Well that's convenient, when many British people don't even view themselves as "European". They have Common Law, whereas most European countries are based on some form of Civil Law. The UK has refused to adopt the Euro, and France was initially opposed to letting them join. You're just saying they share your values and culture because it's convenient.
Admit it, you just don't want Turkey to join because you don't like them.
How is Euro an important part of culture? That's irrelevant, every European country had its own currency. Same for France refusing to let them enter, that's not a factor.
As for common law, it's true that it is a different system.
But we have lots of common points, there have always been lots of exchanges (commercial & cultural) between UK and continental Europe.
- Their royal family is German,
- they speak a Germanic dialect,
- we're both christians,
- we've got a common history (enlightment, religion wars, colonization of the new world, industrial age in the XIXth century...)
UK's culture could not be different from ours, since they're our cousins, they're the offspring of European tribes/nations like the celts, the angles, the saxons, the vikings, the normans, and later French and Flemish immigrants...how could they be different?
On the contrary the Turks come from the steppes of Central Asia. Their hinterland is Central Asia, their culture is common with that of the other Turkish people, like those who inhabit Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan. They've got a different language, a different religion, different customs.
The only "European" elements in Turkey are the Greek ruins along the coasts and the fact that they invaded and occupied the Balkans until the XIXth century, until the Balkanic peoples revolted. But if that is a factor, then Turkey is as African or Asian as European since their empire extended from Algeria to Yemen.
