Given that we are an island so 99.9 (and possibly a few more 9’s)% of entry/exit will be through a designated port facility this is probably reasonable - it’s not as if we have “porous” borders except for the UK border in Ireland - and that is handled separately. Note that Ireland is not in Schengen either.
True and definitely part of our “at arms reach” attitude to Europe. Denmark secured an opt-out on the Euro as well so we’re not the only one.
I am inclined to say “so what” to the two above - I don’t think the EU mandates driving on the right and neither Cyprus or Malta does so.
The UK exemptions for imperial units are, of course, ancient history but the only ones still in force are the pint, mile and the troy ounce.
I would agree, however, that most Brits do not feel themselves to be especially European and over the years we have negotiated some significant opt-outs:
No obligation to join the Euro
Not part of the Banking Union
Budget rebate
Not part of Schengen
Exceptions for Justice and Home Affairs, Human Rights
However - we are not the only country to have negotiated opt outs from various bits of EU legislation so, yes, you could point that finger elsewhere.
Most importantly we have had the right to say that some part of the EU project is not right for us and negotiate, just like all the other EU countries.
None of those opt-outs make a country a lesser or non-member of the EU though, what does is a specific us and them attitude you sometimes get everywhere, but particularly in the UK, a sort of blinkered, bloody-minded, profoundly negative insularity I have here come across only from die-hard Algérie française extreme-right people who’ve been marinading in nostalgia, illusions, and bitterness for the past 50 odd years.
However (referrning back to the subject of this thread) I think that it is fair to say that Brits are fairly lukewarm about the EU. Obviously some are not, and I would think that members of SF likely to be much more enthusiastic as, presumably, are those who live and work elsewhere in the EU but I suspect that it is all distant and irrelevant to an unemployed Geordie ex-steelworker.
There is a contrast to the political level where, I think, we have pitched in fully and driven the project forward overall - obviously trying to look out for UK interests in doing so but that is understandable.
Back to the Geordie though - add in a drip-feed of anti-European sentiment in the popular press (and increasingly the broadsheets), little in the way of counter balance, a period of reduced public spending because of “austerity” and you have fertile ground for an anti-EU campaign, as we discovered in the referendum.
Exactly - just as it is to an ex-army then vineyard or quarry worker from the Vaucluse or Gard, whose only experience of meeting foreigners will be of going to “pacify” Algeria in the 50s, who has dined out since on the joys of the generator + tin bath and who considers all foreigners as varieties of ‘les arabes’.
But has the vineyard or quarry worker from the Vaucluse or Gard had 40 years of the Murdoch press telling him how much the EU is interfering in his local policics?
For instance, my understanding of the GJ movement is that it has not been expressly anti-EU, just based on general dissatisfaction with the French government.
I think Paul we are saying the same thing, the UK has been compliant with the EU rules but has not embraced the practices of other countries within the EU.
Does it have to - are the French less French, the Italians less Italian or the Germans less German for their membership. The EU isn’t about crushing cultural diversity.
Not sure - is there an element of existing right wingers jumping on the bandwagon, or something a significant proportion of GJs want (i.e more than the general population - there will always be some overlap after all).
And, to be honest I agree - if we are talking about the general population.
If we are talking about the political class - then there has been variation but on the whole I think we’ve been quite positive and involved in the project to its betterment.
Thank God we are sometimes bloody -minded & somewhat insular it has kept us safe from all sorts of tyranny mostly from our European neighbours!
During the Falklands campaign did our European neighbours help by sending a European task force, did Nato members all joint us, Even the French President had to be persuaded not to sell any more Exocet missiles to Argentina.
This article explains the position very well.
Nothing to do with Europe…
The treaty is clear that it only applies to armed attacks against member nations in Europe or North America. The Falklands are in the South Atlantic and therefore outside the purview of NATO’s agreement to collective defense. The limited nature of Article Five was by design and specifically clarified in Article Six.
Admittedly the article does go on to mention some irregularities with a crew posted to Argentina helping to maintain the Exocets during the conflict but things are rarely pure and simple in international politics (there is a suggestion that their real mission was intelligence gathering).
@Wozza argues (with some justification maybe): “Thank God we are sometimes bloody -minded & somewhat insular it has kept us safe from all sorts of tyranny mostly from our European neighbours!”
But, our insularity and bloody-mindedness has been a key ingredient in the British/English tyrrany of imperialism and colonialism inflicted on the peoples of other continents, and brutal, racial oppression including countless deaths, false imprisonment, torture, forced appropriation of land and wealth, exile in slavery etc.
To compare Brits, who have doubts about the drive of proponents of the European project, with extremist Algérie Francais is a bit of as stretch, even for you Vero.