eurealist.co.uk

Regions aim for key role in ‘communicating Europe’ during referendums

That the idea for regions in Britain predates the EU is not in dispute; however the EU has been quick to recognise the potential for an EU made up of regions and not nations states.

This plays in several ways to the integration cause, which is of paramount importance to the EU if it is to be the government of Europe, and then it must by necessity diminish the role of nation governments.

I will look at this further a bit later, but for the meantime just one small thought. As a nation state Britain joined the Union in 1972 as one unit the United Kingdom, but the United Kingdom retained the right to leave the union at any time its government chose.

Now we have a situation where the lines between the united union, are being stretched, first Scotland then Wales then to an extent Northern Ireland have been given their own parliaments. We are now in the process of further dividing England into regions with the first referendum to install an elected parliament (although with little power) being foisted on the people of the North East (see post below). All this means that should in a few years time an elected government of the United Kingdome wish to leave the EU there will be constitutional difficulties coming out of the woodwork. So much so that it might well be impossible to actually withdraw, the more power passed to the regions will have the effect of making those problems worse.