MRS MAY GOES TO BRUSSELS - ONE MORE TIME

That the European Union is an utterly moribund organisation has surely never been more clear than now. Theresa May, a Prime Minister in name only, has trotted off to Brussels for yet another 'summit' at which the next incarnation of the Union's multiple organ's will be discussed and possibly conjured up. 

All of the member states, including for now the United Kingdom, will have their say in who is to get plum appointments to 4 Presidential posts - Council, Commission, Parliament and Central Bank - as well as to the post of EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs; there will be horse-trading galore with every conceivable argument used in order to ensure that whoever gets the jobs fulfils the one critical criterion - that they are the lowest common denominator. In other words, there will be a continuation of the fiction of an independent EU government, while the real power rests with Germany and, to a lesser extent, France.

Juncker, Tusk, Tajani, Mogherini, Draghi - these giants of world politics are all at the end of their terms of office and are about to be replaced; one has to wonder if they'll be missed or if their disappearance from the world stage will even be noticed beyond their own tiny puddles of self importance. Their successors will be another bunch of non-entities drawn from Europe's less powerful nations and who will bestride the world stage like ants.

No concatenation of states such as the European Union can ever succeed as it inevitably has to bend to so many demands that everything it does has to satisfy far too many masters.; the consequence is that it is forced to adopt policies that are hated by many in order to get even some others of more importance agreed. Even then, many of its member states will fail to implement policies with any enthusiasm if their own electorates dislike them enough. The only way forward is a fully fledged United States of Europe, and that is the one destination which is unacceptable to almost everyone outside of the EU's central management.

The EU is not a safe haven, it is not something to which any major state should aspire to belong unless that state has ulterior motives. Germany and France see it as being a stepping stone to European domination without actual warfare, and so both support it wholeheartedly; most of the other member states see it as being a gravy train chucking out bundles of cash, although the reality is that it's a centralised dictatorship which has caused much pain in countries such as Italy and Greece. The United Kingdom has no such desire for the protectionist insularity of Europe, something for which it pays billions of pounds every year; it has no desire to be subservient to the dictatorship of Brussels and wants to get out, quite rightly.

This latest 'summit' should be Mrs May's last chance to parade around with her fellow European bigwigs and, if she has anything about her, she should tell them a few home truths. Not much chance of that, though.