We had a Lib Dem Member of the European Parliament, Fiona Hall by name, and she was in my opinion, very good.
She organised trips to Brussels to see the European Parliament and the European Commission buildings. At the latter a young Belgian man gave us a short, sharp, lecture on the European Union, what it was and how it worked, and for us ignorant Brits, kept in the dark by our own Parliament (nothing changed there then) it was a revelation, and made us (well . . .me, anyway) realise just how easy it would have been for, say, the BBC to have done informational programmes putting everyone in the picture. I wouldn’t mind betting that someone, somewhere in or outside of the BBC also had that idea, but on airing his or her thoughts got firmly sat on. At all events, when the 2016 referendum came along there were very few informed voices to present the case for our continued participation and our membership ceased. There are hints in our current news reports that there is beginning to be a realisation among even Brexiteers that maybe we have lost more than we have gained. Professor Chris Grey writes about this in his blog and he must be one of the few people in the UK who really understands the reality of both EU Membership and of our leaving of it. I suspect that very few of our current crop of MPs at Westminster have even a fraction of his knowledge and understanding, and so do not, and cannot, influence our future in this respect, very much at all.
