What is the British problem with the EU?

Today I heard an interesting news report which stated that previously secret documents had come to light that in the 1950's the French Prime Minister had made moves to make France "British" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6261885.stm). Now I have to admit that I find this a little hard to believe, given that the French constitution is written such that any possibility of removing that country's status as a Republic is n0t possible and given how hard it's people fought to throw off it's own monarchy I would guess that to most French people the thought of becoming a part of the UK or the Commonwealth would make them feel quite ill... and so they're probably quite relieved that the British government of the day rejected both ideas.

This did bring to mind one of my favourite questions though... what is the British problem with the EU. Back in the 1970's when the UK first joined the Common Market as it was then known, it was the understanding of all member states that a federal Europe was one of the future possibilities so when several years later we said "yes" in a refferendum on the subject, we as a people signed up to this possibility. Now as then there are many vocal anti-EU groups, some have some good arguments about why we shouldn't have joined and some are quite valid and the powers that be should really listen to them and take some action. I personally agree with many of the criticisms, but I side with those with the view that if the problems were solved then there is a bright future ahead within a united, and yes possibly in the future federal Europe.

My problem with the British point of view comes from some of the more flawed arguments made by the less-informed (and usually tabloid-reading) portion of the British population. These arguments are usually confined to a few issues on which those people are quite rabid. Answering some of these arguments seems quite a good way to spend time on the 300th aniversary of the Act of Union - the law making Scotland part of the UK.

The first of these issues is that forging ahead with the EU is causing us to loose soverignty, independance and culture. Well ok, this is a valid argument and you can see a great example of this in the UK. Scotland, Wales and Ireland all became part of the UK and all lost their independance. The Irish (in the most part) fought long and hard to regain theirs and even Northern Ireland has had a patchy attempt at some self government. The Welsh and the Scots have also been given a limited amount of independence. The Scots have actually had some amount of legal leeway even as far back as the original Act of Union. The thing that really bugs me about all of this is the fact that unlike the rest of the UK, England does not have it's own independant legislative body and as such us English seem to be the ones who are disadvantaged. It's no surprise to me that in my experience the Welsh, Scottish and Irish people seem to be more favourable towards the EU!

The second of the issues is that of currency. It would seem that nobody wants to accept "foreign" money in the UK. Much has been made at the fact that we could not have a "one-size-fits-all" economy in Europe, we couldn't possibly have banknotes without the Queen's head printed on them, and what about all the poisonous metals in the Euro coins? Excuse me for a moment while I pick myself off the floor here. The UK has a "one-size-fits-all" economy and financial decisions taken by the government in London often do not often go down well in the rest of the country. Then there is the fact that Scotland and Northern Ireland print their own banknotes - and none of these have the Queen on them. The dependant islands (such as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) also produce their own banknotes and although they are all at parity with the British pound, none of them is actually legal tender in England - in fact I read somewhere that Scottish banknotes aren't actually even legal tender in Scotland!

The third is our system of measurements. There are many who seem to believe that the Metric system is some sort of conspiracy to take away our culture. Many argue that we have to keep it because our English speaking trading partners still use it. Forget the fact that the UK has been trying to go metric for 200+ years and was even involved in it's original conception. Also forget the fact that the entire Commonwealth (as well as all the ex-Empire countries) have all metricated, just leaving the UK and the USA, the latter of who do not even use "Imperial" measurements! Americans use "English Units" in which some quantities differ significantly from those traditional here in the UK and even Americans are starting to see the benefit of going metric - there are metric road signs in the US which are illegal in the UK and you will often hear metric in use on US tv programmes (I have heard the use of metres and grammes on CSI, Stargate, NCIS, ER... the list goes on). You will also be hard pressed to find a bottle of Coca Cola in the USA which isn't in "liter" sizes.

So, what do we have here in the UK. Well, the first letter of that tells it all - a "Union". Like the EU but smaller.

Except we have no consistency of government with member states having different levels of powers over their own and other member regions.

Except we have a single currency which often can't be used in other regions.

Except that we cling onto outdated nonsense like "Imperial Measurments" on the grounds that they're British and great, although they actually evolved from something imposed on us by the Romans!

One thing I am really glad of. In Britain I'm a "subject", in Europe I'm a "citizen"!