Britannist

Thank you Modern UKIP, for your support. Everything the French ruling political 'elite' do is potentially a power-grab on their part. Anyone who can't see that the EU was created to be a 'Greater France' Napoleonic Empire is seriously out-of-touch.

The only favour the French Government has ever done the UK is using its veto to stop the UK going in to the EEC (now EU). And even that veto was only used so France's Government could buy time to rig the EEC farming policy so that the naive Heath - desperate to get into the EEC - would sign away huge amounts of British taxpayers money to pay for dirty and lazy French farmers to do nothing for half the day.

And although I welcome France voting No to the EU Constitution in May 2005 - the chance of them rejecting an EU Constitution Version 2 is small. They will cave in and back the EU Constitution next time if there is another vote on it in France.

This is because the anti-EU vote was only a part of the overall No vote in France (the rest was partly a protest vote against Chirac). In contrast, the vote against the EU Constitution in Holland was mostly made up of people who (quite understandably) are starting to get sick of the EU.

Britannist

Daniel Hannan, the anti-EU Conservative member of the EU ‘Parliament’ wrote in the Daily Telegraph of 10.1.2007 (extracts) “Germans are our obvious friends, for Heaven’s sake: our chief trading partner and the one european country we can rely on to deploy serviceable troops next to ours. They even resemble us in character: brave, plain-speaking, morose, law-abiding, belligerent, occasionally drunk, much misunderstood. For hundreds of years, our alliance was regarded as the one fixed point of european diplomacy: the interests of europe’s most maritme state, it was reasoned, could never clash with those of its most continental. If it weren’t for the wretched EU, we’d be getting along famously.”

andypandy

From the Crimean war onwards, Britain's , or should I say the ruling French-Norman elite's, cosy cuddly-wuddly dealings with the French have seen this country sink faster than the ruptured hull of the Titanic. The consequences of turning Germany into the enemy prior to WW1, thanks to the involvement of our illustrious King Edward and his 'Entente Cordial', rather than the ally, have resulted in two Europe wide conflicts and the ultimate creation of "Grande France".

Britannist

Germany is the most pro-British of the large european nations.

This may not presently be reflected by the German Government but the interests of the two nations (of the UK and Germany) are the same in many areas and when pro-German and pro-British people are in charge in the UK and Germany there is much our two countries can do.

The EU costs Germany and the UK the most (of all the EU nations) and gives back the least to both countries.

Neither Germany nor the UK need the EU and I am very confident British-German relations can and will flourish in the post-EU era when it arrives.

As it will do.

NoMoreEUSSR

This is true, though I believe it isn't specifically English alone that is prohibited (though of course that is the prime intention behind the legislation), but any non-French language. They even made a point of this by ordering the elimination of Chinese from Montréal's Chinatown (!).

You are quite right, but they actually do realize that it is the threat of secession that buys them political influence in Ottawa, over and above actually doing the deed, which they know deep down inside would leave them worse off on just about all fronts. Within the union of Canada they pretty much get to have their cake and eat it these days, and that's just the way they like it.

Back in the '80s it looked more realistically likely that Alberta would be the Province actually to try to break out of the union, over Mulroney's National Energy Policy. Compared to that threat, Québec separatism looks a bit like hot air TBH. The Québeckers voted no to quitting the union twice, and that was no accident.

SGK

Fair enough. Point taken. In which case, I'll say that this post from you is way off line and displays your complete lack of ability to debate.

Glad to hear it, but as I said, it appears that way to me.

And this really is a peach. I've noticed you really struggle with people who disagree with you and prefer to 'preach to the converted'. If you can't or won't respond to criticism, why are you posting on a political forum? I noticed you decided to ignore the compliment that I paid you in your list of my 'sins'.

Nice to know that someone is keeping a tally. Would you care to name the people you want to protect and would you care to then explain why they should not face criticism of their opinions?

Precisely, which is why your tirade of vitriol against 'the French' doesn't always sound that pleasant.

I'm sorry that we appear to have fallen out over this as, as I will repeat, I read your posts with interest and generally have a lot of time for what you say and the information you provide, but you do seem to attack anyone who disagrees with you.

Britannist

An interesting post (about Quebec, above) from NoMoreEUSSR (posted to this thread at 6.34 am today).

I wonder if the people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland will tolerate some Scottish politicians doing the same sort of thing (i.e. threatening to quit the UK with no intention of doing so but to extract further concessions from the national Government of the UK).