Forget the crass nationalist sterotypes, says daniel hannan, Berlin is our natural ally |
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Of all the arguments advanced by my fellow Euro-sceptics, there is one that always makes me curl my toes in embarrassment. "The EU is a German plot," says a certain kind of British souverainiste. "They're trying to get through politics what they couldn't win through war. Hitler had a plan for a single currency, you know".
The sight of Gordon Brown ruling out a referendum under the approving eyes of Angela Merkel has led to a great deal of internet activity along these lines.
Quite apart from being terrifically rude, the argument is 180 degrees wrong. Germany does worse out of the EU than any other member, making the highest net contribution to the budget and enjoying the lowest per capita representation in EU institutions. German voters are almost as opposed to the whole racket as British ones: 80 per cent of them want a referendum on
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| If it wasn’t for the wretched EU, we’d get along famously with the Germans |
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the constitution and 60 per cent believe that EU membership has brought them no benefits whatever.
It's true that these views find little support among the German political caste, to whom closer integration remains unchallengeable dogma. Yet their Euro-enthusiasm stems not from revanchism, but from its precise opposite: a sense of national abnegation verging on self-loathing. The Bundestag teems with characters seemingly modelled on Harry Enfield's German tourist: violent in their pacifism, aggressive in their internationalism.
Happily, the rest of the country no longer falls for it. We British should be delighted about the belated normalisation of German patriotism. The Jerries are our obvious friends, for Heaven's sake: our chief trading partners and the only Europeans who can be relied on to deploy serviceable troops next to ours. They even resemble us in character: brave, morose, law-abiding, belligerent, occasionally drunk, much misunderstood. If it weren't for the wretched EU, we'd get along famously. 
FIRST POSTED AUGUST 24, 2007
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EU treaty is just the constitution in disguise
