Just Sayin'

I passed my theory test Tuesday - in probably the most innocuous looking-building in the history of architecture. Kingsway House is the default office-block model in Stockport; grey, uninviting and about as picturesque as a man urinating in the street. The test-centre was completely hidden away in the bowels of the building, and although their were signposts to other offices, I didn't anyone else going in my direction, so I very nearly got very lost. Anyway, I found my way into the waiting room, and after registering with the guy on the desk, I took a seat amongst an amusing little collection of characters.

Firstly, there was a intimidatingly-masculine girl directly across from me - you know the sort: sweatpants, a Gio-Goi hoodie and Nike 6.0's, hair in a PE-teacher ponytail. With a frown like that, she was more of a boy than me. There was a very blonde, sunburnt lad with his father - apparently from the countryside (ahem, yokel), wearing a plow-scarred gillet and checked shirt - not the Topman type, but the 1950's All-American posterboy type. I think he was going for his Combine Harvester Proficiency test. His dopey smile (and missing teeth) could have only been completed with the addition of a stalk of wheat protruding from his mouth. Next to him was a eastern-european lady who could speak English but not listen to it. When the man behind the desk said she had to turn her phone off and put it into a locker, I feared for his life (she wasn't the sort of lady you'd want to meet in a dark alleyway).

Finally - and the couple that got me laughing - an obviously married couple. The husband walked in first with a purposeful stride, whilst wifey dithered with the door. She was the one holding the identity/registration papers - and whilst it's entirely possible that it was genuinly her first try at driving, the look of barely-concealed contempt on hubbie's face and the matching shame playing out inside his significant other said it all. Specifically, it said that his darling had been on the phone to her girlfriend about something mind-sappingingly boring, and wrapped his Porsche, his baby, around a lampost at 60 miles-per-hour.

David Cameron was embarassed this week, after his "cast-iron" promise, made two years ago in a front page article for The Sun - was shattered. The inevitable ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by the Czech government means that the controversial legislation will be incorporated into EU law. This is just the latest treaty in a line of divisional propositions that continue the process of pooling sovereignty. That means that, with each treaty since the EEC was formed(changed to the EU in 1992), power has gone from individual national governments to the multinational one in Brussels. Personally, I like the EU. It makes for greater cohesion amongst Europe; and, forgoing the language barriers - we're all very similar, and intrinsically linked.

However, it does take a lot of powers away from the UK; the latest estimates said that 70% of our laws are made in the Strasbourg parliament. This therefore gets a lot of people red-necked and angry; as only one of 27 member-states in the Union, we don't get a massive say, and since we are one of the bigger nations, with an above-average GDP, we often bear the brunt of leglisation that benefits say, Norway or Poland. But in the long-term I think it's worth it; Europeans have to recognise that for better or worse, each country's fate is linked to the others; nobody can ignore that most of our trade comes from Europe and that the EU makes this a hell of a lot easier. And it's one more step to world-peace. Would a single, federalised European state be that bad a thing?

I've got a big suspicion that the man-on-the-street's opposition to membership comes from an in-built mistrust of those Frenchies across the channel (always surrendering, you know! And they eat frog's legs! Not like us sensible British. Black Pudding, anyone?). British people, for reasons only known to themselves, have always disliked Europe. We don't want to be friends with them. Most people would just be happy if our little island was completley isolated from the world and if we heard fake news reports about how the Glorious Empire had annexed Denmark or Indonesia, led by the Black Prince. The fact that for 200 years, we held an Empire upon which the sun never set doesen't help; since the Battle of Trafalgar we've had a massive amount of hubris and therefore our ideas about Britain's status in the 21st-century world are a little outdated.

However none of this detracts from the fact that our political masters (and I hate to use such a bandied-about term) have refused to give a referendum. Should we stay in the EU? Yes or no? It's pretty simple. The institition is unpopular, inefficient and not accountable enough. Maybe this is our own fault; we have turned the European elections from our chance to have our say, into an opportunity to vent our anger and vote for protest parties, which isn't right. I agree with the fact that a referendum on Lisbon itself would be equivalent to shooting ourselves in the foot (we'd piss off the rest of the continent, and for what?) - but we should have had a vote in the first place. Attitudes have changed since 1977 and the British electorate have the prerogative to make decisions for themselves, however sensible. That's democracy - it doesen't matter if we make the wrong decision, as long as it's our decision to make.