Should Britain leave the European Union?

Great Debates
1

Following Prime Minister David Cameron’s use of the UK veto power on the renegotiation of EU treaty changes, in opposition of every other member state, Britain appears more isolated than it has in its decades of EU membership.

The move has, both in Britain and in Europe, called Britain’s continued relationship with the EU into question.

At home, Tory back-benchers are reacting with glee, seeing this as the first step in a process which will result in the exit of the UK from the EU altogether (this would not be without precedent - when Greenland achieved home rule it negotiated a withdrawal from the EU).

Even before this turn of events there were calls for a referendum on the UK’s continued membership, many feeling that the UK put far more into the EU than it got out, both in monetary terms and overall loss of sovereignty. Critics point to Norway and Switzerland - countries in Europe geographically but not the EU - as being successful countries outside the organisation.

Proponents say that leaving the EU would be a disaster for Britain’s economy, putting us on the fringes of a Europe that could still make decisions which would concern Britain, but which Britain would now have reduced say over.

So, was Cameron right to use the veto? Would it be practical or possible for Britain to withdraw from the EU?

2

At this point leaving the EU would be a symbolic gesture. The EU has already left Britain. The issues agreed on in the new set of treaties will continue to grow in breadth and depth emptying the old treaties and institutions from content. What it will mean for Britain I don’t know. I assume it’ll weaken both Britain and the new EU. One thing is for sure, Britain is neither Switzerland nor Norway.

3

I believe it was Bernard Williams that argued Morals are more of a cultural heirloom - like music, and that, historically, this isnt’ something thats supposed to be understood.
Likewise with Government, I know not what music (movement, evolutionary new sympathies, the like) caused Great Britain to favor this form of governing/politiking/financial form of ‘lets hold hands’ - but, if the hypothesis of ‘government as indicator of moral sensibility swaying/music heirloom confined to time and infinite circumstance’ be true, it speaks to the same principle that they are now backing out - perhaps the moral impulse for unitaryness can’t vanquish the woes of poverty and unexpected consequences.

I don’t know if they should or shouldn’t (many ways to skin a cat?)

4

I don’t know what it means for Britain. It’s certainly worrying. I do think that Cameron was stuck between a rock and a hard place, given that taxes and regulations proposed on financial transactions would affect London more than anywhere else, which seems a bit rich when we’re not even in the Euro. Sarkozy has acted like a bully with a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude.

However, it doesn’t give me any comfort having a euro-sceptic party in government at such a precarious time in the EU. The last thing we need right now is anti-Europe posturing, and the smug crowing from the Tory back benches turns my stomach.

5

Forgive me, but I didn’t understand a word of that!

6

An unnamed French official–God I hope it was Sarkozy!–dismissed Cameron as “like a man who wants to attend a wife-swap party without bringing his own wife.” In truth, he’s more like a man who doesn’t want to attend, because it’s happening on a sinking yacht.

7

It’s ok.

I’m just suggesting that maybe there was some hidden plague like impulse championing this new union, and it doesn’t make any sense.. and now people want to back out.. and they’re acting blindly again.. because its not open to argument.
We’ll see..

I’m propagating a theory on government that its based on cultural trends that arent meant to be understood
(so much for political science! - it means its a form of anthropology, in a way!)

8

Thing is, is not “Britain” and “the EU”, it’s “London” specifically “The City” and the “Paris - Brussels - Berlin coalition”. It’s a dispute between financial markets, not about states. That’s important to understand.

And sure, the EU is a sinking ship, har-de-har and all of that gloom and doom. The question is if anybody actually believes that things won’t change in the near future and whether the growth will get back in the Eurozone, and what will happen then? is The City trading a leading place in the European market of the future for some stability in the present?

In any case, I’ll always say that whatever Boris wants to do, do the opposite.

9

I’m in two minds.

I’ve always been pro E.U., but I think that it expanded too fast, and that is part of the reason that the U.K. economy is being undermined by mass migrant labour.

And we are talking VERY large numbers here.

The migrant workers tend to remit home as much of their earnings as possible due to various factors, including the lower cost of living in their home countries, and exchange rates.

This means that the money does not recirculate within our economy to maintain existing businesses or create new ones.

Their willingness to undercut pay rates (often illegally), ignore Health and Safety, and basic welfare provisions (Having washing facilities, holiday time off etc. ) , this and working with false work qualifications, makes the home grown labour force virtually unemployable in many situations.
Unable to work, they are forced to accept welfare benefit, which further increases the burden on the U.K. economy.

(And I wouldn’t risk your neck telling these unemployed that the migrants are doing jobs that they don’t WANT to do, as it might result in a less then pleasant outcome for you to say the least).

That apart, the financial irresponsibilty of certain member nations could make the E.C. unworkable.

I am hoping that the present crisis might, just might, bring Greece and the others to their senses.

The E.C. is a great dream and I WANT it to succeed, but at the moment being a member seems to be more of a burden then an asset.

The best option would be not to leave, but for the E.C. to expel the nett takers from the treaty and retain the nett providers.

This of course can never now happen, as our economies are too intertwined.

Now is the time to do a bit of arse kicking to the under performers and turn them into performers, but it ain’t gonna happen.

10

The real question is this: GB is oriented toward a global economy-London is a world financial center. If GB ties itself to the EU, it may well lose its status as a center of world finance. Is it worth it?
The euro-government seems to be growing (and producing laws and paper as fast as it can)-does the British taxpayer (or indeed the French or German taxpayer) NEED another layer of government?
Why can’t the EU be essentially a customs union, with a very samll governmening body to harmonize inter-country regulations? Why does it need a parliament in Brussels, and another one in Strasbourg?

11

Cameron’s decision was the least worst of the possible options. We were already sidelined from decisions regarding the Euro so I see this as deciding whether to cut our throat quite deeply or very deeply. It may not matter in the end but keeping our autonomy as much as possible might give us a fighting chance.

And ultimately…did you see what the new treaty required us to submit to? Far, far greater oversight than before and the threat of unspecified punitive action should any country not conform.

It is a nice idea to wrap up the solution in one neat treaty but it has to have teeth if it is to be meaningful and is one thing for the countries to sign up to the treaty but another thing entirely to take action off the back of it. We have no idea (and nor do the signatories) as to how this will work. They got the Euro badly wrong and I have no faith at all in their hasty plans to fix it.

We are better outside it all though still part of the common market.

12

This shit looks like it is spinning out of control. There’s so many stresses and strains in the world right now that I fear some kind of major unravelling.

13

From what I can tell it looks like Cameron was forced into choosing between two things that would hurt the UK and he chose the thing that would hurt it the least.

A bad proposition, but it seems he chose correctly. From what I can tell his political opponents are criticizing the move out of an American-esque style desire of the opposition to always oppose the party in power regardless of the issue.

I don’t know if this is “conspiracy theory” type stuff, because I’m not as informed on the goings on of the EU as I should be, but I have heard rumors about the potential effects of this. What I have heard is that Brussels would like to be the center of finance in Europe, and right now as everyone knows London is the center of finance in Europe (and in fact I’d argue the world, as The City has grown in this regard at the expense of Wall Street.) Some are saying that this move, whether the UK agrees with it or not, will help Brussels essentially make itself the center of finance in Europe.

This would obviously mean less tax revenue in the UK, less jobs, etc as some of the financial service jobs crossed the Channel. By using the UK veto Cameron at least has kept open the ability of Britain to make moves of its own to try and preserve its financial center, although the nature of what is going on means this is going to be to Brussels’ advantage either way.

14

Can some EuroDopers provide some background here? I thought it was a eurozone treaty under discussion and the UK is not a member of that anyway, still using the pound – why is the UK’s assent necessary?

15

It was an EU discussion, about the euro. But it remains an excellent question whether the UK and other EU-but-not-euro countries should be taking any heat for this. Not our problem, we explicitly opted out of it because it was half-baked lunacy, and now we’re getting the blame for not helping…

Anyway, I get the feeling that the whole thing is a bit of a charade. Sarkozy is pleased by images of him almost literally giving the cold shoulder to Cameron, because he knows that that will go down well with the Anglo-hating constituency at home and elsewhere. He’s up for re-election soon, remember, and right now he is not doing well in the polls. Meanwhile, Cameron doesn’t mind so much, in the circumstances, if he is seen to be uncooperative with the EU.

There has no doubt been an awful lot of calculation going on in the ministries of European countries, so we should take what we see with a pinch of salt.

16

I’m not a EuroDoper, and barely a Doper, I’m so ignorant.

In order to protect the Euro, the agreement (very broadly speaking) reduces the domestic budgetary powers of the member states, including those outside the Euro, and also further centralizes various financial regulatory powers. The UK has a veto on any significant changes to the EU treaty.

If you accept that the Euro must be saved, then you have to baby-sit the PIIGS in terms of fiscal and regulatory matters. Otherwise the Italians borrow from the Germans, until they have the Germans over a barrel. But this requires more changes than fiddling with the Euro mechanism.

17

Now here you have made the schoolboy error of applying logic and precedent to the decision of the powers in Brussels. :wink: Anyone who thinks they can explain it fully to you probably doesn’t understand the question in the first place.

Of course the EU would like the treaty to be passed by everyone on the nod because otherwise it’ll be more complicated and time consuming. However, the implications of the treaty mean that we in the UK would be hit hard by the contents of it and gain little in the way of advantage (other than perhaps….perhaps…making a eurozone collapse more unlikely)

Fact is…no-one knows what will happen here. We don’t know what the effect of the treaty will be, don’t know if it will work or not, nor what would happen were it not to be passed. We don’t know whether it’ll be bad for the UK to be in or out of the treaty negotiations, we don’t know how any of this will pan out in the long term. We have never been here before (other than the botched financial constraints set as prerequisite for joining the euro….that didn’t work so well did it?)

I think the UK has made a choice to preserve it’s financial independence. As has been said, the “least worst” option

18

As it should. No nation should slit its throat for another, and the Euro simply cannot hold as it currently stands. It comes down to this. Democracy, the EU, and the Euro: pick two. There’s fundamentally no way around that, and all the flailing in the world won’t solve it.

19

From a German, pro-EU and pro-Euro perspective: the Euro’s problems of a unified currency without unified economic policy, which have been criticized a lot recently, were known since its inception, but not politically possible to address then. It was always the plan that the unification process would continue, but it hit some snags for a while. Of course it would have been better to fix the problems before a crisis came about, but the will is there in politicians and also many citizens to fix them now by further integration of the EU. That applies especially in Germany and France, but is apparently also true in many other European countries, even in those outside the Eurozone.

It’s clear that some countries need bailing out, or the Euro will implode. We’re willing to do that, and I’m sure also able to, but some EU-wide control measures need to be implemented to make sure the money is not just down the drain. If Britain is so set against that, they really should consider leaving the EU. Just fighting the process every step of the way and demanding exceptions and special treatment helps nobody.

If some people were less set against further integration, I think better democratic control of the EU would be a real possibility. The more power the organs of the EU have, the bigger their need for true legitimacy becomes, and I think it would be addressed if not the same people who complain about the bureaucrats in Brussels were afraid to make the EU more democratic and therefore more powerful.

20

Well, what do Europeans generally think of the European Parliament? It is an institution to which they would comfortably entrust greater power?