Britain and Europe

Ten years ago during the Christmas holiday period I joined a debate on the discussion forums run by the Financial Times newspaper on Britishness as opposed to Europeanism, in which I made much of Winston Churchill's rejection of Britain joining the nascent Common Market.  The  quote upon which I placed particular emphasis came from the Cabinet Papers of 29th November 1951 in which he stated that Britain should not become an "integral part of European integration" as it would "forfeit our insular or commonwealth wide character".

Here is a follow up posting from boxing day 2002, which develops some of the ideas I linked to and discussed from my posting to this blog of yesterday morning.

An apt Churchill quote for the disgraceful EU

"Civilisation means a society based upon the opinion of civilians. It means that violence, the rule of warriors and despotic chiefs, the condition of camps and warfare, of riot and tyranny, give place to parliaments where laws are made, and independent courts of justice in which over long periods those laws are maintained." It is a rare event for me to discover a quote from Winston Churchill which I have not already relished. Therefore I have no hesitation in posting this one here today as it is particularly apt for both the EU and the directionless Cameron/Clegg Coalition Government busy in daily compounding the destruction of our Parliamentary Democracy. Read the entire article on apt quotations from Robert Fisk in The Independent this morning linked from here.