The EU debate - Part III

Your Facebook page probably gave him a clue like

 

I personally disagree, I think other world events are dictating some flexibility. I still think that the rest of Europe see us as a thorn in their sides and would happily shaft us at the first opportunity. The very fact that we don't want federalism and total integration puts us at odds with the rest of Europe.

 

And yet you spend half your waking hours exchanging playground insults on a football forum. Is that something a contented person would really do, do you think? You come across as a very angry man Peter, and whilst finding yourself in synch with 52% of the electorate recently may have given you a boost, I sense it really hasn't made you any happier.

I have noticed your propensity for handing out unasked for advice on this forum, so I'm going to reciprocate now and suggest you enrol in a course of anger management classes. You could probably afford them, if you make a few economies elsewhere, perhaps on your weekly shopping budget?

 

By reacting as you had done since, it's obvious to one and all, that you most definitely did 'fall for' the simple question posed love.

 

You'll have to make me angry enough to fire off a volley of insults. Can't really be arsed at the moment.

Thanks though, on behalf of generations to come, for voting to **** the economy and shoot the country in the foot just because you have nightmares about Albanians eating your hamster.

 

Exchanging playground insults? it's you alone who does that.
angry man - you are definitely deluded
no need for e
anger management classes for me - you seem the one who is angry
I dont need to make economies - I spend money on what I want when I want

 

The question was less simple than the asker. It was a strawman, and not a particularly good one. Your claim of 'falling' for it, is just more straw.

 

There's no appetite for genuine federalism within the populous of the main players in Europe though.

 

Yeah Pete your hammered out response there is the epitome of calmness and content

As for your last claim there, can we have redacted bank statements please, so that you can prove your 'internet wealth'?

 

I don't think there's much appetite for further Federalism anywhere in Europe at the moment. The un-elected bureaucrats like Claude Juncker are in a weakened position imo, or they were before the UK referendum. Brexit, ironically, may have strengthened their hand.

 

just the opposite

 

There's a good debate on federalism already being in place. It tends to be the fiscal element that gets discussed as being non-federal, but given it raises funds from member states, it possibly doesn't need to push for direct taxation.

 

We have our own currency, set our own interest rates, decide our own fiscal and social polices.

What part of the EU that we're leaving was federal? We had shared employment laws, standards on beaches, food labelling, safety and manufacturing standards and H&S.

Getting our own country back appears to be ability to scrap food labelling that tells us what we're ****ing eating.

 

Twenty years ago my job was to apply the Habitual residence test to people from the EEA to determine whether they could recieve benefits. The test hasn't changed since, note the five year rule

'are working or self-employed
are jobseeking
are a former worker
are self-sufficient
are a student
have been living in the UK for at least five years and have acquired a permanent right to reside
are the primary carer of a child who themselves has the right to reside
are the family member of someone with the right to reside.'

 

We tried altering some of the policies you mention, and our benefit system, but other member states intervened. Many of them were ours anyway that the EU adopted, but then limit our ability to amend them.

The level of enforcement of some of the 'shared' legislation differs, and we struggle to get parity.

A benefit will be shedding several layers of undemocratic administration for one. If it's all equal, there'd be no need for queues at Calais.

 

Haven't you just described federalism? Each federal state (or country in our case) setting there own fiscal and social requirements, whilst providing to a central source, which redistributes some of this wealth as it sees fit?

 

It won't happen for decades, if at all. It's a nice ideal but the time, cost, will to change plus the need for equality in trade will mean there is little to be gained.
EU legislation being built into our own will only be written out as and when new legislation is introduced and much of it will be replaced by our own version which is little different.

What have the queues at Calais got to do with it? Are you suggesting we would do away with passport and security checks?

 

Only we DID alter our benefits system and brought in restrictions on what EU immigrants could claim.

We got an opt out on the 48hr working week as we didn't want it, being another example.

As for undemocratic administration, if the Tories make good on their claim to maintain EU funded projects they'll have to create another level of domestic administration to administer it. The decisions made will be carried out by unelected bodies. I see little tangible difference.

I'd not deny that there was huge wastage at the EU and the cost of administering the beaurocracy was inefficient.

The EU for us was always primarily about the single market, that market has helped us become what we are in the modern age. Walking away from it driven primarily by a desire to lose freedom of movement is barking mad as far as I'm concerned. If we could have exited and retained access to the single market I'd have been fine with it.

 

It may well take years for the laws to change, but the levels of admin will fall straight away if we leave the EU. Why would Brussels still be involved with ruling us?

The Calais comment was more about people currently choosing to come here, over so called equal EU member states.

 

We got an amended change on benefits after the initial claim was knocked back by Hungary and others.