent much time investigating and
reporting in detail on the practical impact of ‘Europe’ on British life. It soon
became obvious to us that this was bringing about a much more far-reaching
revolution in the way Britain was governed than was generally realised: as we
began to explore in two earlier books, The Mad Officials (1994) and The
Castle of Lies (1996).

5
Clearly the timing of this much more substantial book, to coincide with the
debate over ‘Europe’s Constitution’, is not accidental, not least because it
seeks to answer the rather deeper question: how did we, and everyone else in
the European Union, arrive at such a fateful moment in our collective history?
But the immediate trigger for the intensive programme of research on which
The Great Deception is based was a cinema commercial put out in 2002 by the
organisation leading the campaign against Britain joining the single currency.
Featuring the comedian Rik Mayall, in a parody of Hitler, proclaiming ‘ein
volk, ein Reich, ein euro’, this played on a widespread popular prejudice that
European integration was somehow rooted in a desire for German domination.
It was this prejudice in turn which had already encouraged some British
Eurosceptics to argue that the EU’s ideological origins lay in Nazi plans
during World War Two to set up a ‘European Economic Community’.

We were already aware that this was based on a fundamental misreading of
both the nature and the history of the ‘project’, and that its origins went
considerably further back than the Nazi period. But when we embarked on a
systematic historical investigation, drawing ultimately on thousands of books,
documents, academic papers and other sources, it soon became clear that it
was not only the adherents of the ‘Nazi origins’ theory who had got the history
of the European Union fundamentally wrong.

So, it turned out, had everyone else who had attempted to reconstruct the
story: Eurosceptics and Europhiles alike. And it was not least because of their
failure to grasp the ‘project’s’ true origins that historians had misunderstood
and misrepresented so much that followed. The foundation of our researches
lay in uncovering for the first time just how directly the European Union drew
its inspiration from events during and after the First World War; in particular
from the thinking of two friends who held senior posts in the League of
Nations, the Frenchman Jean Monnet and his English colleague Arthur Salter.
The irony will not be lost on some readers that the original blueprint for what
was to become the European Union was sketched out by a British civil
servant.

Behind the scenes the role of Salter’s friend Monnet in the evolution of the
‘European project’ was to remain so central, right up to the time of his death in
the late 1970s, that inevitably some of our most illuminating sources were
books relating directly to his part in the story. These included not only
biographies of Monnet and his own memoirs, but also references made to their
collaboration with him in the memoirs of other key figures, such as Winston
Churchill, Paul-Henri Spaak, Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath, Roy Jenkins
and George W. Ball.

Apart from the need to correct the historical record on how the ‘project’began,
not least the official ‘myth’ which has been spun round the ‘Schuman
6
Declaration’ in 1950, no major component in the story has been subject to
more distortion than the part played in it by Britain. Here, to reach a proper
understanding, it has proved necessary to revise whole tranches of the
‘pseudo-history’ produced by writers accepted until now as authorities on this
aspect of the story, notably Hugo Young, Roy Denman and, most recently, the
author of the British official history, Professor David Milward. None of these
would-be historians have begun to grasp the real story behind de Gaulle’s
determination to keep Britain out of the Common Market in the 1960s; and for
helping to bring this to light we are particularly indebted to the researches of
Professor Andrew Moravcsik of Harvard University.

One reason why it would not have been possible to write this book before is
that so much of the evidence crucial to establishing a clearer perspective on
the past few decades has only been published comparatively recently. This
includes not only Moravcsik’s own work, but also the wealth of confidential
papers relating to Britain’s application for entry in 1970–1972 which have
only lately become available under the 30-year rule (along with Con O’Neill’s
official ‘insider’s’ account of the negotiations published in 2000).

Inevitably in reconstructing the events of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, the
memoirs of British politicians proved an invaluable source: even though to
reach a clear understanding of particular episodes it was often necessary to
‘triangulate’ between the contradictory accounts provided by different
participants, such as Lady Thatcher, Nigel Lawson and Geoffrey Howe. On
the whole, Thatcher’s version of events proved most reliable and illuminating
(not least in revealing how poorly she was served in crucial respects by her
colleagues). But John Major’s memoirs paint a vivid picture of how he
became so overwhelmed by the contradictions of ‘Europe’ that this was a
central factor in the disintegration of his premiership.

For help in bringing to light another little-known episode, the hugely
significant part played in relaunching the ‘project’ in the early 1980s by
Altiero Spinelli, which was to lead to the transformation of the European
Community into the ‘European Union’, we are grateful to Richard Balfe MEP,
who was centrally involved. Another reason why it would not have been
possible to write this book earlier had been the crucial part played in our
researches by the internet.

This has made it infinitely easier and quicker than before to track down
myriad sources, ranging from books long out-of-print to obscure documents
produced by the European Commission which would otherwise have been
unobtainable. For personal help in this respect we are particularly grateful to
the diligent staff of DG4, the archivists of the European Parliament.

7
The internet has also proved invaluable in reconstructing the history of recent
years, for which it is not yet possible to draw on the evidence of historical
accounts or political memoirs. But here we also owe a special debt to
Brigadier Anthony Cowgill of the British Management Data Foundation, not
least for his unique consolidated and annotated editions of the various
European treaties, without which serious students of European affairs in the
past decade (even including not a few from other EU countries) would have
been hopelessly at sea. We owe a great debt to Dr Helen Szamuely (co-editor
with Dr North of www.eureferendum.com) for casting her customary shrewd
eye over many passages of the text while the book was in preparation.

For particular insights, documents and other help, we also owe thanks to
Charlotte Horsfield, Dr Saul Kelly, John Ashworth, Derek Bennett, Jens-Peter
Bonde MEP, Nicholas Booker, Heather Conyngham, Nigel Farage MEP (for
underlining the significance of Verdun), Jim McCue, Bill Jamieson, Lord
Pearson of Rannoch, Dr Anthony Coughlan, the readers of the Sunday
Telegraph; and, not least, Mary and Peter North for their tireless quest through
Yorkshire’s second-hand bookstalls, for ever more obscure old books which
might shed a further chink of light on one of the most labyrinthine political
stories the human mind has yet produced.

Our thanks are also due to our publisher Robin Baird-Smith for his unfailing
encouragement, and to his staff at Continuum. No one but ourselves can be
blamed for any mistakes which will inevitably have crept into such a complex
narrative. And finally, as always, we must thank Mary and Valerie for their
patience over our perpetual preoccupation with that other planet which is
‘Europe’. Whether it can support ‘sustainable life’ is a mystery which history
has yet to reveal.

As this book was going to press, the death was announced of one of the key
players in its narrative, Sir Edward Heath, who died in Salisbury on 17 July
2005 at the age of 89. Some years back we suggested, by way of a semi-
dedication to an earlier book on this subject, that without his efforts the book
would not have had to be written. Obviously the same, in a sense, is equally
true of this one. In light of his unique contribution to the story, it might have
seemed symbolically appropriate that Heath’s life should have ended just
when the future of that ‘European project’ to which that life had been so
single-mindedly dedicated seemed suddenly so uncertain.

8
Introduction

The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the problems of the
present: they cannot ensure their own progress or control their own future.
And the Community itself is only a stage on the way to the organised world
of tomorrow.
Closing words of Jean Monnet’s Memoirs.

‘Europe’s power is easy to miss. Like an “invisible hand” it operates through
the shell of traditional political structures. The British House of Commons,
British law courts and British civil servants are still here, but they have
become agents of the European Union, implementing European law. This is
no accident, By creating common standards that are implemented through
national institutions, Europe can take over countries without necessarily
becoming a target for hostility.’
Mark Leonard, Centre for European Reform, 2005
‘The Constitution is the capstone of a European Federal State.’

When the leaders of 25 nations gathered in the ancient heart of Rome on
October 29 2004 to sign a ‘Constitution for Europe’, one of the oddest features
of this historic moment was how it had first been predicted six decades earlier.

In 1941, when most of Europe was under Nazi or Fascist rule, an obscure
Italian ex-Communist, imprisoned on an island off the Italian coast, set out his
vision that, when World War Two was over, enlightened politicians should set
about building a ‘United States of Europe’. Over a long period, suggested
Altiero Spinelli, they should quietly assemble all the essential ingredients of
this new state, without revealing too openly what was their purpose. The
peoples of Europe should not be directly consulted, until at last all was ready
for the summoning of a ‘constituent assembly’ to draw up a ‘constitution’.
Only then would the people be allowed to acclaim their new constitution by
voting for it. This would thus mark, not the beginning of the process whereby
a ‘United States of Europe’ was created, but its culmination, its ‘crowning
dream’: the moment when the goal could finally be revealed.

9
This book tells the story of the most extraordinary political project in history.
From small beginnings, it has developed over many decades to the point
where, at the start of the 21st Century, it seems on the brink of bringing
together more than two thirds of the nations of Europe under a unique form of
government, like nothing the world has seen before.

Through most of that time it was not generally obvious that this was where
this process was heading, not least because it was a cardinal principle of the
project’s founders that, for a long time, its real nature and purpose should not
be brought too obviously out into the open.

Even now, that system of government is veiled in such labyrinthine
complexity that, although it has come to rule over hundreds of millions of
people, few have any comprehensive knowledge of how it actually works,
how it evolved or what an important part it has come to play in their lives.

Only in recent years has the project become so far advanced that its underlying
purpose can no longer be hidden. That is why it is now of the highest priority
that the peoples of Europe should realise at last what has been and is being
done in their name.

It is impossible to understand the true nature of what came to be known as ‘the
European project’ without appreciating how it was set in train by a single
guiding idea; an idea which originally crystallised back in the 1920s in the
minds of two men. One, eventually to become well-known, was a French
former brandy-salesman, Jean Monnet. The other, whose name is now almost
wholly forgotten, was his close friend Arthur Salter, an English civil servant.

When these two men first conceived their dream of a ‘United States of
Europe’, absolutely central to it was the prospect of setting up an entirely new
form of government: one which was ‘supra-national’, beyond the control of
national governments, politicians or electorates. Nation states, governments
and parliaments could be left in place: but only so that they could gradually
become subordinated to a new supranational government which was above
them all.

Long before there was any realistic prospect of putting such an audacious idea
into practice, Salter dropped out of the story. But Monnet’s determination to
bring it about never faltered. By the time in the 1940s when he had reached a
position of sufficient influence to set their project on its way, he was aware it
could never be realised if its true purpose was made too explicit. His ultimate
goal could only be achieved if it was worked for by stealth, step by step, over
many years, until enough of the machinery of the new form of government
was in place for its purpose to be brought fully into the open.

10