Britain and the European Union

[Karl]

Now we can all relax and get on with life.

It almost went wrong, but in the last few seconds whilst feasting on venison he agreed that if Britain stayed in, then the Germans wouldn't try and move the banking system to Germany. Sauerkraut Merkel scowling delivered a curt nod.

 

"If you fail eengeesh pig dog, it's the firing squad for you, Nein second chances"

 

"Oh thank you, oh thank you my German Mistress" said Cameron, his brow fevered and sweaty as as he fed her a selection of bratwurst and pumpernickel.

 

"Now go tell your clowns what we have agreed. If that bumbling blonde oaf starts any of his churchillian crap I shall send over a couple of my men to change his mind. Vee had ways of making him squeal. You know what I mean don't you"

 

"The Swine head"

 

"Exactly" she replied.

 

When you vote to stay Apech, just remember it was Cameron's deft deal making that swung it for you ;-)

Edited February 19, 2016 by Karl

[Apech]

It almost went wrong, but in the last few seconds whilst feasting on venison he agreed that if Britain stayed in, then the Germans wouldn't try and move the banking system to Germany. Sauerkraut Merkel scowling delivered a curt nod.

 

"If you fail eengeesh pig dog, it's the firing squad for you, Nein second chances"

 

"Oh thank you, oh thank you my German Mistress" said Cameron, his brow fevered and sweaty as as he fed her a selection of bratwurst and pumpernickel.

 

"Now go tell your clowns what we have agreed. If that bumbling blonde oaf starts any of his churchillian crap I shall send over a couple of my men to change his mind. Vee had ways of making him squeal. You know what I mean don't you"

 

"The Swine head"

 

"Exactly" she replied.

 

When you vote to stay Apech, just remember it was Cameron's deft deal making that swung it for you ;-)

 

 

Nein second chances ... makes eighteen.

 

 

No actually, you know what?  I vote to stay in cos we're already in.  I don't want to be affected by or disturbed by all the money and time wasting fuss of a Brexit.  We only have finite days on this earth and I would like to be left alone.  I know the EU is crap but so would a Brexist be crap also.  So if you ask me to chose between two buckets of crap then I'll just keep the one I've already got.  In fact, phone up Cameron and cancel the referendum will you please, old chap.  Cos that will be weeks of polls and endless punditry, vox pox (yes I meant that) interviews and I'm not sure I have the strength.

[Brian]

I thought all this stuff was decided by some old men on a tropical island with racing turtles. I saw it on TV, you know. The only thing more true than the Internet is TV...

[Karl]

Nein second chances ... makes eighteen.

 

 

No actually, you know what?  I vote to stay in cos we're already in.  I don't want to be affected by or disturbed by all the money and time wasting fuss of a Brexit.  We only have finite days on this earth and I would like to be left alone.  I know the EU is crap but so would a Brexist be crap also.  So if you ask me to chose between two buckets of crap then I'll just keep the one I've already got.  In fact, phone up Cameron and cancel the referendum will you please, old chap.  Cos that will be weeks of polls and endless punditry, vox pox (yes I meant that) interviews and I'm not sure I have the strength.

 

That's the kind of decision making I like to see.

I'm voting out for the same reason really and I would like to see the old establishment older get a good kicking. Not that they will, but at least I get a shoe to their backsides.

[Karl]

Ah the bankers like it, Cameron's hedge fund banking chums got a boost.

[Apech]

Ah the bankers like it, Cameron's hedge fund banking chums got a boost.

 

Good hedges make good neighbours.

[Karl]

Reuters lets the cat out the bag. Who gives a stuff about immigration and sovereignty when the city is safe.

The rest of its just window dressing that will dissolve in the next few months.

 

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-regulations-idUKKCN0VS20O

 

 

 

[Karl]

Really excellent statements from Michael Gove-not someone I have ever really warmed to until I read his point of view. Very well reasoned and powerful. This is from a guy who is involved with the engine of the EU and it's aims and objectives:

 

For weeks now I have been wrestling with the most difficult decision of my political life. But taking difficult decisions is what politicians are paid to do. No-one is forced to stand for Parliament, no-one is compelled to become a minister. If you take on those roles, which are great privileges, you also take on big responsibilities.

 

I was encouraged to stand for Parliament by David Cameron and he has given me the opportunity to serve in what I believe is a great, reforming Government. I think he is an outstanding Prime Minister. There is, as far as I can see, only one significant issue on which we have differed.

 

And that is the future of the UK in the European Union.

 

It pains me to have to disagree with the Prime Minister on any issue. My instinct is to support him through good times and bad.

 

But I cannot duck the choice which the Prime Minister has given every one of us. In a few months time we will all have the opportunity to decide whether Britain should stay in the European Union or leave. I believe our country would be freer, fairer and better off outside the EU. And if, at this moment of decision, I didn’t say what I believe I would not be true to my convictions or my country.

 

I don’t want to take anything away from the Prime Minister’s dedicated efforts to get a better deal for Britain. He has negotiated with courage and tenacity. But I think Britain would be stronger outside the EU.

 

My starting point is simple. I believe that the decisions which govern all our lives, the laws we must all obey and the taxes we must all pay should be decided by people we choose and who we can throw out if we want change. If power is to be used wisely, if we are to avoid corruption and complacency in high office, then the public must have the right to change laws and Governments at election time.

 

But our membership of the European Union prevents us being able to change huge swathes of law and stops us being able to choose who makes critical decisions which affect all our lives. Laws which govern citizens in this country are decided by politicians from other nations who we never elected and can’t throw out. We can take out our anger on elected representatives in Westminster but whoever is in Government in London cannot remove or reduce VAT, cannot support a steel plant through troubled times, cannot build the houses we need where they’re needed and cannot deport all the individuals who shouldn’t be in this country. I believe that needs to change. And I believe that both the lessons of our past and the shape of the future make the case for change compelling.

 

The ability to choose who governs us, and the freedom to change laws we do not like, were secured for us in the past by radicals and liberals who took power from unaccountable elites and placed it in the hands of the people. As a result of their efforts we developed, and exported to nations like the US, India, Canada and Australia a system of democratic self-government which has brought prosperity and peace to millions.

 

Our democracy stood the test of time. We showed the world what a free people could achieve if they were allowed to govern themselves.

 

In Britain we established trial by jury in the modern world, we set up the first free parliament, we ensured no-one could be arbitrarily detained at the behest of the Government, we forced our rulers to recognise they ruled by consent not by right, we led the world in abolishing slavery, we established free education for all, national insurance, the National Health Service and a national broadcaster respected across the world.

 

By way of contrast, the European Union, despite the undoubted idealism of its founders and the good intentions of so many leaders, has proved a failure on so many fronts. The euro has created economic misery for Europe’s poorest people. European Union regulation has entrenched mass unemployment. EU immigration policies have encouraged people traffickers and brought desperate refugee camps to our borders.

 

Far from providing security in an uncertain world, the EU’s policies have become a source of instability and insecurity. Razor wire once more criss-crosses the continent, historic tensions between nations such as Greece and Germany have resurfaced in ugly ways and the EU is proving incapable of dealing with the current crises in Libya and Syria. The former head of Interpol says the EU’s internal borders policy is “like hanging a sign welcoming terrorists to Europe” and Scandinavian nations which once prided themselves on their openness are now turning in on themselves. All of these factors, combined with popular anger at the lack of political accountability, has encouraged extremism, to the extent that far-right parties are stronger across the continent than at any time since the 1930s.

 

The EU is an institution rooted in the past and is proving incapable of reforming to meet the big technological, demographic and economic challenges of our time. It was developed in the 1950s and 1960s and like other institutions which seemed modern then, from tower blocks to telexes, it is now hopelessly out of date. The EU tries to standardise and regulate rather than encourage diversity and innovation. It is an analogue union in a digital age.

 

The EU is built to keep power and control with the elites rather than the people. Even though we are outside the euro we are still subject to an unelected EU commission which is generating new laws every day and an unaccountable European Court in Luxembourg which is extending its reach every week, increasingly using the Charter of Fundamental Rights which in many ways gives the EU more power and reach than ever before. This growing EU bureaucracy holds us back in every area. EU rules dictate everything from the maximum size of containers in which olive oil may be sold (five litres) to the distance houses have to be from heathland to prevent cats chasing birds (five kilometres).

 

Individually these rules may be comical. Collectively, and there are tens of thousands of them, they are inimical to creativity, growth and progress. Rules like the EU clinical trials directive have slowed down the creation of new drugs to cure terrible diseases and ECJ judgements on data protection issues hobble the growth of internet companies. As a minister I’ve seen hundreds of new EU rules cross my desk, none of which were requested by the UK Parliament, none of which I or any other British politician could alter in any way and none of which made us freer, richer or fairer.

 

It is hard to overstate the degree to which the EU is a constraint on ministers’ ability to do the things they were elected to do, or to use their judgment about the right course of action for the people of this country. I have long had concerns about our membership of the EU but the experience of Government has only deepened my conviction that we need change. Every single day, every single minister is told: ‘Yes Minister, I understand, but I’m afraid that’s against EU rules’. I know it. My colleagues in government know it. And the British people ought to know it too: your government is not, ultimately, in control in hundreds of areas that matter.

 

But by leaving the EU we can take control. Indeed we can show the rest of Europe the way to flourish. Instead of grumbling and complaining about the things we can’t change and growing resentful and bitter, we can shape an optimistic, forward-looking and genuinely internationalist alternative to the path the EU is going down. We can show leadership. Like the Americans who declared their independence and never looked back, we can become an exemplar of what an inclusive, open and innovative democracy can achieve.

 

We can take back the billions we give to the EU, the money which is squandered on grand parliamentary buildings and bureaucratic follies, and invest it in science and technology, schools and apprenticeships. We can get rid of the regulations which big business uses to crush competition and instead support new start-up businesses and creative talent. We can forge trade deals and partnerships with nations across the globe, helping developing countries to grow and benefiting from faster and better access to new markets.

 

We are the world’s fifth largest economy, with the best armed forces of any nation, more Nobel Prizes than any European country and more world-leading universities than any European country. Our economy is more dynamic than the Eurozone, we have the most attractive capital city on the globe, the greatest “soft power” and global influence of any state and a leadership role in NATO and the UN. Are we really too small, too weak and too powerless to make a success of self-rule? On the contrary, the reason the EU’s bureaucrats oppose us leaving is they fear that our success outside will only underline the scale of their failure.

 

This chance may never come again in our lifetimes, which is why I will be true to my principles and take the opportunity this referendum provides to leave an EU mired in the past and embrace a better future.

Edited February 20, 2016 by Karl

[Apech]

Gove is Cameron's buddy positioning himself in the case of a 'leave' vote so the same clique can retain power.  That's all.

[Karl]

Gove is Cameron's buddy positioning himself in the case of a 'leave' vote so the same clique can retain power.  That's all.

 

I don't think so, that statement is very explicit and puts him well outside the establishment clique, of which Cameron is so clearly a toady.

 

There is a potential here for a winding up of the dreadful Tory-lite-Blair party. At least Corbyn for all his Marxist plague of boils has dragged the Blairite wannabe Labour Party away from the establishment clique that served to mould both main parties into a cohesive tool of the crony capitalists such as the Grandees encapsulated by Grant, Shienwald and Wall. Ex diplomats with their fingers deep in corporate US/EU who aim for a New World Order in which they make the rules.

[Apech]

I don't think so, that statement is very explicit and puts him well outside the establishment clique, of which Cameron is so clearly a toady. There is a potential here for a winding up of the dreadful Tory-lite-Blair party. At least Corbyn for all his Marxist plague of boils has dragged the Blairite wannabe Labour Party away from the establishment clique that served to mould both main parties into a cohesive tool of the crony capitalists such as the Grandees encapsulated by Grant, Shienwald and Wall. Ex diplomats with their fingers deep in corporate US/EU who aim for a New World Order in which they make the rules.

 

 

You're trying hard but you're not as cynical as me.  Which ever way this jumps the same group stay in charge.

Edited February 20, 2016 by Apech

[Karl]

You're trying hard but you're not as cynical as me.  Which ever way this jumps the same group stay in charge.

 

I'm not as cynical as you ? pardon moi.

 

I like to hear the principles which are, more often than not, hidden by the homogenous political narrative

[Chang]

Bumbling Boris Johnson stands up to be counted in the Out campaign.

 

A possible future British Prime Minister - imagine the prospect of that with Mr Trump as U.S. President.

 

[zerostao]

how is the brexit club coming along?

[Chang]

It is coming along well enough. I would not however like to predict the outcome of the referendum.

 

Most of the campaigning will be comprised of nonsense, facts dumbed down to a level that can be understood by those whose concentration does not extend beyond a few seconds. In that respect it will be much like  most, if not all elections.

 

I am bored already and pay it little attention, my mind having been made up on matters European long ago.

 

Here is the sort of thing the Brexit team are posting.

 

 

Cameron is creating 40 new peerages to reward those who support him in the referendum.

All it takes is a title to convince some people to work against the best interests of the UK, but it’ll take a lot more than that to convince the British public.

 

And in contrast here is an example of the poster put out by those who wish to remain a part of the European Left Wing Liberal Superstate.

 

 

 

The inference being that should we remove ourselves from beneath the Superstates security blanket we will no longer enjoy security, prosperity or influence.

 

Enjoy.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Chang

[Brian]

I'm curious (but not so curious as to go looking for the answer) -- is it proper flag protocol for the EU flag to be superior to those of the individual sovereign states (as the poster above suggests)?

[zerostao]

ponders a usa/uk/can/aus/nz   economic/other alliance ,,,,,,,,

[Karl]

I'm curious (but not so curious as to go looking for the answer) -- is it proper flag protocol for the EU flag to be superior to those of the individual sovereign states (as the poster above suggests)?

 

None of the states actually have full sovereignty Brian. It's a sham. Peter Hitchins mentions it on the video about the history of the EU and how there was an experiment conducted by Germany ? To remove sovereignty but leave a kind of notional sovereign shell. So the EU flag has parity, except in cases in which the EU has footed the bill for the advertising/PR and then it reserves the right to be the sole flag and symbol.

[Karl]

ponders a usa/uk/can/aus/nz   economic/other alliance ,,,,,,,,

 

The countries constantly talk about 'trade negotiations', 'free trade agreements' and 'alliances'. It's always going to be years of hard negotiations, lots of meetings and flag waving, when all that's needed is a simple letter/ contract agreeing on totally free trading between the countries- takes ten minutes on the phone and a signed agreement in the post. Wether it's EU, WTO or any other grouping, the reality is that we aren't negotiating anything like a free trade agreement.

[Chang]

As far as regards Cameron's negotiations and the forthcoming referendum few of the electorate have any real idea what is going on. This is not unusual.

 

The result of the vote will depend largely on how fearful the voters become at the thought of Britain's aloneness should we leave. Many of the younger voters and those of a left wing or Liberal slant may even consider themselves European - whatever that means.

 

Leave or stay we will still face the same problems and have the same weak and pathetic politico's getting in a mess. Should we leave of course we will be dealing mainly with our own rather than a rag tag of Europeans who were unelected by us.

[Apech]

Although it's been all over the news lately I can't help feeling we are sleepwalking towards this referendum.  It's not very British to be part of Europe since we spent more or less 1000 years sitting slightly outside and playing one faction off against the other.  Waging war on the strongest to keep them from forming a united Europe (e.g. Napoleonic wars).  If the English vote with their gut they will Brexit, if they vote with their heads they'll stay in - god only knows where their hearts are.

 

Since all of big business and the City are behind staying in, my guess is that we will get an in vote whatever way that can be achieved.  One of the out leaders Boris Johnson is even talking about a second referendum - what a chump.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Apech

[Karl]

Although it's been all over the news lately I can't help feeling we are sleepwalking towards this referendum. It's not very British to be part of Europe since we spent more or less 1000 years sitting slightly outside and playing one faction off against the other. Waging war on the strongest to keep them from forming a united Europe (e.g. Napoleonic wars). If the English vote with their gut they will Brexit, if they vote with their heads they'll stay in - god only knows where their hearts are.

 

Since all of big business and the City are behind staying in, my guess is that we will get an in vote whatever way that can be achieved. One of the out leaders Boris Johnson is even talking about a second referendum - what a chump.

It's very British to be part of Europe, because we are, in fact part of Europe. Its very unbritish, not to say irrational, to be part of a German federal unionist project which has already failed. The reason we fought two wars and spilt the blood of millions of troops and civilians was to stop Germany doing what they are doing at the moment, but that aside, this is a political project mired in economic and social disaster.

 

If we vote with our heads we will vote to leave this disintegrating mess, if we vote with our intuition we will run for independence, if our emotions say anything other then we will go down with this mess.

 

The latest from EU bods in Brussels is that there are currently 9 days until terminal EU anarchy/breakdown due to the refugee crisis. Greece has been left hanging on a limb after being ordered around by German autocrats. It looks like Czexit, Nexit and most ominously for Frau Merkel, Dexit referendums are being sought. The ECB and the DBank are coming apart faster than soggy kitchen paper and unemployment is soaring. It's self destructing in its present form, by June there be nothing left from which to Brexit.

 

Things are changing very fast and I'm no longer of the opinion we should even consider the options. It it's looks as if there is only one and we might not even reach that referendum date. We may have to bring it forward, as a matter of necessity the Government might be forced to make the decision to leave ahead of time.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Karl

[Chang]

The E.U. is certainly an unholy mess which is incapable by its very nature of dealing with a crisis. I fear however that its deathbed scene will be very long and pathetic and dearly hope that the United Kingdom will have left the stage as it is acted out.

 

The pathetic and autocratic nature of the so called Union has been amply demonstrated by its hysterical  instruction to Greece (an almost third world nation) to deal with the muslim migrant issue.

 

One has to wonder how well überfrau Merkel is sleeping at present.

[Chang]

I have just heard that the U.K. entry for the Eurovision Song Contest (a competition which exhibits all the grotesque camp lunacy of the E.U.) has been chosen. It is called "Your not alone". I suspect that it may become the referendum anthem for the stay in wallah's.

One really could not make it up.

 

The poor devil pictured on the right does not appear to know what is going on.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4XZOeZoxD8

Edited February 27, 2016 by Chang

[Apech]

Nil points.