Europhobe or Europhile?

[MrIC]

I've been a Europhile since I was a teenager and really like the "idea" of the EU (admittedly the reality can sometimes be annoying). I'm British, born in Britain to British parents, and I currently live in Spain - I've also visited 16 other EU countries.

I love the fact that I have the right to live and work anywhere in the EU, that I don't need a visa, and that I can get healthcare should I need it. I believe that the EU has played a major role in developing Europe's (and by extension Britian's) economy and improving the quality of life of 100s of millions of people.

I'd really like to hear from Europhobe's who have a genuine, rational objection to the EU and their reasons.

You are not going to get an equally balanced budget from the EU - the strain on the Euro is apparent with the PIIGS economies not performing as well as others.

I don't want the UK only to have control over 'certain aspects' of how I live, and the EU having the rest. I want the UK government and Parliament to be the sovereign law under which I live in the UK, not EU law.

Furthermore, you will not get a consensus - don't be naive. Van Rompuy has only been doing this with the Walloons and the Flemish - he has not yet tried it with all the member states; and I am told by someone who knows, that trying to get consenus from all the member states is like herding cats. I am further told by that person that each nation tries to drive it's own agenda and doesn't want to work for consensus. When it looks like there may be agreement, something pops up that knocks it all off track. She tells me that this was very apparent when the French held the Presidency for 6 months, and would hold meetings until the wee small hours without breaks or sustenance, in order to drive through what Paris wanted.

I have had this confirmed further by other people I know who are in a position to know what goes on.

Some of the EU laws are not good for the UK. I hope that we can continue to opt out of the Working Time Directive. I don't see that it is any business of those in Brussels how long British workers want to work for. This has already caused problems with junior doctors for example, and if it comes into law, how will they get round the 60 hour weeks that HM Forces put in for example? 'Oh, can't go to sea, it's over 48 hours!'

scaryteacher- interesting question, do you know how other Member States have applied the working time rules to their own armed forces?

No, but I'll find out next week.

I'm a Europhile. But I'm not English, I'm actually Italian. I'd be even more scared about Italy's democracy without Europe.

Franca, you're right- Italy is a young democracy, its history shows that it needs to be part of something bigger in order to achieve stability. Spain, too.

"Look at the Human Rights laws. They are designed specifically to give foreigners more rights in a country than the citizens of that country. They are designed to undermine the whole concept of citizenship, and destroy the value of it."

The Human Rights laws don't derive from the EU but from the Council of Europe and the UK was a founding member of this organisation and one of the original proponents of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Has MN been invaded by the BNP tonight? I preferred those CUK guys, they were far more amusing and intelligent.

"The Human Rights laws don't derive from the EU but from the Council of Europe and the UK was a founding member of this organisation and one of the original proponents of the European Convention on Human Rights."

Dont you love the way the europhiles play with semantics? Just like the EU Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty "Its not the same at all, honest, guv..."

Can you spot the european connection here?

ill give you a clue:

"Council of Europe"
"European Convention on Human Rights"

not 'the council of england' and 'the english convention of human rights.............

"Some of the EU laws are not good for the UK. I hope that we can continue to opt out of the Working Time Directive. I don't see that it is any business of those in Brussels how long British workers want to work for. This has already caused problems with junior doctors for example, and if it comes into law, how will they get round the 60 hour weeks that HM Forces put in for example? 'Oh, can't go to sea, it's over 48 hours!' "

They're designed to protect workers, including junior doctors. How many opt out because they really want to, rather than because they have to?

I'd rather have reasonable hours and breaks enforced.Surely an overtired/exhausted doctor can pose a danger to patients.

Oh and btw, Lilymaid, you're resorting to another looney left europhile tactic. Since you cant shut me up, but dont want to take any notice of my point of view, you start calling me a BNP member as a type of insult. Its the same strategy as trying to dismiss my arguments as 'racist'.

Sadly, Doesnt work, You WILL address mine and millions of other peoples similar point of view, or you will fuel an ever increasing growth in nationalism and anti european hatred. We wont go away, and were not going to let the EU destroy our nation.

Answer me this: if my anti EU view is so insignificant and wrong, how come Brown chickened out the referendum on the EU Constituion/Lisbon Treaty (and lets not have the BS it was different, they were 95% identical). In fact ill tell you why - because he knew there would be a NO vote, and that woudl have seriously buggered him up, politically.

I think the best way to hasten the demise of teh EU is to let in as many member states as possible - evry wider membership.

the place will be such a Tower of Babel that the whole thing will grind to a halt. Definitely admit Turkey as that will bring a whole load of issues that will rile some of our European 'partners' who are less PC than we are.

i raed somewhere that wider membership was actually a policy being pursued by the Foreign Office as Bristain was too scared to oppose a lot of EU legislation and thought undermining the Union in this way could work.

Unfortuanly no one told Gordo so he let the latest members have unrestricted access to work / settle in the UK.

The point being Widow that in some professions, you can't stick what is an arbitrary time limit on how many hours are worked, HM Forces being a case in point. How can you have reasonable hours and breaks if you are at sea on a deployment/exercise or patrol? Extrapolate from that to Afghanistan - 'guns down lads, time for a break, never mind we're in the middle of a fire fight - EU says have a break ' - it doesn't work on a practical basis.

This is from the Federation of European Employers:
'The split in social philosophies at the heart of Europe between libertarian 'American-style' values pursued by the UK, Ireland and many new EU states and the more welfare-orientated 'social model' maintained by many continental western European states such as France, Sweden and the Netherlands has recently come to a head over the issue of the UK's continued opt-out from the maximum working week.

The real problem about working time, however, is not the imposition of statutory upper limits, but a social framework that makes it impossible for companies to operate efficiently within these limits. Rather than preventing those who wish to work longer hours from improving their income levels, the focus for EU policymakers should be on increasing the proportion of the employed workforce that are available to carry out their jobs. This means taking a long hard look at how much employee benefits are creating a 'time off' culture and providing financial incentives to spend too much time absent from work.'

I think WetAugust that Turkey is going to be a sticking point for certain EU member states. I find this amusing as they are part of NATO, yet not considered good enough to be part of the EU.

I'm totally against the Working Time Directive but I'm pro-EU.

I am guessing that there is a carve-out clause from the Working Time rules for armed forces, but I will await your answer next week, scaryteacher.

Lincstash, I don't know if you read my earlier post about national identity but I would be interested to know what your response is to my genuine question- what is the british national identity?

A follow up to that would be: leaving aside the issue of immigration, which has already been well-debated here, (just assume for the sake of argument that the european project has has no effect on the number and nationality of people in this country), how would the EU change/ reduce this national identiy?

The national identity of any nation are those traditions, history, customs and traits that make them different from other nations.

We are clearly not the french - we have a different language, different history, different customs, different traditions, different methods and rules to conduct our society with. We are also clearly not the Germans, or the Japanese, for the same reasons (and ill personally vouch for the japanese example, i lived there for a while).

If you need it explaining, then im wasting my time debating it with you, its not rocket science, just use your own powers of observation.

Not sure that my genuine question merited such an acerbic reply, tbh.

I understand that countries have different customs. I don't understand how Europe will 'destroy' them.

Well The Eu has set about removing anything that is 'english' - the latest wheeze is to remove the name 'The English Channel' and replace it with 'The Anglo-French Pond' - what an insult!!. They had a good go at getting rid of our weights and measures and making us totally metric, they want to get rid of our currency, bearing the head of the Queen, and replace it with some dross printed in Brussels.

Its all been a long line of attacks on englishness going back 30 years or more. Its got worse in the last few years, because the Eu now has a more dangerous agenda, the United States of Europe. And thats very, very, dangerous, as we saw with Iraq, invented counties are not very stable. Look at Yugoslavia.

No matter how hard Tito tried to create a ?Yugoslav? identity out of that country?s disparate Slavic parts, Yugoslavia fell apart soon after his death in an orgy of ethnic hatred and revenge. A sense of national identity, a knowledge of who you are and where you come from, seems to be essential for the psychic health of any society. Just as adopted children, however happy with their adoptive parents, long to know about their roots, people who have no pride in their collective past will not be able to deal with the present or the future with unaggressive self-confidence. Lacking a sense of what being English now consists of, the former boss nation is far more likely to express its sense of loss through hatred of others. That is why yoiu are seeing the rise of English nationalism. If the English begin to feel hard done by (and they are doing, were fed up of being called racist for trying to save our culture) - why, for example, are the Scots getting much higher subsidies from the State than the English? Why are ethnic minorities allowed to criticise the English but if we reply in kind we?re being racist - their sense of grievance may turn out to be very dangerous.

To avoid this danger is to help the English - especially the young English, like the tattooed and ear-ringed youths in hoodies - to appreciate that one can be proud of English history, culture and inventiveness without being arrogant or xenophobic. Multicultural education must not be used as an excuse to decry everything English in order to build up the self-esteem of incomers, or to assuage a sense of post-imperial guilt. We English should be proud of ourselves for real achievements, past and present. This I not a recipe for rampant chauvinism. It is quite the opposite. It is a prophylactic against it.

The people who question the english national identity have never read the history of these islands; we, the english are an amazing race, and quite unique. The Industrial Revolution, for example, could only have been started by a Cornishman.

And did i mention the plan of the EU to break the entire UK into 'eurozones', completely removing all traces of the english nation? If thtas not an attack on out national identity and an attempt to eradicate it, what is it ?

Suggest you go and read THIS for the truth about the Lisbon Treaty and the EU plan to destroy the English.

TEN TRUTHS ABOUT THE EU:

1. The leaderships of the Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem parties have been taken over by pro-Europeans. These leaderships implement the EU's policy, and ignore the wishes of their voters. That's why your vote doesn't make a difference.

1. The six European Union treaties give it the constitution of a dictatorship, and the laws of a police state. Dictatorships lead to oppression and poverty. Politicians conceal the EU?s Constitution is similar to the old Soviet Union's.

1. The Queen has signed all six EU constitutional treaties. These treaties make it clear the EU will abolish the nations of Britain and England (and our Lib-Dem, Labour and Conservative parties, Lisbon Treaty clause 8A-4).

1. The EU is illegal under British law. Five Prime Ministers and the Queen have committed six acts of Treason by signing the EU treaties which will abolish our nation and replace it with the EU; they secretly repealed two of the five laws of treason in the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act (s36.3) to escape a prosecution.

1. The police state growing around you, and reported on by some national newspapers, is the EU police state. We've been in the EU for 36 years, we are harmonising our laws with the EU, the emerging police state is the result.

1. Political correctness, the undermining of parents, the family and teachers, the teaching of sex and homosexuality to under tens, the promotion of single parent families etc. etc. is subversion by the EU or its Common Purpose organisation over the last 34 years, using the 200+ techniques of the German Frankfurt School.

1. The EU will be an economic disaster. We now lose £45 billion a year trading with Europe; before we joined we broke even. The EU's 120,000 regulations cost us £100 billion a year (Better Regulation Commission Annual Report 2005); they will bring us a soviet style command economy and poverty. Our politicians lied to us.

1. If you have voted Conservative, Labour or Lib Dem over the last 35 years you have voted for the EU police state, and for the abolition of your own party.

1. German Chancellor Angela Merkel forced the Reform or Lisbon Treaty on us (passed by Westminster 21st January, 138 majority) which replaced the British Constitution with the EU?s on 1st January 2009. Westminster is now powerless and defunct. The EU treaties don?t allow for a British General Election, due by 5th May 2010, when the EU will have the power to abolish Westminster. You will then be imprisoned inside the EU police state, and ruled by unelected EU dictators, who will control the nuclear weapons of what used to be Britain and France.

10. Britain is the fifth largest economy amongst the world's 200 nations. Forget elections and parties, whose leaderships are controlled by the EU. Fight the direct anti EU campaigns on the eutruth website to get Britain back before its too late. We need a General Strike against the EU. Start by visiting your local MP and warn him he will lose his £240,000 salary and expenses when the EU closes Westminster.

AND THE SEVEN CLAUSES DESIGNED TO DESTROY ALL NATIONAL IDENTITIES

From Edward Heath?s Treaty of Accession of 1972, to the Reform or Lisbon Treaty 2008, politicians have lied about the content of the EU?s six Constitutional Treaties.

A dictatorship: an executive of unelected politburos

Page 18 Article 9: Defines the Executive of the EU: three unelected politiburos on the soviet model. The only chance we have of representation is in the European Council, which starts off as being one Prime Minister per country (but can be chosen by EU politicians). But these 27 Heads of State (Gordon Brown is ours) are the very ones who illegally forced us into the EU against our wishes in the first place: they are already bought and paid for by the EU.

Below the politiburos is the European Court of Justice, the one that ruled in case EUCJ 274/99 that it is illegal to criticise the EU. When EU Budget Director Marta Andreasen was fired for revealing that 95% of the EU?s expenditure could not be accounted for, this court ruled she should be denied compensation because she told the truth. This is the court that interprets and enforces these treaties.

At the bottom is the powerless sham EU Parliament, the only vote we will get. It is the Soviet system, but with a more tyrannical constitution, 2,000 controlling pages long instead of the Soviet 80 pages.

The end of the Lib-Dem, Labour and Conservative Parties

Page 16 Article 8A-4. ?Political parties at European level contribute to forming European political awareness and to expressing the will of citizens of the Union.?

What does this mean? At the EU?s Party Financing Conference in Madrid in June 1999, parties at the European level were defined as parties with voters in more than 10 countries. The Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem Parties have voters in only one country, Britain.

Under this clause, British parties do not contribute and do not express the will of the EU?s citizens. That empowers the EU to abolish our Lib Lab Con, the very parties whose leaderships have worked so hard to illegally force us into the EU.

Not possible? Read the ½ page 1933 German Enabling Act. It didn?t mention political parties, but was used to abolish them. Given Lisbon removes the last 20% of Westminster?s powers, it makes perfect sense to close Westminster when its current five year term expires in May 2010. By then, it will have been powerless and defunct for 17 months.

The EU is a Military Union: scores of clauses including:

Page 39 10A-c-3 "Member States shall make civilian and military capabilities available tothe Union for the implementation of the common security and defence policy,?

?Member States shall undertake progressively to improve their military capabilities.?

Three unelected EU politburos will control the nuclear weapons of the former nations of Britain and France. The Treaty of Elysee 1963 gives Germany effective voting control of the EU. Nuclear weapons controlled by German dictators? What is that a recipe for?

Petitions: We are told what to ask for

Pages 17 8B-4. ?Not less than one million citizens who are nationals of many Member States may take the initiative of inviting the European Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties.?

Wonderful. We may petition the EU government. But we are only allowed to ask for more laws to complete the EU dictatorship. We are forced to petition for the EU, Soviet style.

The EU can force the Euro on us:

Page 12, Article 2- 4. ?The Union shall establish an economic and monetary union whose currency is the euro.? Our politicians pretend this means nothing.

If our EU rulers were to impose the Euro on us under this clause, our British government, if still functioning, could in theory appeal. Except for decades our government has implemented EU treaties, laws, and regulations, not the wishes of the people. So it is unlikely it would appeal. Under this clause, an EU judge would have no choice but to impose the Euro on us.

(But they won?t. The EU dictatorship cannot be built while there is a strong and free Britain on its doorstep; we stopped them in 1914 and 1939. Don?t forget the EU was founded by Nazi Germany in 1940, and its design finalised at the conference at Berlin University in 1942, since when it has not changed. So they will destroy us politically with the treaties, economically with the 120,000 regulations and by destroying Sterling to give us poverty.)

We may not oppose the EU

Page 13, 3A-3, end: ?The Member States shall facilitate the achievement of the Union's tasks and refrain from any measure which could jeopardise the attainment of the Union's objectives." In English:

?We must comply with the treaties, and we may not oppose the EU. ?

We are forced to obey the treaties

Page 14. 3A-4. ?Under the principle of proportionality, the content and form of Union action shall not exceed what is necessary to achieve the objectives of the Treaties.?

In English, ?the EU will not use more force than is necessary to compel us to comply with the treaties.? See page 13, 3A-3: The other EU states are to force us to comply too.

These are just two of scores of clauses that demolish our sovereignty and Britain.

Summary: Britain abolished on 1st January 2009.

The treaties are written to conceal their intent. For example, they ?take Primacy? over our written British Constitution and laws. A nation cannot have two constitutions, so this means the EU?s constitutional treaties replace the British Constitution. In other words, they abolish our Constitution (which is written, every word of it), but they are careful not to say that.

These six treaties are to be enforced by EU judges, paid by the EU, whose remit is to enforce them with the policy of ?Ever closer union?. So every ruling is biased in advance towards the EU, and against Britain.

These clauses, and hundreds of similar ones in the 2,000 pages of the six treaties, overwhelmingly abolish British sovereignty, and therefore the British nation.

History shows us dictatorships eliminate those who put it in power, as they are the greatest threat to remove it. In the EU dictatorship our MPs will suffer even more than we will. Watching our traitorous MPs suffer is the one thing we have to look forward to.

And the pity is Linctash that not many people even know the full extent to which we have been hi-jacked by the EU, or care.

Only bit I disagree with is that British Constitution has never been a written Constitution.

Shouldn't you at least name the source where you lifted that tosh from?

"Well The Eu has set about removing anything that is 'english' - the latest wheeze is to remove the name 'The English Channel' and replace it with 'The Anglo-French Pond' - what an insult!!. They had a good go at getting rid of our weights and measures and making us totally metric, they want to get rid of our currency, bearing the head of the Queen, and replace it with some dross printed in Brussels."

lincstash - I don't understand how the 'removal' of any of those things can make you feel less English. Yes they may be part of a national identity in a nice, warm, fuzzy way, but would you really feel less English without them? TBH I have never heard of 'The Anglo-French Pond' - I tend to call it La Manche since I live in France.

I don't get how having a different system of weights and measures can affect your national identity (I still feel Irish since they switched over).

I think the. EU is undemocratic, it is corrupt and full of fat cats.

It costs us vAst amounts in bureaucracy and £££ to belong and I don't see much in the way of benefits from it.

I embrace the differences in the nations of Europe but the EU membership is nothing but bondage for the UK.

How does it make you a europhobe if you don't want the uk to belong to the EU btw?

@WidowWadman

Ah so you cant actually show any of it is wrong, just that you think, with no counterexample, that its 'tosh'.

As usual, you put the counter arguments to the europhiles, and they havent a clue. Your lack of ability to show even one sentance is wrong shows the whole europhile movement is based on unreasoned prejudice, you just swallowed the pro-EU propaganda whole without questioning it.

Game set and match, now can we pull out please while were still here, and we still can ?

linctash
YOU are missing the point about the veg harvesters. The system I described already exists (or did when I looked at it last). It merely needs to be extended to problem areas like veg harvesting.

Illegal immigrants havent broken the 10 commandments. They are doing nothing wicked. They are illegal because the government says so, that's all. Therefore, if there is a genuine need for their labour (which it would appear that there is - I dont buy your version of local people queueing up to do the jobs, as Ive heard a lot of whinging by farmers that they cant recruit enough people in the past, eg to get up early in the morning), it makes sense to make the illegals legal.

Why on earth are you getting so worked up about that bit of water between England and France? Why on earth should it be the english channel? Anglo-French channel is far more logical. To our eternal shame, the French dont try to appropriate it by calling it La Manche Francaise,lets follow their example and drop the "english".