The 'No to the EU' campaign

[Mrr T]

jurbie said:

Known as Flexcit for anyone who wishes to find out more.

http://www.eureferendum.com/documents/flexcit.pdf

Thanks for that.

Also worth reading:

http://www.civitas.org.uk/europe/TheNorwegianWay.p...

[mph1977]

jurbie said:

Mrr T said:

There is a plan by Dr North which envisages the UK leaving the EU but remaining in the EEA. The plan has many advantages as it provided a quick way of leaving the EU with minimal risks to trade. It would also likely improve our ability to influence regulations. The problem for kippers is it also includes freedom of movement of labour.

Known as Flexcit for anyone who wishes to find out more.

http://www.eureferendum.com/documents/flexcit.pdf

improve our ability to influence regulation on what basis ? as the Norway Option is commonly described as 'red tape by fax' as the EU 27 send down their rules for the other EEA states to take unlubricated

[NicD]

Read the link in the post above

'In fact Norway enjoys more favourable terms than is often appreciated, including significant influence over single market legislation and a veto to remove itself from onerous laws, while it also maintains a strong degree of cooperation with the EU in various policy areas.
Lindsell writes: 'The Norwegian approach to the European Union offers a genuine alternative to consider. This is not to say that overall the Norwegian option is superior to EU membership or any other international arrangement, but that the strongest criticisms levelled against Norway are wide of the mark.
'The Norwegian option retains all the trade advantages of EU membership while offering avenues for increased prosperity through trading around the world. It could function as an off-the-shelf, hiatus-free stepping stone to more ambitious, but more trickily negotiated, EU relationships such as Roger Bootle’s favoured free trade agreement option.''

[Pan Pan Pan]

AJS- said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

As posted on the `other' EU related topic, If it seems the EU are happy to `bung' 7.2 billion Euros into the basket case money pit we know as Greece from exiting, to keep the Eurozone on track, if this is the case I wonder what they will `bung' the UK to stop `us' exiting?
IMHO it had better be damn good, or the EU will be losing its second largest net contributor INTO EU coffers after Germany, and a country which buys more from the EU, than it sells into it.

Arguments in Brussels will are likely to be very very interesting in the coming months.

What arguments will there be in Brussels? They will throw money at the campaign to swing the referendum but they will not change any policies, let alone treaties. Cameron isn't even asking them to as far as I can tell.

And you know this how?
If they are willing to give billions keeping a basket case money pit country like Greece in the EU, but (in your view) will not do anything (other than try to rig the referendum here) to actually reform the way it is run, and accommodate the EU`s second largest net contributor to EU coffers, then the EU has to be a devastatingly corrupt organisation, and on that basis alone it would be better if we were NOT part of it.
I am generally for staying in the EU but not in its present corrupt, inefficient, (skewed from the start in the case of the UK`s membership) form.
The EU would sh*t itself if it looked like the UK was leaving, If they want the UK to stay in they had better start making some serious moves to clean its act up, and now is perhaps the best and possibly only chance they will get to do this.
It seems that quite a few member states have forgotten the old rule. It is he who pays the piper who calls the tune.

[jurbie]

mph1977 said:

improve our ability to influence regulation on what basis ? as the Norway Option is commonly described as 'red tape by fax' as the EU 27 send down their rules for the other EEA states to take unlubricated

Here is a little more on the Norway situation.

The vast majority of EU law is not EU in origin. The EU institutions themselves employ fewer than the BBC collectively thus could not possibly author the masses of regulation churned out all the time. They come from international bodies such as WP.29, WTO, UNECE, Codex, NAFO and a dozen other bodies you have probably never heard of - on which the EU effectively takes our seat and negotiates on our behalf.

While Ukip and others say we don't have a seat at the WTO and other such institutions, we do. However, trade is an exclusive competence of the EU so we're forced to adopt the common EU position derived from its advanced observer status. What this means is we have no independent power of veto.

Norway on the other hand is a member of Efta but still has its own independent vote because Efta is not a supranational organisation. Thus Norway gets a veto on single market rules and regulation before they even get down to the EU level. Such regulations do not get as far as the European Parliament without a global agreement. So when it comes to things like automotive industry regulations, Norway has more say than we do, and it doesn't even have a car industry. Many of the employment regulations, so called "workers rights" come from bodies as diverse as the ILO and WHO. Norway has a strong influence there too.

Norway used its veto when it came to the 3rd Postal Directive, a Directive the UK had no option but to implement. That's British "influence" for you.

http://eureferendum.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/europhi...

[NicD]

Good information!

[FiF]

NicD said:

Good information!

Pete North writes some good stuff. His how to be a complete bd blog is quite amusing.

[AJS-]

Pan Pan Pan said:

And you know this how?
If they are willing to give billions keeping a basket case money pit country like Greece in the EU, but (in your view) will not do anything (other than try to rig the referendum here) to actually reform the way it is run, and accommodate the EU`s second largest net contributor to EU coffers, then the EU has to be a devastatingly corrupt organisation, and on that basis alone it would be better if we were NOT part of it.

I think you've answered yourself there. It's an organisation built on a fanatical and uncompromising belief in merging the nations of Europe into a country called the European Union.

From what I've seen so far Cameron isn't even asking the EU to change anything. He's announcing welfare and other domestic policy reforms which are still under his control anyway. If this is not the case then he is asking the EU and other member states for permission to change our welfare system. Which is worse?

Pan Pan Pan said:

I am generally for staying in the EU but not in its present corrupt, inefficient, (skewed from the start in the case of the UK`s membership) form.
The EU would sh*t itself if it looked like the UK was leaving, If they want the UK to stay in they had better start making some serious moves to clean its act up, and now is perhaps the best and possibly only chance they will get to do this.
It seems that quite a few member states have forgotten the old rule. It is he who pays the piper who calls the tune.

Without wanting to sound patronising I think you're being a bit naive. The EU isn't some government department that's got a bit bloated and over-mighty. Cameron can't march in and set things straight, trim the excess spending a bit and make the EU all efficient and democratic.

It's a vast and ambitious political project to create a country called the European Union. It has a flag, an anthem, a president, a trade policy, a foreign policy and a parliament. Anywhere Britain has these things they are subordinate to the European Union's. The only remaining effective power that we have is the power to leave. This is not a wild conspiracy theory, it's right there in the treaties.

Logically you would think Cameron could get some worthwhile reforms, but as noted above he doesn't seem to be even asking for them. He seems to be engaged mostly in a rebranding exercise and changing domestic policy which he could do anyway.

I suspect the reason for this is that, as he has basically said himself, Cameron is in favour of EU membership come what may. He believes in the EU as a country and doesn't want to work against the centralising tide of the last 60 years.

[turbobloke]

Mrs TB reports that the BBC News folk are currently ramping fears over leaving the EU in yet another fine piece of balanced reporting. She thought it was obviously biased and she's not particularly anti-BBC. It will be finished by now - did anyone catch this?

[rs1952]

turbobloke said:

Mrs TB reports that the BBC News folk are currently ramping fears over leaving the EU in yet another fine piece of balanced reporting. She thought it was obviously biased and she's not particularly anti-BBC. It will be finished by now - did anyone catch this?

BBC Points West ran a story tonight about a survey of businesses in the South West where 81% of the 910 business questioned said they wanted to stay in the EU. Is this the piece you had in mind (if it is, presumably they ran it at lunchtime as well).

Counterbalance was provided by an unsuccessful UKIP parliamentary candidate who a) was given a remarkably easy time by David Garmston and b) trotted out all the usual drivel eg:

The company doing the survey was funded by the EU so its got to be dodgy ennit?
EU membership costs is £60m per day

I particularly liked one quote from one of the businesses surveyed:

"Leaving the EU is a bit like abandoning a ship in mid-Atlantic because its got a few mechanical problems - and you think you're quite a good swimmer"

[Ayahuasca]

rs1952 said:

"Leaving the EU is a bit like abandoning a ship in mid-Atlantic because its got a few mechanical problems - and you think you're quite a good swimmer"

What an utterly defeatist attitude. What made the businessman believe that the world's fifth largest economy would sink and die?

[Beati Dogu]

It's a pretty inaccurate simile as well.

I imagine most people want to leave the EU because it's st. Sell out politicians pretend it can be 'reformed' and they'll paint it with as many layers of varnish as they can. It doesn't alter the reality of that the EU is.

[steveatesh]

This is worth a read if you have 10 minutes. Easy format, by Dr R North the author of Flexcit, addressed to Dominic Cummings about the no strategy:

http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=8...

[Scuffers]

And asif we did not already know...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33285893

[turbobloke]

Scuffers said:

And asif we did not already know...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33285893

"made to look risky"

So, it has to be made to look that way.

Now the PM can get back to those tough negotiations with his poker face not giving away anything in order to get the very best deal

[Einion Yrth]

turbobloke said:

Scuffers said:

And asif we did not already know...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33285893

"made to look risky"

So, it has to be made to look that way.

Now the PM can get back to those tough negotiations with his poker face not giving away anything in order to get the very best deal

He, (they) will win.

[AJS-]

So over a year before the referendum and at a very early stage of the supposed negotiations his main concern is how he will be campaigning for an In vote.

[AJS-]

I wonder if this scenario would seem familiar to anyone who was in the Soviet Union in 1991?

I had never really paid much attention to this curious aspect of the break up of the USSR but there would seem to be certain parallels.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_refer...

[Pan Pan Pan]

AJS- said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

And you know this how?
If they are willing to give billions keeping a basket case money pit country like Greece in the EU, but (in your view) will not do anything (other than try to rig the referendum here) to actually reform the way it is run, and accommodate the EU`s second largest net contributor to EU coffers, then the EU has to be a devastatingly corrupt organisation, and on that basis alone it would be better if we were NOT part of it.

I think you've answered yourself there. It's an organisation built on a fanatical and uncompromising belief in merging the nations of Europe into a country called the European Union.

From what I've seen so far Cameron isn't even asking the EU to change anything. He's announcing welfare and other domestic policy reforms which are still under his control anyway. If this is not the case then he is asking the EU and other member states for permission to change our welfare system. Which is worse?

Pan Pan Pan said:

I am generally for staying in the EU but not in its present corrupt, inefficient, (skewed from the start in the case of the UK`s membership) form.
The EU would sh*t itself if it looked like the UK was leaving, If they want the UK to stay in they had better start making some serious moves to clean its act up, and now is perhaps the best and possibly only chance they will get to do this.
It seems that quite a few member states have forgotten the old rule. It is he who pays the piper who calls the tune.

Without wanting to sound patronising I think you're being a bit naive. The EU isn't some government department that's got a bit bloated and over-mighty. Cameron can't march in and set things straight, trim the excess spending a bit and make the EU all efficient and democratic.

It's a vast and ambitious political project to create a country called the European Union. It has a flag, an anthem, a president, a trade policy, a foreign policy and a parliament. Anywhere Britain has these things they are subordinate to the European Union's. The only remaining effective power that we have is the power to leave. This is not a wild conspiracy theory, it's right there in the treaties.

Logically you would think Cameron could get some worthwhile reforms, but as noted above he doesn't seem to be even asking for them. He seems to be engaged mostly in a rebranding exercise and changing domestic policy which he could do anyway.

I suspect the reason for this is that, as he has basically said himself, Cameron is in favour of EU membership come what may. He believes in the EU as a country and doesn't want to work against the centralising tide of the last 60 years.

You seem to be forgetting the key ingredient in all of this, the money. No matter which way people want to look at this, in the end it always comes down to the money.
None of the other member states want anything to change, because if it did, it would more than likely cost them more than they are paying into the system now.
But as you pointed out the one option member states have is to exit the EU. If The UK exits, and takes with it its second largest net contributions into EU coffers after Germany, then all the other member states will be required to pay more in, than they do now to keep the thing afloat.
If they are so dumb and corrupt they cannot see this happening, they will (like Greece) continue
with their current attitudes. If (and it is a big if) they see the light, they will want to make sure the UK stays in the EU, and to do that, they must make some sorely needed reforms to the way the EU operates. With the UK`s referendum coming up, they will need to turn their minds to a `possible' UK exit, and act accordingly, Whether they will or not is the question.
As noted earlier, interesting tomes lay ahead

[JMGS4]

Nobody thought of the following car sticker?

NO U.S.E!!!