Before I begin let me make clear that what follows is a set of commonplaces without originality, indeed, although they are in praise of England I am happy to acknowledge that they are shared, with different particulars, by most people in most other places. However, the very fact that the particulars of patriotism differ so widely adds to my conclusion that any attempt to unite different nations under one central rule is both foolish and wrong. Lest you doubt, remember that even today, after 400 years, the Scots (or some of them) are eager to break the union!
So what are my particular reasons for my deep-seated affection for this country of mine? First, because it is illogical! No single man, no great philosopher, no high chamber of academics, no mighty emperor forged this country, although all of those worthies at some time and in some way added their ten penny's worth. Like Topsy, it just "growed and growed". As and when things needed to change - it changed, sometimes for the worst which required running repairs later, but as it stands today it is the result of what you might call natural evolution. Needless to say, the job is not finished. Evolution does not sit still!
The prime example of what I will call English evolution is our head of state, our monarchy. Most other countries began with monarchies and, like us in earlier times, believed the monarch to be God's chosen instrument on earth. In England that came to an abrupt halt in 1215 when the barons insisted that 'God's writ' did not extend to their property! Given that tiny and very particular niche, the evolution of property rights and individual rights followed over the subsequent centuries and continues to this day. It was aided, of course, by the gradual layer upon layer of English Common Law which, if it took an occasional step back, always eventually took two steps forward.
With respect to our continental neighbours, that is not the way in which they have reached their present condition. Just the opposite. For many of them their governance is the result of diktat by a variety of central authorities. All of them have what we do not have - a written constitution. As we all know well from our private lives, anything written down becomes a plaything for lawyers, and if it is of a political nature then the very worst sort of mad philosophers will insist on bending it to their creed.
The infant 'United States of Europe' (USE) is just such a bastard child! The creation of a visionary Frenchman, Robert Schuman, filled with Arcadian ideas, the little European bastard has grown into a monstrous Orwellian bully, all the more dangerous because it cloaks its evil intent behind bland 'officialese' that no-one can understand. Schuman's original geo-political vapourings might have been based on high notions of idealism to aid a continent brought to its knees by two wars but it was obvious very quickly after inception that, with tragic irony, he had created ein großer Staat of exactly the sort that millions had fought and died to destroy!
We have already seen the results of the grandiose folly into which the various bureacratic pip-squeaks, jacks-in-office and get-rich-quick, second-rate politicians have led the USE. Their ludicrous notions of forming a common currency without a central bank and common fiscal law has nearly achieved what I had desperately hoped for, the destruction of the whole rotten edifice. But one cannot under-estimate the determination of visionary fanatics. If that is what is required to ensure a common currency then they will be patient and enduring and they will contine to press for it - and in the end they will get their way!
I want no part of it. More than that, I want them to fail - to fail utterly and completely even if it is disasterously with all the pain that entails. I say that not because I hold any animus against our neighbours but because they have recoiled from a Europe of individual nation-states which failed them and rebounded into a giant conglomoration which in the end will do the same.
My title taken from Shakespeare's famous speech has another line, 'This precious stone set in a silver sea', and that last word "sea" is critical. That piece of accidental geography is what gives us English our sense of detachment. I believe we should make the most of it. We can do what we have always done for the past thousand years, stay friendly - or not - with our neighbours but avoid entanglements except in dire circumstances. By all means trade - but no more!
