Jon wrote:
The big question is why why why has every government since the second world war set out to destroy the UK as a free and civilised, independent, prosperous and powerful Christian nation?
If the EU can claim one success then it is that it has kept Britain, Germany and France from each others throats for the last 50 years.....
The circumstances as to what caused those wars where empire building and trade imbalance between the named nations.
As a trading bloc (which to a certain degree does away with one of the main reasons we went to war with each other) it probably cannot be faulted.
Politicians as they are could not leave alone though and have morphed it into something which was unrecognisable back in Wilsons day.
It is a bit disingenuous to claim Wilson knew how all this would turn out in 2014 clearly he did not. It is also misleading to claim he knew and sanctioned loss of power to the the centre of the bloc.
To bring about the trading bloc it would have been necessary to centralise some powers. Back then there was no mystery or underlying plot, all that came later because we the electorate allowed it to.
I am sure if there was a Delors (with a grand plan) back in Wilsons day the referendum campaign would have reflected this and may have brought about a different result.
Thatcher saw the 'change of directions' and warned us against it but the problem was a majority of her ministers by that time were pro EU. Once she was 'swept aside' and lets not beat about the bush here she was removed (the pro EU lobby will say for the greater good) then the transition to change in the EU became much clearer, certainly easier.
If Thatcher had held on then we would not have signed Mastricht, she is on record as saying as much in the Lords. Mastricht was the enabling treaty which brought about much closer union. She called the treaty a recipe for national suicide.
Whilst I am sure the central block would have still gone on and adopted the Euro with no UK signature on Mastricht the whole kaboodle would have gone in a different direction...
Going back to the horrors of War and the reflections we are currently undergoing (and for the next 4 years) 100 years on from WW1 then if it has kept us from that it is not to be sniffed at or dismissed out of hand.
After all the previous 100 years of Euro history suggest that war between the big Euro nations is more common than it is not.