“Facts, not politics”

I don’t know all that much about Libertas, but their campaign against the Lisbon Treaty is bound to be interesting. I don’t really share their views (in favour of “a strong, accountable, European Union”) and I can’t see them holding back the historical forces of EU power centralisation, but it’s very refreshing to find opposition coming from sources other than traditional leftists and nationalists. It’s no small thing to speak up against an Establishment virtually united against you.

For what it’s worth, my own opposition to the EU is based on a few simple ideas. The simplest one is that having many smaller states makes it easier for people to emigrate and escape from bad governments, thus putting a limit on how badly governments can abuse their citizens and resulting in competition between them to provide attractive places for people to live.

The EU points to a future where we will no longer be able to elude governmental abuse without leaving Europe completely, a circumstance which will have very serious consequences indeed. We would be far better off not centralising power, but decentralising it.