posted by Raven
These issues DO affect me. I'm just not allowed to vote on the matter. Doesnt mean I cant have an opinion, though. As far as national identity is concerned, tell me about the union jack again, when it's replaced by the boring circle of stars that I already see flying everywhere. The union flag was OUR flag too, once upon a time. We only ditched it because we couldnt get representation in parliament. As for getting big companies to operate in Britain, are you saying the only savvy mouthpieces can be found in europe? I dont believe for a minute, that THE nation who first introduced industrialization can be THAT backward now. Sounds to me, like you guys just dont believe in yourselves anymore. One united europe was Churchills idea. But did he idealise what it has turned out to be? I'm not so sure.
Churchill still believed in Empire it was the people that rejected him and his ideas after the war.
to quote from one of his speeches in 1946
http://www.liv-coll.ac.uk/pa09/europetr ... rchill.htm
'I am now going to say something that will astonish you. The first step in the re-creation of the European family must be a partnership between France and Germany. In this way only can France recover the moral leadership of Europe. There can be no revival of Europe without a spiritually great France and a spiritually great Germany. The structure of the United States of Europe, if well and truly built, will be such as to make the material strength of a single state less important. Small nations will count as much as large ones and gain their honour by their contribution to the common cause'.
The speech concluded with a practical suggestion: 'The first step is to form a Council of Europe. If at first all the states of Europe are not willing or able to join the Union, we must nevertheless proceed to assemble and combine those who will and those who can.'
The impact of this speech was enormous. The fact that a statesman of Churchill's standing had taken up the European cause gave it fresh impetus, and made Churchill the obvious choice as the man to preside over the Congress of Europe held at The Hague two years later. Although the Congress disappointed many because it did not agree to a federal European organisation, it did lead to the establishment of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights.
At the same time, the speech gave a misleading impression of the extent to which the United Kingdom or, more especially, the Conservative Party (of which Churchill, though no longer Prime Minister, was then still leader) was prepared to come involved in European integration. Churchill did not see the United Kingdom as part of the United States of Europe but as its 'friend and sponsor': the primary British obligation was to another 'natural grouping', the Commonwealth.
One of the reasons we didn't join in with the early days of the EEC was the notion we still had an empire and didn't need to bother. The price we paid for that was in the 1970's after years of being blocked was negotiating from a supplicant position.
As to the big companies, bear in mind the trade barriers that were in place, by opening factories in Britain they were within the EEC boundaries and over the wall so to speak. If we hadn't been members by then, do the arithmetic, europe is a bigger market than Britain they would have placed the factories on the contiment. The possibility of Nissan and Toyota stopping investment in the UK was very real at the end of the day which market is most valuable? As to whether we don't believe in ourselves any more I would refer you to what I said earlier
If you really think the British will lose their identity you are clearly not British. If you have to worry about losing your identity you don't have much in the first place.
There are very real concerns but this is not the UK against Europe there are now many nations that are not going to sit back and just agree to everything the arguements are going to run on and on. We will not find ourselves in a situation where we cannot control our own government or the EEC there are far too many disparate nations with their own sense of national identity and sovereignty to let that happen. The point about the EU constitution is to take the steps to control a monolith. A written constitution is an unfamiliar concept and there are obvious problems when the letter of the law is more important than the spirit but the simple fact is we can't afford to sit back and not take part or then we really will have no say on what happens.
Try that line you don't believe in yourselves any more the next time you go down the pub, should be an interesting debate. European nationalism is very different from the american version but none the less very real. If you really think we will become an amorphous blob and give up our national differences you are very much mistaken.