There's an air of conspiracy in the basement bar of the Ruskin Hotel in Blackpool, where 100 or so Tories have gathered to heap scorn on the EU and its latest big idea.
Overlooking them is a framed, autographed portrait of Baroness Margaret Thatcher, Britain's Conservative prime minister throughout the 1980s, who is today the spiritual leader of the nation's legion of euroskeptics.
With an EU constitution in the pipeline, Thatcher would have agreed with much of what was being said at this hour-long critique of the EU, organized on the fringes of the Conservatives' annual conference by the Bruges Group, a euroskeptic think tank.
Europe is one of the issues that splits the Conservatives, Britain's main opposition party, which has failed thus far to exploit Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair's mid-term slump to rebuild its popular support.
So divisive is Europe, in fact, that Tory Chairman Theresa May didn't mention the word during her keynote speech at the annual Conservative party conference, which opened on Monday in Blackpool, northwest England, with the singing of "God Save the Queen." She'd prefer, like Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, for the party to concentrate on wooing British voters with hopeful talk of deep tax cuts and better public services.
But Europe is one topic that won't go away -- not with the 25 current and future EU member states now haggling over the fine points of the bloc's first-ever constitution in hopes of nailing down a consensus by December.
Euroskeptics, or "euro-realists" as some would prefer, see the constitution sweeping away 1,000 years of British national sovereignty, leading to a European superstate with orders coming down from "eurocrats" in Brussels.
They also reject the idea of an EU foreign minister who could run roughshod over Britain's more pro-US foreign policy, and fear the creation of a European military force that could rival NATO.
Blair denies that it's all as bad as that, but many Conservatives are insisting on a full-dress referendum in Britain on the EU constitution.
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northern Japan on Monday prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there. The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1% chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1% chance during normal times, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches. Officials said the advisory was not a quake prediction but urged residents in 182 towns along the northeastern coasts to raise their preparedness while continuing their daily lives. Prime
HAZARDOUS CONDITION: The typhoon’s sheer size, with winds extending 443km from its center, slowed down the ability of responders to help communities, an official said The US Coast Guard was searching for six people after losing contact with their disabled boat off the coast of Guam following Typhoon Sinlaku. The crew of the 44m dry cargo vessel, the US-registered Mariana, on Wednesday notified the coast guard that the boat had lost its starboard engine and needed assistance, Petty Officer 3rd Class Avery Tibbets said yesterday. The coast guard set up a one-hour communication schedule with the vessel, but lost contact on Thursday. A Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules aircraft was launched to search for the six people on board, but it had to return to Guam because of
RSS