I wonder if The Times columnist Jenni Russell is related to Jack, same surname. Their intellectual kinship almost has to suggest a biological link somewhere down the line.
The difference is that Jack, wisely aware of his limitations, restricts his self-expression to barking monosyllabics, while Jenni writes barking mad articles like Cameron’s EU Poker Hand is Full of Trumps.
If her idea was to distance herself from Jack, in reality she only emphasised the proximity. “Mr Cameron is playing a better hand than we assume,” she insist in that dogged way of hers.
Although the EU “can’t agree to concessions that would undermine Europe’s core principles”, explains Jenni, they do want to keep Britain in the EU because it “would be weaker and poorer without us”.
About £9 billion poorer every year, to be exact, which is the amount of our net contribution, but our Jenni wouldn’t demean herself by quoting such dry numbers. She wants us to respond to the EU not rationally but instinctively, the way her relation Jack responds to life in general.
Hence the EU’s leaders “do want to help the PM cut a deal that would keep us in” because “there’s a fund of goodwill” towards us. Can’t blame them – I myself would have oodles of goodwill for nine billion quid a year. But what kind of deal wouldn’t ‘undermine Europe’s core principles’?
The answer is, only a meaningless one. For example, the French may undertake never again to call us les rosbifs, while the Germans may promise to refrain, unless severely provoked, from shouting Gott Strafe England in public places.
“This referendum mustn’t be reduced to an argument about tax credits,” says Jenni. I agree. But I’d still prefer even such an inconsequential argument to the mendacious drivel peddled by Jenni and her idol Sir John ‘Maastricht’ Major.
“We cannot have free access to the EU’s markets without following all its rules,” howls Jenni, with Sir John nodding approvingly in the background, “…nor be a powerful player as a tiny independent island, nor keep Scotland…”
In fact, should we leave the EU, it would be falling all over itself trying to tie us into a series of trade treaties, for the EU’s annual trade balance with us is over £60 billion in the black. They wouldn’t want to cut off that fiscal nose to spite their economic face, would they?
And follow all its rules? I’d like to see some documentary proof for this claim. Some rules, yes, those reserved for outsiders.
Similarly, when I shop at Sainsbury’s, I follow some supermarket rules: I don’t spit on the floor, I don’t steal anything, I don’t try to jump the checkout queue, I make sure I have enough money to pay for my purchases.
But it doesn’t follow from there that I ought to get a job stacking the store’s shelves, thereby having to obey a whole raft of rules meant for those who work inside, not those outsiders who bring income to the establishment.
As to Britain being a tiny island, this dimensional handicap didn’t prevent the country from being a rather ‘powerful player’ for a millennium or so – and during most of that time size mattered a lot more than it does now.
Mongolia, for example, is five times the size of Britain, which, according to Jenni’s cunning (canine?) calculations, should make Ulaanbaatar replace London as the financial centre of the world. As it is, not many people can spell Ulaanbaatar, or even know what it is.
And Scotland may indeed leave the UK, but the parsimonious Scots would first want the EU to guarantee that it’ll take up the slack formed by the disappearing Westminster welfare payments, £10,374 for every Scot last year. If they get such a deal, they may leave, and if they don’t they won’t – this irrespective of our referendum results.
Jenni then described the interview John Major gave on this subject as ‘electrifying’, an adjective one doubts even his wife Norma or his ex-mistress Edwina has ever applied to Sir John, who’s about as electrifying as a bowl of cold porridge.
His arguments, which so electrified Jenni she was ready to jump through hoops, are baffling even coming from a man of rather modest intelligence.
For example, Sir John firmly believes that leaving the EU would jeopardise our national security, a claim that would have been odd even before the current influx of millions of Muslims of whom hundreds of thousands are probably trained murderers – all courtesy of the EU.
And oh yes, if we left the EU, avers Sir John, our parliament wouldn’t become sovereign because there would still be international laws we’d have to obey. All I can suggest is that Sir John read up on the concept of sovereignty, starting with the dictionary definition.
If Jenni ‘Jack’ Russell really wants to be electrified, she’d do better plugging herself into the mains and throwing the switch… But enough of this wishful thinking.