Britain in Europe

Britain in Europe

- Participant in a Common Market or Region of a European Super State?

The Truth is out! The EU wants to cut up Britain!

German cartographers drew this map in 2006 to show the proposed new EU regions. The new European plan splits England into 3 zones - all of which are linked to parts of several other EU countries.

Each zone will have a "transnational regional assembly",

(Image from The Daily Mail)

You are probably as baffled as I am as to why anyone could possibly think Suffolk has more in common with parts of the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Sweden - than it has with other parts of England like Kent and Sussex....OK during Viking times King Canute who ruled Denmark, Norway and Southern Sweden ended up becoming King of East Anglia - but that was nearly 1,000 years ago!

In April 2008 The Daily Telegraph reported that these zones are regarded as symbolically important by other countries. German ministers claimed that the plan was about "underlying the goal of a united Europe" to "permanently overcome old borders" at a time when the "Constitution for Europe needs to regain momentum".

Aah so there we have it - the Germans have let the cat out of the bag! Since Gordon Brown signed us up to the EU constitution (notice this is what German ministers are calling the Lisbon Treaty) without the referendum he promised us - we are now heading towards Britain being swallowed up in a European superstate...

Unless we put the train into reverse and start taking back powers we have given to Europe...

The EU Constitution- We want a referendum!

This Labour government was elected on the basis of a manifesto promise to hold a referendum before agreeing to the EU constitution – Both the Lib-Dems and the Conservatives also promised a referendum, but ONLY the Conservatives are now committed to keeping their promise

Nick Clegg, leader of the Lib-Dems has strongly refused to back demands for a referendum (could that be something to do with the Lib Dem policy of wanting even more and faster integration into Europe than Labour?)

Gordon Brown says that we don’t need a referendum as the new EU constitutional treaty is significantly different from the EU constitution – So he’s refusing to honour Labour’s manifesto pledge – that he himself was involved in drawing up – to give us all a referendum on the EU constitution.

But, just about every other EU leader says the new treaty is virtually identical to the EU constitution (OK they dropped the title, dropped the EU flag and the EU national anthem – but just about everything else that was in the EU constitution is in the new treaty – and both Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader and Gordon Brown now refuse to honour their manifesto promise to let us have a referendum on it.

Look at what other EU leaders say about the new EU treaty that Gordon Borwn refuses to let us have the promised referendum on

"The substance of the Constitution is preserved. That is a fact."

(German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who as President of the European Council wrote to fellow heads of government proposing that the Constitution should be re-drafted "to use different terminology without changing the legal substance". )

"We have not let a single substantial point of the Constitutional Treaty go… It is, without a doubt, much more than a treaty. This is a project of foundational character, a treaty for a new Europe."

(Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero – who justifies Spain not holding a new referendum on the Lisbon Treaty on the grounds that it is essentially the same as the Constitution on which the Spanish people have already voted.)

"It’s essentially the same proposal as the old Constitution."

(European Commissioner Margot Wallstrom).

The I want a Referendum Campaign organised mini referendums in several key areas of the UK – and as many people turned out to vote as typically vote in a normal euro election – and 90% of them demanded a referendum.

So, why and why do Nick Clegg, leader of the Lib Dems and Gordon Brown keep refusing us all a referendum …

Might it be something to do with the fact that both of them want more and more integration of Britain into Europe.. .Labour like a 60 mile an hour train heading more and more into Europe and the Lib-Dems like a 120 mile an hour high speed train heading into Britain being part of a federal European superstate…?

The Conservatives are committed to keeping our manifesto promise to hold a referendum before the treaty become law

The Conservatives are also committed to TAKING POWER BACK FROM EUROPE - like a train heading back towards Britain (the opposite direction to labour and the Lib-Dems)

Only the Conservatives can deliver on Europe

Let's face it - as a nation we simply don't have the same vision as most other European countries for what the EU should become.

The French vision of Europe basically sees it as an extension of the old French empire. To the French - the French language and way of life is the world's highest form of civilisation. In the French view to give other nations French language and culture - is to give them civilisation itself. That's why instead of granting independence to its colonies it held onto them as long as possible and offered them the alternative to independence of becoming an 'overseas department' of France. The Portuguese seem to share a similar vision, with former Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Barroso, now the European Commission president declaring on 10th July 2007 "I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of an empire, we have the dimension of empire..." (He might like the comparison - I certainly don't, nor I suspect do the vast majority of ordinary British people!)...

The German vision of Europe is based on German history - when 365 tiny German states formed a customs union - which eventually led to them unifying into one big super state just before the first world war. Italy similarly emerged in very recent history from a collection of small Italian states...

And the British vision of Europe? - well we have a choice!

60 miles per hour train giving Europe more control over Britain

The Labour government's vision of Europe - is that 'Britain must be at the centre of Europe' (Why? - have Labour really asked whether we share the same vision of Europe as other EU nations?). Basically Labour wants to take us on a 60 mile an hour train towards more and more European integration - but judging by the way that both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have repeatedly 'spun' the 2007 constitutional treaty as 'just a minor tidying up of EU procedures' - they want to do it gradually in the hope that it won't be noticed by the great British public, who don't share the Labour government's enthusiasm for the 'integration' of Britain into Europe.

120 miles per hour high speed train giving Europe even more power over Britain even more quickly!

The Liberal Democrat vision of Europe. If Labour is a 30 miles an hour train towards Britain's 'integration' into Europe, the Liberal-Democrats are a 90 miles an hour express train wanting Britain to become a federal part of a new European super state, with its own currency, central bank, European taxes foreign minister, seat the UN (replacing Britain's UN seat) etc - as quickly as possible.

Return Train - taking power BACK FROM the EU and returning it to Britain

The Conservative Vision of Europe. We joined a 'common market' - a free trade bloc, which was supposed to mean that the different countries of Europe could sell goods to each other and compete freely with each other without having to pay import duties on each other's goods.

However, the aim of free trade seems to be getting increasingly lost - the EU has now become not so much a free trade bloc as a 'protectionist' bloc - that puts up high import duties on any goods sold into it by non members - including producers in the developing world. It has become one of the major obstacles in the world to 'fair trade' with the developing world. And even the aim of competition between the countries of Europe seems to be being lost - with the French insisting that the word 'competition' be removed from the aims of the EU when the constitutional treaty was signed in July 2007. On top of that - it has become a huge and totally undemocratic law making body. 70% of new laws going through the house of Commons now as simply giving formal approval (the government have little choice in the matter) to new EU regulations. These regulations are thought up by unelected EU commissioners and then voted on by MEPs in the European parliament. However, although we elect our MEPs - they cannot propose new laws - they can only vote to accept or reject what the unelected EU commissioners propose. That's hardly democratic. Every EU treaty the government signs - gives more and more powers to the EU.

On top of this we have huge issues - like the EU Common Fisheries Policy - it's crazy to think that every country in the EU should have the right to fish in the North Sea off the British coast. That's why the EU Common Fisheries Policy has created an environmental and economic disaster for Britain's offshore fisheries - put simply there's hardly any cod or herring left in the North Sea. That's why our fishing fleet has literally become extinct in much of the UK, with ports such as Lowestoft, once the world's largest herring port - no longer having a single trawler left...

Meanwhile, business in the UK is being increasingly strangled by a huge and ever increasing burden of new and complex regulations that the EU keeps piling on, year after year.

Now, don't get me wrong there are good things about the EU - it gives us free access to European markets for our goods, (although we currently have a trade deficit with the EU i.e. other EU countries sell more to us than we do to them) and countries outside the EU such as Norway have negotiated free trade agreements allowing them to freely sell goods into European markets...

But we do need to ask exactly what we want out of our relationship with the EU

So, I completely support the actions taken by David Cameron in setting up a commission to look at how Britain can legally take powers back from the EU that the Labour government have surrendered to it. There are a range of options we could take - ranging from renegotiating our membership of the EU - so that we accept some things - but take back some powers from the EU - to withdrawing from the EU and negotiating a free trade agreement like Norway. However, the bottom line is: the Conservatives are the only party that could both win the next general election and are committed to to taking back powers back from the EU and restoring them to the our parliament...