The future of the Commonwealth

Okay here’s a thought. Tony Blair want the UK to play a central role in Europe but even he doesn’ want a Federal United States of Europe or at least wants no part of it. However that is the direction Europe is going and we in the UK never signed up for it.

Some have said there is another way, we throw our lot in with the USA. Its an outside choice and not a popular one because I think the USA has less regard for us than the Europeans do.

Another way is isolationism, some call it independance I call it a silly idea. We cannot go it completely alone, we have to work with anybody who is prepared to work with us and that includes Europe, the USA, China, Russia, Japan. In short everybody but we need a power base and a robust international organisation in which to acheive this. Fortunately we have the bare bones of such an organisation although it is little more theses days than a talking shop and a sports event every four years. I am of course talking about the Commonwealth and I think this is the ‘fourth way’.

I used to think that the Commonwealth had turned its back on the UK but now I know this is little more than inward thinking propaganda on the parts of British politicians who really are not interested in the future of Britain and care even less about the future of every nation member of the Commonwealth. In short the UK turned its back on the Commonwealth and is desperately hoping that it will quietly dissapear. The bad news is that if things carry on the way they are this is exactly what will happen, probably in the lifetime of many on this forum.

The British politicos are afraid that the Commonwealth will be regarded as nothing more than the last vastiges of empire and that too was never its intended role. So they have let it slip. But we all saw the Queens Golden Jubilee, there were millions of people from all over the world, many from countries that do not have the Queen as their head of state. But they were still there so my question is what are they trying to tell us.

Wake up and smell the coffee?

Bugger off you imperialist pigs?

What was it all about? Is it true that the better part of 1.7bn people world wide really do want to see the Commonwealth work? Not as an empire but as a world wide trading organisation that not only trades with itself but also those around it? A trading organisation that by default would include all of the Americas, all of Africa, the Antipedes, Asia and of course Europe. Not by integration but by accociation in most cases.

They tell us the world is getting smaller so why do they think it would be so difficult to trade effectively with any country anywhere in the world on a truly massive basis? I don’t mean in one direction either. If Britain gets what it actually wants out of Europe countries like Belize would have access to the European market because of it Commonwealth accociation and countries like Nigeria would have access to central American market because of its Commonwealth accociation with countries like Belize. So the potential market of 1.7bn people is actually much much more because the Commonwealth is not an inward looking trading block, it is an outward looking international organisation thats helps others as much as it does its own members. And guess what, nobody has to answer to anybody else, least of all the UK.

Ah well I suppose I can dream. Nobody is gonna go for it least of all the politicians it would be too much like working for a living to them and I think the Commonwealth has been ignored for far too long for anybody to really care anymore.

But what if………………………………..?

Please excuse all of my spelling and punctuation mistakes.