eu + uk ... AAF TLF?

Recently, there has been a spate of articles on BBC News online discussing Gordon Brown’s possible EU referendum, planned for when he takes office in a few months.
Here’s the most recent article.

In other words: Outlook Not Good for Mother Europa.

The rhetoric flying around Downing St and Parliament re: the EU does not bode well for the future (or present) of the Union. On the one hand, it’s calmed down a bit, with Brown no longer mentioning a referendum. On the other hand, Blair and Brown have made a formal statement that the UK refuses to compromise on the Charter of Fundamental Rights (they don’t support it), foreign policy, common law, and tax and benefits – which is tantamount to not supporting any central power in Brussels at all. Where does that leave Europe at the upcoming summit?

The UK is right to suspect the worst from European bureaucrats. It’s just a shame that the response is not to throw their weight around and actually foment change in the constitution creation process, but rather to flail about and decry the loss of national sovereignty and tax dollars. UKIP, the UK Independence Party (read: Tories selling an isolationist populist message) is a good example of the wrong kind of response to the bloated Brussels bureaucracy. Take Lord Pearson’s proposal for the European Union (Implications of Withdrawal) Bill earlier this month. You’ve already signed up for this project – the place for this fight is at the summit, not at home. Take your grievances to the European Parliament and force some reform!

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s imploration to create a “single legal personality” for the EU is a positive and necessary step in the European experiment. Both France and Spain have gotten behind this rhetoric, and the only real opposition is coming from Poland and the UK.

Bottom line: the EU is a mess, operationally. The Constitution failed because it was 200 pages long – a symbol of the excessive and out of touch attitude at Brussels. Jumping from 15 members in April 2004 to 27 members today doesn’t help, either. But the fact of the matter remains: support for the EU is correlated to how realistic Europeans are willing to be. No single European country is powerful enough (politically, economically) to assert itself globally in the way necessary for it to maintain its high opinion of itself, or to assure sufficient future growth. Y’all need each other, so get over what’s been true for the last sixty years and do what you have to do to make it work.