The European edition of Britain in Decline was only meant to be one issue, but there's simply too much to cover, so it'll have to be a two-parter.

 Britain in Decline: "Welcome" to Europe

 When discussing Britain and Europe there's an age old saying that I'm sure you've all heard many a time that goes along the lines of: "Britain and Europe are two countries separated by a common loathing for eachother." And it's true.

 For centuries and centuries we Brits have done everything we can to ruin, meddle, and be a general nuisance to any and every European power that we feel has gotten too big for its boots. The Spanish Empire is making too much gold? We send out Drake to plunder it all. Napoleon's trying to take over? We finance and organise massive wars to bring him down. That cheeky German Kaiser wants to make Paris his summer home? We dig huge ditches for some reason.
In response the Spaniards, French, and Germans all attempt massive invasions to put us in our place.

 It's just what we do. Britain and *insert name of European country here* fighting is as natural as dogs and cats fighting. We hate them, they hate us. So I ask you, why on Earth are so many people hell-bent on ruining such a beautiful relationship?!

 Our current government has this idea that Britain being a member of some sort of European super-state would be of immense benefit to us. Now, I'm not saying that we should be in a perpetual state of war with Europe or anything. I don't want us to fight any European country if we can avoid it. But to join them in a sort of United States of Europe is insane! You see, just because our ships are no longer playing Catch the Cannonball, doesn't mean the whole ‘we hate them and they hate us' thing has gone away.

 Take, for example, the Eurovision Song Contest. This year, just as pretty much every year, we Brits came in last. Most years it's fair enough; our entrants could usually be described as the musical equivalent of a scene from Hostel. Not so this year though! This time we had a contestant who actually had a shred of talent, which is a darn-site more than many of the other contestants who got much higher scores than us. It's widely known that the voting for that so-called song contest is politically based, so naturally, we evil Brits come last pretty much every time.

 Quite frankly I believe that everyone would be happier if we Brits stayed out of Europe. We'd be happier because we'd retain our sovereignty and full independence while keeping our European trade links. Those on the continent would be happier with us keeping our noses out of "European" business and I know the French in particular would love to keep us out, as we'd no doubt provide a serious stumbling block to their plans of eventual dominance. Heck, I'm sure even America would be delighted to keep their closest ally as far removed from that troublesome Europe as possible.

 The only people I can see being happy with us going in are Brits who don't care about our independence (and sadly, there are a fair few of those) and our politicians who just see bigger and better opportunities to get more power. It's no secret that Tony Blair has his eye on the European presidency... of course, I'm sure the French would have one or two things to say about that.

 Part two coming soon...

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