Tories Distance Themselves from Europe

To win anything in politics, you have to know what you really want. I apologise for this statement of the obvious, but so often politicians do not stick to this rule. British leaders have failed to stick to it for the entire 40 years that Britain has been in what is now called the European Union. They expended so much political effort getting us in that they then sank back, exhausted. Since then, the policy has been essentially the same and usually inert – “Europe, jolly good thing; we’ve got to be in it; but don’t let’s go too fast.” Even Margaret Thatcher, who wrestled valiantly with the consequences of our membership, never succeeded in developing an alternative policy to attain a clear set of goals. She won many battles, but lost, in her political lifetime at least, the war. It was the continental founding nations and their integrationist thinkers who set the pace and direction.