A little more truth leaks out.

[Suff]

Cameron will be a sadly embattled person at the next EU summit. France and Germany have decided to enact parts of the Lisbon Treaty to force closer political union in the Eurozone.

Owning up that the treaties were stronger than they have yet been implemented and that we have a LONG way to go before the real impact of the Lisbon Treaty is felt by the ordinary people.

Oh and Look. A bit more truth from the press. Cleaned and Pressed and presented in a little offhand remark..

EU members and senior officials in Brussels have repeatedly voiced their reluctance to reopen the Lisbon treaty – the EU’s fundamental constitutional document.

Did they really just admit to the British Press that the Lisbon Treaty was a Constitution for the EU? All 430 odd pages of it...

Good luck David but watch what you are promised. In good EU practise they say one thing behind closed doors and do exactly the opposite in the public eye where they can't retract and can gain votes for the next election....

[Workingman]

Listening to the mood music it sounds as though the others have had enough of the sulky UK sat in the corner sucking its thumb and would not be too upset if we did leave.

The Lisbon treaty gave a legal right for a country to leave the EU, and a procedure for it to do so. I bet some of them now wish they had a legal right to boot a country out if a majority wanted it, for any reason.

I can't see 'Call me Dave' getting served crumbs never mind a cold buffet. So that will mean him campaigning for "Out": won't it?

[Suff]

I can't see 'Call me Dave' getting served crumbs never mind a cold buffet. So that will mean him campaigning for "Out": won't it?

It is amusing isn't it. I wonder what kind of mental gymnastics will be pulled in order to allow Cameron to "support" staying in the EU. Germany, for instance, is interested in controlling immigration, but only the kind which bothers them, namely extra EU. They have no interest at all in controlling cross EU working migrancy but are interested in denying benefits to migrant non workers. So if Germany want's it then it is likely to happen.

On the flip side, today, Merkel and Hollande have ganged together to get ready to demand harmonisation of a base rate of corporation tax so they can stop companies bleeding over to lower tax regimes. QMV on taxation issues was one of the key differences between the EU constitution and the Lisbon Treaty. The UK can veto and as Cameron has clearly stated that the ability to incentivise British businesses through advantageous tax rates is key to sustained UK recovery, everyone would expect the UK to veto. Especially as there is 10% - 13% difference between the UK rate and Germany, France and Spain.

Of course Ireland is 15% and Luxemburg has a special deal with <6% for certain royalties payments.

Now an able EU operator would ensure that the UK voted last. Also an able EU operator would ensure that the base was set at, say, 22%, something he could stand behind in the UK for a while. Then, after Ireland and Luxemburg had voted yes, expecting the UK to veto it, he could also vote yes.

That able EU operator would then work on the smaller countries to tell them that if they don't support him in treaty changes, which would allow him to unilaterally undo the 22% tax rate, then he would support even more legislation which was somewhat benign to the UK but damaging to them. Leaving them with little choice but to be the "bad partner" and veto themselves before the UK sunk them by allowing it through.

For far too long the UK has been cast as the "bad partner" in the EU, whilst the EU has used and abused UK influence abroad which has never been acknowledged.

Sadly we don't have able EU operators because they don't understand the EU. Which is why I believe that we belong out. Because by the time our politicians wake up to the realities of the EU, they will have given away every ability to change anything.

[cromwell]

This is all a bit nuts really. Cameron doesn't want us to leave, neither do the other parties (UKIP excepted) and truthfully we have zero chance of getting any meaningful changes.

So where does that leave us?

We should just go for associate membership imo, which gives us access to the single EU market.

The arguments for staying in are put eloquently by Mr Tony Blair esquire.

If we left it would "diminish our standing in the world". I can live with that.

If we left we would have "no influence at the EU table". We don't have any influence to start with, so we're not losing anything!

Today's rumoured Franco-German stitch up (closer ties between EU countries without treaty change) proves that well enough, I think.

[Aggers]

I think we should now be concentrating on strengthening our
ties with the British Commonwealth, and to hell with Europe.

[manxie]

I agree with all said here

Now't I can add.

Manxie xx

[Suff]

Personally I don't think we should be saying to hell with Europe. I think we should be putting them back to second string though. China is about the same size as the EU when you pull the UK out of it. India makes that bigger. The US, Japan, China and India make the EU look somewhat diminutive. Plus we should be selling to Brazil too.

The EU is still a very important trading partner. But, if you remove the UK from the EU, the US is bigger and often easier to do trade with and that is from inside the EU. Outside the EU we could arrange our own trade relationships with the US, China, India and Brazil.

Let's face it. People don't buy British goods because we're in the EU, even within the EU. They buy British goods because they can't get them anywhere else or they can't get them any cheaper anywhere else. I don't count quality as we've lost the quality thing over the decades of Unions telling us that turning up should be enough to net more pay than anyone else....

We should always approach this with a pragmatic and open approach. Yes the EU is an important trading partner. NO it is not the ONLY important trading partner and if we keep on the way we are going it won't even be the biggest single trade we do.

Best to keep it on a solid dispassionate and stable footing lest someone calls us over excitable.