Off Topic European Debate Thread

[banksyisourhero]

So we've established that 3.1-4 million jobs are linked to Europe then

We've established that you can't string a sentence together with any actual facts in it and you just make it up as you go along!

I thought I would put this here for you as you don't like to read 'twisted lies'

3 million jobs: linked to exports not membership

 

[swanseaandproud]

Prosper with what ? We are already indebted to the EU for propping up Millions of jobs in the UK and you want to stop that and go it alone.....How does that work then ? All our major industries have gone including now the steel works that are now if still there running on a small scale, Where are these people going to work I For every pound we spend in the EU we get back £10 in trade...The IMF have already warned the UK that trade is Falling And the IMF has no axe to grind they just monitor trade dealings all around the world.....The pound is very shaky and the Euro could end up a better value than the pound and then we will be in trouble....If you want living standards to drop then vote out and agree with Boris and the rest of the millionaires its a price worth paying or you can listen to the people who work and know about these things and vote in and not take a huge life changing gamble that even the outers cant dismiss it is....

 

[banksyisourhero]

All our major industries have gone including now the steel works that are now if still there running on a small scale

I've asked you once? Where were the EU propping up the steel industry recently??

The huge gamble is staying in and being dictated to by faceless bureaucrats in Brussels who can't be removed even if we want them to be.

The rest of your post is nothing more than speculation and the political rhetoric of jealousy.

 

[swanseaandproud]

Absolutely majo garbage tell me why the EU should prop up a privately owned

I've asked you once? Where were the EU propping up the steel industry recently??

The huge gamble is staying in and being dictated to by faceless bureaucrats in Brussels who can't be removed even if we want them to be.

The rest of your post is nothing more than speculation and the political rhetoric of jealousy.

Ah I realize now that you don't understand the workings of the EU Right the steel industry is privately owned by tata a billion pound company and the EU cant bail out a privately owned company like that nor should it. The government can but the EU cant......All the EU can do is stop workers taxes being used and that's what they did, The EU protected the workers and anyone else who pays taxes from bailing out a PRIVATE owner.......I see now that you don't understand the job of the EU and the role of our MEP's. Without them this country would not benefit greatly and it keeps us stable, Lose that and we are nothing because there is nothing we would be able to do better outside the EU.....You mentioned the steel ...well they priced themselves out of the market it is cheaper to export steel from china and Russia and some European countries so why buy off tata when it cost more. It's Tata's own fault the steel industry has fallen flat on it;s face not anyone else. Thank god i say for the work the EU does and no we don't get everything our way and some rules we don't like but we have AM's there looking after our interest and fighting our corner but overall we have done very well out of the EU and better than some of our partners......

 

[tiger-emyrs-wolf]

Absolutely majo garbage tell me why the EU should prop up a privately owned

Ah I realize now that you don't understand the workings of the EU Right the steel industry is privately owned by tata a billion pound company and the EU cant bail out a privately owned company like that nor should it. The government can but the EU cant......All the EU can do is stop workers taxes being used and that's what they did, The EU protected the workers and anyone else who pays taxes from bailing out a PRIVATE owner.......I see now that you don't understand the job of the EU and the role of our MEP's. Without them this country would not benefit greatly and it keeps us stable, Lose that and we are nothing because there is nothing we would be able to do better outside the EU.....You mentioned the steel ...well they priced themselves out of the market it is cheaper to export steel from china and Russia and some European countries so why buy off tata when it cost more. It's Tata's own fault the steel industry has fallen flat on it;s face not anyone else. Thank god i say for the work the EU does and no we don't get everything our way and some rules we don't like but we have AM's there looking after our interest and fighting our corner but overall we have done very well out of the EU and better than some of our partners......

Sorry but the EU bans state ownership on steel as that's why the government haven't take it over. Tata steel costs more due to the extra amount of quality the quality of Chinese and Russian steel is ****ing awful but EU countries like it as it's cheap. Also to a previous point the pound falling what ever the result it will go back up it went down when we were being linked to the euro and it gone down on other things but it bounces straight back up.

 

[wizered]

There are more people about to lose their jobs with BHS, thousands more than the steel industry, do you think the country should bale these out as they are all over the UK, it is terrible people will be out of work but their plight is just as important as the people in the steel or coal industry.

 

[banksyisourhero]

Absolutely majo garbage tell me why the EU should prop up a privately owned

Ah I realize now that you don't understand the workings of the EU Right the steel industry is privately owned by tata a billion pound company and the EU cant bail out a privately owned company like that nor should it. The government can but the EU cant......All the EU can do is stop workers taxes being used and that's what they did, The EU protected the workers and anyone else who pays taxes from bailing out a PRIVATE owner.......I see now that you don't understand the job of the EU and the role of our MEP's. Without them this country would not benefit greatly and it keeps us stable, Lose that and we are nothing because there is nothing we would be able to do better outside the EU.....You mentioned the steel ...well they priced themselves out of the market it is cheaper to export steel from china and Russia and some European countries so why buy off tata when it cost more. It's Tata's own fault the steel industry has fallen flat on it;s face not anyone else. Thank god i say for the work the EU does and no we don't get everything our way and some rules we don't like but we have AM's there looking after our interest and fighting our corner but overall we have done very well out of the EU and better than some of our partners......

So after all this You admit that the EU don't prop up jobs in the UK when its required, in fact they can't!

I do understand now.. you're talking bollocks!

 

[banksyisourhero]

You mentioned the steel ...well they priced themselves out of the market it is cheaper to export steel from china and Russia and some European countries so why buy off tata when it cost more. It's Tata's own fault the steel industry has fallen flat on it;s face not anyone else

Glad to see that someone like you is beginning to understand how a free market economy works.. but I thought your lot didn't like that sort of thing?

 

[HANDY ANDY]

Steel ? You cant buck the market place, that's a fact of life although trade agreements seek to reduce the impact.

Britain’s choice is this: it can choose to stay in the single market – where it has comprehensive arrangemnents, agreed with its largest trade partners with a proven track record in reducing the cost of trade. Or it can leave it, and try to sign dozens of free trade agreements with less certain benefits to make up for the opportunities forgone in Europe. The conclusion should be obvious: free trade agreements support Britain’s continued membership of the EU.

Most elections are settled on the economy (the feel good factor) this will be no different. The other issues are peripheral noise although I accept important to some people. We as a generation lived in the good times but this a decision about the lives of the next generation. They see the benefits while the older generation hanker for times gone by. Its a gamble.

 

[Mind the gap!]

We've established that you can't string a sentence together with any actual facts in it and you just make it up as you go along!

I thought I would put this here for you as you don't like to read 'twisted lies'

3 million jobs: linked to exports not membership

It is a reasonable assumption that jobs linked with export to the EU are linked to the EU

 

[Mind the gap!]

The huge gamble is staying in and being dictated to by faceless bureaucrats in Brussels who can't be removed even if we want them to be.

Absolute bollocks,

What will happen is that we'll receive more investment and the whole of Europe will continue to improve because of the EU

 

[Mind the gap!]

NOT MY WORDS BUT SOMEONE WHO HAS WATCHED BREXIT THE MOVIE

We're increasingly getting Brexiteers commenting "Watch Brexit the Movie!"... so we did.

Here's our take on it. The whole documentary is about the need for deregulation. It's fundamentally a neoliberal infomercial, painting history through the mantra of deregulation leads to growth and regulation leads to stagnation. They tell us that the EU is over-regulated, so we need to get out - and then we will economically prosper. That's the thesis. The only problem is that they have no business/ economist backing whatsoever. Instead of interviewing CEOs of Airbus, Rolls-Royce, etc (all of which have come out for Remain), the documentary interviews just the standard clique of Nigel Lawson, Daniel Hannan, James Delingpole, Nigel Farage, etc... Politicians and right-wing journalists - with Kate Hoey thrown it.

So with an economic argument fallen flat, we're left with their wrapping of "freedom" and claims to support the little man against the Euro elite. Two problems here. Firstly, a "free" Britain could not make its "own laws" all the time when dealing in the international space. So to "go global" and make all those spiffing trade deals, there needs to be agreements on regulations. That's what the single market is. Agreed standards. Right now our governments and MEPs are elected by us and vote on cross-border agreements. If we pull out - how do we get a democratic say? We don't. And we don't gain freedoms on Brexit, we lose them. We lose freedom of movement, freedom to hire from the EU visa-free, freedoms of access to the single market, freedoms associated with the working time directive potentially, rights to cross-border care potentially. What are the freedoms these Brexiteers speak of then? It is simply their own freedom to rule this country. Little people get no more freedoms as the neoliberals roll their protections away.

Finally, they blame the EU for everything - including declining fish in the sea (which, incidentally has been a problem since bottom-trawling began some 150 years ago), even peddling the myth of the Dutch trawler that takes 25% of the UK quota (a problem of allocation at the UK government level - not the EU's diktat). They also imply that all those EU regulations that swirl around us are unique in the world. They are not. In fact, the UK has its own stunning bureaucracy and love of gold-plating of EU regulations. So why aren't they attacking that? Simple - it's a bigger ideological thing. They want us to vote leave so that they can take control and pursue their glorious economic deregulation, unshackled - because you help the little person by taking away environmental, social and health protections.

 

[wizered]

Fishing
British fishing policy is determined by the political imperative of European integration. The objective is to create an EU fishing fleet catching EU fish in EU waters under an EU permit system controlled from Brussels.
Sovereignty
Membership of the European Union is undemocratic because the European Commission, which is unelected, has the monopoly of proposing all EU legislation which it does in secret. It also has the power to issue regulations which are automatically binding in all member states.
Jobs
It has been happening for the past twelve years and continues to slip off the tongues of European Union supporters and spin doctors in newspaper, on television and during broadcast interviews, “3 million jobs depend upon the EU” whilst avoiding, of course, providing evidence.
Trade
Britain pays direct ‘membership’ costs of £17.4bn, which equate to an annual net contribution of £6.7bn and dramatically rising owing to Tony Blair’s surrender of a sizeable part of the British rebate.
Immigration
Britain has given away control of immigration within the EU to the EU, and retains the power only to control non-EU immigration. This has led to huge disparities where Commonwealth citizens with family in Britain struggle to obtain visas whilst EU citizens with little link with the UK can automatically work here

REASONS WHY WE SHOULD LEAVE THE EU
It is not just about the Euro. Or the fact we’re having to bailout a currency we chose not to join. It is not the Euro sclerosis – the fact that the trade block we joined in the early 1970s which then accounted for 36 percent of world GDP, will account for less than 15 percent in 2020. It is not even really about the anti-democratic nature of having decisions made for you in Brussels. Today, for example, we learn that unelected and unaccountable Eurocrats want to prevent us from asking if those claiming benefits in Britain are entitled to them.
No. The reason we need to quit the EU is even more elemental than all that.
Put simply, Europe cannot best be organised by deliberate design. From the Common Fisheries Policy to the common currency, being part of the EU means trying to do things according to some kind of “blue print” determined by a Brussels elite. It makes things more or less bound to go wrong. Indeed, the more insulated from public accountability the Euro System has become, the more inept it is.
By withdrawing from the EU, we would make it possible to organise economic and social affairs in this country not by deliberate design from the top down, but more organically and spontaneously. From the bottom up. Instead of common financial service rules, we might instead allow competing exchanges to offer different approaches and see which one works. Rather than a Common Agricultural Policy for millions of farmers, we might, you know, allow millions of farmers to each have their own farm policy for their farm.
In an increasingly networked and interdependent world, the more successful societies are those that allow more decentralised decision making, by harnessing and balancing opposing forces. Britain’s refusal to be reconciled to being in the EU is not ultimately anything to do with flags or anthems. It’s because we know in our bones that it is a daft way to run a whole continent. I suspect it is not only the Brits who will soon be demanding the freedom to opt out

 

[Red Alert]

There are more people about to lose their jobs with BHS, thousands more than the steel industry, do you think the country should bale these out as they are all over the UK, it is terrible people will be out of work but their plight is just as important as the people in the steel or coal industry.

In the case of industry yes. Germany and France prop up theirs. It would be unthinkable for the Germans to let their steel industry go so they make sure it doesn't and its the biggest in the EU. They make sure it supplies other industries as well. Same with coal.

Here we have adhered to the eu and its standards and imported others steel and coal. sheer stupidity costing thousands of jobs cutting a nose off to spite the face. There is one where the eu has cost the UK big time.

 

[HANDY ANDY]

Fishing
British fishing policy is determined by the political imperative of European integration. The objective is to create an EU fishing fleet catching EU fish in EU waters under an EU permit system controlled from Brussels.
Sovereignty
Membership of the European Union is undemocratic because the European Commission, which is unelected, has the monopoly of proposing all EU legislation which it does in secret. It also has the power to issue regulations which are automatically binding in all member states.
Jobs
It has been happening for the past twelve years and continues to slip off the tongues of European Union supporters and spin doctors in newspaper, on television and during broadcast interviews, “3 million jobs depend upon the EU” whilst avoiding, of course, providing evidence.
Trade
Britain pays direct ‘membership’ costs of £17.4bn, which equate to an annual net contribution of £6.7bn and dramatically rising owing to Tony Blair’s surrender of a sizeable part of the British rebate.
Immigration
Britain has given away control of immigration within the EU to the EU, and retains the power only to control non-EU immigration. This has led to huge disparities where Commonwealth citizens with family in Britain struggle to obtain visas whilst EU citizens with little link with the UK can automatically work here

REASONS WHY WE SHOULD LEAVE THE EU
It is not just about the Euro. Or the fact we’re having to bailout a currency we chose not to join. It is not the Euro sclerosis – the fact that the trade block we joined in the early 1970s which then accounted for 36 percent of world GDP, will account for less than 15 percent in 2020. It is not even really about the anti-democratic nature of having decisions made for you in Brussels. Today, for example, we learn that unelected and unaccountable Eurocrats want to prevent us from asking if those claiming benefits in Britain are entitled to them.
No. The reason we need to quit the EU is even more elemental than all that.
Put simply, Europe cannot best be organised by deliberate design. From the Common Fisheries Policy to the common currency, being part of the EU means trying to do things according to some kind of “blue print” determined by a Brussels elite. It makes things more or less bound to go wrong. Indeed, the more insulated from public accountability the Euro System has become, the more inept it is.
By withdrawing from the EU, we would make it possible to organise economic and social affairs in this country not by deliberate design from the top down, but more organically and spontaneously. From the bottom up. Instead of common financial service rules, we might instead allow competing exchanges to offer different approaches and see which one works. Rather than a Common Agricultural Policy for millions of farmers, we might, you know, allow millions of farmers to each have their own farm policy for their farm.
In an increasingly networked and interdependent world, the more successful societies are those that allow more decentralised decision making, by harnessing and balancing opposing forces. Britain’s refusal to be reconciled to being in the EU is not ultimately anything to do with flags or anthems. It’s because we know in our bones that it is a daft way to run a whole continent. I suspect it is not only the Brits who will soon be demanding the freedom to opt out

We don't live in a perfect world and the EU is not perfect. To me prosperity is all about trade and that now involves a global economy. Gone are the days of the Commonwealth and us having the upper hand. We need to be part of a bigger club or die. Many people will disagree because they don't like the terms of membership. That's the choice. The problem will be a bit like the Scottish independence vote if its close they will want another one in 5 years. Personally I will be glad when its all over. I've made my mind up but others will vote differently, that's democracy.

 

[Cliftonville]

And we don't gain freedoms on Brexit, we lose them. We lose freedom of movement, .

.

What Countries in the EU would prevent British passport holders entering?

We need to be part of a bigger club or die. .

Emotive and a little silly.

 

[HANDY ANDY]

What Countries in the EU would prevent British passport holders entering?

Emotive and a little silly.

The point I am trying to make is that our days of being a major global power are coming to an end as other countries are catching up and overtaking us. So what's the answer carry on as we are or form alliances. I am not an economist but I feel I would sooner "join up" with others rather than becoming a smaller fish in a big pond. Its a mad scramble to maintain our position and standard of living. Emotive maybe but I believe demonstrates the need to get it right.

 

[Cliftonville]

The point I am trying to make is that our days of being a major global power are coming to an end as other countries are catching up and overtaking us. So what's the answer carry on as we are or form alliances. I am not an economist but I feel I would sooner "join up" with others rather than becoming a smaller fish in a big pond. Its a mad scramble to maintain our position and standard of living. Emotive maybe but I believe demonstrates the need to get it right.

Yes it was emotive and silly.

People on this this thread do not have to be Milton Friedman (free market economist and all around nasty bastard) to realise project fear is paper thin.

Britain will remain amongst one of the top economies in the World in or outside of the EU. The members of G8 and G20 will not cease trading with the UK if it becomes a non EU member state. The French will not pull the energy plug. The Spanish will continue to run high street backs. Germany will keep those flogging cars. Capital and commerce will always find a way of trading with other capital and trading.

The UK cannot meet the demands of its own population anymore, the UK is woefully underprepared for the rising population it has, but some are readily prepared to add another 5 - 10% to the Countries population in the short term, let alone a long term.

Not one in post on this thread has indicated where the population line gets drawn. Not one post outlines how they will deal with more pressure on health and social care, pensions and working patterns.

I will make no apology for suggesting that the money wasted from this Isle daily by the EU should be reinvested via an out vote to help cure the acute housing provision crisis in the UK.

 

[Mind the gap!]

I will make no apology for suggesting that the money wasted from this Isle daily by the EU should be reinvested via an out vote to help cure the acute housing provision crisis in the UK.

How about we stay in and use money from the EU such as redevelopment money to fund 50% of it?

We are a good country but by far from a global power, the reason population,not suggesting we increase it dramatically. As Gdp per capita increases for developing countries, Brazil, China, USA, India etc we as a country will slip down the pecking order.

HOWEVER the EU will always be a top 4 global power and so by being in it we will always be dominant in the world

 

[wizered]

The decline of Europe
For Europe in particular, prolonged recession – the end of growth – seems inevitable. There is no new industry to kick-start the growth process, no major oil finds or new technology boom, as helped during the 1970s to 90s, and of course there’s no chance of repeating the credit-fuelled construction and consumer spending spree of the last decade

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It had to happen sometime; as I pointed out at the beginning of this book, continuous economic growth is ultimately impossible, as well as being ecologically undesirable. And perhaps it isn’t surprising that Europe, the first developed region of the modern world, should be the first to experience decline. Europe is showing the symptoms of a malaise that one might expect of an advanced economy that has reached the limits of growth, with many of its natural resources close to depletion, falling industrial output, rising unemployment, declining populations in many nations, and of course the huge build-up of debt. One might argue that European nations aren’t the first to experience these problems, that Japan has been in a similar situation for a decade or more. This is perhaps true, but Japan is a bit different; one stalled economy in a generally buoyant region. And Japan has managed to avoid the real killer of high unemployment, partly because it still has a strong manufacturing base with a large export market. In this respect Japan is more representative of Germany than of the rest of Europe. It does, however, provide some interesting clues as to what Europe can expect in the near future.

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A decline in population is a good thing in terms of a sustainable future, but it raises questions with regard to the strength of the economy. How will a smaller workforce provide for an ageing population? Will there be enough workers and enough real wealth production to fund pensions, healthcare and other future government obligations? It is almost certainly the case that there won’t be, at least not while expectations are based on the boom years of the last half-century. However, if expectations are lowered until they meet with reality, prospects don’t have to be as bad as they might look right now.