louis89 said:
So given that, what's the advantage of staying in the EU?
Well EFTA nations still have to abide by regulations set by the Commission, but they have no seats in the EU Parliament, so the advantage of being in the EU is that you have some kind of say in the forming of regulations. The problem is that we have 72 MEPs out of 736 that sit in Parliament. Basically because of the way it is structured we can't carry a vote and since Europeans are very petty and vindictive they make sport out of doing the exact opposite of what Britain (and sometimes Sweden) wants because we declined joining the Euro.
If we stay in the EU (which IMO we should overall, even though I wouldn't be as upset as many if there was an out vote one day) we can change the organisation from within, or at least try. I know there have been talks recently about more MEPs joining Cameron's ECR group who have been gaining a lot of traction recently because they want to reverse many of the integrationist policies championed by the EPP. If Cameron is as good as we hope he is then he might be able to convince Merkel to abandon the EPP and join the ECR on the back of the 1tn they are being asked to pay over the Eurozone failure.
Euroscepticism is becoming more and more popular throughout Europe because of the EMU crisis. Suddenly from being 'racist little Englanders' the UK has become a wise country who avoided the EMU crisis by staying out of the Euro, our FDI has increased in the last couple of years along with the US because of our weakened currency. The only EU country that can say the same is Germany, the rest of the EMU has seen massive decreases in FDI and even in investment from local businesses. Without that regular investment jobs won't be created and we can see the result in Spain where unemployment is insanely high at 21%.
If the UK can bank these gains and make the case for Euroscepticism from within the EU we might see reforms to the EU budget and a higher priority given to science and technology investment which Blair and Brown even argued for and a much lower priority given to agricultural subsidies. From outside the EU we can't really do that, but we would save about £10bn a year which we could then use to fund our own scientists and researchers.
I don't think the case for staying or leaving is as black and white as many here think, there is a case for both, definitely. I also think it's insane to get a motion through Parliament right now because there is no Tory majority let alone a Eurosceptic majority. I also think In would win and that would be a disaster as a future government could use that to increase the speed of EU integration and do significant damage to our non-EU trade position (it is already very poor because of the regulatory burden from the EU, the reason Germany do so well is because they ignore the regulations entirely).
Meadows said:
What do you reckon the chances are that at least some of these 70 MPs will defect to UKIP? I mean, historically if you break a 3 line whip, you resign, so either these MPs will resign, defect to UKIP, or just pretend none of this ever happened. I suppose it was inevitable really, this government has been much more centerist that many of the back-benchers would have wanted, and it's clear that the Lib Dems got a lot more concessions than anyone thought they would. Be interesting if we see UKIP become a mainstream choice after this. Or maybe not, I'm just bouncing some scenarios around.
Not very likely. With a three line whip an MP has to resign a payroll post if they vote against the government line, therefore relegation to the backbenches beckons. I think Cameron has quelled the rebellion though, the timely intervention of Sarko definitely helped. Irritating the Frogs is always good for a laugh...
