Nigel Farage: “Who the Hell do You Think You Are? The Euro Game is Up”

* European Parliament, Strasbourg – 24 November 2010

* Speaker: Nigel Farage (left) MEP, UKIP, Co-President of the EFD group;

Good morning, Mr. van Rompuy,

You’ve been in office for one year and in that time the whole edifice is beginning to crumble, there’s chaos, the money’s running out – I should thank you; you should perhaps be the pin-up boy of the Eurosceptic movement.

But just look around this chamber, this morning. Just look at these faces. Look at the fear. Look at the anger. Poor old Barroso here looks like he’s seen a ghost.

They’re beginning to understand that the game is up and yet in their desperation to preserve their dream, they want to remove any remaining traces of democracy from the system. And it’s pretty clear that none of you have learnt anything.

When you yourself, Mr. van Rompuy, say that the euro has brought us stability. I suppose I could applaud you for having a sense of humour, but isn’t this, really, just the bunker mentality?

Your fanaticism is out in the open. You talked about the fact that it was a lie to believe that the nation state could exist in the 21st Century globalised world. Well, that may be true in the case of Belgium, who haven’t had a government for six months, but for the rest of us, right across every member state in this Union – and perhaps this is why we see the fear in the faces – increasingly people are saying, ‘We don’t want that flag. We don’t want the anthem. We don’t want this political class. We want the whole thing consigned to the dustbin of history.’

And we had the Greek tragedy earlier on this year, and now we have this situation in Ireland. Now I know that the stupidity and greed of Irish politicians has a lot to do with this. They should never ever have joined the euro. They suffered with low interest rates, a false boom and a massive bust.

But look at your response to them. What they’re being told, as their government is collapsing, is that it would be inappropriate for them to have a general election. In fact Commissioner Rehn here said they had to agree their budget first before they’d be allowed to have a general election.

Just who the hell do you think you people are?

You are very, very dangerous people, indeed. Your obsession with creating this Euro state means that you’re happy to destroy democracy. You appear to be happy for millions and millions of people to be unemployed and to be poor. Untold millions must suffer so that your Euro dream can continue.

Well it won’t work. Because it’s Portugal next, with their debt levels of 325% of GDP, they’re the next ones on the list, and after that I suspect it will be Spain. And the bailout for Spain would be seven times the size of Ireland’s and at that moment all of the bailout money has gone – there won’t be anymore.

But it is even more serious than economics. Because if you rob people of their identity. If you rob them of their democracy, then all they are left with is nationalism and violence. I can only hope and pray that the Euro project is destroyed by the markets before that really happens. – Open speech in European Parliament

Dominant Social Theme: This speech (which can be seen on Youtube in all its splendor – Click Here To View) made by a member of the quasi-classical liberal UKIP party is “anti” the dominant euro-theme. (The theme being that without the European Union, there will be no prosperity in an increasingly globalized economy.)

Free-Market Analysis: We don’t want to make too big a fuss about this because it is usually very hard to pinpoint a speech that will serve as history’s fulcrum. We do believe, nonetheless, this could be one – it is that good. And as a bit of political theatre, Nigel Farage’s impassioned oratory is absolutely brilliant.

The Youtube link was sent to us by a feedbacker we call the “Bug,” and we didn’t know what to expect on viewing it. We’d seen a previous video by Farage that was quite impressive. He stands up in the Parliament in front of all of them – the ones who are basically building a fascist state, not to put too fine a point on it – and gives them the business, good and hard. It is as if someone stood up in the legislature in pre-war Germany. It takes a lot of nerve.

We have it on good authority, in fact, that many political critics of the EU are silenced through threats and bribes – and the threats are fairly ugly. But somehow Farage has stood up to them. In no way does he appear to be the “controlled” opposition. Of course, being a politician he is seizing the moment. In fact, these speeches make splendid political theatre.

Watching the video, one is struck first by Farage and his oratorical skill. He doesn’t come across as forced to us but as passionate and committed. It is even more satisfactory (if you are anti-EU) to watch the expressions on the faces of those who continue to pursue the EU experiment at the behest of the Anglo-American elite that began this wretched exercise some 60 years ago. It seems the truth is sinking into the august deliberative body that they may have pushed too far and too fast. They continue to do all they can to damp nationalistic spirit in Europe, but perhaps time and technology are not on their side.

The faces of those listening to Farage are downcast indeed. This cannot be merely because of the problems the EU faces right now. We think it is because the problems are continuous and because the EU can no longer count on the approbation of the media. As we have pointed out many times before (but it still bears repeating) the alternative ‘Net press has forcefully made the points about elite actions that the mainstream media has not.

Alas, the mainstream press is evidently and obviously controlled by the Anglo-American elites – owned by them in fact. Thus the alternative ‘Net media has stepped in to fill the void. It is probably not too much of a stretch to suggest that had the Internet been around 20 or 20 years ago, the EU “experiment” might have been aborted by now. This is the power of a new communications technology.

Most if not all of Farage’s splendid fulminations against the EU are posted on Youtube. In aggregate they number millions of views we would think. Even five years ago (before Youtube was up and running) there would have been no way that Farage could have gained an audience for his statements. They wouldn’t have been heard by a wider audience because the mainstream media would never have covered them.

There are of course many who believe the Internet is not truly making much of a difference, but we have argued in various forums throughout this decade that the ‘Net is a definitive – historical – communication technology. We can see the impact of Farage’s speeches simply by watching the expressions on the faces of EU leaders as they listen to him.

Even a year or two ago it was probably inconceivable (except to a stalwart few) that the EU might find itself in serious trouble. But this enterprise, so badly conceived – born of deceit and marinated in malfeasance – was destined for failure, or at least turmoil. Those who run it were sure that when the downturn came and chaos became manifest that the citizens of the various nation-states would turn toward the centralizing power of Brussels and acquiesce to the formation of empire in return for a few paltry economic guarantees. Perhaps they are about to be proven wrong.

Conclusion: We would argue that it is the truth-telling of the Internet itself that has interfered with this plan, showing more and more people every day just what it is in store for them and how manipulated the process is. Within this context, Farage, as brilliant an orator as he is, is part of larger phenomenon, part of a gradual and perhaps irresistible evolution that is galvanizing great changes in Western societies and even the world. It is not an episode in our view, but a process.