1. “EUROSCEPTIC”. AT THE moment it’s the only word in common use to describe anyone who has criticisms of the EU. As a catch-all for anyone from the mildly critical but generally-supportive to the outright opponent of the project, it’s inadequate. Europhobe, to my mind, is better for the latter, although still inaccurate: phobia being irrational hatred, hatred of the EU being supremely rational. But there you go. Eurosceptic is not a precise description. Something we can agree on. The only thing. As for you, I’ll call you a Euroclone, in the spirit of antagonism that exists between us, and in honour of your ideologically-driven, homogenising impulses.
2. I know we shouldn’t, but we’re always amused by the sneering condescension with which Euroclones, particularly official ones, treat us Brits. I suppose we should be incensed. You’re Continentals, and therefore more cultured than us and intellectually superior, with your coffee and croissants and historical penchant for extreme political ideologies. We, on the other hand, are dullards in comparison; stuffing our faces with bad food, drinking too much, obsessed with money and celebrities, and reading tabloids that tell us how awful the EU is. It could be we’re just too complacent or arrogant and self-centred, but really we don’t give a damn what you think.
3. We tend to stick to old-fashioned interpretations of words, unlike the standard Euroclone. So “democracy”, for instance, generally means we get to vote for the people we want to run our country (granted, those elected are nearly always idiots, but at least they are our idiots). To the Euroclone, however, democracy doesn’t mean that. It can mean voting for an MEP, for instance, who’ll then cast a vote in the European Parliament. That sounds great, except the Parliament is basically a chamber meant to rubber stamp the decisions of the Commission, so there’s not much democratic about it. And the Commission is composed of people who are unelected, so you don’t want to talk about that. Then there’s “referenda”, another example of EU democracy in action. If you’re given one of those you get the chance to vote on an issue. If the bosses in the Commission don’t like how you vote they’ll either find a way to ignore you and do what they wanted anyway or make you vote again till you get it right.
4. “Sovereignty” is another key word that has been given a new meaning by the Euroclones. Formerly it meant a nation’s right to govern itself and makes its own laws. That was usually considered a good thing, being related to democracy and such like. Euroclones don’t really like national sovereignty except when it’s “pooled” or “shared” for the purposes of furthering the project. National sovereignty in the old-fashioned sense is now bad, because it means a country selfishly deciding for itself what its fate should be rather than allowing the EU to decide for it. In the EU sovereignty when pooled is effectively drowned. We’re still partial to the old idea in Britain (even if our politicians aren’t) and we don’t want to be drowned in the Europond.
5. Possibly because we’re so intellectually stunted and easily-led by the tabloids, but we’re not usually enthusiastic about big idealistic vision things, especially when they involve corrupt, inefficient, centralised and undemocratic bodies who demand we “celebrate” this, that or the other, and pretend we all have this thing called a “European identity”. And we especially dislike being told by foreigners what our identity should be.
6. Ah yes, foreigners. For a country so often characterised by Euroclones as xenophobic and racist it’s surprising how many of these foreign types we let in and how many of them stay. I guess we aren’t being xenophobic enough.
7. Rules and regulations. The EU is a non-stop regulation-producing machine. As a Euroclone you are required to ridicule the percentages of EU legislation sceptics claim that Britain is supposed to incorporate every year, without being able to come up with any figure yourself. You’re also invited to protest that increased red tape miraculously does not increase costs (because you live in a world in which pigs fly). You’re always keen to sneer at the British tabloids for their lurid stories about EU regulations but are less than honest when it comes to admitting that the broadcast media are completely pro-EU. You’re awfully silent on the fact that the country’s major media outlet, the BBC, is institutionally biased in your favour (evident not just from observation but proven in a BBC Trust report). And in receipt of generous loans from the EU. And funded by taxpayers’ money to boot.
8. You know, if you really don’t like us and our anti-EU attitudes and our continuous griping, you can always politely ask us to leave. Even if we were more enthusiastic about the whole thing we’d still never get to be “at the heart” of Europe, would we? The French and the Germans have been clear they don’t want us in the inner sanctum – especially the French. Giscard D’Estaing, architect of the European Constitution/Lisbon Treaty said so a couple of years back. This is their show. So why do you want to keep us in your rotten little empire? To my cynical British mind it boils down to two things: our cash, and a desire to have power over all the nations of Europe.
9. So, power over all the nations of Europe within a single body? A single state, dare we say? A rather old-fashioned idea, don’t you think? One that has been tried a couple of times in the last two hundred years and always, ironically, thwarted by Britain. As a Euroclone you are permitted to prevaricate on the meaning of “ever closer union”, even though you know it means complete integration into a single European state governed by the EU’s institutions. Like a Muslim permitted by taqiyya to lie about his true beliefs and intentions, so you are permitted to prevaricate about the purpose of the project. That’s another reason we have grown to hate the EU in Britain: we know we were lied to when we joined. It’s not a fantasy, it’s a fact that can be clearly demonstrated from the official documents. We were told we were joining an economic free trade community, not being suckered into eventual unification into a single state.
10. Perhaps it is also fear that makes you resentful of our independent and ungrateful attitude to your wonderful Union and desperate to keep us contained and corraled within it. An independent Britain thriving outside your decaying bureaucratic empire would show it up for the sham it is, with its toy parliament, its delusions of global importance and its ridiculous presidents (all unelected, of course). Your vision of a glorious future for the peoples of Europe joyfully singing along to Beethoven’s Ninth and living in multicultural, rainbow-hued, organic, carbon-free, centralised green harmony is already turning into a swamp of corruption, over-regulation, economic collapse, antisemitism and nationalism. You’re welcome to it. We want out.
