Why are the British so anti Europe?

When we joined the EEC we were joining what was essentially a free trade community. We did this as our choice.

Chile makes agreements with whatever country it wants in their interests.

These agreements can be more or less liberal in content depending on the two parties.

For Ireland though, we are stuck. We'll have to let the Germans and French negotiate in our best interests. We are not one of the two parties doing what is best for our interests.

We didn't join the EEC to be part of a superstate. No one would have voted for that. We wanted to be part of a trade agreement.

Do you think the Central Bank in Ireland would have had the interest rates so low when our economy was booming in 2001, 2002 and so on?

No, but the ECB did...why? In the interest of the German economy.

We should have been cooling our economy but it went crazy and now we have the situation we are currently in....done in our interests?

If we want free trade with a random country....tough.....Better wait to see if the French and Germans are ok with it.

We are merely a minuscule percentage of one of the parties.

sin_city wrote: »

When we joined the EEC we were joining what was essentially a free trade community. We did this as our choice.

Chile makes agreements with whatever country it wants in their interests.

These agreements can be more or less liberal in content depending on the two parties.

For Ireland though, we are stuck. We'll have to let the Germans and French negotiate in our best interests. We are not one of the two parties doing what is best for our interests.

Well, no, that's not how it works. The Commission negotiates trade agreements on behalf of the EU, but every Member State government and/or parliament has to sign off on it.

sin_city wrote: »

We didn't join the EEC to be part of a superstate. No one would have voted for that. We wanted to be part of a trade agreement.

That's also wrong. First, the EEC was never intended to be just a trade agreement. That was what EFTA was, and even the UK, which founded it, abandoned that in favour of the EC and its commitment to ever closer union. Second, we've voted for every treaty since, which have taken the EU beyond just the 'economic community' of its early years. Ireland has been involved in negotiating those treaties, Ireland has signed off on them, and the Irish public have voted for them.

sin_city wrote: »

Do you think the Central Bank in Ireland would have had the interest rates so low when our economy was booming in 2001, 2002 and so on?

No, but the ECB did...why? In the interest of the German economy.

We should have been cooling our economy but it went crazy and now we have the situation we are currently in....done in our interests?

If we want free trade with a random country....tough.....Better wait to see if the French and Germans are ok with it.

We are merely a minuscule percentage of one of the parties.

But not therefore ignored - and as a general rule, we are on the majority side in EU decisions.

Yes, the ECB set interests rates low, but no lower than most of the world's interest rates, and not as low as people generally think:

It's also worth noting that high interest rates didn't save Iceland from a property bubble, nor cause one in Greece.

We had, and have, policy tools that would have allowed us to cool a property bubble without resorting to interest rate manipulation, but unfortunately those tools were in the hands of the politicians rather than the Central Bank - which means that the lesson that prompted the creation of independent central banks is being painfully learned all over again. Politicians won't cool bubbles, or at least most politicians - and our property-connected politicians definitely not.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Has any member country ever gone against a trade agreement?

So you're telling me the EEC was the start of the superstate and that this is common knowledge?

The ECB set low rates yes and we needed higher ones. I don't care what the rest of the world did. We did not have the independence to do what we needed. What was done, was done in Germany's interest.

How's Iceland doing now economically in comparison to ourselves?

Peregrinus

sin_city wrote: »

Has any member country ever gone against a trade agreement?

Of course. Do you imagine that countries never use their vetos?

When the veto is deployed, though, it tends to happen fairly early in the piece, so the negotiations never proceed very far, and eventually run into the sands. It’s not something that attracts huge publicity.

But, in 99% of cases, the signficance of the veto is not that it stops something progressing. Rather, it ensures that something progresses in a way acceptable to the country weilding the veto. Countries use their vetos to influence the course of a project far more often than they use them to stop a project. If any country is opposed to a project happening on any terms at all, then the project doesn’t get very far.

sin_city wrote: »

So you're telling me the EEC was the start of the superstate and that this is common knowledge?

Well, the very first thing the Treaty of Rome (1957) talks about is the objective of establishing “the foundations of an ever-closer union among the European peoples”. And words like “supranational” to describe the status and scope of EU law were in common use well before we came along in 1973. So I’d say that, no, this wasn’t exactly a closely guarded secret.

sin_city wrote: »

How's Iceland doing now economically in comparison to ourselves?

Depends on what measure you want to use:

Actual change in Icelandic GDP 2007-2012, measured in USD: fall of 8.7%

Actual change in Irish GDP 2007-2012, meausured in USD: fall of 0.1%

But if you want to look for measures on which Iceland does better than Ireland, I’ve no doubt you can find them.

sin_city wrote: »

Has any member country ever gone against a trade agreement?

Sure - we've blocked trade deals over beef access.

sin_city wrote: »

So you're telling me the EEC was the start of the superstate and that this is common knowledge?

Given there isn't anything I'd consider a superstate in existence, on the table, or even on the cards, it's hard to answer that question.

On the other hand, since you seem to equate any degree of political union with a superstate, then, heck, the EC was a superstate when we joined it.

sin_city wrote: »

The ECB set low rates yes and we needed higher ones. I don't care what the rest of the world did. We did not have the independence to do what we needed. What was done, was done in Germany's interest.

Partly - Germany actually needed even lower rates, but there was a balance.

The single interest rate shouldn't have been exactly a surprise to our government. It was the single most obvious feature of the euro, and it was also obvious that economic cycles weren't aligned - we were already undergoing huge house price rises (the biggest % rises are actually pre-euro). Unfortunately, instead of a policy response aimed at mitigating the lower than needed interest rates, our government chose to add fuel to the fire. They do have tools, but they used them all to make the bubble bubblier.

sin_city wrote: »

How's Iceland doing now economically in comparison to ourselves?

Still worse, but if you cherry-pick the right statistics you could make it look OK. Or you could read what Icelanders say: http://icelandicecon.blogspot.ie/2013/01/the-economic-truth-on-iceland.html

cordially,
Scofflaw

Look, you seem like you're not going to accept any arguments.

I'll accept that the EU is good for farmers in the EU but I think overall its a bad thing for us.

It helped us in the past but now is the time to leave.

Germany needed lower rates????
Ah, so that they could have a housing boom and bust like us and the US? Ok, gotcha.
They only have a debt to GDP ratio of 81% so I guess you're right....they should have borrowed more back then...crank it up to 100%.

Are you really using a blog from some guy in Iceland to tell me Iceland is doing worse now than Ireland and that this is because they didn't pay the debt their banks created and we did?

gallag

Scofflaw wrote: »

That the people changed their minds and delivered a second result.

amused,
Scofflaw

It went like this.

First vote, the people have spoke, the EU and Irish government don't like the answer so launch a campaign bullying people by telling them the world will end for Ireland if they did not vote again and in the manner they want. Second vote on same issue EU/Irish government get there way.

Hardly the bastion of democracy you make it to be. It was a sham.

Scofflaw wrote: »

I'm not even slightly puzzled,

Scofflaw wrote: »

Which it will prove by leaving because it can't get what it wants?

puzzled,
Scofflaw

You can see where the confusing might have arisen from.

Scofflaw wrote: »

I'm not even slightly puzzled, since I am one of the people who doesn't want a federal superstate. That you keep claiming I want one is evidence that you're not engaging with what I'm actually saying, and I admit I'm a little bored these days of being called on to defend a position I don't hold by people who aren't bothered to recognise my real position, or are perhaps incapable of addressing such a position.

What I said was that, from your posts here that is the impression one gets. If that’s wrong, then this is the perfect place to correct an incorrect impression. That you say you are bored these days being called on to correct that impression suggests that there are others who have the same incorrect impression, so presumably it’s no longer a surprise to you when someone else, like me, gets the same, incorrect, impression. Have you thought why it might be that so many get that incorrect impression that you have become bored having to correct it?

Scofflaw wrote: »

It's not an idea whose time has ever come, to be honest. There are people who have wanted it all along, but they've never been in a majority, it's never been the plan, and it's not what 'ever closer union' means.

My sense is now that it’s an unachievable goal in a way that it looked achievable a few years ago. Mainly because many have woken up to the damage the EU has inflicted right across the Eurozone and Europe in recent years, and they now view the EU as unresponsive, unaccountable and uninterested in the people of Europe.

Scofflaw wrote: »

Except that those parties in the main poll well only in EU Parliament elections, which suggests pro/anti EU is an axis that barely registers at the national political level, not something that has replaced a left-right divide.

I mean, OK, I feel fairly strongly about the EU, and you do too. But most people, let's face it, don't. Actually, you probably feel more strongly about it than I do, because while I presume you would celebrate if it were abolished tomorrow, I wouldn't cry or even be particularly downcast, although I would be very surprised.

Not really, because there aren't really polls showing a 'growing euroscepticism' but a loss of faith. They're not actually the same thing, although I can see why you would want to believe they are.

I think a few years ago your analysis would have been largely correct. However, the world moves on and if it’s your judgment that all the “anit-EU” (a clumsy term and I hope you will forgive it’s use for convenience sake) parties across Europe won’t play and influence national elections, I fear, again, your analysis is out of date.

Your analysis of the polls is wishful thinking, and it is a loss of trust in the EU, and it’s institutions, and nothing to do with “faith”, which is what more and more Europeans say.

Scofflaw wrote: »

People are grocers and motor manufacturers, and vice versa. The 'nation of shopkeepers' above all, perhaps.

Out of a population of 65million in the UK, only a small number are motor manufacturers and grocers.

I bought a new Volkswagen in Ireland two years ago for my mother. Guess where it was manufactured?

Companies do what companies do, and they do it for their own motives and not for the common good or betterment. Your apparent faith in accepting what companies say seems naïve. For example, I see recently Ford have been rumbling that their position in the UK might be jeopardised if the UK votes to leave the EU. I remember them saying similar things if the UK did not join the Euro. Guess, what, they are still in Dagenham). And even if there had left the UK, that still would not mean the UK should have joined the Euro.

The petulant self interested threats of companies should be seen for what they are.

Scofflaw wrote: »

You believe that you're expressing or channeling the will of the British people, and you believe that people outside Britain believe the same as you. So zealots always believe, but the real test is the ballot box. Unlike djpbarry and you, I don't believe a UK referendum is a foregone conclusion. I think it's all to play for, because I think reality disagrees with your slogans.

I have made no claims as to what the UK people want, or do not want (and will leave that to DJBarry who seems convinced he knows what they want). I happen to believe that any vote in the UK will be very hard fought, and liable to go either way.

What I believe is that democracy should prevail and the people of the UK, and Europe, should be allowed a direct say in what they want. I am afraid your claims as to what I believe are just made up. I like the clever way you call me a Zealot, without actually saying it directly, and the only thing I am zealous about is democracy and allowing everyone to have their own say.

gallag wrote: »

It went like this.

First vote, the people have spoke, the EU and Irish government don't like the answer so launch a campaign bullying people by telling them the world will end for Ireland if they did not vote again and in the manner they want. Second vote on same issue EU/Irish government get there way.

Hardly the bastion of democracy you make it to be. It was a sham.

This is yet another example of the reason more and more people across the EU are telling pollsters that they have lost trust in the EU. I have never met anyone in reality who has disagreed with your analysis, and most people who discuss it conclude the EU and the Irish Government behaved disgracefully, and cite this example as to how the EU is more interested in pursuing it's own objectives, and has no interest in the democratic will of the people in Europe.

I think it is this latter realisation which is resonating with more and more of those who tell pollsters they have lost trust in the EU, as many wake up to the realisation that the EU is not interested in democracy.

gallag wrote: »

It went like this.

First vote, the people have spoke, the EU and Irish government don't like the answer so launch a campaign bullying people by telling them the world will end for Ireland if they did not vote again and in the manner they want. Second vote on same issue EU/Irish government get there way.

Hardly the bastion of democracy you make it to be. It was a sham.

Again, the Irish people didn't have to vote Yes. Nobody held a gun to anybody's heads, and I very much doubt that you, for example, changed your vote. Some people even changed from Yes to No because they disapproved of the second vote, but very many more changed their vote from No to Yes - nobody made them do it, though.

As such, the second vote remains exactly as democratically legitimate as the first - a free vote by a free people. You can't accept that, because to you, that one was the wrong result, but you cannot give any reason why the second vote of the Irish people should be set aside and the first one cast in stone.

Did you change your vote to Yes? Were you forced to do so? If you did not, and were not forced, why do you believe other people were? Are they less resilient than you? Less intelligent, more fearful, what?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw wrote: »

Again, the Irish people didn't have to vote Yes. Nobody held a gun to anybody's heads,

While no one literally held a gun to anyone's head, figuratively many consider that a gun was held to the heads of the irish electorate.

Boroso wrote: »

While no one literally held a gun to anyone's head, figuratively many consider that a gun was held to the heads of the irish electorate.

Really? We were threatened with what exactly? How did this threatening differ from standard campaign behaviour of warning of dire consequences? And how did you and many other people manage to resist it?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Boroso wrote:

I have made no claims as to what the UK people want, or do not want (and will leave that to DJBarry who seems convinced he knows what they want). I happen to believe that any vote in the UK will be very hard fought, and liable to go either way.

What I believe is that democracy should prevail and the people of the UK, and Europe, should be allowed a direct say in what they want. I am afraid your claims as to what I believe are just made up. I like the clever way you call me a Zealot, without actually saying it directly, and the only thing I am zealous about is democracy and allowing everyone to have their own say.

I wouldn't disagree that you wish that, and I'm happy to see the UK public voting on it as well. The difference, though, is that one might suspect someone anti-EU of wishing for it because it might bring about an EU exit, whereas obviously the status quo would suit a pro-EU zealot better.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Boroso wrote: »

For example, I see recently Ford have been rumbling that their position in the UK might be jeopardised if the UK votes to leave the EU. I remember them saying similar things if the UK did not join the Euro. Guess, what, they are still in Dagenham.

But their operation has been scaled back considerably.

Boroso wrote: »

The petulant self interested threats of companies should be seen for what they are.

Potential job losses?

Boroso wrote: »

I have made no claims as to what the UK people want, or do not want (and will leave that to DJBarry who seems convinced he knows what they want).

Eh, you’ve been claiming to know what everyone in Europe wants. For example...

Boroso wrote: »

Your analysis of the polls is wishful thinking, and it is a loss of trust in the EU, and it’s institutions, and nothing to do with “faith”, which is what more and more Europeans say.

...and...

Boroso wrote: »

This is yet another example of the reason more and more people across the EU are telling pollsters that they have lost trust in the EU.

Scofflaw wrote: »

Really? We were threatened with what exactly? How did this threatening differ from standard campaign behaviour of warning of dire consequences? And how did you and many other people manage to resist it?

cordially,
Scofflaw

It is up to you to decide if and what you were threatened by or from. Just as it is up to everyone to decide that for themselves.

Is your argument that, because you may have decided you did not feel personally, threatened, then no one else has the right to decide otherwise for themselves? And, also, no onlookers from elsewhere in Europe and around the world are permitted to feel uneasy at the way the events were conducted, and reach their own conclusions?

Boroso wrote: »

It is up to you to decide if and what you were threatened by or from. Just as it is up to everyone to decide that for themselves.

Is your argument that, because you may have decided you did not feel personally, threatened, then no one else has the right to decide otherwise for themselves? And, also, no onlookers from elsewhere in Europe and around the world are permitted to feel uneasy at the way the events were conducted, and reach their own conclusions?

In other words, nobody was threatened with anything.

gallag

djpbarry wrote: »

In other words, nobody was threatened with anything.

Every body in Ireland was threatened with job losses, crashed economy, failed banks, closed hospitals and schools, all constantly bombarded by state media. Good job every body re voted correctly and non of this happened.

gallag wrote: »

Every body in Ireland was threatened with job losses, crashed economy, failed banks, closed hospitals and schools, all constantly bombarded by state media. Good job every body re voted correctly and non of this happened.

In fairness, Scofflaw was not threatened from what he says, but certainly many others did consider themselves threatened, and many abroad remember that and still talk about that when we talk of the EU.

gallag wrote: »

Every body in Ireland was threatened with job losses, crashed economy, failed banks, closed hospitals and schools, all constantly bombarded by state media.

I actually remember the opposite: “Yes for jobs”, for example. Whether such a statement is accurate or not is another matter, but threatening? Hardly.

If it’s threats you’re after, it’s the “No” campaign you want. Sinn Fein categorically stated that Lisbon would bring about lower wages and a “crushing” of family farms.

Seems to me that, if threats were being made, people were threatened into voting “No”.

Boroso wrote: »

In fairness, Scofflaw was not threatened from what he says, but certainly many others did consider themselves threatened, and many abroad still talk about that when we talk of the EU.

Many abroad still talk about an Irish government’s referendum campaign when they talk of the EU?

oscarBravo

gallag wrote: »

Every body in Ireland was threatened with job losses, crashed economy, failed banks, closed hospitals and schools, all constantly bombarded by state media.

I don't remember any of those threats. Do you have sources for them?

gallag wrote: »

Every body in Ireland was threatened with job losses, crashed economy, failed banks, closed hospitals and schools, all constantly bombarded by state media. Good job every body re voted correctly and non of this happened.

Sorry, let's be exactly clear here, since I did ask you to distinguish between being threatened and standard campaign stuff - you were contacted and told that if you personally voted No you personally would lose your job?

Because otherwise what you've described, as you well know, is bog-standard campaign material, which the No side was absolutely no slouch in promulgating itself. Describing such material from only one of the sides as 'threats' is self-evidently mere partisanry.

Surely, if you're going to even try to pretend to be slightly objective, you would say that people voted No in the first referendum because they were threatened with calamities ranging from conscription into a superstate army to the loss of the minimum wage, via the forced privatisation of every public service and the reintroduction of the death penalty.

Or did those things just slip your mind?

cordially,
Scofflaw

MarkK

Scofflaw wrote: »

... threatened with calamities ranging from conscription into a superstate army to the loss of the minimum wage, via the forced privatisation of every public service and the reintroduction of the death penalty.

Indeed, UKIP threatened us with Euthanasia if we voted yes!

Didn't Sarkozy say "The Irish will have to vote again"? and then promptly visited Ireland to "listen" to us?

Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg's at the time foreign minister, said Ireland would need to have a second vote: "The question is how can we prepare it so that it can be won."

Elmar Brok, a senior MEP from Merkel's Christian democratic party, declared that Ireland would need to vote again and a new referendum would decide whether Ireland stayed in the EU or not.

"With all respect for the Irish vote, we cannot allow the huge majority of Europe to be duped by a minority of a minority of a minority", commented Axel Schafer, social democrat (SPD) leader on the Bundestag committee on EU affairs.

Manuel Barroso after the no result "I believe the treaty is alive and we should now try to find a solution,"

Angela Merkel after the initial NO vote, “We must carry on,”

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said, “We’re sticking firmly to our goal of putting this treaty into effect. So the process of ratification must continue.”

French officials penned the document 'Solution to the Irish Problem', in which they say the EU should push Ireland into re-running its referendum

Well, at least we had no outside interference on the question of how we'd vote and also clearly there was no pressure from outside to have a second referendum. Gee, some people really are fools

Rerunning the Lisbon arguments is pointless and serves no purpose.

Some say they think it was a wonderful example of democracy at work, others think it was less, and some considerably less, than that.

What has always interested me is how it is often remembered by others outside Ireland, as a sort of talisman for the way the EU works, and one man even said to me that it was as if Ireland was sent to bed early without any supper until it decided it was going to vote the "correct" way.

Like it or not, many people have strong views about such treatment, which is another peg in the wall in forming their opinion about the way the EU runs itself.

Boroso wrote: »

What has always interested me is how it is often remembered by others outside Ireland...

I'm pretty confident that if I were to leave my desk and venture out onto the streets of London right now and stop random passers-by, the vast majority of them would have no idea what the Lisbon Treaty is, let alone the circumstances surrounding its ratification in Ireland.

Boroso wrote: »

Rerunning the Lisbon arguments is pointless and serves no purpose.

Some say they think it was a wonderful example of democracy at work, others think it was less, and some considerably less, than that.

What has always interested me is how it is often remembered by others outside Ireland, as a sort of talisman for the way the EU works, and one man even said to me that it was as if Ireland was sent to bed early without any supper until it decided it was going to vote the "correct" way.

Like it or not, many people have strong views about such treatment, which is another peg in the wall in forming their opinion about the way the EU runs itself.

That's certainly so, but it's rather clear that such views are often decidedly one-sided, as we see here.

That in turn suggests that the strong views about such treatment are derived from already settled opinions about the way the EU runs itself, rather than vice-versa.

Do we have anyone willing to state how it is that campaign comments by one side are "threatening", while equally alarming claims by the other side are not? And how a comment by Sarkozy is "foreign interference" while a leaflet campaign - an actual posted-to-our-doors leaflet campaign, on foot of a lot of very public commentary - by UKIP is not?

Because we seem to be falling into a pattern here of posters making statements, and repeating them, while apparently not being able or willing to defend them other than through sheer repetition.

cordially,
Scofflaw