British sovereignty: What did you do with it?

Monday saw a funky brouhaha go down in the House of Commons over the UK’s membership of the EU. A motion was brought before the House which called for a referendum over the UK’s relationship with club 27. It was given time by the Backbench Business Committee in the same week that European nation states are negotiating the financial side of the Union.

The motion was voted down, but Cameron suffered one of the largest rebellions in post-war history from members of his party. The next day he said it was not about whether the UK should renegotiate its membership with the EU, but how and when. However, during the goings-on this week nobody said much about why a Euro-sceptic position was worth pursuing: the discussion was driven by the internal politics of the Conservative party and centred on letting voters have their say.

The limp debate only served to prove our blind side. We don't deserve our sovereignty. Yes, of course it would be unwise for the UK to join the eurozone, and it is good that Cameron negotiated our way out of the bailout. But beyond that, the spirit among Conservative members was one of defiance, either against a depersonalised and vague enemy called “the EU”, or in support of some notion of national sovereignty. As to the latter, the question must then be asked: sovereignty to what end? What have you the British done that makes your sovereignty worth having? The answer is: not much. It is good to take a humble look at the state of the nation. Now would be a good time to start.

The British ruled an empire for centuries, yet we still have separate taps for hot and cold water. The pressure for these, if you want a decent shower, has to be provided by an annoying electric pump. Our piping hangs outside the building, scarring what might otherwise be a fairly pretty house. Meanwhile the tabloids complain about EU regulation over the precise shape of a banana. We are fed by a lazy and uninformed press, out to sell more papers than report the truth. The Daily Fail publishes scare stories to feed latent bigotry and anti-German sentiment, most of which is taken out of context and is often inaccurate. The Frogs, what are they worth?

They at least have good wine and the great baguette, unlike our soft white toast, fit to feed the ducks but not much more. Meanwhile our German cousins suffer healthy plumbing, a healthier economy and a market that is not hell-bent on sucking the last piece of marrow out of your broken bone. Other cousins have far lower rates of teen pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases, and lower rates of family breakdown compared with the UK.

By contrast, we have the highest personal debt levels in Europe fully twice that of the EU average and we complain about Polish migrant workers who work harder than your grandmother used to when she made the Sunday lunch with three desserts. That being the only great food we can boast is our own, a roast, bar perhaps ruining fish in batter. It takes the delicacy of Gordon Ramsey’s filthy vocabulary to batter cod, while his kin rake in the money via gastropubs where you have to order at the bar and get your food delivered on a plastic tray like in a school canteen. Even then the food is warmed from frozen and tastes of nothing. The same goes for National Heritage cafés where visitors clad in M&S clothes– not just any clothes, of course - are whisked past stainless-steel countertops, only to wait patiently in line to pay for the nice cream tea. And we’re the ones who complain about putting together IKEA furniture, when Argos delivers the same complexity with half the design.

What did you do with your sovereignty? What you did was promote a perverse individualism, coupled with a rampant selfish utilitarianism that disregarded beauty, dispensed with the truth over the EU (amongst other things) and made Mammon the only good we crave in common. I am no Europhile, but I see what is wrong with this country, and much of it could be corrected by taking a hard look over the Channel and humbly revisiting the values our cousins have yet to lose. The pubescent posturing over the EU this week was a disgrace to British politics.