I thought it might be interesting to compare the thoughts of the EU founding fathers with the, perhaps a tad less sophisticated, thinking of our government heroes and Brexit fans. I know the EU isn't what it was meant to be and its failure to deal with a terrible humanitarian disaster shames most member states but, even so, the distance and difference should give little Englanders pause for thought.
“First they make us pay in our taxes for Greek olive groves, many of which probably don’t exist. Then they say we can’t dip our bread in olive oil in restaurants. We didn’t join the Common Market – betraying the New Zealanders and their butter – in order to be told when, where and how we must eat the olive oil we have been forced to subsidise.”
so said Nigel Barrage, ex-city banker and UKIP leader. In a mellower mood he had this to say:
“With thousands of Islamist terrorists exploiting the migrant crisis, we would be far safer outside of the EU. It is safer to vote to Leave the European Union and take back control of our borders. A vote to Remain is a vote for massively increased immigration into Britain. Britain must not be dragged into an EU common asylum system. Let’s Leave EU & take control of our borders.”
Boris Johnson, leader in waiting (he thought), said:
“leaving the EU would be like breaking out of jail….”
Mind you he also said:
“Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3.”
In 1963 Jean Monet, not English so obviously to be discounted, said:
“The common market was not set up simply to establish a better system of trade in goods, nor to create a new power. Our main objective was, and still is, to create a unified Europe and remove the spirit of domination from relations between countries and their peoples, which has several times brought the world close to destruction.”
and
“Making Europe is making peace.”
Robert Shuman (also not a Brit I'm afraid) said:
“We do not, nor shall we ever deny our country or forget the duties which we owe it. But above each homeland we recognise with increasing clarity the existence of a common good, superior to the national interest, a good in which the individual interests of our countries will meet and merge.”
And Geoffrey How (British but wet) said (my underlining):
“The sovereign nations of the European Community, sharing their sovereignty freely (…), are building for themselves a key role in the power politics of the coming century”.
Our p.m.,Diddy David, said:
“There is no doubt in my mind that the only certainty of exit is uncertainty”
Angela Merkel seems to have a slightly broader and more compassionate perspective - she said of the refugee crisis:
“I lived behind a fence for too long for me to now wish for those times to return.”
So there you go - the real choice is between narrow (and actually mistaken) self-interest with a whiff (or more) of racism, or the kind of moral leadership offered by Europeans a little more committed to social justice than England's finest. Put another way, would you rather live on an (admittedly large) American aircraft carrier and have unfettered government from the party that is privatising health, education, any thing else left in the public sector - and the ducks on the wall if you don't hide them soon - or see Tory social and economic policy and asset stripping moderated by Angela's Europe. I'm with David Hare:
“They claim to have rescued Britain from industrial chaos. But in fact Margaret Thatcher and her heirs have created a selfish and divided society in which politicians and the people regard each other with mutual contempt”, David Hare in the Guardian, 8.3.16
Vaclav Havel said this ……..but I wish I had.
“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
