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I pinged you because I figured liberty-minded Aussies ought to weigh in on the EU issue. The argument I hear from GB, Ireland, and commonwealth citizens is that they fear their economies will collapse if they don't participate in the EU. Is that any reason? "We have to give up a degree of our self-rule because we can't maintain our own economic viability alone." That sounds like collectivism to me.

I'm not arguing with you on the collectivism issue, but the fact remains that this issue has stuff-all to do with the Commonwealth (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Fiji and various Pacific Islands, a couple of countries in Africa etc)... have you looked at a map lately? The UK effectively turned its back on us (the Commonwealth) because we are not, by any stretch of the imagination, part of Europe.

That was my issue with being pinged to the thread. The UK told us to go jump in a lake years ago, and whilst there might still be wailing and gnashing of teeth over that on the other side of the Tasman, by and large Australians have just shrugged their shoulders and gotten on with life as a British "colony" in name only. If anything, we look more towards the United States, and have done since the post-World War II era. We might be a small nation in numbers (20 million), but we do know which way the cookie crumbles... and by the looks of it, the British insistence upon the EU is the final crumble of their cookie.

I'm in total agreement with you there: the Brits might go all soft on us. I doubt that's going to happen in Australia. I want the Brits on our side, but until the situation is really desperate for either us or themselves, so desperate that they remember that Operation Sealion was only kept from happening by America's assistance with the Lend Lease program, I'm not sure we can count on the Brits. We'll see.

Then again, some stalwart Brits, Aussies, and Poles may be wondering what we're going to do after this next election in November 2004!

I agree with your points. The way I feel it, the British are going the German way and meanwhile the UK's infatuation with the European ideology has caused lots of confusion over this side of the Tasman. Many are still gnashing over Britain's joining of the then EEC in 1973 as Jacqui said, but I also sense that many Kiwis are still very devoted to Britain, so much so that they are following the fads of British establishment chattering classes with enthusiasm. The British Left all went ballistic over the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the early 1980s? We followed suit in 1984 and enacted the no-nukes law in 1987. The European Union has a appeasement policy? No worries, just implement the same set in wellington.

Kiwis know that they can never be a European Union member (of course, how can you join it when you are situated at the eastern part of the South Pacific Ocean?), they thought they could internalize what they think is the current British sentiment. This, is why NZ looks a lot like an honorary EU member from a distance.