I dont really see much difference, if we are run by Westminster, or from Brussels. Except that with the current economic turmoil, Europe looks better run, and more able to recover than we can.

Funny you should say that. I'm Irish and when I voted over 20 years ago to join the EEC, as it was then, I did it because I wanted the Europeans to run Ireland instead of the Catholic Church! I'm in London as I type this and I wonder would they be better than either Cameron or Brown? One's an air head and the other probably thinks the World is 6,000 years old!

What a lovely statement. I think you'll find the french and germans have already tried to take us over before. At least this time we can get away without having to fight a war. Yet....

Blood was shed to preserve our sovereignty; we should revere it. There is a word for preferring the rule of foreigners to one's fellow countrymen: traitor.

Cameron and Brown, both of Scottish descent of course William, that's the problem here, the English are NOT running their own affairs, Blair of Scottish descent too.
David Steel, Charles Kennedy, John Smith, Menzies Campbell, the list goes on and on.

I don't think it's really about being run from Brussels. The British always see themselves as being 'taken over' by Europe, the slow erosion of our independence and usually see Europe through the prism of the Second World War (Europe is succeeding where Hitler once failed). For me, it's really about the pooling of sovereignty with other nations and the opportunities that presents. Britain's victory during the Second World War actually created a climate and a relative level of international security for the EEC to flourish in. OK, the Soviet threat had a lot to do with it too, but what previous generation in Europe has enjoyed the levels of peace we have enjoyed since 1945? Britain should be proud of her role in this process and should be at the centre of Europe leading policy. I realise the legacy of Britain as an Imperial power and the two World Wars that she has fought on the continent influence her attitudes towards Europe, but Europe is an unstoppable train and ever closer union is inevitable. I'd rather Britain was helping to drive that train and not a disgruntled passenger in the last carriage.

We shall see Dl Oreilly, I hope your reasonable account of The EU superstate is right. Only time will tell and by the time we realise the truth it may well be too late to do anything about it.
I wonder why the Irish voted against it on their first ballot?

Actually, after the end of the Napoleonic war in 1815 Britain wasn't involved in another major continental conflict for another 99 years, until, arguably, we let ourselves get too embroiled with European affairs. I always find it slight insulting (I'm not suggetsing that you are being insulting by the way, just the media in general!) that Eurosceptics are dismissed as little Englanders still mourning the Empire. To suggest that the EU is better run than Britain is actually rather ridiculous given that the EU's accountants have refused to sign off its books for the last 12 years or something- billions go missing every year, and thats even before you start talking about the shameful CAP. Its also appears to exist for the sole benefit of France and Germany. I'm not saying that they're are trying to dominate us, but usually if the they dont want something to happen, it doesn't, no matter what the rest of Europe thinks.

"Europe is an unstoppable train and ever closer union is inevitable."

Thank God you were not in charge in 1940, when a European union was on offer to the British and the faint-hearts wanted to give in. Thankfully patriots of sterner stuff than you stood firm for their native land.

The origional post is slanted toward the Eurosceptic view, I would prefer, if we could, a line such as "Is'nt it about time we started to play our role within Europe?" As we British (both north and south of Hadrians wall) used to say "Play up and play the game"..............or sit on the benches. Unelected Parliament in Europe? not when I voted

Ad hominem arguments are quite literally pointless. Make some valid points, ninth-wave, or don't bother to contribute. We shouldn't forget that the second world war broke out 70 years ago not to fight foreigners but to oppose destructive and alien ideologies. Show me a German who's still a nazi and I'll fight him until the last breath in my body. However I cannot believe that anybody in this day and age who meets an average German immediately sees a monster hell bent upon subjugating the UK.

A European Union was NOT on offer between 1939 and 1945. All that was on offer was subjugation, concentration camps and extermination; anyone who wraps up a contemporary anti-European argument using wartime rhetoric and suggests that there are parallells between what threatened us then and the opportunities which present themselves now is dangerously deluded.

Well if you want to contribute then at least get your facts right first. Britain did not go to war because Germany was Nazi but because Germany was invading her neighbours and wanted to dominate Europe. It was precisely because Germany was a danger to this country that we went to war against her, not because of some abstract ideological war. Britain fought to remain a sovereign, self-governing, independent nation just as Eurosceptics do today.

Good post ninth-wave. Shame the British and the French did not have the balls to invade Germany just when she was invading Poland, then the war would have stopped at a very early stage. Hitler would have had to sue for peace rather quickly.

I believe that terrorist organisations will develope in various European states as the only way for people to have a say in the EU. It's not just in the UK that people are disillusioned with the EU. I think the EU is a strange concept. I have absolutely no desire to tell a frenchman how to live in France , a spainiad how to live in Spain or a german how to live in Germany.
Our elected leaders are not content with running the countries they are supposed to run, they want to strut about on the world stage and the EU gives them the platform to do so. Failed politicians can also make hugh sums of cash by doing a stint in Brussels, paid for by the taxpayer.

What really puzzles me about the EU and all its supporters is why there are still so many groups in Europe looking for independance. For example Scotland spent decades looking for selfgovernance and yet while it wanted away from a small union it now wishes to become part of a federal superstate? Does that make sense to anyone?

I'm afraid that most european leaders,strut tho they do, carry about as much weight on the international stage as the governor of Alaska. we really need a voice for Europe.

Yes.

Surely the key element of the current argument is Democracy. It is not for those who are pro-EU or anti-EU to impose their will on the British people. It is the British people who should be allowed to decide their own destiny. It is over 30 years since the British were given a free choice by Referendum. It is time for another Referendum on 'do we stay in?' or do 'we get out?'

[Deleted by the author on 14 Nov 2009 13:55 GMT]

Why do people regard Referenda as 'democratic'? If 51% of people vote for X and 49% vote against X - why is imposing the will of the extra 1% on the anti 49% democratic? Should 'democracy' just be 'the tyrany of the majority' - however small?

Democracy can be defined in many ways, simply voting for a government is not necessarily democratic. Hitler and the Nazi Party, and several other authoritarian dictatorships, were famously all given power by 'democratic' votes! I hold to the view that democracy, in essence, not about voting per se, but rather falls under the rubric: Government for the people and by the people. No modern State could possibly operate successfully by endless Referenda.

As to Europe whether we stay 'in' or 'out' we cannot, as a trading nation, avoid trading in European Markets. Are we then to give up any voice in the nature of markets and trading conditions within the Common European Market? We cannot expect Europe to listen to us as 'outsiders'. Don't reply 'let us trade with New Zealand/Australia et al', they are part of the Pacific sphere of economic trading and would offer us nothing today.

blood was shed to stop the advancement of an evil band of men who took a country to war against its neighbours,with the intent of ruling the world,there is no need to think that war was fought so the sovereignty could be preserved without ever considering change ,there comes a time when the old ways just do not work

I've never understood those who say we must 'help run Europe from the centre, not the sidelines'. My main objection being that Germany and France do not, under any circumstances, want us at the 'centre'. They want our cash but they don't want us to help run things.

They'd only ever accept us if we danced solely to their tune with nothing but VAT in return.

Hello Dave Darwin: Your views on democracy are noted. Respected but not agreed with. Utility is an essential feature of a workable democracy. Look at Norway, for example, which is a member of EEA (which is similar to the old EEC and which the British people were led to believe they were voting for) but not the EU ruled by 12 unelected Commissioners and whose Accounts have not been signed off by the Auditors. Norway survives ok outside the EU.

Why are so many people afraid of giving the British people their free voice on their destiny?

Oh Ninth-Wave, do get a grip on yourself. British policy at the time had no concept of Britain as an independent nation: British policy revolved around the central notion of Britain as empire, declining yes, but empire none the less. The basic fear was neither the nature of nazism (you at least got that bit right), nor the sanctity of Polish sovereignty, it was of an expansionist Germany moving into The Empire.

...so being of 'Scottish descent' disqualifies them from running the UK? Prof Platt your opinions seem to be bordering on racism. I'm amused how miserable so many English nationalists seem to be toward their fellow nations in the UK, forgetting the ebb and flow of history that settled the south Wales valleys with English immigrants during the industrial revolution, allowed Scottish talent to enrich the British empire and allowed the Irish to to enliven Britain culturally and to help build so much of our infrastructure.