In all the self congratulation about not being told what to do by the Commission on immigration – or more pointedly eviction – this little gem slipped through the net. There are plans to create a European “Oath of faithfulness.” I know that sounds absurd doesn’t it. It sounds like a Sun headline, but just read what Franco Frattini, the Italian Commissioner for Justice and Home affairs had to say at a press conference yesterday

“I am in favour of exploring the possibility of having a dialogue with representative communities of immigrants and trying to identify something whereby, as in France, you can get every immigrant to declare respect for national and EU law and the charter of fundamental rights. I feel this is worth exploring at a European level.”

On being pressed by an awake hack he then said,

“There are a number of options open. Such as expressing an oath of faithfulness to certain values.”

The hack spluttered something like,

“You want a loyalty test for the EU? What you called a loyalty test is just the importance to reaffirm in a transparent way that all those who enter Europe must respect European and national laws.”

Frattini went on,

“We can insist on the respecting of the basic values of Europe.”

What we seem to be talking about is some pan-European oath for any migrant to the EU, after all they are taking EU citizenship these days rather than citizenship of a particular member state. Thus at long last the EU will have found some people whose primary loyalty will be to the Brussels institutions, rather than to the country which hosts them (and in most cases pays through the nose for the privilege).

No I am not making it up. The glory of this is that of course the press office will go into overdrive. “Oh no,” they will say, “We don’t mean that. This is just one of many options that are currently being discussed. You are just myth making as usual you nasty British Eurosceptic.”

Then a couple of years down the line, as they have spotted that resistance to the idea is not firm: “This? Oh this is merely a planning exercise, it is a technical logistical process, it has no force in law, don’t worry about it.”

Then when kiddies are singing the Ode to bloody Joy in school a few years later: “Well you cannot complain now, if you wanted to complain you should have done so five years ago when the legislation was being mooted.”

Well today is five years ago. Now is the time to act against this invidious measure. Let them know that we do not want an oath of allegiance to the EU in no uncertain terms, and the idea will be taken off the table.