Thoughts on Europe

It's that time of year again to re-analyse the the state we are in for this year. And it may not look so good for the UK...

Edward Heath changes the course of British history...

‘Non!’ cried out General De Gaulle, not once, but twice in the face of ideologically malleable Prime Ministers (Macmillan and Wilson), who sought to be as cunning and as enigmatic Prime Ministers as history to this day perceives them. 2013 marks an important year in our turbulent love affair with the European community, as the 40^th anniversary of our hard-fought European accession was proudly announced by a triumphant Edward Heath. A triumph, which later proved as one of the few and far between successes in a chiefly tragic era of Conservative government. Coming to our present predicament shortly, I thought as a keen student who doesn’t study, but has a great love of our domestic history, it was worth re-reading the original Schuman speech of 1950, the one piece of legislation that could have ensured a much smoother path to European accession that accosted various governments another twenty years. In it, though the statements of hard industry are clearly out-dated, Schuman remarks on the contribution of ‘raising living standards and to promoting peaceful achievements.’ The new Treaty was, if you like, the League of Nations take two. A bastion for peace and prosperity. Certainly, on a grand scale of conflicts, we have lived in a harmonious, if unquiet, relationship with our neighbours. But looking on a deeper impact of the complacent behaviour of the EU in the short years that seem so long ago – expanding to twenty-seven countries, the Euro currency – one can’t help but feel the sense of impending disaster as the political climate becomes more frayed as the blood pumping of bankrolled states like Greece and Spain look inwards for tough answers to questions that repeatedly won’t be asked. To put it simply, it’s the right to the well-practiced defences of nationalism and the left begin to resist the cries of encroaching fascist temptations who spurn Europe’s open immigration. The hard-fought treaty has already started to lose its sheen in a union that simply won’t adjust to the modern federalism it promised – the irony is intended.

David Cameron faces a losing battle in a war that can’t – and shouldn’t – be declared on the battle lines that are the modern Conservative party. Europe, quite bluntly, remains a Franco-German concordat, where us other countries are its invitees and Cameron, like those after Heath (New Labour excepted), are whiney upstarts. What concerns me more is not so much the potentially fleeting rise of UKIP, but the inhumane responses of a vengeful Europe to ordinary, innocent citizens who are bearing the brunt of economic hardship for the mistakes of frivolous governments. This is not how the story should have been, and it’s high time for those who want to see peace continue, to give them a ballot.