In the digital age, a Dear John letter is most likely an email or a text, ending a failing relationship. With Britain and Europe drifting apart economically and politically, we should do the decent thing and send that message. It might read as follows:
Dear Europe,
I think it's best you and go our separate ways, as this is just not working any more.
When we first got together in the 1970s, there was a real spark. You were sophisticated and exotic, you took naps in the afternoon, ate dinner late made from strange products like squid or sausages with actual meat in them. All I had was strikes, Heinz hoops and fried Spam served at 5 p.m. Without your influence, I would never have discovered the joys of sex with the lights on or driving cars that could make it out of the factory gate without breaking down.
In recent years, though, we have grown apart. You have become very controlling, trying to dictate whether I am allowed to deport terrorists for fear of breaching their human rights, banning the WI from selling home-made jam as a breach of health and safety laws or even mandating what tax rates my government may charge. I did not sign up to this Fifty Shades-inspired slave contract, to have every aspect of my national life be dictated by your mother-in-law, Germany.
All of this might not matter so much if I felt you respected or valued me. Every year 100,00s of your inhabitants head to my shores to seek opportunities they are unable to find at home, yet you treat me like some kind of pirate lurking on your coastline ready to undo your good works.
What a pity you do not want to learn from my political and cultural heritage. At the risk of picking at old wounds, the recent histories of your member states include (to name but a few) one genocidal dictatorship, five fascist states, two military juntas, three Nazi collaborators and two nations who stayed neutral in the greatest conflict in human history.
My background, in contrast, is a stable government under the rule of the law, where the rights of the individual were advanced and the role of free enterprise cherished. Of course we have made mistakes and are far from perfect. At least we take responsibility for our affairs rather than imagining an unelected bureaucracy might be the solution to our chronic corruption, cultural torpor and serial incompetence. You may learn a thing or two about civil society from me if you once listened.
I did warn you about the Euro and you branded me xenophobic. It is possible to value and respect European cultures and nation states without signing up to a masochistic, wealth-destroying currency union that benefits no one save the Bundesbank.
A divorce would be best for us both, custody of the children (Scotland and Wales) is perhaps best left to them to decide. Alex Salmond you are welcome to keep.
Love
Great Britain
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