When will the Empress of Europe and her French poodle ever learn?

There can be no doubt now about how brutally the European Union does its business, or how it treats the accepted norms of democracy as a tiresome obstacle to its rule.



The humiliation of Greece in the past few days, with its prime minister George Papandreou ordered to scrap his plans for a referendum on Greece’s latest bail-out, reminded me how another fading empire, of recent memory, conducted its affairs.



When I heard Europe’s paymaster, Chancellor Merkel of Germany, and her lickspittle, President Sarkozy of France, issue their ultimatum to Mr Papandreou — ‘do as you’re told or we’ll cut off your money!’ — it brought back memories of how the late and unlamented Leonid Brezhnev used to run his satellite states when dictator of the Soviet Union.



Bullying tactics: Chancellor Merkel of Germany and President Sarkozy of France have forcibly issued an ultimatum to Mr Papandreou

Whereas Brezhnev threatened tanks, Mrs Merkel threatens penury. It is an equally potent weapon in an EU where we are now witnessing the historic continuation of the German conquest of Europe, albeit by other means.



Not surprisingly, Mr Papandreou quickly came to heel. Whether his fellow-countrymen, steeped in a culture of idleness financed by foreign tax- payers, will obediently follow suit remains to be seen. I doubt it.



It is a consolation to those of us who are sceptical about — or, in my case, downright hostile to — the EU that the aggressive measures taken by Mrs Merkel and loudly endorsed by her French poodle were signs of panic and desperation.



For the truth is that the EU and its crippled currency are in grave trouble, and its politburo knows this.



That much has been clear since Mr Sarkozy’s offensive and petulant remarks to David Cameron last month, when he told him to keep his nose out of the eurozone’s business.

With the International Monetary Fund now requiring yet more of British taxpayers’ money to bail out the inadequates of Europe, it is increasingly clear that the eurozone’s failure is our business.

Aggressive EU tactics have brought Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou to heel

Meanwhile, the Franco-German bullies insist that everyone continues to buy into the mad fantasy that both the euro and the EU can survive.



When they saw Greece departing from the script, they launched the diplomatic equivalent of a coup d’état against Mr Papandreou.



The question now is how long before the deal to hold together the eurozone will be exposed as a sham and how long it will be before the next corrupt, profligate, economically incontinent country threatens to wreck the whole show.



Only nine days ago we were assured, not least by the euro-maniacs of the BBC and the Left-wing Press, that the Greek bail-out had secured the future of the euro and of the EU. Yet the deal collapsed within a week — as some of us predicted.



The truth is that there is no hope of salvation. Even if the Greeks succeed in implementing their austerity policy, the chances are that Greece is in for a winter not merely of discontent, but of serious civil and industrial unrest.



This, I am afraid, will set the pattern which a number of eurozone countries will follow over the coming months. However much they try, the commissars in Brussels won’t be able to silence public disquiet.

Portugal is already in trouble and has intimated it may seek further help to keep it in the euro.



But the real nightmare is Italy, a country whose debt is funded like one of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi schemes, and for which a hideously expensive reckoning is fast approaching.

Italy, under Silvio Berlusconi, is funded like a Ponzi scheme

Of course, this weakness will be quickly exploited by Merkel and Sarkozy as they continue to order other countries around — and with breathtaking arrogance saying who should, or should not, be that nation’s prime minister.



Admittedly, the moral tone of international politics would be raised by the removal of Silvio Berlusconi. But he should be removed only by Italian voters — not via a Führergram from Berlin.



Meanwhile, the financial markets will soon tire of repeated failed attempts to save a currency that cannot, in its present form, be saved.



Having concluded that Greece will inevitably default on its debts and that it will probably depart from the eurozone, other weak countries are now the centre of attention.



However, what happens in the financial markets is not the only serious worry on the horizon.



The political class that has got Europe into this mess — and which has proved itself more out of touch with its electorates than at any time since World War II — faces retribution at the ballot box.



Mr Sarkozy is expected to lose the presidential election in France next spring. Mrs Merkel has nearly two years to wait before facing her electors, but opinion polls show that most oppose her policies.



The irony is that, in defiance of this EU juggernaut, Germany’s bestselling newspaper Bild this week called for the Germans to be given a referendum on the future of their relationship with the EU.



Elsewhere, people in other EU states are fast realising that the balance of power has shifted dramatically towards Germany — making Mrs Merkel effectively the Empress of Europe and able to dictate to other EU nations.



Current EU tactics are similar to those Leonid Brezhnev used to run his satellite states when dictator of the Soviet Union

The tragedy is that this European dictatorship is not just deeply destructive of democracy, but supremely irrelevant in a world facing huge dangers other than the eurozone crisis.



Iran is said to be on a war footing as it seeks to protect its growing nuclear capability from possible U.S./Israeli intervention.

Indeed, never has there been a better time since the 1930s for an aggressor to challenge the supposedly civilised world.



The truth is that the EU is becoming increasingly irrelevant as China and India rapidly grow in power and wealth. For its part, America is swamped by debt and is led by a man whose main concern is to be re-elected next year.



Regardless of Barack Obama, America’s moral credit in the world is overdrawn after the foreign policy blunders of the Bush years in Iraq and elsewhere.



Nato’s European powers, notably Britain, have been forced to run down their armed forces out of economic necessity.



All this makes the Western world frighteningly vulnerable. And yet, its leading 27 nations are paralysed with anxiety about their own crisis — which, in truth, is a self-inflicted wound that will never heal.



After this week’s events, a fiscal union of some sort — in which nations have common tax and spending policies — starts to seem inevitable. Jose Manuel Barroso, the EU’s president, admitted as much yesterday.



Any fiscal union would comprise only a few countries — those whose economies are strong enough to withstand Germany having to tell them how to run their own affairs — unless joined by other maso-chistic nations that relish the occasional kick from the jackboot.

Such a Europe will be dramatically different from the one we have today.



A fiscal union that can support its own currency would be unlikely to include the economic basket-cases that currently are part of the EU.

Meanwhile, the panic and recriminations of the past few days signal that the undertakers have been sent for the euro as we know it in its present form. All that remains to be settled is the date of the funeral.

It will be an outrage if public sector unions strike over changes to their gold-plated pensions when millions in the private sector have no pension provision at all.



How stupid can union leaders be in this current economic climate to oppose a government deal that offers them £50 billion? Their members would be mad to strike.

I hope that when and if a walk-out happens, millions of them will continue to work as normal.

At last the truth about immigration

When I signed the online petition this week calling for a halt to mass immigration, I was astonished to see just how many other petitions on this subject there are.



The Left has been forced to concede that fears over immigration are not the product of racism. They are the result of a realisation that the welfare state, our education system and the whole of this country’s infrastructure cannot cope with millions more people.



The Commons must respond properly to the e-petition — this time without MPs being given an insulting three-line whip like in last week’s vote on whether to hold a referendum on Europe.



