Airstrip One

Desperate Remedies

The Euro-fanatics are on the run. The Prime Minister has changed tack: no longer is the Euro vital to Britain's economic interests, it is instead integral to her political "destiny". Heseltine dutifully repeated this line on the Today programme this morning.

This is a major victory for the forces of reason & sanity. We have won the argument on the economy, & our opponents are giving up the attempt to scare the people into voting for the Euro on pain of poverty. Instead, they have fallen back on the old "inevitability" canard, dressed up with a little more honesty than we have hitherto seen about the essentially political nature of the whole European project. "Europe", they now tell us, is indispensable to peace. Never mind N.A.T.O., never mind nuclear weapons, never mind the overwhelming military superiority of the United States, never mind the enormous political will never to have another Continental war, which has so far driven European integration, but which surely would be enough by itself: it is the E.U. that has kept the peace these 50 years.

This transparent lie will be much easier to expose than their lies about the economy. That they should resort to it shows how desperate they are. We are winning. Let us press our advantage home.