Anti-European Union Nutters

I am an opponent of the European Union. I look forward to the day when we leave the EU. But I love Europe and am certainly no Little Englander. Yes, I love my country, but I also love spending as much time as I can in Europe on holiday, three weeks in France this year and already planning another trip for October. I would happily split my time 50/50 between here and France or Spain if I could.  I am not a xenophobe, Europhobe or any other type of phobe as far as I know, and am certainly not a racist. So now you know.

Neither am I Eurocentric. I've actually spent some time in Latin America too, including working in Mexico. I loved much of what I experienced travelling through Central and South America, but don't want us to join them in some sort of cobbled together union either. I say that because I get fed up of Eurofanatics talking as if we are the centre of the universe, which we are obviously not, there's a whole other world outside Europe. We are not the be all and end all.

But what really pisses me off, always has done and probably always will, is the nuttier element of the 'Euroealist movement', 'Eurosceptic movement' call it what you will who lose all sense of proportion. To give you an example I've just seen a blog by a UKIP supporter that has the EU flag, gold stars on a blue background but with a swastika in the middle, emblazoned all over it. It used to happen when I was involved with UKIP and it was no use trying to explain that it made us all look mad using imagery like that, because they were usually too mad to reason with. It's not good and gives ammo to those who attack us as being loonies, fruitcakes or whatever.

The other one that gets to me is referring to the EU as the EUSSR. Now I do believe that the EU is fundamentally undemocratic, but drawing analogies to Nazi Germany and the USSR in these ways is more likely to turn your average punter against you than against the EU. Hitler and Stalin murdered people by the million, get a grip and a sense of perspective. The EU is not actually set on the road to mass genocide and if you argue it is you are madder than a box of frogs,whatever that phrase actually means. And I mean the reptile things not our cousins across the Channel.

Get a grip, because this fanatical use of warped imagery and terminology makes the user look like the loony nutter, not the organisation being attacked. Remember, Hitler used warped imagery and terminolgy too.