We joined and it was sold to the public as a "gathering of equals to ensure peace and free trade in a shared marketplace" which was great, it sounded fine and for a while it was. But things changed, and while I don't harbour any ill will against any other country or it's peoples, I feel deceived, a "bait and switch", something we never voted for is now such a deterministic in our democracy.
You Brits sold yourselves that with nobody's help. There's a reason you were insistently told in the 60's you had no place in the EU. Because you wanted money and we wanted peace between nations. Ever closer union has always been the goal, all the way down from the idea of a EU as set out by Schuman.
And there are parts of the EU which I like, other parts I don't. The "message" coming out of EU centric countries is further integration, a EU Army, a EU Navy, and while they're sold under the basis of "Navy will be used for immigration and policing the Mediterranean", it just makes me think about how the most powerful countries are pushing for a Federal EU system and I worry about the slippery slope a EU army/Navy leads to.
It leads to the UK not invading Iraq alone and fucking the entire region just next to ours, playing an important role in the birth of a refugee crisis which all your neighbours but you are now having to deal with. It leads to the UK being a bit less irresponsible because it needs to get to agree with a few other nations before bombing and invading our neighbours.
Honestly, I'm just tired, our voice is not heard in the EU parliament or council, we're seen as outsiders because we want to slow down the EU project, why are we paying billions to belong to
Your voice is heard through your MEPs. It's Britain's problem that they elect the MEPs with the least attendance. It's also their problem that their politicians spend half their time insulting the EU and the other half boasting about how they have the whole EU under leash and will get exactly what they want out of it with no counterpart. Do you seriously think it's fair that the UK doesn't pay agricultural subsidies tax yet receives massive agricultural subsidies? Do you think it's fair Dodgy Dave says "no discrimination", and then sets up in-work benefit curbs in the UK even though Brits cost more to nearly every other country than they cost the Brits? Why can't France reciprocate with benefit curbs for those Brits in France who don't feel like having a job and live off our unemployment benefits -- without having to also penalise immigrants from countries that don't discriminate against EU citizens? Do you think it's fair using the word discrimination when Britain's the only country with a special status, whilst demanding to have a unilateral veto to block decisions made within the Eurozone, of which the UK isn't part off?
Brits are not the outsiders, they're the thorn in the EU's foot. They cause all the political damage inside the union. They get their way and then complain some more. Did you know until recently Britain MEPs agreed to nearly 95% of EU Parliament votes? Down to 88% following some intense persecution syndrome that has Britons believe everything the EU does is against them.
Example: did the Britons need the EU CFP to kill their fishing industry? Nope, it had been in decline for a century. Is the CFP responsible for small fishermen going bust? No, the quota is used by massive corporations which fish en masse and then commit tax fraud. One of those was campaigning with Farage just a few days ago on the Thames. Surely less EU regulation is a good thing for this fine citizen of Britain so he can fuck his own fellow countrymen over a bit more.
There's such a world between reality and the British view of the EU... It's pathetic that we still get to be recriminated all the time by the Brits when they're already in such a privileged position and get forgiven their absolutely shitty attitude towards us.
a club that ignores us and continues down a path that no one voted for?
Our club does what the majority of us wants. Not what the minority in the top left corner wants to impose on the 400 million others. At least have the dignity to admit it's the UK's fault it's not being heard (because it's vociferating insults against the wind rather than being constructive in any way whatsoever) rather than blame us. Your issues are with years of poor governance (both Labour and Tory) and an obnoxiously nationalist media class that has no interest in informing you about anything whatsoever so long as you keep buying what they tell you. It breaks my heart to see what the UK's becoming.