European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso might have given the greatest gift imaginable to British Euroskeptics—and reasonable people throughout Europe—in declaring that a federal Europe is inevitable, or, in Eurocrat speak, coming political changes will “transcend the limits of the intergovernmental method.”
Kudos to Barroso for articulating the elites’ objective so transparently. Luckily, the U.K., for one, is still a democracy, and there is a good chance that its citizens will say, not so fast. He goes downright Orwellian in his proclamations about the inevitable march of history: “If you believe in the democratic resilience of Europe, if you take Europe’s citizens seriously, you have to fight with rational arguments and unwavering convictions. . .” His assertion that all of polite society (“mainstream forces in European politics”) must agree sounds chillingly totalitarian.
Prediction: The U.K. will demand a scaling back of the country’s membership in the European Union in the upcoming referendum, sending the bloc into political turmoil. Let’s hope that they go all the way and exit.