Did Anyone Mention Europe In This Election?

In previous elections Europe has often been a big issue. Strangely perhaps, and annoyingly to UKIP I imagine, it doesn’t seem to have been a big issue so far.

It may be that the Labour party are saving it for later in the hope that it will cause problems for the Tories because it does usually cause problems for them. On the other hand, the failure of Labour to give us the referendum they promised us may mean Labour don’t want it mentioned either. The Conservatives, like many of us, value our Britishness and worry about losing authority and power to Europe and we all remain unconvinced about the value or disadvantages of being in Europe.

I am broadly in favour of us being in Europe. It makes a lot of sense for us to be in a group with our nearest neighbours but there are worries about the growth of power and perhaps ultimately a superstate. It may be that would actually be a good thing but if it is we need to be convinced and all changes need to be gradual taking the public with them rather than having change forced down our throats. That has been the Labour way of doing things whilst in power and we don’t take kindly to that. Governments should make the case and convince us so we support things. If they can’t make the case then they should question what they are trying to achieve.

Europe has brought a lot of good as well as some annoying and rather interfeering things. Some, like the requirement of lawnmower silencers are actually very sensible and it also makes sense to have the same standard across Europe so we get the best lawnmowers wherever we buy them.

So many stories about what Europe is doing have proved to be malicious rumours and we really don’t know what is good and bad. The truth is we don’t know what is happening in europe and what they are really doing and our own government is partly at fault here. If we were kept informed and the government were more honest about what laws are brought in because europe requires them we would have a much better idea of what Europe is doing for us.