JD Wetherspoon’s ‘Veto Ale’ to celebrate Cameron's ‘patriotic act’ is a clever stunt of tremendously poor taste - La Treizième Étoile: A blog on EU politics

An Tredhegves Steren - agas pennfenten a nowodhow dhyworth an Kesunyans Europek.

JD Wetherspoon’s ‘Veto Ale’ to celebrate Cameron's ‘patriotic act’ is a clever stunt of tremendously poor taste

Saturday, 7 January 2012

I have to admit I was not sure whether to laugh or cry when I first learned of the news that JD Wetherspoon – the UK’s largest, cheapest and most well-known pub chain – has introduced a 'Veto Ale' to celebrate Cameron's “patriotic act” at the last European Council meeting in December.

The beer, brewed only with British ingredients (of course), registers 4.3% ABV and while is quite a good little stunt, is in my opinion of tremendous bad taste since it chooses to celebrate the decision of David Cameron to remove the UK from the EU negotiating table.

Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin, a longstanding Eurosceptic, was expectedly delighted with the stunt: "Veto Ale is a traditional English bitter and a perfect example of a great beer style that you can drink and feel proud to be British,” he said.

"I believe that David Cameron has taken the right decision on the Euro and that customers in our pubs will salute this with a pint of this excellent beer."

While I should note that I haven’t yet had the chance to sample the tipple myself, I wonder that - like the veto - it will initially taste rather nice and satisfying, but then as realisation begins to kick in (perhaps after two or three pints) you start to realise it’s not so fabulous and you will seek something else – perhaps something more European??

Frankly, I’m surprised more hasn’t been made of this stunt by UKIP – who are big supporters of the British pub industry. (Then again, Wetherspoons are arguably the reason why so many traditional pubs are closing as they cannot compete...)

Posted by Andrew at 10:54.

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About the Author

Andrew is a 25-year old British passport holder, European citizen, and a former stagiaire at the European Parliament.

Hailing from the truly beautiful South West region of the UK, he finds himself represented in Europe by three eurosceptic Tory MEPs, two UKIPs, and one Liberal.

While the EU in its current form is far from perfect, he is nonetheless firmly of the belief that the UK's prosperity and place in the world is best served as a member state and not as an isolated bystander.

This blog seeks to document the good work that our region's MEPs do for us in Brussels. As such, predictably, it rarely features UKIP.