Selv som teenager købte jeg ikke postulatet om EF, siden EU, som fredens garant i Europa. Jeg forstod, selv med mit ringe kendskab til den store verden, at politikerne optrådte som kvaksalere, betlende slangeolie mod alle dårligdomme. Både Den Kolde Krig og den stille observation at demokratier ikke havde præcedens for at gå i flæsket på hinanden var indlysende argumenter for mit unge sind, som blæste ideen om en unions fortræffeligheder og et par handelsaftalers mirakelvirkning væk. Jeg har aldrig fået en EF/EU tilhænger til at forklare præcis hvad det er for en krig, som EU har forhindret. Kul- og Stål unionen skulle hindre endnu en tysk-fransk konflikt og da den var en fransk opfindelse måtte man mene at det var tyskerne man burde stoppe. Så hvem var den næste Hitler? Adenauer? Erhard? Kiesinger? Brandt? Smith? Kohl? Hvilke af disse gale hunde blev holdt i skak af Unionen?

Så indlysende var den indsigt for mig at den er blevet siddende så fast i alle årene at jeg end ikke gad overveje at læse Kasper Støvrings sikkert glimrende bog Fortællingen om Fredens Europa - Georg Metz kunne ikke lide den, så den må være ret god - fordi det er anstrengende at blive bekræftet i egne forestillinger. Og påstanden om EUs fredskabende egenskaber er da også på retræte, måske især efter EU hovent paraderede sin impotens overfor Rusland, mens det æggede Ukraine. Og så var der jo Jugoslavien i 90′erne. Men herhjemme er ikke i England, der står overfor at skulle bestemme sig om de overhovedet vil være medlem af, hvad der i stigende grad ligner en taberklub. Og med en mistillidserklæring fra vælgerne truende i horisonten, bliver systemets mænd endnu mere stålsatte på at benytte de metoder der ikke virker, blot mere intenst. I dette tilfælde argumentet om EU som fredens projekt, hvor premierminister David Cameron direkte advarede om at et Brexit ville kaste Europa ud i krig.

I Guardian kaldte Simon Jenkins Camerons historieskrivning for “rubbish” og “Project Fear gone mad” og mindede om Camerons forgænger Salisbury, der navngav sin politik “splendid isolation”

The best thing that happened to medieval England was its defeat in the hundred years war and the end of English ambitions on the continent of Europe. The best thing to happen in the 16th century was Henry VIII’s rejection of the pan-European papacy. The wisest policy of his daughter, Elizabeth I, was an isolationism so rigid that she rejected one continental suitor after another. Britain fought off all attempts by France and Spain to restore European Catholicism, and accepted a Dutch and a German monarch strictly on the basis of British parliamentary sovereignty.

Cameron’s 18th-century predecessor was Robert Walpole, author of Walpole’s Peace. Its meticulous isolation from Europe’s conflicts brought Britain a golden age of enlightenment and industrial revolution. In 1734, Walpole could proudly tell the Queen: “Madam there are 50,000 men slain this year in Europe, and not one an Englishman.”

Even William Pitt’s creation of a British empire was based on staying explicitly aloof from the seven years’ war on the continent of Europe. Later, while Horatio Nelson’s victories were essential to British interests, the Waterloo campaign could hardly, on David Cameron’s terms, have been avoided by earlier intervention. Nor did Napoleon Bonaparte pose a serious threat to Britain.

I Telegraph mindede Nigel Jones ligeledes om en af Camerons konservative forgængere, nemlig Pitt the Younger, der som argument for at stå imod Napoleons tyranni sagde at det var englands rolle at “Save Europe by her example”. Og et Brexit kunne meget vel være et eksempel med en domino-effekt indikerer meningsmålinger. Som kontrast beskrev han Camerons horistont med Goebbels diktum om at folk vil tro en løgn, blot den er stor nok. For mens EUs grundlæggere “distrusted democracy, which they believed had brought dictators and demagogues to power, and determined that their project would create a post-democratic new order, imposed by stealth step by step on their blissfully ignorant populations” peger Jones på at unioner ser ud til at kollapse, nogengange endda i et kaos af krig.

The history of EU-style multinational federations imposed by an elite from above in Europe is not a happy one. From the frayed patchworks of the  Holy Roman and Hapsburg Austrian Empires, down to the collapse of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, they have invariably ended in bloody chaos, and then the peace and quiet of the graveyard.

Not for nothing did a bemused Mikhail Gorbachev – and as the man who presided over the dissolution of Russia’s “evil empire” he should surely know – say that the most puzzling development in Europe over the past decade was the determination of the EU’s leaders to reconstruct the Soviet Union, a failed state if there ever was one, on the soil of western Europe.

Gorbachev was speaking before the long arm of EU meddling reached as far as Ukraine, causing that vast country to split in two and threaten  war with Vladimir Putin’s Russia – a slow-burn crisis that may yet erupt once more into open conflict.

Back in the 1990s, the total failure of EU diplomacy helped speed former Yugoslavia into a brutal ethnic civil war. A fragile peace was finally imposed on those troubled lands not by the EU, but by Nato bombs and arm twisting backed by the Atlantic alliance’s  military muscle.

Og Oberst Richard Kemp var Telegraph endnu mere konkret i hvorledes EU ville underminere freden

A German defence white paper, leaked last week but supposed to be kept under wraps until after the referendum, leaves no doubt of Germany’s intention to drive through the merger of Europe’s armed forces “and embark on permanent cooperation under common structures”. Germany has begun to combine substantial elements of the Dutch forces with their own.

A centralised army is an indispensable component of the superstate to which the EU is openly committed. It would also provide an excuse for struggling economies to slash defence budgets. Few nations take defence seriously enough to spend even the 2 per cent of GDP required by Nato, a shortcoming criticised by President Obama in Germany last month. An EU army will see these nations cut back even further, cynically pretending that defences are strengthened even as forces and capabilities are merged and downsized.

(…)

As well as depleted strength and capability, the aggregated European forces will beemasculated by a lack of political will. After Iraq and Afghanistan the West is paralysed, with governments terrified of committing ground forces to any conflict. An EU command structure, fraught with divergent and opposing policy agendas, will turn paralysis into rigor mortis. Look at the EU’s long track record of vacillation, timidity and inaction on the Balkans, Ukraine, Syria, Libya, the immigration crisis and the Islamic State.

None of our enemies is going to take an EU army seriously. Its creation would undermine one of the most critical virtues of a strong and credible defence: deterring an aggressor from action they might be forced to regret.

Og i Breitbart perspektiverede samme Kemp

The EU failed to prevent the migration crisis that threatens to overwhelm many European cities and the housing, welfare, health, and education services paid for by the hard work of citizens who have been allowed no say.

The EU failed to deploy effective naval forces along the North African coast to prevent illegal immigration across the Mediterranean. Such action, used to great effect by Australia, would not only have prevented the landing of countless unregulated immigrants on our shores but would also have saved thousands of lives and sent a firm message to both immigrants and traffickers.

It was self-doubt and a desire to expunge the sins of the past rather than strong and principled leadership that led Europe’s most powerful politician unilaterally to invite in migrants from the corners of the earth, to transform German cities and to assault and rape German girls. A policy that opened the doors of Europe to hundreds of thousands of economic migrants, including many young men of fighting age who abandoned their families and their countries; and closed the doors to genuine refugees.

Timorous EU countries failed to take military action against Assad’s regime in Syria when he crossed the chemical weapons ‘red line’. Action that could have ended his reign of terror and prevented the intervention of Russia and Iran that has solidified his position and exacerbated the migrant crisis.

Fearful EU members failed even to contemplate setting up protected safe havens in Syria, where millions of beleaguered people could have taken refuge without the need to move to other countries. This would have required boots on the ground but, terrified by experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, few if any EU states are prepared to countenance that. Physical danger was not their only fear; they were also afraid to act without United Nations authorization, which would have been vetoed by Russia.

Now, bullied and blackmailed by President Erdogan, the EU is now allowing visa free access to Europe for 70 million Turks and is well on the way to admitting Turkey to full EU membership. Not only will this push back the borders of the EU to Iran, Iraq and Syria, but it will also lead to yet another massive population shift in Europe, without consultation further transforming the way of life of its citizens.

This is the peace and security provided by the EU today.

EU som fredens projekt er en løgn ingen længere gider høre. Kun de mest desperate gider fortsat fortælle den. England forlader EU, EU falder fra hinanden - med lidt held.