AND SCOTTISH REFERENDUM
Barack Obama's intervention over Britain's future EU membership
and Scottish independence is ill-informed and inappropriate. A free-
enterprise economy functioning in an open, representative democracy
led to the rise of the United States as the pre-eminent global power.
It has underpinned the defence and economies of Western countries
since the Second World War.
These values represent everything that the EU is not. Its Commission,
far from representing the will of the people, represents
an unelected and unaccountable elite. The introduction of the deeply
Barack Obama's intervention over Britain's future EU membership
and Scottish independence is ill-informed and inappropriate. A free-
enterprise economy functioning in an open, representative democracy
led to the rise of the United States as the pre-eminent global power.
It has underpinned the defence and economies of Western countries
since the Second World War.
These values represent everything that the EU is not. Its Commission,
far from representing the will of the people, represents
an unelected and unaccountable elite. The introduction of the deeply
flawed single currency, the monumentally wasteful Common
Agricultural Policy, largely unaudited capital transfers to the 26
recipient countries funded by Germany and the UK, are manifestly
antithetical to the economic and democratic ideals that the US has
always stood for.
However, in intruding into the question of Britain's continuing
membership of the EU and the Scottish referendum,
President Obama reflects a possible drift of the US Government
into the kind of EU mindset that Republicans fear. For economic,
not least ideological, and other reasons, Mr Obama may have
come into line with the social, political and economic values of
the US's largest trading partner, using its "special relationship"
with the UK as a convenient means to an end.
This is not without its risks. With all Western economies
experiencing, at best, weak growth and a continuing rise
in welfare spending, how long before the EU begins to
insinuate its social objectives into US policy as a quid pro
quo for trade, with predictable economic and geo-political
consequences?
Agricultural Policy, largely unaudited capital transfers to the 26
recipient countries funded by Germany and the UK, are manifestly
antithetical to the economic and democratic ideals that the US has
always stood for.
However, in intruding into the question of Britain's continuing
membership of the EU and the Scottish referendum,
President Obama reflects a possible drift of the US Government
into the kind of EU mindset that Republicans fear. For economic,
not least ideological, and other reasons, Mr Obama may have
come into line with the social, political and economic values of
the US's largest trading partner, using its "special relationship"
with the UK as a convenient means to an end.
This is not without its risks. With all Western economies
experiencing, at best, weak growth and a continuing rise
in welfare spending, how long before the EU begins to
insinuate its social objectives into US policy as a quid pro
quo for trade, with predictable economic and geo-political
consequences?
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