UKC

Gove, Galloway, Duncan-Smith, Farage and now Boris. What a team. Read this and abandon hope. We're all doomed...

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21693584-leaving-eu-would-hurt-britai...

In reply to Pekkie:

I'm doubtful there are many even hard core sceptics who really believe there will be much to gain financially from going it alone (and of course there's a very real likelihood the UK would end up worse off), but for those more troubled by issues of national sovereignty I thought this paragraph was particularly telling:

"To some Eurosceptics these hardships would be worth it if they meant reclaiming sovereignty from Europe, whose bureaucrats and judges interfere with everything from bankers’ bonuses to working-time limits. Yet the gain would be partly illusory. In a globalised world, power is necessarily pooled and traded: Britain gives up sovereignty in exchange for clout through its memberships of NATO, the IMF and countless other power-sharing, rule-setting institutions. Signing up to treaties on trade, nuclear power or the environment involves submitting to regulations set jointly with foreigners, in return for greater gains. Britain outside the EU would be on the sidelines: notionally independent from, but in fact still constrained by, rules it would have no role in formulating. It would be a purer but rather powerless sort of sovereignty"

In reply to john arran:

I believe we're just as "powerless" being in.

In reply to elliott92:

We're actually a pretty powerful force within Europe, and would be a lot more so if we actually bothered holding our MEPs to account rather than treating the European elections as an irrelevant sideshow and then moaning about how "undemocratic" it is.

In reply to elliott92:

^^^ this

In reply to Ramblin dave:


While the average person which complains that the EU is undemocratic may not appreciate that this is generally referring to the European Commision not being directly electable,that doesn't alter the fact that it is undemocratic.

I don't understand why they don't make it directly electable and then the 'undemocratic' argument could legitimately be countered.

In reply to Ken Lewis:
Its more like a civil service. All the commissions ideas are subject to democratic political oversight. (even though this could be improved)

In reply to john arran:

"I'm doubtful there are many even hard core sceptics who really believe there will be much to gain financially from going it alone (and of course there's a very real likelihood the UK would end up worse off)"

Leaving is a luxury, and will be priced as such

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

I like luxuries

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:


Perhaps quality of life doesn't have to be purely financial, but quality of lifestyle. Pick your own laws. Perhaps the UK could then help certain industries without being in breach of competition laws etc...

In reply to Ken Lewis:


because no one would vote for man who once ran a country with the population of Bristol to be President of 500,000,000 people.

In reply to Pekkie:

Can I ask why you provided a 'Tabloid Headline' and then mentioned certain politicians, and then followed it up with an article from the Economist?

In reply to Ramblin dave:



I would have thought Lib Dem MP's currently have more influence in the UK parliament than our MEP's have in Europe.

In reply to Ken Lewis:

The eu institutions balance powers between the eu parliament end the member nations, represented through the EC and the EU council.

People keep saying that it should be more democratic, but on the other hand if the eu parliament was all powerful they would complain about the loss of sovereignty.

Things can be improved but I think the balance is not too bad as it is, especially since the last treaty.

In reply to summo:

I've always suspected there could be a certain 'market forces' thinking behind how little our government helps UK companies when it comes to competition laws, I've never quite got round to looking into it more, or had the time though, it just seems 'very un French' as it were.

Now's the time to look into it I guess.

In reply to RomTheBear:

Are you employed by the eu?

In reply to summo:
Are you employed by UKIP?

repeated ad infinitum....

Do we have to have four months of people in favour of staying in the EU being asked if they work for the EU and similar*?

*...and the reverse.

In reply to Ramblin dave:

How do you think we should hold our 73 out of the total 751 MEPs to account?

24 of the 73 elected, nearly a third, were UKIP MEP's who had campaigned on a platform of non-cooperation, how do you hold them to account?

How do you think that the 49 cooperating MEP's , or 6% of the total MEPs, can get a democratic settlement for the UK which is in our interests?

In reply to Timmd:


Of course not, never in a million years.



Nope, I just asked a simple question.

In reply to summo:

Fair enough, I just had an awful vision of the next four months.

Pardon my out of turn-ness.

My posts are generally posted in a friendly or tongue in cheek tone of voice in my head.

In reply to Timmd:


For a while the UK were selling loft insulation and like... vat free, or with a government subsidy. To help meet EU carbon targets, but they were threatened with EU court action, as it was favouring shops selling insulation in the UK. I'm not sure how many people previously were driving to France to buy loft insulation, but I imagine the market value would have been lower than the cost of the EU taking the UK government to court. So somewhere in Brussels, taxpayers money was wasted on this.

In reply to summo:
Totally, that was rather a waste of tax payers money. I wonder if our government tried to rebuff it with the environmental benefits, or pressed to have an exemption made for things like that, rather than just accepting it?

I have a perception that our governments only grudgingly engage with things EU related, but I don't know how much of that is to do with the media in this country, and how much it is true.

In reply to Timmd:


I think any country is limited in what they can do, big countries have disproportionately less EMPs so they can't railroad and bully the smaller members, who have extra EMPs. That's democracy for you.

In reply to Pekkie:

looks like Stu Donaldson SNP (23yrs) has wrapped up the whole campaign it's all over. He has 'claimed' in the commons today that cheap holidays to Europe would end, no more 18-30s etc.. and you won't get access to Netflix either... The wisdom of youth, found a real winner there haven't they.

I imagine the out campaign will be having a big meeting tonight now!

In reply to Eeyore:


I give in.

In reply to Eeyore:


Sorry, I forgot this one from the Financial Times.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e7b2d4d4-daea-11e5-98fd-06d75973fe09.html#axzz41D...

In reply to Pekkie:

Just playing Detective here. You are a writer of crime novels.

In reply to Eeyore:

Yeah, but he can crimp like f*ck as well. Just to up the non sequitur stakes.

Mick

In reply to summo:


Personally I'm more concerned by his history as a facilitator of tax evasion policies than the size of the country he was born in.

Why is the size of the Luxemburg population relevent... can someone from an entity with a small population not be a valid leader of a larger entity?

Are only leaders with experience of leading nations with hundreds-of-millions entitled to lead the EU? Does that mean Putin is a better option than the leader of some random-but-well-run-small-population-country, like Norway for example?

In reply to Mick Ward: