Not quite Euromillions but still a gamble

The agitation among some to leave the European Union altogether leads to some addled thinking.  To correct that, the idea of the IEA Brexit Prize was conceived.  However, it is immediately compromised by its very name.  Maybe because os many European officials and media tarts are referring to ‘Brixit’, the organsiers had to come out with something very British for a very British exit.  Gisela Stuart says we cannot debate leaving the EU properly without a good idea of what it would mean – language instantly framing the terms of discussion on leaving rather than the merits of staying inside the club.  Though Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, she joins usual right-wing anti-EU suspects in Lord Lawson, David Starkey, Roger Bootle and Tim Frost judging entries for this, in her words, “prestigious academic endeavour.”

Lord Lawson is already compromised.  While his daughter is going through a very public divorce, if he truly believes what he says then he is divorced from reality.  However his conversion was greatly helped by the reality of financial remuneration by Big Coal rather any rational commitment to the greater good, as the EU is increasingly setting new caps on emissions and renewable energy targets (a Polish coal conglomerate funds much of his climate change-denying institute).  With Britain out of the EU, a major energy consumer is no longer bound by EU targets and might weaken anti-pollution legislation that gets passed as it will be of lesser scope.  David Starkey might frame the EU as ‘black culture’, but of course it’s all a misunderstanding because he’s ‘the rudest man in Britain’.  Maybe he feels intimidated that he may not be the rudest man in the EU.  It would be interesting to know how Bootle and Frost have always felt out the EU.

What most drew my eye to this story which otherwsie is the usual blah-blah is what the winner will receive.  In standard tabloid language, you couldn’t make it up, as the first prize awarded to EU-phobes talking to each other is 100,000 euros.  Is this a joke?  It certainly sounds like it, on all levels.