political opportunism

Do you remember when it emerged that on September 11th 2001 a government press officer had sent an e-mail to her boss saying that it was a good day to bury bad news? There was a certain amount of uproar at this blatant political opportunism.

Yet the European Commission are doing something even worse. They are using the deaths of six million people to get more power.

It's very hard to argue against the idea that denying the holocaust is a pretty nasty thing to do, and that the people who do it are, generally speaking, nasty bastards. Which means that if you can get political mileage out of it then it's very difficult for your opponents to argue against you.

Which is why, of course, the European Commission are planning on implementing a piece of legislation which will give them a legal personality, and thinly disguising it under the veil of anti-racism.

This is a bad thing. This is using a stain on the world's history for political end. This is using the abject misery and suffering of six million people so that a group of unelected, failed politicians can have more power.

For a great round up of the content of the paper, visit the Kitchen. Go read how truly terrible it is. How the EU want the power to take people to court, how they want to stop people who deny or trivialise genocide from running businesses and from welfare benefits.

Basically, they want a foot in the door to gain yet more competences over Justice and Home Affairs, business regulations and social security.

I wonder how many British people actually want this to happen? Very few, I suspect. And yet the way the mainstream media have responded to it is to praise this law, or not to write about it at all for fear of looking like they think it's acceptable to deny the holocaust.

I don't actually think it should be illegal for people to deny the holocaust. If someone is that repugnant and ignorant then the best way to deal with them is to ignore them and make them realise how pointless their existence is. Because free speech is a right, and no one should have the power to take it away. It's a small hop, skip and a gulag away from an authoritarian state.

Which is why, in Luxembourg today, I sincerely hope that our British representative will veto this plan from the German Presidency. That they will have the guts to say, "sorry: this is a disgusting piece of political opportunism, you should all be heartily ashamed of yourself and no, you will not be gaining control over British justice and home affairs."

However, this is a Labour government, so they will probably just crawl around meekly and let this country go further into the jaws of the grasping, slime-covered country called Europe.