Jennifer
I expect he was looking on the foreign food section for those two Anglo staples. Atora suet and Birds Custard Powder.
By the way Robert countries do not have souls, if souls exist at all. But that last is another discussion.
Luckily Robert I have dual nationality so Brexit will not impact me one iota, but thanks for your concern.It’s all the other poor people in the UK and abroad I’m concerned about.
David,
Funnily enough I met that guy from your pub with the Oxford degree. He was at our local Super U. What a legend and visionary! Total respect. He sure gets around doesn’t he?
I am just looking back over the comments and use of such thing's as not selling their soul and 'children of your foe' (who is that enemy, I wonder?) strike me a terribly melodramatic. I may not care one jot for Cameron, but I agree he had a go as futile as it was. One of the 'problems' I have with the UK is that it has no soul because it is now a very divided place with London and environs becoming increasingly despised for appearing to be the only part of the UK that attracts any attention but then so prohibitively expensive that even Londoners cannot afford to live there, thus see 'their' home city in part bought up by wealthy all-comers yet whilst welcoming those rich foreign investors will not itself be part of an international community. To conceive of having a soul when such contradictions exists seems unlikely. As for selling one's soul, in fact there are probably people who would say that leaving one's own country is itself selling it. In which case I have gladly sold my own. As for enemies, personally I have none whilst I do not have sympathy for many of the violent groups and regimes in this world, of which I don't think we have any within the EU.
The whole things is becoming contentious for reasons that strike me as illogical. There are as ever two sides to the argument. However, it strikes me that on the one hand there are people who are looking at all information available and taking in informed opinions with which to assume their own positions, then there are others who are metaphorically stamping their feet who either refuse to discuss available information or will simply not look at it because they know. What is lacking is that those who do read all that is available but still want out are often also unwilling to offer viable counter arguments. If they did so then sensible debate would be easy. Simple unexplained rejection or rebuttal attract critical comment and I imagine that would be the same at any dinner table in discussion, which is after all the SFN ethic.
Being British!? Being self-sacrificing, greater good, …oooerr.its a bit OTT isn’t it? Put up and shut up like all the other EU countries do would seem a bit of a “nobler” path. Is it not a tad bizarre in the 21st century to think Britain can afford to stand victoriously alone, turn noses up at EU and expect to have cake and eat it and everyone else in Europe will revere our superior situation and status? Think we might get rather a rude sharp shock how out in the cold we would actually be. Bloomin freezing like the weather today!Cameron has done his best…not brilliant…but he has made a stand…so easy, easy, easy to criticise and denigrate…always the easy option.
I love Carol's comment that she couldn't be bothered to read the article. Then she goes on to make several accusations against the BBC ,the EU, the cabinet office all of them completely unsupported by any evidence. Either she is mischief making in a satirical sense or she is displaying the mild paranoia so typical of the Daily Mail reader. In fact she is totally wrong as I know for a certain fact (well what a very clever gent, Oxford degree and all told me in the pub the other night) that the whole system is run by an evil group of shape shifting green reptiles who were drawn here by their detection of the H Bomb tests in the 50's. Its a fact.
Robert, you may suggest that. I do though concur with him. I do not understand the ambiguity of proclaiming ones country from within the borders of another unless the one doing so is a legitimate exile. I rings rather empty to me and I shall assure you that you are not the first people to have had that sentiment attached by people who have debated the same issue.
Thus, the question remains but expressed differently. In the event of Brexit will you go 'home'?
Admin,
Would it be outside the rules of this discussion group to counter Mr Scully's somewhat personal and less than constructive remarks, with a suggestion (put forward in a spirit of offering resolution to a difficult situation), that by taking French citizenship he could easily remove himself from any danger of being adversely affected by Brexit ?
Personally, I do not think that a person's degree of patriotism is at all affected by where that person may happen to reside at any particular time. Is a Scotsman or an Irishman any less Scots or Irish simply because he may live in Kent ? I think not.
Carol and Robert, I’d think your melodramatic “canon to the right of them, canon to the left of them” little tirades quite amusing except instead of 600 riding into the valley of (economic) death it’s 60 million led by, amongst others, Self-serving Boris.
Since you two have bailed out of the UK and now enjoy the benefits of living in a united Europe don’t you think your patriotism rings somewhat hollow? Why not head back to man the bulwarks and leave the rest of us to stew in this infernal EU?
Robert Hodge....Like me, you are totally unselfish. Don't sell your soul, but rather guard it and share it, for your country and for your children and the children of your foe.
Gentlemen. I thank you for the clarity with which you express your views.
However, please know that I will not sell my soul for money, power, or influence, and nor will I sell my country's soul for such a purpose either.
Robert, I don’t agree with your assumption about a single Eurpean finance minister nor a single Eurpean government but I do agree that things have changed since Churchill’s time, especially his younger years, thank goodness. Now, I have no doubt that a UK, or really I think it would probably be just England, outside the EU will end up as a powerless little nation with economic problems. I have seen no arguments that would convince me otherwise. That, in my opinion, is what this referendum is about. A vote to stay in the tent and help shape the future or to leave and try and build a new political and economic network with nations and groupings that really aren’t to interested in what a stand-alone England might have to offer, whatever that may be? I think a vote to leave will be a disaster.
Robert, he used the expression 'United States of Europe' in Zurich, later the Treaty of Europe included the words 'ever closer union'. The change in name from EEC to EU was a step toward closer union but not actually toward confederation. I still have a copy of the pamphlet and the long and rather tedious 'White Paper published by the British Government regarding the referendum on the United Kingdom's continued membership of the EEC' collecting dust on one of my shelves. I read the Treaty of Rome. In 1975 everybody had access to each document. To say 'we did not know' is not a valid excuse.
However, the single currency and ECB are a red herring. As already said, constitutional and legal differences make close convergence a very long term project if at all ever possible. One of the greatest problems is that it is only really constitutional lawyers who actually discuss and write on this topic with the majority describing the near impossibility of the task, but that is seldom if ever referred to by media in any country. Anyway, at some point in the future would that actually be such a bad thing? One thing the UK seems to be avoiding seeing is the formation of blocs, primarily as free trade areas but with closer cooperation in every sense. ASEAN, for example, is gradually opening up into something like the Schengen zone, Australia is the one member with tight controls still but has a commitment to opening up at 'the right time'. The Latin American Free Trade Association, LAFTA, has already become the Latin American Integration Association. The ultimate aim, despite flag waving and Trump's threats, is that NAFTA will become an open movement area. The TTP is in place for the Pacific region, the TTIP, despite opposition and delays, will probably fall into place by the end of 2017. Yes, most of it is led by trade and finance but also requires very close political adhesions and the minimum number of currencies. The TTIP will really function with € and $ pegging each other, if the UK stays in the EU Sterling will be subject to the forces of those two currencies. Outside the EU, nobody is telling the public, the £ will be almost impotent because it alone will be used in a world almost entirely dominated by the US€ with the € at a fixed rate, used where the $ is not and thus always forcing the UK to trade dictated to be rates that will be dominated by the world's largest trading bloc which will be the EU and NAFTA conjoined.
No, Europe is not the one Churchill spoke of 70 years ago but then the UK has no empire, commonwealth countries have sometimes unrepairable differences with the UK or are in the process of leaving the commonwealth and some have left already. Remember also that two of them are part of the BRICS group of advanced industrial nations in which four of the named countries were still regarded as developing nations two decades ago and the other the heart of the 'Eastbloc'. Several other nations on all continents are also unnamed members of that informal group that for the purposes of measurement of trade and political progress are the biggest competition with established nations. Certainly China and India, despite the recent economic 'crisis' alone can sweep the UK off the board in those terms.
So, as it was it essentially remains, the EU is basically a free trade agreement with a (very, very) slowly convergent fiscal system in which the single currency, the Euro, is in place as the alternative to US$. All of the rest of the arrangements are 'window dressing' until closer scrutiny shows it all comes down to one thing. Money. Trade and finance. If the UK stays alone too much of that is vulnerable. Anti-EU people are claiming manufacturing and finance will not leave the UK although all US and most European banks have said they will and most European owned industry or others with the bigger market of 500m consumers will leave the UK in order to retain that market at small sacrifice of 65m to whom they will be available, albeit it at higher prices for importing plus such levies as customs duties, taxes such as VAT and export licence fee compensation. Economists are spelling it out, albeit it a few 'tame' ones sing the Brexit song, by a vast majority only the public do not want to listen because those who say it will not be like that shout it all down with the loss of sovereignty and control over own laws type of rhetoric. Thus said, if anything the Europhobes are disgracefully dishonest. That is not to say the other side are telling the absolute truth either. The people will decide but it is going to create a very divided society in which the possible, even probable, economic consequences are going to not be very nice. Ironically, far too many of the loudest anti-EU voices have bolt holes outside the UK. It will be very interesting to keep an eye on them if it all goes very wrong.
Dear Brian,
There is no doubt that Churchill was a visionary for his time, and there is also no doubt that the formation of the EEC has been a good thing for mainland Europe, if only from the point of putting an end to wars between European countries.
When the UK last had a referendum on the subject of Europe, it was about our membership of the EEC, and therefore mainly about free trade and the movement of people freely between member states. Europe has changed considerably since then. The EEC has morphed into the EU, together with all that entails ---- a European Parliament, a European Central Bank, and a European Currency to name but a few of the changes in recent years.
As we have seen in recent years, a single Euro currency cannot operate properly without a single Central Bank to control it. A single Central Bank cannot operate effectively without a single Finance Minister, and one cannot have a single Finance Minister without there being a single European Government.
The Europe of today is NOT the one of which Churchill spoke 50 / 60 years ago. The alliance of which he spoke was formed, and that was a good thing, but that alliance has changed, and it is clearly moving towards the creation of a United States of Europe.
Those who wish the UK to remain in the EU, with it's current formulation, and it's current aims, should know that effectively they will be voting for the UK to ultimately become just one of the many states which will form the United States of Europe. There has been loss of sovereignty already, and if the UK stays in the EU, then there will be a lot more loss of that sovereignty.
The real choice being made in this forthcoming referendum is whether or not the people of the UK wish to remain a fully independent sovereign country or not. Every individual is of course free to make up his or her own mind on this issue, and to vote accordingly, bit I just feel that everyone should be fully aware of what this referendum is really about.
Robert, at the European Federal Congress at the Hague in 1948 Churchill said that the chapter in history that saw the British Empire was drawing to a close as nations sought to choose their own paths. Whilst he felt that the commonwealth nations would always feel close, they would now find their own destinies, therefore Great Britain should be at the heart of the new Europe. Churchill had seen Stalin in Tehran in 1943 and Yalta in 1945 and had, as one of the 'Big Three', agreed the partition of Europe and taken in what Stalin was proposing in terms of the sovietisation of Europe. He was for a large part more concerned with stopping the expansion of the Soviet Union and wanted the UK as its equal to lead Europe's defence against that. Churchill spoke of an ‘iron curtain’ bisecting the continent of Europe when the Berlin wall was still almost 20 years in the future and even the division of Germany itself was three years ahead. He also explained that the industrial structures of Europe had largely been destroyed and needed to be rebuilt but it should be done together so that each country could excel in at least one thing and those things each specialised part of the economic structure needed to complement the others. That way he saw the future of Europe as the force for world peace and prosperity, Britain could lead from the front.
In response to the proposal by French foreign minister Robert Schuman in 1950 that a single authority be created to control the production of steel and coal in France and West Germany, he suggest it be opened for membership to other European countries. Speaking to the House of Commons in favour of the Schuman Plan as the first stage of European integration, Churchill reminded the Labour government who at that time opposed Britain’s participation that:
“We fought alone against tyranny for a whole year not purely from national motives. It is true that our lives depended upon our doing so, but we fought the better because we felt with conviction that it was not only our own cause but a world cause for which the Union Jack was kept flying in 1940 and 1941.”
In a speech at the Albert Hall in 1947 he concluded that : "We may be sure that the cause of united Europe, in which the mother country must be a prime mover, will in no way be contrary to the sentiments which join us all together with our dominions in the august circle of the British crown."
His view was that a united Europe that would never again go to war, as countries had against each other for centuries, was justification enough. Despite his aristocratic position in the Marlborough family, he nonetheless had dual nationality through his mother Jennie who was from the USA. He knew the USA and was carefully watching them grow, predicting they would dominate the world in the near future his vision of a United States of Europe was also a counterbalance to maintain the status quo. When the Treaty of Rome was drafted in 1956, original drafts referred to Churchill's ideas. Charles de Gaulle had always felt that whilst he was exiled in England and as part of the invasion of Europe, that the UK had controlled his Free French Army and himself too much and would dominate, therefore it was as much the grudge he bore as any serious political reasoning that he held out against UK membership despite applications to join from 1957 onward.
So no, Churchill was actually being visionary in that respect which is something that is being careful not mentioned. His grandson Sir Nicholas Soames recently told fellow MPs how he has been sent 'vile' messages due to his support for Britain remaining in the EU at the referendum in June. He also recently accused the ukip leader Farage of being “like Donald Trump only without the charm” and a “frightful chattering cad and faux bon homme”, and on the UK remaining in the EU responded to Farage's accusation he is wrong, to accuse him of being “truly careless of Britain’s best interests”, adding: “Listening to you on the wireless today is like a replay of every pub bore.” He has reminded parliament constantly about his grandfather's commitment to a Europe at peace that would work together as one for all time.
If that is not an endorsement for all of the 'patriots' who wish to leave who so often see Churchill as one of their inspirations, then I am not sure what is.
The 1946 speech given by Winston Churchill does indeed make interesting reading, especially the penultimate sentence of the last paragraph in which the great man says :- "Great Britain, the British Commonwealth of Nations, mighty America - and, I trust, Soviet Russia, for then indeed all would be well - must be the friends and sponsors of the new Europe ...." It is clear from the wording of this classic 'punch-line' closing to the speech, that Winston was advocating that Great Britain should be one of the friends and sponsors of the new European Order, rather than a part of it. Indeed, earlier in his speech he says: "There is already a natural grouping in the Western Hemisphere. We British have our own Commonwealth of Nations." and these words clearly indicate that Winston felt that the UK belonged to the natural grouping of the Commonwealth, rather than to the proposed new grouping of Europe. Clearly he did not feel, and certainly he did not say that Great Britain should join in with a new Europe in some form of grouping. What he was saying was that he felt that a new European grouping was necessary to prevent future wars, and that Britain should facilitate and encourage it, not join it. Winston was giving this speech in Europe, not in the UK, and he was giving it to mainland Europe, and not to the UK. As with many of his generation, Winston simply did not consider Great Britain to be part of Europe, but rather that it should stand resolutely with it's Commonwealth cousins, and it's 'special friends' across the Atlantic.
Robert, are you aware that as a model the UK has three legals systems, thus although there are as such no actual written constitutions, Northern Ireland has laws extending back to the pre-1800 Acts of Union when Ireland joined the UK plus some with the 1998 'Good Friday Agreement', Scotland's laws were not touched in 1707. Neither system is at all like the English-Welsh system. Given the amount of time they have been in the union one might expect a merger or at least a partial convergence. It has not happened. The UK is NOT a single country but a union of four countries as constitutional and legal separation along with different educational systems and various other matters show. In a way that is a good example for critics of 'ever closer union' to look at unless they are people who are convinced that the UK is actually England that has bits with other names which one encounters not infrequently.
So, some people read far to much into the 1957 Treaty of Rome inclusion of 'ever closer union' that was there when the UK joined the EEC in 1973 and voted to stay in with the referendum of 1975. There are 28 nations with, because of the UK, 30 constitutions and legal systems. The actual structures are different, such as Germany being a federal republic divided up into states that are bound by federal laws and constitutions but to an extent have their own and certainly largely govern themselves, through Italy which is similar but divided into regions to Sweden which has a single set of laws and one constitution although allowance is made to give the Sami region in the north (Lappland) that extends over Norway, Finland and part of Russia limited autonomy. To somehow 'package' all the differences into a single 'super state' is beyond the imagination of even the most federalist thinkers. It will not happen, if it does it would be beyond the lifetime of anybody alive now so is of no real concern to any of us. It also falls under the kind of EU lawmaking that would require a unanimous vote which the UK, France and several other members would never give. So let us dispel with that myth.
I have said it on another thread but it was Winston Churchill who called for the creation of a ‘United States of Europe’ in a famous 1946 Zurich speech and then he presided over the first European Federal Congress at the Hague in 1948. He was one of the key fathers of a united Europe and set in motion ideas and events which would develop and grow to become the European Union. Here you will find a link to that speech: www.coe.int/t/dgal/dit/ilcd/Archives/selection/Churchill/ZurichSpeech_en.asp
People quickly pick up on "There is already a natural grouping in the Western Hemisphere. We British have our own Commonwealth of Nations. These do not weaken, on the contrary they strengthen, the world organisation." to argue that he was saying the union he was proposing would be parallel to the USE. In fact he was using the commonwealth as an example on which a federal Europe could be based according to what he said at the European Federal Congress in 1948. Anyway, for those who wish to understand his words as they see them, they should also bear in mind that the commonwealth no longer exists and that the number of now fully self-ruling nations that were once part of the British Empire that are leaving the British Commonwealth as it stands are leaving is accelerating. Australia and New Zealand have made news for their intent to cease to have UK royals as their head of state alone. So, the commonwealth argument has no substance and looks a bit like nostalgia for something that cannot be revived rather than reality. But to argue that there is a plot to forma federal Europe is rather far fetched. Ever closer union means things like having a common VAT, properly matching import and export regulations, single standards for such things as quality and safety. I really do not know what the obsessive fear of the Euro is about, after all back in the mists of time it seems, the UK was shouting about what a great idea it was when France was dismissing it!
So, the UK is an independent state consisting of four countries as a union that is holding a referendum on whether or not to stay in what is to all intents and purposes simply a much larger version of what they are. I know that is a bit of a simplification but that is meant to serve a purpose. That purpose is to illustrate just how much effort goes into holding the union the UK is together which the 2014 Scottish referendum saw. The bitterness about the nature of the campaign, the vows at the last moment and the fact that as yet those promises to be enacted instantly have not materialised and are being whittled down to next to nothing anyway are precisely the tactics being employed by those trying to take the UK out of the EU! That is, to my mind, a contradiction that one could legitimately call political hypocrisy.
Thus said, I recommend people read the attachments to this and the other post to see the many arguments for staying in the EU. That is not to say the arguments for leaving should be dismissed. No, I think we should take all of them fully into account. I have looked at out arguments and find that very few convince me because most are not founded in evidence which the stay in ones are. Of course, and everybody tends to agree, the structure of the EU needs serious changes. However, would it not be better had the UK been far more central as one of the core member states in order to press for that. Now the UK has marginalised itself. If we stay in it will take years to re-establish the kudos to be at the heart of the union. If we leave then whatever deniers believe, the UK is condemning itself to rapid and irreversible decline. Once the TTIP is signed and comes into force and what the USA has emphatically said about NO separate treaty with the UK then tough times will begin. For those of us who choose to stay in Europe, within the EU, there is probably little to fear other than vindictive moves like pension freezes and an end to the health service agreements.
Apart from that, it is not a democratic vote in that it excludes at least UK nationals living in EU states unless legislation ends the 15 year rule, which is unlikely. It is somewhat undemocratic by not being extended to 16 and 17 year olds who have many years before them, certainly more than those who the 15 year rule ending will benefit from and also the many people who are not British in the UK. There are people who are and have retained their EU nationalities right back to the WW2 period. I certainly know one now very elderly Polish couple who went there as refugees and stayed although my contemporaries, their children, are Brits. There are UK-EU marriages, there are EU only couples, people alone but many of them have lived larger parts of their lives there than their country of origin. Many fled eastern Europe but have stayed because the UK is where they know best, their homes and families are there. They too are excluded from this vote that may well affect their future. So, far from being an exercise in democracy this is a sham but people are not saying so although many on both sides know. I personally feel ashamed by the UK's behaviour.
Regarding the forthcoming referendum on EU membership, I would just like to say that my view is that all British Citizens everywhere should be allowed to vote. In the interests of fairness, and regardless of our individual view on the in /out question, what we should all be doing at present is supporting Mr Christopher Chope in his endeavour to pass a Private Members Bill that will allow ALL British Citizens to vote in this referendum.
Although the referendum is about involvement in Europe, the fundamental underlying issue is whether or not we Brits wish the United Kingdom to remain an independent sovereign country, or to ultimately become a semi-autonomous region of a larger, yet to be fully created, country of Europe. We have experience of this in our own country, all be it a long time ago, when in 1707 Scotland became united with England as one country. We also know from the recent referendum in Scotland, that may Scots are still very unhappy with this arrangement.
The European Union has, as it's very name implies, but one aim, and that is the unification of Europe into one sovereign state. That aim is even embodied in treaties which speak of 'Ever Closer Union'.
This EU referendum is fundamentally about whether or not the UK remains an independent country, and so ALL British Citizens everywhere should be allowed to have their say.
Anyway, let's leave it and keep adding things that people who wish to be informed can read. Taking the few here and included in the discussion there are some very interesting points made. Some verify, some clarify and other supplement information. I simply wonder whether the actual stay in campaign will manage to do as well. Based on the 'Bitter Together' campaign aka 'Project Fear' in 2014 which was the government's last attempt I don't hold out a lot of hope. At least those of us using SFN will be informed...