Can Tony Blair's EU referendum win against a tide of British tabloid Europhobia? Brian Boyd picks some corkers
If the draft EU constitution is passed in Britain, Queen Elizabeth will be stripped of her powers, the country will lose its seat at the UN to the EU, its armed forces will be subsumed into a new EU army, they won't be able to raise their own taxes and the European public prosecutor would take charge of all British criminal cases.
And the vista is just as appalling on a culinary level: traditional fish 'n' chips will be banned, as will bendy bananas, all cucumbers will have to be straight and brandy butter will either be banned outright or renamed "brandy spreadable fat".
Worst of all, perhaps, is the new Euro superstate's ideologically driven plan to outlaw car boot sales - because a Brussels directive requires retailers to prove full "traceability" of the goods they sell.
Along with warm beer, an innate ability to form an orderly queue and cricket on the village green, the car boot sale is what helped make Britain great.
All the above Euro myths, which have no basis in fact, have been touted in print, on radio talk shows, television discussions and from bar stools, as the dire consequences of Britain increasing its links with Europe.
From "Up Yours Delors" (the in/famous Sun headline) to real fears that the opening of the Channel Tunnel would allow hordes or rabies-infected dogs to roam around the south-east of the country, there is nothing new about the country's recent enthusiastic burst of Europhobia.
As an island nation, it was always at a psychological remove from the continental land mass, but due to its empire building, Britain forged enduring ties with countries beyond its immediate European neighbours. The legacy of that empire - the Commonwealth - and the "special relationship" with the US ensures that Britain's friendship energies are already used up. They rest on the laurels of two world wars and one World Cup - even if the Americans won them one of the wars and a Russian linesman won them the World Cup.
This is a country whose two proudest moments were the defeat of a Frenchman (Napoleon) and a German man (Hitler). Britain indulges itself in world war memories, the corollary being that their EU neighbours have their shame highlighted.
The British don't mingle well at the EU party - tending to sulk in the corner thinking the event is a French-German stitch-up. While Maggie Thatcher took her handbag to Johnny Foreigner when he was getting a bit too uppity on the "harmonisation" front, Tony Blair speaks French and takes holidays in Italy - making him a Europhile closet case.
With Blair's U-turn on a referendum on the draft EU constitution, the British press is busy rummaging in its box of clichés, half-truths and hyperbolic prose to prepare his journey to a political Golgotha.
A 2002 Eurobarometer survey found that the British know less than citizens of any other member-state about the workings of the EU. The report found there's a perception in Britain of "a sprawling, inefficient, spendthrift bureaucracy, and a general suspicion of the existence of illegal benefits and payments, and corruption".
It's a representation that is reflected in the editorials of the Times/Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Sun, the Star and most rabidly by the Daily Mail and the Daily Express. The Mail is perhaps the most reprehensible of them all. It's classic Babbittry for Little Englanders - hang shoplifters and blame the rest of society's ills on single mothers. The Daily Express has turned its attention away from "gypsies" to unleash their bulldogs of xenophobia on immigrants generally. The paper's owner, Richard Desmond, added his personal spin with his all-Germans-are-Nazis outburst (complete with goose-stepping, in case anyone missed the point) at a board meeting this week.
British press reporting on Europe is tragic-comedy. The London Times carried a story on its front page on January 29th, 2003 which claimed that, under new EU law, British farmers faced three months in jail if they didn't provide their pigs with toys. A bit of research shows that EU legislation on the welfare of pigs says that the animals should be supplied with such materials as straw, hay, wood, sawdust, compost or peat. The directive was introduced following scientific evidence showing that boredom in pigs could lead them to harm themselves and other pigs. There was never any mention of "toys" in the directive.
On May 4th last year, the Sunday Times carried a report that smoky-bacon-flavoured crisps were to be outlawed under new EU regulations. It makes for a great headline, but the facts show the EU merely plans to remove certain dangerous chemicals from the smoking process and replace them with smoked flavour derived from safe sources. No smoked flavoured products would be banned.
And it goes on: the Sun reported last year that a village in England had to get rid of its playground swings because Euro rules say they are too high. However, the EU is not involved in setting standards for swings or slides and never has been.
The European Commission has singled out Britain's press for falsely reporting "jingoistic rubbish", saying some stories are "based on bias, untruth and propaganda".
The Commission highlighted a number of stories, including a Daily Mail report which read "The European Court of Justice would be given unfettered powers to interfere in existing UK laws under a new human rights charter launched in Brussels". The Commission noted: "It is the Daily Mail's scaremongering that is unfettered, not the European Court of Justice".
When the Daily Express reported, "Brussels bureaucrats were set to force the UK to give up its traditional lavatories in favour of European ones", the Commission informed the paper that the only story about "Continental-style lavatories" is about how they are now available for sale in Britain.
Ever since Labour morphed into New Labour, certain sections of the British press have found their new "loony left" in the EU. During the 1980s, there were routine stories about how Labour-run councils had banned the use of the term "black bin bags" in case it was offensive to black people; similarly it was reported that in certain Labour-run boroughs, schoolchildren were banned from singing the Ba Ba Black Sheep nursery rhyme. The stories were later found to have no substance.
Whether it be "black one-armed lesbians" or "Brussels bureaucrats", the threat to "traditional British ways" will no doubt be staunchly defended by the usual suspects, which won't allow the facts to get in the way of a good Euro-bashing story.
If the British do vote against the EU constitution, what are the bets on a "Gotcha" headline?