Well, it looks like the French have voted no to the European Constitution in Sunday’s referendum. What a shame. Despite many of my friends and family not necessarily agreeing with me on Europe, I’m actually in favour of integration. A United States of Europe would be a good thing in the longer term and redress the balance in power across the individual member states (one reason I suppose for the French voting no to the process).
I was explaining my dislike for the Monarchy system in this country to a visiting relative this evening. I’m not anti everything, but I believe in doing things which pragmatically benefit the majority of the people. Having a Queen here is a bad idea (she’s unelected – I’m talking about theory here, not the practical fact that she never actually enforces her technical power) and having a disparity between rich “Western” European countries and those in the East is a bad thing too. We shouldn’t have rebates for the UK, we’re not that special (we’re only in the position we’re in due to our historical evilness as a Borg-like Empire) and we don’t deserve special treatment. We should look upon the recent member states joining Europe as a sign of things to come – namely that we are starting to see an effort to bring balance to the system.
Well that’ll make a few of you hate me. Meh. Think about it. Do you really care about the UK so much that you don’t see the idea of European integration as a good thing? Europe has so far been fantastically beneficial to us and allows for so much free travel and commerce between member states. We should take that to its logical conclusion and go the whole way. I’m not even British anyway – I’m a European Citizen.
Jon.