Europhobe or Europhile?

I don't really see what the EU has to do with your ugly bigotted xenophobic rant.

(Oh, and regarding the "English Race" you might want to read up on history - Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Romans, Normans, Vikings and the few Celts which haven't been driven out- even your Royal family is German...)

Widow, i have no problem with an migrant coming here provided you have a job and you integrate in OUR culture and society.

I object highly when i see my national identity, my culture and my values pushed aside to make way for foreigners who have no intention of integrating, no intention of embracing this nation and are more interested in replacing my culture and my customs with there own.

Multiculturalism is bollox. Its divisive, it creates enclaves and encourage separatism. Go walk round Leicester Belgrave, for example.. The only written words in English are the street signs, no one speaks english. Its like being a foreigner in your own country.

All multiculturalism amounts to is the slow destruction of the English nation, the English race and English society. How come every other minority is allowed to flaunt its culture, yet is we the English try it were accused of racism ? How come multiculturalism applies to everyone except the English? How come OUR culture has to give way every time ?

Like it or not, this is a white christian country, its isnt a Caribbean country, or a slavic state, it isnt an islamic state. I dont mind you practicing your origins, provided you dont shove them down my throat and accept that this is MY country, MY culture, and WE, the English, are STILL the 95% majority in England, and as such, WE the MAJORITY come first, culturally.

If you dont like OUR culture and our society, then go and practice YOU culture elsewhere. But I will not see it destroyed and swept aside. WE have been here more than 2000 years, and were not going to watch out nation destroyed by the EU without a fight.

She has been talking about the ratchet clauses in the Lisbon treaty; the fact that Marta Andreason was sacked by Kinnock for querying the accounts; van Rompuy's federalism, and the corruption and waste of money that is there.

I don't see that querying the amount of people that are allowed into a finite geographical space is anti-immigrant, but a legitimate enquiry as to how it impacts on an infrastructure that wasn't designed to cope with it. If Turkey is allowed to accede to the EU, then that will get worse. The other problem is with how the integration of the immigrants happens; there are areas in Brussels that we are not be allowed to live in, and that the MEPs are advised not to go into; parts of Schaerbeek being an example.

It's been interesting watching what's happening with Greece and the German response to it. Merkel is on record last week as saying if the Tories get in nothing will happen with Lisbon (if Lisbon has to be renegotiated for a Greek bailout) that whatever the Tory intentions are, she will not have anything occur that she doesn't want to happen. That said it all really.

scaryteacher - she's not talking about endemic corruption but is spouting anti-immigrant nonsense, as well as anti-German cliches, which seem to have be lifted directly from the Daily Express.

Widow - we are talking about the endemic corruption at the heart of the EU and the fact that it wastes money and is unaccountable to those who pay for it; not the fact that those who are EU citizens have the right to settle in other EU countries.

I don't think Lincstash is thick - she is just expressing an opinion on the institutions and functions of the EU. I share many of her reservations.

As a job-stealing immigrant myself who had an appendectomy and a caesarean courtesy of the NHS, I'm glad that there is the EU, as it made the decision to leave my home, family and friends behind in order to be with the man I love a little bit easier. If I had had to pay thousands of pounds in order to get leave to remain, work permit etc, I might not have made that step.

Meanwhile, I pay the same taxes as everyone else, so I don't see why I should be less entitled than anyone who just happened to be born here, without having the guts to go somewhere and make their living.

Linctash - I wonder whether you are really that thick or whether you are deliberately trolling.

Nah, the conclusion is we dump the EU while we still have control of our country and the english nation still exists, because if the Eu gets its way, neither of those will be true in 30 years time.

Labour's big failure is they have contempt for history, whereas in reality the lessons of history are the most important you can learn. And history tells us not to get entangled with the Europeans, because they are untrustworthy.

The EU is just Germany's third attempt at world domination. They tried doing it the military way twice, now there trying another strategy.

I am a phile of doing things at the most appropriate level - which is very very often local rather than national, and is also very often at EU level, sometimes global level. We need to put effort into ensuring institutions at all those levels are democratic. I'm not denying there's a shedload of work to be done in that respect at EU level - in part because, as Bonsoir says, they're still immature.

What I might happen to think of Germany is no more here or there than what I might think of Yorkshire as a Lancashire person.

And as MrIC says, personal sovereignty is the most important.

Good heavens - neither!

oh, I thought this was a baby names thread..

Those I know who have heard her speak were underwhelmed.

The scary thing about Baroness Ashton is she has a sister, and Baroness Ashton is the one with the brains.

On the other hand, she so incompetent and lacking in common sense and general wherewithall she blends in perfectly with all the other useless corrupt thievin no marks leeching off the EU in Brussels.

And fair do's, she'd never get a job in the real world, she wouldn't last five minutes.

Baroness Ashton.

I think Lincstash & others have gone through most of the points (having finally mentioned corruption - was worried that this might have been forgotten).

But Baroness Ashton.

It's just humiliating for us isn't it?

Furthermore, to pick up another point, the EU, now it has a Foreign Minister, and the Lisbon Treaty, can replace US on the UN Security Council any time it likes. That is to say, we get booted off, and have no further say in the matter, or the UN.

Fucking outrageous.

"Oh, and linctash the benefit of immigrants to the UK economy is that they are going to end up paying your pension - and probably mine (if pensions still exist by then).
"

Complete fallacy.

The 3 million we let in will be drawing pensions the same as we are, they wont be paying for our pensions, our kids will be paying for there pensions.

'Which I why I'd like it to be more democratic, less unwieldy and more efficient - which is only going to happen if people engage with it rather than trying to pretend it doesn't exist.'

In your dreams sunbeam. None of that is going to happen. All the Eurocrats are intent on grabbing their own piece of the pie and enlarging their own sphere of influence. One can't engage with the EU as it is doesn't want to people to do that. When Ireland voted no to Lisbon (thus showing what extent of engagement they wanted with the EU), were they listened to? No, another referendum was held and would be until the Irish came up with 'yes'. The EU does NOT want to engage with the people, it wants us to roll over and play dead whilst it rolls on to greater enlargement.

'Oh and since you bring up the UN, given the choice between a nation of 60 million holding one of five permanent posts on the UN security council, and a Federation representing 500 million people, which do you think is fairer?' So kick France off the Security Council then - or do they count for more than the UK? I do NOT want to be represented in the UN by a person that does not know what she is doing (Cathy Ashton) or by someone that does not have the interests of the UK at heart. The EU is not, and never has been, about 'fair'. It is a Franco-German alliance.

I seem to remember we gave up our rebate for reform of the CAP - but the French are refusing to allow that to happen - Sarko will not play ball as he promised.

Why does the Euro mean you have to change money? We have a sterling account and a Euro account. We use the appropriate one for the country we are in. Pas de problem.

Good article MrIC.

I adore Germany... I love a lot of Europe. Yet I utterly despair of the EU. There are far too many weak countries in it and the power it has is insane. Letting criminals stay here rather than being deported etc.

As my grandparents and Dad had to go through the horrors of ground invasion during the second world war (may English people never experience it), I am most certainly Europhile. Any institutions preventing wars is supported by me.

I'm most definitely a Europhile. Just because the European institutions are immature (mere newborns compared with the elderly institutions of the member states) doesn't make them bad.

And let us not forget, ever, that the European Union exists primarily to maintain peace in Europe. Let us never, ever forget the bloodshed and horror of wars that raged across Europe until the mid-20th century.

Sorry ^ typo ^ "it's about the"

lincstash You are absolutely spot on with everything you've posted.

MrIC I'm sorry but you are very naive. You remind me of the folk who think the EU is wonderful merely because they don't have to change their £s into Pesetas / Drachmas / Deutschmarks anymore - a very simplistic to a very complex situation.
As for your statement about the Bristish Queen being soverieign - not the British people - well duh!

Can't you see that sovereignty is more than this? It's above the
ability to raise your own taxes
ability to grant/ deny entry to whomsoever you chose
ability to set your own foreign policy
ability to make your own laws and for those laws to take precedence
ability to command your own armed forces
ability to set your own financial strategy

etc
etc
etc

many of those things we have already lost control of to Brussels - as Lincstash has already pointed out.

these are the things that define a nation. take them away and the former Britain becomes a small area on the Western edge of Europe that used to be one of the standing members of the UN security council and had independant membership of NATO - before this was replaced by a homogenous EU membership of these organisations.

We are sleep-waliking into this and before I'm accused of being a 'Little Englander' - I would rather be a Little Englander than No Englander.

Clearly some migrants bring economic benefit to the UK but, taken as a whole, what they add to production is counter balanced by their addition to the population. The only major inquiry ever conducted in the UK was carried out by the Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords in 2007/08. In April 2008 they reported that "We have found no evidence for the argument, made by the government, business and many others, that net immigration - immigration minus emigration - generates significant economic benefits for the existing UK population." As regards the contribution of migrants to the Exchequer, they concluded that "The overall fiscal impact of immigration is likely to be small, though this masks significant variations across different immigrant groups."

In the period 1997-2005 the number of households in England is estimated to have increased by 1.563 million of which 592,000 (37.9%) are migrant households[9] . Over the same period the housing stock has risen by 1.336 million. The rise in housing stock has therefore failed to keep up with the number of households formed - the shortage is nearly a quarter of a million homes. With net migration at half the levels experienced between 1997 and 2005 there would have been no shortfall between supply and demand - this shortfall accounted for much of the surge in house prices experienced in the period.