At any of our events, a large topic rears it’s head when discussion gets flowing. Europe is the largest part of our daily lives that fails to be widely discussed, apart from during Conservative Future meetings. Over recent years the debate has inexorably changed from “What is the UK’s role in the EU?” to “Should the UK be a part of the EU?” Pro-European members are increasingly difficult to find and a large part of Bath CF believe that we would be much better off out. The Eurosceptic role is becoming harder for me to follow as the other countries in Europe plunger towards ever-closer union. I find myself wondering what the role of the EU actually is.

Originally the idea of a united Europe was created by Winston Churchill post-WWII in order for European countries to put aside their differences as the only way to fight the spectre of communism. Interestingly, Churchill did not envisage a role for the UK within this union. We did not need to take part in political machinations whilst we provided the tripwire defence. Since then the EU has slowly spiralled towards political integration. We give money and power to the EU and what do we get in return?

The largest part of EU spending goes towards the reviled Common Agricultural Policy. It is perceived that this subsidises farmers to give the result of cheap food, which is good for everyone. However, the CAP gives money to landowners, not farmers. Our Queen takes a tidy sum from the EU each year as part of this, does this really make farmers richer? Of course not. Another problem with the CAP is the interference from Brussels. Cheap food is wanted, but not too cheap, we can’t have that. A great example from the 1980s was the ability to be paid for not producing wine. There was too much production and so prices would have to drop, which was great news for consumers, but bad news for the French, wishing to preserve their way of life. Instead of consumers having a great variety of cheap wine to chose from, the EU meddled to reduce demand and prop up the crooked system. Today they are still at it, with proposals to rip up new vineyards. This enterprise has been blossoming in the UK (an excellent effect of global warming) and threatening the business of our European neighbours.

The other part of EU spending goes towards developing the poorer nations in Europe. The main benefactor from the EU in this regard has been Spain. This is the point of the EU I find the most difficult to comprehend; why do we give £8bn each year to our closest competitors on the world market? Surely this has cost us massively over the past decades, alongside successive incompetence on the part of our governments.

More sinister has been the gradual erosion of legislative power towards Brussels and Strasbourg. We elect MPs to represent us, only to have their decisions overturned by people we didn’t elect. The main thrust of European legislation is to standardise across Europe. I’ve simply got to ask; why? I can only see it as being a series of gradual steps towards the formation of a single superstate. The simple fact that we are different is worth preserving. We would be in dire straights indeed if everywhere in Europe were clones of each other. Why are more and more countries joining the EU, at immense cost? Simply because they want a slice of the monetary pie whilst it’s still hot.

Today’s announcement from the Russian president Vladimir Putin, on strategic bombers flights being resumed, is after a series of other earlier events, another reminder that the situation between the West and Russia has never been so tense since the end of the Cold War. This could very easily be dismissed, as a meaningless gesture on the part of president Putin, yet when at the same time the links between Russia and China are growing this could very well be a step toward a new cold war.

Russia’s transition from the USSR to the country it is today was far from smooth, with coups attempts and instability throughout the nineties. Indeed of all the old USSR countries, only the Baltic countries managed to have a near perfect transition to modern democratic states. It is fair to say that things would have been different, had not leaders like the corrupted Boris Yeltsin had been elected. But the truth is that the West and more importantly, the United States have some responsibility in what is currently happening.

Attempting to meddle in Russia’s partners affairs, like in Georgia, Uzbekistan and Ukraine was a big mistake. Not to accept Russia as a fully fledged partner of the Western world was another mistake. Russia would surely deserve to one the main members of the European Union, but the current EU renders this impossible. I would even dare to say that the same is true for NATO, since the issues we face are after all pretty similar.

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Today brings news that, once again, the European Union and Britain have taken another worrisome step down the path to becoming a fully-fledged super-state.

In Brussels early this morning, Tony Blair, in one of his final serious acts as Prime Minister, capitulated without any real show of resistance and signed Britain up to what the eurosceptic campaign group, Open Europe describes as, ‘just the old EU Constitution in everything but name’.

On Thursday, Jose Manuel Barroso had asked the British people to have respect for our Parliament – but, with reference to the new treaty, it isn’t our Parliament that will be signing this constitution in disguise, but instead our soon to be departing Prime Minister, Tony Blair. And just why should we respect or take seriously the voice of a man and an institution such as the EU Commission who are unelected and do not serve those it is meant to represent?

Until the Constitution, the process of ‘ever closer union’ had been a slow and subtle one; gradually regulations, laws, treaties and legislation built up over the course of decades, robbing once proud self-governing nations of their sovereignty in exchange for dubious promises, false hopes, increasing levels of bureaucracy, corruption and furthering electoral disillusionment to near breaking point.

The EU Constitution was a daring move on the part of its constructors; the culmination of years of EU fanaticism had emboldened advocators of a super-union into moving more swiftly and overtly than they should or could. Though they were momentarily put in their place by referendums in France and the Netherlands, as Michael Portillo aptly observed in the Times today, ‘the plan to create a European state never dies. As in a bad sequel movie we discover that the monster so comprehensively destroyed at the end of film one has miraculously regenerated itself’. Once again, it is stealth by which the Europhiles move. They know that the people must be circumnavigated because these EU leaders and union supporters no longer trust their people – if they ever did.

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It is with disgust, that I learnt today the new of an agreement concerning a new European Constitution. While the name ‘constitution’ has been dropped from the document’s name, it is a constitution in all but the name.

The changes from the previous document, rejected by both French and Dutch voters back in 2005, are mostly cosmetic, concerning a European foreign minister and symbols. Though Tony Blair pretended to have obtained a derogation for us, the only derogation permitted will concern the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as far as foreign policy is concerned, the 26 others states did not signed a binding agreement, allowing us to opt out of the common foreign policy. The result of what happened in Brussels is thus, a clear defeat for the United Kingdom and a stunning victory for the Franco-German alliance of Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel.

Putting up a strong and determined opposition to any treat was well possible, Lech and Jaroslavl Kaczynski both, respectively President and Prime Minister of Poland did not hesitated to say some truths concerning Germany’s past, on the issue of qualified majority voting. France also managed to repel a clause concerning ‘free and undistorted competition’, there are no doubts that the whole of the French left and a part of the French right, must be celebrating this ‘victory against ultraliberalism’. This all shows that putting up a strong opposition against this treaty was possible, Blair choose not to oppose the treaty, perhaps in order to foster a semblance of ‘European legacy’.

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