Brexit - am I stupid or what?

[QUOTEbecause we retained the Sterling as our national currency, we are not allowed to attend, contribute or influence any financial meetings, decisions or policies of the EU.
If we had abandoned the Sterling we would not have been able to hold a referendum as to whether or not we should stay or leave.
[/QUOTE]

This is the first I've ever heard of this. What do you mean?

 

All good then as I have a 1979 classic mini in the garage that keeps going up in price. Another plus, the indicators on classic British cars worked unlike todays bmw's and audi's

 

I see. Because you had written "any financial meetings, decisions or policies of the EU" I thought for a moment you meany "any policies" of the EU, but it seems we are talking about purely the "financial" decisions. I'm not sure about this, as Britain has the same proportion of MEP's etc as any other state, and I'd need to see some hard evidence - preferably in the form of an official written statement in an EU Treaty - that specifies the UK is barred from having any influence on finance.
If you mean decisions about the value of the Euro and such, well to be honest I can understand this. We have always chosen - rightly, I'm inclined to believe - not to join the Euro, and as such I can't see why we should have any special right to influence it. Every country in the world is affected by the Euro and the Dollar. If a state which has not adopted the currency had a say in how it was managed, this would be a gross irregularity and a step into decidedly dodgy moral territory.

 

[QUOTE'the people' (who bothered to vote) ... I really hate this blanket term [/QUOTE]

I just wanted to ask you about your own blanket terminology, when you talk about having "bothered to vote", which implies that those who did not were lazy. I too voted, but often wish I hadn't, and know of several people who abstained for reasons of principle. I empathize with both sides in the Brexit debate, and as a result am generally despised by both, and can see clearly how such a divisive issue being put to the electorate in a binary way (deeply unsatisfactory for such a nuanced, complex issue) results in further turmoil and division. As such I will probably abstain next time. I wondered if you were aware that among those you refer to as having not "bothered" (which conjures images of lazy, sloppy teenagers who couldn't give a damn) there will be many who were genuinely undecided, and/or who agonized over the decision? In the last council elections, I "didn't bother" to vote, because the three candidates in my area were equally deplorable - issues of antisemitism tainted more than one of them, and I could not in all conscience nominate any for a position of authority. In the end I spoiled my ballot, and endured a long "dark night of the soul" feeling great guilt thinking of all those who had died for the right to vote - but still I believe this was the correct decision. I think we should be careful sometimes and assume it may be the question that is put that is wrong, not the decision to vote on it or not.

 

All of the following is said with the greatest respect

No. Rubbish. All decisions regarding financial policy and budget are proposed by EU commission and voted for (or rejected) by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.
Where the UK (along with eight other EU members) does not get a say is in the monetary policy of the Eurozone. This is a very different thing to not having a say in the financial decisions of the EU.

Agreed. I hope that you also agree that EU delegates were not invited to UK goverment cabinet meetings, particularly in regard to (oh the irony of this) Brexit strategy. Of course we were barred from certain meetings.

Explain (and qualify). I've just wasted two hours of my life looking for any info at all about this.

 

[QUOTE any influence in policies, decisions or meetings regarding the Euro. The fact that you've weren't aware of that or that the EU wants to have it's own army, and has told member countries that if they hold a referendum to leave the EU they would be penalised, make me think, no offence intended, that you need to do some more research on the declared policies of the EU, it's Federation ambitions and the price that member countries will have to pay.[/QUOTE]

Any policy decisions re the Euro is fine, I always knew that to be the case - your original post was worded as "any financial meetings, decisions or policies of the EU" and I took that to mean policies of the EU generally in addition to financial meetings, though as it was not preceded by a comma I can see it makes grammatical sense to assume you were referring to financial policies - it is sometimes easy to mis-read things, especially on a screen.

There is no limit to how much everyone can learn on these issues, and as I hope I've made clear on this forum any times, I regard myself as a novice, an amateur and a complete beginner in terms of the legalities and nitty gritty of the EU's treaties and policies, despite having spent hundred of hours reading, watching and listening to everything I can possibly find and having several in depth correspondences with local politicians. But there is also a limit to how much one can know at any given time. I take extreme care to take everything I hear about topics like "an EU Army" with a large dollop of salt. It is an issue that has been debated now for a long time, with papers like the Daily Mail regularly expounding on it. But I'm not aware it is a concrete policy. The EU has a Common Defence and Security policy, most recently updated in the Lisbon Treaty, which requires member states to come to one anothers' aid, but although the EU has participated in several recent major conflicts, the troops serving are under the banner of their national forces. Many staunch Federalists have spoken highly of the idea of an EU Army, including Jean-Claude Juncker, but this does not mean it is ever going to happen, and equally many interested parties are opposed. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, set out more than two years ago a vision for the future military cooperation of EU member states, which did not include the merging of forces. Her spokeswoman told the media, “There is absolutely no plan to set up an EU army with the global strategy.” Admittedly, this is somewhat equivocal, but last month Mogherini went further, at a press conference in Brussels, stating "The European Union won't turn into a military alliance. There is no competition with NATO. We are not building a European army, nobody is talking about a European army here. We are investing to be more reliable and more active security "suppliers" in the region and around the world."

As far as I can see, it is more often leaders of individual states who envisage such steps as a combined force, though under the Framework Nations Concept, it has been suggested that Germany may supply troops for missions undertaken by other member states in various circumstances. This is nothing particularly new, though.

 

[QUOTE All decisions regarding financial policy and budget are proposed by EU commission and voted for (or rejected) by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.
Where the UK (along with eight other EU members) does not get a say is in the monetary policy of the Eurozone. This is a very different thing to not having a say in the financial decisions of the EU.

[/QUOTE]

This is what I have always thought.

 

[QUOTEIf we had abandoned the Sterling we would not have been able to hold a referendum as to whether or not we should stay or leave.
[/QUOTE]

Any member state can leave the EU via Article 50. It is within the gift of any sovereign Parliament to enact a Referendum. It has nothing to do with whether they are part of a currency union with the EU or anybody else.