Desperate EU tries to jump in on Olympic results

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=83050

Tory europhilia: dealing with an inconvenient truth

Conservative MEP Marina Yannakoudakis complains about the EU's "pitiable" attempt to jump on the Olympic bandwagon after it had produced a website showing what the medal score would have been if the EU had fielded a joint team comprised of the athletes from the 27 member states.

This is fait enough, except that Marina (as she likes to be called) goes on to ask: "Why does the EU insist on departing from its original goal of establishing a community of trading nations by imposing a federal EU identity, especially in the field of sport?"

The answer to why the EU seeks to use sport to further an EU identity is, of course, given in the Adonnino Report of 1985, which we discussed here. But the really fascinating aspect of Marina's complaint is her assertion about the EU's "original goal of establishing a community of trading nations".

This is classic Tory mythology, which gets them round the inconvenient truth that we were taken into the (then) EEC by a Tory prime minister, with the original treaties further expanded under the reign of the Tory High Queen, Margaret Thatcher and her protégé, John Major.

By convincing themselves that the treaties started off with the idea of creating a "free trade area", rather than the declared intent of "ever closer union" leading to full political union, the Tories can excuse the fact that their party has been responsible for getting us into the mess that is the EU.

They thus seek to present us with the myth that it all started out with the best of all possible intentions, and somehow went wrong – usually on the Labour watch - ending up heading towards a "federal superstate".

By this means, they can also justify their emphasis on renegotiation, arguing that all they are trying to do is restore the original direction of common market that they thought they had joined in the first place, but which has been swept off course by those wicked continentals.

One might have thought that Mrs Yannakoudakis ought to know better, her having studied government, politics and modern history at Brunel University in Uxbridge and received an MA in Education from the Open University. But there is nothing like wilful ignorance when one needs to whitewash those inconvenient truths which so afflict the Tory Party.

As to the medals, the EU claims a total of 306, putting it at the top of the medal league. But, as Booker points out, there is another claimant for the pole position.

Between 1952 and 1988, the Soviet Union dominated the Olympic medals count on almost every occasion. And the final medal count for London 2012 shows that the 15 countries formerly making up the USSR would again have topped the table, with a combined total of 164 medals (47 gold), putting them well ahead of the USA with 104 medals (46 gold).

Unlike the EU, the USSR can at least once claim to have been a single sporting entity, although that did not do it much good in the longer term. The EU should perhaps take note … and Mrs Yannakoudakis should take some time out to learn some history.

The lengths the EU will go to just make it look sad and desperate. There is no 'European people' and there never will be - differing languages, cultures, religions and many other aspects will ensure that the nation states of Europe will survive long after the EU has crumbled into the history books in the same way as the USSR. This isn't the first time the EU has attempted to slip its dirty fingers into sports, remember that its long been its aim that national teams should carry the EU flag alongside their own flags - an idea which has thankfully not got anywhere yet- not to mention its suggestions of the EU stars being printed on national football kits, another idea that has been shelved (for now).

Thoughts?

[GommeInc]

What they've essentially done is look at what we did when tallying up our score using countries under the Queen and made it serious by using all EU countries. They've taken a joke and made it serious.

Yes, very clever to calculate the total medals earned by countries part of the EU, but no one really cares