Europe and UKIP

I love America. However Britain was in, is in, will be in, Europe.

The past: Over many thousands of years all of Europe has shared the same major events. From stone age settlements to Roman invasions to Angles and Saxons and Normans, through renaissance and enlightenment and revolutions, the same groups have spread through all Europe. For better or worse, most of us are even subject to the same royal group, the interlinked descendants of a small number of dark age warrior chiefs are spread across the thrones of Europe.

The current: Britain, like the rest of Europe, is defined by its infrastructure. The very qualities that so appeal to American tourists, our patchwork farms and narrow winding streets around ancient buildings, are the qualities that constrain our development. For all the culture of the Native American they have not left a corresponding network of medieval cities to be built upon and around. The decisions that we must take with regard to balancing of conservation and development are European scale decisions.

The future: New York, with its regular heavy snowfall and freezing winters, is close to the same latitude as balmy Lisbon. In the absence of the warming Gulf Stream we would have a similar climate to Alaska. The melting of the Greenland ice cap may have a drastic effect on the associated ocean currents. While the rest of the world “enjoys” global warming, like the elite enjoy their tropical holidays, Europe may enter a new ice age. Britain is in the same boat as France and Scandinavia. Except that we don’t have a big enough boat.

So why the massive surge to nationalism, to “UK Independence”, to cutting ties with “Europe”? It is just the same players, the murdochs and the bankers, wanting less control over what they do so they can have more control over what we do.