The vexing question of Europe is troubling our political masters once again and once again the endless arguments of in or out are being pursued, so now maybe an appropriate time to take stock, stop rushing headlong into a political abyss and recognize where our, Britain’s best interests lay.

It may seem odd to bring the words Europe and Honour together, two seemingly unrelated words in a piece of this kind, but I think they are inextricably linked.
To review our position is to refer to Europe’s common history both of hundreds of years of inter-national war and peace culminating in the most disastrous war of all time in terms of the sheer scale of destruction meted out upon humankind. The Second World War which ensued now represents an indelible stain on the inability of the political classes to protect its people, whichever nationality you are. Luckily, the ordinary people who were called upon to fight that war prevailed and we now live in a continent which has seen the longest period of protracted peace throughout its history since nation states were formed. Representative democracy in one form or another has prevailed across more than 400 million people.

So, 1957 saw the Treaty of Rome which brought the economic community to Europe. In 1975 our politicians reneged on their responsibility to represent us under our current democratic system of representative democracy and asked the public in a national referendum to declare whether or not, we as a country should remain in the EU. The public responded overwhelmingly by 67% in favour of remaining part of Europe.
That should have been the end of the matter but our politicians disingenuously, periodically have chosen for either political gain or to curry favour with the No crowd to continue to dangle the carrot of EU membership whenever the whim takes them.

This is dishonourable in the extreme. We signed a treaty, as a nation said YES to remain part of Europe and to constantly test the loyalty of our allies in this way is small-minded, petty and represents the worst of a Little England mentality.
As an honourable nation we should honour our commitments to our allies and if we disagree with them have the discussion which articulates our discontent but not childishly threaten to take our toys home every time someone in our group of friends offends us. I have written at some length of my certainty of Europe and our place in it elsewhere in this blog and so without repeating myself, I believe that the benefits of the treaties we have signed far outweigh disadvantages in terms of Human Rights, Trade, Business opportunities, Peace and our clout in global terms. I suggest that we pride ourselves on honour as part of the British psyche and now is the time to demonstrate it.

Leadership is about consistency and authenticity in our relationships with others, in short it is about being honourable in word and deed.