The UK and the European Union - in or out? (Part 1)

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EUROSCEPTICS & UKIP CANNOT ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS

In the late 1980s the nations of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) began to seriously contemplate joining the EU, there were many reasons for this, but they included the realisation that it was the only way forward for trade and prosperity, in the case of Sweden it was also the fact that several large companies made it clear they would relocate if Sweden stayed outside the EU.

Current EFTA members: Iceland - Lichtenstein - Norway - Switzerland

EFTA members who joined the EU: - Austria - Denmark - Portugal - Sweden - United Kingdom - Finland

In 1994 the European Economic Area was formed (EEA), this was a compromise organisation for those members of EFTA who did not or could not join the European Union, joining the EEA meant access to EU markets, but the deal also meant accepting EU rules, even though these states were not / are not EU members.

THE QUESTION TO THE EUROSCEPTICS IS THIS: After leaving the EU, would the UK be free of all EU rules, regulations, directives and laws?

And the straighforward answer is: NO  and here is why:-

A meat production company in Lincolnshire is close to signing a multi-million pound deal with a European supermarket chain, just before the two managing directors take out their pens to sign the agreement, the boss of the supermarket chain pulls out a list of conditions.

The list of conditions consist of EU rules, unfortunately Britain has left the EU and unless the British meat producer conforms to EU standards the deal cannot go ahead, the rules cover everything from animal welfare, temperature control, employee rights, labeling, weight, moisture content and hygiene.

So no matter what happens in the future, the UK will always have to accept EU laws

Think of Norway as an example of a European nation outside the European Union, Norway is a member of the European Economic Area ( the EEA ), and as such has to accept into law virtualy every EU rule, regulation, directive and law, furthermore Norway has had to sign up to many of the EU treaties.

Norway has no say and no vote on any of the EU legislation which it accepts, and this is exactly how Britain would end up, inside the EU the UK influences legislation, it does have a say, and it does have a vote, unlike Norway.

A FREE TRADE AGREEMENT "JUST LIKE SWITZERLAND" [ Nigel Farage ]

According to UKIP, the future under them would be simple, all we need to do is leave the EU and sign up to a new free trade agreement, and the future would be bright  , but a free trade agreement ?, lets look at that word "agreement", an agreement is not one sided, it is between the parties that make the agreement, and lets face facts here, the EU will call the shots, not Britain.

The European Union is not going to change its rules to cater for a single nation of 60 million, especialy when that nation has left the EU but still wants all the benefits of belonging, namely trade.

I am afraid that under such circumstances, Germany, France, Italy and the rest would say "our way or not at all", the best solution by far is to simply remain within the EU and go forward into the future together.

tlttf wrote:-
the EU is based in Belgium

The EU is based in Brussels and Strasbourg (which is in France - I happen to be certain of that as I was there this morning), but so what? EU laws are neither Belgian nor French - they're EU laws.
 
Most of our laws are not made by the EU, that's a tired old UKIP lie. It isn't the EU bringing in a bedroom tax or the many other pernicious measures of Cameron's evil government; those laws are being made at Westminster, full stop.

Where ever it's based makes no difference to the dodges used to feather the nest, no wonder the EU is seen as a perfect pension for mp's.


By Bruno Waterfield, Brussels


The European Parliament pays the "subsistence allowance", which is paid without any proof of expenditure, when MEPs sign an attendance register in Brussels.

The payment is known as the "sign in and slope off" allowance and is notorious for allowing MEPs to pocket the allowance without staying in the EU assembly, or even Brussels, to do any work.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10141790/Fury-caught-on-film-as-MEPs-sign-in-and-slope-off.html

Yes lets vote for more of this please.

"sign in and slope off"

A trope invented by the City of London, where Non-executive Directors have jobs on several Boards of public companies whereby they receive a six-figure salary for two hours' work four times a year.

Certainly beats working for a living.

tlttf wrote:-
Where ever it's based makes no difference

Well then why bother to mention Brussels??

The European Parliament pays the "subsistence allowance", which is paid without any proof of expenditure

LOL. And who is one of the worst culprits for claiming? Nigel Farage - £2 million in expenses. Sits nicely alongside his appalling attendance at EU committees of which he is a member, not to mention his almost non-existent voting record in the EU Parliament. That's the crap you get if you vote for UKIP.

Ivan wrote:

tlttf wrote:-
Where ever it's based makes no difference

Well then why bother to mention Brussels??

The European Parliament pays the "subsistence allowance", which is paid without any proof of expenditure

LOL. And who is one of the worst culprits for claiming? Nigel Farage - £2 million in expenses. Sits nicely alongside his appalling attendance at EU committees of which he is a member, not to mention his almost non-existent voting record in the EU Parliament. That's the crap you get if you vote for UKIP.

Who cares WHO is doing it, whatever party, constituency or country they come from, they're still stealing my money. And that of every honest taxpayer in this country. The EU is a moneymaking machine for the beaurocracy while normal people pay for their lifestyle and often can hardly afford a reasonable lifestyle themselves.

trevorw2539. Withdrawing from the EU would only make matters worse. The agenda of the politicians in the Tory Party and UKIP who want to leave the EU is to make it easier to scrap human rights and employment rights.
 
Our workers already have some of the weakest entitlements in Europe, and if we left the EU it would be a lot easier for the Tories to implement proposals like the Beecroft Report. In case you're not familiar with the document, written by a Tory donor, it suggests allowing bosses to sack workers without giving a reason. So if the boss has a friend or relative round for dinner on Saturday night and that person wants a job for one of his family, there would be nothing to stop the employer going into work on the Monday morning and sacking someone arbitrarily, just to create a vacancy. Then we'd be back to where we were a hundred years ago, and wouldn't the Tories just love it! Try reading 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' by Robert Tressell, if you haven't already done so.

Ivan wrote:trevorw2539. Withdrawing from the EU would only make matters worse. The agenda of the politicians in the Tory Party and UKIP who want to leave the EU is to make it easier to scrap human rights and employment rights.
 
Our workers already have some of the weakest entitlements in Europe, and if we left the EU it would be a lot easier for the Tories to implement proposals like the Beecroft Report. In case you're not familiar with the document, written by a Tory donor, it suggests allowing bosses to sack workers without giving a reason. So if the boss has a friend or relative round for dinner on Saturday night and that person wants a job for one of his family, there would be nothing to stop the employer going into work on the Monday morning and sacking someone arbitrarily, just to create a vacancy. Then we'd be back to where we were a hundred years ago, and wouldn't the Tories just love it! Try reading 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists' by Robert Tressell, if you haven't already done so.

I actually didn't say anything about leaving the EU. As things are going 'you/we' are creating a monster which is rapidly getting out of control. The countries of Europe are too varied culturally, racially and economically to become a real Union.
You only have to look at the multi-racial U.S. to see that, with it's divided cities, racial enclaves, ghettos. You can't even say it is rich. It owes an almost incalculable amount, though mainly to itself. It would be interesting to see what happened if it foreclosed on its 'debtors'.

The only real gainers in the EU are the newer, poorer countries. They join because they see the advantages to themselves.

The EU needs a radical makeover, real openness and one permanent Parliamentary Assembly. And a realostic budget.

Still I'm EU politically naive. I see the right of this country to make and regulate its own laws gradually being eroded by faceless idiots, and mourn for the country that I have known as an Englishman for 74 years, being sold down the drain.


Still that's only my opinion, and what do I know.

Undoubtedly true, Trevor, and it all began with Adam and Eve and Owain Glyndwr or perhaps Offa and that bloody ditch!

oftenwrong wrote:Undoubtedly true, Trevor, and it all began with Adam and Eve and Owain Glyndwr or perhaps Offa and that bloody ditch!

No. I think we've been at war with about every country in Europe at one time or another and they're getting their own back.

I am in total agreement with Trevor, I opposed it when we had the referendum, then it was just the common market, the British people never voted for the European Union though. Has far has workers right we fought and won them before the Union or the Common Market before it. They only way we can protect the workers and their rights is to get rid of this Tory led government, and gets far more worker friendly party in. The Union of the Socialist Soviet Republic never worked hence the breakaway of lots of states, the European Union will not work. No country wants an unelected body telling the what to do, and the UK doesn't vote for most of that mob at the EU. I think Ivan is total wrong and I believe the majority of the British people thinks so. That is why they are so reluctant to have a referendum, they know exactly what the vote will be.

jackthelad. The workers of this country fought and won their rights over many decades, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be taken away. In fact, it’s happening all the time. You now have to pay to go to an industrial tribunal if you’ve been unfairly dismissed, an employer only has to give you six weeks’ notice of redundancy instead of three months, and a person who has been made unemployed is expected to live on thin air for seven days (just at the time Mrs Windsor’s pay has been increased by 5% to £38 million a year). I hope you don’t imagine that UKIP would be “a more worker friendly party”, since its policy is to scrap virtually all employment rights:-
https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t799-is-it-time-that-we-took-a-closer-look-at-ukip
 
I would like to see more democracy in the EU, with a President of Europe elected by the voters of all 27 countries. Turning our backs and retreating into ‘Little Englander’ isolation won’t get us anywhere and won’t cut much clout against the power of multinational corporations. Nobody ever asked the people of England, Scotland and Wales if they wanted to be joined together as Great Britain, so why stop at EU withdrawal? Should we go back to being Wessex and Mercia etc? EU withdrawal is just a policy for saddos who think they can turn the clock back fifty years or so, when they can’t, and it's for egomaniacs like Nigel Farage who want to be big fishes in a very small pond.
 
A poll by Survation three weeks ago suggested that 49% of people want the UK to remain in Europe, 51% want us to leave. That’s not statistically significant (all such polls come with a margin of error of 3% either way), and hardly evidence of what “the majority of the British people” think.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/uk-poll-shows-near-5050-split-eu-membership
 
If there is a referendum on our membership of the EU, I’m confident that the British people will vote to stay in. Only about 6% of the electorate think it’s the most important issue, most know nothing about it and only respond superficially to the negative claptrap posted in the right-wing tabloids, but I suspect that if the stupidity of ‘going it alone’ in an increasingly global world is pointed out to them, they would vote for the safest and most sensible option of staying in.
 
The issue of whether there should be a referendum or not has been addressed on another thread and isn’t about anyone's fear of the result. As has been pointed out, one referendum leads to another and amounts to a dereliction of duty by those who we vote in and pay generously to make informed decisions on our behalf.
https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t837-is-it-undemocratic-to-be-opposed-to-an-eu-referendum

Polls mean very little. I can quote two who show the opposite and another that agrees with yours (apart from the actual figures).
Another bad decision (in the opinion of the British people) by Europe or the EU. Court of Idiots - oops Justice, and it will all change again.

"Polls mean very little". Obviously the only true Poll result reflects votes cast by 100% of those entitled, but very few recent British Governments have even achieved 40% support from the electorate.

A completely different system of public consultation may be the only fair measurement.

What the Europhobes try to claim
 
1. The EU costs too much
 
Britain's net contribution to the EU was £6.9 billion in 2012; the Europhobes usually only peddle the gross contribution, conveniently ignoring what we get back in rebates and subsidies.
 
A group of businessmen who wrote to ‘The Independent’ have estimated that our membership of the single market is worth between £31 billion and £92 billion per year in income gains, or between £1,200 to £3,500 for every household.
 
2. The EU is full of fraud and waste
 
The EU is actually subject to an auditing regime far tougher than the UK. The age-old story that the EU has failed to sign off its accounts for years is a result of 80% of the EU's budget being spent in the member states under the supervision of their governments.
 
The UK's comptroller and auditor-general confirmed in June 2006 that if the UK had the same system as the EU, he would have to qualify all 500 UK expenditure accounts rather than just those where he thought there was a problem (13 in 2005).
 
3. The EU is undemocratic and unaccountable
 
That's a whopping lie. UKIP and other far-right headbangers claim that 75% of the UK's laws are "imposed by the EU". In reality, the European Commission proposes, while the Council of Ministers and the democratically-elected European Parliament decide. The percentage of our laws deriving from our EU obligations varies from year to year, but the House of Commons Library estimates it as being about 15%, not 75%.
 
4. The UK has lost sovereignty and gained nothing in return
 
The Europhobes want our sovereignty back. If we left the EU and joined the European Economic Area, we would save about 20% of our current contribution to the EU budget. However, we would have no meaningful say over the EU laws which we would still be obliged to follow, and which would still be enforced by the court of justice and our own courts.
 
As I’ve already said, top businessmen believe that, on a purely economic basis, exiting the EU would be deeply damaging to Britain. But as Peter Wilding writes:-
 
“The devil has all the best tunes. Because of this drip torture of Europhobic propaganda, most Britons think their country is a powerless whipping boy of a Brussels elite which steals up to 25% of our national income. It is nothing short of an insult to the intelligence of the people.”
 
Sources used:-
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/05/pro-eu-tories-euroscepticism
 
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-business-we-need-to-stay-in-the-european-union--or-risk-losing-up-to-92bn-a-year-8622925.html

I really can't understand the obsession about staying in Europe, we are quite able to negotiate and sell products by ourselves and don't need extra costs added to the price.

A brain drain that will cripple Europe

By Simon Heffer

PUBLISHED: 22:05, 5 July 2013 | UPDATED: 08:40, 6 July 2013

One of the main aims of creating the EU was to secure prosperity. Instead, it is impoverishing a whole continent and exterminating talent

One of the main aims of creating the EU was to secure prosperity. Instead, it is impoverishing a whole continent and exterminating talent

We keep being told the eurozone crisis is over, but it manifestly isn’t. The refusal to admit that the euro can’t survive in its present form is poisoning the whole European economy.

The Portuguese government is tottering. Greece faces its emergency funding from the European Central Bank being stopped.

The French government is at war with the European Commission over the imposition of tough austerity policies.

Spain and Italy desperately need a devaluation if their goods can become competitive in world markets again — something only leaving the euro can achieve.

In the meantime, the eurozone’s rigid economic policies are having a devastating effect on the young — with youth unemployment heading for 30 per cent across the single currency area, and in Greece it is just under 60 per cent.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2357011/SIMON-HEFFER-A-brain-drain-cripple-Europe.html

The distilled wisdom of The Daily Mail. Where should we be without it?

Typical left wing liberal answer OW, now can you say whether you agree or don't. Shooting the messenger is a ploy often used if there's no answer to the question. 

tlttf wrote:-
I really can't understand the obsession about staying in Europe, we are quite able to negotiate and sell products by ourselves and don't need extra costs added to the price.

I really can’t understand the obsession of some people with wanting to leave the largest free trade area in the world. You clearly haven’t bothered to read my evidence-based rebuttal of the UKIP arguments above, even though I tried to keep the points simple for the benefit of people like you.
 
Cutting and pasting extracts of articles is fair enough – I often do it myself – but trying to pass off Simon Heffer’s opinions as facts is laughable. What you’ve quoted from that hard-right moron (who blamed ‘liberal society’ for the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman) doesn’t contain one tangible piece of evidence.
 
I’ve been saying for years that austerity doesn’t work, and nobody has yet produced an example of where it has. It’s just sheer hypocrisy when right-wingers support our government’s austerity policies and then attack the EU for following a similar direction. Yes, austerity is wrong. It’s the current policy of the EU which is impoverishing everyone, just as Osborne’s policy is making 500,000 British people reliant on food banks. That’s an argument for changing the policy, not for leaving the EU.

The way it's going now is the time to be a fully f*cked member of the EU, remember to have a seat at the high table we would have to join the euro otherwise we still have no say. Lets join now.


The wheels are coming off the whole of southern Europe
Europe’s debt-crisis strategy is near collapse. The long-awaited recovery has failed to take wing. Debt ratios across southern Europe are rising at an accelerating pace. Political consent for extreme austerity is breaking down in almost every EMU crisis state. And now the US Federal Reserve has inflicted a full-blown credit shock for good measure.
Municipal workers protest outside parliament during a rally in Athens.
A leaked report from the European Commission confirms that Greece will miss its austerity targets yet again by a wide margin Photo: Reuters
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

8:50PM BST 10 Jul 2013


None of Euroland’s key actors seems willing to admit that the current strategy is untenable. They hope to paper over the cracks until the German elections in September, as if that is going to make any difference.

A leaked report from the European Commission confirms that Greece will miss its austerity targets yet again by a wide margin. It alleges that Greece lacks the “willingness and capacity” to collect taxes. In fact, Athens is missing targets because the economy is still in freefall and that is because of austerity overkill. The Greek think-tank IOBE expects GDP to fall 5pc this year. It has told journalists privately that the final figure may be -7pc. The Greek stabilisation is a mirage.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/10172530/The-wheels-are-coming-off-the-whole-of-southern-Europe.html

tlttf. In other words, it's time for the EU (and everyone else) to ditch the policy of austerity, which has never worked anywhere. How could it? Can an unemployed man pay off his debts?
 
I've yet to read a valid reason for leaving the EU from you or anyone else.

Still trying to appease his right-wing backbench loonies and keep UKIP at bay, Cameron is once again putting his own skin and the unity of his vile party before the country's interests; he’s now publishing a review into how various EU laws affect the UK. Foreign governments were invited to submit comments to the review, but almost all declined.
 
However, the Japanese government did have something to say – it hinted that 130,000 British jobs could be at stake if we left the EU. A memo submitted to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office warns that Japanese companies invest in the UK because they see it as a gateway to European markets. The memo says: "We have taken advantage of this occasion to express our expectations... If the UK leaves the single market, countries investing in the UK and exporting to the EU would have to pay tariffs, and that is not good news."
 
Bernard Jenkin, Tory MP for Harwich, claims that “any new relationship with the EU, even if we leave, is bound to give the UK access to the single market. There is no possibility that the UK will lose access.” Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign secretary, is not so sure: “Many European states would hold a grudge against a country which, in their view, had selfishly left the EU. While you are an important market for the rest of the EU, accounting for about 11% of the rest of the EU’s trade, your trade with the EU is 50% of your total trade. The EU is a market of 500 million people who enjoy the highest average standard of living in the world. According to the IMF and the World Bank, Europe’s GDP is about 2.5 times than that of China and nine times that of India. Do you want to lose your privileged access to that market?”
 
The comments from the Japanese government are a reminder of how just reckless it would be to leave the EU, just to appease some right-wing nutjobs who want to scrap employment rights and protect the interests of City bankers.
 
Sources:-
 
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/article1290626.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2013_07_21
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23393856
 
http://www.msz.gov.pl/resource/ff80e9c3-19f6-460c-9921-c73bbb089c54:JCR

They've even formed a club, which they're calling BREXIT. (British Exit, geddit?) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23322122

I would describe the inclusion on the judging panel of Nigel Lawson the undead Chancellor as the kiss of death on any such enterprise. It was he who precipitated the housing crisis of 1992 by his withdrawal of tax concessions on mortgage interest four years previously. David Cameron will remember that clearly, he was a sidekick of Chancellor Norman Lamont when he put up Bank Rate to 13.5% (0.5% in 2013).

Used originally in the context of the First World War, but equally appropriate now: We are Lions led by donkeys.

The Tory knives are of course out for Labour, their major obstacle to re-election for a second term, bobby. Newspaper coverage will be increasingly vitriolic, but the main attacks on socialists always occur when they present a genuine threat to the Toffs' preferred lifestyle.

Just another point of view?


Kwasi Kwarteng: London no longer needs to be tied to a stagnating EU

The capital’s financial credentials and its international status would ensure its prosperity regardless of Europe

http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/kwasi-kwarteng-london-no-longer-needs-to-be-tied-to-a-stagnating-eu-8746695.html

Well here's a coincidence!

Kwarteng attended Eton College as a King's Scholar.

Fine, London leaves the EU - what about the rest of us that don't live in London?
Or has London declared itself a sovereign state while I wasn't looking?

"King Boris" has a definite ring to it!

I see that tlttf omitted to mention that Kwasi Kwarteng is just another right-wing Tory MP. Why should we be interested in his childish drivel? Some of the comments underneath the dreary article are more to the point:-
 
“London has attracted, and will continue to attract financial institutions and other major businesses precisely because it is the leading financial centre in Europe. The idea that, say, any American or Japanese or Chinese or Brazilian company would choose London if the UK was not a full member of the EU is foolish and ignorant nonsense.”
 

"King Boris" has a definite ring to it!

Only if preceded by the letters ‘Fuc’.

Although by no means unimportant, the EU is a football in British Politics right now with little actual significance to the average voter whose main concern is to put bread on the family table.

As in all previously-recorded Battles, history will be written by the Victor and we shall have to wait until 2015 to know the identity of this one's author.

This is what happens when a Country cedes themselves to the EU project in it's entirety.
 
 
Why is Spain so childish
NO WONDER Spain has its glinting eyes on Gibraltar. Unemployment is amazingly low, at three per cent, in this British Crown colony.
By: Neil Hamilton
Published: Sun, August 11, 2013
 
The-row-over-Gibraltar-has-enflamed-tensions-between-the-UK-and-Spain The row over Gibraltar has enflamed tensions between the UK and Spain
 
In a sense there is negative unemployment, because 4,000 Spaniards cross the border to work every day from La Linea where 36 per cent are jobless.
 
In Spain generally, youth unemployment is far worse. Thanks to the euro, a crippling 50 per cent of under-25s have no job and no prospect of getting one.
 
http://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/421252/Why-is-Spain-so-childish?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+daily-express-express-comment+%28Daily+Express+%3A%3A+Express+Comment+Feed%29

Quite so, tlttf. Nice to see accurate reporting. Politicos in Madrid as well as at Westminster are perfectly happy to see headlines about the Gibraltar sideshow to distract a hungry Public.

At a time when the British Border Agency is getting stick for uncontrolled immigration it is doubly ironic to see the Spanish being criticised for hyper-enforcement at La Linea.

There's nowt funnier than folk!

Why is Neil Hamilton so childish?
 
I remember a TV documentary about the Hamiltons in which Neil whined like a little boy that “I want my pudding”. Christine said that she had never needed children because she had Neil to look after. He’s never grown up. He’s the sick bastard who joked about both disability and the Holocaust in parliamentary debates when he was an MP (see our UKIP thread). Now we’re having his non-sequiturs and twisted reasoning about Gibraltar and the EU rammed in our faces as something worthy of consideration.
 
In the world according to tlttf, he’s allowed to ignore the forum rules and post messages which consist entirely of personal abuse with no reference to the topic. He can also post complaints on threads, despite being told over and over again that the place for that is in personal messages to the administration team. In that same world, he thinks he can post utter garbage on this forum and if you dare to challenge it, he can dismiss you as a troll or an "attack dog". Nevertheless, let’s have a look at his latest offering, from Neil Hamilton, which consists of the absurdity of trying to compare a community on a rock with a country the size of Spain. It might impress naïve fools who read ‘The Daily Express’, but it doesn’t stand up to even superficial scrutiny:-
 

Spain has a long history of childish behaviour towards Gibraltar in the 300 years since it ceded it to Britain for ever on July 13, 1713

Britain stole Gibraltar in 1704 and then coerced the Spanish into accepting the situation in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. I wonder how we’d feel if another country had stolen Cornwall from us?
 

Spain has never tried to invade Gibraltar

Yes it has – in 1727 and 1779-83.
 

In Spain generally, youth unemployment is far worse. Thanks to the euro, a crippling 50% of under-25s have no job and no prospect of getting one

Bollocks. We’re not in the euro, but we have high youth unemployment. Germany, Austria and the Netherlands are all in the euro and all have lower rates of youth unemployment than us.
 

As it does not have the euro, Gibraltar's economy is expanding rather than going through the floor

We don’t have the euro, we have George Osborne, who snuffed out the beginnings of growth as soon as he came to power. Spain also has a right-wing government making severe cuts – does anyone see the link?
 

Mariano Rajoy is in deep trouble. His government is drowning in scandal. Spaniards overwhelmingly think he lied when denying allegations of corruption after his name was discovered in ledgers listing secret payments

Spain’s Prime Minister is a right-winger, just like Hamilton. It’s unbelievable that Hamilton, the creep who is famous for taking a cash bung from Mohammed Al-Fayed in at least one brown envelope, should talk about corrupt politicians. It's almost as unbelievable as anyone wanting to repost Hamilton’s dire crap on a discussion forum.

The thread seems to have come a long way since this January posting:

tlttf wrote:Got agree Ivan, if we wait until 2017 that is a date that the EU has set as the very latest that the EU will be totally fiscally entwined, there will be no room for any negotiation as the rules have already been set. The tories, labour and the lib/dems see no advantage to themselves to offer any straight forward alternative. It's now time to put into action Article 50 of the treaty that allows for an organised withdrawal over a 2 year period.

The reality of being part of an unelected body supposedly representing the EU.

Ministers and the EU government
By johnredwood | Published: October 10, 2013



The UK has two governments for the price of three. Ministers are busier these days, because so much of what they do entails checking the EU government will let them do what they wish, or requires endless negotiation of new laws and requirements with their European partners.

I was asked yesterday to explain how Uk Ministers interact with the EU government. Ministers have to attend Council of Ministers meetings to discuss EU policy and the introduction of new EU laws with fellow Ministers from the other member states. Each new EU proposal for a law is drafted and introduced by the Commission, the permament government of the EU. The Commission needs the approval of both the Council of Ministers and the the European Parliament to introduce a new law, but has extensive powers to administer and enforce the large corpus of established EU law. Most EU laws are passed by qualified majority in the Council of Ministers, which means if the UK wishes to block a proposal it needs to find a number of like minded states to vote against.

http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2013/10/10/ministers-and-the-eu-government/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JohnRedwoodsDiary+%28John+Redwood%27s+Diary%29


Now I'm fairly sure I've only posted the link, and the article neither promotes or faults the system, simply highlights the hoops and locks on the system. In reality it shows the failings on a grand scale.

tlttf
Thanks for the conscientious effort to provide an argued piece lacking polemic and without any advertising.

I read John Redwood's piece, which certainly expresses the complexity of achieving consensus in legislation across more than one country.

I guess a privately educated career politician might struggle to appreciate the fact that at least some EU legislation serves to protect the human rights of individuals who perhaps lack his own privileged access and as such should indeed take precedence over matters of national interest.

I think we're all aware of the limitations of the EU's method of doing business (although if all MEP's did their job properly that might change a bit e.g. the lovely Farage with his avoidance of work and hobnobbing with the Right Wing), but the alternative - leaving GB solely in the hands of the current feral Right wing government might be even worse for the majority of the population.

Yeah, good old Europe!!!

Gold medals given to retiring MEPs 'waste of taxypayers' money'
The practice of awarding medals to retiring MEPs has been condemned as an "ridiculous waste" of taxpayers' money.

Den Dover, the disgraced former Tory MEP, has been awarded a medal for his "vital contribution" to the public despite a European Parliament demand that he return £538,290 in "unduly paid" expenses.

Dozens of specially engraved medals will be given to MEPs who are standing down at next May´s European elections.

A deputy who has served 25 years´ in Parliament will receive a gold medal while those with five years´ service are entitled to a silver one.

Retiring MEPs who have been committee chairs or held office during half their mandate will also be eligible.

Twenty-six gold medals and 500 silver ones will be minted and the €57,000 production costs will come out of the Parliament´s coffers.

The decision to continue the tradition was approved in a vote by the European Parliament´s bureau.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10372065/Gold-medals-given-to-retiring-MEPs-waste-of-taxypayers-money.html

Fair point them getting a medal as they've all managed to come first in the trawl to the bottom of trough. If it wasn't so sick it'd be funny.

tlttf. Another yawn; the great ‘thinker’ is working overtime on the cut-and-paste jobs this week. (Could you kindly put quoted extracts from articles either in italics or "inverted commas", or even both, to make it easier to distinguish them from your words of wisdom? Thanks.)
 
I can’t disagree that the practice of dishing out medals to retiring MEPs is stupid and wasteful, but so is much of what goes on at Westminster, yet it’s hardly an argument for abolishing Parliament. All you’re doing is making yourself a tool of those pumping out the constant drip-drip of negative propaganda about the EU. Your ‘thinking’ never causes you to ask what their real agenda is, namely to make it easier to scrap human rights and employment protection and holiday pay entitlement for workers, while protecting outrageous banker bonuses.
 
If you’re so concerned about money being wasted, why aren’t you kicking up a stink about the cost to taxpayers of the legal action which Osborne is taking against the EU on behalf of his banking chums? Why aren’t you castigating all the UKIP MEPs for voting, on one of the few occasions that they bothered to turn up at the EU Parliament, against tackling tax fraud, tax evasion and tax havens?
 
http://www.markpack.org.uk/41203/ukip-meps-vote-against-tackling-tax-evasion/
 
And then there’s this:-
 
Two UKIP MEPs were jailed for expense fraud and benefit fraud and last year two further UKIP MEPs were forced to repay nearly £40k to the European Parliament after being found to have used allowances improperly. UKIP MEPs are far less transparent than MEPs from other UK parties, who publish their expenses on their websites and regularly update them. Nigel Farage was caught out by Andrew Neil, when he was asked why he and his deputy Paul Nuttall had not published their expenses for two years. Farage was unable to produce a convincing response, saying instead that he was “very busy” and had “lost some receipts”.
 
http://euromove.blogactiv.eu/2013/07/26/time-to-expose-ukip-meps-for-what-they-really-are-%E2%80%93-lazy-unprincipled/
 
Why doesn’t your original, questioning mind ever ask why ‘The Daily Telegraph’, and those gutter tabloids that you so love to quote, continually highlight negative stories about the EU? What's in it for their owners?

Witchfinder is, of course, entirely right. The EU is indeed the future. The key now is to distil his cogent argument into a slogan that packs emotional as well as intellectual content. So far, the pro-European camp has not come up with such a punchy message to counter the simplistic and grotesquely misleading chants from UKIP and Tory swivel-eyes. To my surprise, Boris Johnson, in his recent piece on the Brits being the biggest group of foreigners in Europe, shows how this might be done. Even John Major came close the other day with his comment on the dreary argument about the UK's having been dragged into the EU on false pretences. One campaigns in poetry, and the pro-EU camp therefore need to find its poet - and soon.

The "Little Englander" mindset is the reason why the Cost of Living in the UK is higher than it is in Germany; or Italy where the Quality of Living is greater than in either.

Cost of living in Italy is about the same as the UK but the people in the UK have more 'local purchasing power' or more money in their pocket, for want of a better phrase, meaning we're actually better off on average. http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.jsp