EU, impartial facts. Where to find

[JohnH]

Re: Re:

One fact that is available and should be more widely understood is that of lawmaking.
There are no EU laws in the UK - this is a fact.
All UK laws are just that, UK laws, and the same is true of every member state.

When a new EU-wide law is brought in, each member state must (in accordance with the conditions of membership) then introduce that law into their own statutes within a given timeframe (provided it is constitutional, otherwise on occasion different timeframes are permitted and that country has to change their own national constitution to fit the new EU law..)

Osella, you're absolutely correct when we're talking about EU directives...

"A directive is a legal act of the European Union, which requires member states to achieve a particular result without dictating the means of achieving that result."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive ... n_Union%29

But I'm afraid that directives aren't the only thing that the EU spits out. It also issues 'regulations'...

"A regulation is a legal act of the European Union that becomes immediately enforceable as law in all member states simultaneously."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatio ... n_Union%29

Without going through any parliament, EU regulations just become the law. And everyone has to abide by them.

 

[JohnH]

Re: Re:

If the UK's population votes to leave the EU, that will trigger article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. The UK would have to leave the union within 2 years. No re-negotiations, no option for a second referendum.

Well, that's what the 2 year period is for: 2 years to negotiate the terms of our exit.

Out = out, and it's going to be forever.

In also equals in forever. On 1st November 2014, a whole bunch of the Lisbon Treaty's clauses kicked in and began to change 43 areas of EU law from unanimity voting (where member states have a veto) to QMV voting (no veto) including "Withdrawal of a Member State". The changes will be complete on 31 March 2017. So after that date, if you want to leave the EU, you have to ask the permission of the other 27 countries. What do you think they'll say?

All current trade deals will also be off the table.

After the referendum, is the world really going to stop exporting their cars, appliances and electronic goods to the UK? Our trade is worth over 16 billion Euros to the German car industry every year. Does anyone think that Volkswagen and Audi are going to refuse our money?

A relationship like the EU has with Norway, Iceland and Switzerland (which all have access to the EU's internal market without being EU members) is not an option.

Says who? Turkey and Tunisia have total access to the single market, and they aren't even in Europe. Maybe we should have the same relationship with Brussels as Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man because they aren't in the EU either.

All 3 of the aforementioned countries also contribute to the EU budget

That's correct -- which just goes to show what an extortion racket the EU really is. Norway, Iceland and Switzerland don't have to give money to the US or China to export to them. But in any case, their contribution is a tiny fraction of what the UK pays to the EU every year.

You wouldn't find anyone willing to negotiate either, a lot of European politicians and member countries have been really fed up with the British attitude for years now and a Brexit won't make it any better.

Fed up with the British attitude? That's funny, they've been happy to take our money and trawl our fishing grounds for the last 40 years. And more recently, they've been happy to export their unemployed to the UK, thus artificially making their own economic figures look better than they really are.

The British have this "attitude" because we actually expect politicians to make a positive difference; this means that we (inconveniently) keep pointing out how sclerotic, corrupt, un-democratic, inefficient, unaccountable and disconnected from the real world the European Union is. And we keep wondering why so much of the rest of Europe blindly accepts it.

We must be doing something correctly, because a good number of Eastern Europeans are trying to get British citizenship in case we exit the EU.

The UK will be able to negotiate new trade deals with some of the individual countries, but it will never have any influence in the EU or access to the EU's internal market anymore.

We'll have access to the EU's internal market, just like Turkey and just like Tunisia do. But influence?

• Tony Blair went to Brussels to give back some of the UK's rebate in exchange for a reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. What happened? We gave back more of our rebate but the CAP wasn't reformed one jot.
• David Cameron went to Brussels to reduce the EU budget. What happened? He came back saying that he'd reduced it, but the British ended up paying *more*.
• David Cameron went to Brussels again to re-negotiate the UK's relationship with the EU ahead of the Brexit referendum. What happened? Many of the things he wanted to change were deleted from the agenda by Angela Merkel and what was left was watered down to a bunch of vague promises of treaty changes sometime in the future.

So we've never had any influence. There is only one country that has real influence in the EU, and it's called "Germany".

That means there will be red tape involved to import/export goods between the UK and EU, as well as import and export taxes on said goods.

If the EU were interested in promoting trade it would simply reduce the red tape. And import/export taxes can't be pushed high because the EU has been forced to sign up to the tariff rules of the World Trade Organisation. Britain used to have its own seat at the WTO, but we gave it up when we joined the EEC.

Sorry dude, a big chunk of that "51.4%" are the exports that go to the rest of the world through the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam, but get counted as "exports to the EU". This distorting of the numbers is called the "Rotterdam effect" (http://yourfreedomandours.blogspot.co.u ... ffect.html) and no-one actually knows how much goes *to* the EU and how much goes *through* the EU -- so those export/import figures can't really be relied upon by either side.

The Centre for European Reform (a London-based think tank) has calculated that...

The Centre for European Reform was set up by Nick Butler (a lifelong member of the Fabian Society -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society) and David Miliband (former Labour cabinet minister), and is now being run by Charles Grant who writes for the Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/profile/charlesgrant).

When reading their viewpoint, you have to bear in mind that these people are all members of the Oxbridge-educated, London-dwelling metropolitan elite, and are all devoutly Europhile.

...before the UK joined the EU's internal market, around 30% of the exported goods went to the EU. They also quote a number of "over 50%" for current export numbers.

The "EU" was a lot smaller in 1973, which would help to explain the reduced export figure back then. And their 50% number again mixes up the exports that go *to* the EU with the exports that go *via* the EU.

I'm not saying that these agreements are always good or that I support them. In fact I don't like what I've read so far of the TIPP. However they are better than no agreements at all and most likely better than anything that the UK will be able to come up with on its own.

Firstly, everyone's getting their knickers in a twist about trade deals. They are not vital for trade. China exported $300 billion of goods to the EU last year, and there's no trade deal between them.

Secondly, TTiP will be an absolute disaster for Europe and for democracy. US corporations will simply over-rule any legislation that gets in their way and demand that governments financially recompense them for any profits lost. TTiP will be catastrophic for ordinary people.

All of this means that it's a bit daft to say "However they are better than no agreements at all and most likely better than anything that the UK will be able to come up with on its own.". Trade is not a hand-out; it is trade. The UK can spend its money anywhere and should walk away from any arrangements that don't benefit the country.

A Brexit would only leave the tax breaks, but the access to the EU market is just as important to the big banks because that's where they'll make their money.

EU market? There is no market, other than Mario Draghi running up colossal debts (at the EU taxpayer's expense) to buy toxic assets from European banks who don't want to face the consequences of their own stupidity and greed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_ ... _operation). 20% of the loan books in Italy's banks are "non-performing" (they're not being paid back). Ordinarily, a figure of 4 or 5% NPLs would be enough to sink a bank, but Italy's banks are staying afloat because the ECB is propping them up.

The banks don't hang around the EU because it's a great place to do business. They cling to the EU because Mario Draghi (who used to work for Goldman Sachs) has set a negative interest rate. In other words, they're PAID to borrow money. Then they take that money and go gambling with it. If the bets pay off, they keep the profits. If they go wrong, Mario takes the crap deals off their hands at the taxpayer's expense. When Greece admitted that it was up to its tits in debt, Societe Generale, Credit Agricole and Deutsche Bank panicked; if Greece didn't pay back the massive amounts that it had borrowed from those banks, they were going bust. So the bankers made the phone calls that they needed to make, and lo and behold, the ECB bailed out the banks and gave the bill to Greece. This was called 'bailing out Greece', when in fact, it was Greece's creditors that were bailed out.

Bankers are not stupid. They may be ruthless people with no morals or loyalty to anyone but their own bank balance, but they're not stupid. Bankers don't want the UK to leave the EU because they don't want anyone to rock the boat. They know that if one of the wealthier countries leaves the EU, the world will take a fresh look at what's left. People will ask whether Greece's 3 bailouts can ever be repaid by the Greeks (they can't), whether Italy's banks could stay afloat without the ECB keeping them above water (they couldn't) or what would happen to Deutsche Bank if its $73 trillion of derivatives exposure went sour (Lehman Brothers x 10).

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are not giving hundreds of thousands of pounds to the 'Remain' campaign because they care deeply about the British people. The bankers are making threats (and crapping themselves) because if Britain leaves the EU, reality will arrive at the door and the party will be over -- possibly with a huge bang. (The same outcome will happen if Trump becomes president and carries out his threat to audit the Federal Reserve.)

Even HSBC (I don't think I have to tell you that that's a British bank) has announced that they'd move a fifth of their jobs to Paris if the UK votes to leave the EU. (source)

HSBC moving to Paris? RB, so many wealthy Parisians have moved to Kensington and Chelsea that London has now become France's 6th biggest city (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18234930). If they were talking about Zurich, then maybe I'd believe it -- but I cannot seriously imagine HSBC moving 1,000 bankers to the middle of Francois Hollande's socialist catastrophe.

The first chance these agents would get to check someone, would then be on British soil, making it a British problem rather than a French or Belgian one. Basically you'd lose that first line of defense and would have to spend money to get them out of the country again.

Fine, we can deal with that.

The Confederation of British Industry estimates that a Brexit will cause a loss of 950.000 jobs and £101 billion annually. In their calculations the unemployment rate in 2030 would still be 3% higher than it is now.

Since 2007, the CBI has received £830,000 (over 1 million Euros) of EU funding.

George Osborne ordered a study which also calculated a loss of GBP of 6%, costing the average British family around £4200 over the next 15 years

George Osborne couldn't organise a farting contest in a baked bean factory.

With the UK as an EU member, working out legislature is like going to the supermarket with a child that has constant tantrums.

In two weeks time RB, you might never have to worry about that ever again.

 

[technodup]

Re:

A pretty comprehensive debunking of the vested interests claims there. As previously mentioned and re the OP there are no 'impartial facts'.

It comes down to 'do you want to be governed by London or Brussels?'. The rest is whataboutery.

Personally I hope we get out and bring the whole thing down.

 

[kingbling]

Well said JohnH I like a good debate.

I feel that the UK has lost its identity, the country I grew up in has gone. Some of this is for the better, most of it is not. As for us not going back in the EU, well never say never rules are made and abolished all the time mostly when it suits the rich. We paid for our endeavours through 2 world wars with people and wealth and we are still recovering from the debt. Should we care what the europeans think about us, no we should not and next time it happens…. well we're all done for. So I'd like to stay in the EU, but as things stand I want out, we will survive as a country as a Nation. Its about time our children of whatever colour, faith or religion learned what being British was about, a strong people who stood up and fought when called, rallied and never surrendered. We are no longer great we are no longer united growing up I was proud to be British English I'm not so proud anymore.

 

[hamster]

That's simply blaming the effects of post-imperial decline and globalisation on the EU.

Looking at migration, of the major economies only China, Japan and Russia have lower immigration rates.

 

[kingbling]

Does my statement point the blame at the EU ?

 

[technodup]

Re: Re:

The UK would have to leave the union within 2 years. No re-negotiations, no option for a second referendum. Out = out, and it's going to be forever. There is a procedure for re-entry, but that'll need a unanimous vote and the UK will never get that.

The German finance minister disagrees.

"At some point, the British will realise they have taken the wrong decision. And then we will accept them back one day, if that’s what they want."

Obviously I disagree with him on virtually everything but nothing is forever. The EU will break any and all of their own rules if it suits them. Money talks. And I can't see any other reason the EU countries would want a noisy and argumentative neighbour to hang around...

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... auble-says

 

[hamster]

Does my statement point the blame at the EU ?

No but it conflates the effects of relative decline and globalisation with EU membership. You conclude that the the problem of being a country with declining ability to project influence is best solved by leaving the world's largest political and trading bloc.

The past is the past. Power has required progressively larger geographies: the UK was unable to go it alone in the 1940s, requiring continental-scale economies to have the economic might to support political intent.

Now even continental-scale economies cannot operate in isolation, as the USA is beginning to discover.

I simply do not see what advantages we will extract by being on our own. I don't exactly see who are preferable friends...is it really to our advantage to be the sock puppets of China and Russia instead? Even the Americans have stated bluntly that they see our best position as allies is as EU members.

 

[M-Power]

Re: Re:

If the UK's population votes to leave the EU, that will trigger article 50 of the Lisbon treaty. The UK would have to leave the union within 2 years. No re-negotiations, no option for a second referendum.

Well, that's what the 2 year period is for: 2 years to negotiate the terms of our exit.

Out = out, and it's going to be forever.

In also equals in forever. On 1st November 2014, a whole bunch of the Lisbon Treaty's clauses kicked in and began to change 43 areas of EU law from unanimity voting (where member states have a veto) to QMV voting (no veto) including "Withdrawal of a Member State". The changes will be complete on 31 March 2017. So after that date, if you want to leave the EU, you have to ask the permission of the other 27 countries. What do you think they'll say?

All current trade deals will also be off the table.

After the referendum, is the world really going to stop exporting their cars, appliances and electronic goods to the UK? Our trade is worth over 16 billion Euros to the German car industry every year. Does anyone think that Volkswagen and Audi are going to refuse our money?

A relationship like the EU has with Norway, Iceland and Switzerland (which all have access to the EU's internal market without being EU members) is not an option.

Says who? Turkey and Tunisia have total access to the single market, and they aren't even in Europe. Maybe we should have the same relationship with Brussels as Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man because they aren't in the EU either.

All 3 of the aforementioned countries also contribute to the EU budget

That's correct -- which just goes to show what an extortion racket the EU really is. Norway, Iceland and Switzerland don't have to give money to the US or China to export to them. But in any case, their contribution is a tiny fraction of what the UK pays to the EU every year.

You wouldn't find anyone willing to negotiate either, a lot of European politicians and member countries have been really fed up with the British attitude for years now and a Brexit won't make it any better.

Fed up with the British attitude? That's funny, they've been happy to take our money and trawl our fishing grounds for the last 40 years. And more recently, they've been happy to export their unemployed to the UK, thus artificially making their own economic figures look better than they really are.

The British have this "attitude" because we actually expect politicians to make a positive difference; this means that we (inconveniently) keep pointing out how sclerotic, corrupt, un-democratic, inefficient, unaccountable and disconnected from the real world the European Union is. And we keep wondering why so much of the rest of Europe blindly accepts it.

We must be doing something correctly, because a good number of Eastern Europeans are trying to get British citizenship in case we exit the EU.

The UK will be able to negotiate new trade deals with some of the individual countries, but it will never have any influence in the EU or access to the EU's internal market anymore.

We'll have access to the EU's internal market, just like Turkey and just like Tunisia do. But influence?

• Tony Blair went to Brussels to give back some of the UK's rebate in exchange for a reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. What happened? We gave back more of our rebate but the CAP wasn't reformed one jot.
• David Cameron went to Brussels to reduce the EU budget. What happened? He came back saying that he'd reduced it, but the British ended up paying *more*.
• David Cameron went to Brussels again to re-negotiate the UK's relationship with the EU ahead of the Brexit referendum. What happened? Many of the things he wanted to change were deleted from the agenda by Angela Merkel and what was left was watered down to a bunch of vague promises of treaty changes sometime in the future.

So we've never had any influence. There is only one country that has real influence in the EU, and it's called "Germany".

That means there will be red tape involved to import/export goods between the UK and EU, as well as import and export taxes on said goods.

If the EU were interested in promoting trade it would simply reduce the red tape. And import/export taxes can't be pushed high because the EU has been forced to sign up to the tariff rules of the World Trade Organisation. Britain used to have its own seat at the WTO, but we gave it up when we joined the EEC.

Sorry dude, a big chunk of that "51.4%" are the exports that go to the rest of the world through the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam, but get counted as "exports to the EU". This distorting of the numbers is called the "Rotterdam effect" (http://yourfreedomandours.blogspot.co.u ... ffect.html) and no-one actually knows how much goes *to* the EU and how much goes *through* the EU -- so those export/import figures can't really be relied upon by either side.

The Centre for European Reform (a London-based think tank) has calculated that...

The Centre for European Reform was set up by Nick Butler (a lifelong member of the Fabian Society -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society) and David Miliband (former Labour cabinet minister), and is now being run by Charles Grant who writes for the Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/profile/charlesgrant).

When reading their viewpoint, you have to bear in mind that these people are all members of the Oxbridge-educated, London-dwelling metropolitan elite, and are all devoutly Europhile.

...before the UK joined the EU's internal market, around 30% of the exported goods went to the EU. They also quote a number of "over 50%" for current export numbers.

The "EU" was a lot smaller in 1973, which would help to explain the reduced export figure back then. And their 50% number again mixes up the exports that go *to* the EU with the exports that go *via* the EU.

I'm not saying that these agreements are always good or that I support them. In fact I don't like what I've read so far of the TIPP. However they are better than no agreements at all and most likely better than anything that the UK will be able to come up with on its own.

Firstly, everyone's getting their knickers in a twist about trade deals. They are not vital for trade. China exported $300 billion of goods to the EU last year, and there's no trade deal between them.

Secondly, TTiP will be an absolute disaster for Europe and for democracy. US corporations will simply over-rule any legislation that gets in their way and demand that governments financially recompense them for any profits lost. TTiP will be catastrophic for ordinary people.

All of this means that it's a bit daft to say "However they are better than no agreements at all and most likely better than anything that the UK will be able to come up with on its own.". Trade is not a hand-out; it is trade. The UK can spend its money anywhere and should walk away from any arrangements that don't benefit the country.

A Brexit would only leave the tax breaks, but the access to the EU market is just as important to the big banks because that's where they'll make their money.

EU market? There is no market, other than Mario Draghi running up colossal debts (at the EU taxpayer's expense) to buy toxic assets from European banks who don't want to face the consequences of their own stupidity and greed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_ ... _operation). 20% of the loan books in Italy's banks are "non-performing" (they're not being paid back). Ordinarily, a figure of 4 or 5% NPLs would be enough to sink a bank, but Italy's banks are staying afloat because the ECB is propping them up.

The banks don't hang around the EU because it's a great place to do business. They cling to the EU because Mario Draghi (who used to work for Goldman Sachs) has set a negative interest rate. In other words, they're PAID to borrow money. Then they take that money and go gambling with it. If the bets pay off, they keep the profits. If they go wrong, Mario takes the crap deals off their hands at the taxpayer's expense. When Greece admitted that it was up to its tits in debt, Societe Generale, Credit Agricole and Deutsche Bank panicked; if Greece didn't pay back the massive amounts that it had borrowed from those banks, they were going bust. So the bankers made the phone calls that they needed to make, and lo and behold, the ECB bailed out the banks and gave the bill to Greece. This was called 'bailing out Greece', when in fact, it was Greece's creditors that were bailed out.

Bankers are not stupid. They may be ruthless people with no morals or loyalty to anyone but their own bank balance, but they're not stupid. Bankers don't want the UK to leave the EU because they don't want anyone to rock the boat. They know that if one of the wealthier countries leaves the EU, the world will take a fresh look at what's left. People will ask whether Greece's 3 bailouts can ever be repaid by the Greeks (they can't), whether Italy's banks could stay afloat without the ECB keeping them above water (they couldn't) or what would happen to Deutsche Bank if its $73 trillion of derivatives exposure went sour (Lehman Brothers x 10).

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are not giving hundreds of thousands of pounds to the 'Remain' campaign because they care deeply about the British people. The bankers are making threats (and crapping themselves) because if Britain leaves the EU, reality will arrive at the door and the party will be over -- possibly with a huge bang. (The same outcome will happen if Trump becomes president and carries out his threat to audit the Federal Reserve.)

Even HSBC (I don't think I have to tell you that that's a British bank) has announced that they'd move a fifth of their jobs to Paris if the UK votes to leave the EU. (source)

HSBC moving to Paris? RB, so many wealthy Parisians have moved to Kensington and Chelsea that London has now become France's 6th biggest city (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18234930). If they were talking about Zurich, then maybe I'd believe it -- but I cannot seriously imagine HSBC moving 1,000 bankers to the middle of Francois Hollande's socialist catastrophe.

The first chance these agents would get to check someone, would then be on British soil, making it a British problem rather than a French or Belgian one. Basically you'd lose that first line of defense and would have to spend money to get them out of the country again.

Fine, we can deal with that.

The Confederation of British Industry estimates that a Brexit will cause a loss of 950.000 jobs and £101 billion annually. In their calculations the unemployment rate in 2030 would still be 3% higher than it is now.

Since 2007, the CBI has received £830,000 (over 1 million Euros) of EU funding.

George Osborne ordered a study which also calculated a loss of GBP of 6%, costing the average British family around £4200 over the next 15 years

George Osborne couldn't organise a farting contest in a baked bean factory.

With the UK as an EU member, working out legislature is like going to the supermarket with a child that has constant tantrums.

In two weeks time RB, you might never have to worry about that ever again.

What an exceptional articulate informed response. As has been said, there is NO WAY we won't be invited back to the table at a later stage on better terms. Leaving will make us even more attractive in time but we will be better able to prevent criminals, benefit freeloaders and terrorists from entering and cherry pick the best overseas candidates for genuine opportunities.

The whole remain campaign is reliant on maximising fear. Most of us accept there will be some turbulence and mild economic downturn if Brexit happens but the long term prognosis is much brighter. Even Gorbachev wonders why the EU is trying to recreate the former failed USSR. No system is perfect. There are good reasons why the UK is so successful economically compared to most of its EU protagonists.

 

[highlandsflyer]

Re:

I see no reason for any arrangement to be permanent. One thing is for sure though, no one would be closing any gates on anyone already a member wishing to return.

That is a ridiculous concept.

Especially when that member is the most important globally, culturally, militarily and in many other ways.

No other country in Europe can claim the history of Great Britain, and they are all jealous, frankly.

Quite a number of those countries quiver inside the circle of the bigger players, afraid to rock the boat, happy for their crumbs.

Perhaps Great Britain will never again rule the world, but we did once.

More than any other nation.

We really did.

My ancestors did not die to ensure we had bratwurst from LIDL.

They don't like it up 'em!