28/03/2014
On Wednesday, trailing way behind this blog and Booker's piece over the weekend, Bruno Waterfield wrote for
Spiked on-line, putting the EU in the frame for its "chaotic" handling of international relations, and the Ukraine crisis.
This was the sort of piece Bruno might have written for the
Daily Telegraph if it was still an adult newspaper, telling us that "events in Ukraine, and the development of a new destabilising dynamic more broadly in Eastern Europe, show that the EU is far from benign".
It wasn't so very far from what UKIP's
William Dartmouth wrote on 21 March, the first comment from the party since 3 March, so it was no great leap for Nigel Farage yesterday to pick up on Clegg's reference to Ukraine, and then to accuse the EU of having "blood on its hands", having pursed an "imperialist expansionist" policy in the east and giving "false hope" to people in the Ukraine.
Actually, within the
context of the debate, I thought Farage's commentary was an unforced error, as what he said was wide open to wilful misinterpretation. He was being asked the final listener's question of the debate, with only 45 seconds to answer, why countries such as Ukraine were so keen to develop closer ties with the EU, while in the UK there is a debate about doing the opposite.
He could have opted for a safe and effective answer, declaring that we were not by any means the only countries keen to keep a distance from the EU. In fact, three of the most vibrant democracies in Europe, in Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, when given the choice to join the EU, had rejected the opportunity. Ukraine was a throwback as, gradually, countries were realising the downside of getting entangled with the EU.
It was Farage's choice, however, make the case that the EU's action had led to Mr Putin being provoked, adding that the EU had "not been a thing for good in Ukraine". But nothing he said could reasonably have been taken as an expression of support for Mr Putin. And nothing then in Mr Clegg's body language suggested that he found Farage's comments any more than usually offensive.
It was not until the following day, however, that Mr Clegg decided to be offended. In fact, speaking on his weekly LBC radio show, he decided he was more that offended. He was "shocked" by the UKIP leader's comments, accusing him of "siding with Putin" on Ukraine.
This was picked up by
the BBC , and much of the print media, including the
Telegraph, the
Guardian and the
Daily Mail. The latter newspaper, in typical
Mail style, perpetrated a libel, headlining a claim that Farage had sided with Vladimir Putin in the TV debate, and thus faced an "angry backlash".
That "backlash" was from a Mr Clegg, obviously suffering from delayed shock. Having not been shocked at the time, he now takes the comments as "proof" of Mr Farage's "extreme" views being clouded by his hatred of the EU. Said the deputy prime minister: "It shows quite how extreme people can be like Nigel Farage when their loathing of the European Union becomes so all-consuming that they even end up siding with Vladimir Putin in order to make their point".
Needless to say, we don't get any detail from Mr Clegg as to why Mr Farage might have been motivated to say what he did, or any recognition that that case had been made
elsewhere.
For Clegg, merely to "suggest that somehow it is the European Union's fault that the Ukrainian people rose up, as many did on the streets of Kiev, against their government - seeking to claim greater democracy, greater freedom" is enough in itself. It is "such a perverse way of looking at things".
Unfazed, Farage has repeated his charge, in
slightly more detail, taking in Syria, where he says that the civil war has been "made worse by EU leaders stoking the expectation of western forces helping to topple the Assad dictatorship despite the increasing dominance of militant Islamists in the rebellion". At last, EU foreign policy seems to be on the agenda.
However, as Peter
observes, it is depressing that the EU induced travesty in Ukraine is only noticed by the media herd as it becomes a political football between two point-scoring intellectual pygmies. But that, it seems, is what it takes to get the
claque motivated. They can't read, they can't think for themselves, and their ignorance is profound. Information now has to be spoon-fed to them by B-list politicians.
Sadly, it is these people who have become the custodians of the public agenda. No wonder we are in such a mess. But at least Farage now seems to know the difference between a country east of Poland and a plant hire company.
