The Economist’s Charlemagne says goodbye to Brussels with this post. Note, in particular, this (mildly Bowdlerized) anecdote:
Shortly after the first Irish No in 2008, I found myself at a gala dinner in Brussels. Sitting on a gilt armchair in a panelled stateroom, I was told by the head of a Brussels think-tank that the Irish result proved the idiocy of putting EU treaties to the people. “F****** voters,” he declared, languidly extending one arm so the hovering steward could refill his champagne glass. “I mean, f****** voters, what do they know?” I still wish I had walked out.
An understandable enough response, but then Charlemagne continues as follows:
Inside the Brussels bubble, the constitution remains a success story. Conventional wisdom says nothing was lost by ratifying the constitution in disguised form through parliamentary votes, as the Lisbon Treaty. But Europe lost some of its innocence when it rammed the constitution through. Back in 2005, lots of leaders genuinely wanted to put the treaty to voters: they thought its grandeur would inspire popular approval. They are sadder and wiser now.
’Innocence’? I’m not sure that’s quite right. The process by which the proposed constitution was originally drawn up was a crude, cynical, deeply undemocratic fix. There was little or no room for any dissent. Sure, the EU’s political class wanted the legitimacy that a popular vote might bring to the constitution, but the disgusting way in which they attempted to demonize those who opposed it, and the even worse way in which they then ignored the referenda that should have brought the whole wretched farce to a close, revealed that, in reality, the consent of the governed ranked very low on their list of priorities.
That’s something to remember in the wake of this country’s Independence Day celebrations.