There was a piece in the Telegraph yesterday which I found quite interesting. Prime Minister David Cameron has said that he will ‘never campaign to take Britain out of Europe‘.
Quite rightly, in my opinion. I quite like Europe, and the EU. Well… perhaps sometimes they have better things to do than, say, making laws about the use of cookies on the Internet, but on the whole, the whole idea of 27 countries joining together, standardising certain laws, working together on issues such as immigration etc. appeals to me.
It seems that many Conservatives would prefer an outright ‘In/Out’ referendum.
The Prime Minister insists that those calling for an immediate referendum have a “perfectly honourable position”. He wants to negotiate a “new settlement” with the EU with powers returned to Britain. But Mr Cameron will not countenance leaving the EU and says he would never campaign for an “out” vote in a referendum.
The Telegraph
I side with Mr. Cameron on this issue. I don’t think that the EU is perfect – but I would much rather that everyone has the freedom to be able to enter/leave the country as they please, which is what the EU enables us to do. I like the multi-cultural society which has emerged in recent years as a result of more countries joining the EU.
I also don’t think much would change if we ever were to leave the EU. We’re not part of Schengen, so we’re already controlling all our International borders at the ports and airports. We’re not part of the Eurozone (thank god), so nothing much would change there. It might save a few million £s each year, but as a lot of people would need to travel over to the continent for business or leisure, to leave the EU would just make this harder.
That is, unless our relationship with the EU becomes similar to that of Switzerland. But do we really want that?
I know I don’t! The PM is right not to want us out of it, favouring instead to negotiate a new settlement and returning some of the EU’s powers to Britain.
It is my view that it would be wrong to distance ourselves from Europe, but equally, it is not for the EU to tell us (or any other EU nation) what we can and can’t do.
As far as I’m concerned, we’re much better off within the Eurozone.
FH.
