When my Eurosceptic thriller The Aachen Memorandum was first published 17 years ago, it got right under the skin of the establishment. With Biteback reissuing it now, I am now in a position to tell its detractors – who scoffed at my dystopian vision of the EU – those four most satisfying and vicious words in the English language: ‘I told you so.’
For back in 1995 I prophesied that a referendum would be held that would decide whether Britain would enter a European superstate, and that the political establishment would employ every possible tactic to ensure a ‘Yes’ vote in it. I stand astonished at my own prescience, and would hereby like to lay claim to the title ‘Nostradamus of the Right’.
Set in the year 2045, the novel was a dystopian vision of what Britain might turn into if it became a minor satrapy of a vast, protectionist, illiberal, anti-American, politically correct EU. ‘The first thing Horatio saw on entering the drawing room was the Admiral’s corpse lying prostrate on the sofa,’ is the opening line. ‘He hoped death had come naturally, but an indefinable something about the room suggested murder.’
Murder was what the reviewers had on their minds, too. Douglas Hurd scoffed at ‘a sustained polemic’, Gerald Kaufmann dismissed it as ‘a redundant pamphlet’, Matthew Parris called it ‘a lie’, the Observer described it as ‘Europhobic’ and the reviewer in the TLS said I was ‘obsessed’ about the dangers I was predicting. When the book was brought up in a debate in the House of Commons, Hansard fortunately didn’t record the audible groaning that could be heard from three europhile Tory MPs. One thing all the commentators agreed upon was that my predictions were absurd and unfounded.
Now take a look at what I foresaw in The Aachen Memorandum 17 years ago, and at what has subsequently happened. For almost as soon as the book was published, real-life events started eerily to follow the pattern of my predictions. I predicted that Brussels bureaucrats would attempt to rewrite British history to reflect a pro-EU bias; sure enough, in 1996 the EU published its inane guide to south-east England which stated that ‘The arrival of the Romans and Normans realised the benefits and opportunities offered by trade and co-operation.’ There’s even now an EU colouring-in book for children entitled ‘Let’s Draw Europe Together’, the preface of which states that it is ‘intended as a call to schoolchildren to commit themselves to achieving European unity.’ No child is too young for euro-indoctrination; the gift shop in the European parliament sells baby clothes, dummies and bibs all featuring the EU logo.
I envisaged the Union flag being banned from certain public buildings and the monarchy being progressively downplayed; soon afterwards the Patten report ordained that our flag and pictures of the Queen should be removed from RUC stations, and the word ‘Royal’ dropped from its title. Even the Crown Prosecution Service is now being renamed. Two years after I predicted an Inmates’ Charter for prisoners, a London court started distributing cards to convicted felons which asked: ‘Are you satisfied with the service you received today? Could we do better?’
I predicted DNA fingerprinting on compulsory ID cards, a massive increase in the number of roadside speed cameras, the interception of ‘e-mail’, the long-term deliberate marginalisation of Parliament, mass Eastern European migration, the euro and its disasters, the accession of each of the ten of the new EU countries, and British beef being banned throughout Europe. Some of these happened soon afterwards, others are happening now, the rest will undoubtedly take place should this country take the suicidal step of voting ‘Yes’ in any coming referendum.
Of course there’s plenty that I got wrong back in 1994; I had Princess Diana living to a fine old age in California, and I failed to spot the true ghastliness of John Major’s last two years in power. But overall my crystal ball-gazing was remarkably accurate. No sooner had I envisaged Nelson’s column and Waterloo station being denounced as harmful to French sensibilities than the mayor of Montreal proposed pulling down Nelson’s column in Montreal’s central square and the French politician Florent Longuepée called for the renaming of Waterloo station to end the ‘uneasiness’ of French Eurostar passengers.
Some things that I had predicted were only meant satirically, but were soon afterwards proposed in all earnestness by responsible politicians. In The Aachen Memorandum, the Houses of Parliament had been turned into ‘The Westminster Leisure, Amenities and Heritage Centre’; then in October 1995 Labour’s deputy chief whip in the House of Lords, Lord Morris, actually proposed that the Houses of Parliament ‘should be abandoned by politicians’ and ‘transformed into a great museum’ for tourists. Similarly, no sooner had I predicted an EU in which huge numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians domiciled themselves in the Home Counties, than Edwina Currie stated in 1996 that ‘It is logical and desirable that all internal border controls should disappear.’ Some things in politics simply defy satire.
In my nightmare vision in The Aachen Memorandum, the Government ran a referendum that was hopelessly one-sided. Every organ of the state was prevailed upon to do its bit to procure a ‘Yes’ vote. Pro-Brussels front organisations massively outspent the ‘No’ campaign, using taxpayers’ money to produce ceaseless ‘Yes’ propaganda. Markets were manipulated. Polls were spun. Can anyone really doubt that all this will take place if there were a future EU referendum? When it does, remember: I told you so.
The present struggle over trying to keep Greece, Portugal and Spain in the euro will wind up with rules that further strengthen Germany’s position in the EU, something else I predicted nearly two decades ago.
I do hope you enjoy the book (which got plenty of positive reviews when it was published as well, by the way!) and I highly commend Biteback’s excellent reissue and fine front cover.