Everybody agrees that it is in Britain’s interest to rejoin Horizon Europe, the scientific research initiative of the European Union. That, at least, is the impression one gets reading the papers this morning.
Positive reports in the country’s more Eurosceptic papers—The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, and The Times—read like government releases, partly because they have copied and pasted so much from the Downing Street document announcing the news. Even The Daily Express, which was the first mainstream paper to come out for Brexit in 2010, has hailed the move as a “victory,” failing in the paragraphs below this title to demonstrate even the slightest lick of scepticism.
Do the authors of these pieces—not to mention the members of Rishi Sunak’s government—understand what they’re dealing with? If they bothered to read just the first two sentences of the official Horizon Europe website, they would learn that it is the initiative’s purpose to “[boost] the EU’s competitiveness and growth.” Dare to venture a whole sentence further and this point is expanded:
The programme facilitates collaboration and strengthens the impact of research and innovation in developing, supporting and implementing EU policies while tackling global challenges. (Emphasis added)
It is towards this aim that British taxpayers will now be paying billions of pounds every year. The prime minister described this as the “right deal for British taxpayers.”
They may not have been quoted in the first round of mainstream articles on Britain’s rejoining, but there do exist many figures who believe this to be a bad idea—one which is damaging to Britain’s interest.
Businessman and former Brexit Party MEP Ben Habib told The European Conservative that despite the impression made by most of the coverage up to this point, Horizon Europe “is not a benign programme of scientific research. Its unashamed aim is to promote EU policies. It is overtly political.” He added:
We didn’t vote to leave the EU so we could participate at vast cost in promoting their political aims.
Two weeks before we signed the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) and made our commitment to Horizon Europe, the European Defence Fund for military research was folded into it. The EDF’s aim, amongst others, is EU military interoperability. By joining Horizon Europe we would be promoting the EU Defence Union.
We must stand against anything which takes us into interoperability based on EU standards. That is how they will capture our military.
Mr. Sunak’s administration ought to be asked whether these cons outweigh the supposed benefit that the country’s re-entrance to the scheme is based on a cheaper, “new bespoke deal.”
The cost, Mr. Habib stressed, will still be “vast” (£2 billion every year). He added:
The fact Sunak is taking us into this is itself, applauded by all the usual Remain suspects, evidences we should not be doing it.
Horizon Europe membership is not in the UK’s interests. We need research programmes aimed at promoting British interests!
