Why are the British so anti Europe?

Boroso · 11-01-2014 03:53PM

Scofflaw wrote: »

You suggested devaluation as a 'tool', in order to say that it's not available any more:
cordially,
Scofflaw

I gave the facts that previously devaluation was used as an outlet to mitigate some of the negative effects of government policy. You then said the "new" franc was only devalued once, and I have given evidence which shows your claim was misleading and false.

Call it whatever you like, its not an issue for me what you choose to call it. The fact is devaluation of the Euro is no longer available to France.

Scofflaw wrote: »

In order to grasp a stick with which to beat the euro, you're reduced to claiming as policy tools things that weren't policy tools, but were universally regarded at the time as the outcome of poor policy.

If you consider making factual observations that France has no control or ability to devalue the Euro is a stick with which to beat the Euro, then I’ll give you that, if you need to think of it in those terms.

I’ll also give you that it was never French Government policy to allow the currency to devalue to mitigate it’s bad policy. It was merely French government practice over many decades.

Scofflaw wrote: »

And even the good side of inflation is being represented without any reference to the inevitable adjustments it causes - the new proponents of inflation say "look how it erodes the capital of debt", but seem to be happy to ignore the fact that lenders invariably factor inflation into interest - the happy-clappy inflationistas are ignoring the main real cost of servicing debt, which is not, and never has been, capital repayment.

We agree that rampant inflation is not a wholly good thing. Where you seem blind is to the extra pressures now showing in the French economy cause by their inability to allow a devaluations in their currency, which they have used for decades to let some pressure out of their economy. This has political effects both within and beyond France, and to simply say anyone who sees that is using it as a “stick with which to beat the Euro” merely seems to expose your own bias.

We all have biases, but some of us have the ability not to expose them so feverishly

View · 11-01-2014 04:50PM

Boroso wrote: »

France is competing with China, India and now with increasingly with the USA which is returning to a much higher level of efficiency and competitiveness. The Euro is part responsible for France (and Germany) becoming less and less able to compete on the world stage, due to the fact that it, combined with the comparatively very high EU’s labour and energy costs, seems to ensure those countries in the EU and the Euro are at an increasing economic disadvantage to competitors outside the EU.

German exports are at record highs. French ones near so (they hit their all-time high in Aug 2012).

Neither seems to be having problems competing on the world stage.

Perhaps that is why they don't share your views about the EU and/or the Euro.

11-01-2014 05:45PM

The Corinthian wrote: »

LOL. Psychedelic rather than interesting, I would have thought. Where did you get this 'on target' fantasy prediction, out of interest?

I actually read this as well, and quite recently, but unfortunately I can't recall where it was.

I'll see if I can dig out the report or the story and post a link.

EDIT: And here they are. Two stories (BBC and Telegraph), and a link to the British think-tank that complied the predictions. You can download the report from them if you like.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25519110

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10537773/Britain-will-become-biggest-economy-in-Europe.html

http://www.cebr.com/reports/cebr-world-economic-league-table/

11-01-2014 06:08PM

I thought the same report also suggested that the UK's economy would grow to be the biggest in western Europe because its population would grow to be larger than Germany's. The report doesn't say that, although it does cite population growth as a major driver of UK economic growth. However, in separate reports Eurostat predicts that the UK will have the largest population in the EU later in this century.

http://www.airo.ie/news/europe-2060-population-projections-ireland-increase-465-interact-data

Scofflaw · 11-01-2014 06:28PM

Boroso wrote: »

I gave the facts that previously devaluation was used as an outlet to mitigate some of the negative effects of government policy. You then said the "new" franc was only devalued once, and I have given evidence which shows your claim was misleading and false.

Call it whatever you like, its not an issue for me what you choose to call it. The fact is devaluation of the Euro is no longer available to France.

If you consider making factual observations that France has no control or ability to devalue the Euro is a stick with which to beat the Euro, then I’ll give you that, if you need to think of it in those terms.

I’ll also give you that it was never French Government policy to allow the currency to devalue to mitigate it’s bad policy. It was merely French government practice over many decades.

We agree that rampant inflation is not a wholly good thing. Where you seem blind is to the extra pressures now showing in the French economy cause by their inability to allow a devaluations in their currency, which they have used for decades to let some pressure out of their economy. This has political effects both within and beyond France, and to simply say anyone who sees that is using it as a “stick with which to beat the Euro” merely seems to expose your own bias.

We all have biases, but some of us have the ability not to expose them so feverishly

Indeed we do. When you find me claiming that inflation and currency depreciation are used as policy tools, and claiming there's a currency-related problem for countries whose exports show no signs of the problem, I'll accept it applies to me too! In the meantime, I think you're the one wearing the party crown.

amused,
Scofflaw

dlouth15 · 11-01-2014 06:51PM

Scofflaw wrote: »

Indeed we do. When you find me claiming that inflation and currency depreciation are used as policy tools, and claiming there's a currency-related problem for countries whose exports show no signs of the problem, I'll accept it applies to me too! In the meantime, I think you're the one wearing the party crown.

amused,
Scofflaw

There does seem to be a bit of a problem with France's balance of trade since joining the Euro. In normal circumstances France's currency would devalue, restoring competitiveness. However with the introduction of the Euro, this is no longer possible.

Boroso · 12-01-2014 12:30PM

View wrote: »

German exports are at record highs. French ones near so (they hit their all-time high in Aug 2012).

Neither seems to be having problems competing on the world stage.

Perhaps that is why they don't share your views about the EU and/or the Euro.

If you think the French are not concerned about the Euro and the effects it is having on the French economy, they we simply disagree. If you don't think there is a big row abrewing between the French and the Germans about the direction of the Euro, then I'd suggest you are not up to date. If you also think the French economy is in good shape, and getting better and better, then again we disagree.

dlouth15 wrote: »

There does seem to be a bit of a problem with France's balance of trade since joining the Euro. In normal circumstances France's currency would devalue, restoring competitiveness. However with the introduction of the Euro, this is no longer possible.

[IMG]file:///C:\DOCUME~1\Jonathan\LOCALS~1\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image002.gif[/IMG]

It seems, for example in Views post above, that there are some who just can’t bear facts. It’s almost as if the Euro is their baby, and they can’t bear to see that there might be flaws which are causing problems. Only an idiot would wish the Euro harm, but pretending everything is fine and dandy, and ignoring problems is more likely to do long term damage, than facing up to reality and trying to fix problems.

You can see this at EU level where the commission recently announced that the Euro crises is over (they have made similar announcements before following which events showed their announcements were wishful thinking), and anyone who remembers the Old USSR might note the similarities with their annual announcements about the bumper and plentiful harvests, with pictures of smiling peasants in the fields, followed by famine and starving.

SpaceTime · 12-01-2014 01:57PM

The French economy has strong points and it has huge problems. France still has a lot of high tech companies, very strong manufacturing, quite strong pharma and endless very dominant luxury brands and a food sector that's pretty much second to none. So, all in all has a lot of positives.

The big issue in France is inflexibility and that's become worse and worse over the last 30-40 years rather than improving.
Under Hollande, nothing will be reformed and he's 'solved' problems by hiking taxes. He really has no common ground with Merkel at all and I think that's going to cause a big problem.

Sarkozy never really made the kinds of reforms that were necessary to move the French economy forward either. He spent most of his time embroiled in one scandal after another and the public grew quite weary of him.

The general problem in France tends to be that you get this very hard left vs right divide where the socialists are extremely socialist and the UMP can be very right wing on a lot of issues, particularly law and order and immigration.

If you're a French voter who perhaps leans a little to the left on some issues like say gay marriage, social issues, law and order and maybe don't care that much about immigration however, you're not in agreement about taxing the hell out of the economy and would like to see some labour market reforms, then you've very few options.

In Germany, the Netherlands, even Ireland you've a lot more scope to vote for centrist combinations that take a bit of the left and a bit of the right and mix it all up into a decent pragmatic approach.

Until France gets past that left vs right dichotomy it will simply always have these problems. It's a bit like the UK in the 1970s in terms of politics when Labour was extremely left and the tories were extremely right.

British politics became more pragmatic during the John Major and Tony Blair years and things sort of slid to the centre. However, you're now seeing that start to push apart again, especially with the Tories trying to get the UKIP vote back. Which is why you're seeing all this anti-EU and anti-immigration tabloid coverage.

I think though fundamentally you're going to see a huge problem in the EU where the Northern countries (including Ireland, but not including the UK) are very centrist and pragmatic. While you're seeing this high tempered left/right fight elsewhere.

I don't really know how you can knit it all together when there's really no common political landscape and several very different approaches all happening simultaneously. It's no wonder Eurozone policy is so up in the air.

I can understand the British worries about the EU. I think there's an element of expansion by function creep going on that isn't really being agreed to by anyone in particular.
I would rather see the EU defined a little better so that people know what it's about.

On the freedom of movement issues / movement of labour. They probably do need to look at some approach that allows people to move around yet does not burden states with welfare, housing and health claims when they do. So, I would guess a minimum period of employed residency would be a good barometer for allowing welfare claims in a particular country. There needs to be a little more coordination and burden sharing going on.

I'd also point out though that there are vast numbers of retired UK citizens living in Spain in particular but also Portugal and France. Many of them are benefiting enormously from rather more generous and better organised health and welfare systems in those countries.

I think sometimes the UK forgets that it's not an entirely one-way street. Sending a couple of million UK pensioners back home wouldn't exactly be great either.

Estimated 400,000 UK citizens living in Spain, another 150,000 in France, 104,000 in Germany and so on.
They are officially resident too so, there could be quite a few more who live there for long periods of the year or never registered.

If anything, the UK's been one of the countries that's really embraced freedom of movement within the EU in a big way. Being English-speaking also helps because it's the de facto international language.

....

oscarBravo · 13-01-2014 12:31AM

SpaceTime wrote: »

I can understand the British worries about the EU. I think there's an element of expansion by function creep going on that isn't really being agreed to by anyone in particular.
I would rather see the EU defined a little better so that people know what it's about.

I really don't know where this comes from. The scope of the EU is defined (and firmly limited) by its treaties. The "function creep" you speak of comes from revisions to the treaties, which are negotiated and agreed to by all the member states.

Boroso · 14-01-2014 10:49AM

oscarBravo wrote: »

I really don't know where this comes from.

From reading your posts here, it does seem to be the case that you are either unaware, or for some reason unwilling to recognise, that there is a large and growing number of people, both in the UK and across Europe, who not only want to stop giving any more powers to the EU, but many of whom want to get back for national governments powers already given away to the EU. As your attention has been drawn to that here, it seems you must be unwilling to accept that. Why would you, in light of that, expect to know where this comes from?

oscarBravo · 14-01-2014 04:42PM

Boroso wrote: »

From reading your posts here, it does seem to be the case that you are either unaware, or for some reason unwilling to recognise, that there is a large and growing number of people, both in the UK and across Europe, who not only want to stop giving any more powers to the EU, but many of whom want to get back for national governments powers already given away to the EU. As your attention has been drawn to that here, it seems you must be unwilling to accept that. Why would you, in light of that, expect to know where this comes from?

I can't see any way in which this is a response to the post it quotes. Perhaps you should re-read my post and the post that it quotes, and try replying when you have something to say that's relevant.

Boroso · 15-01-2014 09:25AM

The British Chancellor will today tell the EU that it must “reform or continue to decline”.

He will go on to say ““Make no mistake, our continent is falling behind. We can’t go on like this.”

To see such views as "anti-europe" (as this thread sugests) is perverse, as what he is saying, as a representative of Britain, is that if the EU keeps burying it's head in the sand and pretending there are no problems, then it is the EU which prevents reform and encourages continuing decline.

By standing up for the truth, and standing up for the people of the EU, he is much more pro-europe than the EU insofar as he is promoting growth and prosperity over the EU's path of continuing decline.

SpaceTime · 15-01-2014 06:35PM

I still think there's a HUGE communication problem at the EU institutions though.

Anytime I have had to deal with them, you are bombarded with jargon and very badly translated documents that are written in Euro-English or Euro-French which is often unintelligible or at least very off-putting and clumsy to native speakers.

I had a situation where I was at a conference in Brussels and two native English speakers and also one native French speaker were basically laughed at by all the 2nd language speakers in the Euro Bubble because they couldn't actually understand someone with a slight accent who was using idioms and colloquialisms i.e. not speaking European institution versions of English or French.

The 'Brussels Bubble' that has developed really needs to be burst.

They've managed to actually develop a whole culture of communicating from 'eurocrat' to 'eurocrat' and it completely alienates journalists and the general public.

If you're a casual observer of the EU institutions or you want to drop over to do some reporting on a particular issue. It is extremely difficult to understand what's going on because of all of these language and cultural issues.

There's also a pool of journalists in Brussels who are very much part of the Eurocracy and the Brussels Bubble. They speak "Eurospeak" and do not see anything unusual about the way business is conducted there because they're embedded in it and usually come from academic backgrounds that include heavy doses of European Studies etc.

I am even quite taken aback at the use of some terminology by the institutions and companies in the 'Brussels Bubble' such as using the term "journalist" to mean communications officer. You regularly see adverts looking for 'journalists' when they are actually looking for professional copywriters.

There are plenty of other strange examples too.

The other issue I notice is that they are specifically recruiting people who have multiple languages. This results in a rather unusual pool of talent which is very much trained to work within the EU institutions i.e. people who've studied European studies etc.
It also has the effect of actively excluding applicants from major EU countries, particularly the UK and Spain which are extremely monolingual due to the size of their languages and it tends to favour people from the Benelux countries who automatically grow up speaking 2/3 languages because of the size of their countries and the multilingual environment that they grow up in.

The EU institutions actually need more British employees, not fewer if they're going to be seen as accessible to British citizens.

I just always get the impression that the institutions exist in a bit of a parallel universe and really need a major shake up as they're basically not able to relate to citizens or even national media.

micosoft · 15-01-2014 10:42PM

SpaceTime wrote: »

I still think there's a HUGE communication problem at the EU institutions though.

Anytime I have had to deal with them, you are bombarded with jargon and very badly translated documents that are written in Euro-English or Euro-French which is often unintelligible or at least very off-putting and clumsy to native speakers.

rant rant....

particularly the UK and Spain which are extremely monolingual due to the size of their languages and it tends to favour people from the Benelux countries who automatically grow up speaking 2/3 languages because of the size of their countries and the multilingual environment that they grow up in.

The EU institutions actually need more British employees, not fewer if they're going to be seen as accessible to British citizens.

I just always get the impression that the institutions exist in a bit of a parallel universe and really need a major shake up as they're basically not able to relate to citizens or even national media.

I think the problem may be you? While struggling to read your Anglo-English I made out a (dubious attempt to bring in some French speakers aside) a "those funny foreigners with their funny ways, why can't they all just speak the Queens English" rant.
The EU is a union of 27 countries and many languages an cultures. Blaming multilingual countries for the inability of the English (and for that matter the Irish) is just bizarre.
Your only "suggestion" is to hire more British employees which is entirely a matter for the British Government and citizenry.

SpaceTime · 15-01-2014 11:28PM

micosoft wrote: »

I think the problem may be you? While struggling to read your Anglo-English I made out a (dubious attempt to bring in some French speakers aside) a "those funny foreigners with their funny ways, why can't they all just speak the Queens English" rant.
The EU is a union of 27 countries and many languages an cultures. Blaming multilingual countries for the inability of the English (and for that matter the Irish) is just bizarre.
Your only "suggestion" is to hire more British employees which is entirely a matter for the British Government and citizenry.

My "Anglo-English" ??
:rolleyes:

I also deeply resent your implication that I'm some kind of xenophobe. I never said anything remotely xenophobic or about 'funny foreigners'.

I made a perfectly reasonable point based on my experience of dealing with the EU. There is a huge issue with lack of clear communication in various languages and excessive use of verbose documents that are full of jargon that is entirely 'Eurospeak'.

It's a well-known problem in Brussels and people in the EU itself are quite aware that it's a major challenge.

What I was trying to point out is that because the EU institutions tend to consider multi-lingual applicants for many roles (including ones that don't necessarily even require a second language) that they narrow their talent pool and tend to exclude larger countries, particularly the UK and Spain which are exceptionally poor at speaking other languages due to the sheer scale of English and Spanish as global languages.

I'm not getting into a slagging match with you!

What I'm saying is that if you want to communicate with British euro-sceptic audiences, you need to have communications units that are capable of dealing with the subtleties of the target language and that are capable of getting down and dirty with tabloid journalists!

The EU institutions basically communicate to academics and a EU-focused press corps. That has to change if they're going to hope to get any kind of message to the citizens of Europe in an effective way.

If EU communications were working properly, there wouldn't be this information gap between regular punters and the mainstream media (including tabloids) and the EU.

As it stands, all I see is gaping holes in reports, total misunderstanding of EU institutional structures and systems and it all comes down to very poor communication and lack of engagement with the media in a meaningful way.
The press tends to glaze over when it comes to reporting EU issues because they are not communicating them with any kind of a narrative that is remotely interesting to the media.

All I see is dry, boring, longwinded press releases full of jargon!

I'm not being anti-EU, or xenophobic or anything of the sort. I am pointing out a HUGE problem that is causing the EU to shoot itself repeatedly in both feet.

micosoft · 16-01-2014 12:03AM

SpaceTime wrote: »

My "Anglo-English" ??
:rolleyes:

As opposed to their "Euro-Speak" :rolleyes: Perhaps when you stop speaking in Daily Mailese we can understand your arguments a little better.

SpaceTime wrote: »

I also deeply resent your implication that I'm some kind of xenophobe. I never said anything remotely xenophobic or about 'funny foreigners'.

Resent it all you want. It's what your xenophobic diatribe was. Using terms like:

SpaceTime wrote: »

Euro Bubble

SpaceTime wrote: »

Euro speak

SpaceTime wrote: »

eurocrat

SpaceTime wrote: »

Brussels Bubble

SpaceTime wrote: »

Eurocracy

was simply xenophobic offensive caricaturing of EU employees.

SpaceTime wrote: »

I made a perfectly reasonable point based on my experience of dealing with the EU. There is a huge issue with lack of clear communication in various languages and excessive use of verbose documents that are full of jargon that is entirely 'Eurospeak'.

This is not the Daily Mail comments section so no, your point is not reasonable. The later point applies to any government institution. Given they made an entire BBC series of language and verbosity called Yes Minister I really don't understand why you hold the EU to a standard the British Government cannot attain unless you are being UNREASONABLE.

SpaceTime wrote: »

It's a well-known problem in Brussels and people in the EU itself are quite aware that it's a major challenge.

They are aware of the challenge that 95% of reportage in the UK is utter lies about the EU from the usual suspects.

SpaceTime wrote: »

What I was trying to point out is that because the EU institutions tend to consider multi-lingual applicants for many roles (including ones that don't necessarily even require a second language) that they narrow their talent pool and tend to exclude larger countries, particularly the UK and Spain which are exceptionally poor at speaking other languages due to the sheer scale of English and Spanish as global languages.

Gee whiz - asking for multilingual staff in the EU!! When the official languages of the European Union are Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish that might be sensible no? The inability of English people to speak foreign languages is a reflection on the English Education system and English priorities. There are THREE official languages in Spain so I don't buy your mono lingual Spainish nonsense either.

SpaceTime wrote: »

I'm not getting into a slagging match with you!

What I'm saying is that if you want to communicate with British euro-sceptic audiences, you need to have communications units that are capable of dealing with the subtleties of the target language and that are capable of getting down and dirty with tabloid journalists!

The EU institutions basically communicate to academics and a EU-focused press corps. That has to change if they're going to hope to get any kind of message to the citizens of Europe in an effective way.

If EU communications were working properly, there wouldn't be this information gap between regular punters and the mainstream media (including tabloids) and the EU.

As it stands, all I see is gaping holes in reports, total misunderstanding of EU institutional structures and systems and it all comes down to very poor communication and lack of engagement with the media in a meaningful way.
The press tends to glaze over when it comes to reporting EU issues because they are not communicating them with any kind of a narrative that is remotely interesting to the media.

All I see is dry, boring, longwinded press releases full of jargon!

I'm not being anti-EU, or xenophobic or anything of the sort. I am pointing out a HUGE problem that is causing the EU to shoot itself repeatedly in both feet.

Or just maybe that's not the EU's job. Because as soon as the EU attempts to engage with the UK public it's shot down as propaganda or "euro-meddling" in your parlance.

It's for the UK Government and political parties to persuade the English Public of the merits of the EU - not the EU given the EU is it's membership (a point repeatedly missed or deliberately obfuscated by those against the EU) and to challenge the constant stream of deliberate lies from the bulk of the british press. That does not happen hence the UK relationship with the EU.

micosoft · 16-01-2014 12:18AM

SpaceTime wrote: »

Fair enough, I can't make any kind of constructive criticism of a huge publicly funded organisation's communications strategy without being called a xenophobe!

Couldn't be bothered posting on this forum anymore. It's worse than the YouTube comments section!

There is supposed to be rule of 'attack the post and not the poster'.

I am utterly offended that I am being called a xenophobe and I do not appreciate being torn to shreds on a personal basis on a forum.

This is the Pot calling the Kettle black. I spelt it out to you - the language & tone that you used was offensive and adds nothing to the debate i.e. not constructive. If you make your argument by calling people Euro-crats living in a Euro-bubble don't go suddenly get all upset when you are challenged about that language and the meaning of it.

If you had posted a constructive statement sans the Daily Mail speak I would have simply addressed you with the last piece of my answer - that it's not the EU's job to communicate to the citizens of a member state - it's that countries Government and other political parties job. Because the EU IS the Member States. Not some absurd 3rd party. So the local representative of the EU is that countries government. Therefore the failure in communicating the EU in the UK lies with the UK Government and UK's political parties. End of.

SpaceTime · 16-01-2014 12:27AM

micosoft wrote: »

Because the EU IS the Member States. Not some absurd 3rd party. So the local representative of the EU is that countries government. Therefore the failure in communicating the EU in the UK lies with the UK Government and UK's political parties. End of.

That's actually not the case, other than in respect of The Council of the European Union (Council of Ministers).

The European Commission and the various Directorate Generals (Departments) handle all of their own communications needs at their HQs and at local level in each EU country via the European Commissions representative offices and operate quite independently in terms of what they do on a day to day basis.

The commissioners are actually bound not to represent the interests of their own states as they are tasked with representing the European Union's interests.

The European Parliament is also not representative of the member state Governments and is not represented by them either. MEPs represent their constituents directly, not member-state Governments.

The situation you are describing hasn't existed in quite a long time and it's not up to member state governments to provide representative services for the EU. The EU's more than well enough resourced and capable of doing that itself.

The UK Government or any other member state Government doesn't really have any role in providing representation for the EU institutions. Other than the council, they exist as independent entities in their own right as established under the various treaties.

They are very much a third party, much like the US Federal Government is a 3rd party to an individual state (albeit quite a different setup but the same general concept applies)

Scofflaw · 16-01-2014 12:32AM

micosoft, your last couple of posts were an entirely unacceptable aggressive and misdirected response to a perfectly reasonable point, and one which is well known to anyone communicating the EU in the Member States.

If you're unable to respond to SpaceTime without engaging in this kind of behaviour, don't respond. An apology would also be appropriate.

moderately,
Scofflaw

micosoft · 16-01-2014 01:13AM

Scofflaw wrote: »

micosoft, your last couple of posts were an entirely unacceptable aggressive and misdirected response to a perfectly reasonable point, and one which is well known to anyone communicating the EU in the Member States.

If you're unable to respond to SpaceTime without engaging in this kind of behaviour, don't respond. An apology would also be appropriate.

moderately,
Scofflaw

I apologise for the over-aggressive tone to Spacetime. Based on personal experience I respectfully continue to disagree on the subject matter.

Yours cordially

Micosoft

Philope · 16-01-2014 01:14AM

The EU needs Britian more than Britian needs the EU

SpaceTime · 16-01-2014 01:26AM

Philope wrote: »

The EU needs Britian more than Britian needs the EU

Not so sure about that to be honest.
It's very 50:50.

The UK leaving the EU could potentially do immense damage to business and financial services there (possibly driving a lot of business TO Ireland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in particular).

It would depend very much on how much access to the single market the UK would be left with if it were to leave.

It would be bad news for the EU too as the UK is it's 2nd largest member state in terms of population and 3rd in terms of GDP.

I think the EU needs to embrace the UK a lot more than it does and the UK likewise needs to stop behaving so irrationally towards the EU.

There's a bit of couples' counselling needed! Both parties will need to compromise.

Philope · 16-01-2014 01:30AM

The same doom and gloom was predicted for Britian when they stayed out of the eurozone.

I'm not anti EU in any way, but unlike Ireland, the EU needs Britian more than they need the EU.

SpaceTime · 16-01-2014 01:32AM

Philope wrote: »

The same doom and gloom was predicted when Britian stayed out of the eurozone.

It's quite a different scenario though.
The Euro's not necessary for access to the market.
Membership of the EU might well be though as I don't know if the UK could necessarily get the same deal as Norway and Iceland as it's going to create quite an antagonising situation with some of the bigger EU countries and it's not a legacy situation.

They're already quite antagonised by the City of London's regulation regime.

Suddenly losing full, open access to the world's largest consumer market would be a huge shock.

Philope · 16-01-2014 01:34AM

SpaceTime wrote: »

The Euro's not necessary for access to the market..

It was claimed at the time that is was, and that Britian was doomed by staying out of it.

Every country is different, and Britian doesn't really need the EU

SpaceTime · 16-01-2014 01:36AM

Again though it would totally depend on how the EU reacted to the UK leaving.
If it just continued 'business as usual' it will make no difference really at all.

However, if the EU were to say fine. Off you go! Just don't expect to have access to the market. Then, it would be a serious game changer.

48.6% of UK exports still go to other EU countries. That's a HUGE chunk of the British goods/services economy.

The UK's also currently experiencing a fairly substantial trade deficit which would tend to indicate the economic recovery being experienced could be credit and consumer spending generated and isn't export led.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/09/stubborn-uk-trade-deficit-exports-imports-recovery

Philope · 16-01-2014 01:39AM

How do you think countries like Ireland would fair if they threatened Britain with that ?

SpaceTime · 16-01-2014 01:42AM

It would be France and Germany not Ireland calling the shots on that.

The French attitude is already that certain countries (UK, Ireland, Lux, NL etc) are undermining it through tax breaks. So, you could see where it could possibly end up as quite a bitter divorce.

It could be a mess for Ireland even if new investment came in, but I don't think that would be of any concern to the big two at the centre of Europe. We're just a little peripheral state that they see as having created huge financial problems. They probably wouldn't give it much thought.

Ultimately, I think what's going to happen in 2015 is the Tories will be out of office as their vote's being split by UKIP while their popularity's sinking anyway.
So, the most likely result is Labour in office again.
Current poll of polls is showing a 58 seat majority prediction for Labour if an election were called today.
So, this whole debate could be an irrelevance like it was when Major went out and Blair came in.

I think you also have to remember that the Tabloids and political correspondents and geeks are more hyped up about this than most people are. A lot of British voters just glaze-over when you talk about the EU. A minority get passionate about either side of the debate.

The reality of an election in the UK will be more about economics than anything else. The UK's experienced some pretty nasty austerity too. They're still proposing another £25bn in cuts!

If you watch the debates, the Tories are desperately trying to talk about everything except economics. Yes, they'll talk about GDP growth, but don't ask about debt levels or anything about balance of trade or exports.
Europe, immigration, Scottish independence... etc
GDP's growing, but nobody's looking at whether that's sustainable. Given that exports are falling, something would suggest a credit driven 'bounce'.

Philope · 16-01-2014 02:01AM

I think Ireland would be in big trouble if they supported, or failed to campaign against any EU motion to threaten Britain with that.

I also don't see how it would serve the EU to threaten Britian.

SpaceTime · 16-01-2014 02:03AM

No way Ireland would support move like that.
Irish economic and other links with the UK are just too strong and it would cause havoc with NI/ROI trade.

Why are the British so anti Europe?

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