Hidden in plain sight

So, José Manuel Barroso, president of the EU commission, tells us – via the Lib-Dem conference yesterday – that "Europe is not full of hidden plots." What he means is the "European Union", but he is right about one thing – the "plots" are not hidden. For those who care to look, they are in plain sight.

Barroso then goes on to say that, "The more the UK leads the debate, the more you will get out of Europe. Europe is an opportunity not a threat," then getting a standing ovation by saying that the EU "Reform Treaty" would be good for, and should be adopted by, the UK.

Thereby he poisons the well of debate he claims to want to encourage, referring to the treaty by its deliberately misleading title, one intended to deceive and confuse. As Booker pointed out yesterday, this is no more a "reform" treaty than any other – it is one of a linked series which takes us that closer to the ultimate goal of a supreme government of Europe.

The problem is that everything Barroso says is dishonest – lies ooze out of the fabric of his very being, so much so that there is nothing to distinguish between the man and the lie. They are one and the same.

"We collectively need to demonstrate more concretely the benefits that membership of the European Union brings," he says, adding "…there's more to Europe than late night horse trading ... we are tackling the issues that matter to Europe's citizens."

Yet the things that matter to "citizens" is this country are immigration, inflation, housing, traffic, and overweening government, defence and security … issues that the EU either does not deal with or makes inestimably worse.

And where "Mother Europe" moves to look after "her citizens", it invariably messes up, more concerned as it is with the propaganda value of its initiatives than the real effect on peoples' lives.

So it is when he says, "the Reform Treaty is good for Europe and good for Britain," who is he talking about when he says so airily "Britain"? When he declares that it is not the constitution – thus lying through his teeth – and hopes that "we can reach agreement in October and move swiftly to ratification," who is this "we" he is talking about? And if it is "the people", how can we agree, if we are not asked?

Like all of his ilk, though, Barroso, by the term "we" means the ruling élites. The people are just there to do as they are told, and absorb the daily diet of lies that the élites deign to hand down.

We are, according to David Laws, the Lib-Dims’ children and schools spokesman, merely a "lunatic fringe" and, according to Ming Campbell, "misguided nostalgics". We are "dreaming of an England that never was and a Britain that can never be", he says.

There again, he is right in the latter part of his statement. We are indeed dreaming of a "Britain that can never be" – as long as we are part of that malign organisation called the EU. That is why we want to get out.

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