non

well the french have voted no to the european constitution (or as some are saying that it was no more than a cleaning up exercise bringing into line all the previous treaties).
i am, i confess, a bit of a eurosceptic. i admit that part of my reasoning is a touch of xenophobia, however there is also a feeling that the project will not work as intended, that there are too many cultural differences and too many national interests in competition for it to work smoothly for any length of time. i also fear that it will make people even more apathetic about politics as the decision making process becomes even more remote.
all that said, unlike maggie, i am still for turning if the argument is right.
oddly the arguments that are swaying me are from the anti-europeans, but they are making me pro europe.
if i hear another lorry driver whinge about the fact that 1] he is getting paid less because he can now only work 48 hours i will hunt him down and bitch slap him. frankly i do not want people who are tired at the wheel of those things (some of the drivers talk about working 100 hour weeks – given there are only 168 hours in a week i think we can all see there is a problem there). or 2] east europeans are doing the job cheaper – which isn’t necessarily the fault of the eu, it’s more to do with the fact his employer is happier to pay less to those who will take it.
if i hear another member of the cbi go on about how the eu threatens gb plc (and i fucking hate that…) but when asked to explain in which ways can only go “in lots of ways…” sadly they are never told “give examples or shut up.” (what the cbi doesn’t want to have to say is that they want the freedom to exploit workers – have them working longer hours, and for less money and rights, so given a chance they would happily ditch jolly english lorry driver for johnny foreigner driver in less time than it would take to change gears.)
then there are the conservative slime who do not bother to listen to other people’s point of view preferring to speak across them and over them, sneering at their comments, but then fly into a hissy fit of epic proportion the moment anyone tries to interrupt their flow with a comment.
its people like that who make me think maybe the eu isn’t such a bad thing after all.