Is the European project still internationalist?

Removed Ghanaian dies of cancer

Gurkha veterans seek equal rights

We are used to being told that the European project is internationalist and, even more, that those who oppose it are absurd Little Englanders.

But it is worth stopping to ask whether this is still the case. On the one hand we have tens of thousands of people from Eastern Europe entering Britain.

If anyone had predicted that they would come in anything like these numbers a few years ago, they would have been accused of peddling an anti-Europe myth. Nevertheless, this development certainly has its positive side, even if the benefits are more apparent to those who employ cheap tradesmen than to those who are competing with them.

On the other hand we see the government acting with less and less compassion to those coming from outside Europe - hence headlines like those above.

I believe that the more lurid predictions of those who see environmental and economic catastrophe around the corner are wrong, but we may yet see a rise in sea levels and greater competition for raw materials.

If we do then the prospect we face is of a Fortress Europe which allows free movement within its borders and deploys its armies to keep other people out. This European nationalism is not an inviting prospect.