01/06/2013
Danny Alexander has never been a particularly impressive figure but now, on his way to corpulence, it seems he is pushing for the village idiot slot. This is the man who is telling
Reuters that David Cameron's promise of an EU referendum is a "huge distraction" that risks "reducing" Britain's influence to that of one of the richest
per capita nations in the world.
The thing is that Alexander, for all his resources and civil servants, is less well briefed than EU Referendum readers, and is so out of touch that he is still talking about the Norwegians who "receive the new rules on the fax machine from Brussels" and having "to implement them without changing them".
Losing a say over how the world's largest single market is regulated would be particularly damaging, Alexander "warns", asserting that a British EU exit would be "catastrophic at every level".
"For a country that values its international influence and leadership and wants to maintain its trading position receiving a large chunk of our laws on the fax from Brussels rather than being able to shape them would be very bad for Britain", says Alexander.
Ironically, this comes in the
same week that the European Commission is taking the UK to the ECJ for alleged breach of treaty provisions over the payment of benefits to migrants frm EU member states â an area where UK "influence" is not exactly stunningly visible.
Apart from that, even in Brussels, a fax machine is a rare creature, and has been since the "colleagues" discovered the internet. Thus, Alexander's reference illustrates that he has very little concept of how the modern world actually works. Clearly, he is unaware of how, in its own way, Norway manages its international relationships in such a way as to exert greater influence in areas of its economic interests than does the UK.
The trouble here it that the likes of Alexander have such contempt for ordinary people that they do not bother to acquaint themselves with the reality. Instead, they feel they can treat voters with complete disdain, contemptuously trotting out mantras without even conceding that alternative points of view exist, or that the world might be different from how they see it.
Even then, and without being aware of the details, many people would be quite happy for the UK to take on the status of Norway. Alexander's dribble may play well with
Reuters but he is not of the real world. The "fax machine law" never was a particularly good line and, when the real position becomes better known, Alexander will look as foolish as his arguments.
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