Britain is "conflicted" in its collaboration with the "European Union" (EU).
Denis MacShane, Britain's Europe minister admits Britain is beset with feelings of Skepticism, Distrust, Superiority, Contempt, Racism, and Hatred toward Europe.
Italy often finds itself as a particularly frequent and reviled Target, that shows up in the attitude of practically every article written about Italy. However Italy, is apparently not important enough to Hate, as it does Germany and France, or have contempt for, but merely to smirk about.
Doesn't it make you sorry that the Romans civilized these heathens ?? :)
London Telegraph
By Rachel Sylvester
August 7,2004
Right-wing Eurosceptics are latent xenophobes whose views stem from a historical DISTRUST of the French and Germans dating back to the Second World War, according to Denis MacShane, the Europe minister.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Mr. MacShane said Eurosceptics were giving "overt encouragement" to xenophobia which is damaging Britain's interests in the wider world.
"A hundred years ago Lord Salisbury said 'you would no more give the vote to the Irish than you would to a Hottentot'. I'm afraid we have got a dark streak of xenophobia and RACISM in our mentality. Anti-Europeanism allows it to get a lot closer to the surface."
Although he said he was not opposed to rational scepticism about Brussels, he insisted: "Euroscepticism is a misnomer. What we are actually taking about is HATRED of Europe and a sense of SUPERIORITY which has always been the Achilles heel of Britain through the ages.
"In the Thirties, the Daily Mail was xenophobic and isolationist and it's xenophobic and isolationist today."
The minister argued that hostility to the European Union is based on anti-French and anti-German feelings that date back to the Second World War.
..."When a healthy pride in winning the war in 1945 becomes offensive xenophobic hatred against the Germans or the French in 2004, I don't think that shows the best side of Britain."
He pointed to the anti-German chants made by English football fans during the recent European championship. "There's a direct link between the lurid headlines propagating myths about Europe, the language of CONTEMPT for Europe from the Tory isolationists and the unbroadcastable xenophobic chants of some of our football fans.
"The endless Tory and tabloid isolationism is the tip of the iceberg. It validates a kind of Orwellian HATE language against other European countries that diminishes Britain's greatness."......
Telegraph
| News | Euroscepticism encourages Britain's dark streak of racism, says
minister
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