600,000 Eu Benefits Tourists Living In The Uk

[marshy]

Just to get back on point, now that the Chief Executive of Nissan-Renault has essentially said that they'll be off if we leave the EU, University College London have done an extensive study showing a definite benefit to the economy from migration (especially from EU migration) and the CBI have commissioned a paper which shows that leaving the EU would damage British business, does anyone want to revise their views on our EU membership?

 

Does anyone want to revise their views? Well I, for one, certainly don't wish to as, for me, from the outset, the issue has been primarily about sovereignty and not about the economics of the situation which are, at best, decidedly cloudy. One day a business leader will come out with a view supporting membership, the next one will be calling for our exit. If business leaders had had their way we would now be in the Eurozone and on the hook for even greater contributions towards bailing out the south of Europe. Besides the guy you quote has not said they'll be off he has said that the situation will be reviewed which is completely different and something that businessmen are constantly doing with regard to their enterprises. To my mind it is inconceivable, given that we run a trade deficit with Europe, that the EU would wish to embark upon a tariff war with the UK. German industrialists will be screaming in horror at the prospect.

If it ever comes to the vote yours is the kind of scaremongering that, no doubt, we'll have to endure.

[chipdawg]

Does anyone want to revise their views? Well I, for one, certainly don't wish to as, for me, from the outset, the issue has been primarily about sovereignty and not about the economics of the situation which are, at best, decidedly cloudy. One day a business leader will come out with a view supporting membership, the next one will be calling for our exit. If business leaders had had their way we would now be in the Eurozone and on the hook for even greater contributions towards bailing out the south of Europe. Besides the guy you quote has not said they'll be off he has said that the situation will be reviewed which is completely different and something that businessmen are constantly doing with regard to their enterprises. To my mind it is inconceivable, given that we run a trade deficit with Europe, that the EU would wish to embark upon a tariff war with the UK. German industrialists will be screaming in horror at the prospect.

If it ever comes to the vote yours is the kind of scaremongering that, no doubt, we'll have to endure.

Scaremongering?! I only asked a question my dear chap! Though I agree that I slightly misrepresented what the Nissan bloke said; I believe he said that as it stands, the Sunderland plant remains competitive, but that future investment here as opposed to the continent would be unlikely

I'm personally very pro-Europe and I have little concern about perceived infringement on our sovereignty given the job that the current lot in parliament (both in power and opposition) are doing of representing me. I would like to see the EU reformed, but with us in it and playing a leading role

Do you actually know how the EU works? They introduce directives that we are then bound to introduce into our law. The reason The Daily Mail thinks we get roundly bummed all the time by these directives is being we're so shit at implementing them. If the French don't like a directive, they introduce in enforceable legislation and then don my enforce it, as with directives relating to the water industry. If Germany doesn't like a directive they change the thrust of the regulations to suit their needs, as they've done with EU purchasing regs. We, on the other hand, wait until the last possible moment and then force through poorly thought out, poorly written legislation that hamstrings the country. We don't as a nation make the most of the EU situation at any level

As for trade with the EU, I suspect that German industrialists will be rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of us leaving the EU, even if their government won't be. Our manufacturing base was destroyed by Thatcher 30 years ago and so the items we buy from the EU we'll still need. There is very little that we produce, however, that French and German industry requires from us and even less that they couldn't start producing themselves. Talk of a Swiss-style unilateral trade agreement is pie in the sky; Switzerland has services that Europe coverts, we do not. We'll become even more reliant on the City of London and the regions will become more impoverished. But then that's just my opinion

Anyhow, just trying to reignite debate and its an issue that has no right or wrong answer until it happens and we're ******/not ******

[Red-Robbo]

I always think when people say "do you want the Germans taking decisions about our country?" well, we'd be better off if they actually did!

 

Lower unemployment, lower inflation, no housing bubble, better transport system, cheaper energy, no need to waste billions fighting unwinnable wars. You only have to look at the number of new cars driving on continental roads and compare them to here, to realise how badly Westminster's politicians have managed this country.

 

 

Maybe, we should wait until the unprofitable Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish offshoots are hived off then cede England as a province of Belgium or something.

 

Beers would be good then too!

[Barrs Court Red]

Belgium, a place with peadophile rings to the very top (hmmm bbc would fit in) and riddled with poverty. Not to mention home of the most corrupt government organisation in the world.

Great advert for Europe. Not.

[Red-Robbo]

Belgium, a place with peadophile rings to the very top (hmmm bbc would fit in) and riddled with poverty. Not to mention home of the most corrupt government organisation in the world.

Great advert for Europe. Not.

 

I chose Belgium at random - and as a joke - but a quick google reveals it has a higher GDP per capita then Britain, much smaller prison population per head (there are paedophile rings convicted every week in the UK) and is slightly less corrupt than the UK according to Transparency International who do research on this sort of thing, rather than just types bollocks.

[marshy]

[Mr Mosquito]

Wrong yet again, Gobbers!   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24522653

 

Notice that only 38,000 of these 600,000 'scroungers' actually claim benefit. And the figure includes older schoolchildren, students, the spouses of migrant workers, and retired people.

 

On with your dunce's cap again and write out 100 times on the board "I will not believe every over-spun scare story I read in the right-wing press just because it supports my saloon bar philosophy".  

 

The BBC is an Oxbridge elitist led propaganda newsagency that has never provided any critical analysis of the hopelessly corrupt and criminal led European Union project on its daily propaganda news broadcasts.

[Mr Mosquito]

I always think when people say "do you want the Germans taking decisions about our country?" well, we'd be better off if they actually did!

 

Lower unemployment, lower inflation, no housing bubble, better transport system, cheaper energy, no need to waste billions fighting unwinnable wars. You only have to look at the number of new cars driving on continental roads and compare them to here, to realise how badly Westminster's politicians have managed this country.

 

 

Maybe, we should wait until the unprofitable Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish offshoots are hived off then cede England as a province of Belgium or something.

 

Beers would be good then too!

 

Not shown by the EU loving BBC propaganda newsagency but the German led European Union project exports unemployment to the UK......."Unemployment is the EU's biggest export to the UK"........

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM8wtyKemSg

[chipdawg]

Not shown by the EU loving BBC propaganda newsagency but the German led European Union project exports unemployment to the UK......."Unemployment is the EU's biggest export to the UK"........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM8wtyKemSg

I love how the BBC is unreliable but a video on YouTube showing edited clips of anti-EU politicians is to be taken as gospel...

[Mr Mosquito]

I love how the BBC is unreliable but a video on YouTube showing edited clips of anti-EU politicians is to be taken as gospel...

 

Indeed, anything anti-EU IS my gospel.

[Barrs Court Red]

I chose Belgium at random - and as a joke - but a quick google reveals it has a higher GDP per capita then Britain, much smaller prison population per head (there are paedophile rings convicted every week in the UK) and is slightly less corrupt than the UK according to Transparency International who do research on this sort of thing, rather than just types bollocks.

Haha I was on about the EU, given it's based in Brussels. But still, dry your eyes and keep up the fight forcthe united states of Europe.

[chipdawg]

Haha I was on about the EU, given it's based in Brussels. But still, dry your eyes and keep up the fight forcthe united states of Europe.

Out of interest (and not as something I necessarily want to see), if you were offered a Federal Europe with seperate nations partly ruled from Brussels but with a higher GDP, higher standard of living, better public transport, etc. or drawing a line between us and Europe but ploughing the same furrow we are now, what would you pick? I'm a proud Brit and don't want to see our national identity diminished but I feel no more connection to the Bullingdon Club-types running the country now than I do to the Brussels beaurocrats, so I struggle to think how it would affect me in many respects

[Barrs Court Red]

But that's an utter fantasy isn't it.

[marshy]

[Red-Robbo]

Haha I was on about the EU, given it's based in Brussels. But still, dry your eyes and keep up the fight forcthe united states of Europe.

 

I'm pretty sceptical about the EU, BCR, actually. 

 

While a free trade zone gives undoubted benefits, an organisation that gives 60+% of its income away as agricultural subsidies; whose basic tenets mean we don't have full control over our own borders and is beset by staggering waste does not seem entirely beneficial to this country.

 

I don't work for the BBC incidentally, as you seem to think. I work for Red Robbo Ltd. Next week, I begin a project for everyone's (un)favourite privatised monopoly,

[marshy]

Scaremongering?! I only asked a question my dear chap! Though I agree that I slightly misrepresented what the Nissan bloke said; I believe he said that as it stands, the Sunderland plant remains competitive, but that future investment here as opposed to the continent would be unlikely

I'm personally very pro-Europe and I have little concern about perceived infringement on our sovereignty given the job that the current lot in parliament (both in power and opposition) are doing of representing me. I would like to see the EU reformed, but with us in it and playing a leading role

Do you actually know how the EU works? They introduce directives that we are then bound to introduce into our law. The reason The Daily Mail thinks we get roundly bummed all the time by these directives is being we're so shit at implementing them. If the French don't like a directive, they introduce in enforceable legislation and then don my enforce it, as with directives relating to the water industry. If Germany doesn't like a directive they change the thrust of the regulations to suit their needs, as they've done with EU purchasing regs. We, on the other hand, wait until the last possible moment and then force through poorly thought out, poorly written legislation that hamstrings the country. We don't as a nation make the most of the EU situation at any level

As for trade with the EU, I suspect that German industrialists will be rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of us leaving the EU, even if their government won't be. Our manufacturing base was destroyed by Thatcher 30 years ago and so the items we buy from the EU we'll still need. There is very little that we produce, however, that French and German industry requires from us and even less that they couldn't start producing themselves. Talk of a Swiss-style unilateral trade agreement is pie in the sky; Switzerland has services that Europe coverts, we do not. We'll become even more reliant on the City of London and the regions will become more impoverished. But then that's just my opinion

Anyhow, just trying to reignite debate and its an issue that has no right or wrong answer until it happens and we're ******/not ******

 

I'll try to answer some of the points you make although I do appreciate that we both have entrenched positions and it will probably be fairly pointless.

 

Para 1. '' My dear chap''. Long time since I was addressed in that way, if ever come to think of it. We probably move in different social circles. Anyway Old Boy, moving on,

 

Para 2. Firstly it does worry me that you have little concern for 'the infringement on our sovereignty'. This, to me, is paramount even if our politicians are usually making a mess of things. At least they're ours and we can vote them out, unlike the Commissioners and fonctionnaires in Brussels. You use the expression 'pro-Europe' which is something I've noticed BBC interviewers and newsreaders doing frequently. I'm pro-Europe in a sense, I travel there and enjoy spending time there, but I'm not pro-EU, in fact very much against. I've come to the conclusion that, now the spotlight has been turned upon our state broadcaster's political agenda, it's a subtle method they are using to label all those against the EU as xenophobic little-Englanders. As for reforming the EU I don't think Mr Cameron is going to have a great deal of luck with that one. That is simply political manoeuvring on his part deflect the impact of UKIP.

 

Para 3. Do I know how the EU actually works? Well, and I have to be honest here, the study of huge, unwieldy bureaucracies does not rank highly on my list of bedtime reading. However it seems there are not just Directives but also Regulations and Decisions all of which are binding with just the method of implementation left open in the case of Directives, with the whole lot dreamed up by the distant and unaccountable. Anyway it's good to know the French and Germans are so adept at bending things to suit themselves, it is their 'project' after all.

 

Para 4. I disagree with just about everything you've written here and in particular the general trashing of British industry. I would have thought a trade agreement with the EU in the event of us leaving is far more likely than not. Why would they not wish to trade freely with the seventh(?) largest economy in the world especially as they run a surplus with us. As for not producing anything the Europeans want I think all you have to do here is to have a look at a list of, say, the FTSE 350, visit a few company websites and see how much business these companies do with Europe..and beyond. To say that Thatcher destroyed our manufacturing base thirty years ago is flying in the face of all the evidence. You could more easily argue that she dragged us kicking and screaming into the modern era with a few sweeteners along the way to keep the man in the street onside.

As for Switzerland, well you now start to talk of services. After all, to quote from 'The Third Man', ''Five hundred years of peace and democracy and all they produced was the cuckoo clock''. As economies develop the progress through from primary to tertiary leaves a greater emphasis on the tertiary sector. This of course happens in all developed economies and is why our secondary, manufacturing sector is around the same size as that in France, and only slightly lower than that in Germany.

With regard to the plight of the regions as compared to London, well this has been a fact of economic life in this country for as long as I can remember. London is the capital and attracts the talent and investment, I even worked there myself once for around five years, not that I have any particular talent of course. Recoveries tend to spread out from London as they develop.

[Barrs Court Red]

I'm pretty sceptical about the EU, BCR, actually.

While a free trade zone gives undoubted benefits, an organisation that gives 60+% of its income away as agricultural subsidies; whose basic tenets mean we don't have full control over our own borders and is beset by staggering waste does not seem entirely beneficial to this country.

I don't work for the BBC incidentally, as you seem to think. I work for Red Robbo Ltd. Next week, I begin a project for everyone's (un)favourite privatised monopoly,

Oh, the bbc wasnt aimed specifically at you!

[Red-Robbo]

Oh, the bbc wasnt aimed specifically at you!

 

Fair enough.

 

It's funny, knowing the workplace culture there: You would be right in thinking the institutional management is as horribly PC as any large institution is these days - the Police; Civil Service; NHS and even large private companies spout the same managementspeak claptrap.

 

On the "coalface" - so to speak - you actually have people with a variety of views and some of them are as un-right on as anyone you'll meet in, say, your average tyre depot. It's not really blokes in linen suits and expensive glasses waffling on about what wine they have bought for their dinner party.* I've heard some of the filthiest jokes of my life in the newsroom!

 

Despite what RG might think, journalists tend to be quite cynical about people who are idealistically political, of whatever variety. There are exceptions of course, but generally. I don't really think the newsroom culture there is much different to Sky, C4, CNN or even the foreign networks I do contracts at.

 

 

 

* Well maybe World Service TV is 

[chipdawg]

[chipdawg]

I'll try to answer some of the points you make although I do appreciate that we both have entrenched positions and it will probably be fairly pointless.

Para 1. '' My dear chap''. Long time since I was addressed in that way, if ever come to think of it. We probably move in different social circles. Anyway Old Boy, moving on,

Para 2. Firstly it does worry me that you have little concern for 'the infringement on our sovereignty'. This, to me, is paramount even if our politicians are usually making a mess of things. At least they're ours and we can vote them out, unlike the Commissioners and fonctionnaires in Brussels. You use the expression 'pro-Europe' which is something I've noticed BBC interviewers and newsreaders doing frequently. I'm pro-Europe in a sense, I travel there and enjoy spending time there, but I'm not pro-EU, in fact very much against. I've come to the conclusion that, now the spotlight has been turned upon our state broadcaster's political agenda, it's a subtle method they are using to label all those against the EU as xenophobic little-Englanders. As for reforming the EU I don't think Mr Cameron is going to have a great deal of luck with that one. That is simply political manoeuvring on his part deflect the impact of UKIP.

Para 3. Do I know how the EU actually works? Well, and I have to be honest here, the study of huge, unwieldy bureaucracies does not rank highly on my list of bedtime reading. However it seems there are not just Directives but also Regulations and Decisions all of which are binding with just the method of implementation left open in the case of Directives, with the whole lot dreamed up by the distant and unaccountable. Anyway it's good to know the French and Germans are so adept at bending things to suit themselves, it is their 'project' after all.

Para 4. I disagree with just about everything you've written here and in particular the general trashing of British industry. I would have thought a trade agreement with the EU in the event of us leaving is far more likely than not. Why would they not wish to trade freely with the seventh(?) largest economy in the world especially as they run a surplus with us. As for not producing anything the Europeans want I think all you have to do here is to have a look at a list of, say, the FTSE 350, visit a few company websites and see how much business these companies do with Europe..and beyond. To say that Thatcher destroyed our manufacturing base thirty years ago is flying in the face of all the evidence. You could more easily argue that she dragged us kicking and screaming into the modern era with a few sweeteners along the way to keep the man in the street onside.

As for Switzerland, well you now start to talk of services. After all, to quote from 'The Third Man', ''Five hundred years of peace and democracy and all they produced was the cuckoo clock''. As economies develop the progress through from primary to tertiary leaves a greater emphasis on the tertiary sector. This of course happens in all developed economies and is why our secondary, manufacturing sector is around the same size as that in France, and only slightly lower than that in Germany.

With regard to the plight of the regions as compared to London, well this has been a fact of economic life in this country for as long as I can remember. London is the capital and attracts the talent and investment, I even worked there myself once for around five years, not that I have any particular talent of course. Recoveries tend to spread out from London as they develop.

Well I thought it was just a nice, informal way of starting a reply, I had no idea it revealed so much about my social standing!

But that all depends on your idea of sovereignty. What would we lose from being governed from Brussels? What connection to the ruling elite would Iose? Well, none. I don't think my life would change for the worse at all, so it comes down a theoretical concept of self governance that I don't really share. It wouldn't make me feel any less British, but I can see why it is so emotive

Regulations (I believe) only apply to interactions between EU nations and EU activities, so for us to have a trade agreement with the EU we would be subject to them by proxy. The best way to think about this is to ask, "what mechanism do the EU have to punish us if we do not do as they direct?" Well, none really. They can fine us but it's very difficult to actually extract money other than reducing grants, but we could just contribute less to make up a shortfall. There is no mechanism for removing a country from the EU under such terms as far as I'm aware. My point against the French and the Germans is that they use their own legislation to make the EU work for them and we don't. Given that we already see an economic benefit from membership, if we start helping Europe to help us, we'll do even better out of it

A trade agreement may well happen if we left, but don't think for a second that it will be to our benefit. Why would it be? There are no products that we make that couldn't be made elsewhere in Europe and any trade deficit would actually be an opportunity for the rest of Europe to step up and fill the gap. Once again to phrase it as a question, "what does Europe gain from us not being a paying member of the EU bit having all the benefits of the common market?" As for the destruction of or manufacturing base, I see it every day in the town I work in and in the areas I've grown up in and lived. We've destroyed our raw materials extraction (France and Germany still have significant coal industry) and vast tracts of our manufacturing industry are foreign owned and export to Europe, making the hope of a favourable trade agreement ever more vital

I'm not necessarily trying to convince you to change your mind- it is a highly complex and contentious issue that very few people fully understand (I am not one of them) and I am being intentionally extreme in my points of view to make a point. Debate is always good

[Nibor]

This sovereignty thing makes me laugh. Why is it important that we stick to deciding laws this side of an imaginary line on a map?

[chipdawg]

Is it a line on a map? Or is it more about culture, heritage, language and traditions? How about our legal tradition and concepts of person and property, stretching back to the 1200s?

But none of that is automatically affected by being regulated from City B rather than City A. You could argue (quite convincingly) that the various regions of The UK have no more in common with London than they do with Brussels or Paris or Berlin other than language. If you went back to the 1200s you would find a monarchy that had just been cuckolded by a political rebellion, a peasants revolt brewing, a Wales that was not even close to being under control, an aristocracy that spoke French, a rural north that spoke Danish and had openly rebelled against their French overlords in London less than 100 years earlier... So to say that there has been a harmonious and accepted rule of law from London for 900 years is not entirely true

[Red-Robbo]

It looked like Nibor was reducing nationality to arbitrary lines on a map but I think it's a lot more than that.  Our roots as Brits came-out of that chaotic melting-pot and all the stuff that happened before, from the Romans onward (and even before that but we don't have much detail). However we Brits have been more or less settled into a cultural identity since, a multi-faceted identity I'll grant you, but there is a collective sense of what being British means.  

 

Whether that identity is threatened by the EU is another matter.  I tend to think yes.  I suspect the rulers of the EU are socialist and internationalists and are working towards a Federal Europe, which I am against on cultural and democratic lines.  Trade co-operation, common standards and that sort of thing are a great idea, (though no country should surrender 'who they are' for economic reasons); common currency, armed forces and legal systems - god no. 'Up yours, Delors' comes to mind.  

 

Love Europe - despise the EU.

 

I think the EU is as unpopular on the left - where it is seen as a boss's club, reinforcing international capitalism - as it is on the right, which is where your arguments come from.

 

I only know two Marxists, but one is an academic. He wrote this http://www.andymullen.com/downloads/research4/spinning_europe.pdf

[Eco]

It looked like Nibor was reducing nationality to arbitrary lines on a map but I think it's a lot more than that.  Our roots as Brits came-out of that chaotic melting-pot and all the stuff that happened before, from the Romans onward (and even before that but we don't have much detail). However we Brits have been more or less settled into a cultural identity since, a multi-faceted identity I'll grant you, but there is a collective sense of what being British means.  

 

Whether that identity is threatened by the EU is another matter.  I tend to think yes.  I suspect the rulers of the EU are socialist and internationalists and are working towards a Federal Europe, which I am against on cultural and democratic lines.  Trade co-operation, common standards and that sort of thing are a great idea, (though no country should surrender 'who they are' for economic reasons); common currency, armed forces and legal systems - god no. 'Up yours, Delors' comes to mind.  

 

Love Europe - despise the EU.

[marshy]

I'm aware of all those things, but it was a theoretical question. The current state of the EU and especially the single currency does not present the best case for us pro-EU types, but I still believe that in the long term we'll be better out than in and I would certainly have no problem with us being governed from Europe if it makes my life better; I wouldn't feel any less British and I fail to see how it would diminish is culturally, also having the bonus that if we were doing well the whole of Europe would be doing well and people from Eastern Europe would not feel the need to come here "to take our jobs and our women, etc"

PS when referring to 'Bullingdon Club types' I was talking about all sides of the political spectrum; the Tories might be the obvious lot in that respect, but I don't identify with any of them to be perfectly honest

 

I knew you'd come round in the end.

[chipdawg]

I knew you'd come round in the end.

Balls...

[Mr Mosquito]

 

Love Europe - despise the EU.

 

That's my position exactly, I love Europe and its varying cultures and nation states but I despise the European Union project. The Tory Global Capitalists and their equal but opposite buddies - the New Labour Party Cultural Marxists - want all the existing European countries harmonized, standardized and subjugated under an unelected despot EU elite so they can more easily be controlled.

[Mr Mosquito]

There are those, of course, and some on this thread, who think the Germans would make a better job of running our country than we can ourselves. I can only hope that these are tongue-in-cheek comments. The Germans may be flying high at the moment, bolstered by a seriously undervalued currency, but historically that has not always been the case, to put it mildly, and will not always be the case in future.

 

Again, not shown by the Oxbridge elitist led EU loving BBC propaganda news and views agency but here's Nigel Farage talking to German Chancellor Angela Merkel about Britain leaving the EU.........

 

[Nibor]

Is it a line on a map? Or is it more about culture, heritage, language and traditions?  How about our legal tradition and concepts of person and property, stretching back to the 1200s?

 

I don't think establishing laws benefits much from shared history at all, laws should be about the future.  Besides, I have more in common with your average working class german than I do with Westminster so why should I give a rat's ass?

 

"Patriotism" is just as much a mugs game as religion - perhaps more so.

[Red-Robbo]

Again, not shown by the Oxbridge elitist led EU loving BBC propaganda news and views agency but here's Nigel Farage talking to German Chancellor Angela Merkel about Britain leaving the EU.........

 

 

How are your plans for Farage TV, coming on, Gobbers? A 24/7 funfest showing of everyone's favourite commodity broker (and surely a global capitalist therefore, by definition) droning on in a semi-empty European talking shop to people who don't really know who he is.

 

The channel should - of course - not be led by Oxbridge elitists, but by people who were too thick to go to university.