"Men will be proud to say I am a European. We hope to
see a Europe where men of every country will think as much of being a European
as belonging to their native land. We hope that wherever they go on the European
continent they will truly feel here I am at home."
Winston Churchill, 7 May 1948
Winston Churchill, 7 May 1948
I’ve quoted this before and I’m not ashamed to quote it again.
That is how I continue to feel. Some extra bits of red tape and having to pay
tax on some imports will not stop that.
There is a lot of positive feeling coming towards us from
ordinary people in the other EU states. That is gradually translating itself into
concrete proposals: Portugal wants us as
a tourist so they will still allow us to use the rapid passport control channels
whichever sort of Brexit we have. The Republic of Ireland will not require us to
have an international driving license.
Of course, this glosses over a little the problem of Gibraltar
and our fishing rights, perhaps the M20 becoming a lorry park and the
government rather than medics deciding who can have which drug if there is no
deal.
But even with problems such as these going on I would continue to think of myself as
much European as British. Here is a key as well to what some Brexiteers are failing
to understand. It’s not a matter of being
British or European. Being in the EU means begin British and European.
A protesting Brexiteer recently said that she was fed up of governed
by a foreign power. The EU is not a
foreign power. It’s a group of countries working together. We have our say and
in fact have had quite a storing voice within Europe.
In the end, you cannot take that part of me away that has become
because I’ve lived and worked in France, Germany and the Netherlands and have been so often to Spain that it feels like
home.