I deleted it in disgust, as it was the usual "In Europe, not ruled by Europe", "better in than out", "we'll renegotiate powers back from the EU" bollocks that the Tories have been peddling this past week.
First off, lets look at "In Europe, not ruled by Europe". This is such a disingenuous phrase that it has no credibility.
Lets strip it down. Is the statement saying that we can be part of the EU but not ruled by them? Well sorry, thats a fallacy. By being in Europe we submit to a whole raft of treaties (Rome, Maastricht, Lisbon amongst others) that cede power from our government to Brussels. Make no mistake, in critical areas of law, commerce, regulation and virtually every aspect of our daily lives, the EU has ownership. This means that our own government cannot go against rulings made by the EU. To do so would result in punishments such as fines and sanctions, etc. Even the Queen has to defer to the EU.
If your ruler, head of state, Prime Minister and Government have to abide by rules made up someone else, doesn't that mean that they are ruled by them? If they have to abide by past and future rules made by the EU, then we are ruled by them. End of Story.
There is no compromise, no mechanism to repatriate powers back to the UK. I would like someone to convince me otherwise, but as far as I know treaties are binding and the big daddy of them all, the Lisbon treaty has that catch all in it condemning us to agree to all future treaties.
Now lets look at "Better in than Out".
Well, lets look at two countries that rely on Europe for trade: Norway and Switzerland. Neither of them can be considered to be starving because they refuse to suckle at the teat of the EU. Switzerland could be very badly off as it is landlocked and surrounded by EU member states, but still thrives. You'd think if EU membership was so important that Switzerland, cut off from access to the sea and trade with non-EU countries would wither and die, but it doesn't. Mainly because it continues to trade with the EU states, but is not ruled by their overbearing and hideously expensive beaurocracy (and their hideously expensive social engineering project, the Euro). The same goes for Norway, although they have the ability to trade independently of the EU if they chose, thanks to them having access to the sea.
Two countries on the periphery of the EU that continue to thrive. So are we really better of in the EU than out of it? Or is it (as I suspect) the politicians that are better off thanks to the thousands of well-paid jobs that have been created within the EU edifice?
We'll renegotiate our relationship with the EU and repariate powers back to the UK. Will you now? And just how will you convince a working majority of the other 20-odd countries in the EU to vote your way?
Because thats the only way any changes will be made to our relationship with the EU. We are not masters of our own destiny any more. The years of a single country having a veto in the EU has long gone. Therefore we have to convince more than half of the 27 countries that make up the EU to vote the same way. Just as difficult as herding cats, except these cats are now endebted to the Germans and will vote any way the Krauts want.
So fat chance of that happening then.
Of course our government will huff and puff, put on a bit of a show and then declare its useless, shrug their shoulders and say we have to abide by the playground rules. At this point its salient to note that empty vessels make most noise...
Anyway, as you can imagine, David Willetts has not enamoured himself to me. Not that he cares, having now successfully acquired a nice fat expense account, a nice fat top up in the form of a ministerial allowance and also a huge fat pension , if the the majority of his voters think as I do that he's just another useless party-first, toe the line, fuck the voters twat and give him the boot.
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