I agree totally with the being compulsory voting, after all if you don't have your say you cant complain.
The reason so many of us want to be free of the petty jealousies, the each man looking after himself idea is that we do contribute a great deal and get very little respect. The EU Executive committee works for itself not the community as a whole. It fails to see that within the block there is a diversity of national traits that have to be accommodated, one reason the Germans hate subsiding as they see it the lazy Greeks wallowing in sunshine and doing little else (sorry but that's a stereo type) and so trying to inflict the values of the Franco/German agreement on everybody. When it was the common market it was a good thing but it grew to big for its boots and became greedy and out to create a United States of Europe, run from Berlin.
I'm sorry to have to say this again but Germany lost two world wars while trying to gain worl domination. Ever since 1945 they have been quietly and efficiently building up wealth and influence and soon will become the one voice in the European Parliament. The UK sees that, certainly the older generation, and gone is the dream of a one for all and all for one ethic the EU was supposed to be aiming for.
The younger generation, with no knowledge of history only see leaving the EU as a damper on Stag Nights, quick holidays and no health insurance, easy to get to, enabling them to work and study overseas ( a very small percentage do) forgetting that travel to other more distant parts of the world require visas and health insurance and a large number apply for all the permissions to work and study over seas.
Now, in the current position we can see that the EU is out to make it so difficult to leave with a deal, resorting to petty annoyances - Gibraltar isn't a colony yet the commission allowed the insult to remain knowing full well it would create a stir and is blatantly wrong. While the EU chief negotiator can only ever see the solution to a problem in the bottom of a glass, while petty nothing politicians strive to appear big on the international stage for a few short months before they vanish back into the obscurity from whence they came without taking into consideration the big picture then all sides will be losers.
Negotiations are supposed to be just that, full of compromise.
The UK voted by a majority (of those who cared and bothered to vote) to leave the EU. That should have been a very simple thing to understand. Alas the EU, greedy to the enth degree could see a big hole in their budgets - actually its really all about money at the end of the day - and are striving to hang on to a large chunk of income rather than have to reduce subsidies, cut its coat according to its cloth, the result being that the EU is souring relations with the UK, not just the members of parliament but the population as a whole, when it does happen its going to take a long time to sort out trade deals etc and even longer before the UK TRUSTS the EU again.
I started with mentioning 2 world wars, funny how the little countriews that the UK and America helped suddenly seem to forget the liberation, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg etc etc etc… no, they are all happy to suck op to where they think the money is.
Oh, and didn't I mention that its all about money as well?
