The EU’s new diplomatic corps, the EEAS, has been pretty high profile over the past few days. First there was a Brussels vote in which Conservative MEPs were reportedly chivvied by William Hague. Then much the same happened in the Commons yesterday.
As I pointed out earlier in the week, the EEAS may have been the offspring (some might prefer ‘spawn’) of the Lisbon Treaty, and we may be lumbered with it in some form. But there is no reason to so joyfully skip around hand in hand with what is a longstanding, very real and very costly threat to the British national interest headed up by a quangonaut.
It is only really a footnote to the whole affair, but details released today on the TaxPayers’ Alliance website and acquired through FOI requests show the number of EU flags the FCO has been buying up to fly from its flagpoles. Recent events give deeper symbolism to this tiny detail. The Foreign Office needs to find itself again; and it can only achieve that through a radical shake up, to bring to the top those diplomats who have this country’s interests at heart - rather than those who see themselves as part of a pan-European civil service.
