News of an interesting new book

June Press has brought out a new book, called The Missing Heart of Europe. It was written by a typical xenophobic, little Englander, know-nothing eurosceptic.

Thomas Kremer was born and brought up in Transylvania and was deported to Bergen Belsen by the Nazis. Unlike all those ministers and worthies who travelled to Auschwitz last week in great comfort and used a public sponsored jolly to gawp at a place where millions suffered and died in unspeakable conditions, he really does know the evil of that regime.

Subsequently, he escaped to Switzerland, went to the Palestine, lived and worked on a kibbutz, fought in Israel’s War of Independence and came to Britain to study. He also studied at the Sorbonne, has lived and worked on the Continent and is an inventor, particularly of various toys and games.

He invented game-based therapy for psychologically disturbed children. (He also seems to have invented the Rubik’s Cube, which wipes out all his achievements in my opinion.) Still, a typical eurosceptic.

I shall write in greater detail about his book, when I have finished it. Right now I want to quote just one paragraph:

“The overt intention of Greater Europe idealists is to reconcile peoples and protect citizens. Yet every integrationist move to extend and strengthen central authority over the continent erodes the independence of nations and curtails the freedom of the individual. It cannot be otherwise. You cannot win hearts by torrents of restrictive legislation, by removing effective elective powers, by setting up manifold layers of controls, each one ever more remote.

You do not gain the long-term support of people by high-level political machinations, by setting up central bodies, by creating currencies, writing constitutions, squabbling over subsidies, scrambling for the top job.

Every addition and modification to existing treaties provides further opportunities for national conflict. Every piece of new legislation adds to the burden of an already over-regulated society. Every congress of political leaders, be it summit, convention, bi-lateral or multi-lateral horse-trading session, merely helps to foster hostility in the common man towards the existing European Union.”

Can’t say fairer than that, can one.