EU referendum - what if the UK votes to stay in?

[rudecherub]

rs1952 said:

Art0ir said:

On the walls of the new EU Museum..

" National sovereignty is the root cause of the most crying evils of our time. The only final remedy for this supreme and catastrophic evil is a federal union of the peoples."

Sounds like communism to me.

There are plenty of federal republics about the place that aren't communist. Like the Yanks, for example and, although we don't call it such, the United Kingdom (the clue is in the word "United")

But, and this is HUGE but, UK and the USA had a common language, law and culture, and were united broadly by consent, but even then it was a bloody business.

The EU is being created by coercion and dishonesty - further the history of states created like this - like the former Yugoslavia and the USSR doesn't bode well.

[Getragdogleg]

The nannying rules and the enforcement of petty regulations feel like bloody communism, the funneling of money from all the various countries to a central point for redistribution in a way they feel suitable feels like communism.

I expect if you were to dig a little you would find plenty of former communist party members busily making policy in Brussels.

[Art0ir]

Getragdogleg said:

The nannying rules and the enforcement of petty regulations feel like bloody communism, the funneling of money from all the various countries to a central point for redistribution in a way they feel suitable feels like communism.

I expect if you were to dig a little you would find plenty of former communist party members busily making policy in Brussels.

No digging required good sir.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Barr...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Schulz#Politic...

[Getragdogleg]

Art0ir said:

Getragdogleg said:

The nannying rules and the enforcement of petty regulations feel like bloody communism, the funneling of money from all the various countries to a central point for redistribution in a way they feel suitable feels like communism.

I expect if you were to dig a little you would find plenty of former communist party members busily making policy in Brussels.

No digging required good sir.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Barr...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Schulz#Politic...

How Unexpected.

[anonymous-user]

rudecherub said:

rs1952 said:

Art0ir said:

On the walls of the new EU Museum..

" National sovereignty is the root cause of the most crying evils of our time. The only final remedy for this supreme and catastrophic evil is a federal union of the peoples."

Sounds like communism to me.

There are plenty of federal republics about the place that aren't communist. Like the Yanks, for example and, although we don't call it such, the United Kingdom (the clue is in the word "United")

But, and this is HUGE but, UK and the USA had a common language, law and culture, and were united broadly by consent, but even then it was a bloody business.

The EU is being created by coercion and dishonesty - further the history of states created like this - like the former Yugoslavia and the USSR doesn't bode well.

better yet the usa still maintains massive fiscal transfers between states to keep it all playing nice. http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/... anyone really think the european electorate would put up with that level of transfer?

[rudecherub]

fbrs said:

better yet the usa still maintains massive fiscal transfers between states to keep it all playing nice. http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/... anyone really think the european electorate would put up with that level of transfer?

Exactly, and Fiscal Union in the Euro Zone means this is happening in the EU - albeit reluctantly, Germans don't like working hard and retiring later to help the Greeks not work and retire early.

EU'S FU is part of the story, historically the EEC's budget was largely spent on Common Agricultural Policy, which supported small inefficient farms in Europe, pushing up prices in the Customs Union - ie making the poor pay more for their food, while dumping the food mountains onto the World market depressing prices which hit producer countries - many of which were developing nations.

Recently the UK gave money to the EU bank that loaned money to Turkey so Ford might be bribed to moved van Production from the UK to Turkey.

& we're not in the Euro Zone.

[Devil2575]

What if the UK votes to stay in?

The sky will turn black and we will all be comsumed in the firey depths of hell as the four horsemen of the apocalypse gallop over the horizon.

or

There will be a deafening roar as the piss of many PH members simultaneously boils?



In a democracy if you hold a different view to that of the majority you have to accept that there will be times when you don't get what you want.

If The UK votes to stay in this will be just such an occassion.

Hopefully it will make that idiot Farage shut up

[anonymous-user]

devil were you able to read the economist piece or would you like it explained?

[rs1952]

rudecherub said:

historically the EEC's budget was largely spent on Common Agricultural Policy, which supported small inefficient farms in Europe

I agreed with you that far

rudecherub said:

pushing up prices in the Customs Union - ie making the poor pay more for their food, while dumping the food mountains onto the World market depressing prices which hit producer countries - many of which were developing nations.

I would be the last one to support the CAP, but you have to bear in mind that the Common Market was set up at a time when many European countries were not self-sufficient in food. The original intention of the CAP was to assist European farmers to increase production and thereby make the countries self-sufficient.

The fact that the whole thing was then hijacked, primarily by the Fench but there were others, when the food mountains of the 1970s started to appear is something that should have been sorted out 40 years ago.

It was a classic case of the law of unintended consequences which nobody has had the bottle to face head-on - not even Margaret Thatcher

Edited by rs1952 on Thursday 14th February 23:35

[rudecherub]

rs1952 said:

I would be the last one to support the CAP, but you have to bear in mind that the Common Market was set up at a time when many European countries were not self-sufficient in food. The original intention of the CAP was to assist European farmers to increase production and thereby make the countries self-sufficient.

The fact that the whole thing was then hijacked, primarily by the Fench but there were others, when the food mountains of the 1970s started to appear is something that should have been sorted out 40 years ago.

It was a classic case of the law of unintended consequences which nobody has had the bottle to face head-on - not even Margaret Thatcher

Edited by rs1952 on Thursday 14th February 23:35

It's something of a myth that Thatcher had all her own way - especially on Europe, the idea she alone could have taken on CAP is the politics of the impossible.

The French and the Germans treat the small family farms and the dependent rural communities specially, the process of CAP creates a client vote. They simply would not have reformed CAP in any meaningful way - as Tony Blair discovered when he gave up half our Rebate - they will however lie about it, and even in the C21st they won't reform.

On the other hand Thatcher had to fight the euro-fanatics in her own party, remember it was Europe that led to Howe and others drawing out the long knives. Before that Lawson effectively had us in the ERM-lite by his policy of shadowing the Deutsmark, something Thatcher/Alan Walters was against.

The EU Customs Union is about maintaining trade barriers, be that levies as with cars, or through subsidies as with Agriculture. It's very much locked into the 1950's thinking that created the idea of Ever Closer Union.

[AJS-]

rs1952 said:

The fact that the whole thing was then hijacked, primarily by the Fench but there were others, when the food mountains of the 1970s started to appear is something that should have been sorted out 40 years ago.

That's the real nub of the problem with the EU. It can't and won't be reformed because there is no compelling reason for those in a position to reform it to actually do so. There's no democratic control, there's no brake on their excess. There is only a sclerotic bureaucracy and powerful lobby groups.