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It’s politically expedient at the moment to allege the EU is a failing organization. It does face difficulties on multiple fronts but failing it is not. It was a leap in the dark in its original form. However tell me what brave new human endeavor is ever perfect in its conception? The EU evolves, slowly I accept but how could it not, given its size and complexity?
It dealt with the economic crisis in Spain, Greece and Portugal. Not by waving a magic wand but by giving these countries the opportunity to turn their economies around themselves. Consider how Spain has benefited from the EU since membership. Development, peace and prosperity not dreamed of when I first came to the country when Franco was in power. Spain then was a third world nation and the main form of transport was a donkey.
The migrant crisis is one not engineered by the community but by accepting its humanitarian responsibilities the EU has shown a willingness to lead. Yes that response has caused problems between member states but failing it is not. The EU is working its way through problems by negotiation and not conflict. Were the EU not there individual countries would act unilaterally without consequence and make a bad situation worse. History always repeats itself because subsequent generations ignore the mistakes of their forefathers.
There is a tendency today to be cynical about politics and the personalities involved who choose to lead. It’s healthy to be a skeptic but cynical disregard for an organization which is a force for good in the world is plain wrong. Leaving it behind and believing you don’t need to be part of it is, probably the greatest political mistake this generation can make
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Time is the school in which we learn
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz.
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50 states in the USA, albeit with 50 governers, but having one president, one secretery of state and one treasury helps to keep this Goliath of a nation in some form of order. What the EU consists of is 28 sovereign nations with 28 leaders and 28 governments, some are bankrupt, some are still shaking off the dust of Soviet domination whilst at least the UK hasn't been invaded since 1066 AD, we don't need the respective might of Brussels and The Hague, not to mention Berlin to hold our hand, I'm all in favour of co-operation with the EU but draw the line at domination from it.
Just to remind some of you guys of what happened in 1973 and 1975, we voted on and ratified our membership of a Common Trading Market, what on earh happened to it?
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I'm Spartacus, well why not?
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Hep
You have a good point but until all the countries and citizens in the EU stop this c**p about national pride, sovereignty, racism, selfishness and greed pushed on ALL of us from all angles by a few who think they know what we all want such as the media, politicians, fatcats, scaremongering etc etc ect we will struggle to make it better
The UK with its arrogance, I’m all right Jack and better than you attitudes simply does not help.
I have said before I see no reason why we can’t have a fully united EU with one leader with local areas having some control of what happens in our daily lives similar to what the UK has in the 4 country state of the UK or the USA model neither of which is not perfect but we could work at it improve it by having a focus on the main things every individual really wants and needs which in my view are:
- Housing
- Jobs
- A Welfare state that provides when needed
- Pensions
- Education
- Health Care
- A few of life’s small luxuries which can be achieved with hard work
At the end of the day we are all human beings with friends and families and why should any single person have to suffer at the hands of bureaucracy
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“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge”
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Dont forget when considering individuals' needs and priorities to add Justice and adherence to the Rule of Law on that list of yours, Tadd1966. ;)
European citizens are not only suffering at the hands of bureaucracy but also at the hand of powerful financial institutions etc that appear to have greater control than Govts over our daily lives. Hence the need for action by the EU to regulate and make large corporations/Banks accountable and to set in place effective measures to ensure they not only pay their fair share of tax to assist in the provision of those priorities on your bucket list of priorities, Tadd, but also are made fully compliant (not just rhetoric) to adhere to new ethical standards identified since the crash of 2008.
The EU should be a protectorate for all EU citizens in this regard but sadly this is not the reality.
Regulation, transparency accountability and compliance should not be considered as a threat to growth, moreover it should be just the opposite and act as an example of what can be achieved if managed fairly and effectively. To imply that these things take time is to overlook how essential it is to focus on those areas that have the potential to make greater provision of monetary resources available so that citizens needs can be addressed in a far more effective way.
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Call me old fashioned but I don't go much for vote for Blair and get Brown, neither did I vote to join a union of nations that were planning to invite every waif and stray bankrupt country to join them, when they had refused us membership for years and then do a Adolf Hitler minus the genocide.
Make no mistake, Angela Merkel must be bricking herself now that she realises that some of us haven't fallen for her three card trick, however she is a very intelligent woman and surely must have at least the makings of a plan 2. I'm ever the optimist and can't imagine the EU wanting to lose the membership of the 5th largest economy in the world. All this 'big is good' is rubbish, I feel a lot safer with our own elected government, whichever party forms it, and membership of a common trading market.
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I'm Spartacus, well why not?
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I thought this view written in the Guardian has merit and probably much truth in terms of the consequence of Brexit.
The only country so far to leave the EU was Greenland when it gained independence from Denmark. It took them three years of negotiations to achieve it.
The first betrayals would flow quickly as the government began negotiating its way back through tiers of European cooperation: access to the single market; protections for UK workers and pensioners in other member states; cross-border policing and security collaboration; the whole edifice of legal harmonisation that allows people and goods to flow unimpeded from one member state to another. No serious advocate of Brexit denies that a partial Bre-entry would follow. Yet none can agree how far to go back in, nor how much to pay for the privilege.
Emulating the Norwegian or Swiss models would require compromise in terms of contribution to the EU budget, acceptance of Brussels-derived regulations and porosity of borders. Any combination of those would so dilute the severance package advertised to British voters as to constitute grievous mis-selling.
So as I have written on here before the whole Brexit debate is bogus because the UK will still need to belong to most of it's institutions. The debate is principally designed in my view to silence the 'bastards' in the Conservative Party once and for all. High stakes poker.
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Time is the school in which we learn
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz.
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The very sad truth is that there are a lot of voters who are ignorant, naive, bigots, isolationist and harken back to imaginary glory days. I've ploughed through every post on this topic and the fact is that every one of them does contain a measure of reason. But I don't understand what we hope to achieve as a country. The problem with referendums is everyone gets a vote. I recall a high court justice exlaining that if you held a referendum to sacrifice all new baby boys you would actually get some voters who would mark an 'X' in the yes box.
Do we really think being out of the EU is going to stop migration? Do we even really want that? Can we actually survive without it?
Do we think that being out of the EU is going to stop refugees coming to the UK? Do we really want to have closed doors to those who need our help? The UK has a proud reputation for being a welcoming place to the needy and I for one am proud of that fact. I don't want my country to be like North Korea. The idea that 'charity begins at home' died out a very, very long time ago. We are part of the gloabl community.
Do we think that business (and more directly shareholders, of which any one who has a non-government pension, is in reality one) can be trusted to but their social (workers, consumers, the environment) responsibilities before profit? We can't. We will have to have regulations and they will be the same as what they are now. Will we have to comply with regulations and laws in other countries? Absolutely if we want to sell them goods and services, or be educated abroad or go on vacation. We will not have to comply with foreign rules internally as we will have our own; is that sovereignty? Will we have a say on foreign laws; nope. If you are not part of a club you don't get a say. Will we have the protection of the club via the laws of the club. Nope. We will be treated as refugees and migrants.
Do we think that business will debate 'business'? Sorry they will just pack up their capital and go elsewhere if it does not suit them.
Will trade be easier in the EU or out? That is a very complex issue but it is likely we get a zero sum result. We might sell more to non-EU and less to EU, but we are not suddenly going to have the whole world coming to us saying I want to buy British. Do we really want to go back to the glory days of declaring everything bought abroad and paying duty on it?
When has leaving a club and going it on our own ever been a cheaper solution? Never.
Will we survive not being in EU; of course. Just as we will by staying in the EU. So what are we going to face. For certain we are going to have four months of uncertainty. Currency, stock and real estate markets are going to go up and down wildly. Investment is going to be put on hold; both internal and external because we just don't know how the vote will end. Are we going to spend millions on campaigning for in or out. Yup.
For those that say we can't go it alone, you are wrong.
For those that say getting out of the EU will solve lots or many of our problems, you are naive/ignorant.
For those that say, "well, this is another fine mess we have gotten ourselves into", I say spot on. We are going to spend a lot of money to debate the issue, create divisions within our own country, have lots of uncertainty and be distracted from the real issues we face. If we stay in we will get some minor tweaking to rules that are modestly beneficial. If we say no, it will cost us a fortune to either go back in at a later date in a junior role or adopt an alternative model for dealing with the EU.
There is not going to be any winners. We are just going to look like dopes on the world stage and make ourselves even littler and unimportant and whinging. But we all get a say in that process. Whoopee!
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My best mate's step son in law is a director of a very successful family business that specialises in importing high worth furniture from Italy. On asking him how an 'out' vote would impact on his business he said that the paperwork would increase and that claiming back VAT would be more time consuming, other than for this he reckons that it would be business as usual, however he will be voting 'in'.
I conclude from the content of some posts that the way to go would be to have e referendum to highlight which way people were likely to vote, followed by another that achieved the desired result by selection. And as for the 'bigots and isolationists who harken back to the imaginary glory days', I fully agree, the kids who died during the Battle of Britain were simply dick heads who were delaying the inevitable subjugation of the UK into the Third Reich
It is a great shame that this cannot be debated in an adult manner, I recall two old friends on opposing sides of the political spectrum, one firmly for 'in', the other for 'out', however one was obviously a bigot, these old friends were Ted Heath and Denis Healey, one a Lt Colonel the other a Major back in the imaginary glory days.
Folk like perrypower1 fully deserve the weight of the jackboot on the back of their neck.
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I'm Spartacus, well why not?
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Godwin's Law strikes again. Bye Bye topic.
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What will be interesting no matter which way the vote goes for the entire UK is;
What about the vote count for the individual states of the UK.
Examples
UK votes to stay in
One (or more) of the 4 nations (NI, Wales, England or Scotland) have their own vote count that wants out
Will this fuel a demand that they then want an independent vote so they can go it alone?
Or
UK votes to get out
One (or more) of the nations (NI, Wales, England or Scotland) have their own vote count that wants to remain part of the EU
Will this fuel a demand that they then want an independent vote so they can remain in the EU?
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“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge”
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I fear you are right bobaol. The terms Berlin, Adolf Hiltler, Third Reich, Genocide and Jack Boot have now all been used in this thread. Pretty much meets Goodwin's criteria.
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Without tracking back I recall 'thickos' and 'bigots' being mentioned on this thread, but perrypower1 appears to be solely on my case, such is life. 
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I'm Spartacus, well why not?
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I wonder if Europe is all that bothered anyway if we do leave interesting about Scotland holding second Referendum
This is going to be an interesting few months
This message was last edited by rod on 25/02/2016.
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Based on some very rough calculations
For Scottish Welsh or northern irish voters to have any influence on eu vote a very low turnout of English voters would be needed
Suprised Nicola sturgeon hasn't picked up on this
This message was last edited by Tadd1966 on 25/02/2016.
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“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge”
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I think it's more a case of the regional voting. If a large majority of Scots vote in but the overall majority is for out then Sturgeon could say Scotland is not represented and call for another referendum on independence.
Not that she'd get it. It's down to parliament agreeing and I doubt if they would have another "Once in a lifetime" vote on it.
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The reason I am voting NO
327,000 most are EU migrants per year and we can't stop it with open borders most a coming from Eastern Europe.
I myself at the age of sixty will not get a pension untill 66 years of age but it could rise to around the age of 70 by the time I reach 66 so I have been told.
The NHS is overloaded.
We have no Housing for these immigrants.
The social security benefits system is being sucked dry with immigrants that haven't paid a penny in it's a known facked the the easter Europeans onced established in the UK are bringing their parents of pensionable age in to the UK to claim a full pension and their is nothing the government can do to stop it it's totally leagal as we are part of of the EU.
I was told many years ago that their is no such thing as living for free yet in the UK if you're a immigrant that doesn't want to work you will get a rent free house don't have to pay Council tax full unemployment benefits free school meals and family allowance all without paying a penny in ,now the UK has been told to get ready for Turkish and the Bosnians that are going to come to the UK when they join the EU.
This message was last edited by windtalker on 25/02/2016.
This message was last edited by windtalker on 25/02/2016.
This message was last edited by windtalker on 25/02/2016.
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Scotland has already had two referendums in my lifetime another after Brexit would be a third.
It really is an odd position to take where Sturgeon wants out of a 300 year democratic union that has brought prosperity to Scotland yet still wants un undemocratic union which is holding us back in terms of world trade.
Being a proud Briton with both English and Scottish forebears and belonging to a golf club in Hertfordshire where more than 10% of the retired members are Scots I cannot understand why the whole of the UK does not get to vote on the future of GB should there be another referendum on Scotland. We all live on one island.
Seems that there are a lot of people that think the Kraken will emege from the med and eat us all up if the UK leaves the EU. When we joined all that happened was we paid out a hell of a lot of money and our ballance of trade with the EEC slowly went from positive to negative.
Even if it was to be a complete break, four months is a highly optimistic time period. My guess is that it would be more like four years and everything would depend on the skill of the UK negotiating team. Considering the rotten deal when we went in it does not fill me with optimisim. But lets hope that the sceptics who know the EU insideout are included in the team in this case.
However if we are confident in our country and vote out I would expect there to be protracted negotiation followed by another vote at a well chosen time in order that we give the 'right' answer (as in the case of Denmark and Ireland).
This message was last edited by tteedd on 25/02/2016.
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Windtalker.
Migrants provide a useful labour pool which benefits UK business. British people on benefits will not work in menial jobs for the wage migrants earn. Most migrants will work if they can, pay taxes and social charges. They often bring much needed skills lacking in the existing population.
Membership of the EU does not have any relationship to your increased UK pension age. That is a UK internal decision based on the population living longer.
The NHS has always been overloaded. Waiting lists existed thirty five years ago when I last lived in the UK.
Migrants pay rent as they would in their own country in the housing private sector and benefit the existing buy to let market.
Migrants come to the UK to work. It is a fallacy they come to claim benefits. Research has shown most migrant from the EU contribute and benefit the economy. Their elderly relatives would not be entitled to a UK pension unless they had contributed into the system for a number of qualifying years.
I am a retired British migrant in Europe. I contribute and pay taxes to the economy of every country I live in Just like any other migrant I expect to receive healthcare based on my previous contributions I made in my own country. EU retired migrants in the UK are the same. Their own country contributes to the NHS on an agreed quota system.
This message was last edited by Mickyfinn on 25/02/2016.
_______________________
Time is the school in which we learn
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz.
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In 1914 - 1918 Germany tried to starve us out of the war by sinking our shipping.
In 1939 - 1945 the Nazis tried the same and came close to succeeding.
In 1958 we had a dock strike. It was calculated that we had two weeks supplies. Politicians were saying that we should encourage emmigration to Australia or New Zealand. The population was less than 50 million. The official population is now more than 66 million (but could be much more as we have very little idea how many unregistered people we have). If there was a breakdown in trade due to disease, a war in some other part of the world or reduced food output due to a volcanic ash (as as happened in the past) or simply global warming, most of us (in the UK) would starve.
Further immigration is madness
This message was last edited by tteedd on 25/02/2016.
This message was last edited by tteedd on 25/02/2016.
This message was last edited by tteedd on 25/02/2016.
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