Because they want the payouts the wealthy net providers give them. Go look in Northern Spain.
Brexit, for once some facts.
- Thread starter flecc
- Start date
But that's not the point trex.
Rightly or wrongly our country voted in Cameron and his party ( ok with a %age of around 35% but that's another issue) UK policy for years has been decentralisation of power, yet we are moving more and more towards governance by folk who have never even visited uk.. Why ?? EU control is a silent ,slow yet certain progress. Can you imagine the number of MEPs required to cover 750 kk people with wildly varying situations and backgrounds.
I just don't understand why handing control over is at all advantageous ???
The economics , migration and border issues are simply a distraction that could be solved ( they have to be) in or out.
The real issue is does UK want self governance or not ???
Many on here are arguing not. Cameron and such have vested interests to maintain status quo.
Rightly or wrongly our country voted in Cameron and his party ( ok with a %age of around 35% but that's another issue) UK policy for years has been decentralisation of power, yet we are moving more and more towards governance by folk who have never even visited uk.. Why ?? EU control is a silent ,slow yet certain progress. Can you imagine the number of MEPs required to cover 750 kk people with wildly varying situations and backgrounds.
I just don't understand why handing control over is at all advantageous ???
The economics , migration and border issues are simply a distraction that could be solved ( they have to be) in or out.
The real issue is does UK want self governance or not ???
Many on here are arguing not. Cameron and such have vested interests to maintain status quo.
I've asked this of a few people now, and so far each time I ask it in any situation the person I ask goes very quiet... so I'll try here.
Can you give me one example of a law or regulation or anything that is imposed on the UK that we have to follow that you don't think is a good idea?
I,ve quoted one already. Cameron wanted to change immigration process and could not. His cabinet agreed changes but Brussels did not.
The fact that we elect MEPS to a Parliament just as we do Mp's for a start, what's the difference?
Do you really believe we have a "Working Democracy" when 24% of the Voting population can elect a Government that 76% don't like?
Wierd!!
The UK hasn't spent "Thousands of years and fought ANY wars to gain self Governance, the last one it fought was against the Normans and it lost big time, didn't it?
So France ruled for the best part of a thousand years and we now have a German Royal Family (And King William before them was Dutch)
UK is a thriving country? really? and how do you measure that? the bonuses we give the bankers or the number of unemployed/ length of Food bak queues, foreigners working as slaves in hand car washes, or perhaps how successful our OWN industries are, rather that the Foreign owned ones like Tata that have just held us to ransom?
Ask yourself Why did we join the EU in the first place if we were doing so well?
Because we were known as the "Sick Man of Europe" and by any measure we had much more industry, resources, markets, Armed Forces, and higher employment than we do now.
Come on now tell me why you think we joined?
Did you know that Churchill himself offered to join France and England as one nation in 1939, and they even had a stamp commemorating the union, but the Germans invaded and scotched the plan?
http://www.federalunion.org.uk/a-complete-and-indissoluble-union/
So the great man himself thought it was a good idea, but you don't, fair enough, we are all entitled to our opinion.
Here is a link to the stamp and it's story
http://500years.royalmailgroup.com/gallery/proposed-anglo-french-union-issue-1940/
An finally the notion that we don't have a European culture is simply a fantasy as our language is derived from German, French, Dutch, and Danish and so are many of our place names.
As to an ancient right, how about this
"Before the 1832 Reform Act, hardly any men had the right to vote for MPs. Between 1754 and 1790, only 17% of males could vote, which constituted only 4% of the population of England and Wales. Most MPs were elected by rich landowners and some were entirely controlled by them; working people had no representation at all. Nothing in the constitution said women could not vote, nothing to that effect appeared in the statute books. In Acts of parliament regarding voting, the word 'people' was used and there were repeated statements that no person who paid taxes ought to be excluded from voting and that no person who was subject to the laws should be excluded from a voice in making them. Few women owned enough property to qualify them to vote and perhaps for those few heiresses it was not considered 'ladylike' to get involved with politics.
And when did women get the vote? 1918 as they had been promised it in return for replacing men in the factories to make munitions.
So spare me the "Ancient rights" bit, it simply isn't true.
If the size of Europe prevents the formation of a single state, how do you explain that the TEN colonies of America merged to become the United States?
No doubt there were some among them that wanted to cling to their separate statehood, and the other classic example is Germany
"The German Empire consisted of 27 constituent territories, with most being ruled by royal families. This included four kingdoms, six grand duchies, six duchies (five after 1876), seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory. Although the Kingdom of Prussia contained most of the Empire's population and territory, it played a lesser role. As Dwyer (2005) points out, Prussia's "political and cultural influence had diminished considerably" by the 1890s.
And since unification in 1871, they seem to have muddled though rather better than we have despite two disastrous wars
The problem with that argument was that we had previously agreed the policy in the full understanding of the terms of the agreement, didn't we?
In other words we made a binding agreement then wanted out, in a democratic parliament where if you have a majority you can get what you want if you carry the majority with you.
Tell me, why did we get into this situation when we were aware of the rules we were agreeing to?
what Cameron wanted is a substantial treaty change, that can't be done until the next treaty, when Albania or Serbia or Montenegro joins the EU. In the meantime, Cameron was offered the next best deal, an agreement of all the 28 heads of state. Laws made by the EU club must be agreable by all 28 members. As Gove pointed out, that agreement is not watertight though because it's against a key principle of the treaty.
Oldgroaner
Fantastic post but what on earth has any if that got to do with justifying handing control over to EU.?? What's your reasoning?
80% of new laws are now from EU. Wether good or bad is irrelevant. Fact I we are playing a lesser part in their origin.
Why do you wish to be governed from Brussels ?
And BTW I thought we fought against a tyranical dictator allegedly democratically elected in Germany ???
Why are we even going there. ? What is wrong with UK??
Fantastic post but what on earth has any if that got to do with justifying handing control over to EU.?? What's your reasoning?
80% of new laws are now from EU. Wether good or bad is irrelevant. Fact I we are playing a lesser part in their origin.
Why do you wish to be governed from Brussels ?
And BTW I thought we fought against a tyranical dictator allegedly democratically elected in Germany ???
Why are we even going there. ? What is wrong with UK??
flud, it seems half the country don't like the Maastricht Treaty that John Major signed in 1992. We can of course get out as we possibly are going to. Getting back in will take a lot longer than 2 years, more likely to be 10, and with the terms a lot less generous that what Thatcher, Major and Cameron have negociated with the other 27 countries. I think Brexiters should really think hard about this. Nobody owes us a living and the way ukip MEPs behave, the other 27 won't be in a hurry to oblige next time we try to join.
In my case because it's not economics, it's the relevant UK history that matters, something I'm probably better able to judge than Canadian Mark Carney.
I'm speaking of the history of our increasing failure before we joined the EU, which I've detailed at length earlier in this thread. That gives me no confidence that we can or will succeed on our own outside of the EU.
But now (almost in the EU) we are doing rather well and certainly better than we were in the early 1970s when we joined. We certainly need to do even better, but the EU isn't stopping that as the most successful EU countries show. The only impediment is us.
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Sorry, I don't follow your logic in this. Firstly, I can't imagine exactly what change might create a more practical approach to freedom of movement - do you have something in mind? I can see more difficult; I can imagine less humanitarian but not more practical.
Secondly, but more importantly I should probably say, is it not a good thing to have utopian ideals? Setting targets to which we all might aspire in the pursuit of a better country, a better Europe and ultimately a better world seems like something worthwhile to me.
For those of us whose knowledge of history and geography is of even average school-leaver standard, we all know that Britain's record over recent centuries in how we treated our colonies was disgraceful. To be fair, other empire-building nations were no better. We are no longer the major power, militarily or economically that we once were but still, there are those among us who seem to have failed to learn the lessons of post-empire life in a world with rapid population expansion. People are starving, even in our own country, yet many of those with great affluence, both here and abroad seem happy to disregard the plight of the needy.
Europe alone could probably grow enough produce to feed Africa but there is no political will to tackle such a problem. One feels that many of the affluent would welcome another major war anywhere and a killer disease epidemic in Africa because such tragedies both make money and reduce the population requiring to be fed.
My view is that the EU is one of mankind's greatest achievements given the history of the continent. It could be so much better if all participants pulled their weight instead of sitting on the sidelines carping about money, immigration and threatening to withdraw from the union. In particular, right from the beginning of this 21st century, Britain's media and government cabal flatly refused to enter into monetary union so we have never really committed ourselves to the concept in the way that the other major players did. It was a considerable achievement for the other great nations to replace their currencies with the € but our government demonstrated perfectly that Britain knows better than the rest. Not for the first time, the British government was wrong.
General De Gaulle saw this problem right at the outset when we first sought entry to the then common market.
Tom
Simply that we will get a better and fairer deal out of them as has been proved while we have been members of the EU that the bunch of political hooligans that rule us from Westminster, and with luck end up with a fairer society were people are not regarded as simply to be used for making a profit, and of course to get a better handling of the environment too.
Permit me to point out that the paper leading the charge for Brexit is the "Daily Mail" and the proprietor lord Rothermere is the 1930's was a great admirer of Hitler and sent him telegrams of congratulation on the way he was running the Country, and you could add to that the fact that the Conservative Party wanted to surrender to Hitler in 1940, and it was only prevented by Winston Churchill allying himself with the Labour Party that prevented it.
And why are we playing lesser part in formulating these laws, permit me to express surprise: we send 73 MEP's to the EU Parliament 14 are literally saboteurs and "enemies of the state" from the UKIP who's sole aim is it's destruction, and the majority of Tory MP's too are only interested in using it as an excuse to cover the failings of the Government.
Don't you find it a little strange that what they do is NEVER reported in the press, who cherry pick any bit of information they can spin to fit their agenda?
Let me give an example: the headline screams "The EU wont let us dredge our rivers to prevent flooding!"
When the fact is that the EU doesn't prohibit it at all, but it does insist that there is proper plan in place to process the dredged material to remove toxic chemicals and heavy metals that could be dumped on farm land and get into the food chain.
This came about because of reported cases of toxic poisoning when heavily polluted watercourses were dredged and the sludge dumped on Farm land.
So i ask you would a Tory Government impose regulation that cost money but benefit the public and the environment?
Well, would they?
And the final point What is wrong with the UK?
The answer is Nothing at all that hasn't been caused by incompetent Government from London, the only good and useful things have all come from the EU.
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yes, I do, sort of. I think there are a lot of diffrences between the 28 member countries. To create a positive force for mixing races and equalizing the living standard among EU members is a good thing but to remove all the barriers at once by treaty is to me not smart. I would like to see the process stretched out to may be 60 to 100 years, certainly not 20. All members should agree a maximum annual EU immigration target, a small one to start with. like 0.2% of the host population. If that's successful, then increase to 0.3% and so on. As soon as the target is hit, the host country can apply emergency brakes if it so wishes. And also the principle that migrants should contribute for a few years before drawing benefits. That's what Cameron has got more or less.
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Well I do see that some posters are extremely well informed and well read but I suspect a little misinformed.
Attributing UK recent ressurgence ( from around 79 I,d guess??) to European input is at best tenuous.
I suspect a change in government doctrine, oil revenue and a healthy finacial services sector has far more to do with it.
But I accept all your points but don't agree.
I really think stayers attitude is quite insulting to our national qualities. UK can rganise, does work way harder than EU counter parts I,ve met. We are capable of self governance, voting to stay is saying otherwise.
On our own UK could be great, it will always simply be the outsider bit player if we stay in Europe.
There is not a field where we couldn't lead the world. Why do we need Europe. They don't actually want ys, they want our skills, enterprise and finance. Not our culture.
Attributing UK recent ressurgence ( from around 79 I,d guess??) to European input is at best tenuous.
I suspect a change in government doctrine, oil revenue and a healthy finacial services sector has far more to do with it.
But I accept all your points but don't agree.
I really think stayers attitude is quite insulting to our national qualities. UK can rganise, does work way harder than EU counter parts I,ve met. We are capable of self governance, voting to stay is saying otherwise.
On our own UK could be great, it will always simply be the outsider bit player if we stay in Europe.
There is not a field where we couldn't lead the world. Why do we need Europe. They don't actually want ys, they want our skills, enterprise and finance. Not our culture.
Call me naive if you like,but this is where I disagree completely with a points based immigration system like Australia that wants to milk the world,and often third world,of it's skilled labour and give nothing in return. I'm afraid I like being part of a European union where one contributes as well as take and provide jobs for poor less skilled migrants too. To me this is part of a social contract,and being part of a civilised society such as the EU,and I say it's as someone who works full time and pay my chunk of tax.
This is mind boggling fantasy!
Why were we failing so utterly in almost all fields of design, manufacturing and commerce when on our own in the decades up to the point of joining the EU?
And where is this enterprise that's left us buying just about everything we need from other countries?
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Yes it's true the Germans are incapable of managing there budget. What with continuous growth, supporting education and production. We have nothing to learn there. Or the Scandinavian countries, growth and development must be unknown to them. I suppose that's why they need to give away Nobel prizes as the have no ideas of there own.
WTF is it that English is so superior to everyone else !
European culture is great. They have great ideas, wonderful food and land to live on. We have taken the ideas from them. The U.K. Had a great industrial base and trading empire. We were top dogs but now. We have so little industry it's hard to spot. Our overseas influence is waining.
Our tradional food is boiled beef and carrots. Everything else is imported.
Potatoes from South America for your tradional fish and chips.
We ARE a nice place to live. But so is most of Europe. Most laws are the same anyway. 30 mph or 50 kph there's no real difference.
The politicians are the only ones who need sovereignty. So they can line there own nests. The rest of us don't care, I just want to live in peace. And have a future for my family.
LL&P as spike said.
Really? when did this "Resurgence" happen?
" Consumer spending will be the main driver of UK growth this year, helped by continued low energy and food prices."
In other words it's an artificial short term effect, and when oil prices go back up it will disappear, won't it?
UK can organise? like it does each year when it snows?
Or it clears the trees from uplands to shoot grouse and floods the poor devils who have had houses built on Flood plains despite the fact we should know better by now?
Voting to stay is asserting we can hold our own in the bigger world of the EU, not simply run a small country the economy of which consists of boom and bust and always has done.
There is not a field where we don't lead the world? this hasn't been the case for so long only the elderly like myself can remember when it was true.
So they want our skills? doing what that they can't do? for example can we give the Germans lessons in Engineering and Technology?
Our enterprise? Would that be the libor Swindling of the Bankers, the PPI mis-selling of the banks, or the re-appearance of illegal alien workers picking cockles in Morecambe Bay, or working as virtual slaves in Manual Car washes?
And finally they don't want our culture?
Which part of it are you referring to? the part where we still engage in random aggressive wars, resulting in vast floods of refugees as "Collateral Damage" (And which we blame the EU for??)or complain and bitch like spoilt children whenever something the EU has done with good intent is distorted by our rabid right wing press to appear an assault on our dignity?
Do expound on the "Culture" we can offer that they either don't have already or would rather do without.
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Not that long ago, on a Geological timescale at any rate, Britain was covered by a thick sheet of ice. The ice retreated and humans moved in - immigrants each and every one. According to DNA testing my gang arrived, from central Africa via France, Sweden and Ireland, about eight or nine hundred years ago. We're immigrants. About fifteen years ago an African friend of mine, a skilled engineer, applied to come and live in the UK. he was refused entry and went to live in Sweden with his family. His eldest daughter is now a fully qualified doctor and he's a university lecturer. Every day we appear to be turning away other 'migrants' who could be of equal value to 'our' nation. Crackers.
OK. Hands up every UK citizen who has lived here before/during the last Ice Age? No? No body?
Rant over. I'm going for a ride ...
OK. Hands up every UK citizen who has lived here before/during the last Ice Age? No? No body?
Rant over. I'm going for a ride ...