arden forester

Does that mean working with like-minded people within the Eurozone to dismantle the EU edifice or to withdraw and work from the outside, maybe encouraging those that are left in?

mkpdavies

Out, into EFTA and encourage from there. Saving Britain comes first, then the beacon that will provide will help us to help the others.

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blank_frackis

There's no problem with favouring being in the EFTA rather than the EU, but there are a couple of reasons why this might be undesirable if we're talking about how the EU might be reformed. Firstly, it's an obvious point perhaps, but we have veto power over changes made to the constitutional framework in the EU - i.e. the treaties. Nothing can be changed in the treaties without the UK's agreement and all of the powers the Commission, the ECJ and the European Central Bank have are given to them through the treaties. Obviously therefore we'd have less power to shape the EU once we leave (I doubt anybody would dispute that) but there's another point to consider, namely that we can stop the other members of the EU pursuing certain courses while we remain members.

The second point is that if we did leave the EU and entered the EFTA instead, we would still have to follow a great many EU regulations. Over half of our exports go to the EU and even if there was a drop off after leaving, the EU would unquestionably remain our largest export market by a distance. A country in which exports account for over a quarter of GDP cannot afford to ignore the regulations of its largest export market and outside of the EU we would have little power to shape these regulations.

kernow

Personally the only wish I have for the EU is for it to be destroyed, I've no wish for it to be steered anywhere' I've no wish to see it reformed just destroyed. I wish no harm to any European Country or its people, only the European Union itself. I do not wish for" My Country" to be governed by a small political elite who are unelected and cannot be removed from office at the ballot box! I prefer Britain governed by the British For the British and our armed forces used only to defend Britain and British interests e.g border controls to keep out undesirables whatever their colour or creed, and to throw out all those undesirables who are now abiding in our Country, whatever their Nationality colour or creed and this also applies to all those so called "Britons" who spend a lot of time in Pakistan or Afghanistan who hate other Britons who don't share their religion!

Britannist

There has been discussion in this thread about the amount of trade the UK does with the EU.

The more important point is that a country could do 100% of its entire overseas trade with the EU and still not be a member of the EU.

The best example is Switzerland. 70% of Swiss exports go to EU nations (it is surrounded by EU countries) - but the nation of Switzerland pays a fraction into the EU of the amount the UK contributes pro-rata.

We do not have to have an American passport, flag, anthem or Parliament half-controlled by the American Government to do trade with the USA - yet, without even a referendum, the British people have been made to have an EU passport, flag, anthem and for the majority of their legislation in their national parliament (the Commons) to come from the EU in order to trade with the EU (getting only a costly and damaging gigantic trading deficit from the EU back).

The sooner we get out of the EU the better.

mkpdavies

This is one of the most bogus arguments I ever hear. The tiny and I mean tiny amount of say our government has, never mind individual businesses have in the running of the EU is virtually of no benefit. We allow our whole country to be buried in crippling red tape, so that the few businesses that do trade with the EU, can have virtualy no say in the way things are run. It's like making all businesses pay1000 pounds to give a small subset of our business 1 pence worth of say.

As others have said, we trade with all sorts of countries and the businesses who want to trade with those couintries, tailor their products and services for those markets. In reality they still do have a say, because the buyers are the customer and they are the ones who have to sell the goods in that country, so you work with the businesses selling in the home market.

What kind of nuts our we to allow such a tiny percentage of our overall trade, force rules and regulations on all of us, for such negligible benefit anyway?

Crazy, just crazy.

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blank_frackis

I really don't know where this idea that our government has a tiny amount of say in how the EU is run comes from. Our government has a huge say in how it's run because of the way the legislative and treaty processes work.

1. Our government has a veto over the constitutional framework. All the powers given to the Commission and the ECJ are given to them through the treaties which are negotiated by our government and ratified by our parliament in a free vote - or by a referendum in the case of the constitutional treaty which never was. No treaty can be passed without all the member states agreeing (or those disagreeing leaving the EU) both in the negotiation process and in ratification. What exactly is it about this process that means we have no power to shape how the EU is run?

2. Legislation must be approved by the Council of Ministers (governments) in a vote which is either unanimous - again our government has a full veto - or has a high threshold for a qualified majority vote. I always hear the argument that because a policy area uses QMV it means we have "no power to shape legislation" but this is nonsense because we have such a high amount of Council votes that we only need minimal support from other countries to block legislative acts. Just take a look at the voting records in the Council and see how many pieces of legislation have been passed against the wishes of our government in a QMV vote. I only have the patience to count up the votes for 2006 but the Council's website lists votes back to 1999. For 2006 then (up to September as that's the last month updated online):

Number of successful votes on legislative acts in 2006 - 86

Number of times the UK voted in favour - 84

Number of UK abstentions - 2

Number of times the UK voted against - 0

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/cms3_...id=254&lang=EN - the quickest way to view it is to click on "summary of council acts".

If you're interested, the abstentions were for firstly, an amendment to Council Regulation 1035/2001 where the UK found the definition of the word "import" confusing. They had no problem with the actual regulation itself as was stated - "the UK had no difficulties with the principle of the draft Regulation," (Statement 100/06 by the United Kingdom).

The second abstention was for 15382/05 which dealt with giving national aid to Cyprus (no statement was given explaining it as far as I'm aware).

It may well be a tiny percentage of total trade, but it's not a tiny percentage of GDP.

mkpdavies

I couldn't care less what out treacherous governments record is on it. I am talking about our businesses and people who have to suffer. The lying con artists in power all love the EU and couldn't give a toss how much damage it does to British business, because they all want British business to be United States of Europe Business.

We trade at a deficit with the EU, so negative on balance. We give them more money than they give us.

What I would like, is one example where a British Business has lobbied and got a law or decision changed, thanks to the British influence in the EU.

Then I would like all the positive occasions this has happened added up and compared to all the time s UK business has had to fork out for mad directives and regulation, in areas where the EU isn't involved in the trade/companies dealings.

Crazyness is the answer.

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blank_frackis

This is certainly true, doing most of our trade with EU countries doesn't mean that we have to be EU members (Switzerland is a good example proving that) it's simply a reason that you would factor into that decision.

I've noticed that in a couple of your posts you're viewing a trading deficit as unambiguously negative. It's more complex than that and there are many benefits to a trading deficit. In the U.S for example, during the years in which the deficit has widened they've seen higher economic growth. This study (which is interesting reading even if you disagree with me) can explain the link between trade deficits and unemployment/economic growth far better than I can, but needless to say it often has positive effects.

http://www.freetrade.org/node/108

The best way to think of a trading deficit is to think of the individual trade you do yourself. When you go to a shop and buy goods you don't give them a comparative amount of goods in return, you give them currency. The fact that you have a massive individual trading deficit with whichever shop you buy your food from doesn't make the relationship a negative one. This is how trade with foreign countries works - both parties trading get something out of the deal, otherwise there would be no point in trading.

In addition there's a strong link to foreign investment. This is because when we import goods from another country we send our pounds in the other direction. The only things you can do with this currency is use it to buy UK products, save it or invest it in the UK. It's therefore not surprising that trade deficits have been shown to have a link with increased foreign investment in the economy - which doesn't of course show up in trade balance statistics. For instance if an individual in Germany sold goods to an individual in the UK for £1,000 and then invested his £1,000 back into the economy it would show up as a £1,000 trading deficit. However the economy would have just as much money in it as it did in the first place.

blank_frackis

How the government uses its power is a different issue, the point is that it has the power in the first place - for all these 86 legislative acts adopted there were others that were rejected, the point is that when an act passes in the Council it has UK approval almost all of the time.

I made a post about trading deficits above, but as for the power of business that's the responsibility of the government to involve them in the process. I wouldn't defend the Labour government for a minute (though businesses are involved in the process) but the point is that the UK government has the power in the first place: we were talking about some hypothetical situation where we had a different government who wanted to reform the EU and whether it would be possible or not.