By Bev Haigh-Jones
European Movement Membership Action Day – 20 January 2024
Our last stall, which took place in Falmouth on 20 January, focused primarily on the European Movement Membership Action Day, as well as the current petition relating to Erasmus+.
It was a cold day and not the busiest, but nonetheless, we had enough hardy volunteers, despite the chilly weather, and we had plenty of people wanting to chat and give us their opinions. The majority of opinions mirrored our own, but we did have a few whose views were at odds with ours.
There was one lady who told us that it was all in the Bible – the EU is the reincarnation of the Roman Empire. One of the people who said they had found a Brexit benefit said “we are an independent country”, but was not prepared to engage in any conversation about his reasoning.
As regards the EM membership initiative, we cannot say how many new Cornish members have signed up so far, but there was a great deal of interest and we distributed around 300 membership postcards in various locations. Overall, EM membership has increased by more than a thousand since the campaign.
The European Movement has been in existence since just after World War II, when it was set up to promote friendship, peace and cooperation between European countries. In the early years and, more latterly whilst the UK was an EU member, friendly communication was their main objective. However, in 2023 Mike Galsworthy was elected as the new Chair of the Movement and since then many prominent figures have joined the organisation (Michael Heseltine, Dominic Grieve, Vince Cable, Caroline Lucas, etc), and the membership has grown to over 22,000. The benefit of the new structure of the European Movement is that it gives us all the opportunity to work together, using joint resources, sharing campaign ideas and operating collaborative working.
If you feel, as we do, that the bigger the drive within the UK for rebuilding the relationship with the EU, rejoining Erasmus+, rejoining the single market and, eventually, becoming full members of the EU again, the more chance we have of success, then please join the European Movement today, if you’re not already a member. The membership cost is very low and it is as easy as scanning the QR code shown above and filling in a few details. Alternatively, you can join via their website; https://www.europeanmovement.co.uk/join-actionday.
Next stall event
Our next street stall will hopefully be taking place in Truro on Saturday 24 February. We will have our usual Opinionometer, badges, stickers and relevant leaflets, as well as volunteers to explain the latest campaigns. We will still be focusing on EM membership and the Erasmus+ petition, but also making people aware of the next campaign taking place in early March, called “Face the Music”.
We always like to meet our members, so we would love to see you at the stall. Why not stop by for a chat, put your opinions on our board, pick up some stickers, or a badge – or even stay a while and help out on the stall. Whatever you do, it would be great to have you there.
Full details will be posted on our Facebook Events page and on our website.
Face the Music
The latest campaign by the European Movement is “Face the Music”, a drive to get the government to take action to reverse the post-Brexit rules that have made it so expensive and difficult for performers and musicians to tour in Europe the way they used to. Our involvement is likely to consist of distributing leaflets over the weekend of 1-3 March, perhaps a street stall on 2 March, but possibly also an event at a later date to publicise the campaign. Please keep checking our social media and website for further details and, if you would like to get involved, please contact us here.
Embrace Erasmus+
“The Young European Movement, in partnership with European Movement UK and the British Youth Council, is calling on the UK Government to restore Britain’s membership of the Erasmus+ Programme, which was ended abruptly in 2020 despite promises of its continuation.”
After the success of the campaign to rejoin Horizon where we have at least become associate members, YEM and EMUK are now campaigning for the UK to rejoin the Erasmus+ scheme. They are running a petition to gain support and you can sign it, as well as obtaining more details of the campaign via this link.
