Tuesday 14 May 2024

Connor Allen and British exceptionalism

An article appeared in The Spectator yesterday and was tweeted approvingly by Catherine MacBride the Brexity ‘economist’ who also contributes to the same Eurosceptic magazine. I wrongly thought at first that it was Ms MacBride's work. It wasn’t until later I managed to read the piece behind a paywall and discovered it was in fact written by one Connor Allen, a man I have never heard of.  The title: Working in Brussels, I saw the Dark Side of the EU, gives the impression that the EU is some sort of Jekyll and Hyde organisation that actually has a malign ‘dark side’ which occasionally surfaces to reveal a tendency to lash out at things that it doesn't like.

It is, of course, simply a political construct representing 27 different European nations, embodied by the Commission and the thirty thousand or so officials of many different nationalities, not all from member states and not even all European.  It isn't a superstate or even a state and certainly doesn't have human traits although it does have people who do.

Who is Connor Allen anyway? He voted remain and worked in the European Parliament for two British MEPs and clearly liked the continental lifestyle, because in 2019 when he lost his job due to Brexit, he applied to become a lobbyist for Honda and later for Mitsubishi apparently so that he could remain watching ‘the dark side’ of Brussels.

Last year he appeared at number 31 in Politico's 40 top influencers who "are most effectively setting the agenda in politics, public policy and advocacy in Brussels" and seems rather proud of it from his Twitter account postings where he tweets as @ConnorAllenEU:

He was described as an EU government affairs manager at Honda Motor Europe, although he admits he can't actually drive, an amazing thing for one of Europe's top influencers.  Basically, Allen is a corporate lobbyist living and competing with a lot of other corporate lobbyists. 

However, he comes across in his Spectator piece as an incredibly naive whinger and would-be power broker who is easily slighted, suffers from the old disease of British exceptionalism, and doesn’t understand what the EU is.

He tweeted his own article saying although he's a remainer/rejoiner he thinks 'many' EU staffers "scorn" Britain:

What did he think the reaction to Brexit would be among some officials in the Commission?

Many of them worked hard to dispel the stupid myths pedalled by the right-wing British press for thirty years or more. During the negotiations, they faced almost continuous insults from Johnson, Frost, and others in the British government. And we all remember the disgraceful scenes in the European Parliament from Farage, Widdicombe and the rest of UKIP's rag-bag of fruitcakes, loons, and closet racists.

Allen seems to think the members and staff of the club we decided to walk out on in a big huff have to turn the other cheek, be graceful and generous while we can do just as we like.

So, how did this 'dark side' he witnessed manifest itself?

First, he mentions Friedrich Merz, leader of the German CDU, who apparently stated this week that he recalled David Cameron asking for changes to the EU's social policy and returning with nothing. Hence Allen says: "The continental Europeans were not entirely blameless when it comes to Brexit".  It's partly their fault for not giving us what we demanded.

Metz, by the way, thinks Germany should copy Britain's Rwanda policy. He is not the EU. 

On another occasion, during the withdrawal talks, a British delegation went to see an influential representative of Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique En Marche party, but he "did not stand up to greet them."  Crikey!

The delegation is said to have made a passionate argument about the need to protect people’s lives and wellbeing but was "met with a callous, gallic shrug and: Well, what do you want us to do about it? Britain chose this, and so the British will deal with this."

Allen complains that upon Brexit happening British officials "were fired immediately, with only exceptions in a few cases."

"In the European Parliament, British staffers working in the European Conservatives and Reformists group were marched into a room and sacked en masse. Only the most senior survived. In the liberal Renew Europe group, senior British staff were demoted and sidelined."

"Only a last-ditch internal lobbying effort by the German Greens allowed departing staff to claim EU unemployment benefits. The desire for humiliation and revenge meant punishing the Britons who were theoretically most loyal to the Union."

I am sure there are individual EU officials who don't like us, possibly some who have never liked us but to extend this to make it sound like EU policy makes him look incredibly thin-skinned.  

It's not clear what or who prompted him to write such an article for, of all magazines, The Spectator which never misses an opportunity to launch an attack on Brussels. I suspect it was the need to create a name for himself. Look at this:

In April he was giving a lengthy interview to DeHavilland Information Services, a political intelligence website for EU public affairs professionals.

Allen ends his Spectator article with this:

"Remainers and leavers alike must be under no illusions: it will take a generational change in the Berlaymont before we can repair the relations between Britain and the EU."

He genuinely thinks the EU has to change rather than the UK.  This is British exceptionalism at its worst.

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