The EU is the carrier of my identity now, and I will fight anyone who wants to take that away from me

Yesterday evening, as I settled down to watch TV (yes, it's a Saturday night, but I don't need thrills right now), I was lucky enough to behold that glorious end to the summer season of classical music on the BBC that we all know as the Proms. 

The Last Night of the Proms in the Royal Albert Hall has a splendidly rousing finale which encompasses all that is good about being British: the spectators are not expected to be quiet, in fact they bring tooters and crackers with them; the lead violinist in the orchestra is, at times, allowed to go off-key during solos; the conductor gives a speech where he/she mercilessly mocks the audience; there are crowds gathered in four other concert locations in the UK which are also incorporated into the event, and everyone waves a flag.

It is the most patriotic outpouring of emotion you will ever see. It is like a cross between the Vienna New Year concert and a Six Nations Rugby match where everyone in the crowd is on the same side. The songs are fervently steeped in British history and culture and anyone who claims to be British should know the words to them: Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, known as Land of Hope and Glory; Hubert Parry's Jerusalem; Fantasia on British Sea Songs arranged by Sir Henry Wood (during which it is a custom for the audience to pass around packets of tissues during the section known as Tom Bowling), which contains the Sailor's Hornpipe, when the audience bobs up and down, and ends with Rule, Britannia!, which witnesses an extraordinary display by the soloist, who is expected to do something either amusing or spectacular with his/her outfit. It never fails to please each year. It finishes with God Save The Queen in an arrangement by Benjamin Britten, which I think is better than the original, and everyone sings Auld Lang Syne to finish the night off holding hands.

It is the night of the year when we can see everything good about Britain: the artistic talent of its musicians and singers; the rebellious yet good-natured demeanour of many of its denizens, and the depth of affection that people hold for the little wind-swept island off the coast of Europe that once really did rule the waves. The season has taken place 125 times, and is a direct link to the days of Empire, yet the people who attend the concert are open-minded and cultured internationalists who understand Britain's place in the world, which is the reason why for the last three years, there has been a steady increment in the number of EU flags that have appeared at the Last Night finale. In fact, last night, the blue and yellow more or less outdid the Union Jack. So much so, it made the Daily Express explode with rage:

A cut-out from my anti-Brexit group Facebook feed

Oh but it REALLY infuriated the Brextremists on the readers' replies section:

The Express reported that one very disgruntled Twit(ter user) wrote: (1) "Is there anything as weak, as petty or as demeaning to our nation as the waving of EU flags during Last Night of the Proms? Those flags should be burned, along with all other symbols of degeneracy and the power of finance."

A reader called Dave77 said, (2) "Waving a much detested FOREIGN FLAG is the 100% epitome of being a TRAITOR, when you are celebrating a genuine BRITISH FESTIVAL"

The same bozo said in a later post: (3) "I truly have never heard of one single person that was PROUD to be a member of the much detested EU --That could only happen if your ancestry is somewhat diluted in a European fashion maybe."

And finally, this splendid self-own by someone who goes by the name Henpecked: (4) "The remoaners and all this EU flag waving reminds me of 1930s Germany where a certain party rode rough shod over democracy by sheer force of obsession and numbers.
We must not let democracy be defeated by this shabby lot, democracy must always win."

Well I would like to reply personally to all of these "points" raised (if one can call them that):

(1) Firstly, the Twit - actually, my friend, the very reason people feel they should wave them is because they don't like petty parochials like you who can't see the difference between patriotism and nationalism. The ability to wave EU flags at a British event is in fact a sign of open-mindedness and openness to the world, which is what your idol, Liam Fox, is constantly seeking. He, though, makes you think you need to leave an international organisation in order to be more global, and you lot fall for it.

You know, you can go ahead and burn the EU flag if you like - you think it will trigger us in the same way setting fire to a Union Jack would trigger you. Well it won't, because we're not actually the ones who are highly-strung. The EU flag is not a symbol of degeneracy and the power of finance. To me, it is a very personal symbol of belonging.

Churchill himself said, "We hope to see a Europe where men of every country will think of being a European as of belonging to their native land, and... wherever they go in this wide domain... will truly feel, ‘Here I am at home.'" And that's how I feel. Just because your only foray into mainland Europe is to go and do British things on the Costa Del Sol for a fortnight a year, things you wouldn't do at home, like eat a Full English breakfast every day or sing insulting songs to non-British passers-by (although maybe you would), it doesn't mean you have to spoil it for the rest of us - those millions who have made their home in another EU country and are happily settled and integrated there.

(2) and (3) Well Dave, I have news for you: I see Europe totally differently to you. You have never met one person who is proud to be a member of the EU because of the small-town circles you go around in. From the very little information I have gained from your "effort" on the Express thread, it is easy to suppose that you haven't spent too long in the company of more internationally-minded people.

The EU flag is not a foreign flag; it is the flag that represents 28 countries in Europe living side-by-side in peace, and that includes the UK (still). In fact, to me, nobody and nothing is foreign unless he/she/it makes a great effort to denigrate anyone not like them. For me, when I talk about "the north", I mean areas on the Baltic or North Sea, and when I talk about "the south", I mean those on the Mediterranean. I don't get infuriated if someone comes to my town and carries on with their own way of life, because it's perfectly normal. 

I doubt you go to Torremolinos and speak Spanish and eat pinchitos at a chiringuito, so why should a Pole speak English, drink Tetley's and go for a ride to the garden centre on Sundays? In fact, at home, I have BBC as standard TV channel (I have watched German TV for about 5 hours of the ten years I have been here) and drink Marks & Spencer tea. Integration is not what you think - it is the ability to see others as human beings, speak the local language, and not enforce your customs on them.

As for calling the attendees at the Proms traitors, that is really very weak. The fact is, the vast majority of reasonably-minded, balanced people find Brexit to be a betrayal in itself. It is seen by them as a regression of the United Kingdom into a much diminished shadow of its former self. The problems causing people to vote to leave the EU are mainly inflicted on the people by the British government, and it will only get worse when the EU is not there to act as a conscience.

(4) How wrong you are, Henpecked: it is the other way round. We see Brexit as a landgrab by dark and anti-democratic forces. Have you ever wondered why Brexit is being bankrolled by extremely rich businessmen? Because they care not one bit about the ordinary man or woman in the street. They will earn vast amounts of money by pulling the country out of the EU, and to make it happen, they will go to any length. But the best way to make it happen is to recruit the working man. Every revolution has been won by gaining the support of the working man, and every time the working man falls for the trick of the ringleader, which is to curtail his freedoms and get rich off the worker's back. You know the film The Producers, where the writers of a Broadway musical want to make a flop because they'll earn a lot of money out of it? That's really what Jacob Rees-Mogg and his ilk are up to. And you can't see it. 

I am sure you are one of those people that if the EU eradicated plastic pollution from our seas, you'd be moaning about how "Brussels" is taking away your right to drink tea in a plastic cup, even if you don't. In fact, you complain about everything the EU does, even if it is for the common good. 

No, it is not a panacea or an answer to every problem, but it is the best we have, and we should help it to grow, not attack it for everything it does to help.

So finally, I would like to let you know that there is someone here who is proud to call himself a European, and I know a great deal more people like me. Maybe, Dave, it's the circles I go around in...

So, what are we going to do about the refugee crisis?

It is Europe's fault. As clear as crystal, it is our fault. When Africa and the Middle East were decolonised back in the post-war period, many previous occupiers just upped sticks and moved back to their capitals, leaving those behind to fend for themselves. They did not leave sufficient depth in the remnant institutions for those countries to maintain the relative peace and unity of the colonial days. Let us be honest here, what I mean is people did not fight each other under occupation as they had their foreign lords and masters as a common enemy. British colonies faired the best, with the majority of them being bequeathed the institutions and laws which have turned them into fairly successful countries in their own ways (barring a few abysmal failures), but it does not mean at all that they are exonerated. Most colonisers more or less lowered their flags, played the bugle and scuttled off home again, the only real leftovers being the languages inherited from their previous overseers.

The West's guilt
What these powers also did was divide up the Middle East and Africa in such a way that there were no real ethnic or religious boundaries, and for a reason: the French and British were worried about Arab unity. If the Arabs were able to unite under only a few leaders, they might become powerful and ultimately dangerous to European dominance. Look at India today. The Sykes-Picot deal made the area so unrealistically divided, bringing in kings, sheiks, presidents and dictators to rule the area, often being replaced when they had outrun their use, that it would keep them busily at each other's throats for decades to come. They needn't have worried so much - sectarian skirmishes and various long-lived grudges didn't take long to appear. And so the plan worked enormously well. Even when the region tried to unite under the umbrella of the United Arab Republic, a kind of EU-prototype conjoining of Ba'athist regional powers Syria and Egypt, it did not last long when one of the two member states underwent a coup d'état. Iraq was also hoping to join this group, and if it had, the momentum may have swung other regional powers behind the union, so chances are high the Syrian coup d'état was the brainchild of someone sitting uneasily in the Elysée Palace or Number 10, who did not want a successful Arab bloc at the end of the Mediterranean.

So it was all going to plan for the former colonial powers until the 1980s, when dictators like Saddam Hussein and Colonel Gaddafi started to get too big for their boots, wanting more firepower and weaponry to inflict the latest atrocity on their huddled masses and threatening the West with all sorts of vengeful actions. The Lockerbie disaster and the invasion of Kuwait were two of those actions. I remember, during the retaking of Kuwait by the West and the Allies' subsequent march into Iraq, they didn't finish the job off. They didn't remove Saddam from power. That may be because American intelligence under Bush Senior knew that Saddam Hussein was still the right man for the job in Iraq. He was holding the various loose pieces of fabric together and keeping a firm lid on any uprisings. This was perhaps the smartest move of the last hundred years. The smartest move of a lot of very reckless ones, but a smart one nonetheless.

The most reckless action of the last thousand years (or more) took place on the watch of America's most undeserving president, George W. Bush, and Britain's messianic Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Under the pretext of weapons of mass destruction, and in the aftermath of the semi-apocalyptic destruction of two towers in New York by an extraordinarily wily and ostentatiously rich Arab psychopath with a bone to pick, these two decided to send in the heavies to "clear up" the Middle East. Now... although a lot of us were fooled by the idea that Saddam was an awful dictator who needed removing before he murdered all the minorities, we did not expect that Bush and Blair would totally fudge the entire change of regime. If they really wanted to bring in democracy, they had to realise what they were letting go of. Decades of relative calm held in place by the threat of brutal retaliation by the leader, the sectarian powder keg that was Mesopotamia was firmly sealed by Saddam Hussein, and his removal was going to open it all up.

Reasons for leaving
And it did. But not only that, it brought out all the other dissatisfied wretches and rejects from every other part of the world. It gave the Jihadis a place to really get their act together and begin the reconquering of the world. The Jihadis of Islamic State are not there to just retake what territory they lost, they are there to humiliate and ultimately bring down the governments of the West. And where better to start than right on their doorsteps? The twisted ideology, self-publicity and money-raising capabilities of these warmongers are nothing short of genial. Recruiting the frustrated, the lonely, the talented oddballs, the pious and the rejected, they tell their targets about the wonderful life they could have in the new Islamic State. They tell about the feeling of superiority these outcasts will have, and the responsibilities they will be given.

Imagine being given the power of life and death over whole towns. Imagine a country like Syria, which despite the brutal dictator, had a pretty good quality of life and a high standard of education, falling apart due to sponsored destabilisation by rich madmen and other regional rivals, and then taken over by the worst kind of warrior. Let us not forget, despite the atrocities carried out by the previous regimes in Iraq, Syria and Libya and all the other dictatorships in the region, if not the world, most people still stayed in the area, even if it was under threat of gassing or midnight removals. Nothing as brutal, savage and inhuman as Islamic State ever happened under the other dictators that caused such mass panic and the fleeing of hundreds of thousands of people to Europe. Imagine, having been a well-to-do middle-class Syrian five years ago, being told your mother has been tortured, your wife abducted, your daughter gang-raped and your son executed. Imagine being the neighbour of that family, as yet unscathed. Wouldn't you pack up and get out of there as quickly as you could? Wouldn't you, right now, be either on a Greek island, at Keleti railway station in Budapest, or scrambling over the Austrian border on your way to a place where you would be given a bed, some food and a new life?

What is worse, we in the West sold the previous incumbents the hardware to be able to carry out these crimes on their people - or at least we sold the hardware to the side our governments supported at the time. Not only the West - Russia and China are most probably in it up to their midriffs too. So when the little guys started fighting back, our governments chose a side and supplied more weapons to them. It was not uncommon for them to change sides, depending what they could get out of it all - fuel, minerals, lucrative contracts - nothing was governed by principles of fairness or justice. The Taliban was, at one time, an ally. There are many reasons why we in the West are now reaping what we sowed, and this is the final repayment of the Karma debt: what we failed to do back then to alleviate their transition to independence and the subsequent brutalities which led to the necessary intervention of the West (again) have led us so far that we have unwittingly created the diabolical cults of Jihadism and Islamist violence. This is the result of our short-termism and complacency.

Blood on our hands
And this has been the case from Eritrea to Erbil, Somalia to San'a, Palestine to Peshawar and Casablanca to Kandahar. We are guilty of great human suffering, even if by proxy, even if 50 years may have passed since we lowered our flags. What we should have done at the end of our empires was to integrate those countries into the world economy by setting up trade talks with international organisations. We should have split the countries up more logically rather than flippantly drawing ridiculous borders after liquid lunches which ended up with names like Winston's Hiccup. We should have let them form their own alliances and not stepped in when things got a little tricky. If we wanted to keep them busy, we should have made it clear from the start that we wanted to be their commercial sponsors and patrons and given them skills and trades. We should not have just let them get angry about everything. And don't get me started on Israel. Good idea in theory, but in practice, we should have been more insistent about Palestine and guarding the inhabitants who were already there. And the playing of the anti-Semitism card, getting easily offended by sometimes very trivial things like the recent palaver over the water showers at Auschwitz every time something does not go their way is wearing very thin.

So all these power-flaunting irritations of varying sizes have morphed into a giant middle finger to the Arab world. And in turn, as we have the stability and the power, we are both their enemy and their role model. Their bully and their refuge. Their bomber and their saviour. It is a strange situation to be in. And right now, having invaded Libya on a whim, having deposed Saddam in a little over a fortnight, having spent years in Afghanistan, having overpowered so many brutal dictators, we get cold feet at the very moment when we actually should do something about it. We are creating haters here in Europe due to our lack of a clear strategy and making it seem like our governments don't care. But there is a clear strategy: Russia is a very powerful player in Assad's Syria. The Russians have a fleet based on the Syrian coast courtesy of Assad. Recent pictures show that area to be totally at ease and peaceful. I am quite sure the West had been waiting for IS to overrun Assad all the way to the coast, therefore forcing Russia out of the picture, before stepping in, but now that looks unlikely. So there have been rumblings in France and Britain about sending in more military firepower. The West's distaste in confronting Russia is at least a sign it has thought about a strategy, even though it seems very likely Assad is now entrenched. The optimistic, dare I say unrealistic, plan to force Assad out through a six-month "transition period" is post-colonialist daydreaming, to say the least.

Misleading facts and figures
This is the fact about the Syrian refugee crisis: there were about 20 million people living in Syria before the troubles. Over half of them, about 12 million, have in some form or another been displaced. The vast majority of those, about 8 million, have fled to safer parts of Syria and about 4 million to neighbouring countries like Lebanon and Jordan. Only 250,000 have tried to get into the EU, but more are coming all the time. There are also great numbers of people coming from Afghanistan, Eritrea and Sub-Saharan Africa. The number of people displaced is an appalling humanitarian catastrophe and a very dark period in our history. The total number of people trying to reach European shores is unknown, but they are coming for a reason.

And here is where we need to take an honest step back: not everyone coming to Europe is doing it because their lives are threatened. Many are coming for economic purposes. There are also a number of rumours that are sweeping conspiracy theorist websites everywhere: that there are lots of Jihadists in amongst them, especially since IS warned they would send hundreds of thousands of "soldiers" to Europe back in February. The theories are not stupid and it is not wrong to be worried about this being the case. It is entirely feasible. Think about it: if the price of transport to Kos, Pantelleria or Sicily costs between one year's salary and five years' salary for one of those refugees, imagine how much a family would have to pay to get across the sea. Who is paying for them? The theory goes that some rich Sheiks are paying the traffickers to send hundreds of thousands of Muslims to Europe to dilute the secular population and flood Europe with Muslims. Again, another plausible theory, but not one I have yet chosen to believe.

Right-wing threat
What seems to be threatening to occur now, unless more people are mobilised to intervene and prevent civil unrest, is the following: the Hungarians and the British, with their fence-building and detaining of refugees at Röszke and Calais for no good reason, are no better than each other, and are giving Europe a bad name amongst those fleeing violence. Intimidation, corralling, delaying the process of registration and integration, these are all making new enemies of Europe. Showing pictures of rubbish strewn on footpaths as if it's something new; people rushing police;  people being tripped up in order to get a shot of an angry Arab; these all add to the fuel of hatred being spewed by Europe's many right-wing leaders, like Nigel Farage, Filip de Winter, Marine Le Pen, and Viktor Orban. If we don't properly welcome these moderate, fairly secular Syrians arriving at our frontiers, we risk embittering already desperate people who just want peace.

Furthermore, we seem to have let the right-wing media and politicians tell us these people are just troublemakers in disguise. I have a different theory. These are very, very different people indeed. I know lots of north Africans and Middle-Eastern people from my time living in Belgium. I also know many from when I was in London. They fall mainly into two categories: very well brought up, courteous, thankful, respectful, fully integrated and well-grounded (often much more so than their autochthonous European counterparts); or frustrated, lonely, badly-integrated, vulnerable, impressionable and looking around for a friend. And it is these people who need saving. It is indeed these people that I can relate to and identify, because a similar thing happened to me, although not in a religious context, I hasten to add. If I had been promised friendship, camaraderie and support, I would have given the same back. If I had been told angry stories of mistreatment and insult, I would maybe have wanted revenge for my new friends. It is a very easy hole to fall into, and understanding that these new arrivals are more like us on a human level than we have been led to believe is one thing that scares the right-wing media. So what we need to do is welcome these people immediately, and fast-track them into work and an autonomous life so that they feel part of us as soon as possible. They are, after all, smartphone-using, mostly well-educated, well-behaved people who, like their counterparts of 70 years ago, are looking to escape persecution.

There is hope
And that seems to be happening. Angela Merkel, at least, has played a significant role in alleviating the impact of so many arrivals by firstly spreading the word that people must be tolerant, helpful and welcoming, causing the refugees to make Germany their top destination. And this is currently the case. It is gratifying to see that the German government is making a real effort and taking the lead in showing respect, trust, and a level of humanity these arrivals have not experienced. Many of these people will never go home again. But once the war is over and the cancer of terrorism has been purged, some may choose to return to their ancestral lands. But first, it is necessary to clear the place up.

How? How do you deal with the embodiment of evil that is Islamic State, and how do you persuade people to return to places that have seen such grotesque acts of barbarity and especially to move back into properties that were usurped by other people in the meantime? There is a precedent for this, and that is the Second World War. All sorts of people who were displaced by it, whether Poles, Jews, Belgians, Russians or Germans, the bombs rained down, the mass executions took place, the persecutions carried on, the atrocities widespread. There are still scars of history in places that will forever keep their air of sadness: Auschwitz, Theresienstadt, parts of Warsaw, Bergen-Belsen, Katyn or Dresden in the Second World War are some of those places. In more recent times we can look to Srebrenica, Kigali or the World Trade Centre. All have been places of the most atrocious of crimes, resulting in the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and despite the abominations that took place there, people have still returned, even if many wounds have yet to heal.

I do believe that once the Jihadis of Islamic State and other nefarious organisations have been eradicated, people will once again return to their lands. Not all, but many. In the meantime, the West had better start dropping its proclivities of setting up puppet democracies and learn to tolerate the relative safety and calm brought about by strong dictators. It had also better give the various ethnic groups the chance to run their own lands, not least the Kurds. The Turks will protest long and hard, but the Kurds need to be treated as equals. Once all of these things have been achieved, it is time the West grew up and left that area to deal with itself.

The EU is probably coming to an end and there may be nothing we can do about it

Don't believe me? Take a look around you. Read the papers and watch the news. It's happening. The creaking behemoth that has for years been eating up Europe's nations and swallowing their sovereignty in large chunks is about to burst in a huge bout of indigestion.

The idea is completely barmy to some. I work with EU civil servants all the time, so it is only normal that they will big up their roles and deny any evidence of EU disintegration. They say I'm just a Eurosceptic Brit and enjoy spreading the gloom. But the opposite is true - I am in fact pro-European; I am just anti-Brussels.

The reason for this is that the more Brussels tries to make Europeans and their governments join in their mantra of "ever-closer union", the more they are put off by it. Let us bring the EU into a more condensed setting: if you ask a street's neighbours if they think more close collaboration is necessary, they will say "yes". About what? Well, fighting local crime; putting out each other's rubbish when they're away or have forgotten; feeding their pets when absent; making informal, fair rules on parking; discussing noise levels, building and boundaries, and such like. In a European context, that means fighting international crime and exchanging information (Europol); removing the previous red tape and making it easier to live in another country without needing sworn translations or conversion of qualifications (Maastricht, Pisa and Bologna); bringing better understanding of each other's cultures in an academic setting (Erasmus) and making war an impossibility (Rome and everything thereafter).

What neighbourhood collaboration is most certainly not is knocking down the walls between the houses so everyone can see into your living rooms, kitchens and (heaven forfend) bathrooms and bedrooms. It is not about going on a camping holiday all together and all the awkwardnesses there would be surrounding bodily odours and showering. It is not about allowing neighbours to park on each other's driveways, or rearranging next door's garden so that it becomes the same as yours, or making everyone drive the same car, wear the same clothes, drink the same wine, go to the same shops or listen to the same music. And this cannot be done when new neighbours, who seem to be poorer and less pampered than the others move in, when half reluctantly accept their new arrivals and the others refuse to have anything to do with them. All this will do is create an air of exasperation. It will cause untold damage to neighbourly relations and cause the rapid re-building of walls and a lot of "For Sale" signs to go up in the street.

Having the opportunity to close the door behind you and keep out any unwanted interference in the family unit is not a luxury, it is a right. Being able to choose how you raise your family, what school the kids go to, where you go on holiday, who you spend time with, where you shop, what you wear, and what you eat are your choices and yours alone. Don't be fooled by the need to conform, integrate or do the same as everyone else. It's your life.

The same is of the European Union. There is currently too much integration. The arrival of the Euro was, at the time, a cause for celebration. It relied on the pretence that countries shared the same money even though they didn't share the same budget, pricing arrangements, economic systems, social security systems or even tax harmonisation. that's because, despite the willingness to share currency, nations are really loath to lose more sovereignty to Brussels. And this is where the plan unravels.

If countries are unwilling to open up their books, integrate budgets and amalgamate ministerial portfolios, there is no reason for them to keep up the charade that they really do want ever-closer union. I don't believe they do. And there is a trend running along national lines depending what governments want: the French, when they are unwilling to surrender sovereignty or do something about their overspending (CAP; social security bill) will accuse their detractors of being bad Europeans. This tactic has kept up the illusion that France is a rich nation for many years now. It is not rich; it just has a large territory and population. It is an agrarian country that masquerades as a world power. The Germans will strong-arm the smaller nations into falling into line by finding some other nasty experience to threaten them with, like send Wolfgang Schäuble to shake a finger at them. The British keep moaning and sighing from the sidelines and veto or opt out of everything, while hoping to gain support from other Eurosceptic countries, who often make friendly noises until the Germans and French tell them to step in line behind everyone else. The Italians and Spanish, despite being fairly large countries, do what they are told and the Poles want to join in the Franco-German gang and become the third main motor of the European project.

It would be like Mr Johnson at No 24 and Mr Simmonds at No 26 deciding what all the others in the street should be doing and accusing those who don't want to do the same of being bad neighbours. This is not right. Why should the whole street succumb to the systems dreamed up by the Simmondses and Johnsons, when there are so many other neighbours in the street who are unhappy with their situation? I'll tell you why: because Messrs Johnson and Simmonds have too many good deals going on.

In national circumstances, it means the government of France is creaming off a lot of cash to subsidise its burgeoning agricultural sector without having to reduce it, therefore keeping the farmers from burning Paris to the ground, because it is too feeble and frightened of its militants to take drastic action and take them on, and Germany has profits for life from having persuaded many other countries to integrate with the Deutsche Mark back in the day, and making everyone sign a contract saying "if you break the economic chain, this automatically becomes the property of Germany." Everyone fell for it.

This is no way to run an international organisation. In fact, this can only lead down one path. The inexorable rise of anti-European parties and anti-austerity movements. And who will be the victims? The ordinary people. We will be cutting off our noses despite our faces. The European project is a force for good. It has helped integrate us for the better and for the common improvement of our status in the world and our standard of living. What it has also done is it has shown just how selfish, opportunistic and avaricious nation states really are, even though they won't tell you. Don't forget, what the EU's Council decides to carry out in Brussels is the brainchildren of the 28 EU leaders, not the Commission - that particular institution just carries out the Council's instructions.

Some countries want to play no part in the allocation of asylum seekers; some do not want to make efforts to reduce their national spending; some are unwilling to end their reliance on a particular sector of industry, even if it is anti-competition or even hurting other member states. Some do not want to be at all flexible in the economic plight of the poorer member states. This is all leading to the inevitable withdrawal of countries from various treaties and agreements if they don't get their way.

If I were David Cameron right now, I would feel like a real prize turnip. Having promised a referendum on the UK's membership of the most successful multinational organisation of them all, granting small nations unprecedented standing in the world and prosperity the likes of which had not been foreseen even in the 1960s, I would now find myself in the awful position of being the prime minister who most likely took my country out of it. Nigel Farage and his ragbag collection of buffoons and bigots will tell you that the UK is better out, but they are missing the point. The EU and its institutions are cementing the future for a better society. It is just unfortunate that many nation states, not just the UK, have vested interests that they are unwilling to compromise on. If we could all trust each other, this would not be an issue, but it is.

The other thing David Cameron has failed to realise is he has been visiting various capital cities trying to gather support for his request to get a deal done on UK membership and conditions, but the French and German cabal has pre-empted this by saying it would require treaty change, while at the same time sewing up their own deal that does not require treaty change. This is despicable, underhand, and a brazen attempt to highlight who is in charge in the EU. On the other hand, while Cameron has been trying to negotiate this deal with one pleading face, and with the other, sterner face, with issues like asylum he has been saying "no". He cannot seriously hope to get something out of it if he, for example, refuses to take in his country's fair share of the current wave of refugees. In all of this, hypocrisy and power games seem to pervade. This is not the right climate to instil trust and confidence in your neighbours.

The simple answer to this is as follows: what Europe needs to do is to consolidate its progress so far. Maybe for ten years to a generation, it needs to put any more major integration projects on ice and take stock of its current situation. People need to be aware of how far it has come and the leaders need to take a step back and look on their work, adjust it where necessary and make the system work. If this means that after a shorter time it becomes clear that a Eurozone social security and tax system needs to be set up, or if it becomes evident that greater flexibility and understanding of nations' individual concerns need to be addressed, so be it. The European project has indeed reached a crossroads. The only thing is, one of those future directions is also back along the way we have travelled. And nobody wants to go there, do they?

Finally, Europe needs to take the concerns of its non-Eurozone members into account. It needs to address British, Scandinavian and to some extent central European attitudes to the European project, that have always been seen as non-integrationist and anti-European. It is so far from the truth that it hurts. Everyone thinks that the good things the EU has done are to be cherished and kept. But some are unwilling to drop too many barriers because they value their privacy and right to choose. If certain rights were granted these non-Eurozone countries, I am quite sure they would have nothing against the rest carrying on with their ever-closer union.

I am also one of those neighbours who values his privacy. I don't mind inviting people round for drinks or lending them a few quid until pay day, but I will most certainly not let them open my fridge door or help themselves to the contents of my wallet. And this is why the European project may be doomed in any case: if you get too close to someone, there will inevitably be more arguments.

I don't usually swear, Mr Farage, but I'll make an exception for you

The European elections are in a few days' time, and I am voting with my feet. There are no politicians I really want to vote for and the answer lies in the fact that they are no longer politicians - they are just elected civil servants: bumbling drudges with such negligible inspiration or vision, that they need to pay external organisations known as think-tanks to come up with ideas for them. I could not imagine, when the great William Beveridge sat down to write his paper on the founding of the NHS, that he first called up some freelance ideologues in trendy suits, smoking slim cigarettes and mumbling "here's what we do with this, right?" before fabricating a fanciful presentation full of euphemistic terms like "care pathway" and "care programme approach" (or CPA for short) before sending an invoice for the "work carried out" on its conception. Mr Beveridge was so visionary, so driven and so original, that a copy of his report was discovered by the Soviet army when they arrived at Hitler's bunker.

My point is, politicians fall short of every single mark they are compared to. They are weak-willed, ineloquent, obfuscating, money-grabbing daylight robbers who revel in telling us we need to reduce our budgets yet give themselves fat pay rises and swan about between the darkened windows of upmarket vehicles that most honest Romanians would fail to pay for if they saved up for 20 years.

And this segway brings me nicely to Romanians. And UKIP. And Nigel Farage himself. And his hordes of tub-thumping minions, for they are the beneficiaries of the protest voters' anger at the lack of leadership and vision in Europe at this time.

Type "Farage Romania" into Google and you will see a host of texts and videos about his views on those people, including the fact that he would not want to live next door to any. Well Mr Farage, I can tell you for nothing, you odious little weasel, that I know a great deal of Romanians, indeed several of whom come to my house on a regular basis, and I see them no differently to anyone else. But I see the person, not the nationality.

Then you said something about feeling uncomfortable about hearing a foreign language on a train. Where do you think you are, Nigel, you loathsome scab? I live in Germany and work in Luxembourg. Every day I hear Portuguese, German, French, Lithuanian and lots of other languages being spoken on various modes of public transport I take, and not one eyebrow is raised from any of the other passengers. Only those who bellow inanely into their mobile phones for the rest of the bus to hear and those who play loud music thoughtlessly to us all, thinking we'd like to hear it, but they don't have to be Romanians, Nigel, you opportunistic piece of farmyard genitalia. And I think this is the same in the UK too. So why it should give you the tummy trots, dear Nige, is anyone's guess...

You married a German. And when questioned as to whether it applied to her, you said that she wouldn't speak German on a train.

Oh puh-lease!

But you also feel, do you not, you miserable shadow of a man, that we should know the difference between a German neighbour and a Romanian one, and we would want one much less than the other moving in next to us. Well I live next to a German-French family, and I would gladly swap them for almost anyone, even the Osborne family (Ozzy, not George). They bought the house for €450,000, selling their other properties to pay for it. They have several cars and work in fairly elevated positions. But they are the result of what happens when neighbourhood discipline and respect don't matter any more. Their offspring scream their heads off on their trampoline which is placed strategically next to our land without so much as an admonishing word on the dishonour and embarrassment this brings to their family; the mother glories in showing how upwardly mobile, capable and alpha-male her Tarzanesque husband is; they allow their elder two sons and three boisterous mates to noisily pack their minivan for a week-long trip to the Netherlands at midnight on a swelteringly hot Sunday-to-Monday night in the street outside my open window when the rest of us have to get up for work in the morning, and they love making backhanded compliments about my building and planting work in the garden, and how they are so lucky their garden was ready-made when they moved in. In other words, rich peasants who have no clue how to handle their upward societal trajectory.

I bought my house 6 months before they moved in. If they had been there when I came to view the house, there is no way I would have bought it. I can tell you, Mr Farage, what it is to live next door to nasty neighbours. But they do not need to be poor, or uneducated, or Romanian, or whatever. They just need to be sociopaths. I hate them so much, I don't care if they read this. It will do them good to know the contempt in which I hold them. And only a last-class monolingual, monocultural, uncouth fucking dickpunnet like yourself would associate the quality of a human being with their nationality. Only a blatantly racist scumbag would believe that speaking a foreign language is the path to sedition and deviant behaviour. I speak ten languages, Mr Farage, and I can only tell you how small your world is compared to mine. How much you are missing by not understanding anything else except your own language. How unimaginably broad my mind is compared to yours, because languages are not only about ordering a paella in Palamos or a pizza in Parma, it is also a gateway to understanding how minds work, how the collective memory of a country's inhabitants leads them to react in a certain way to various events in history or gestures you make.

Furthermore, Mr Farage, your own unpardonable views and comments on anyone east of the Oder-Neisse line leads me to this conclusion: I have walked among the poor and destitute of many cities in that part of the world, and this, and I have made some very poignant observations: the poorest people are often those who have the greatest protective instincts, the largest hearts and the most welcoming homes. If indeed they have homes. They can be ruthless when times are hard, but necessity is the mother of invention. If, Mr Farage, they were going to make their way to your home and camp on the grass, rather than calling the police, go and drink a cup of tea with them and see what you can do to help. You may find that showing respect to people will lead to reciprocal action. Rather than deport them for being here, find them a place where they can fit in. Yes, there are lots of rogue elements, but they are from every corner of our continent, and they need to be handled differently. But among those who move to get a better life, would you heartlessly send them back to square one? What has happened to that meritocratic ideal that our country is famous for?

So learn a few languages, go and smoke a pipe of peace and do a little research on why those people act the way they do. Don't pander to the uninformed; that's just being a dickhead. Stand up and be counted, be that visionary we so badly need right now, and lead us out of the darkness of ignorance and small-mindedness.

I apologise for the bad language used in this article, even if I believe and stand by every word I have written.