Whilst I agree that what has been written is generally the bare faced truth in terms of the way Britain has engaged with the EU, the whole problem with Britain and Europe has been this comment.
The problem was bad faith and delusional thinking. As the referendum debate has shown, the country has not come to terms with its own global irrelevance – hence its refusal to pool sovereignty
And here is the delusional thinking from the EU side. Just because the EU is huge and made up of two or three huge economic powers, the EU is NOT globally relevant on the international stage and the EU relied, almost solely, on the international relevance of France and the UK to get it's point across.
Here is the crux of the matter and it's no wonder I see it in the Guardian. The smaller countries of the EU (and to a degree the larger), have been drinking their own balloon juice about the relevance of the EU and the irrelevance of the UK. Which the Guardian has been soft pedalling to the citizens of the UK for decades.
When Obama wanted to bomb the Syrian regime, he came to the UK to "gain legitimacy". Because if the UK came in too, the rest of the world would grumble but it would not be the US superpower "on tour" doing it's control thing. The UK said no. Hollande immediately jumped in to try and fill the gap and was, without much of a thought, slapped down and told NO.
Why was France told NO? Because France doesn't have 25% of the relevance, on the world stage, that the UK does.
The EU, that faceless, amorphous, entity which sits on the sidelines and pulls the strings of the countries with influence that it controls, is virtually invisible. It is incredible that members of EU countries can believe that they can, somehow, be made more relevant by the EU when the very power and influence which the EU uses in the world (UK, France, Germany), is supposedly diminished by being a member of the EU.
Then the writer goes on to show a total lack of understanding of the mechanisms of the EU, the treaties of the EU and how they are used.
It is crazy that Europeans have their own court, parliament and currency, but no pan-European public forum to debate what to do with these instruments.
Clearly this was written by a Euro country member. There are still, today, 28 countries in the EU and only 19 of those are in the Euro. As for the parliament, it may not be so much of a rubber stamp for the Commission and Council as it was, but it is not much better either. It doesn't even have the equivalent of a private members bill...
And, finally, if you have enough willpower to get to the bottom of the article, you see the totally skewed view of the author.
Europeans can throw in the towel, dismantle the whole thing and retreat to their powerless little countries. Or they can make a final attempt to make the European project work.
I'm not sorry to say that the 4th,5th and 6th largest economies in the world and the 4th and 5th most powerful military organisations in the world are not
powerless little countries
But that is the whole problem with the EU proponents and the Guardian in general.
This article could have been so powerful, so true, so real and a real driver for change in the EU. Instead (pun intended), it's narrow minded view made it irrelevant....
