Britain and Europe

Yesterday was one of those God-incidences days. I had arranged to visit another church, where they have a debt-counselling service, to discuss the possibility of setting one up at St Barnabas. This was in response to an email I sent before Christmas, asking about this and also about Credit Unions. Just before I left for this visit, an email came through: a Credit Union, nearer the City Centre, is looking for a base in our area. Would we be interested? We will definitely follow this up and - who knows? - soon, after months of thinking, dreaming, praying - we may be able to put to good use our redundant office space. Another step in the direction of becoming a community 'hub' on Penny Lane.

I am trying to make sense of David Cameron's speech yesterday about Britain and the Europe. I can't help feeling that this has more to do with gaining political advantage than about Britain's best interests. I don't think that a simple 'in-out' referendum will be helpful at all, since the issues involved are far more nuanced than that. Most of us don't fully understand them anyway - I certainly don't! There must surely be benefits as well as disadvantages to our membership of the European community. Furthermore, how can you negotiate within any organization if all the time your partners know that you could be leaving anyway? At worst, it's a form of blackmail; at best, negotiation would seem a waste of time. The length of time Cameron is talking about before this referendum is far too long, creating years of uncertainty.

The word 'bridges' comes to mind. An island nation surely needs bridges, for two-way traffic of all kinds: trade and tourism, culture and ideas. To cut ourselves off, physically or politically - or to threaten to do so - will surely only make us the poorer. We need to think about what we can give to Europe as well as what we can get out of it. But bridges can make you vulnerable. If the fear is of a flood of  Eastern European migrants, then maybe we should face that fear fairly and squarely. What is needed is not so much an immigration policy as an integration  policy.

I'd be interested in others' views on this.