It is also strange that EU proponents are now unashamedly admitting that ever closer union really means an eventual United States of Europe, despite the lack of appetite for such a monolith. Have these people become so emboldened by their control of European media and institutions, that they are now merely demonstrating what has always been their plan, or have they themselves fallen into that abysmal vision-less pit, where the dying can only cry, 'There is no other way'.
The debate over Europe has been stifled and effectively hijacked so that the UK position no longer counts and EU deficiencies are ignored. All the talk of punishment and retribution for leaving this bureaucratic flophouse located in Brussels, has neatly obscured the fact that growing numbers of people in Europe no longer want what the EU has to offer.
Why would anyone want to stay?
The first thing to remember, is the EU has not always been here.
Since it's beginnings, after WWII, treaties have been signed, ratified, amended, re-written and even re-invented, with never more than a decade between significant alterations. So leaving EU is not leaving Europe, but extricating ourselves from a legislative hodgepodge that is bound to fail, and is only preserved by intimidation and false reporting of it's aims and general direction.
Tying economic growth and prosperity, to political and financial union, was what Eurosceptics have always feared, and as we witness today, justifiably so with the bankrupting of Greece and the wider migration issue which now threatens to destroy the very fabric of European culture, and possibly worse.
And the alternative?
The original concept of a Single European Market was what most countries wanted, and to what most would prefer to return. It was not perfect and tried to evolve, though with each stage of development the European Project became more entrenched and pervasive, but hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing, and there is no insurmountable reason why we cannot re-energize Europe in the 21st Century.
What should the European Market look like?
The first thing that a fully functioning market needs, is a Common Trading Currency.
Call this the Euro, the NewEuro the EuroTC or whatever else you like, the benefits for nations trading into, out of, and within Europe cannot be understated. Tourists and travelers too need and demand the same, for are they not also consumers of goods and services?
The failing of the Euro, was not in it's desirability, but in it's inception and implementation. There is no need for a single currency in Europe, just one that is universally transferable across our borders. Previous attempts at making this possible faltered when the bureaucrat's fear of markets aligned with certain politician's expansionist motivation.
The ERM was doomed by it's need to impose boundaries and thresholds and all manner of Eurospeak that translates simply to control at all costs.
All that is required of a Trading Currency, is that it be administered by someone who knows money, and be accepted as legal tender in participating countries whose own currencies are free to rise and fall against it, but cross-border traders have a single, relatively stable currency to use and can plan their financial and contract commitments accordingly.
This is already a de facto standard today.
When making purchases within the Eurozone a UK citizen is presented with the option of paying in Euros or Pounds, so where's the problem?
The problem is in the mind and on the agenda of European bureaucrats who see the need for a common currency as a way of furthering their grand European Project of ever closer integration towards a United States of Europe, with them in control. Open Markets and Price Discovery are alien concepts to most of these career paper-weights.
We need borders.
How those borders work, and where they are, is quite different to demanding that they be removed altogether.
Frau Merkel's manufactured migrant crisis has proved that national boundaries are there for a reason and must be respected. Again, in this electronic age, movement of people can be a quick and efficient part of living in Europe, but that movement must be in the best interests of the safety and prosperity of individual member states, and of Europe as a whole, anything else is treachery.
Those nations with external borders to non-member states, must be supported as Europe's front line in protecting the integrity and security of all its members, and the notion that those in the center can get fat off the efforts of those at the extremities must be exposed as the unfair contrivance that it is.
The devil is in the detail
Negotiating how agriculture, finance, fishing and trade are handled, is what a European Market should do. It is where politicians, economists and bureaucrats earn their living, but the overriding principle of sovereign states working for the mutual benefit of themselves and their neighbours, must be non negotiable.
