Friday 4 May 2012

Express front page headline on scrapping Britain dismissed as 'total fantasy'

The front page of today's Express claims there is a 'EU plot to scrap Britain' and that Eurocrats want to 'wipe us off the map'.

Yes, really:


Critical comment seems almost pointless...

However, this 'exclusive' story from Macer Hall 'reveals':

Senior Eurocrats are secretly plotting to create a super-powerful EU president to realise their dream of abolishing Britain, we can reveal.

A covert group of EU foreign ministers has drawn up plans for merging the jobs currently done by Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, and Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission.

Hall doesn't really explain how this merger - if it happens - would actually lead to Britain being 'scrapped'. He doesn't name the 'senior Eurocrats' who want to 'abolish Britain'. Precise details of this 'plot' are hard to find within the article.

But it does mention that this new post will be:

a modern-day equivalent of the European emperor envisaged by Napoleon Bonaparte or a return to the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne that dominated Europe in the Dark Ages.

The article includes quotes from three anti-EU politicians, but nothing from any official EU spokesperson. Reader comments on the Express website include: 'Hitler would be proud', 'The rise of the anti-Christ and few recognize it' and 'Quite simply this is an act of war'.

There's also one from the European Commission Representative in London, who says:

Quite simply, this article is nonsense.

As other posters point out, the EU has no power or desire to "scrap Britain"...or Germany, or France, or Lithuania. Merging the Barroso and Van Rompuy posts would require UK agreement. And it is total fantasy to leap from speculation on this to ludicrous claims about scrapping nation states. EU treaties are decided by national leaders, with each having a veto, and EU law is decided by national Ministers and MEPs, not by mythical bogeyman Brussels bureaucrats.

In January, Express editor Hugh Whittow told the Leveson Inquiry (under oath):

we don't twist anything. We just present the news of the day.

4 comments:

  1. At some point even an express reader has to say 'hang on, this is bullshit!'

    Surely?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Some days, I see the headlines in the Express, and I despair. No matter how hard I work at writing fantasies, I will always be outclassed by the fantasies these people come up with daily.

    ReplyDelete
  3. There was a recent story about an English council and one in Northern France doing cultural exchange visits and other cooperative council-y things. Nothing too unusual or particularly interesting about that but the Daily Express - who else - claimed that this was a barmy EU plot to merge Britain and France! However, I cannot see any reference in the above article about France being scrapped. Or have we merged already and nobody has noticed? Or can the Daily Express not keep track of their lies?

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  4. I'm beginning to think the Express is explicitly taking the p*ss out of its readers. They must be laughing their heads off. They'll believe anything!

    ReplyDelete

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