There is before the United Kingdom a self inflicted problem, which is bedevilling any constructive and useful influence Britain has in Europe. It echoes the tense zone of a couple drifting apart and willing to do so, yet trying to find an excuse to stay together.
The issue now facing this country is not whether Cameron can negotiate some fig leaf deal sufficient to hide the rampant right wing of his party, so that he is able to recommend that the UK stays in. It is whether fundamentally the UK wishes to remain part of Europe. Messing around with the detail makes no real difference. The concessions demanded, if granted, are actually neither here nor there. You are either for it, or agin it. This blog is for it, always has been and always will be. This is because I see it not through the prism of benefit tourism, but through the tears of close on 100 million dead from two great wars.
The fact that everybody is peacefully now arguing about benefits entitlement is one of the greatest successes of history and this blog can see no valid reason to walk away. All those legions of mostly young men and all those cowering civilians either died for nothing or they died so that we might get to where we are today. These silly conflated issues which could so easily be resolved, and which if conceded will make only a marginal difference anyway, are just not reason enough to let their memories down. We owe them more than a poppy and a silence.