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So now we know what the EU must do to keep us

PostPosted: 11 Oct 2015, 11:58
by Suff
The Tories have outlined their absolute requirements in order for them to recommend staying in the EU....

1. Forcing Brussels to make “an explicit statement” that Britain will be kept out of any move towards a European superstate. This will require an exemption for the UK from the EU’s founding principle of “ever closer union”.

2. An “explicit statement” that the euro is not the official currency of the EU, making clear that Europe is a “multi-currency” union. Ministers want this declaration in order to protect the status of the pound sterling as a legitimate currency that will always exist.

3. A new “red card” system to bring power back from Brussels to Britain. This would give groups of national parliaments the power to stop unwanted directives being handed down and to scrap existing EU laws.

4. A new structure for the EU itself. The block of 28 nations must be reorganised to prevent the nine countries that are not in the eurozone being dominated by the 19 member states that are, with particular protections for the City of London.



OK so what do I think?

1. There is a place within the EU for being exempt from "ever closer union". It's called the EEA. Or we can just leave entirely and create treaties with the EU to cover all their wonderful little "games" they play. Either way, that founding principle is not going to move...

2. It has taken them 5 decades and huge amounts of political blood sweat and tears to put almost everyone in the same economic cart. All of the recent signatories into the EU have had to guarantee they will join the Euro. Nobody in the EU will back down on this statement. Brown had the ability to block it when he turned traitor and signed the UK into an EU superstate. Ireland had the ability to block it when they voted on the Lisbon Treaty.

No treaty is going to change this statement again. EVER. In fact, I am not in favour of it. The Euro is good for the EU, it is forcing them to do things they should have done decades ago but would not do due to the electability of the governments. It's much easier to push in punishing and radical legislation if you tell the electorate "there's no point in voting for the other guy on this issue, they'll have to do it too".

The EU can't back down on this, so the only reason to ask is to be rejected.

3. This is never going to happen. The UK, like Germany, is in the top tier of sensible legislation to protect the people and their working lives. The EU, on the other hand, has to work with countries who think this is unreasonable. The only way they can do this is with the Directive system, which forces everyone, equally, to live within those boundaries.

They will never give that up so it's not even worth discussing as a possibility. Another one which will be rejected out of hand.

4. This one is the only one which is likely to be a greed. Many of the older members have talked about a 2 speed EU for a long time. This is nothing more than a good reason to do it.

Diplomats believe this plan represents the most likely deal they can achieve because it is so difficult to negotiate a solution that is acceptable to 27 other EU member states, as well as the European Commission and the European Parliament.


I always knew that they lived in lala land. Now everyone knows that those diplomats live in lala land. Now it's time. The EU will be faced with a real choice. Bow down to the power of the UK or risk losing the UK from the EU!

My take? They'll say NO, bugger off you idiots, then hope that the government will be able to poison the poll, divide the people and get a NO vote. It's what they would do. Almost every single one of them. The thing they have never understood is that this can only be done once in a generation and they shot that bolt at the Scottish Referendum....

Never mind the fact that David Cameron has stood up and said that if he doesn't get his "deal" then he will recommend that the UK leaves the EU.

Now love DC or hate DC, or even more mildly like/dislike which is the middle ground I stand in, almost everything DC has said he will do he has done. I actually believe that he believes his word is very important to him. So he will do what he said. This will be almost his last act as PM, he will not want it to be the one where people said he went back on his word or his integrity was lacking.

I believe that the leaders of the EU, institutions and states, will fatally underestimate DC on this and will try to back him down. They absolutely did NOT learn their lesson over the Transaction tax. They thought he was weak, they thought they could face him down, they thought they could bully him. They found that under that fairly gentle, nice guy, conciliatory and consensus building exterior, is a will of iron which will not be bent for no better reason that the vacuous aspirations of a bunch of nobodies.....

Let the games begin...

Re: So now we know what the EU must do to keep us

PostPosted: 11 Oct 2015, 13:50
by Workingman
I am getting the feeling that the vote in the referendum will be for the UK to leave the EU.

The Stay campaign is already outnumbered 2:1 by those wanting to leave: Vote Leave and Leave.EU. Between them they can play on the myths and legends whilst at the same time upping the ante with each other in order to be the one chosen by the Electoral Commission and so get the funding and publicity to go with that.

The Stay campaign will fail to get any 'positives' heard as it tries to sort out the leave campaigns' facts from fiction. I also believe that it has been rushed into existence because of what the other side has done.

When the two Leave campaigns were given so much media coverage last week, when the referendum is so far off, I wondered why. Then watching a newspaper review on late night TV a hint was given by a political reporter - the referendum will be sooner than we think, probably as soon as late spring next year.

Going this early makes sense if that is the case otherwise there is a danger of running out of steam.

Re: So now we know what the EU must do to keep us

PostPosted: 11 Oct 2015, 14:55
by Suff
Yes it is very irritating that there are positives and they won't be debated.

I want every aspect to be debated fully so that when it is finally over, whichever side wins, at least nobody can come back and say "But they lied to you and you made the wrong decision".

There are plenty of very good reasons for leaving. More good reasons crop up every day as the idiots try to align ideology, power grabs and looking good in front of the voter. You know the old saying, you can please some of the people all of the time..... The whole point about that statement is to make inexperienced politicians realise that politics is all about timing. Especially pleasing all of the people some of the time.

Those 4 goals are, basically, mission impossible. So if they don't want to succeed, then what is it? Have they decided that these are the top 4 which are driving people to say Leave? It is all very disjointed and bitty at the moment. I'm sure someone has a strategy and I'm sure that strategy will be revealed as and when the spin doctors want us to see it.

I'm sure we will know when all hope is lost and the rush for exit happens. Because if and when that happens, everyone will rush to try and be the "good guy" who was "with the people"....

Whatever it's going to be interesting to watch..

Re: So now we know what the EU must do to keep us

PostPosted: 11 Oct 2015, 16:31
by cromwell
The history of the UK's involvement with the EU is a history of the British people being fed carefully selected news, when they are not being told outright lies.

I would stress - that it is UK media and UK politicians who have been doing the lying. The EU for years now have been pretty open that they want a Federal Europe and the diminution of the nation state.

I don't expect the lies, half truth and omissions to stop now, either.

Essentially we will either be bullied into staying in by dire threats of what will happen if we leave, or we will make an emotional decision to leave.

I see the EU as being part of globalism; move manufacturing jobs to low wage economies, move workers from low wage economies to higher waged economies to undercut the locals. This is exactly what has happened in the UK. Terry's of York is now Terry's of Gdansk or wherever the hell.

As for the importation of EU workers; this is where the Stay campaign have really shot themselves in the foot. Because the In campaign is being led by "Lord" Stuart Rose, a man who says he is a free market capitalist and is very relaxed about British workers being undercut by immigrant labour. Way to go, Stewie!

Then of course on the stay in side you have "Lord" Mandelson, who is hardly a pillar of truth and probity (mortgage problems, Hinduja brothers etc) and Danny Alexander of the LibDems who I am convinced is actually Beaker off the Muppet Show.

What Cameron is asking for - I don't see how he can get it. How can we stay in a club if we are saying "Yes we want to be in the club, but we don't want to obey a couple of your absolute basic rules"?

Anyway, we will see what we will see. But if Merkel can pull a stunt like importing millions of economic immigrants from the middle east and south asia and then force the rest of Europe to take them when the people of Europe manifestly don't want them - then I'm voting for out, and that's that.

Re: So now we know what the EU must do to keep us

PostPosted: 11 Oct 2015, 18:28
by Workingman
As someone who has always been pro EU I despair when I read of those to be associated with the Stay In campaign. A more loathsome bunch than Heseltine, Mandelson, Brown and Blair would be hard to find. Not only are they highly disliked, even hated, by the public they are also part of the establishment and that, too, is not trusted.

The Leave side, on the other hand, is seen as a bit anti-establishment, a bit ooh, a bit ah. I have absolutely no doubt that there are people in the Arts and Entertainment sectors lining up to deliver their pearls of wisdom to doting fans.

I wish we could hold the referendum next Thursday and have done with it. I am bored already.

Re: So now we know what the EU must do to keep us

PostPosted: 12 Oct 2015, 16:45
by cromwell
The name for the "In" campaign is "Britain Stronger in Europe".

Or BSE.

I'm not sure that their campaign after mad cow disease is a wise move!

Re: So now we know what the EU must do to keep us

PostPosted: 12 Oct 2015, 17:53
by TheOstrich
cromwell wrote:The name for the "In" campaign is "Britain Stronger in Europe".
Or BSE.
I'm not sure that their campaign after mad cow disease is a wise move!


:lol: :lol: :lol:

I don't believe that the package Cameron will attempt to negotiate (and then try to sell to the country) will, in the event, be of any substance whatsoever. For example, the EU will never allow us any semblance of opt-out from freedom of movement.

In any event, I made my mind up years ago; I'm a cast-iron "Leave" voter and neither threats nor bribery would persuade me to vote "In".

Re: So now we know what the EU must do to keep us

PostPosted: 12 Oct 2015, 20:14
by Workingman
cromwell wrote:The name for the "In" campaign is "Britain Stronger in Europe".

Or BSE.

Now how did that get past the bright young things in the focus groups? :P

Cue many "Mad Cow Disease" jibes from those wanting us to leave.

Foot - aim - FIRE! :roll:

Re: So now we know what the EU must do to keep us

PostPosted: 12 Oct 2015, 22:54
by Suff
Workingman wrote:Foot - aim - FIRE! :roll:


Ah, yes, but the test of a truly incompetent campaign is how fast they reload... :lol: :lol: :lol: :twisted: :twisted:

Re: So now we know what the EU must do to keep us

PostPosted: 14 Oct 2015, 13:07
by Workingman
Judging by today 'pretty quick' seems to be the answer.

Some of them never, ever, learn from history - negative campaigning does not work. So what has the BSE side done.... leaving would be "a leap in the dark" and "3 million jobs are at stake" along with "£500 billion lost in exports and investment".

That's right, scare the living daylights out of people and they will all queue to vote to stay in.