The Daily Express Get Britain Out Of the EU Crusade.

The Daily Express has gone where the Sun and Mail have yet to tread, and openly called for Britain to leave the E.U completely in one of its daft "crusades" that it comes out with. I'd imagine this "crusade" was cooked up by Dirty Des and Nigel Farage over a pint somewhere. Desmond probably reckoned an anti - Europe theme would appeal to the readership, though how long this crusade lasts will remain to be seen. These things in the Express tend to last as long as the jaded people writing it can be bothered to keep them going. Though it seems that the Express is pretty keen on this one, so keen that they even made up a fake statistic for the front page (The Eurosceptic Dan Hannon says the figure is roughly 55% want out, which sounds much more accurate.) Whether this is the start of the deliberate demise of a paper with declining readers, that is sent out to die vocally, becoming a single issue lobbying piece for it's proprietor is any ones guess. The paper interviewed a few random members of the public about whether they agreed with the Expresses stance (though it is not that clear how they came to the 99% figure), the responses given showed that those interviewed knew as much about the EU as I know about the TV show Ugly Betty (AKA fuck all), which is a bit worrying if ever the call for a referendum ever came up. Everyone seems to have strong opinions about it but do they really know all that much about it? I have to wonder whether there is a strong vein of practical opposition to the EU or is there a strong seam of possible xenophobia in the UK towards the continent. Not the best basis to oppose it. I would be genuinely interested to see how the Express readers would rate their reasons for wanting to leave the EU (of course the ones who do take that view.) in order of what they were most hacked off about. A list of stuff like:

1. THEY'D RATHER WE WERE IN NAFTA

2. THE EUROPE OF COMPETING, EXCLUSIVE NATION STATES LEADS TO BETTER AND MORE PRACTICAL GOVERNANCE.

3. THE E.U IS TOO PROTECTIONIST, TOO SOCIALLY DEMOCRATIC, AND TOO INTRUSIVE ON NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY.

4. THE C.A.P IS THE STUPIDEST POLICY EVER INVENTED BY A HUMAN BEING.

5. HERMAN VAN ROMPOY LOOKS A BIT WEIRD.

6. I'M INCREDIBLY NOSTALGIC FOR A TIME WHEN YOU COULD BUY ELECTRICAL GOODS WITHOUT A PLUG FITTED.

7. THESE PEOPLE MADE WELSH AN OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE E.U. WHAT'S ALL THAT ABOUT?

8. BENDY BANANAS. NUFF SAID

9. I DON'T LIKE FOREIGNERS STICKING THEIR NOSE IN JOHN BULLS AMPLE GIRTH.

10. THE E.U INVENTED YOOMAN RIGHTS. POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, DO-GOODERY AND LESBIAN GYPSY OUTREACH WORKERS, OR AT LEAST THAT'S WHAT BARRY DOWN THE PUB SAYS.

11. IT HAS FRENCH AND GERMANS IN IT.

My own hunch is that the ones at the bottom of the list will be the top of many a Express readers concern list. My own response to whether Britain's membership of the EU is a good thing or a bad thing is -depends on who you are. It really only affects people like me indirectly. If I was a big ultra free market proponent then I'd probably not like it too much. The other main anti-EU argument about the sovereignty issue, is a little exaggerated. I mean some of the talk about how the EU is trying to take over Britain when we have one of the largest and most powerful economies, and the largest military force of all the members, I'd like to see how they could seriously threaten us as much as some say. I'm sorry to say that a lot of anti EU sentiment seems largely down to a lot of Little England insularity, a purely emotional reaction that is not based on any practical objections. To quote Johann Hari:

"I find it hard to believe Eurosceptics when they say they are genuinely concerned about the erosion of national sovereignty, rather than dislike of Europeans. If they were really worried about sovereignty, surely they would occasionally complain about the fact that foreign multinationals have bullied sovereign British governments into whittling corporation tax and workers' rights to almost nothing.

Or they would complain that large parts of Britain's sovereign army - including its nuclear weapons - cannot be used without American authorisation. Or that large parts of our incredibly powerful media are accountable to foreign billionaires who shamelessly use their newspapers to pursue their own business interests rather than Britain's (or - wild idea! - a human rights agenda).

In fact, the totally independent nation state - which is so selectively fetishised by Eurosceptics - was always a myth. Nation states deal with the world as they find it, with all sorts of messy bargains and ad- hoc pooling of sovereignty."

I think that really sums it up very well. Pulling out of Europe - and I think a referendum could be easily possible, Cameron will have to face his Eurosceptic MP's one day, who knows after the Lib Dems are out of the scene next election? - is a BIG deal and not to be taken lightly. The case has to be put before us all, rational arguments for or against (I personally think there's more in the for camp. But since they can be never be bothered to do this, the anti camp will lead the debate, and do so.). If you only dislike the EU cause Britain ruled the waves once, and we hate the French etc.. Buy yourself a poster of a big bussomed girl in a Union Jack bikini to masturbate furiously to, because it may be a bit too late if we slam the door on the continent and perhaps retrospectively wish we hadn't been so hasty to do so, a few years down the line.