What would happen if UK "bailed out" of the EU after 40 years of membership. ?

Disaster for pensioners if the United Kingdom Isolation Party get their way!

K

 I notice Australia and New Zealand are not signatories!!

I think this is the list of countries.  I don't know about observers.

 http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/Commun/ChercheSig.asp?NT=005&CM=&DF=&CL=ENG

This message was last edited by Patdean on 22/05/2013.

I lived the first 25 years of my life in the UK in happiness and contentment under a UK government without the EU or the ECHR interference, I think I can safely say if we dumped the EU tomorrow I could live out the rest of my life in the same security and would not shed one tear, knowing we would be in control of our own destiny and no-one else's !

 It's a totally different world, Mr. White. If Nigel Farage thinks he can take the UK back to some idyllic 1950s he is crazy! This isn't to say that the world is a better place in comparison because it certainly isn't. But to isolate the UK would be tremendous folly and I think the British people would forever regret such a move.

K.

I am not a Mr but a Mrs, and I don't know why people are so frit scared of the UK going it alone, they got through umpteen world wars ALONE with only the other countries coming to our aid when the wars were nearly over and we made it through, we also went through depressions ALONE .   The British had spunk then and I believe they still do, it is only latter day PC'ers, EU politicos and political spineless cowards who want us to take the coward's way out and stick it out no matter what the misery to most people on the ground, probably because they have far more to lose than us.   If the people are willing to take a chance, what right do the government have to deny them a democratic vote to do so?

 Apologies Ms. White. 

As far as I know there have been two world wars and in neither was the UK alone. The beginnings and ends of both are very complicated and certainly not as simplistic as you seem to suggest.

Being isolated could lead to conflict which is something I do not want to see. If that is the 'coward's way out' as you put it, then so be it. I would sooner see my grand-kids in a multi-racial, multi-cultural world than be a little Englander in a country run by people like UKIP, EDL and BNP, because that is where we're heading.

On the referendum, yes, let's get on with it. The majority will not be stupid enough to vote us out of Europe.

Of course, this is only my opinion!

Goodnight....

K.

Now why would anyone want to leave this bloated, inefficient, undemocratic and corrupt organization?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2329554/EU-expenses-MEPs-Brussels-earn-740-average-citizen-enjoy-free-haircuts-gallons-petrol.html

Britiain used to (my emphasis) be able to go-it-alone because they had 'The Empire' and were a world class power, both militarily and economically, with a lot of influence. That is no longer true. Those days are gone. They are not coming back.

The UK currently benefits to the sum of around (exact figures vary) NINETY BIILLIONS worth of EU trade a year.

Simple fact: there are no 'other markets' available to take up that kind of slack. It also puts into perspective the paltry 60 Million a day costs that UKIP keep on whinging about. Not that that figure is even accurate to begin with...

It is notable that most business people (large and small) fully understand these economic realities are are stongly in favour of remaining in the EU. Whenever they speak out, they are now routinely attacked by UKIP fanatics who accuse them of all sorts of traitorous intent, but the simple fact is, these are the people actually running buisinesses, employing people, and bringing money into the country.

By the way, on EU politicians expenses, worth raising that with Nigel, I think. He's boasted of helping himself to TWO MILLION in expenses on top of his already bloated salary as an MEP! In addition to that, other UKIP MEP's have been arrested for expenses fraud:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2105274/MEP-Nikki-Sinclaire-arrested-expenses-fraud.html

and another one jailed for benefit fraud:

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/6975627.stm

Pot calling the kettle black, if you ask me.

 Good morning Poppyseed,

I like your one-liner. The problem is that corruption is rife everywhere, UK included. There isn't one country, one society, anywhere in the world that is not corrupt. The system we love so much, i.e. capitalism, is the main cause of such corruption. Which leads to the next problem: what to replace it with? Everything else has failed because of, , corruption!

There are some very sincere people around who have the ideas but have no chance of putting them into operation. The powers that run the world, and I have to tell you they are not the politicians, will not have it. We are all subject to a 'market dictatorship' and in the forseeable future there is no way out.

Cheerful eh? 

K.

 And, of course, the fine, upstanding UK members of that illustrious parliament would never dream of claiming freebies from the taxpayer for moat cleaning, bars of chocolate and so on.  Whiter than white, that lot.

The latest scandal is the rigging of petrol prices.  We've been paying thousands over the years in inflated costs.  Of course, the UK government and their fine committees and regulating body dug deep into this and rooted out those responsible for ripping off the consumer.  Er, no it wasn't, actually.  It was a EU committee that investigated and exposed it.  The UK completely ignored it.

You will find many stories about things that outrage us, especially if you read the Daily Mail.  Just don't try to make it out it is all one-sided and EU v UK is bad against good.  They're all at it.

I agree, they are all at it.    Especially multinationals who do not respect the EU or its noble aspirations but rather use it to defraud countries in it out of tax, so there is no noble ends to the capitalist dream of only trading with the EU.   Companies like Google, Starbucks and Amazon do not recognise "borders" and use countries all over the world to move their profits so that little gem of an idea put forward by 66d35 puts that to bed nicely !   Companies will move their business and jobs to wherever is the cheapest to run and most profit so they are not limited to staying within the EU.   We need to trade across the world and our business is increasing in that area but needs the access available from withdrawing from the EU.

We may not be an empire but we have not been that for a very long time, long before we entered the EU, so again that does not ring true either.   Governments who support the EU do it for purely selfish reasons, the huge and I mean huge EU gravy train which will secure them their millions, not just thousands as in here, for the foreseeable future.   Hence the Kinnocks, decamped there to sup what they could from the much bigger gravy train.

Brussels too and their politicians are only there and brazening it out despite all the bad news and countries falling like dominoes for what they can get, hence they are not too worried that there have never been any audits of their budgets - would you when something nasty could be discovered about your snouting in the trough ?

66d35 - your assertion that the EU too is supported by commercial business leadeders sounds a bit hollow when you consider the high ranking support now coming forward to support our exit - Nigel Lawson, Norman Lamont and Michael Portillo who said they would vote to leave.    Not exactly sweet shop owners were they ?

Nigel Lawson, Norman Lamont and Michael Portillo who said they would vote to leave.    Not exactly sweet shop owners were they ?

No. Lawson and Lamont are investment bankers (!) (Lamont was director of Rothschild Asset Management) and Portillo has a background in international arms trading....

 right .....

66d35 -

Point is they have all held high office, not that that is a recommendation but none of them are worth a pinch of salt anyway.

As I said, people should be allowed to make their own mind up.

I think you might be surprised by the result of the vote.   I don't give any credence to so called "polls" and "surveys" as i have never met anyone in all the years they have been going, who was asked to vote, so if yougov said there are 46% against the EU, you can probably add on another 20 or 30% to that.   I have never met anyone yet in the last 20 yrs that wanted to be IN the EU, so I think I will make my own mind up on that one.

The world is increasingly being run by global businesses and like it or not, we need an organisation like the EU to stand up to them as in the 'petrol price scandal' in the UK and also to stand up for the human rights of the ordinary man in the street against the power of individual states.  There are more CCTV cameras in Britain than in the rest of Europe put together.

What on earth has CCTV cameras got to do with being in the EU unless you mean big brother is watching you from Brussels which is probably right  ?   There are loads of small countries which are outside the EU which are not scared to death of standing alone and are not being attacked every day either.    The petrol price scandal could easily have been sorted by our own government, the problem is we have 650 ineffectual, limp wristed politicians who couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag and that is our biggest weakness, we have no strong leaders anymore.

Which little old Uk is the one being talked of as not able to stand on its own two feet.... would it be the same one that has the 8th largest economy in the world, the same one that has the second largest in the EU and hugely larger than all but 2 of the EU countries?.

I believe the UK should have joined in full or declined in full all those years ago, unforunately we did not and in my opinion sacrifced the influence we warrant.

I am not at all sure which way I would vote should a genuine and straightforward referendum be allowed but my mind will be swayed by the fact that UK GDP in total and per capita has risen faster than all but the 'tiger economies' of Ireland and Spain to just before the crisis.... the EU has not been all bad for the UK that's for sure.

Barry 

As I was saying...

www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/may/25/migrant-jobs-fruit-farms-kent

Fighter 2 What is the relationship between the question and your posted answer. The question requires a definitive answer not a Liberal don't know not sure possibly maybe. Note the word liberal.

Here is a hint,

The UK would be a better place. It could make all its own decisions. That's all its own decisions.

Try again.

Anton

I nearly fell off my chair laughing when I read that Guardian report about farmers and their loss of European labourers.   I wonder what happened 50 yrs ago when they needed their farms fruit and veg picking, there were no Eastern Europeans here then.    We must have all starved to death, or else if our own people were picking the stuff, we must have been dying from malnutrition because we coulldn't afford to buy it according to them !

Never read such a bullshyte load of propaganda to support unlimited immigration in my life.

With benefits being cut, there are obviously jobs on the farms to be done by our own people and no jobseeker can refuse a job or else suffer losing their benefits, so there is no shortage of labour unless we are talking about the black market employment of paying Eastern Europeans below minimum wage which is going on and let's face it Eastern Europeans will not complain about being paid less than minimum wage as they need the jobs.

As for prices rising with this poorest of excuse, we already buy most of our fruit and veg from other countries anyway, so that again is a load of bull.   Most of the cheapest stuff I buy at the moment is all from outside the UK and I buy it from my local market, not supermarkets which rip you off anyway.