Have the anti-Euro lobby shot themselves in the foot?

July 3, 2002 3:52 AM

Have the anti-Euro lobby shot themselves in the foot? A video promoting opposition to the UK joing the Euro has been critisized for including a spoof of Hitler praising the currency. It's attracted publicity for the campaign, all right, but has it unmasked the "No" campaign as anti-Europe "little Englanders"? (Guardian link)
posted by salmacis (23 comments total)

The trend towards a global community, including a global currency, will only ever progress forwards and I can think of no reason why the UK shouldn't join the Euro. Just because we all use the same money doesn't mean we're all going to become the same country.

The Euro is a Good Thing^TM, IMHO.
posted by Mwongozi at 4:01 AM on July 3, 2002

Mwongozi, the argument against the Euro has very little to do with whose face is on the bank notes or some other insignificant loss of identity. It's about losing economic control to Europe. What's good for France or Germany is very often not what's good for the British economy. See what's happening in Ireland for example.

Personally, I see no good reason FOR joining the Euro.
posted by MarkC at 4:10 AM on July 3, 2002

They've shot themselves in the foot by assembling the biggest tide of shit celebrities celebrities this side of Comic Relief. Just add Ben Elton, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Billy Connolly and you'd have the ultimate list of British, middle-class wankers.
posted by niceness at 4:11 AM on July 3, 2002

Oh come on, niceness; Harry Enfield is brilliant. Something which the Euro, by the way, is very much not. I can see why France would give up the franc and even Germany with their mark, but UK and the Pound Sterling? Why change to something inferior, and EU-ruled to boot?
posted by dagny at 4:13 AM on July 3, 2002

Never liked Rick Mayall and this just seems to be an entirely expected follow-up to all his past, unfunny performances. His own personal equivalent of Kenny Everett's "Let's kick away Michael Foot's stick" perhaps.

Harry Enfield I used to think was okay, but he seems to have turned out to have been a rather boring reactionary all along. Once his main writers Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson went off on their own it only served to show just how much of his success was really due to them and that on his own he wasn't really anything special. His last series for Sky TV was dire.

Give me Euro supporter Eddie Izzard in their place any day.
posted by kerplunk at 4:20 AM on July 3, 2002

mmm this advert suggests more anti euro(pean) sentiments than anti euro per se. The save the pound gang have always been a suspicious lot as far as I'm concerned finding it impossible to seperate the issues. Wasn't the founding of the EEC to bind countries economically such that war would prove an economic impossibility. As geoffrey howe said britain normally does the right thing as regards europe it just takes us twenty years longer than anyone else.
posted by johnnyboy at 4:29 AM on July 3, 2002

It is quite silly for the UK NOT to join the euro. Could you imagine if every U.S. state had their own currency and you had to exchange it every time you entered a new state?!
posted by LinemanBear at 4:46 AM on July 3, 2002

Err ... like Canada?

Seems to work for them.
posted by grahamwell at 4:50 AM on July 3, 2002

Oh come on, niceness; Harry Enfield is brilliant.

I have to agree with kerplunk - it's Whitehouse and Higson that are brilliant.

"And if Enfield came round my house giving all this euro-hitler-bollocks - I'd say Oi! Enfield NO!. I enjoyed your Loadsamoney and Stavros in a dated, eighties-excess, mildly xenophobic way. But if you persist in this ignorant, racist, unfunny, anti-European nonsense then you'll have my gold-sovereign knuckledusting your chin you ignorant little has-been."
posted by niceness at 5:25 AM on July 3, 2002

Nice one, Niceness :)

[toddler voice]

Poor Loadsa!

[/toddler voice]
posted by dash_slot- at 5:36 AM on July 3, 2002

It's interesting that no-one has followed the original subject of the thread and gone off on a tirade about insensitively resurrecting images of Hitler for the purposes of a political campaign. Or does everyone feel the same as me - that we are not even remotely qualified to comment on a political video that no one has seen yet? I can't see myself sitting through the full 90 mins in any case....

Back to the subject in hand (Harry Enfield that is) - full marks niceness, I couldn't have put it better myself. And how Enfield even got away with doing a blatant rip-off of Whitehouse's Ron Manager in his Sky One series is anyone's guess....
posted by andyHollister at 5:42 AM on July 3, 2002

It's a 90 second film, not a 90 minute film!

I have no particular attachment to the pound. We learned to buy petrol in litres instead of gallons, so it's been proved that we can adapt. One can also look across the Channel to see how the rest of Eurozone managed to adapt.

For me, the only argument is economic. How to weigh the advantages of being in a large trading block against the disadvantages of being unable to locally set interest rates and budgets. I'm pro-Europe generally, so I tend to think that the Euro can be made to work. After all, America has had no problem with a currency that spans a far greater area than the European Union. Part of America's economic success has been down to the ease of trading thoughout a huge domestic economic block. Before the Euro, a European version of PayPal would have been unviable. How do you transfer small amounts of cash when the commission for changing is so high?

In the end, I suspect that neither pro-Europeans or anti-Europeans really know the truth about the economic arguments, and like me, just follow their gut insincts.
posted by salmacis at 6:01 AM on July 3, 2002

Since this thread veered into the realms of trendy comedians, the ones wheeled out for the film were very much yesterday's men. What was the last thing of note Harry Enfield, Ben Elton or Rik Mayall did? In the 80s?

BTW - I'd love some of the frothing mad right-wingers who post to MeFi listen to one of Elton's rants in the 80s. Now that would be pure comedy..
posted by salmacis at 6:05 AM on July 3, 2002

I'm not going to have an opinion on the Euro until Bill Hicks has an opinion on the Euro. I'm prepared to wait a long time.
posted by vbfg at 6:28 AM on July 3, 2002

I was going to mention how the ghost of Hitler's Reichsbank and the idea of a common Nazi currency for all of Europe is one of the usual arguments of British euro-skeptics, maybe I could have thrown in a historical reference to the 1867 International Monetary Conference in Paris and that early attempt to widen the area of common currencies based on French francs. And how could one not mention Hjalmar Schacht, Hitler's banker.

But I'll just say two words: Benny Hill

don't want to hijack the thread, you know
posted by matteo at 6:35 AM on July 3, 2002

Could you imagine if every U.S. state had their own currency and you had to exchange it every time you entered a new state?!

But all the states are part of the same country, and supposedly the same economy. Not so in Europe, or not yet maybe? I still don't see how combining and using the same currency cannot, in some way, make each country a bit less an individual nation, and more of a European nation entity. Not that that has anything to do with the reasons of using a single currency, but probably more of a sentimental feeling. I guess there will always be the different languages to maintain separation, but for how long?

Resistance to change possibly? In a way I am sure. I say all this from my locale about an hours drive west of the infamous tea party.
posted by a3matrix at 6:36 AM on July 3, 2002

I'm with vbfg!
I'm really dying to see said film. I don't have it in my collection yet - ack - and can't find it on the web either, I'm tempted to sign up for the creative club to find it. Anyone seen it on the web yet?
posted by dabitch at 6:44 AM on July 3, 2002

His own personal equivalent of Kenny Everett's "Let's kick away Michael Foot's stick" perhaps

I thought that was very funny.
posted by Summer at 6:45 AM on July 3, 2002

I was going to mention how the ghost of Hitler's Reichsbank and the idea of a common Nazi currency for all of Europe is one of the usual arguments of British euro-skeptics

I've never heard that argument in my life, and I'm actually paid to do media monitoring.
posted by Summer at 6:48 AM on July 3, 2002

The UK has to decide what it wants, lose a little bit of individuality to ease trading between countries with the euro; or don't change and watch countries like the USA and the rest of the EuroZone become even stronger due the ease of trade. The UK will slowly become weaker due to simple trade barriers such as currency exchange.
posted by LinemanBear at 7:44 AM on July 3, 2002

"I've never heard that argument in my life, and I'm actually paid to do media monitoring."

Paid too much, it seems. Maybe if you spent more time on your job and less time reading MeFi, you would have heard it! 8^)

(sorry, I couldn't resist!)

And not that my opinion matters, but the Euro as it exists now will not work in the long term. Not enough accountability built into the system.
posted by BGM at 9:38 AM on July 3, 2002

The UK will be ready to join the Euro when it has the capacity to have a serious debate on the Euro. I fear that might take some time, particularly when you have an Australian-now-American and a Canadian-now-sort-of-Briton dictating the press coverage.

Though I do wonder whether things will be different, as Glorious Tony hopes, when people come back from their summer holidays with Euro coins in their pockets.
posted by riviera at 10:08 AM on July 3, 2002

Comparing the Euro to the US Dollar is not relevant at all. The US is one country, one economy and one people.
Europe consists of different countries and, more importantly, cultures. Now, imagine the whole of the American continent under one currency, from Alaska to Brazil and every country in-between. The relative wealth of the countries involved is more disparate, however the idea remains the same.
Each country in Europe wants the best deal for it's people, for this reason alone the ideal of a European superstate is flawed, you can't have a lasting, strong coalition whose constituent parties have self-interest as their primary driver.
As for Harry Enfield, what niceness said.
posted by Markb at 5:35 AM on July 4, 2002