Britain’s EU “Nuclear Option”

Palace of Westminster in London

As mentioned a couple of days ago (see British EU Sceptics Increasing), Britain is having more recent problems related to the rules and intentions of the European Union.

Now many are wondering how tough the UK will be in dealing with the EU:

Calls for Brown to go nuclear in City battle with EU

As Europe’s leaders prepare to strip Britain of ultimate control over finance, insurance, and securities, defenders of the City have begun to talk darkly of the nuclear option – known in EU lore as the “Luxembourg Compromise”.

Telegraph – June 11, 2009

by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Britain cannot veto the massive shift in regulatory power to Brussels now under way. Internal market laws are decided by qualified majority voting (QMV), and London has few friends in this fight.

What Gordon Brown can do at next week’s EU summit it to play the Luxembourg card by invoking “vital national interest”, if he is willing to risk a showdown with fellow leaders. This has no legal status. It is the political equivalent of a stamping bull, or a viper’s rattle. It means back off, or we strike.

“This is an extremely serious crisis,” said David Heathcote-Amory, former Europe Minister and now a key Tory MP on the European Scrutiny Committee.

“Once we lose of control over the City of London we will never get it back, and the consequences could be catastrophic. I think we are in ‘Luxembourg terrritory’. If the City was in Paris you could be pretty sure that French would fight like tigers to save it,” he said.

“The Continental countries have no interest in the health of the City, and some want to turn the tourniquet tighter. I fear the Commission is going to get its way since we have such a weak government,” he said.

Downing Street has given no hint that Mr Brown intends to put up serious resistance. City leaders doubt he will go to the wall for the sake detested bankers. It is easier to claim a cosmetic victory on fiscal sovereignty, letting the killer detail go through.

One British minister admitted privately that UK strategy is to play for time in the hope that “other governments start getting cold feet about giving new powers to the EU”. Some might, but our ally Ireland remained silent at a meeting of EU finance ministers this week, unwilling to waste political capital on Dublin’s Canary Dwarf. It relies on EU favour to survive its own desperate crisis.

France’s Charles de Gaulle was the last EU leader to opt for a showdown in the “empty chair crisis” in 1965, withdrawing his officials from Brussels after the commission pushed its luck too far. It led to the Luxembourg Compromise. No country since has ever pulled the trigger on vital interests. Disputes have always been resolved in time.

Lord Turner, the head of the Financial Services Authority, said in April that the banking crisis would either lead to “more Europe, or less Europe” since the current half-way house is unworkable.

Brussels has seized on events to offer more Europe. “It’s now or never: if we cannot reform the financial sector when we have a real crisis, when will we?”, said Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso.

While earlier talk of an EU super-regulator has been dropped, the same goal is being achieved by other means. The plan is to create three “authorities” with a permanent staff and powers to impose “binding” decisions on states. Appeals go to the European Court. There is to be a European Banking Authority in London, an Insurance Authority in Frankfurt, and a Securities Authority in Paris.

Lord Turner fired a warning shot on Thursday, questioning plans to bring London’s securities houses under EU oversight. “Frankly, this is an area that when it gets Europeanized you sometimes get things that are not actually to do with good regulation. If one was absolutely confident that European supervision was going to be completely politics-free, in a neutral, technocratic fashion, we would be more relaxed,” he said.

There is little doubt that Brussels is exploiting the backlash against finance to bring the City under its thumb. Its own Larosiere Report concluded that hedge funds were marginal players in the credit crisis. Yet that has not stopped it drafting draconian rules for hedge funds as well, with chunks copied from French law. What is the purpose, if not to hobble a successful British industry?…

Britain has long fudged matters in dealings with the EU, hoping that common sense will prevail, as it often does. But the assault on the City may be a line too far. London has been the centre of global finance for three hundred years. Either the British government controls the City, or the EU apparatus controls it. This cannot be fudged.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/5508065/Calls-for-Brown-to-go-nuclear-in-City-battle-with-EU.html

What, if anything, Prime Minister Brown will do in the near term is not clear yet.

But, as we in the Living Church of God have long taught, eventually the UK will either be out of the EU or will be relegated to some insignificant status within the EU.

Furthermore, Bible prophecy show the emergence of a Beast power in Europe that will ultimately lead to the destruction the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and even New Zealand.

Some articles of possibly related interest may include:

Anglo – America in Prophecy & the Lost Tribes of Israel Are the Americans, Canadians, British, Scottish, Welsh, Australians, Anglo-Southern Africans, and New Zealanders descendants of Joseph? Where are the lost ten-tribes of Israel? Who are the lost tribes of Israel? Will God punish the U.S.A., Canada, United Kingdom, and other Anglo-descended nations? Why might God allow them to be punished first?
Europa, the Beast, and Revelation Where did Europe get its name? What might Europe have to do with the Book of Revelation? What about “the Beast”? What is ahead for Europe?
Who is the King of the North? Is there one? Do biblical and Roman Catholic prophecies point to the same leader? Should he be followed? Who will be the King of the North discussed in Daniel 11? Is a nuclear attack prophesied to happen to the English-speaking peoples of the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand? When do the 1335 days, 1290 days, and 1260 days (the time, times, and half a time) of Daniel 12 begin? When does the Bible show that economic collapse will affect the United States?