mr president may i concur with the last speaker
some of our colleagues seem to have a very narrow unidimensional view of citizenship and indeed of identity
yet we are all multifaceted i support england in football because i am english and that is part of my identity i support britain at the olympic games in athletics because that is a wider dimension to my identity and i support the european golf team in the ryder cup against the united states and i suspect that even the honorable member who made the remarks just now does too
these are different dimensions to our identity and our citizenship
they are not contradictory but complementary
of course no citizenship of that kind has been attributed by referendum
there was never a referendum for me to be english or to have british citizenship which has been changed from being a subject nor has there been a referendum on the treaties which nearly two decades ago created the notion of european citizenship linking it specifically to certain rights that we have and that we enjoy throughout europe nothing more and nothing less
