Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-13-Speech-1-065"
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"en.20030113.5.1-065"2
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"Mr President, if I ax my mates back home where they come from, they would say Devon. Not Cornwall, across the river Tamar, which is foreign parts, nor Zummerzet where all they toffs live. That's too close to Lunnon for my liking. As for Lunnon, well that used to be three days on the fast stage coach, and there are many of us folks who never did get used to they newfangled things like horseless carriages and they motorway things that bring all those foreigners to our neck of the woods. So when I tell them that they bureaucrats over the water have made us citizens of Europe, most of my mates say 'thank 'e very much guvnor, but we'm Devon folk and we'm British, we don't need that Europe over here, thank 'e kindly'.
'But,' I says to them, 'they want to bring that Europe much closer to our citizens, so that's all right, isn't it?'
My mate says 'what be'm going to do about it then, dig it up and put it in trucks and pile it up on Dartymoor so we can go and have a looky at 'n?'
'No,' I says, 'they'm going to make us into regions, they'm going to take away our counties and they'm going to make us all one big happy family, along with they foreigners to Cornwall and they toffs to Somerset. They'm even going to throw in they folks up to Gloucestershire and other foreign parts. We'm are all going to be part of the south west region. That is going to bring Europe much closer to our citizens, so we will be all right then, won't us?'
When my mates looked a bit mazed, I said ''tis obvious really, by making us big happy families in regions, with fifteen times more votes than those Luxembourgers, we will really feel part of the European culture. This chap Giorgio Napolitano says we can then be an autonomous territorial entity. Then the likes of me can be on the Committee of the Regions which has recently affirmed its exclusive legitimacy as an institutional discussion partner. With one of they regions, we will be off like a long dog, and then our citizens can all take a fuller part in the integration of Europe'.
‘What's a Luxembourger?’ says my mate.
That is the reality of bringing Europe closer to the people. The only people who want it are the political elites, but the price in the United Kingdom is losing our long-established county structure and with it the rich local dialects that abound. It is a price not worth paying."@en1
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