Europe? To be or not to be?

This is the latest question that appears to be vexing politicians in the UK right now. To be precise it is vexing Conservative party politicians. The Liberal Democrat part of the coalition is definitely pro Europe. The Labour party right now are saving their powder until election time. Like I said before, best to let everyone think you are an idiot than open your mouth and prove it out right. 

Why is this such an issue for the Conservatives? well It is down to Jolly old UKIP again. I am not going to mention them again as my blog is starting to turn into an anti  UKIP site and would like to think I had more to offer than just that.

Still the problem for the Conservative party is that they now need a way of addressing this challenge as it has the power to seriously break up their electoral base. 

The perspective on this though, is that it is not an issue at the top of the UK's agenda. Several MP's have appeared on political shows claiming that they are challenged by the populace on many other issues first. 

For my part I am pro Europe. Generally speaking. And my attitude in general seems to be a part of the problem. The Conservative party appears to want a referendum on EU membership and a referendum will give an either/ or choice. "Maybe" won't be a standard answer.

Membership of the EU is complicated. There are many aspects of membership that I don't like. For the most part it is the lack of accountability of the centralised European government. We do have an EU parliament but it holds no one to account for their actions, like a Prime Minister for example. There are entire EU departments that have no minister or elected official to answer to. They can act independently of the parliament and their decisions have to be enacted the member states.

This sounds like a recipe for the introduction of a totalitarian regime. The only savour at the moment is that various stated within the EU do seem to pick and choose which bits of EU legislation they will actually carry out.

In the past there have been quite ridiculous political solutions that don't really solve the problem that they were designed to act on. Fishing quota's for instance or many parts of the old Common Agricultural Policy (a document whose sole original purpose was to prevent the urbanisation of France). Fishing Quota's prevented  fish from being landed but didn't stop them being caught so they were thrown back but were dead anyway.

On the up side travel inside Europe is easy. This means it is easier to conduct business and there is a free trade agreement too. The upside of this is that wine became very affordable as well as foreign holidays. Pretty much as far as the ordinary person in the street cares. 

Therefore to make me decide one way or the other, to say we either carry on or stop completely is such an over simplification that there is no way we can make a reasoned argument to support our decision. The Euro Sceptic view is that this sort of  referendum should result in a "Get out of Europe" vote, anything else would inevitably result in our absorption into a federal Europe and there would be nothing we could do about it.

I am not necessarily against a federal Europe. I think there are dangers in it - the current crisis in the euro zone being a good example. Never was there a better example of political expediency and compromise creating a runaway train with no brakes. Europe failed to set the financial rules tight enough for a start, the current whinnying of those footing the bill only have their politicians to blame. They removed all the tools a sovereign government could use to rescue the situation (interest rates and devaluation etc) but they didn't ensure these governments couldn't act in the way they did.

Europe is an intensely culturally diverse continent that cannot possibly find a one size fits all policy. 

However to be outside the EU would make the UK a small fish in a VERY big pond. As part of the EU you could fight hard in the GATT free trade talks. Outside of Europe we would have no power to force the larger economies of the US, China, and other  BRIC countries to even play fair.

So how can I begin to jump one way or another. A TV pundit this week said that the UK was a conservative nation and therefore to stay in the EU was the conservative approach. It irked me that I should be in some way considered short on argument just because I wanted to maintain the status quo. What the pundit failed (for his own political ends) to recognise is that in or out is not a simple choice and if we want the status quo it is not because we just want an easy life but perhaps some of us recognise that in it we might afford change or at least express an opinion. The days of Empire are gone and we no longer have the international authority to act independently in any meaningful way.

UKIP PARTY CONFERENCE 2013