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The influence of the EU on Britain.

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  • "It cannot work"

    It's worked pretty well for the best part of 30 years. Certainly works better than if the EU had never existed at all.
  • Southbank said:

    Fiiish said:

    Southbank said:

    Fiiish said:

    Southbank said:

    Fiiish said:

    Fiiish said:

    Fiiish said:

    Fiiish said:

    Apologies if you cannot read Italian but this article from February 2018 directly quotes Five Star as promoting European Union membership.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2018/02/06/luigi-di-maio-rottama-la-politica-estera-a-5-stelle_a_23354144/

    @Southbank just in case you missed this post that proves what total bollocks you've been spouting about the Italian election.
    Said all day on sky news, bbc and lbc that 55% of the parties are anti EU..i appreciate their not as learned and knowledgeable than you... Just saying.
    image
    Don't like it up you do you... Another two pages filled up with your bollocks. Listen to real news and take the ear muffs off. Better still wait to read the remainian tomorrow.
    None of the news agencies called Five Star anti-EU. That much is true.

    Your post I quoted is just another one of your lies Chippy. The thing is no one falls for your lies anymore because you seem incapable of speaking the truth. You were never in the forces, you don't do business in Germany, you don't watch the news, you don't have a passport nailed to a wall and you never had to check under your car. Kindly bog off, seriously, no one gives a shit about whatever your next lie is going to be.
    Err https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-43272700
    I am afraid that banging your head against a wall generally does not make it go away
    Hmm strange, couldn't find the phrase "anti-EU" in that article.

    Seriously, do you try this hard to make yourself look stupid or does it come naturally?
    I forgot, you think that eurosceptic and anti EU mean different things. As I said, I think a discussion on that is worth a thread of its own. But it is strange that commentators all over the media are saying that a Five Star/ Lega alliance woud be a big problem for the EU.
    Maybe you should let the EU know they have nothing to worry about. They will be relieved.
    Cameron's Tories were classed as Eurosceptic by the media but still promoted membership of the EU. As do the vast majority of parties winning across Europe.

    I would class anti-EU as those who want to leave the EU. If Euroscepticism is winning across Europe all that would do is halt the further integration of Europe, not break the EU up.
    I agree with you on the general drift. The problem is that without further integration the EU project cannot work. A currency needs a central bank and a state to guarantee it. The Eurozone is very vulnerable without more centralisation and ultimately a central state. I doubt there is a single country in Europe which has a majority that would support a centralised federal Europe. That is why the project is doomed.
    Better a loose trading bloc of sovereign states. Get rid of Juncker, Selmayr and all those who have nothing but contempt for the nation state, historically the only guarantor of democracy.
    The basis of all your posts is that the EU is some sort of German inspired plot to undermine democracies across Europe. Only Brexit idiots and morons, Briebart followers and UKIP politicians believe such nonsense.
  • edited March 2018

    And to add to @Fiiish comment above re 'corruption'. Before I moved out here in 1993, the word hardly passed my lips, certainly not in business. Once I got out here, i found out what it actually means. It means money changing hands so that things happen. It was a fact of life in all the former Communist countries. It still is, but it's a whole lot better than it was, and that is down to pressure initially to comply with EU norms, pre accession, and increasingly the understanding that it isn't the way things are done further West, and it is OK to say so, to call it out.

    By comparison, that Selmayr thing is worth challenging, but it is no more "corrupt" than the appointment by the Govt of a whole load of Lords. Exhibit One, Baronness Karren effing Brady of Knightsbridge.

    She is going to end up a Tory MP foaming at the mouth about scroungers when none of them put together would have scrounged as much tax payers money as she has! That is corruption!
  • Nadou said:

    Got €1.06 to the £ today. Those bloody Europeans, stealing my money. Don't they realise the Queen's head is on the money over here. Pay a bit of respect. Our money's worth much more than that Euro trash stuff.

    I got 1.13 this morning...who did you buy them from your mrs.
    Whoopee flipping do. It was 1.36 when this whole mess started.

    https://finder.com/uk/brexit-pound
    Whoopppeeedooooooooo was 1.02 five years agooooooooo.
    Bullshit.

    The lowest rate in March 2013 was 1.143 and the highest was 1.182.

    Why do you insist on spouting such easily provable lies? You must know the internet exists, you fucking on it!
    Were you there when i exchanged no...thanks for the tip re internet...
    What does the rate you got matter? That's not the exchange rate, any more than if my mum gave me £10 for a 10 euro note I've got left from Finland would make the current exchange 1.0.

    You're a moron, or a troll, or both. You add absolutely nothing of any worth to this or any other thread and this will be the last time I feed the troll. You disdain internet links so much, would be better for everyone if you lost the link to this site.
    You've lost the plot and ditto. Tell me where you have added something.
    See above
  • Fiiish said:

    Fiiish said:

    Apologies if you cannot read Italian but this article from February 2018 directly quotes Five Star as promoting European Union membership.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2018/02/06/luigi-di-maio-rottama-la-politica-estera-a-5-stelle_a_23354144/

    @Southbank just in case you missed this post that proves what total bollocks you've been spouting about the Italian election.
    Hang on a minute. We may all have differences but "being dissatisfied with the Italy of today is probably the necessary step to start going somewhere new. Firmer and clearer policies on migrants is a public demand European wide. One would think European politicians and senior officials would be able to figure out this message." - comment on an article in the FT today.

    One could go further and offer large amounts of money and support to places on the Mediterranean coast to cope with the results of three catastrophes caused by the West, Iraq, Syria and Libya. And perhaps a step further by discussing what the answers are in Africa and the Middle East. Neo colonialist interventions on the scale of China are somewhat taboo but what is the answer to one of the biggest threats to Europe? The Huff Post article carries a line about a Libya peace conference in Rome - really?

    With or without the EU, Spain, Italy and Greece are going to face "ferry taxis" for a long time to come until such time as people trafficking is under control. It is not racist to point that out. And that is why we shouldn't be leaving NATO nor the single market nor any common security protocols. The issue is that the guilt that the continent feels over a colonial past has paralysed it into complete inaction. The Cameron intervention in Libya, (fully supported by the Lib Dems) "was carried out with no proper intelligence analysis, drifted into an unannounced goal of regime change and shirked its moral responsibility to help reconstruct the country following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi." Commons Select Committee five years on.

    At the same time both the Alt-right and the populist left are chasing the votes of the white working classes who have been left behind by globalisation. One only has to spend five minutes looking at the polls and a few days outside the M25 to wake up to a popular reaction against neoliberal austerity. Unfortunately liberal luvvies in Huff Post are not part of the solution - that's why Clinton lost to Trump.

    @Southbank sees the same issues as us and more than many. So what if he is tuned into a different menu of solutions - that is part of our democracy and it's up to people to take up the challenge, source the news on the web and discuss the future. Many have a view on the Express, Mail and Telegraph about their agenda and the content - but I wouldn't ban it and their articles provide a challenge.

    Before we all rush to judge and condemn over our reading of Italian tea leaves, why not wait for matters to develop

    NB one could easily say that any faith in M5*, Labour or Podemos is pure blind faith. But the people running these organisations are committed and they have a plethora of left leaning economists and specialists willing to lend a hand. There is a thriving academic debate about what a post crash, technological age should look like. We all know what the world of the alt-right looks like because they were up to the same old game in the 1930s, supported by the likes of the Daily Mail.

  • Southbank said:

    Fiiish said:

    Fiiish said:

    Apologies if you cannot read Italian but this article from February 2018 directly quotes Five Star as promoting European Union membership.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2018/02/06/luigi-di-maio-rottama-la-politica-estera-a-5-stelle_a_23354144/

    @Southbank just in case you missed this post that proves what total bollocks you've been spouting about the Italian election.
    Said all day on sky news, bbc and lbc that 55% of the parties are anti EU..i appreciate their not as learned and knowledgeable than you... Just saying.
    Chippy, chippy. The BBC's European editor is Katya Adler. She is not a big fan of the EU bureaucracy (neither am I, nor I am sure is Fishy).

    So read carefully what she writes in this analysis

    Just some clips:

    Which leads us to something else Europe's populist parties have in common: a hefty dose of Euroscepticism.
    I'm speaking here of Euroscepticism in the European style, rather than the UK-style which this is sometimes misunderstood as in the UK press.
    Marine Le Pen tweeted her congratulations to Italy today.
    This election was the next European chapter in the awakening of the people, she said.
    What she did not augur was an imminent Italexit - Italy's exit from the European Union.As she knows from personal experience in France where she flirted with promoting Frexit, the expectation that European countries would fall one by one like dominos out of the EU after the UK's Brexit vote has fallen flat.
    Italy's populists - like those in Austria in their recent general election - had to back away from earlier promises to pull out of the euro currency.
    Italian voters want the EU to reform but not disappear.
    ...


    The problem you 'reformers' have is that the only EU reform that appears to be on the agenda is Macron's federalizing one. This runs counter to the eurosceptic drift of the European peoples and has very little support in the leading parties, even in Germany. This conundrum is going to lead to continued drift in EU governance.
    I'd suggest that you are wrong, or rather that you are considering only one type of reform.

    The fact is that elements of the EU are being reformed all the time, including membership/enlargement, CAP and, even without Brexit, as was planned for the next funding round, how the EU is funded, etc.

    When you are talking about reform, you seem to refer to the overall political direction of the ever closer union enshrined in the EU Treaties.

    That will rarely happen less than 10-15 years apart, because that kind of reform requires Treaty change and serious negotiation, extremely detailed legislative development, and ratification across the EU.

    It really isn't the case that Macron is the only voice for reform, or, more importantly that his reform will happen.
  • Fiiish said:

    "It cannot work"

    It's worked pretty well for the best part of 30 years. Certainly works better than if the EU had never existed at all.

    How do you know that?

  • Nadou said:

    Got €1.06 to the £ today. Those bloody Europeans, stealing my money. Don't they realise the Queen's head is on the money over here. Pay a bit of respect. Our money's worth much more than that Euro trash stuff.

    I got 1.13 this morning...who did you buy them from your mrs.
    I know Nadou and his Mrs, you probably don't, so take it from me (or not if you choose) your comment is crass and ignorant and aimed completely the wrong way. You can whah whah whah and wail if you like, but your personal interactive standards are very low, especially as you wish to lecture others about 'honour'. Take a good look in the mirror occasionally.
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  • What we are seeing now is most likely a sneaky act from Tory hard brexiters. They have been very forceful in their positions up to now and after May's speech which was throwing bombs to the strong Tory remainers, they have kept surprisingly quiet and have even beensupportive. Well maybe not surprisingly - It is clearly tactical - they know any deal with the EU will have compromises which they can then shoot down as reasons they can't sign up to it. They know their hard line preference on Brexit requires zero negotiation and they know that after Labour supporting a customs union, their position was weakened. So clearly what they plan to do is have a period of supposed unity and pick May off later then have a leadership election and ensure we are sufficiently down the line where their hard Brexit can not easily be stopped. People like Ken Clarke and Anna Soubry know this, but some others that long for unity in their party may be more inclined to sit and hope. There is much more to come on this.
  • edited March 2018
    I know less about Romania than I should. Certainly there are some on here who understand the social and political issues in Romania better than I do. @PragueAddick certainly. And probably @Chippycafc Will claim to have seen a programme about Rome.

    So, can I solicit everyone's - or anyone's - help in this..? Does the UK Ambassador to Romania have access to information not otherwise available? Or has he just lied?

  • edited March 2018
    Just to be clear that is the British Ambassador to Romania, not the Romanian Ambassador.

    What a diplomatic faux pas Chizz. Do you pass the port to the right too?
  • Fiiish said:

    Just to be clear that is the British Ambassador to Romania, not the Romanian Ambassador.

    What a diplomatic faux pas Chizz. Do you pass the port to the right too?

    Now edited. And, for the record, I rarely pass port.
  • Stig said:

    Nadou said:

    Got €1.06 to the £ today. Those bloody Europeans, stealing my money. Don't they realise the Queen's head is on the money over here. Pay a bit of respect. Our money's worth much more than that Euro trash stuff.

    I got 1.13 this morning...who did you buy them from your mrs.
    Whoopee flipping do. It was 1.36 when this whole mess started.

    https://finder.com/uk/brexit-pound
    Whoopppeeedooooooooo was 1.02 five years agooooooooo.
    JIIMMY HILL!

    Screenshot 2018-03-05 21.33.46

    Source: uktradeinfo
    Think it’s unkind to pull Chippy up on this. I doubt he knows what a decimal point is or the difference it makes where you put it.

  • edited March 2018

    Stig said:

    Nadou said:

    Got €1.06 to the £ today. Those bloody Europeans, stealing my money. Don't they realise the Queen's head is on the money over here. Pay a bit of respect. Our money's worth much more than that Euro trash stuff.

    I got 1.13 this morning...who did you buy them from your mrs.
    Whoopee flipping do. It was 1.36 when this whole mess started.

    https://finder.com/uk/brexit-pound
    Whoopppeeedooooooooo was 1.02 five years agooooooooo.
    JIIMMY HILL!

    Screenshot 2018-03-05 21.33.46

    Source: uktradeinfo
    Think it’s unkind to pull Chippy up on this. I doubt he knows what a decimal point is or the difference it makes where you put it.

    I bet he Googled the exchange rates as well instead of just knowing off the top of his head what the exchange rate was each month 5 years ago. Which is cheating and unfair because Chippy doesn't know how to use Google.
  • Interesting front page FT report about likely risks to Atlantic air routes after Brexit. Transport Secretary Grayling doing as good a job negotiating these as he does with with the trains operators.
  • May I point out again how amused, an emboldened, President Putin must be in the part the U.K. is playing in causing disarray within the EU. The Sergei Skripal incident shows once again he thinks he can do what he wants wherever he wants and pretty much can.
  • Chaz Hill said:

    May I point out again how amused, an emboldened, President Putin must be in the part the U.K. is playing in causing disarray within the EU. The Sergei Skripal incident shows once again he thinks he can do what he wants wherever he wants and pretty much can.

    I have re-opened the Litvinenko thread for the purpose of discussing that in more detail, as the details emerge.

    The only thing I would say is that, as one of the BBC correspondents said, the timing is a bit puzzling from a Putin viewpoint, and this guy was not, apparently, pissing Putin off as Litvinenko was. But let't see.

  • Southbank said:

    Fiiish said:

    Southbank said:

    Fiiish said:

    Southbank said:

    Fiiish said:

    Fiiish said:

    Fiiish said:

    Fiiish said:

    Apologies if you cannot read Italian but this article from February 2018 directly quotes Five Star as promoting European Union membership.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2018/02/06/luigi-di-maio-rottama-la-politica-estera-a-5-stelle_a_23354144/

    @Southbank just in case you missed this post that proves what total bollocks you've been spouting about the Italian election.
    Said all day on sky news, bbc and lbc that 55% of the parties are anti EU..i appreciate their not as learned and knowledgeable than you... Just saying.
    image
    Don't like it up you do you... Another two pages filled up with your bollocks. Listen to real news and take the ear muffs off. Better still wait to read the remainian tomorrow.
    None of the news agencies called Five Star anti-EU. That much is true.

    Your post I quoted is just another one of your lies Chippy. The thing is no one falls for your lies anymore because you seem incapable of speaking the truth. You were never in the forces, you don't do business in Germany, you don't watch the news, you don't have a passport nailed to a wall and you never had to check under your car. Kindly bog off, seriously, no one gives a shit about whatever your next lie is going to be.
    Err https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-43272700
    I am afraid that banging your head against a wall generally does not make it go away
    Hmm strange, couldn't find the phrase "anti-EU" in that article.

    Seriously, do you try this hard to make yourself look stupid or does it come naturally?
    I forgot, you think that eurosceptic and anti EU mean different things. As I said, I think a discussion on that is worth a thread of its own. But it is strange that commentators all over the media are saying that a Five Star/ Lega alliance woud be a big problem for the EU.
    Maybe you should let the EU know they have nothing to worry about. They will be relieved.
    Cameron's Tories were classed as Eurosceptic by the media but still promoted membership of the EU. As do the vast majority of parties winning across Europe.

    I would class anti-EU as those who want to leave the EU. If Euroscepticism is winning across Europe all that would do is halt the further integration of Europe, not break the EU up.
    I agree with you on the general drift. The problem is that without further integration the EU project cannot work. A currency needs a central bank and a state to guarantee it. The Eurozone is very vulnerable without more centralisation and ultimately a central state. I doubt there is a single country in Europe which has a majority that would support a centralised federal Europe. That is why the project is doomed.
    Better a loose trading bloc of sovereign states. Get rid of Juncker, Selmayr and all those who have nothing but contempt for the nation state, historically the only guarantor of democracy.
    The basis of all your posts is that the EU is some sort of German inspired plot to undermine democracies across Europe. Only Brexit idiots and morons, Briebart followers and UKIP politicians believe such nonsense.
    @Southbank has not suggested it's a plot to undermine democracy, it is simply stating what Macron and those committed to the EU project understand.

    The EU faces the same problems the UK would face if every county had its own devolved sovereign government which could set spending and tax policies. The Bank of England would be unable to operate an interest rate policy which had a consistent effect across each county. There would be movement of labour, capital, goods and services across county borders undermining any attempt of each county to stabilise its finances and spending budgets. The EU will increasingly exhibit the symptoms of such a structure and the solution is quite logical - not allow individual nation states to control monetary policy and allow a central bank to apply a common interest rate and inflation management policy.

    To describe it as a sinister plot is simply admission of a lack of understanding of the direction the EU must necessarily take. It has expanded and outgrown the model that worked for 5 nations where each followed consistent monetary policies and comparable levels of economic development. The incentives to arbitrage across borders between differences in wage levels and living costs were less and had no material effect and in fact could be positive on a regional basis.

    The expansion of the EU to include less developed economies with varying control over spending and inflation meant the scope for arbitrage, and its negative consequences, is an issue. Nor does the political structure work as intended when engagement becomes so thinly spread and watered down as to deliver an ineffective franchise to EU citizens.

    A federal EU applying political, monetary and fiscal policy from the centre will allow control to be exercised in order to harmonise the economic cycles of member nations and counter the incentives and negative impact of uncontrolled cross border arbitrage. It would allow the current botched system of calculating how much each nation should contribute to the EU budget to be abandoned in favour of a central budget from central taxation that no one could argue with.

    On "reforms" generally, my perception is not of progressive planned reform or improvements, (apart from aforementioned progressive idea to federalise) they are mainly to avoid problems worsening. They are actions to counteract the deficiencies in the EU not yet enjoying federal state status and an inefficient political structure unable to make decisive executive decisions.

    Like many institutions that can only move forward as as far as their existing legacies permit, they must eventually be re-constituted in order to attain new goals dictated by new events.

    You either welcome the idea of a federal Europe or you don't, but Remainers who think they are supporting the status quo with whimsical reforms that don't include federalisation, let alone how the UK outside the Euro can be accommodated, are fooling themselves.
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  • Southbank said:

    The problem you 'reformers' have is that the only EU reform that appears to be on the agenda is Macron's federalizing one. This runs counter to the eurosceptic drift of the European peoples and has very little support in the leading parties, even in Germany. This conundrum is going to lead to continued drift in .

    That will rarely happen less than 10-15 years apart, because that kind of reform requires Treaty change and serious negotiation, extremely detailed legislative development, and ratification across the EU.

    It really isn't the case that Macron is the only voice for reform, or, more importantly that his reform will happen.
    I have made the point elsewhere that the eurozone will be i


    Southbank said:

    Fiiish said:

    Southbank said:

    Fiiish said:

    Southbank said:

    Fiiish said:

    Fiiish said:

    Fiiish said:

    Fiiish said:

    Apologies if you cannot read Italian but this article from February 2018 directly quotes Five Star as promoting European Union membership.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2018/02/06/luigi-di-maio-rottama-la-politica-estera-a-5-stelle_a_23354144/

    @Southbank just in case you missed this post that proves what total bollocks you've been spouting about the Italian election.
    Said all day on sky news, bbc and lbc that 55% of the parties are anti EU..i appreciate their not as learned and knowledgeable than you... Just saying.
    image
    Don't like it up you do you... Another two pages filled up with your bollocks. Listen to real news and take the ear muffs off. Better still wait to read the remainian tomorrow.
    None of the news agencies called Five Star anti-EU. That much is true.

    Your post I quoted is just another one of your lies Chippy. The thing is no one falls for your lies anymore because you seem incapable of speaking the truth. You were never in the forces, you don't do business in Germany, you don't watch the news, you don't have a passport nailed to a wall and you never had to check under your car. Kindly bog off, seriously, no one gives a shit about whatever your next lie is going to be.
    Err https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-43272700
    I am afraid that banging your head against a wall generally does not make it go away
    Hmm strange, couldn't find the phrase "anti-EU" in that article.

    Seriously, do you try this hard to make yourself look stupid or does it come naturally?
    I forgot, you think that eurosceptic and anti EU mean different things. As I said, I think a discussion on that is worth a thread of its own. But it is strange that commentators all over the media are saying that a Five Star/ Lega alliance woud be a big problem for the EU.
    Maybe you should let the EU know they have nothing to worry about. They will be relieved.
    Cameron's Tories were classed as Eurosceptic by the media but still promoted membership of the EU. As do the vast majority of parties winning across Europe.

    I would class anti-EU as those who want to leave the EU. If Euroscepticism is winning across Europe all that would do is halt the further integration of Europe, not break the EU up.
    I agree with you on the general drift. The problem is that without further integration the EU project cannot work. A currency needs a central bank and a state to guarantee it. The Eurozone is very vulnerable without more centralisation and ultimately a central state. I doubt there is a single country in Europe which has a majority that would support a centralised federal Europe. That is why the project is doomed.
    Better a loose trading bloc of sovereign states. Get rid of Juncker, Selmayr and all those who have nothing but contempt for the nation state, historically the only guarantor of democracy.
    The basis of all your posts is that the EU is some sort of German inspired plot to undermine democracies across Europe. Only Brexit idiots and morons, Briebart followers and UKIP politicians believe such nonsense.
    @Southbank has not suggested it's a plot to undermine democracy, it is simply stating what Macron and those committed to the EU project understand.

    The EU faces the same problems the UK would face if every county had its own devolved sovereign government which could set spending and tax policies. The Bank of England would be unable to operate an interest rate policy which had a consistent effect across each county. There would be movement of labour, capital, goods and services across county borders undermining any attempt of each county to stabilise its finances and spending budgets. The EU will increasingly exhibit the symptoms of such a structure and the solution is quite logical - not allow individual nation states to control monetary policy and allow a central bank to apply a common interest rate and inflation management policy.

    To describe it as a sinister plot is simply admission of a lack of understanding of the direction the EU must necessarily take. It has expanded and outgrown the model that worked for 5 nations where each followed consistent monetary policies and comparable levels of economic development. The incentives to arbitrage across borders between differences in wage levels and living costs were less and had no material effect and in fact could be positive on a regional basis.

    The expansion of the EU to include less developed economies with varying control over spending and inflation meant the scope for arbitrage, and its negative consequences, is an issue. Nor does the political structure work as intended when engagement becomes so thinly spread and watered down as to deliver an ineffective franchise to EU citizens.

    A federal EU applying political, monetary and fiscal policy from the centre will allow control to be exercised in order to harmonise the economic cycles of member nations and counter the incentives and negative impact of uncontrolled cross border arbitrage. It would allow the current botched system of calculating how much each nation should contribute to the EU budget to be abandoned in favour of a central budget from central taxation that no one could argue with.

    On "reforms" generally, my perception is not of progressive planned reform or improvements, (apart from aforementioned progressive idea to federalise) they are mainly to avoid problems worsening. They are actions to counteract the deficiencies in the EU not yet enjoying federal state status and an inefficient political structure unable to make decisive executive decisions.

    Like many institutions that can only move forward as as far as their existing legacies permit, they must eventually be re-constituted in order to attain new goals dictated by new events.

    You either welcome the idea of a federal Europe or you don't, but Remainers who think they are supporting the status quo with whimsical reforms that don't include federalisation, let alone how the UK outside the Euro can be accommodated, are fooling themselves.
    Thanks mate, you explained it much better than I did.
  • Has someone given Boris a smack on the nose?
  • edited March 2018
    Fiiish said:

    Why can't the EU carry on as it is? What will happen if it doesn't move towards further integration or federalisation? Or alternatively does not reform to the point where federalisation is not necessary?

    It's all well and good writing wordy posts that the EU cannot continue without going one way or the other but there seems to be zero evidence or indication that the EU will do anything other than carry on being a less than perfect version of itself that works pretty well for a 28-nation bloc. That isn't "fooling myself", it is a rational and fair assessment of the facts and reality.

    Given the way that history works, whatever you think about the EU the chances of it staying as it is would be the least likely option-as you could say about anything.

    What Dippenhall did better than me was to explain that the eurozone in particular in its current state contains the seeds of its own destruction, and that ONLY centralism/federalism can save it. This is a view shared by most pro federalist EU people by the way. If you would be happy living in a federal Europe, then fine. But most British people and most other Europeans I would guess, would not-hence the reason to get out now before either it implodes because it has not becoming federalist enough or it succeeds because it has.
  • edited March 2018
    You can't compare the EU to anything else in history because nothing even remotely comparable exists in history.

    All you and Dippenhall have is a hunch that at some point in the near future the EU will catastrophically fail without further integration. There is zero evidence to back up this hunch and all you are basing your opinion on this matter on is a paranoia and fear of progress and your right-wing philosophy blinding you both to the reality of the situation.
  • It could collapse due to political movements. How likely that is I don't know. And certainly I can't say when but it is possible. Economic factors will probably be the main driver if it does, as they drove Brexit and the election of Trump!
  • Fiiish said:

    Stig said:

    Nadou said:

    Got €1.06 to the £ today. Those bloody Europeans, stealing my money. Don't they realise the Queen's head is on the money over here. Pay a bit of respect. Our money's worth much more than that Euro trash stuff.

    I got 1.13 this morning...who did you buy them from your mrs.
    Whoopee flipping do. It was 1.36 when this whole mess started.

    https://finder.com/uk/brexit-pound
    Whoopppeeedooooooooo was 1.02 five years agooooooooo.
    JIIMMY HILL!

    Screenshot 2018-03-05 21.33.46

    Source: uktradeinfo
    Think it’s unkind to pull Chippy up on this. I doubt he knows what a decimal point is or the difference it makes where you put it.

    I bet he Googled the exchange rates as well instead of just knowing off the top of his head what the exchange rate was each month 5 years ago. Which is cheating and unfair because Chippy doesn't know how to use Google.
    Lol I don't know how to use it...feel better today...btw I asked our secretary this morning to look through my expenses since 2007. My trip to dijon in 2009 was at .99 to the euro. 2012 trip to Cologne 1.02. These euros were bought st the money exchange at Gatwick airport.

    Up yours to those that questioned it. As usual you know **** all.

    I was incorrect saying 55% of the electorate in Italy voted against the EU. It is 61%.

    Another brick out of that wall.
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Roland Out Forever!