This is an article written in 1975 by Tony Benn (who was Anti ECC/EU)
Its definitely worth a read.
One of the key paragraphs is this:
"But we must recognise that the European Community has now set itself the objectives of developing a common foreign policy, a form of common nationality expressed through a common passport, a directly elected assembly and an economic and monetary union which, taken together, would in effect make the United Kingdom into one province of a Western European state"
Remember thatâs 1975, talking about the original referendum. The end state was not known, but it was anticipated.
The EU is horrible and so the UK left I thought that had been well established by now.
Itâs still there though, now what? Deal with it or not, pun intended.
This simply isnât true. There is plenty of evidence available from the 60âs and 70âs showing that closer political union was always one of the aims and not solely being a trading bloc ( we already had a trading agreement before joining EEC).
It was always downplayed with many advocating to remain in the EEC describing such a prospect as akin to project fear, ironically. It was always put that weâd (the UK electorate) would be consulted if the UK moved towards closer political union and then Maastricht happened and the electorate was continuously ignored, for more than 40 years.
Is that number really that meaningful though? Iâm not a lawyer, but I can think of a few situations where 98% of the paperwork in terms of volume is fairly uncontroversial, but the remaining 2% are kind of important.
Yeh, I donât really know how itâs calculated, itâs just what Iâve seen reported. I imagine itâs 98% of the total legal text that needs to be written. As you say, that remaining 2% could be the particularly important stuff.
But if itâs fish, LPF, and dispute resolution then there really ought to be a way forward on that. Those comments last night about the LPF issues were interesting though. Feels really unsatisfactory from both sides that one.
Would you let an opponent take your money in monopoly? Would you let them just reach over for your chips at a poker table? If you think that come the 1st January fishermen from the EU will just stay away from UK waters then youâre wrong. What should we do? Send leaflets? Either we do this or we donât. If we just allow things to continue, they will and itâs one more feather in the UK cap. However, stand firm and send them packing and theyâll play hell with their governments. I think that might help us.
The fisherman will be fully supported by the EU, no doubt about that. They might just turn around and block the ports, or the channels etc. And, no one over here would buy that fish any more, thatâs unavoidable imo.
I wouldnât be surprised if the French customs officers simply decide to go on strike for a while etc. Something like that can always happen in France.
Edit, What I just wanted to say is that there will certainly be a reaction.
But honestly, if there is a No Deal, the UK will have completely different worries than fish. This is all a little bit ridiculous imo.
