If you were advocating Remain what arguments would you use?
Well said - if the debate was conducted along these lines (and OGHJr's post on 'Leave') it would generate much more light than it currently is doing.
Too much 'paranoia' on both sides.
If only someone would approach it along the lines 'On balance, we should X - here are the positives of doing X - and here are the potential downsides' - I'm sure they'd get a willing audience who reject this infantilisation of the electorate 'If you don't do X the bogey man will get you....' (be it 3 million jobs lost or 3 million immigrants arriving)
I completely agree. The quality of argument on both sides to date has been truly appalling and so obviously misleading that I am amazed that either side have persuaded anyone. Whenever I hear one of these advocates I start to favour the other side because their arguments are so obviously full of holes and absurd.
Consistently, the one group most likely to back Brexit are pensioners. But these also happen to be among the most difficult people to reach online. When they are included in online polls they are often fanatically pro-Brexit, but notably less so in the telephone polls.
This raises another possibility – that online panels are capturing only the most politically engaged and online-savvy pensioners, whereas the less engaged pensioners who might nonetheless still vote are represented to a lesser extent
If you were advocating Remain what arguments would you use?
I would argue:
That the EU, in or out, is likely to remain the UK's most important market for the foreseeable future. That it is important that we are a part of the rule making process within that market. That to give up our membership of the Council of Ministers, the Commission and the European Parliament simply cannot be in our best interests. There is a real risk that without the UK the EU will become more protectionist, more insular and less successful with adverse consequences for our prosperity.
That, frustrating as it is at times, there are many, many areas where co-operation with our nearest neighbours makes perfect sense and the EU provides a framework for doing that. I might mention pollution, crime, even the mass immigration that the EU is presently enduring as examples of where working together through the framework of the EU makes sense.
That the world is increasingly made of large trading blocs who negotiate with each other on a supra government level. That it is naïve to think we will be able to negotiate the same terms with these trading blocs that the EU can. That the concept of sovereignty in a 19th century sense is simply redundant in the modern interrelated world.
That the EU is far from perfect but it has accepted British exceptionalism to a significant extent already with all the opt outs we have had since Maastricht and that these have been extended (fractionally) even further by Cameron's negotiations. There are reasonable prospects of this continuing and if it doesn't we can leave then.
That the world economy is a particularly fragile state at the present time with a serious risk of a repeat of at least elements of the financial crash. This is not the time to expose the UK to 2 years of uncertainty until the negotiations with the EU are resolved. It will cost inward investment, growth and jobs at the margins.
There are lots of good arguments for Remain, just as there are lots of good arguments for Leave. This is a really complicated and finely balanced decision. It perplexes me that so many can be so sure what the answer is.
Very well put. Thank you. Regarding your last sentence, I have changed my mind on so many political issues over the years (and sometimes changed it back) that I could never say I was sure about anything as complex as this.
When you have time, perhaps you would care to set out the best Leave case, as you seee it?
Yes - similar in flavour to the post I put to former constituents the other day (which has had a good response, including one woman who's been in in a Leave group changing her mind): http://www.nickpalmer.org.uk/europe-decision-day-coming/ .
The Leave campaign's lack of big names is becoming self-reinforcing - I think that quite a few career politicians are now deciding that they just don't want to be part of an array of obscure, squabbling and occasionally eccentric people, even though they sort of agree with them. They desperately need Boris or someone else prominent to take a lead.
It's a crazy idea, but how about the president nominating a candidate of unimpeachable heavyweight juridical standing?
It's polarized America that person doesn't exist. People are judged against a few simple tests (abortion, executions etc) they either pass or fail the "people like us" test.
unimpeachable now means someone who agrees with you.
It's a crazy idea, but how about the president nominating a candidate of unimpeachable heavyweight juridical standing?
On balance I think I prefer our system. Although we had the constitutional curiosity of the First Minister personally interviewing the 2 remaining candidates for Lord President of the Court of Session just recently and then choosing the one who is known to have Nationalist sympathies and did some difficult work for them.
As we move towards the idea of the Supreme Court becoming some sort of constitutional court there is an argument that the appointment process should have some more independent scrutiny.
Personally, I hate the idea of judges being given huge rights to legislate, in the manner of SCOTUS. I far prefer Parliamentary sovereignty.
Think a good systen has judiciary checking legislature and legislature checking judiciary. I believe main criticism by top British judges of European courts is that they have no checks on them. Once they decide a ruling no parliament on the continent can override it.
The same YouGov/ITV Wales poll at the same point of the cycle in 2011 had Labour on 45% - so they are down 11% on the 'like-for-like'.
It's worth noting that they underperformed their polling by nearly 3% at that election as well, and that was repeated in 2015 at the general election with the same pollster and electorate.
If they run true to pattern, Labour might go below 30% on the List, and only just scrape it on constituencies.
Welsh Labour drifting the same way as Scottish Labour?
Yes - similar in flavour to the post I put to former constituents the other day (which has had a good response, including one woman who's been in in a Leave group changing her mind): http://www.nickpalmer.org.uk/europe-decision-day-coming/ .
The Leave campaign's lack of big names is becoming self-reinforcing - I think that quite a few career politicians are now deciding that they just don't want to be part of an array of obscure, squabbling and occasionally eccentric people, even though they sort of agree with them. They desperately need Boris or someone else prominent to take a lead.
Very similar Nick. Leave needs to decide what its offering. For the reasons in your piece I think the only sensible alternative is membership of the EEA and what I have described as a country membership of the EU. I still favour Leave but if I thought I was voting for splendid isolation I wouldn't.
I see Hammond has come out for Remain. Frankly I'm not bothered that he did, but his argument for doing so is very thin Project Fear stuff. Not as piss poor as Cameron, but not far off.
Apparently unless we vote In, the EU will be spiteful to us. And move away from us. Well since they're moving away from us already and we feel hard done by rather often now - I'm not sure how this argument works.
And it's getting panned. Justly. Remain needs to sort this out. I'm not seeing anyone saying they're being converted to Remain, the traffic is all one way.
If you were advocating Remain what arguments would you use?
I would argue:
That the EU, in or out, is likely to remain the UK's most important market for the foreseeable future. That it is important that we are a part of the rule making process within that market. That to give up our membership of the Council of Ministers, the Commission and the European Parliament simply cannot be in our best interests. There is a real risk that without the UK the EU will become more protectionist, more insular and less successful with adverse consequences for our prosperity.
That, frustrating as it is at times, there are many, many areas where co-operation with our nearest neighbours makes perfect sense and the EU provides a framework for doing that. I might mention pollution, crime, even the mass immigration that the EU is presently enduring as examples of where working together through the framework of the EU makes sense.
That the world is increasingly made of large trading blocs who negotiate with each other on a supra government level. That it is naïve to think we will be able to negotiate the same terms with these trading blocs that the EU can. That the concept of sovereignty in a 19th century sense is simply redundant in the modern interrelated world.
That the EU is far from perfect but it has accepted British exceptionalism to a significant extent already with all the opt outs we have had since Maastricht and that these have been extended (fractionally) even further by Cameron's negotiations. There are reasonable prospects of this continuing and if it doesn't we can leave then.
That the world economy is a particularly fragile state at the present time with a serious risk of a repeat of at least elements of the financial crash. This is not the time to expose the UK to 2 years of uncertainty until the negotiations with the EU are resolved. It will cost inward investment, growth and jobs at the margins.
There are lots of good arguments for Remain, just as there are lots of good arguments for Leave. This is a really complicated and finely balanced decision. It perplexes me that so many can be so sure what the answer is.
While I disagree with you, that's an excellent piece
Think a good systen has judiciary checking legislature and legislature checking judiciary. I believe main criticism by top British judges of European courts is that they have no checks on them. Once they decide a ruling no parliament on the continent can override it.
I think there are two more important criticisms: one is that the judges are not judges as we would understand them i.e. not experienced lawyers with long experience of actual practice and generally distinguished lawyers. Second, that they make often inconsistent and badly thought out decisions, decisions which are hard to reconcile with the common law approach to law and the role of the courts.
The role of the law and the courts is - and I realise some may scoff at this - an integral part of how a country, a people see themselves, how they see the balance between the sovereign and the people and the relationship between people, what freedom and liberty mean at the day to day level. Law may seem arcane and complicated and something in the background but it is very important background. In some ways, it is the glue which forms a part of what holds society together. Britain would not be Britain were it not for the common law, how that developed, our history and our sense of what government is or should be. Or - to take another example - look at the role of the jury (trial by one's peers and what it says about us), the burden and the standard of proof in criminal trials, habeas corpus etc and contrast this with the different ways in which these pretty fundamental issues are approached in much of Continental Europe, shaped by their own history, and so on.
Civil law is in some important respects quite different and it too says much about those countries which have it. But they are not very easily reconciled. And the differing approaches to law-making and the role of the courts in Britain and Continental Europe create some quite significant tensions which are simply ignored in much of this debate, to our detriment.
If the EU is going to move to a single state and Britain remains in it, what will happen to our common law, to our approach to the criminal law? Why should we assume that this exception - for it is an exception in Europe - will remain or be allowed to remain? After all, we've been told that financial services will be subject to a single rule book, promulgated by a body - the ECB - on which we will have no say at all and that there will be no exception for an important (to Britain) industry. Why should we think that the same approach won't be adopted for other areas of our national life?
If you were advocating Remain what arguments would you use?
I would argue:
That the EU, in or out, is likely to remain the UK's most important market for the foreseeable future. That it is important that we are a part of the rule making process within that market. That to give up our membership of the Council of Ministers, the Commission and the European Parliament simply cannot be in our best interests. There is a real risk that without the UK the EU will become more protectionist, more insular and less successful with adverse consequences for our prosperity.
That, frustrating as it is at times, there are many, many areas where co-operation with our nearest neighbours makes perfect sense and the EU provides a framework for doing that. I might mention pollution, crime, even the mass immigration that the EU is presently enduring as examples of where working together through the framework of the EU makes sense.
That the world is increasingly made of large trading blocs who negotiate with each other on a supra government level. That it is naïve to think we will be able to negotiate the same terms with these trading blocs that the EU can. That the concept of sovereignty in a 19th century sense is simply redundant in the modern interrelated world.
That the EU is far from perfect but it has accepted British exceptionalism to a significant extent already with all the opt outs we have had since Maastricht and that these have been extended (fractionally) even further by Cameron's negotiations. There are reasonable prospects of this continuing and if it doesn't we can leave then.
That the world economy is a particularly fragile state at the present time with a serious risk of a repeat of at least elements of the financial crash. This is not the time to expose the UK to 2 years of uncertainty until the negotiations with the EU are resolved. It will cost inward investment, growth and jobs at the margins.
There are lots of good arguments for Remain, just as there are lots of good arguments for Leave. This is a really complicated and finely balanced decision. It perplexes me that so many can be so sure what the answer is.
While I disagree with you, that's an excellent piece
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
The timing, on the day they decide to stay in the UK is suggestive. Who scratched whose back in what way ?
That's just puff. French employment laws are a nightmare and most banks - those that aren't French anyway - are reducing their operations in France. Pretty much every bank is reducing costs not increasing them and there are far more low cost places for banks to move staff to.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
Consistently, the one group most likely to back Brexit are pensioners. But these also happen to be among the most difficult people to reach online. When they are included in online polls they are often fanatically pro-Brexit, but notably less so in the telephone polls.
This raises another possibility – that online panels are capturing only the most politically engaged and online-savvy pensioners, whereas the less engaged pensioners who might nonetheless still vote are represented to a lesser extent
Pensioners will believe that they will continue to receive the same pensions whether the UK is in the EU or not. Those who are not retired and in private business may believe that Brexit will have negative consequences for them.
However, altruism doesn't rule. My limited experience has been that discussions descend into whose gang you're in - as in the school playground. I suppose it's politics and the bureaucrats are politicians.
It comes down to this ... do you trust the French to do the right thing? I'd probably trust the Scandinavians more as they're in "our gang". The French, for instance, are not.
A exaggerated simile would be joining the Krays. Being in the gang would help you avoid the worst excesses, but pretending you're in the Salvation Army is unrealistic
After all, we've been told that financial services will be subject to a single rule book, promulgated by a body - the ECB - on which we will have no say at all and that there will be no exception for an important (to Britain) industry. Why should we think that the same approach won't be adopted for other areas of our national life?
This is the part that really exercises me about the crap renegotiation result. We are told that we have given up any right to interfere with the deepening of economic and monetary union. Okay, so what does that mean. It means that the Euro countries will have to change the rulebook, and that we are members of the EU will be bound by that revised rule book, and the ECJ will adjudicate on the basis of that rule book. There is no way we will be free from bits of that rulebook because claims will be made at the ECJ of unfair advantage to the UK.
The deepening of the EMU will have too many touch points on too many other matters for those new rules to be just about financial, and all sorts of changes will be dressed up as being to do with EMU to exclude our input. So in effect we are giving up what little influence we had on a whole raft of areas, and continuing to be bound by the result, in exchange for basically nothing.
We are worse of now that we were before the negotiation, it takes a special talent to go into a negotiation to get a better deal for your country, and come out with a worse one that you started with, either that or a lot of careful planning...
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Good morning all.
The UK created 588k jobs from Nov '14 to Nov '15 (the latest figures available from the ONS). Just some perspective.
Mr. Eagles, I'd swap a thousand bankers for sovereignty.
What's the point of having sovreignty if you don't have a pot to piss in as your tax base fecks off to mainland Europe?
Plus I maintain we're already a Sovreign nation.
Sounds like you're already going wobbly on Leave?
From that same article:
"..the forthcoming referendum on Brexit was not a decisive factor in determining the future location of the bank's holding company headquarters.
"We have 5000 people in global banking and markets [HSBC's investment bank] in London and I could imagine that around 20% of those would move to Paris."
"HSBC said on Sunday that it would keep its holding company headquarters in London following a ten-month review, after determining that the UK's "important and globally connected economy" remained "ideally positioned to be the home base for a global financial institution such as HSBC".
So 80% of the jobs would stay, and those 20% of jobs moving are based upon the degree of access the UK negotiates to the single market financial services 'pass port' regime.
We must expect some mild restructuring if we Leave: a few jobs will rebase elsewhere but other jobs will be created in the UK off the back of the new opportunities it creates.
I expect the economic impact to be broadly neutral.
Mr. Eagles, I suspect you're believing what you want to believe [not that that in itself makes you wrong. Your wrongness is merely a coincidence ].
As Mr. Indigo at 9.55am notes, we're going to be part of a club, if we Remain, which has a eurozone majority and the ability to rewrite the rules to entirely suit themselves. The ECJ is pro-integration, and the notion the EU will do anything other than harm the City is laughable.
We'll be paying for the ride but have no say over the destination.
If you were advocating Remain what arguments would you use?
I would argue:
That the EU, in or out, is likely to remain the UK's most important market for the foreseeable future. That it is important that we are a part of the rule making process within that market. That to give up our membership of the Council of Ministers, the Commission and the European Parliament simply cannot be in our best interests. There is a real risk that without the UK the EU will become more protectionist, more insular and less successful with adverse consequences for our prosperity.
That, frustrating as it is at times, there are many, many areas where co-operation with our nearest neighbours makes perfect sense and the EU provides a framework for doing that. I might mention pollution, crime, even the mass immigration that the EU is presently enduring as examples of where working together through the framework of the EU makes sense.
That the world is increasingly made of large trading blocs who negotiate with each other on a supra government level. That it is naïve to think we will be able to negotiate the same terms with these trading blocs that the EU can. That the concept of sovereignty in a 19th century sense is simply redundant in the modern interrelated world.
That the EU is far from perfect but it has accepted British exceptionalism to a significant extent already with all the opt outs we have had since Maastricht and that these have been extended (fractionally) even further by Cameron's negotiations. There are reasonable prospects of this continuing and if it doesn't we can leave then.
That the world economy is a particularly fragile state at the present time with a serious risk of a repeat of at least elements of the financial crash. This is not the time to expose the UK to 2 years of uncertainty until the negotiations with the EU are resolved. It will cost inward investment, growth and jobs at the margins.
There are lots of good arguments for Remain, just as there are lots of good arguments for Leave. This is a really complicated and finely balanced decision. It perplexes me that so many can be so sure what the answer is.
While I disagree with you, that's an excellent piece
Don't worry Robert. I disagree with me!
But it's the mark of an intelligent, open-minded and perceptive individual who can argue so convincingly against himself, or herself.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
Good heavens you don't mean you are going to vote REMAIN after all, who would have thought it
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
I can see I'm more downbeat on the advantages of the EU than DavidL. I'm also more downbeat about Britain's likely direction if it were to leave the EU.
While DavidL's argument is an excellent one for pb, it wouldn't be much use for a campaign since it is far too abstract. I would mention Hierarchies of Needs but I fear that was done to death yesterday...
Mr. Eagles, I'd swap a thousand bankers for sovereignty.
What's the point of having sovreignty if you don't have a pot to piss in as your tax base fecks off to mainland Europe?
Plus I maintain we're already a Sovreign nation.
Sounds like you're already going wobbly on Leave?
From that same article:
"..the forthcoming referendum on Brexit was not a decisive factor in determining the future location of the bank's holding company headquarters.
"We have 5000 people in global banking and markets [HSBC's investment bank] in London and I could imagine that around 20% of those would move to Paris."
"HSBC said on Sunday that it would keep its holding company headquarters in London following a ten-month review, after determining that the UK's "important and globally connected economy" remained "ideally positioned to be the home base for a global financial institution such as HSBC".
So 80% of the jobs would stay, and those 20% of jobs moving are based upon the degree of access the UK negotiates to the single market financial services 'pass port' regime.
We must expect some mild restructuring if we Leave: a few jobs will rebase elsewhere but other jobs will be created in the UK off the back of the new opportunities it creates.
I expect the economic impact to be broadly neutral.
No. I'm challenging myself on my position.
I like to have a coherent and rigorous position to support, and the best way to do that is to keep on challenging myself and my position.
I can see I'm more downbeat on the advantages of the EU than DavidL. I'm also more downbeat about Britain's likely direction if it were to leave the EU.
While DavidL's argument is an excellent one for pb, it wouldn't be much use for a campaign since it is far too abstract. I would mention Hierarchies of Needs but I fear that was done to death yesterday...
I missed that debate yesterday, I'd love to see it debated today.
After all, we've been told that financial services will be subject to a single rule book, promulgated by a body - the ECB - on which we will have no say at all and that there will be no exception for an important (to Britain) industry. Why should we think that the same approach won't be adopted for other areas of our national life?
This is the part that really exercises me about the crap renegotiation result. We are told that we have given up any right to interfere with the deepening of economic and monetary union. Okay, so what does that mean. It means that the Euro countries will have to change the rulebook, and that we are members of the EU will be bound by that revised rule book, and the ECJ will adjudicate on the basis of that rule book. There is no way we will be free from bits of that rulebook because claims will be made at the ECJ of unfair advantage to the UK.
The deepening of the EMU will have too many touch points on too many other matters for those new rules to be just about financial, and all sorts of changes will be dressed up as being to do with EMU to exclude our input. So in effect we are giving up what little influence we had on a whole raft of areas, and continuing to be bound by the result, in exchange for basically nothing.
We are worse of now that we were before the negotiation, it takes a special talent to go into a negotiation to get a better deal for your country, and come out with a worse one that you started with, either that or a lot of careful planning...
Indeed. Cameron has given up what leverage we had for nothing. He has been as bad as Blair was when he gave up the rebate for nothing.
We will bound by rules into whose formulation we will have no input. Much like being outside, in fact. So we may as well be there and get the advantage of those freedoms, difficult as life might be initially.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
But why would the UK, with a population of 65m be able to negotiate a better deal than the EU with its population of 500m?
I'm also unclear as to why leaving the EU would reduce the cost of trading with them? True, Britain wouldn't have to pay a membership fee, nor comply with EU legislation (though if selling to the EU then many of the regulations would still apply). But against that, access to free trade would almost certainly be restricted, as would in all probability freedom of movement. While some of the Remain figures for the benefits of membership seem excessive, I find it difficult to believe that it would be cheaper to trade with them from the outside.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
Mr. Herdson, you think we should let a foreign body negotiate trade agreements for us? The British interest can only be fairly represented by the British.
If the EU can sign a trade deal with South Korea, they can manage one with the UK. If they don't, there's a risk the Republic of Ireland might go walkies as well.
After all, we've been told that financial services will be subject to a single rule book, promulgated by a body - the ECB - on which we will have no say at all and that there will be no exception for an important (to Britain) industry. Why should we think that the same approach won't be adopted for other areas of our national life?
This is the part that really exercises me about the crap renegotiation result. We are told that we have given up any right to interfere with the deepening of economic and monetary union. Okay, so what does that mean. It means that the Euro countries will have to change the rulebook, and that we are members of the EU will be bound by that revised rule book, and the ECJ will adjudicate on the basis of that rule book. There is no way we will be free from bits of that rulebook because claims will be made at the ECJ of unfair advantage to the UK.
The deepening of the EMU will have too many touch points on too many other matters for those new rules to be just about financial, and all sorts of changes will be dressed up as being to do with EMU to exclude our input. So in effect we are giving up what little influence we had on a whole raft of areas, and continuing to be bound by the result, in exchange for basically nothing.
We are worse of now that we were before the negotiation, it takes a special talent to go into a negotiation to get a better deal for your country, and come out with a worse one that you started with, either that or a lot of careful planning...
Indeed. Cameron has given up what leverage we had for nothing. He has been as bad as Blair was when he gave up the rebate for nothing.
We will bound by rules into whose formulation we will have no input. Much like being outside, in fact. So we may as well be there and get the advantage of those freedoms, difficult as life might be initially.
It was always going to be thus. David Cameron says that he wanted to use the renegotiation to "dock" the UK with the EU. It cant get any more explicit that that, he wants to increase the level of integration to the extent that it is next to impossible to leave. Any suggestions that he wanted a better deal for the EU are frankly lies, and we have seen in the last couple of weeks how much he likes lying. The prime reason I despise Cameron isn't because of his liberal views, it isn't even particularly because of his europhilia, its his disdain for the public, and his party, and his pathological inability to tell the damn truth!
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
But why would the UK, with a population of 65m be able to negotiate a better deal than the EU with its population of 500m?.
Because we are only having to represent the UK interests and not barter away advantages for the interests of French broadcasters or Italian wine growers.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
How thoughtful it is of the Leave side to seek to set out the terms on which the Remain side should make its case to the nation.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
But why would the UK, with a population of 65m be able to negotiate a better deal than the EU with its population of 500m?
I'm also unclear as to why leaving the EU would reduce the cost of trading with them? True, Britain wouldn't have to pay a membership fee, nor comply with EU legislation (though if selling to the EU then many of the regulations would still apply). But against that, access to free trade would almost certainly be restricted, as would in all probability freedom of movement. While some of the Remain figures for the benefits of membership seem excessive, I find it difficult to believe that it would be cheaper to trade with them from the outside.
It was said by someone a couple of days ago that if we left the EU and traded with them according WTO MFN rules and the government refunded the trading companies for the taxes and tariffs incurred, we would still save money compared to what we pay to be in the EU.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
How thoughtful it is of the Leave side to seek to set out the terms on which the Remain side should make its case to the nation.
I think that's a bit uncalled for, Alastair.
MM has been perfectly reasonable with his posts on here. That post merely points out that us pb'ers can present a far better case, either way, on the Brexit debate than our national leaders.
Mr. Eagles, I'd swap a thousand bankers for sovereignty.
What's the point of having sovreignty if you don't have a pot to piss in as your tax base fecks off to mainland Europe?
Plus I maintain we're already a Sovreign nation.
Danger is we won't be if a united Eurozone can pass laws over UK without regards to UK views.
Console yourself with the thought that the Eurozone will never be sovereign while the greatest city and financial centre of the world is just a few miles off its coast.
It's a crazy idea, but how about the president nominating a candidate of unimpeachable heavyweight juridical standing?
On balance I think I prefer our system. Although we had the constitutional curiosity of the First Minister personally interviewing the 2 remaining candidates for Lord President of the Court of Session just recently and then choosing the one who is known to have Nationalist sympathies and did some difficult work for them.
As we move towards the idea of the Supreme Court becoming some sort of constitutional court there is an argument that the appointment process should have some more independent scrutiny.
Personally, I hate the idea of judges being given huge rights to legislate, in the manner of SCOTUS. I far prefer Parliamentary sovereignty.
Think a good systen has judiciary checking legislature and legislature checking judiciary. I believe main criticism by top British judges of European courts is that they have no checks on them. Once they decide a ruling no parliament on the continent can override it.
I agree, and also with Cyclefree's comments below.
The question is, how can that procedural problem be resolved? Should there be a vetting process in the EP, as with Commission nominees? Should there be an 'emergency override' mechanism whereby an interpretation of the law which is contrary to what a (super-?)majority of member states want can be nullified?
The ECJ is - rather like the ECB - operationally independent by design. To change that would almost certainly mean a move towards greater political federalism given that interpretation of law has to be done somewhere and the only real alternative is, as SeanF says, parliamentary sovereignty, which in the context of the EU has to mean one or both of the democratic arms. To make that change would, inevitably, be a federalist move as it would imply an ability to answer constitutional questions, up to and including the case of amending treaties, as a matter of course through the political process.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
How thoughtful it is of the Leave side to seek to set out the terms on which the Remain side should make its case to the nation.
The effrontery of coming here and saying that after you have spent the last couple of months telling the LEAVE campaigners that they should tell you what their proposed future after the referendum is (so you can throw rocks at it) is breathtaking.
Just watched Richard Tice, for one of the Leave campaigns, and Will Straw, for a Remain group. I noted, and was quite annoyed by, Tice continually, and somewhat emotionally, referring to his “side” as “the British People” when it’s abundantly clear that he doesn’t speak for more than around 40%. Straw stuck to the facts
We are about to find out how many he speaks for, if LEAVE wins, he speaks for the majority, unless you are edging toward trying that old "Tories won with only 23% of registered voters" disingenuity again.
As of this moment he almost certainly does NOT speak for the majority.What may happen in the future is not the issue. The SNP won most seats in Scotland, but lost the referendum.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
How thoughtful it is of the Leave side to seek to set out the terms on which the Remain side should make its case to the nation.
As Nabavi of REMAIN has been doing for LEAVE?
Funny that a neutral wouldn't notice that
Does writing articles on PB turn the authors into boring, attention seeking trolls? You'll be recommending bets on superstition and pressing cash out soon
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
How thoughtful it is of the Leave side to seek to set out the terms on which the Remain side should make its case to the nation.
I think that's a bit uncalled for, Alastair.
MM has been perfectly reasonable with his posts on here. That post merely points out that us pb'ers can present a far better case, either way, on the Brexit debate than our national leaders.
It's why I love pb.com
pb is at its worst in periods like this when it is dominated by a single side that doesn't attempt to understand opposing points of view. We have now reached the point when posters earnestly debate the arguments that Remain can make without offending the sensitivities of delicate Leavers (while simultaneously we have unending looniness from the sillier Leavers going unnoticed).
Yes - similar in flavour to the post I put to former constituents the other day (which has had a good response, including one woman who's been in in a Leave group changing her mind): http://www.nickpalmer.org.uk/europe-decision-day-coming/ .
The Leave campaign's lack of big names is becoming self-reinforcing - I think that quite a few career politicians are now deciding that they just don't want to be part of an array of obscure, squabbling and occasionally eccentric people, even though they sort of agree with them. They desperately need Boris or someone else prominent to take a lead.
Very similar Nick. Leave needs to decide what its offering. For the reasons in your piece I think the only sensible alternative is membership of the EEA and what I have described as a country membership of the EU. I still favour Leave but if I thought I was voting for splendid isolation I wouldn't.
It's a plausible outcome, but Remain does have the uncertainty argument which can't be altogether dismissed as a spin-doctor's Project Fear. The general consensus here is that if Leave wins, then Cameron quits and the Conservatives elect...somebody. That might be a long-standing Leaver (Fox?) or it might be a late convert (Boris?) or it might be a "make the best of it" Remainer (May?). Call that somebody X. X then has to lead a divided party into negotiations with 27 national leaders on whether we go EEA, or splendid isolation, or some new variant that we've not thought of. We don't know who X will be, or what they'll want, or if they can persuade their party, or if they can persuade the EU. If they fail in one of the persuasions, they might resign and be replaced by an equally unknown Y, or they might call an election, or they might change their position, or...?
It seems legitimate, in these circumstances, to describe Leave as a shot in the dark. Even enthusiasts don't know what they'll get - they hope it will be this or that variant, as you do, but actually none of us can really make a confident guess. And in the absence of a united Leave campaign headed by a plausible successor to Cameron, there is nothing Leave can do to resolve that uncertainty. Fox might like this, Farage might like that, but who knows what we'll actually get?
Mr. Herdson, you think we should let a foreign body negotiate trade agreements for us? The British interest can only be fairly represented by the British.
If the EU can sign a trade deal with South Korea, they can manage one with the UK. If they don't, there's a risk the Republic of Ireland might go walkies as well.
The EU is not a foreign body at present. That's basically the Natspeak used towards Westminster. For no small part of the UK's membership, it's been a Brit holding the Commission Trade portfolio.
Of course Britain can negotiate trade deals outside the EU but the point about market power stands. The EU's GDP is about €14trn; Britain's is about €2.25trn. That gives the EU a lot more negotiating power.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
How thoughtful it is of the Leave side to seek to set out the terms on which the Remain side should make its case to the nation.
I think that's a bit uncalled for, Alastair.
MM has been perfectly reasonable with his posts on here. That post merely points out that us pb'ers can present a far better case, either way, on the Brexit debate than our national leaders.
It's why I love pb.com
pb is at its worst in periods like this when it is dominated by a single side that doesn't attempt to understand opposing points of view. We have now reached the point when posters earnestly debate the arguments that Remain can make without offending the sensitivities of delicate Leavers (while simultaneously we have unending looniness from the sillier Leavers going unnoticed).
'pb is at its worst in periods like this when it is dominated by a single side that doesn't attempt to understand opposing points of view'
How many threads have been written by an OUTER recently?
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
How thoughtful it is of the Leave side to seek to set out the terms on which the Remain side should make its case to the nation.
The problem with continued EU membership as I see it is that it is inevitable that the EZ members will need to integrate their fiscal policies to make the Euro work long term. Greece showed that the idea that a country using a single currency can vote for what it likes is just nonsense: it is not their money that they are voting to spend.
We cannot stop the integration of the EZ, indeed it could be argued to be in our interests given we want our export markets to grow. But there are consequences and those include a likelihood that the EZ will increasingly seek to use the money, structures and economic policies of the EU in a way that favours the EZ itself. And QMV will allow them to do that, whatever our position is. They will have a built in majority.
Had Cameron been able to negotiate protections for non EZ members this might have been tolerable for the reasons in my earlier post but he has not. The EU doesn't really want to discuss this right now because it has enough on its plate. And anyway, why should Britain be given some extra veto over the actions of other sovereign countries?
I think that any influence we claim to have in the EU will be illusory and that, somewhat oddly, we might have more influence outside where we have not already agreed to be bound by the will of the majority.
Where is our national interest? Number 1, we MUST be in the Single Market. That is key to our future prosperity. So we must be in at least the EEA. So we accept we are bound by the Single Market rules and these include freedom of movement.
If we join EFTA we change the nature of that organisation. At the moment any consultation with the EFTA countries is fairly desultory and take it or leave it. That is an inevitable consequence of the relative size of the blocs. If we switch from the EU to the EEA that balance changes in a significant way and it is not impossible that we will make others think about leaving too.
We would regain control of significant parts of our domestic policy, we would still be able to co-operate with other EU states where it was in our interests, we would probably pay less for the privileges of what we want.
At the moment I think we want a looser but still close relationship with the EU. We don't want to be constantly getting in their way or fighting every step of integration; we want them to be free to get on with it but its implications for us to be much less significant. I think that EEA membership is the right way forward.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
How thoughtful it is of the Leave side to seek to set out the terms on which the Remain side should make its case to the nation.
The effrontery of coming here and saying that after you have spent the last couple of months telling the LEAVE campaigners that they should tell you what their proposed future after the referendum is (so you can throw rocks at it) is breathtaking.
I'm beginning to think Alastair Meeks isnt really Antifrank
''(while simultaneously we have unending looniness from the sillier Leavers going unnoticed).''
Note: it isn't the leavers throwing the 'loony' insults around, matey.
On this thread alone we have been asked to plan now on the basis that all the Eurozone countries will in the future work in bad faith against the UK and seen a complaint that the EU has had the temerity to issue non-binding guidance to local authorities.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
How thoughtful it is of the Leave side to seek to set out the terms on which the Remain side should make its case to the nation.
If I vote Leave it will be very reluctantly and with a heavy heart. I am at heart a European. I am not English at all. I spent a large part of my childhood abroad and my mother tongue is not English. But I had an English education and my life and family are here now. And the best of Britain - of what Britain has been, is and can be - is something I cherish.
I think that Britain and Continental Europe do not share the same destination, that trying to force Britain into going towards a destination it does not believe in out of fear and grumbling all the while will be a disaster, will damage much of the best of Britain and will not be any good for other countries. Best friends, good neighbours is an honourable alternative. Neighbours can co-operate and work together just as well as co-habitees.
I would like to have a good Remain case put to challenge myself. I would like those in favour of Remain to make a positive case, above all to make an honest case. It is the dishonesty of too many of the pro-Europeans for the last 40 years which has poisoned what is, as DavidL has so rightly said, a very finely balanced decision.
The Remainers should not assume that those who are verging towards Leave are not somehow good Europeans and don't have a view of Europe which is something more and better than a Europe governed by bureaucrats who often give the appearance of the utmost contempt for democracy.
Britain is the country with the longest and deepest tradition of liberal democracy in the whole of Europe. We should not be fearful of and self-abasing towards bureaucrats, many of whom come from countries which barely became democracies long after I became an adult.
I can see I'm more downbeat on the advantages of the EU than DavidL. I'm also more downbeat about Britain's likely direction if it were to leave the EU.
While DavidL's argument is an excellent one for pb, it wouldn't be much use for a campaign since it is far too abstract. I would mention Hierarchies of Needs but I fear that was done to death yesterday...
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
How thoughtful it is of the Leave side to seek to set out the terms on which the Remain side should make its case to the nation.
I think that's a bit uncalled for, Alastair.
MM has been perfectly reasonable with his posts on here. That post merely points out that us pb'ers can present a far better case, either way, on the Brexit debate than our national leaders.
It's why I love pb.com
pb is at its worst in periods like this when it is dominated by a single side that doesn't attempt to understand opposing points of view. We have now reached the point when posters earnestly debate the arguments that Remain can make without offending the sensitivities of delicate Leavers (while simultaneously we have unending looniness from the sillier Leavers going unnoticed).
'pb is at its worst in periods like this when it is dominated by a single side that doesn't attempt to understand opposing points of view'
How many threads have been written by an OUTER recently?
Mike is generally receptive to well-argued pieces from any relevant angle. Obviously I can't speak for him but my first step in writing for pb was when I sent in an article on spec.
Mr. Eagles, I'd swap a thousand bankers for sovereignty.
What's the point of having sovreignty if you don't have a pot to piss in as your tax base fecks off to mainland Europe?
Plus I maintain we're already a Sovreign nation.
In that case you are wrong Mr Eagles.
"Sovereignty is understood in jurisprudence as the full right and power of a governing body to govern itself without any interference from outside sources or bodies. In political theory, sovereignty is a substantive term designating supreme authority over some polity."
Now we have treaties we have signed which obviously limit actions we can but the EU is the only example where we are governed by an outside body which has supreme authority over significant parts of our legislation.
By any reasoned definition, as long as we remain a part of the EU we are not a Sovereign nation.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
How thoughtful it is of the Leave side to seek to set out the terms on which the Remain side should make its case to the nation.
I think that's a bit uncalled for, Alastair.
MM has been perfectly reasonable with his posts on here. That post merely points out that us pb'ers can present a far better case, either way, on the Brexit debate than our national leaders.
It's why I love pb.com
pb is at its worst in periods like this when it is dominated by a single side that doesn't attempt to understand opposing points of view. We have now reached the point when posters earnestly debate the arguments that Remain can make without offending the sensitivities of delicate Leavers (while simultaneously we have unending looniness from the sillier Leavers going unnoticed).
If you see my post at 9:35am you will see I too praised DavidL's pro-Remain case, although I didn't agree with it.
If that's your concern, you have to honestly ask yourself: to what extent are you yourself part of the problem in contributing to such an atmosphere?
I've been rather disappointed with your posts on this subject in recent weeks, which have been uncharacteristically unreasonable.
''Where is our national interest? Number 1, we MUST be in the Single Market. That is key to our future prosperity. So we must be in at least the EEA. So we accept we are bound by the Single Market rules and these include freedom of movement.''
I rather think we might have to forego the single market if we want to have true control of our borders. That will be a decision for the British people.
Mr. Herdson, the EU may have more weight, but it's interest is not the British interest.
As for the EU not being a foreign body, it consists of 27 other nation states, as well as ourselves. By population, it's about 88% foreign. By nations, it's more than that.
The imposition of things we dislike and the frittering away of sovereignty is from Britain to Brussels, from the domestic to the foreign, from the accountable to the unaccountable.
Of course Britain can negotiate trade deals outside the EU but the point about market power stands. The EU's GDP is about €14trn; Britain's is about €2.25trn. That gives the EU a lot more negotiating power.
But in interest of whom ? The EU has one seat on the WTO, that seat adopts the position agreed by the usual process, which may, but almost certainly wont, represent the views of the UK. If we are outside the EU, and have our own WTO seat, that seat might have less clout, but it will absolutely be speaking in the interest of the UK all the time, and will be free to make alliances and cut deals with other similarly thinking countries.
Indeed. Cameron has given up what leverage we had for nothing. He has been as bad as Blair was when he gave up the rebate for nothing.
We will bound by rules into whose formulation we will have no input. Much like being outside, in fact. So we may as well be there and get the advantage of those freedoms, difficult as life might be initially.
Both parts of that are profoundly wrong in my opinion. The deal is clear: leave the UK alone with all its opt-outs and its semi-detached membership, and in return we'll let the Eurozone integrate further (which everyone agrees is necessary).
And it's simply not true that we will have no input into the rules. We'll have as much input as anyone else, with the added protections of the non-discrimination against non-Eurozone countries. If we leave, but sign up to the single market in financial and other services (which again everyone agrees is vital), we'd have zero input into the rules, still be bound by them, and lose the protection of the non-discrimination against non-Eurozone countries.
I know that this is a point which I've made repeatedly, but I haven't seen any serious argument suggesting that it is wrong. In particular, I am baffled that anyone could, with a straight face, argue that EEA membership is better in this respect.
Also, I'm amused to see that posters on the internet think they know more about HSBC's business plans than the chief executive of HSBC does.
''(while simultaneously we have unending looniness from the sillier Leavers going unnoticed).''
Note: it isn't the leavers throwing the 'loony' insults around, matey.
On this thread alone we have been asked to plan now on the basis that all the Eurozone countries will in the future work in bad faith against the UK and seen a complaint that the EU has had the temerity to issue non-binding guidance to local authorities.
That notion comes from remainers, doesn't it? didn't Hammond say this very morning that if we come out the EU will get hostile to us?
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
How thoughtful it is of the Leave side to seek to set out the terms on which the Remain side should make its case to the nation.
Jeez, you've become touchy, haven't you?
"We have now reached the point when posters earnestly debate the arguments that Remain can make without offending the sensitivities of delicate Leavers"
That might just be because to date, the arguments that Remain have been making have singularly failed to impress the Leavers - because the Leavers' intelligence was being insulted by crass generalisations and risible shock tactics.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
How thoughtful it is of the Leave side to seek to set out the terms on which the Remain side should make its case to the nation.
Jeez, you've become touchy, haven't you?
"We have now reached the point when posters earnestly debate the arguments that Remain can make without offending the sensitivities of delicate Leavers"
That might just be because to date, the arguments that Remain have been making have singularly failed to impress the Leavers - because the Leavers' intelligence was being insulted by crass generalisations and risible shock tactics.
How astonishing that people who have decided that they are going to vote Leave are unimpressed by arguments from Remain.
At the moment I think we want a looser but still close relationship with the EU. We don't want to be constantly getting in their way or fighting every step of integration; we want them to be free to get on with it but its implications for us to be much less significant. I think that EEA membership is the right way forward.
This is something that it's in the interests of the whole EU and European continent to resolve. Once it's been accepted that Eurozone membership is not compulsory then there needs to be a consistent way to include non EZ member states in the decision making process. Ultimately that has to lead to one of two outcomes: all countries that don't intend to join the Euro will leave the EU and join the EEA or an equivalent organisation, or else an explicit 'associate' status should be created under the auspices of the EU which replaces the EEA and EFTA completely.
Mr. Eagles, you think our economy will collapse if we leave?
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
Well if Secretary Hammond is right, yes.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
@DavidL is voting (just) to leave Mr Eagles. I'm sure he'll be able to put up just as eloquent arguments for leaving the EU. As can @rcs1000.
Cyclefree also makes an excellent case.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
It has been a high quality morning on pb.com.
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
How thoughtful it is of the Leave side to seek to set out the terms on which the Remain side should make its case to the nation.
I think that's a bit uncalled for, Alastair.
MM has been perfectly reasonable with his posts on here. That post merely points out that us pb'ers can present a far better case, either way, on the Brexit debate than our national leaders.
It's why I love pb.com
pb is at its worst in periods like this when it is dominated by a single side that doesn't attempt to understand opposing points of view. We have now reached the point when posters earnestly debate the arguments that Remain can make without offending the sensitivities of delicate Leavers (while simultaneously we have unending looniness from the sillier Leavers going unnoticed).
'pb is at its worst in periods like this when it is dominated by a single side that doesn't attempt to understand opposing points of view'
How many threads have been written by an OUTER recently?
Mike is generally receptive to well-argued pieces from any relevant angle. Obviously I can't speak for him but my first step in writing for pb was when I sent in an article on spec.
I've offered several & didn't get a reply... Same goes for other outers... Yet the Remainians, who get to write piece after dull piece for their side, honestly think leavers are dominating the debate!
Indeed. Cameron has given up what leverage we had for nothing. He has been as bad as Blair was when he gave up the rebate for nothing.
We will bound by rules into whose formulation we will have no input. Much like being outside, in fact. So we may as well be there and get the advantage of those freedoms, difficult as life might be initially.
Both parts of that are profoundly wrong in my opinion. The deal is clear: leave the UK alone with all its opt-outs and its semi-detached membership, and in return we'll let the Eurozone integrate further (which everyone agrees is necessary).
And it's simply not true that we will have no input into the rules. We'll have as much input as anyone else, with the added protections of the non-discrimination against non-Eurozone countries. If we leave, but sign up to the single market in financial and other services (which again everyone agrees is vital), we'd have zero input into the rules, still be bound by them, and lose the protection of the non-discrimination against non-Eurozone countries.
I know that this is a point which I've made repeatedly, but I haven't seen any serious argument suggesting that it is wrong. In particular, I am baffled that anyone could, with a straight face, argue that EEA membership is better in this respect.
Also, I'm amused to see that posters on the internet think they know more about HSBC's business plans than the chief executive of HSBC does.
NO.
The realpolitik of this is that the EU want their financial market back. The fact more euros are traded in London than on the continent drives them crazy. We have to resign ourselves to the fact London cannot exist as it is now, whether we stay in or come out.
If we stay in, they will be able to destroy the City's non euro business to boot. If we come out, we'll be able to save that by dint of having our own rules.
Mr. Eagles, I'd swap a thousand bankers for sovereignty.
What's the point of having sovreignty if you don't have a pot to piss in as your tax base fecks off to mainland Europe?
Plus I maintain we're already a Sovreign nation.
In that case you are wrong Mr Eagles.
"Sovereignty is understood in jurisprudence as the full right and power of a governing body to govern itself without any interference from outside sources or bodies. In political theory, sovereignty is a substantive term designating supreme authority over some polity."
Now we have treaties we have signed which obviously limit actions we can but the EU is the only example where we are governed by an outside body which has supreme authority over significant parts of our legislation.
By any reasoned definition, as long as we remain a part of the EU we are not a Sovereign nation.
Surely if we're part of the EEA, ECHR, and NATO some of that would still apply and by that definition we're not Sovreign.
Indeed. Cameron has given up what leverage we had for nothing. He has been as bad as Blair was when he gave up the rebate for nothing.
We will bound by rules into whose formulation we will have no input. Much like being outside, in fact. So we may as well be there and get the advantage of those freedoms, difficult as life might be initially.
Both parts of that are profoundly wrong in my opinion. The deal is clear: leave the UK alone with all its opt-outs and its semi-detached membership, and in return we'll let the Eurozone integrate further (which everyone agrees is necessary).
So the deal is that the UK gets nothing new beyond its existing opt-outs, and in exchange the Eurozone integrates into a power with a QMV majority, without us trying to bring in protections against this?? How is that anything other than "giving up leverage for nothing"??
And it's simply not true that we will have no input into the rules. We'll have as much input as anyone else, with the added protections of the non-discrimination against non-Eurozone countries. If we leave, but sign up to the single market in financial and other services (which again everyone agrees is vital), we'd have zero input into the rules, still be bound by them, and lose the protection of the non-discrimination against non-Eurozone countries.
So the Eurozone countries sit down and decide the need to federalise their financial systems much more fully, and that one of the ways they will finance the bureaucracy that will entail is to introduce a tax on financial transactions across the EU.
This will be introduced as a measure required to deepen the Eurozone integration. They will listen thoughtfully to our arguments, there that was our input given, and then outvote us in QMV.
We are all bound to a single ECB rule book, and a common EU law enforced by the ECJ, and we are not to interfere with measure that deepen euro-zone integration. Which opt out stops the city getting hammered ? They are not discriminating against us, the rules are the same for everyone.
''(while simultaneously we have unending looniness from the sillier Leavers going unnoticed).''
Note: it isn't the leavers throwing the 'loony' insults around, matey.
On this thread alone we have been asked to plan now on the basis that all the Eurozone countries will in the future work in bad faith against the UK and seen a complaint that the EU has had the temerity to issue non-binding guidance to local authorities.
If the principle of subsidiarity is to mean anything - and it is very much a Continental legal concept - rather than a common law one, one would have thought that the last thing the EU should be bothering with is how local authorities organise their bin collections.
Is this what the EU should be about?
You talk about a Hierarchy of Needs and the Leave case - which I will readily agree has been put appallingly badly by those allegedly officially in charge - being more attuned to people's daily concerns. And then you complain when someone points out that the EU is opining on bin collections, a subject which gets people into a fury when a local authority does something daft, let alone a body as remote as the EU.
Having cakes and eating them, I think......
On a nicer point, I note that sparrows and blue tits are hopping around my clematis and star jasmine gathering stuff for their nests. With luck this will be the third year they nest in the slate nest box from the Lakes on the front of my house. That nest box is so gorgeous it really ought to have its own separate address.
Indeed. Cameron has given up what leverage we had for nothing. He has been as bad as Blair was when he gave up the rebate for nothing.
We will bound by rules into whose formulation we will have no input. Much like being outside, in fact. So we may as well be there and get the advantage of those freedoms, difficult as life might be initially.
Both parts of that are profoundly wrong in my opinion. The deal is clear: leave the UK alone with all its opt-outs and its semi-detached membership, and in return we'll let the Eurozone integrate further (which everyone agrees is necessary). .
Semi detached ? In the same way a lodger has a "semi detached" room in a strict flop house run by an angry Eastern German landlady and her French husband - pay up, obey the rules, no noise after 11pm but don't leave as you can't take the teasmaid with you.
If we stay in, they will be able to destroy the City's non euro business to boot. If we come out, we'll be able to save that by dint of having our own rules.
But not if we're in the EEA, or any other arrangement where we sign up to the Single Market in financial services.
If the Leave side are saying that we should leave the EU and not sign up to the Single Market in financial services, on the grounds inter alia that that would be better for the City for the reason you give, then that would at least be an intellectually coherent position. Two problems with that, though: (a) no-one serious is suggesting it, and (b) the City most certainly doesn't agree.
Mr. Meeks, the absence of friendship and the presence of hostility are not mutually inclusive.
Edited extra bit: indeed, and NATO isn't costing us a fortune for the gift of being a member every year, nor is it trying to harm our economy or dictate our regulation.
It's a simple alliance. If we had that with the EU over trade, that'd be fine. But that's not what we have, nor what we will get.
Indeed. Cameron has given up what leverage we had for nothing. He has been as bad as Blair was when he gave up the rebate for nothing.
We will bound by rules into whose formulation we will have no input. Much like being outside, in fact. So we may as well be there and get the advantage of those freedoms, difficult as life might be initially.
Both parts of that are profoundly wrong in my opinion. The deal is clear: leave the UK alone with all its opt-outs and its semi-detached membership, and in return we'll let the Eurozone integrate further (which everyone agrees is necessary).
And it's simply not true that we will have no input into the rules. We'll have as much input as anyone else, with the added protections of the non-discrimination against non-Eurozone countries. If we leave, but sign up to the single market in financial and other services (which again everyone agrees is vital), we'd have zero input into the rules, still be bound by them, and lose the protection of the non-discrimination against non-Eurozone countries.
I know that this is a point which I've made repeatedly, but I haven't seen any serious argument suggesting that it is wrong. In particular, I am baffled that anyone could, with a straight face, argue that EEA membership is better in this respect.
Also, I'm amused to see that posters on the internet think they know more about HSBC's business plans than the chief executive of HSBC does.
We have no representation on the ECB and therefore no input into its rules.
As for your last statement, the HSBC was not making a business plan but making a vague statement about what might possibly happen. I've seen enough real business plans to make a shrewd guess that the costs of employment in a country are a significant factor in any decision about where to locate people. French employment laws (and many others besides) elicit nothing but groans from those having to deal with them.
If we join EFTA we change the nature of that organisation. At the moment any consultation with the EFTA countries is fairly desultory and take it or leave it. That is an inevitable consequence of the relative size of the blocs. If we switch from the EU to the EEA that balance changes in a significant way and it is not impossible that we will make others think about leaving too.
We would regain control of significant parts of our domestic policy, we would still be able to co-operate with other EU states where it was in our interests, we would probably pay less for the privileges of what we want.
At the moment I think we want a looser but still close relationship with the EU. We don't want to be constantly getting in their way or fighting every step of integration; we want them to be free to get on with it but its implications for us to be much less significant. I think that EEA membership is the right way forward.
Another excellent post, DavidL. Personally, I would trade some migration limits and restrictions on free movement for single-market lite access. However, I would also take the EEA as-is over what we have at present.
For example, free movement has expanded from the original objective of allowing workers to work across the single market, to covering all EU citizens exercising a treaty right, and ECJ rulings extending it to specific groups of non-EU citizens. Huge differentials in relative wealth between EU member state economies have also had an effect.
I would like to see a 75k annual cap, with job offers needed for skilled EU workers and non-skilled EU workers only having access to jobs on an approved national shortage list. There would be a 90-day free residency/working period, possibly up to six months, beyond which the right to reside would depend on being in work and self-sufficient. The right to reside would only apply once they have been in the UK for a set period of time, say 4 years.
I think that's proportional and reasonable. When I'm not tapping away on my iPhone, I might try and write this up sometime.
So the deal is that the UK gets nothing new beyond its existing opt-outs, and in exchange the Eurozone integrates into a power with a QMV majority, without us trying to bring in protections against this?? How is that anything other than "giving up leverage for nothing"??
Well, firstly we want the Eurozone to work. Are you suggesting we should try to sabotage it, with all the concomitant damage to us?
And secondly, my view is based entirely on the text of the deal. And what I see in that text is an agreement - for the first time ever in a formal EU document, as far as I know - that ever-closer union does not apply to us, and that the EU has abandoned the pretence that we are all going in the same direction.
You are right in a sense that we don't get significant repatriation of powers. The time to do that was before Lisbon was signed, when we still had veto poers over key areas. Starting from where we are, halting the process of integration is the best we can get.
Comments
When you have time, perhaps you would care to set out the best Leave case, as you seee it?
The Leave campaign's lack of big names is becoming self-reinforcing - I think that quite a few career politicians are now deciding that they just don't want to be part of an array of obscure, squabbling and occasionally eccentric people, even though they sort of agree with them. They desperately need Boris or someone else prominent to take a lead.
unimpeachable now means someone who agrees with you.
An uncharacteristically robust Chris Bryant:
Russia is and has been for some time one of the most dangerous threats to peace in the Middle East. What more do we need to know about Putin
on 45% - so they are down 11% on the 'like-for-like'.
It's worth noting that they underperformed their polling by nearly 3% at that election as well, and that was repeated in 2015 at the general election with the same pollster and electorate.
If they run true to pattern, Labour might go below 30% on the List, and only just scrape it on constituencies.
Welsh Labour drifting the same way as Scottish Labour?
One of the best cases I've seen for Remain yet.
http://news.sky.com/story/1642265/brexit-to-shift-1000-hsbc-uk-jobs-to-paris
Just like the banks during the Indyref
The role of the law and the courts is - and I realise some may scoff at this - an integral part of how a country, a people see themselves, how they see the balance between the sovereign and the people and the relationship between people, what freedom and liberty mean at the day to day level. Law may seem arcane and complicated and something in the background but it is very important background. In some ways, it is the glue which forms a part of what holds society together. Britain would not be Britain were it not for the common law, how that developed, our history and our sense of what government is or should be. Or - to take another example - look at the role of the jury (trial by one's peers and what it says about us), the burden and the standard of proof in criminal trials, habeas corpus etc and contrast this with the different ways in which these pretty fundamental issues are approached in much of Continental Europe, shaped by their own history, and so on.
Civil law is in some important respects quite different and it too says much about those countries which have it. But they are not very easily reconciled. And the differing approaches to law-making and the role of the courts in Britain and Continental Europe create some quite significant tensions which are simply ignored in much of this debate, to our detriment.
If the EU is going to move to a single state and Britain remains in it, what will happen to our common law, to our approach to the criminal law? Why should we assume that this exception - for it is an exception in Europe - will remain or be allowed to remain? After all, we've been told that financial services will be subject to a single rule book, promulgated by a body - the ECB - on which we will have no say at all and that there will be no exception for an important (to Britain) industry. Why should we think that the same approach won't be adopted for other areas of our national life?
Plus I maintain we're already a Sovreign nation.
A thousand jobs is not a small number, but nor is it a critical one. Besides, leaving the EU reduces the cost of trading with them, and we'll be freer to make trade deals elsewhere. We can also reduce the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
DavidL's post down below has had a profound effect on me.
Pensioners will believe that they will continue to receive the same pensions whether the UK is in the EU or not. Those who are not retired and in private business may believe that Brexit will have negative consequences for them.
An excellent defence of what the EU should be.
However, altruism doesn't rule. My limited experience has been that discussions descend into whose gang you're in - as in the school playground. I suppose it's politics and the bureaucrats are politicians.
It comes down to this ... do you trust the French to do the right thing? I'd probably trust the Scandinavians more as they're in "our gang". The French, for instance, are not.
A exaggerated simile would be joining the Krays. Being in the gang would help you avoid the worst excesses, but pretending you're in the Salvation Army is unrealistic
The deepening of the EMU will have too many touch points on too many other matters for those new rules to be just about financial, and all sorts of changes will be dressed up as being to do with EMU to exclude our input. So in effect we are giving up what little influence we had on a whole raft of areas, and continuing to be bound by the result, in exchange for basically nothing.
We are worse of now that we were before the negotiation, it takes a special talent to go into a negotiation to get a better deal for your country, and come out with a worse one that you started with, either that or a lot of careful planning...
The UK created 588k jobs from Nov '14 to Nov '15 (the latest figures available from the ONS). Just some perspective.
From that same article:
"..the forthcoming referendum on Brexit was not a decisive factor in determining the future location of the bank's holding company headquarters.
"We have 5000 people in global banking and markets [HSBC's investment bank] in London and I could imagine that around 20% of those would move to Paris."
"HSBC said on Sunday that it would keep its holding company headquarters in London following a ten-month review, after determining that the UK's "important and globally connected economy" remained "ideally positioned to be the home base for a global financial institution such as HSBC".
So 80% of the jobs would stay, and those 20% of jobs moving are based upon the degree of access the UK negotiates to the single market financial services 'pass port' regime.
We must expect some mild restructuring if we Leave: a few jobs will rebase elsewhere but other jobs will be created in the UK off the back of the new opportunities it creates.
I expect the economic impact to be broadly neutral.
Mr. Eagles, I suspect you're believing what you want to believe [not that that in itself makes you wrong. Your wrongness is merely a coincidence
As Mr. Indigo at 9.55am notes, we're going to be part of a club, if we Remain, which has a eurozone majority and the ability to rewrite the rules to entirely suit themselves. The ECJ is pro-integration, and the notion the EU will do anything other than harm the City is laughable.
We'll be paying for the ride but have no say over the destination.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/?cartoon=12155967&cc=12134959
While DavidL's argument is an excellent one for pb, it wouldn't be much use for a campaign since it is far too abstract. I would mention Hierarchies of Needs but I fear that was done to death yesterday...
I like to have a coherent and rigorous position to support, and the best way to do that is to keep on challenging myself and my position.
We will bound by rules into whose formulation we will have no input. Much like being outside, in fact. So we may as well be there and get the advantage of those freedoms, difficult as life might be initially.
I'm also unclear as to why leaving the EU would reduce the cost of trading with them? True, Britain wouldn't have to pay a membership fee, nor comply with EU legislation (though if selling to the EU then many of the regulations would still apply). But against that, access to free trade would almost certainly be restricted, as would in all probability freedom of movement. While some of the Remain figures for the benefits of membership seem excessive, I find it difficult to believe that it would be cheaper to trade with them from the outside.
I'm almost jealous I don't share their advocacy skills.
If the EU can sign a trade deal with South Korea, they can manage one with the UK. If they don't, there's a risk the Republic of Ireland might go walkies as well.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/11644696/Jean-Claude-Juncker-David-Cameron-wants-Britain-permanently-docked-with-the-EU.html
All the more damning that our movers and shakers are so poor in presenting their case to us.
Of course, they've always had our best interests at heart. That's why they changed CAP massively when Tony requested it.
We infiltrated their language, wiped out their nobility at Agincourt, and humiliated them at Waterloo. They love us, really.
MM has been perfectly reasonable with his posts on here. That post merely points out that us pb'ers can present a far better case, either way, on the Brexit debate than our national leaders.
It's why I love pb.com
The question is, how can that procedural problem be resolved? Should there be a vetting process in the EP, as with Commission nominees? Should there be an 'emergency override' mechanism whereby an interpretation of the law which is contrary to what a (super-?)majority of member states want can be nullified?
The ECJ is - rather like the ECB - operationally independent by design. To change that would almost certainly mean a move towards greater political federalism given that interpretation of law has to be done somewhere and the only real alternative is, as SeanF says, parliamentary sovereignty, which in the context of the EU has to mean one or both of the democratic arms. To make that change would, inevitably, be a federalist move as it would imply an ability to answer constitutional questions, up to and including the case of amending treaties, as a matter of course through the political process.
Funny that a neutral wouldn't notice that
Does writing articles on PB turn the authors into boring, attention seeking trolls? You'll be recommending bets on superstition and pressing cash out soon
It seems legitimate, in these circumstances, to describe Leave as a shot in the dark. Even enthusiasts don't know what they'll get - they hope it will be this or that variant, as you do, but actually none of us can really make a confident guess. And in the absence of a united Leave campaign headed by a plausible successor to Cameron, there is nothing Leave can do to resolve that uncertainty. Fox might like this, Farage might like that, but who knows what we'll actually get?
If we come out, we might save a good deal of it. If we stay in, we will lose it all.
Note: it isn't the leavers throwing the 'loony' insults around, matey.
Of course Britain can negotiate trade deals outside the EU but the point about market power stands. The EU's GDP is about €14trn; Britain's is about €2.25trn. That gives the EU a lot more negotiating power.
How many threads have been written by an OUTER recently?
The problem with continued EU membership as I see it is that it is inevitable that the EZ members will need to integrate their fiscal policies to make the Euro work long term. Greece showed that the idea that a country using a single currency can vote for what it likes is just nonsense: it is not their money that they are voting to spend.
We cannot stop the integration of the EZ, indeed it could be argued to be in our interests given we want our export markets to grow. But there are consequences and those include a likelihood that the EZ will increasingly seek to use the money, structures and economic policies of the EU in a way that favours the EZ itself. And QMV will allow them to do that, whatever our position is. They will have a built in majority.
Had Cameron been able to negotiate protections for non EZ members this might have been tolerable for the reasons in my earlier post but he has not. The EU doesn't really want to discuss this right now because it has enough on its plate. And anyway, why should Britain be given some extra veto over the actions of other sovereign countries?
I think that any influence we claim to have in the EU will be illusory and that, somewhat oddly, we might have more influence outside where we have not already agreed to be bound by the will of the majority.
Where is our national interest? Number 1, we MUST be in the Single Market. That is key to our future prosperity. So we must be in at least the EEA. So we accept we are bound by the Single Market rules and these include freedom of movement.
If we join EFTA we change the nature of that organisation. At the moment any consultation with the EFTA countries is fairly desultory and take it or leave it. That is an inevitable consequence of the relative size of the blocs. If we switch from the EU to the EEA that balance changes in a significant way and it is not impossible that we will make others think about leaving too.
We would regain control of significant parts of our domestic policy, we would still be able to co-operate with other EU states where it was in our interests, we would probably pay less for the privileges of what we want.
At the moment I think we want a looser but still close relationship with the EU. We don't want to be constantly getting in their way or fighting every step of integration; we want them to be free to get on with it but its implications for us to be much less significant. I think that EEA membership is the right way forward.
I think that Britain and Continental Europe do not share the same destination, that trying to force Britain into going towards a destination it does not believe in out of fear and grumbling all the while will be a disaster, will damage much of the best of Britain and will not be any good for other countries. Best friends, good neighbours is an honourable alternative. Neighbours can co-operate and work together just as well as co-habitees.
I would like to have a good Remain case put to challenge myself. I would like those in favour of Remain to make a positive case, above all to make an honest case. It is the dishonesty of too many of the pro-Europeans for the last 40 years which has poisoned what is, as DavidL has so rightly said, a very finely balanced decision.
The Remainers should not assume that those who are verging towards Leave are not somehow good Europeans and don't have a view of Europe which is something more and better than a Europe governed by bureaucrats who often give the appearance of the utmost contempt for democracy.
Britain is the country with the longest and deepest tradition of liberal democracy in the whole of Europe. We should not be fearful of and self-abasing towards bureaucrats, many of whom come from countries which barely became democracies long after I became an adult.
"Sovereignty is understood in jurisprudence as the full right and power of a governing body to govern itself without any interference from outside sources or bodies. In political theory, sovereignty is a substantive term designating supreme authority over some polity."
Now we have treaties we have signed which obviously limit actions we can but the EU is the only example where we are governed by an outside body which has supreme authority over significant parts of our legislation.
By any reasoned definition, as long as we remain a part of the EU we are not a Sovereign nation.
If that's your concern, you have to honestly ask yourself: to what extent are you yourself part of the problem in contributing to such an atmosphere?
I've been rather disappointed with your posts on this subject in recent weeks, which have been uncharacteristically unreasonable.
I rather think we might have to forego the single market if we want to have true control of our borders. That will be a decision for the British people.
As for the EU not being a foreign body, it consists of 27 other nation states, as well as ourselves. By population, it's about 88% foreign. By nations, it's more than that.
The imposition of things we dislike and the frittering away of sovereignty is from Britain to Brussels, from the domestic to the foreign, from the accountable to the unaccountable.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/2016-elections-doug-sosnik-memo-213617
And it's simply not true that we will have no input into the rules. We'll have as much input as anyone else, with the added protections of the non-discrimination against non-Eurozone countries. If we leave, but sign up to the single market in financial and other services (which again everyone agrees is vital), we'd have zero input into the rules, still be bound by them, and lose the protection of the non-discrimination against non-Eurozone countries.
I know that this is a point which I've made repeatedly, but I haven't seen any serious argument suggesting that it is wrong. In particular, I am baffled that anyone could, with a straight face, argue that EEA membership is better in this respect.
Also, I'm amused to see that posters on the internet think they know more about HSBC's business plans than the chief executive of HSBC does.
"We have now reached the point when posters earnestly debate the arguments that Remain can make without offending the sensitivities of delicate Leavers"
That might just be because to date, the arguments that Remain have been making have singularly failed to impress the Leavers - because the Leavers' intelligence was being insulted by crass generalisations and risible shock tactics.
"We should Remain, or they'll hit us."
Hmm.
Incredible
The realpolitik of this is that the EU want their financial market back. The fact more euros are traded in London than on the continent drives them crazy. We have to resign ourselves to the fact London cannot exist as it is now, whether we stay in or come out.
If we stay in, they will be able to destroy the City's non euro business to boot. If we come out, we'll be able to save that by dint of having our own rules.
This will be introduced as a measure required to deepen the Eurozone integration. They will listen thoughtfully to our arguments, there that was our input given, and then outvote us in QMV.
We are all bound to a single ECB rule book, and a common EU law enforced by the ECJ, and we are not to interfere with measure that deepen euro-zone integration. Which opt out stops the city getting hammered ? They are not discriminating against us, the rules are the same for everyone.
Is this what the EU should be about?
You talk about a Hierarchy of Needs and the Leave case - which I will readily agree has been put appallingly badly by those allegedly officially in charge - being more attuned to people's daily concerns. And then you complain when someone points out that the EU is opining on bin collections, a subject which gets people into a fury when a local authority does something daft, let alone a body as remote as the EU.
Having cakes and eating them, I think......
On a nicer point, I note that sparrows and blue tits are hopping around my clematis and star jasmine gathering stuff for their nests. With luck this will be the third year they nest in the slate nest box from the Lakes on the front of my house. That nest box is so gorgeous it really ought to have its own separate address.
This is no different from the way that most current Leavers thought Scotland should be treated if it voted for independence from the rest of the UK.
If the Leave side are saying that we should leave the EU and not sign up to the Single Market in financial services, on the grounds inter alia that that would be better for the City for the reason you give, then that would at least be an intellectually coherent position. Two problems with that, though: (a) no-one serious is suggesting it, and (b) the City most certainly doesn't agree.
Boris Johnson tells voters there is 'no reason to be afraid' of leaving the EU https://t.co/yKfqV1OAoC
Edited extra bit: indeed, and NATO isn't costing us a fortune for the gift of being a member every year, nor is it trying to harm our economy or dictate our regulation.
It's a simple alliance. If we had that with the EU over trade, that'd be fine. But that's not what we have, nor what we will get.
I'll be voting to leave, as I think a halfway house does noone any favours.
As for your last statement, the HSBC was not making a business plan but making a vague statement about what might possibly happen. I've seen enough real business plans to make a shrewd guess that the costs of employment in a country are a significant factor in any decision about where to locate people. French employment laws (and many others besides) elicit nothing but groans from those having to deal with them.
For example, free movement has expanded from the original objective of allowing workers to work across the single market, to covering all EU citizens exercising a treaty right, and ECJ rulings extending it to specific groups of non-EU citizens. Huge differentials in relative wealth between EU member state economies have also had an effect.
I would like to see a 75k annual cap, with job offers needed for skilled EU workers and non-skilled EU workers only having access to jobs on an approved national shortage list. There would be a 90-day free residency/working period, possibly up to six months, beyond which the right to reside would depend on being in work and self-sufficient. The right to reside would only apply once they have been in the UK for a set period of time, say 4 years.
I think that's proportional and reasonable. When I'm not tapping away on my iPhone, I might try and write this up sometime.
And secondly, my view is based entirely on the text of the deal. And what I see in that text is an agreement - for the first time ever in a formal EU document, as far as I know - that ever-closer union does not apply to us, and that the EU has abandoned the pretence that we are all going in the same direction.
You are right in a sense that we don't get significant repatriation of powers. The time to do that was before Lisbon was signed, when we still had veto poers over key areas. Starting from where we are, halting the process of integration is the best we can get.