Can you be pro-British and pro-European?

Derek

Yes, but not on the terms of the Lisbon Treaty.

Ian C

You can't run anything by bureaucratic unelected, unaudited, committee, with a raison d'etre entirely of its and its employees own, which is what the EU machine is. So long as the idea of the EU, that we can all support, is conducetd in this manner it will be a train crash building up momentum.

Your unqualified "I have always been a supporter of the EU" shows absolutley no recognition of this likely outcome. It is thus blind and deluded that the 'ends' justify the 'means'.

There are plenty of reasons that the EU could be supported but to commend it simply because deeper integration is unlikely is missing the very point about its inept, unelected and unaccounatable status.

Rhoda Klapp

And who will decide this foreign policy? And how will I have any way to influence it? My vote for a UK MP? No. My vote for an MEP? Well, he isn't representative of an actual EP manifesto group, is he? The groups are settled after the election. This is in fact just one more undemocratic aspect of the very undemocratic bureaycracy that is the EU. It's just not homogeneous enough to have a foreign policy anyway. If it had such a policy, and it was against the UK national interest, what could we do about it? Dream on.

oldtimer

I voted in favour of joining the Common Market back in the 1970s - essentially because the UK was being frozen out of it by high tariffs on manufactured products. To see the effect in action, you need only to examine the evolution and location of production capacity in Ford of Europe from its inception. The economic case fos very strong.

At the time, and in the immediate years that followed, some warned about the long term implications of joining beyond the economic consequences. I/we should have paid more attention to these warnings. The consequences are the succession on treaties, culminating in Lisbon, that progressively strip this country of its sovereignty and ability to govern itself as its citizens want. As it stands, the EU is a profoundly undemocratic institution run by a self serving political and bureaucratic class. It is also over-influenced by big business, which has the lobbying capacity, to the detriment of small businesses - witness the avalanche of petty but expensive regulation.

Just as one shoe cannot fit all sizes of feet, so the EU cannot reasonably regulate or represent the vastly diverse group of countries it now contains. People like Miliband, along with Blair, Mandelson and co are part of the problem. They are not part of the solution. This urge for a common foreign policy is nothing more than self serving talk by a would be, self-perpetuating oligarchy.

daviker

The mystery is why British politicians persist in talking about LEADING the EU, or LEADING the development of green technology, or whatever it is. We always have to be LEADING, with scant acknowledgement of the low level of technical ability or resources or political intelligence in this country. And no acknowledgement at all of the degree of mistrust there is in Europe and beyond of Britain, the USA's lapdog.

michael

English, British, European...

It all depends upon whom the competition are.

Wilhelm

No , you cant serve 2 masters at once, its a contradiction.

Obnoxio The Clown

I really wish there was still a death penalty for people betraying their country.

James W

Surely the point is that we can achieve our foreign policy aims bilaterially rather than needing agreement from so many players - some of which have virtually no economic or military power.

If France, Germany and Britain agree on a foreign policy - then that is as good as an EU policy. If we don't agree on policy then having an EU policy wouldn't suit one of the members (likely to be UK given the French/German axis).

As to your comment about the EU not looking to push for further integration. This is not true - although your comments about individuals may be accurate. The EU is a bureacracy - by it's very nature it will seek to enlarge itself at the expense of nation states.

Pramston

The answer is yes, I am both of these things and don't even mind being part of a United States of Europe. My one rider is that it must be a recognisable democracy. In the absence of this I would rather Britain got out and returned to at least some democratic semblance before deciding (with the support of the people) what it wants to do with regard to Europe. The truth is Europe as it is currently structured is only superficially democratic with no prospect of it becoming more so in the near future. It is interesting to reflect that if the birth of true democracy in Britain was universal suffrage than it's death will come with the ratification of Lisbon, less than a hundred years. Britain or Europe, I don't mind I just want to live in a democracy please.

Gareth

"Don’t believe me? Listen to what Jose Manuel Barroso or Javier Solana say. They are clear that "ever closer union" is as far off today as a return to mercantilism."

Look around you. Ever closer union continues unabaited. The problem is that the French, Germans and others say they want ever closer union but are also willing to stand up for their national interest. British Governments consistently fall for the rhetoric of ever closer union while in reality the major players in the EU readily flex their muscles and pick and choose what form that union takes.

For the glory of bagging EU level jobs and to appear as a good European (ie making up for not being in the Euro) our national politicians have all but abandoned the national interest. They no longer represent us but represent the EU. Westminster has allowed and encouraged Brussels to do the heavy lifing on policy because the EU is the ideal bogeyman and because it makes life a lot easier in Westminster.

Jonathan Woolf

This article only addresses foreign policy, but the EU is about much more than that. To see why Lisbon is so dangerous for Britain, look at the way the French and Germans are blatantly seeking to attack the UK's dominant financial services industry by incredibly damaging new regulation. Under Lisbon, we will have no ability to stop this. Destruction of the City is a high price to pay for "influence" - which influence is currently being shown up as powerless to stop this very attack.

Even in the foreign policy arena, the truth is that international influence does not come through the surrender of independence and sovereignty to a multi-national proto-state; if that was the case, the Ukraine would have had more international influence as a member state of the Soviet Union. Foreign policy influence comes from economic weight and a strong military. The EU does nothing to give us the latter; all we need from it for the former is free access to its markets. It is perfectly true that Britain might, on a particular foreign policy issue, have more weight if it was speaking together with other countries. However, why do we need to be a full EU member to do that? It could be done on an entirely ad hoc basis issue by issue.

The logic of some form of associate membership, along the lines of that enjoyed by Switzerland or Norway, gets stronger by the day.

Publius

Mr Korski writes:
"The first one is that the EU’s foreign policy clout comes at too high a democratic price for the EU states. That’s a matter of viewpoint. I think Britain has been more influential in steering EU foreign policy than most people realise. So I am not worried."

There is something of a non-sequitur here. Or is it a deliberate sleight of hand?

Either way, the "viewpoint" you allude to is fundamental, and undermines the whole grand EU project.

As for your suggestion that the "ever-closer union" has somehow been rejected, I am sorry but I just don't accept that is the case. There are numerous counter-examples, but one is the almost fanatical insistence on getting the Lisbon Treaty ratified.

Rob C

I think most of your comment is fair and until recently I also subscribed to the view that overall the EU was a good concept. There are however a couple of major problems in my view:-
1) The UK never voted to be part of a political union nor to have our laws made by a largely unaccountable and faceless entity. A 'common market' is just that and whilst national legislation to ensure fair trading may be acceptable, the EU laws and directives go way beyond that remit - much to the detriment of it's people.
2) Democracy is all about having a voice and the EU goes against this is every way. A common foreign policy is NOT in British interests any more that it is for the French or the Germans - it just means less of a voice for each. For right or wrong: the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Portugal have had overseas empires and each has unique relations with various countries and outposts around the world. We have all punched above our national weight on the world stage for a very long time and whilst not everything we have done has been right, we have contributed a lot to democracy etc worldwide. How long we will each have a seat on the UN or will it become a European Seat? If the US is to deal with a 'European representative' then I'd argue that we all already have less of a voice. European countries have many votes in the UN, but how long for if the EU is going to be listened to as a whole? Does Scotland have a seat on the UN? Why would the UK be any different as part of an EU 'state'?

You say that a federal Europe is no longer a threat, but when the EU dictates the price we pay for food or how much we can produce then surely we have already gone too far?

There were two recent landmarks that made me see the EU as having gone too far - the first was the Euro and the second making the Irish vote a second time for the Lisbon Treaty. Both were an affront to democracy and national identity. Up to this point I would have supported the 'in but not ruled by' view, whereas now I would given the chance, vote out. An undemocratic, unelected EU President will be the final insult to all Europeans.

Hawkeye

Until Europe has a properly directly elected parliament with a bureaucracy subservient to that parliament then I want nothing to do with Europe.

Any president of Europe must be directly electable by the people of Europe and not a smoke-filled room appointee.

Europe is NOT democratic. I have no wish to join a dictatorship.

Prodicus

Lisbon unifies all the 'nation states' in matters of ***justice and home affairs***.

This is completely unacceptable and is the reason Brown's signature was ultra vires, illegitimate and treacherous (the last because he did it in the teeth of national opposition).

Lisbon by its very essence nullifies your (and all other) pro-EU arguments by destroying the very essence of the nation state.

Europe will be one state the moment Klaus signs up.

It will end in tears, like Yugoslavia, and for the same reasons.

If it's Lisbon or BOO, then it will have to be BOO.

Kevin Richardson

>The answer is yes, I am both of these >things and don't even mind being part of a >United States of Europe. My one rider is >that it must be a recognisable democracy. >>

>In the absence of this I would rather >Britain got out and returned to at least >some democratic semblance before deciding >>(with the support of the people) what it >wants to do with regard to Europe. The >truth is Europe as it is currently >structured is only superficially >democratic with no prospect of it becoming >more so in the near future. It is >interesting to reflect that if the birth >of true democracy in Britain was universal >suffrage than it's death will come with >the ratification of Lisbon, less than a >hundred years. Britain or Europe, I don't >mind I just want to live in a democracy >
>please.

But the EU was never designed to be a democracy. In fact it was deliberately designed not to be a democracy. Jean Monnet intended it as an entiy with a "high authority" in the form of of an elite bureaucracy which would rule by administrative fiat. That is what it is developing as.

It cannot be a democracy anyway. To have a democracy you by definition need a demos: a people as in "we the people". There is no European demos but rather a multiplicity of nations with their own languages and distinctive histiries and cultures.

Verity

One can like Europe very much. The EUSSR is a different kettle of stinking fish.

Mike Spilligan

Whoever can believe in anything the half-wit Miliband (one of the present-day Marxist brothers) says?
All the talk over decades of being closer to the heart of Europe and having more influence is total nonsense and has proved to be so on every occasion it's been tested. The EU and its predecessors have been and will always be a Politbureau favouring French and German ambitions and policies. All the posturing is merely a way for the UK's rivals of being able to say "you agreed to it" and afterwards we will be ignored.

Frank P

Vulture.

%!*&***!!!++^!!!

As my 'lexicon of foul oaths' didn't cover my disgust for Korski's twaddle, I thought I'd invest a new symbolic 'word' for it. (See last post).

dilys

I'm in favour of the EU if it stops the Germans attcking the French. I'd be happy to sit on the outside watching, just like the Norwegians.

Diversity

A "more sanguine debate"? Sanguine can mean "hopeful" or "bloody". I assume the latter is implied above.

Liz Brown

Europe did not speak with a common voice on Iraq - nor will it in future foreign adventures. Our EU partners are not pulling their weight in Afghanistan. Free trade yes, European Union No................

Ray Burston

Britain has been "co-operating" with other European countries for the last five hundred years. The difference is that until 1973 this was achieved on the basis of inter-governmentalism and mutual self-interest.

Britain in Europe, yes. Britain as a region in some unwieldy, bureaucratic European susperstate run by a smug, unaccountable clique, most definitely not.

Dennis Churchill

No, because our political culture is so different.
You would have to replace our population...wait a minute...

Gawain

I wish I had a penny for every time a commentator told me that the latest ratchet on the journey to a Euro super state is nothing to worry about. I'd probably be able to pay off the national debt if I had !

As for the return of mercantalism. The mercantile capatilism pursued by economies like China & Russia look suspiciously like mercantalism to me. Has Germany ever really shaken off a mercantilist outlook ? With the EU as a large, strong, centralised block in a world of strong blocks mercantilism may not be as far fetched as you think.

Boudicca

And if we don't agree with the foreign policy of the EU - then what? We just go along with it, even if we don't agree with it? What if it is actively AGAINST British interests (say against one of our Commonwealth countries) - do we still just go along with it?

What if they want a war that we DON'T want to participate in (one of Blair's nice little conflicts built on lies)?

You cannot have things both ways. Either we are a sovereign nation with our own foreign policy - or we are a member of a Superstate and have to follow theirs.

I want the former. Our traitorous Government and the EU Politburo want the latter and they are determined to get it by any means.

Cameron should make it blindingly clear that we are not 'playing ball' with this.

denis cooper

Daniel, you really are living in a fool's paradise ... you remind me of my innocent younger days all those years ago, when I decided to vote "yes" to stay in the Common Market.

My parents took a fairly simple view, that "They'll take us over, and we went through a war to stop that happening"; but I thought, well, we've only just joined, let's give it a go and if it doesn't work out we can always leave, and so I voted to stay in on that basis.

I had no idea that most of what Wilson's government said in its "Britain's New Deal in Europe" pamphlet delivered to every household during the referendum campaign - fair, eh? - and most of what the phalanxes of Labour, Tory and Liberal politicians on the "yes" side said, was false.

Above all, I had no idea that they were carefully omitting to mention a central fact - that by agreeing to the Treaty of Rome the previous Tory government had committed us to a continuous, methodical, inexorable, never ending, grinding process of "ever closer union", with the intention of finally creating a sovereign European federal state, within which my own country would either be a subordinate, non-sovereign, state, or would be broken up altogether.

If I had known then what I know now, I would have not only voted "no", I would have offered to help campaign for a "no" vote.

Incidentally, oldtimer, the referendum we had in June 1975 wasn't about JOINING the Common Market - it was a retrospective referendum on whether to STAY IN the Common Market.

That lying traitorous bastard Heath had already taken us in, as from January 1st 1973, even though he'd become Prime Minister on a Conservative manifesto which promised:

"Our sole commitment is to negotiate; no more and no less".

It's been lies, lies, lies all the way; right back to when Macmilllan sent Heath to make a first attempt at negotiating entry terms, and right through to today, and why?

Because if the British people, and also people in other countries, had known the truth they would never have accepted what their politicians wanted to impose on them.

That's as much the case today as it was in 1957 when the Treaty of Rome was agreed by six countries without a single one of them daring to consult its people in a referendum; and so the lies must continue; and as the lies continue, democracy dies.

paul hughes

No, I don't think you can be both anymore. The EU federalists have pushed things to the extent that any further arrogation of power into Brussels is an explicit weakening of British sovereignty.

Being a fan of EU integration, therefore, to my mind, is akin to treason.

Furthermore, if it were done with the consent of the British people, who could object? I object to the undemocratic nature of the "debate" as it presently stands. It isn't a debate at all. This is a deleiberate subjugation of sovereign democracies in the pursuit of a bureaucratic monster, accountable to nobody and answerable only to history.

And this is my only comfort. I studied History at Cambridge and came away full of confidence that this monster of a machine, this latest effort to resurrect the HRE, this nascent empire will founder as did every Charlemagne, Napoleon and Hitler. There will be no new Rome. There will be no new Christendom. This will all collapse and those who trumpet the "progressive" EU will bear the blame for the blood which will be spilt upon its dissolution.

TomTom

If you read the Comment pages of Die Welt online you can see very unhappy Germans wanting Britain and Czech Republic to get them out of being frogmarched into another grandiose disaster. They are quite happy with a Federal Republic but fear the political caste will become ever more entrenched through the Lisbon Treaty.

What we have is not Philadelphia Convention but Plato's Republic with its Guardians designed to be a self-perpetuating elite outside democratic accountability

General Zod

The answer to dealing with the EU at the moment is to use the French method of blackmail, but we should do it on the financial rather than the procedural level.

We are the second greatest net financial contributor. We should simply withhold the cash until we get what we want.

Publius

@Tom Tom
Plato's Republic is a conscious demonstration on Plato's part of the unworkability of such positivist Utopian schemes. It is also a lesson in moderation.

Chris

You can't be pro-British and anti-European. Britain is a European country. If you're anti-European you can't be any sort of British patriot.

Verity

The entire concept, which is insane in any event, was based on copying, and becoming a rival to, the United States.

The towering ignorance that this abomination is based on chills the blood.

There were approximately three million indigenes scattered over the unimaginably vast empty spaces on a huge continent. (You only have to fly over a few states in the US to realise how unimaginably vast the country is.) America needed settlers. The settlers who came had an adventurous and open spirit and set about making the country work. The waves of immigrants who followed a couple of centuries later were only too eager to fit in and be allowed to contribute and enjoy America's success. They immediately adopted English as their tongue. They taught their children to fit in and do things "the American way". They knew how lucky they were and set about contributing. America forged a nation that was one people. And those people were its history. It had no history prior to their arrival. (The native Americans didn't even have horses until the Europeans brought them over.)

You can see how this differs from people who have been occupying their lands for thousands of years and have developed different mother tongues, different folkways, different allegiances - and have, through the millennia, frequently been at war with one another.

Free trade zone, yes. Why not? But trying to wrestle it into some arcane homogenous body was always on the outer edges of lunacy. Anyone who sriously promotes this dog's dinner is nuts.

Fergus Pickering

Chris my love, European here means the EU, a nasty political entity run for the benefit of the heiras of Bonaparte and Hitler, not the continent of Europe which includes Norway and Switzerland and independent places like that.

The Huntsman

"I have never made a secret of my support for the EU. I am strong believer in the nation-state and have no truck with those who wish to create a federal Europe. But I don’t think this is a real prospect, or threat, any longer."

1. A Federal Europe is indeed off the menu. Instead there will be a government of Europe run entirely from and by the centre. The Lisbon Treaty fills in all the bits of the jigsaw for the EU to satisfy the criteria in international law for it to declare itself whenever it has a mind so to do an independent nation state in its own right. See The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of State 1933(http://tinyurl.com/yf55v4r). Under Lisbon former national governments will become branch offices of Brussels.

2. To be pro-EU is wholly inconsistent with supporting the continuation of the UK as a soveriegn state. 'Ever-closer union' is still the goal, whatever Barroso or anyone says. Just read the treaty: like Mein Kampf set out Hitler's game plan, it is all there.

3. I don't want always to have to collaborate with France, Germany and the rest. That is always going to be like coalition government where every decision is simply the lowest common denominator. Instead we should always be free to pursue unfettered the British national interest. If that happens to coincide with the interests of others, so be it. If not tough. The EU, however, is now so organised that we cannot legally stick out for the British interest if the majority is against us. It is the legalisation of bully-boy tactics.

4. The EU is profoundly undemocratic, nay anti-democratic. It is inimical in almost every way you care to mention to the British way of doing things. If you support the EU, you are, in my book, anti-British and essentially in favour of the perma-slime of Socialism.

5. You must have an awful lot of fairies at the bottom if your garden if you actually believe this guff.

Ian Walker

I'm pro-British, and pro-European. I'm just anti-EU.

Corrupt, bureaucratic, and run as a club for failed politicians across the continent.

2trueblue

Absolutely not possible. Millaband says we must lead, well we are leading in Afganisatan and where are our European partners?
Blair is also a poor candidate from the British viewpoint, he gave back the rebate on the promise that the French would cooperate in reforming the CAP, which they did not and have no intention of doing. So, he was either conned or was buying the presidency? Which ever answer he is not the man to serve us, but great for such a role. This is the man who lead the party that promised us a referendum and which we have being denied. This is not a democratic organisation and we know this because when you do vote NO you have to vote again. We need our vote. It is our democratic right. Mandelson has come back to ensure that we are not allowed to vote by holding this awful government together long enough so that the treaty/constitution gets ratified.

Andy

"In that one sentence lies the case for Britain’s role in shaping a liberal, open and outward-focused EU" Hahaha! That's the best joke I've heard in years. How can anybody apply open and liberal to the EU? Look how they won't take no for an answer. Their accounts haven't been signed off for years and they sacked the woman who blew the whistle for doing her job. I seem to recall Blair giving away our rebate in exchange for reform of the CAP - where is that reform? So much for being inside p*ssing out - it's more like being inside being p*ssed on. I voted for a common market back in the 70s. Had I known about the hidden agenda, I would definitely have voted NO! I was promised a referendum. Where is it?

Verity

Tony Blair is the ne plus ultra for president of the corrupt melange of egos, personal greed and national interests for personal advancement, trade-offs, backstairs dealing, payoffs, corruption as a way of life and First Class window seats on the gravy train. All at the expense of people who go out and work for a living.

Kevin Gattey

As an outsider, but wishing UK well (because of sentiment, but also because otherwise too many of you will wish to hop over with baggage), would the No Nevers, BNNSBSlaves, Hooray- Democracy Boo- Evil Europeans brigade please indicate, when they post, if they speak a nonEnglish European language? Then I know how much weight to put on that opinion. Or, not.
I think you should have a go. You will wait forever for conditions to be perfect, and without full participation, your present condition will get worse.

Keiren Harris

Blair is the perfect man to be President and riposte to Daniel Korski's naivity. A moral bankrupt who disdains democracy, El Presidente will lack the legitimacy conferred by a referendum promised and reneged on.

El Presidente's term will be a 30 Month long reminder of the real lack of influence the British people have in the EU.

The EU's motto must surely be 'Government of the Elite, By the Elite, For the Elite'.

BOO

The question is based on a false comparison. europe is not a nation; the pretence that it is just muddies the waters.

If you mean can one be pro-British and pro-a united states of europe: then I think the answer has to be "No."

Britain is not the appendage of some homogeneous mass that lies between the Channel and the Don and the Dnieper.

Zack

'It is probably also the line of attack that the Foreign Secretary will use against the Tories until election day and possibly beyond, if Miliband eventually assumes the Labour leadership.'

The public are strongly eurosceptic and don't believe a word of this wooly nonesense, quite why he thinks this line of attack will do him good and the Tories harm is beyond me.

egh

General Zod - I can't agree that we should stoop to the filth of blackmail. Two wrongs never made a right.

Rather, just withdraw and stop the drain altogether. Henry VIII was right about that principle - even though anti-Brits can't see beyond their own dirty minds.

Willy Humbold

See Vaclav Klaus on Free Europe Constitution at www.FreeEurope.info

denis cooper

The commitment to "ever closer union" was in the Preamble to the original 1957 Treaty of Rome:

"HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF THE BELGIANS,

THE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY,

THE PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC,

THE PRESIDENT OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLIC,

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE GRAND DUCHESS OF LUXEMBOURG,

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN OF THE NETHERLANDS,

DETERMINED to lay the foundations of an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe ..."

"HAVE DECIDED to create a European Economic Community and to this end have designated as their Plenipotentiaries ... "

"Who, having exchanged their Full Powers, found in good and due form, HAVE AGREED as follows ... "

It's still in the present treaties, and it would still be there after the present treaties were amended by the Treaty of Lisbon.

The consolidated versions of the treaties as they would be amended are here, ready to come into legal force:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:C:2008:115:SOM:EN:HTML

and the commitment to a process of "ever closer" union is in the Preamble and Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union:

"This Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe"

and in the Preamble to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

By agreeing and ratifying the original accession treaty the United Kingdom made an over-riding commitment to "ever closer union", and that commitment has been re-iterated with each subsequent treaty. Every British government since January 1st 1973 has been bound by that over-riding commitment, endorsed by the British Parliament whenever it has approved the treaty and permitted its ratification.

And those holding official positions by virtue of the treaties, including Commissioners and judges at the Court of Justice and even arguably MEPs, must always work towards that paramount objective.

If the British people don't want to be part of this relentless, open-ended, never-ending, unstoppable process of EU integration, with its unpredictable and uncontrollable legal and practical consequences, then there is only one solution - they must insist on a new and fundamentally different treaty between the United Kingdom and other countries in Europe, under which the United Kingdom would no longer pledge itself to pursue "ever closer union".

Dorothy Wilson

I have had a long-term connection with an organisation that - in our small way - works for international co-operation. Indeed, I served that organisation as European President, a post to which I was elected, and then re-elected, by my peers from across the continent. My contribution was recognised at our 50th anniversary meeting held in Switzerland last year.

However, I am a very profound EU-sceptic and deeply disturbed at the ways things are developing. So let me quote from an article in Der Spiegel magazine:

"Germany's Federal Constitutional Court proclaimed the truth on June 30. It ruled that the EU of the Lisbon Treaty does not satisfy the minimum requirements of a democracy of the type described in the German constitution, and the European Parliament is effectly little more than an expensive, Machiavellian glass facade."

And yet the German politicans and those in the rest of the EU, with the honourable exception of our Conservatives, have pushed this treaty through.

Accordingly, I believe I am right to be profoundly distrubed at the way the EU is proceeding.

Anthony

Denis Cooper

You point out that the "ever closer union" idea was in the European Treaty which we signed up to in 1973.

Well, we agreed that by a referendum in 1975, didn't we?

And - as every commenter here knows - referendums are both (a) completely and unquestionably accurate and (b) once and for all votes which are only ever repeated by Stalinist Eurocrats who hate Britain.

So therefore the British people have signed up, and will remain signed up to ever closer union.

Which leads to the question: why do Eurosceptics hate referendums and democracy?

Cuffleyburgers

An astonishingly naive post!

The federalist EU is wholly inimical to Britain's interests. Even if the Eu with its 500m inhabitants were democratic, which even federasts like Korski will admit is not the case, the British influence would be so small as not to count. The increasing reliance on majority voting can only exacerbate this.

British and continiental legal systems and constitutional culture are totally different, and there is no obvious benefit to the British in ditching our own imperfect model and adopting secretly, via stealth and lies, an even worse European one.

The post lisbon eu is now becoming visible, only this week the economist reports on a plan by sarkozy to push a franco german axis to ensure they can continue to control things.

An unfortunate choise of words to say the least but highly revealing as it is most likely exactly that which he has in mind.

As this business goes on it is more and more obvious that it will end in tears. The East Europeans will suffer the most, the french and germans will hopefully not come to fisticuffs, and we will find ourselves aligned with NL and scandinavians in a more atlanticist sub-grouping.

This will happen in a maximum to 10-15 years. In the mean while it is stupid to trash our country because france and germany, or worse, a bunch of student union marxists with british passports, scowls, ugly wives and bananas, say we should.

Verity

Kevin Gatty - who is new to this site, under the guise of being a neutral foreigner (didn't say his nationality) has styled those of us who militate against the EU thusly: "would the No Nevers, BNNSBSlaves, Hooray- Democracy Boo- Evil Europeans brigade please indicate, when they post, if they speak a non-English European language?"

Kevin, no offence, but your reading comprehension seems a bit off. I don't think anyone here dislikes Europe in any way at all. Most of us are fond of our European neighbours.

What you deliberately (I hope it was deliberate or you would appear to be a political illiterate) conflate is Europe as a continent containing many ancient countries and civilisations, and the perverted political drive behind the EUSSR. Please inform yourself on the difference between the two, there's a good chap.

Trolls are so tiresome.

denis cooper

You might conceivably be right, Anthony, except:

1. The fact that we were agreeing to an endless process of "ever closer union" was deliberately concealed from the general public;

2. At the time it was intimated that the 1975 referendum would be followed by another referendum five or ten years later, just to check that we were still content to stay in;

3. But here we are, 34 years, 4 new treaties (5 with Lisbon) and 18 additional countries, on, and every effort has been made to stop us ever having any say on it; and

4. All but a handful of the MPs elected in 2005 gave their word to their constituents they would support a referendum.

Not quite the same as having a referendum on a treaty, and then being made to vote again 16 months later because you got the answer "wrong" the first time.

Kevin

but Verity, I'm not a troll. And no offense was meant to you or the UK. What your nation decides is up to you, of course.
Complaining is not the same as doing, you must agree.
If your economy with 60million to feed turns to custard, whether because of further integration with other nations in Europe as you believe will cause to happen, OR BECAUSE YOU WON'T, don't do an Albanian shufti to my country.
And please be more open to honest differing views without calling names. One would think you vote Labour.

Kevin

Verity of one name, I live in New Zealand, originally from Canada. There is no ''guise''.
And do you speak another language? Or do you only cast aspersions, not communicate fairly.
I have been to the UK and to Europe. You could have worse neighbours.
Before first seeing UK, thought it and NZ would be similar, which was amusingly wrong.
Most Poms fit in well here. Wouldn't want 20 million doing an Albania though, not if they're like you. That's all I want you to know.

Verity

Just Irene, I would support your idea of a coup against Dave. And it wouldn’t surprise me if it happened. Needless to say, the denizens of Westminster Village would support Cameron. It would be up to the bloggers.

Kiwi Kevin, I lived in the south of France for two years, in a small market town. There were around three other anglaises. So I spoke – my mostly inadequate - French almost exclusively for those two years. I also speak poor Spanish. And you?