Telegraph - End of Belgium should be a warning to Gordon. By Boris Johnson

Once again the bad news comes from abroad, and no, I am not talking about American mortgages, or the terrifying prospect of a Bush-led bombing raid on Iran.

It is a sign of this column’s complete indifference to fashion that this week I take my text from Belgium.

Yes, Belgium is the place that Gordon should be watching: because lovely, misty little Belgium, with its triste cobbled streets and Calpol-tasting beer, is now on the verge of a tragic disintegration. For 102 days, the country has been without a government. –

Sounds nice, doesn’t it?

– The Walloons can’t abide the Flemings, and the Flemings want to maroon the Walloons, and there is now a real chance that they will call it quits.

It is a superb and suggestive irony that the people of Europe are now being forced to accept a new constitutional document intended to unify 25 different polities, and yet the desire for national self-government is so strong that Belgium itself - the very country that plays host to the EU institutions - is in danger of breaking up.

Happy danger! (Skipping.. skipping… (Johnny Hallyday is Belgian?) skipping…) (Nuh uh, born in Paris to a French mother and Belgian father. Hardly counts.)

If Belgium splits up, that fissure will not only make a mockery of Belgium’s central role in the cause of European integration. It will be a huge boost to Europe’s remaining separatist movements, the Basques, the Corsicans, the Welsh - and, above all, the Scots. If the Belgian creation of 1830 is capable of falling apart, why should we expect the union of 1707 to be imperishable?

It is one of the wonders of the Brown “bounce” that no one any longer sees fit to point out the infamy of the West Lothian problem. We have a Scottish MP Prime Minister, promulgating measures on health and education and other matters that have no effect on his own constituents, and while Scottish MPs are able to vote on English schools and hospitals, English MPs have no corresponding say in Scotland. The English seem utterly passive in the face of this injustice; and in spite of this passivity - or perhaps partly because of it - the Scots advance ever further on the path towards independence.

Alex Salmond now calls his executive a government, and Gordon can do nothing to correct him. Look at Belgium, Gordon, and tremble.

Mmmmph.

Date: Sep 20th, 2007 · Comments RSS · Tags: Geography and Foreign Affairs