Oh the folly of selective revision.

Churchill also said, 'If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea'

He also wrote, in the same article where he refers to a 'united states of Europe'. `We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe but not of it. We are linked but not comprised.'

Maybe you didn't know those words.

In pro-Europeans who use....nay abuse Churchill's memory by taking his words out of the context of a destroyed Europe are armchair Internet researchers.

The world of 1947 is massively different to today....Churchill forsaw Britain acting as a kind of god-parent to a European entity.

Sorry legal.....He just wasn't an egalitarian lefty.

Oh the folly of selective revision.

Churchill also said, 'If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea'

He also wrote, in the same article where he refers to a 'united states of Europe'. `We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe but not of it. We are linked but not comprised.'

Maybe you didn't know those words.

In pro-Europeans who use....nay abuse Churchill's memory by taking his words out of the context of a destroyed Europe are armchair Internet researchers.

The world of 1947 is massively different to today....Churchill forsaw Britain acting as a kind of god-parent to a European entity.

Sorry legal.....He just wasn't an egalitarian lefty.

First,those wishing to avoid selective revisionism need to look at context and timing.

Churchill's oft quoted remarks about choosing between Europe and the open sea (so often misapplied by Euro Sceptics)were made in 1944,a few years before the speeches I have referred to.The remarks were made to General De Gaulle in the context of a dispute between them relating to President Roosevelt. Shortly before the D-Day landings Churchill told him every time Britain had to “decide between Europe and the open sea, it is always the open sea that we shall choose.” Churchill went on:"Every time I have to decide between you and Roosevelt,..I shall always choose Roosevelt.” Nothing whatsoever to do with a post war united Europe.

I note the article you quote from. But that doesn't take away from the speeches I have also quoted from in c.1947.I believe "your article" was published in I think February 1930 and written for an American readership,many many years earlier and before the rise of Hitler and the horrors of World War Two which formed the basis for Churchill's post-war views and speeches.

Second, the question of Churchill being a "lefty" or not (and I agree he most certainly wasn't) is completely irrelevant,as is your misguided assumption that the "founding fathers" of European were some sort of egalitarian "lefty" grouping (ie that well known anti-lefty,De Gaulle).It is overlooked today the extent to which pre-Maggie the Conservative Party used to be anything but an almost uniformly anti-European unity grouping.There is a danger in reducing any and every discussion point into "left" and "right" and seeking to pigeon hole it that way.

Clearly put Legal.

It is worth remembering that the Common Market (as was) was originally The European Coal and Steel community. It was set up primarily to create a fluidity of supply to a redeveloping post-war Europe, and conflict free industrial growth in what at the time were still two major industries sited in the heart of Europe. And that the locus of the operation was in Luxembourg as it sat at the crossroads of coal and steel production.
Alsace bordering Belgium, Luxembour, France and Germany - and specially the mineral rich areas ofThionville and Longwy in were critical in the geopolitics of the time.

Of course Jean Monet, the inspiration for the treaty had a view to maintaining the peace in Europe as well - that no army would ever annex productive forces.

Back in 1979, just a few years after the UK's accession, I was enrolled in a postgraduate programme to study the emerging political system. My course required a period spent in Luxembourg with occasional visits to Brussels and Strasbourg. As a 22 year-old I thought the new European project was in all member countries' interests.

However, even then I could not escape the feeling that 'the club' was a bureaucrat's delight - and that was with less than half the present-days membership. So, I did not stay on and become immersed in the system.

At that time, there was broad parity amongst member-states, and the idea of free movement of labour, capital and services ( art. forty eight) would not lead to enormous shifts of labour over a whole continent. In fact, Germany's development hinged on Turkish gasterbeiter. For a searing analysis of what life was like for those migrant workers I recommend reading Günter Wallraffs's remarkable exposé The Lowest of the Low.
With the break-up of the Soviet sphere of influence in the 1990s a new accent on including the old block countries placed the interests of the political elites and market-makers over the interests of labour and services. Unfortunately, that was pretty inevitable.

Edited by Schuloff (26 Mar 2015 12.12pm)