Prime Minister David Cameron has decided to put the perceived needs of the United Kingdom at the expense of Europe after using the veto against measures in dealing with the Eurozone debt crisis at Friday’s European Union summit.
The UK will stand alone after leaders of the other twenty-six EU states signed up to the measures. No doubt many of the government’s allies in the newspaper media will hail this standoff as the day the country stood up to the EU, however, it is nothing of the sort.
In the medium to long term, the UK government could certainly be excluded from having influence in the future shaping of the EU. Commentators argued that a majority of voters in the UK would be happy with such an arrangement as we always have looked upon our continental neighbours with suspicion anyway.
It was bad enough seeing Cameron playing the patriotic populist card, trying to protect the UK’s (declining economic and social) interests, it was even worse for Labour leader Ed Miliband to claim of perceived cracks in the Conservative/Lib Dem government when the problems within his own party over Europe are too real.
The main problem here is most people in the UK know very little on how the European institutions operate. When they are mentioned in the media, the reporting is nearly always negative. Of course there may be many things wrong with the EU at the moment, but should we at least try to convince ourselves that the country’s future lies with starting to ask our politicians the difficult questions on how we can help make some changes that will benefit all our countries. In spite of our reservations, membership of the EU has been beneficial to the UK.
When the present row recedes, the crisis with the Euro currency will still be around, and it will mean the UK will have to continue working with the other EU governments to maintain it. Failure to do so mean that not only countries could retreat into nationalism, but also it could threaten the EU’s very existence.