Switzerland By The Sea
Aug 22nd, 2007 by Eats Wombats
Parts of the British media are much exercised at the moment about a court decision that a convicted murderer with an Italian passport cannot be deported after serving his sentence. At least one journalist was proud of the court’s decision. Political parties, however, are competing without shame in their bids for the vengeance vote.
The leader of the Conservatives demands that Britain dispense with European Human Rights Law and establish a British Bill of Rights instead. Alas, it’s just another cynical attempt to exploit prejudice for party political advantage. Another topic du jour is whether the goverment should fulfill its election pledge to have a referendum on the new EU constitution, and whether this commitment should apply to the EU treaty that replaced the constitution when it was rejected by French and Dutch voters. Gordon Brown wishes to defy calls to fulfill the promise because the treaty is not the constitution.
Opponents of the treaty claim that 8 out of 10 people feel that Brussels has too much power, that national sovereignty is seeping away, and that…
something must be done!
The Italian who cannot be deported is “proof” of this claim. “Europe” is looming as an election issue, again.
Meanwhile, according to the BBC, one in ten Brits has emigrated — there are 5.5m living overseas. (Q. Why are so many leaving? — with no regrets). Meanwhile too, immigration is booming. Today one in four children born in Britain is born to an immigrant parent.
Is it far fetched to envisage these numbers doubling in a generation? While the UK will not catch up with Ireland — which denies ballots to citizens overseas on the grounds that they outnumber those at home, and whose population is also rising as result of immigration — clearly there’s a major demographic change in progress and it cannot fail to have some interesting political repercussions.
If Britain were to leave the EU, as English becomes the first official and default common language, and when millions of Britons live and vote in other EU countries, it would be… Switzerland by the sea?
Free at last of the reptilian agenda? (You should know who is said to be really running things in Brussels!).
Even now, in what is supposed to be the height of summer –it’s cold and misty– I feel a yearning for sunnier climes.
