What do you think?

[Aggers]

I've just had an idea.

You probably won't agree but the more I think about it the more I like it.

It's revolutionary, but dead simple:
GB to approach the USA and ask for them to please take us on board as their 51st State.

Let's face it, we do have a special relationship with the USA; they came to our aid in two world wars;
and they speak the same language. The major benefit, however, is that we would isolate ourselves
from the blasted EU, into which we have been conned by our deceitful and incompetent politicians.

And I'd sooner be under the influence of Americans than some Europeans I could mention.

Think about it.

[miasmum]

I'd have to say no for the simple fact, Luke and I wouldn't get medical insurance and neither of us would be here without the good old NHS. It might be a mess, but I would rather live here with it than without it

[Workingman]

Not for me either,

The Yanks offered us Lease-Lend in 1941: our final payment was in 2006/7. If it had not been for Pear Harbour the US could have stayed out of the war. The Yanks wrote off the USSR and French debts after WWII, but not ours. Lease-Lend was used as a tool by the Americans to diminish British influence in world affairs - some special relationship!

When we joined the Common Market -- EEC -- EU we had one of the strongest economies in Europe. We had the chance to use our influence to determine where Europe was headed. Instead, due to the attitudes of so many Little Englanders and Imperialists. we bitched and moaned and sucked our thumbs. Europe moved on a direction we did not agree with, but because we were always on the sidelines there was nothing we could do about it. We have been the masters of our own downfall in Europe, not the other way around.

[Rodo]

Hell no! No way.

[Kaz]

No way!!!!!! The have and have nots have a much bigger gap between them than we even have here!!! We might speak the same language, almost, but we have very many differences in the way we live...................I would far rather be regarded as European than as a 'poor relation' Yank thanks very much

Some of the threads I see on Facebook, for example shock me very much. We might have a fair amount in common with, say, the huge cities on the East Coast but some of the attitudes to religion, abortion, rape etc etc in the Mid West in particular are positively medieval and I am happy not to have to deal with living there! Not to mention the lack of free healthcare

[Aggers]

Keep 'em coming !

[pederito1]

I have burst.

[TheOstrich]

Hell no! No way.

+1

Obama as my "leader"? You have to be joking.

And if you think this country is too politically correct ... well, I've frequented American boards and forums in my time, and the land of free speech, it certainly ain't.

I also resent the increasingly overt American political interference in our affairs.

But I'll also say this much - I do not and will not identify myself as European either .....

[Aggers]

I'm not surprised at your responses.

I only opened this thread because I guessed it would provoke some heated discussion.

Frankly, I am annoyed at the way we, the British people, have been hoodwinked regarding the EU.
All we ever agreed was to join the Common Market. Our politicians, as usual, have hoodwinked us,
and the British people have let them get away with it. All that the majority of the population seem
to be interested in is stuffing their faces, drinking. and sex, and crime is rampant.

I cannot believe how much this county has deteriorated in my lifetime.

[Workingman]

I can understand some of the disenchantment with the EU, but I am reminded of lots of things it did not do.

It had nothing to do with the imposition of multiculturalism on us.
It did not force strikes at the drop of a hat.
It did not create the three day week or the winter of discontent.
It did not make us produce goods so poor (cars especially) that we could not even offload them at below production costs in the sub-continent or our former African colonies.
It did not sell off 'the family silver' to the highest bidder.
It did not kill manufacturing in favour of something called "the Service Industry".
It did not push unemployment through the 3 million mark.
It did not say "there is no such thing as society".
It did not close the pits.
It did not make our education system not fit for purpose.
It did not turn our police from a "force" into an arm of social work.
It did not send us to war based on lies and a sexed up dossier.
It did not open the floodgates to mass immigration from outside the EU.
It did not make us join up to the "War on Terror" with the Americans in Afghanistan.
It did not create our banking crisis.

We, our politicians mainly, did all of those things ourselves.

When I look at the state our country is in I tend to look at what it was that we did wrong and not look to blame Johnny Foreigner too much.