1. I read an article about Angela Merkel - explaining how her upbringing in East Germany, under the communists, has very much affected how she thinks.
For her, the EU is all about freedom
2. I have just come back from a week in Prague having spent a week last year in Budapest. I also have a Polish cleaner. My ongoing exposure to Eastern European countries and people makes me see the EU project differently.
I see that for them it is about freedom
At heart, I am against the EU (as it has become) and I am very against the idea of a Federation of Europe .
I liked the original idea of The Common Market - a market where we could all trade easily with each other, but yet retain all democratic, national governance and identity. I still think that is how it should be for Britain
But
I can very much see why countries like the Czech Republic would want to be part of a European Federation. Those countries are small and vulnerable, surrounded by neighbours who have invaded and done terrible things to them in the past.
Britain (since 1066) has not experienced the horror of being invaded and occupied.
We don't know what it is like to lose our freedom.
We have never experienced having to learn to work with and get on with your invaders and with those of your own people who collaborated with them. People who may have been responsible for the torture or deaths of family or friends
I remember my mother's horror when she was asked by my father to produce a meal for some Japanese businessmen. He hoped they would bring lots of lucrative business to his engineering company. This was about 1960 - about 15 years after WW2 - when my father was in Borneo fighting the Japanese. My father could bury the past for the sake of his business, my mother found it hard.
Norway was invaded and occupied during WW2. My Norwegian uncle would afterwards talk about the problems of what to do with those Norwegians who had collaborated with the Germans.
Do you shoot them all?
Do you imprison them for life?
The reality was that the population of Norway was too small. Men were needed to get the country going again. So - the worst - were shot, but most were imprisoned for a short while. Eventually they came back into society and society had to learn to accept them. This was not an easy thing especially in small rural communities
What must it be like now for one of those countries once under German or Russian occupation?
How do they cope with German, Russian or Japanese tourists?
We discussed this in Prague with the lovely Cristina - our apartment owner.
She was quite clear that the only way of safety for the Czech Republic was as part of a European Federation with Germany. She wanted the Czechs to be married to Germany (so to speak). Big, powerful, rich Germany would keep them safe and free.
All her friends were very against joining the Euro
She was pro joining the Euro as she works in the travel industry
Yet Norway has stayed out of the EU. Does that mean it feels safe? My Norwegian uncle said that they were always afraid of their border with Russia.
Here in the UK - on our little island -we do not have this same worry about safety and freedom. This explains our different attitude to the EU.
We see that Germany now completely dominates and effectively rules the EU.
Do we mind that?
Is that a good thing or a bad thing for us?
Now that Hitler is no more and there is the lovely Mrs Merkel - perhaps it is a good thing?
But who may take her place in the future?
We see freedom in being outside the Euro and being able to set our own rate of exchange to suit our own economy.
We see the undemocratic Brussels bureaucracy as a threat to our freedom.
When our own politicians behave badly we can hold them to account. No-one holds Brussels to account.
I - quite definitely - see the progression to a Federation of Europe as a threat to our freedom.
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