The 'No to the EU' campaign

[Scuffers]

cookie118 said:

The EU could probably score major points by threatening no access to the free trade area without free movement of people. So much of the brexit argument has been framed around immigration and that it'd be business as usual afterwards-they'd head that off at the pass straight away by withdrawing one or the other.

Is the idea that we'd leave the EU but still have free movement of people so stupid as I've been told before?

you wuld have to be pretty gullible to believe them if they tried that line...

[Murph7355]

cookie118 said:

The EU could probably score major points by threatening no access to the free trade area without free movement of people. So much of the brexit argument has been framed around immigration and that it'd be business as usual afterwards-they'd head that off at the pass straight away by withdrawing one or the other.

Is the idea that we'd leave the EU but still have free movement of people so stupid as I've been told before?

Of course it's not - there's a very god reason why the EU aren't stating that about trade. European countries wouldn't tolerate it - our market's too important for them.

[FiF]

The problem over which people are consistently obtuse is that there needs to be a distinction between freedom of movement and freedom to settle. At the moment there is insufficient distinction.

[zygalski]

turbobloke said:

....

(Brexit would mean damage limitation for the EU not the UK.)

See this is the kind of anti-logic that I love seeing on here.
We have absolutely no idea what the long term costs/benefits are for both staying in or leaving.
However, we'd definitely be better off if we left the EU.
Mmmmmmkay............

[steveatesh]

Scuffers said:

cookie118 said:

The EU could probably score major points by threatening no access to the free trade area without free movement of people. So much of the brexit argument has been framed around immigration and that it'd be business as usual afterwards-they'd head that off at the pass straight away by withdrawing one or the other.

Is the idea that we'd leave the EU but still have free movement of people so stupid as I've been told before?

you wuld have to be pretty gullible to believe them if they tried that line...

Freedom of movement is a requirement of the single market, as Switzerland is finding out now. It's a red line basically as its one of the four pillars of the single market.
Retaining access to the single market would be a necessary stepping stone and would have to be negotiated as part of an Article 50 process which can run for two years.

Dr North mentions it this morning in his daily EUReferendum blog. His Flexcit plan covers all of this and how to exit the EU in a safe way without losing access to the market. Well worth a read if you have an interest in how we could,leave the EU safely, although still with some pain.
http://www.eureferendum.com

[Mrr T]

s2art said:

Mrr T said:

s2art said:

V8 Fettler said:

To commence negotiations from outside risks the door being shut. Whoever negotiates for the UK needs to negotiate for all possible referendum results before the referendum. At least try and manage the process with damage limitation in mind rather than firefighting.

What door would be shut? The WTO would come down on them like a ton of bricks if they didnt follow WTO rules.

Any connection between the WTO and a ton of bricks is the speed they move. The WTO takes years to resolve disputes.

Also the WTO does not cover financial services so if the UK exists the EU with out a recognition agreement on oversight and regulations of financial services every bank regulated in the UK, and I include all the US banks whose headquarters are based in London; and operate across the EU would immediately need to create a HQ in an EU in country or stop operations across the EU.

Not sure about that. Does UBS or Credite Suisse (sp?) have EU based HQs?

To be precise CS and UBS do not have EU in HQ they have access to the EU markets because of the EU/Swiss treaties. Deutsche, BNP of cause do. However, none of the UK banks, or the US banks with EU HQ in London, BAML, GS, MS etc, have regulated HQ's in an EU in country. So they would have to set them up at the expense of their UK operations. say 10k highly paid banking jobs exit the UK in the WTO option.

[Yabu]

Austria petition forces referendum debate in parliament
http://rt.com/news/271279-austria-petition-eu-exit...

[irocfan]

steveatesh said:

Scuffers said:

cookie118 said:

The EU could probably score major points by threatening no access to the free trade area without free movement of people. So much of the brexit argument has been framed around immigration and that it'd be business as usual afterwards-they'd head that off at the pass straight away by withdrawing one or the other.

Is the idea that we'd leave the EU but still have free movement of people so stupid as I've been told before?

you wuld have to be pretty gullible to believe them if they tried that line...

Freedom of movement is a requirement of the single market, as Switzerland is finding out now. It's a red line basically as its one of the four pillars of the single market.
Retaining access to the single market would be a necessary stepping stone and would have to be negotiated as part of an Article 50 process which can run for two years.

Dr North mentions it this morning in his daily EUReferendum blog. His Flexcit plan covers all of this and how to exit the EU in a safe way without losing access to the market. Well worth a read if you have an interest in how we could,leave the EU safely, although still with some pain.
http://www.eureferendum.com

ok then - let's play within the rules. No problem with freedom of movement however there is no freedom to settle. Therefore if you want to work here queue every morning at the channel tunnel....

[grantone]

V8 Fettler said:

grantone said:

V8 Fettler said:

My GUESS is that France and Germany will currently be agreeing the EU stance on negotiations, all the other member states are also rans. The survival of the EU in its current form is an absolute imperative for Germany, its also very important to France. If the departure of the UK is unavoidable, one scenario is that the French/Germans give the UK a good shoeing on the way out through the door pour encourager les autres. If the UK departs on favourable terms it will signal to other EU countries that an exit could be beneficial = terminal decline of the EU.

The (West) German economy is powerful enough to ride the loss of a large percentage of their current UK market share; it's been bank rolling what was East Germany and a large part of Europe for 25 years and more.

I have to go now to drink beer (English).

An alternative guess is that the biggest and most vocal opponent of further EU political union leaving is actually beneficial to the political union ambitions. That it's actually a positive thing for the UK to be gone so that they can get on properly with the fiscal & political union they need to make the Eurozone work.

So 2018 with their least contributing member gone (Greece) and their least integrated member gone (UK), they finally crack on and make a massively successful United States of Europe. (I'm not being sarcastic here, it's a possibility).

UK might do well out of it, might not, depends on how agile we are to make the most of whatever unknown events occur.

What is more of a certainty than a guess is that a successful EU political union won't happen in the next 30 years if the UK stay in because we'll just bh & moan & veto & block and generally drag things out.

There will be many guesses at this point, but the key issue is the German/French commitment to the EU, if that drifts then the EU is finished. If the German/French commitment to the EU remains strong then they will be intent on the UK remaining within the EU; bickering and sniping will not affect that intention.

If the UK leaves the EU and the German/French commitment to the EU remains strong during that the process then the number one priority for Germany/France will be to ensure that other countries don't follow the British lead.

But you've just ignored the central point of my guess. That it's actually a positive thing for the UK to leave the EU for the French & German ambitions. It's easy for them to say that the UK is not a loss to the EU, they weren't part of the Eurozone, they weren't part of Schengen, they weren't committed to the European cause like the rest of us. Without the UK bickering & sniping it frees up the EU to get on with being a success, we're dragging them back and they are better off without us.

[FiF]

zygalski said:

turbobloke said:

....

(Brexit would mean damage limitation for the EU not the UK.)

See this is the kind of anti-logic that I love seeing on here.
We have absolutely no idea what the long term costs/benefits are for both staying in or leaving.
However, we'd definitely be better off if we left the EU.
Mmmmmmkay............

Equally, and I know you didn't say this, but there's the constant implications from various quarters that we'd be better off staying in.

If the best analyses suggest that it's a bit of an unknown either way, then other factors come into consideration.

We and others have already said we don't want to be part of monetary union. At the outset UK said it didn't want to be part of political union, the electorate also haven't said it, though it's debatable that certain dubious politicians have gone a long way to achieving it.

So budget wise there needs to be two EU budgets. The eurozone and the wider EU with a wall between the two. If not then countries who don't wish to be part of one are subsidising or being subsidised by another system. That's probably not a realistic option in the way the EU is set up, so the only way the EU will work long term is full monetary and political union. Looking at the range of cultures, infrastructure and economic circumstances involved that isn't going to happen so the EU is destined to fail. Why do we want to be part of a failure?

[steveatesh]

FiF said:

Equally, and I know you didn't say this, but there's the constant implications from various quarters that we'd be better off staying in.

If the best analyses suggest that it's a bit of an unknown either way, then other factors come into consideration.

We and others have already said we don't want to be part of monetary union. At the outset UK said it didn't want to be part of political union, the electorate also haven't said it, though it's debatable that certain dubious politicians have gone a long way to achieving it.

So budget wise there needs to be two EU budgets. The eurozone and the wider EU with a wall between the two. If not then countries who don't wish to be part of one are subsidising or being subsidised by another system. That's probably not a realistic option in the way the EU is set up, so the only way the EU will work long term is full monetary and political union. Looking at the range of cultures, infrastructure and economic circumstances involved that isn't going to happen so the EU is destined to fail. Why do we want to be part of a failure?

Interesting - the possibility of "Associate Membership" as a route ahead for Cameron is explored here:

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

Dr North Writes:
"Putting all these sources together, together with the views of the Commission President, and the idea of the Prime Minister brokering associated membership status with the EU now looks even more plausible. The "colleagues" plan to launch the treaty process that will allow this in late 2017, the moment the UK's referendum is over. Completion is scheduled by 2025 at the very latest".

I suppose this is the two speed Europe that has been referred town the past.

[Ridgemont]

steveatesh said:

Interesting - the possibility of "Associate Membership" as a route ahead for Cameron is explored here:

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

Dr North Writes:
"Putting all these sources together, together with the views of the Commission President, and the idea of the Prime Minister brokering associated membership status with the EU now looks even more plausible. The "colleagues" plan to launch the treaty process that will allow this in late 2017, the moment the UK's referendum is over. Completion is scheduled by 2025 at the very latest".

I suppose this is the two speed Europe that has been referred town the past.

It's a little bit more aggressive than that in that it could involve the formalisation of EEA members (Norway et all) as Associate members, with MEPs and 'outer' council representation.

The devil however would be in the detail: ostensibly it might end the option of EEA membership as a Brexit scenario (which currently looks very attractive especially when compared to alternative options), with question marks pertaining to things like supranational representation, EU trade agreements (TTIP?) etc.

As is noted in the thread on euref, Norway & co might have every right to feel a little aggrieved if Cameron ends up scuppering what is essentially a pretty good deal for them...

[s2art]

Mrr T said:

s2art said:

Mrr T said:

s2art said:

V8 Fettler said:

To commence negotiations from outside risks the door being shut. Whoever negotiates for the UK needs to negotiate for all possible referendum results before the referendum. At least try and manage the process with damage limitation in mind rather than firefighting.

What door would be shut? The WTO would come down on them like a ton of bricks if they didnt follow WTO rules.

Any connection between the WTO and a ton of bricks is the speed they move. The WTO takes years to resolve disputes.

Also the WTO does not cover financial services so if the UK exists the EU with out a recognition agreement on oversight and regulations of financial services every bank regulated in the UK, and I include all the US banks whose headquarters are based in London; and operate across the EU would immediately need to create a HQ in an EU in country or stop operations across the EU.

Not sure about that. Does UBS or Credite Suisse (sp?) have EU based HQs?

To be precise CS and UBS do not have EU in HQ they have access to the EU markets because of the EU/Swiss treaties. Deutsche, BNP of cause do. However, none of the UK banks, or the US banks with EU HQ in London, BAML, GS, MS etc, have regulated HQ's in an EU in country. So they would have to set them up at the expense of their UK operations. say 10k highly paid banking jobs exit the UK in the WTO option.

So basically the UK will negotiate a Swiss like treaty for the UK banks. Thats what the two year negotiation period is for after invoking chapter 50.

[V8 Fettler]

Scuffers said:

V8 Fettler said:

Looking for data and information, is that not obvious? You state that this will not be forthcoming, why not?

data from who?

you honestly think the politicians have access to enough valid data?

Data and information from the various protagonists, the beggars won't get my vote otherwise. The process should be stalled if the relevant data and information isn't available, would have to be bonkers to vote without being able to make an informed decision. Or just vote for the cheap tobacco and booze.

It's about time that an additional choice was available on ballot papers: None of the above.

[V8 Fettler]

grantone said:

V8 Fettler said:

grantone said:

V8 Fettler said:

My GUESS is that France and Germany will currently be agreeing the EU stance on negotiations, all the other member states are also rans. The survival of the EU in its current form is an absolute imperative for Germany, its also very important to France. If the departure of the UK is unavoidable, one scenario is that the French/Germans give the UK a good shoeing on the way out through the door pour encourager les autres. If the UK departs on favourable terms it will signal to other EU countries that an exit could be beneficial = terminal decline of the EU.

The (West) German economy is powerful enough to ride the loss of a large percentage of their current UK market share; it's been bank rolling what was East Germany and a large part of Europe for 25 years and more.

I have to go now to drink beer (English).

An alternative guess is that the biggest and most vocal opponent of further EU political union leaving is actually beneficial to the political union ambitions. That it's actually a positive thing for the UK to be gone so that they can get on properly with the fiscal & political union they need to make the Eurozone work.

So 2018 with their least contributing member gone (Greece) and their least integrated member gone (UK), they finally crack on and make a massively successful United States of Europe. (I'm not being sarcastic here, it's a possibility).

UK might do well out of it, might not, depends on how agile we are to make the most of whatever unknown events occur.

What is more of a certainty than a guess is that a successful EU political union won't happen in the next 30 years if the UK stay in because we'll just bh & moan & veto & block and generally drag things out.

There will be many guesses at this point, but the key issue is the German/French commitment to the EU, if that drifts then the EU is finished. If the German/French commitment to the EU remains strong then they will be intent on the UK remaining within the EU; bickering and sniping will not affect that intention.

If the UK leaves the EU and the German/French commitment to the EU remains strong during that the process then the number one priority for Germany/France will be to ensure that other countries don't follow the British lead.

But you've just ignored the central point of my guess. That it's actually a positive thing for the UK to leave the EU for the French & German ambitions. It's easy for them to say that the UK is not a loss to the EU, they weren't part of the Eurozone, they weren't part of Schengen, they weren't committed to the European cause like the rest of us. Without the UK bickering & sniping it frees up the EU to get on with being a success, we're dragging them back and they are better off without us.

UK bickering and sniping isn't a problem to the Germans and the French, they probably view Nigel as an eccentric British gentleman. What will be a problem to the Germans and the French is if the UK leaves on reasonably favourable terms, thus encouraging others. Perhaps Austria?

How has the UK dragged the EU back? Net contributor and a big hitter; from France and Germany's position it's far better to have the UK as part of the EU rather than on the outside.

[FiF]

When you look at the EU elections, besides all the eastern states that joined later, Austria is the one nation where Euroscepticism showed a reduction in their support. Daft suggestion imo.

States who might be encouraged are those where Euroscepticism has made gains and have suffered from the effects of unfettered migration, so Denmark and Sweden perhaps. 6th and 5th position in biggest net contributors.

[s2art]

V8 Fettler said:

Data and information from the various protagonists, the beggars won't get my vote otherwise. The process should be stalled if the relevant data and information isn't available, would have to be bonkers to vote without being able to make an informed decision. Or just vote for the cheap tobacco and booze.

It's about time that an additional choice was available on ballot papers: None of the above.

You will get loads of 'data' from the various protagonists. A lot is available now if you take a look. The problem is that the 'data'; from both sides will be educated guesswork. For instance, once out, we will have the freedom to sign FTAs with China, India, the USA etc, but we dont know if that will take a few months or a couple of years, even though we know it will happen.

[s2art]

V8 Fettler said:

Data and information from the various protagonists, the beggars won't get my vote otherwise. The process should be stalled if the relevant data and information isn't available, would have to be bonkers to vote without being able to make an informed decision. Or just vote for the cheap tobacco and booze.

It's about time that an additional choice was available on ballot papers: None of the above.

You will get loads of 'data' from the various protagonists. A lot is available now if you take a look. The problem is that the 'data'; from both sides will be educated guesswork. For instance, once out, we will have the freedom to sign FTAs with China, India, the USA etc, but we dont know if that will take a few months or a couple of years, even though we know it will happen.

[Murph7355]

Mrr T said:

...So they would have to set them up at the expense of their UK operations. say 10k highly paid banking jobs exit the UK in the WTO option.

I don't really understand that bit...why?

The UK financial markets remain pre-eminent globally. But you presumably seem to think that if we exited the EU, that would cease? Why?

It's similar to those worried that we'll lose all ability to trade with Europe and that the world will collapse. Of course it won't

[fido]

Murph7355 said:

The UK financial markets remain pre-eminent globally. But you presumably seem to think that if we exited the EU, that would cease? Why?

It's similar to those worried that we'll lose all ability to trade with Europe and that the world will collapse. Of course it won't

+1. I work in the City and fine with an Out vote - as said before they'll be risks but also new opportunities. Yes, some operations may close down but then some bright spark will think of a new operation and create more jobs.
It has always been this way - don't let the EU-philes scare you! On historical evidence the EU has killed more jobs (in fishing, agriculture and industry) than it has created, this pushing more people in financial and retail service. On a purely forex level - we had 10 or so more currencies to trade pre-2000!