Let's Help France and Germany

It is becoming quite clear that both France and Germany want Britain to clarify its position over the EU. I agree with them. We either have to be in or out as I have boringly said many times already. In my view as you know we should leave as it is not the kind of free market or democratic institution that we can be a member of. What makes me think this ? Why the comments this week of Mrs Merkel and her close CDU ally Volker Kauder. Mrs Merkel said earlier this week "The task of our generation is to complete economic and monetary union and build political union in Europe, step by step. That does not mean less Europe, it means more Europe." More Europe is not something we can stomach - there is too much Europe already. Mr Kauder said yesterday "I can understand the British don't want the financial transaction tax when they generate almost 30% of their GDP from financial market business. But Britain also carries responsibility for making Europe a success." That's just it we should not be impoverished in the way the Germans have impoverished this Latin members of the eurozone for their own selfish benefit. He then went on to say "All of a sudden, Europe is speaking German. Not as a language but in acceptance of the instruments for which Mrs Merkel has fought so hard." Such language is very hard to swallow. Germany may have its memories of the horrors of hyper inflation but we have our memories of the the horrors of war. The French are not that much better. Le Monde in a leader written yesterday said that "London chose not to be part of the eurozone but now demands to participate in its decisions." Le Monde is supposed to be a newspaper for intellectuals albeit of the left but if it cannot understand that we have an interest in decisions taken in the eurozone group if they were to affect us it makes Le Monde look a little stupid. The newspaper goes on to state "Britain's eternal ambiguity undermines Europe day by day." That is another strange thing to say in light of Britain's disproportionate contribution to the EU budget.  I'm sure though they would all be much better off without us. If we did leave would our exports suffer? Our exports to the EU are said to amount to 40% whereas our imports are significantly higher so it is reasonable to assume that the EU would not wish to upset us too much as they would have more to lose than we would if trading between the EU and ourselves came to an end. Further more the 40% figure is in reality much less than that since goods we export to Rotterdam/Antwerp are considered exports to the EU whereas a good proportion of that traffic only goes there in transit to other countries in the world.