I think that this is how I feel and if push came to shove I would vote to stay in. One thing though, we are not alone having doubts about EU membership. I worked in Germany for a good while and the ordinary working "person" over there had just the same reservations as us.
I tend to think the EU is basically liked by all politicians, its their way out when things go wrong, they can always blame EU meddling to get themselves off the hook. Having said that, the EU is a collection of people that make silly rules and laws, in order to justify their existence, and wages, plus expenses. Its a giant, pointless, organisation, probably doomed to break itself up, unless the powers thatbe can suck everyone in so tightly that leaving would be suicide, hence the "United States of Europe" approach and the ever increasing involvement in the member countries own affairs. I'd like us to get out tomorrow, but cant help wondering if the noose has been allowed to get too tight already, we could go it alone with only the rest of the world to trade with, but I think we have up to a point missed the boat there. I'd like to add another question, Cameron says he wants to renegotiate our terms, does anyone think the stands a cats chance in hell of getting anywhere with them?
As had been said before in this thread, we're the only country daft enough to go along with every law, rule & stipulation which the EU tries to thrust upon all member states. And where UK law & EU law differ, EU law overrules any native ones we have. It's in danger of creating nanny states, or worse
I think that if it were known in Europe that unless we could get a better deal then the UK referendum would swing towards "let's walk" it would be possible. The harsh fact is that they need us as much as we need them.
The idea of a united Europe was conceived in a time when the world was a very different place. Although there have been many things that have changed and certainly could have not been foreseen by the original "architects" of the EU, in my opinion the two biggest occurrences which have most eroded the effectiveness of the EU is the last recession due to pure American greed and the rise of China. Both have directly caused the loss of millions upon millions of jobs and created a huge trade deficit. Had these two things not happened, I truly believe that the EU would be thriving and we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Now more than ever, we need to band together rather than going for a fragmented Europe. Of course there is a down side to this, just like with any big family, in bad times the relationship between the members are strained. Even though I'm not residing in the EU currently, I am a citizen of it and even though I do feel disillusioned with it at the moment, my vote went to staying in.
Sorry, but I dont think they need us at all. They consider us to be a thorn in their side, and as its mostly run by two countries, one of which tends to hate our guts most of the time, I dont think they give a monkeys. The answer will always be non.
adolph hitler was probably not the first to think of it, but he's the first that I know of to think of it. Its easy to blame the yanks, but the fact is they are no more guilty of causing the recession than any other country. There is something that the politicians in the UK have always been careful to not publicise. That is that all financial organisations in the UK are bound by strict rules set by a government body, the former FSA (Financial Services Authority). The FSA, ie the government, turned a blind eye to reckless behaviour by the banks, because they were winning during the boom immediately prior to the bubble bursting. Germany was recklessly lending to Greece on a grand scale, because it was stimulating their own industry, particularly their car manufacturing industry, as many Greek people were buying German motors on the never never. At any point during the boom, somebody could have said "hang on, how much of the money is real, and how much is just numbers in a computer system". Eventually somebody did, and the answer was not pretty. The rise of China is entirely the result of western greed. The UK is as guilty as any other country. We voluntarily give them all our money in exchange for tat that falls apart within an hour. I don't consider myself to be any more clever than average, or any more wise than anyone else, and certainly I wasn't back in the 1990s when "New Labour" under Tony B'liar won the election. I remember people being delighted that Conservatives had been ousted, while I felt sick in the pit of my stomach, knowing that a professional liar was now going to give our country away to someone else. I remember thinking about my grandads, and many thousands like them, who'd fought hard to protect Britain from being ruled by a dictator in Europe, and now its just been given away without a fight. I foresaw then that it was not going to be everything that was promised. In my mind, I had a good job. Most of the people I knew had good jobs. The company I worked at was trading internationally, as were many other companies that I knew of. They were doing alright. Britain was managing fine. Ok, we'd just come out of another recession, but being in something like the EU wouldn't have prevented that, just like being in the EU didn't prevent the current one. I couldn't see any advantage to us giving our country away. All I saw was less independence and more money leaving Britain (we pay to be a member). It also happened right at a time when Europe was already going through one of its frequent changes. Yugoslavia had just split and not long before that the USSR had collapsed. In the face of yet more failed unions in Europe, the politicians were creating yet another one, with the same diversity of culture (read differences) as the ones that had just failed. Europe is, always has been, and always will be fragmented. We've already seen several high profile fall-outs in Eastern Europe since the EU came into being (ok, not among EU members that I'm aware of). In Spain you still have the various groups wanting (and in some cases fighting for) independence. In the last few years some of the Balearic Islands have been officially declared Catalan, and won the right to have catalan as their official language. They've still got the bother from Basque seperatists. I'm not sure any more where we're at with the troubles of Northern Ireland but that's constantly on and off, Spain keeps goading us over Gibraltar, and Turkey and Greece despise each other and the only thing that stops them coming to blows in Cypress is a NATO defined no man's land running right across it. Oh and Scotland is leaving us soon, after about 300 years of being in a union with us, which if my limited understanding of history is correct, was only formed in the first place in an attempt to end the constant squabbling between England and Scotland. Lets scale it down a bit. Lets say that you and a handful of other people have significant differences of opinion, but at the same time you have some common interests. What would work best? Shove you all in a room together, and tell everyone that not only is nobody leaving that room, but also you have to agree amongst yourself what the rules are; or saying your all free to do whatever you want to do, but you have the opportunity to work together when it suits you, to trade together, to stand up for your common interests together, but walk away if you personally don't agree, without affecting the rest of the group? You mentioned China. China is a good example. Its is not in the EU, but we do a huge amount of trade with them and are not currently at risk of fighting them. We disagree with a lot of their laws and practices, so we simply don't adopt those laws and practices. Would we still trade with China is the conditions were that we have to do away with unrestricted access to the internet and media? Or what if they said they'd only trade with us if we agreed to physically beat people who had the nerve to have an opinion? Just a thought, but there is evidence that Britain and mainland Europe were trading together as much as 6000 (yes, six thousand) years ago.
@clueless1 I don't think Hitler's view of a "united" Europe really counts as his vision was basically just an expansion of the Third Reich strictly for the Aryans, but best we leave that one alone. As regards greed, sure most nations are complicit in it but the fact remains that: 1) It was mostly the American banks that started it by approving loans to anyone regardless of whether they could service those loans or not then came up with fancy schemes to sell on that debt. 2) It was the Americans (Kissinger) that started the Cyprus problem as they favoured Turkey because they needed military bases there to be close to the middle east. 3) It was the US that needed cheaper manufacturing facilities for their big businesses and sent a delegation of congressmen and business leaders to China to bankroll the opening of factories there and completely bypassing restrictions placed on trade and supplies to China which in most cases were initiated by the US themselves. Let's not even go down the route of UNITA in Angola, Noriega in Central America, that nutter in Iraq and even Bin-laden and their support of him and his militia in Afghanistan during the Russian invasion. Plus the only reason the US came to the aid of Europe in WWII, is that it saw it's influence diminishing and it's safety being threatened otherwise it would have been quite happy to stay "neutral" and use Europe as a buffer between itself and Germany. If you read some of the correspondence between Churchill and his cabinet ministers, you will know that he thought Roosevelt to be a whimp. I'm seeing a pattern emerging here. Sure, there will always be differences between the European nations, but it's exactly in times like this that we need to put those differences aside and concentrate on the common interests as each country going it alone will just spell even more misery for their populations.
I thought the only reason USA got involved with Germany in WW2 was that 2 days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Germany (and Italy) declared war on USA.
Had they not? When the Japanese attacked Pearl harbour in Hawaii, the US finally realized that Europe was not as big a buffer as they first thought.
I think you will find that the US were proping up the war effort in Britain well before America actually joined in themselves.
@pete The US was indeed helping Britain financially all the while it enjoyed a good trade with Japan. It was only once Japan started it's "expansion" drive into parts of China that the US saw Japan as a potential threat and started clamping down. This in turned led Japan to sign the Tripartite agreement with Germany and Italy. The point I'm trying to make is the US is well known to jump sides mid stream and only help when it has something to gain itself. We only have to look back at recent history to see this.
To be fair to the US though, they are hardly unique in this respect. If the government's advisers here in Britain had decided in the late 1930s that trouble in Europe was going to stay in Europe, I doubt very much we would have bothered to declare war with Germany. Lets temporarily remove morals and ethics from the equation. War is an extremely expensive and risky business. Why would any nation that is run by anyone with only the normal level of insanity ever take their country to war? With the exception of leaders who are so far beyond insanity that they make the average politician look like a very nice person, nobody takes their country to war unless it is either necessary or there is something to be gained. I firmly believe that when Britain declared war on Germany, it was nothing to do with the rights and wrongs of Poland having been invaded, it was entirely about the fact a mad man was becoming way too powerful, was busy killing anyone that didn't think the way he wanted them to thinking, had the potential to create a superpower of great evil, and was within very easy reach of Britain. When Britain declared war on Germany, many thousands of Polish people fled to Britain and promptly joined our armed forces. Had they not done so, very likely we would not have been victorious, as little old Britain simply couldn't muster enough people to fight the might of Germany and her allies. It is well documented for example that a significant proportion of pilots in the battle of Britain were Polish. Had Britain not declared war when we did, then most likely those Polish people that were not killed would have lived to hate us, and would not have come to join us, but rather fought against us, and we would have lost. We nearly lost anyway. If the balance of power was any more out of our favour we wouldn't have stood a chance. Its easy to say that with hindsight but I bet there were some very insightful people in Britain at the time that knew it then too.
