Europe
I like the EU as a concept. if you don't let me ask you this..... When was the last major war in Europe? There have been problems here and there but for the first time in a long time there has not been a major war in Europe in over 60 years. I think that is fantastic, and the EU should be there for that reason alone.
As for the political state of the EU, I am not too fond of it in it's current form. The budget has never been balanced, there was a story a year or so ago than any MEP wanting to view the audit of the budget has to sign a non-disclosure document first. Then it leaked, and you understood why they forced the non-disclosure on everyone.
Countries like France have too much power. Huge amounts of the EU budget goes towards subsidising French farmers, everything done in Brussels has to be photocopied and sent to Strasbourg. If there were to be an EU language determined does anyone have any doubt that the French would try and insist French should be in there somewhere. Whereas it should probably be joint English and German. German is the most popular first language, but 51% of the population of Europe speaks English.
I also blame UK politicians. They either force through things on Europe with disregard for public opinion or pander to the public to score political points. I think there should have been a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, simply because one was promised. I would have voted for it, but I still wanted the political parties to live up to the expectations they have set themselves.
Then there was a very stupid speech made by Gordon Brown not too long after he became PM, in which he promised "British Jobs for British Workers". Which is illegal. Part of belonging to the EU is that you cannot discriminate against citizens of other member countries. If someone German or French or Polish were denied a job because they were not British the employer would be breaking the law.
There have been 2.12 million 'New Jobs' created in the UK since 1997 and 81% of them have gone to non-UK employees. Now, as a whole I do not have too much of a problem with this. I think there should be more controls and I think it was a big mistake to allow instantaneous freedom of movement in the EU, but I think the bigger mistake is politicians promising things that cannot be delivered.
It makes people distrustful. "I was told British Jobs for British Workers, but there are loads of Polish people round here, must be the fault of the EU" seems to be the general feeling back home (Lincolnshire).
This is still happening in the current election. GB talks about a points system to decide to let people in or not being used to lower immigration, which cannot be applied to EU immigration and would have very little effect. DC wants a cap on immigration and a points system, but again this cannot be applied to EU migrants. NC wants to limit mobility within the UK (which is a nice idea but far too many problems and would create more problems than it would solve - More on problems with the Lib-Dems next week) but again cannot be applied to the EU.
And while 40 years ago most of the migration came from the Empire, nowdays it comes from Europe.
And while I like open borders, I like the fact that I could go get a job in Zurich or Rome and no one would be able to stop me, I loath the politicians who have created all of the problems associated by this mostly though trying to score cheap political points. All parties are effected by this, no single person is responsible, for the last 30 years Europe has been one big cock up after another, and what could have been a fantastic union of old enemies working together to find a place in the world has turned into an untrusted, unliked, unwanted bureaucratic mess.