I thought he was dead........Coburn I mean.......... ............or was that James? Finm.........You will be OK for business........in fact it is slowly improving and it will get much better if Scotland are going to keep taking migrants, sorry, I mean refugees...........after all they are already multiplying on Bute......
Pro's and cons either way, but I think the Eu is destined for major change whatever we do. It's interesting talking to the Spanish and French when I tour there every year, that many are just as sceptical about the whole thing as they perceive the Brits to be. Europe is only one major nationalist leader away from the whole thing falling apart. Spain or France would be the most likely candidates.
"Norway cinches the spot as the overall best country to live in, in the world—making this the 12th continuous year that it’s taken the title." What's so bad about that? Once again, Norway has been voted the best country in the world for humans - Quartz
yip dave.(unfortunately). one of the last online articles i read from the mail and the rest of the bum. (new years resolution, no more looking at the bum) and the usual disgusting take on it. even looking at better sources of info there is no doubt there is major immigration issues down your way but we appear to have the opposite. the young have to travel south for work due to striped out industry. but we have the uk's elderly taking advantage of the free health care. it's gonna cause some problems come the reff.
Trying to muddy the waters, eh? The issue of regulators revolving with the concerns they are regulating, and those awarding contracts to firms revolving into jobs inside those same contractors, is a problem which much troubles me. As you well know, that has nothing at all to do with the topic under discussion here - which is you falsely alleging that EU institutions are undemocratic whilst ignoring the fact that UK institutions are much less democratic.
It's quite funny the way all people say they are in favour of "change" - politically everybody has to want change, nobody can oppose change. And yet they have only the woolliest idea what change they want, let alone how it would be any improvement on what went before.
Nothing if your population is less than that of London and you're sitting on an ocean of oil. It doesn't detract from the fact that to trade with the EU from outside costs almost as much as it does from inside and you have no say in the legislation you have to enact
I don't think it is a separate issue. The way in which elected politicians and their hangers on swap one gravy train for another is very analogous to the revolving door. The Commissioners and their officials run the EU yet no one has elected them, they are appointed by national leaders to whom they then owe a debt of gratitude and who expect to be looked after in turn. Just look at how Tony Blair built up his empire after he was pushed under a bus by Gordon Brown, is that not an example of the revolving door, Mandelson, Kinnock, Paton et al have all benefitted from this mechanism. Maybe it isn't by your definition of the revolving door if you chose to place it between the public and private sectors but I choose to place a revolving door between the national political bodies and the EU, where elections mean nothing and the European Parliament rubber stamps the work of the Commission. My argument is simple, the more layers between the voter and the decision maker the less democratic it is. In a democracy the power is supposed to come from the people and accountability flows back to the people; there isn't much accountability in Brussels or Strasbourg.
Simple. I want the elected parliament of the UK to be sovereign within the UK and to be accountable to the voters of the UK with no external higher authority i.e. the EU.
Missing the point here, John. Democracy ends in the House of Commons. It is a water-tight seal that does not permit "people-power" to leak through. Now, do you want a small group of individuals, such as MPs, acting anti-democratically, or a larger body- the EU? Seems to me that the larger the group of self-interested individuals who are in power, the better. The worst excesses will be averaged out in terms of political dogma and such. And before you complain that having large groups with political power is worse than small groups, bear in mind that the nature of democracy is such that the whole of the voting population has some form of political power. You seem to be argiing against democracy here, and in favour of an oligarchy.
@Loz The political parties concentrate the power in the hands of the few. I would like to move towards is a democratically elected UK parliament with increased accountability to the voters. Being in the EU makes this less likely to happen.
Although I would vote to leave the EU, if we left would the UK (or what's left of it) return to a simliar era and society to that before we joined the Common Market etc? In many ways that era was good to grow up in............and the roads got repaired.
If the trade itself justifies the costs then it is not a problem. A big difference is that we would be choosing to meet these terms from the outside as opposed to being forced to from the inside. I`ve said this on here before but hopefully worth repeating and this is based on 30 odd years of experience in imports and exports. It is a piece of cake to buy and sell to and from countries outside the EU and any duties/taxes that apply are arranged politically for a variety of reasons. Being in the EU is not required to be able to have free trade, it is not even necessary to be anywhere near the EU geographically. Just goggle EU free trade agreements to see which countries have free trade. If it wasn't worth their while they wouldn't sign up.
This keeps getting trotted out. Neither of which will be the reason I will be casting my vote to leave.
Leave. It cost s billions to stay in, an for what? And just last year they put up our contribution by another few billions. Bloody hell, we are the soft buga's paying for it.
That option is not, nor shall it ever, be on the table. Nations rarely become more democratic over time, it's usually the reverse that's true. No, your choices are between a small, essentially homogeneous, group of people calling the shots ... or a larger, more varied, group. There is no Option C.
Sorry but you are in a complete muddle here, @johnv . You have got the whole thing back to front, and not for the first time (or even the second). Apologies to all for having to go through the whole thing yet again. Let's take this in easy stages. The members of the European Parliament are directly elected by all the people of all 28 member states; elections mean everything, obviously. The members of the Council of Ministers comprise the government ministers of all 28 member state governments, all of whom are elected by their respective peoples. The Commissioners are appointed in the same way as government ministers are appointed in each member state. It is bizarre that you object to the way Commissioners are appointed but you don't object to the way ministers are appointed, even though they are appointed in exactly the same way. "No-one has elected them" - you do not seem to have noticed the facts here, even though they have already been explained. If no-one has elected Commissioners, then by the same standards no-one has elected the UK Prime Minister, and no-one has elected any government ministers. Do you really have a blind spot about this, or are you playing devil's advocate for purposes of the argument? It is national parliaments which usually "rubber stamp" legislation proposed by their respective governments, since the governments command majorities in parliaments. By contrast the European Parliament is the only one which absolutely does not "rubber stamp" proposals, since the Commission never commands a majority there and neither does any member state. For a politician who has had a career in local government to step up to national level, or one who has served at national level to step up to European level and fulfil a role there, is a perfectly reasonable and natural progression. Most people working in high level posts have previously learned their trade at lower levels. Naturally the EU needs people who have gained experience and had successful careers in member states, if any can be found. What could possibly be wrong with that? Where else could international bodies possibly find people? This has absolutely no connection to the undesirable practice of (for example) a minister deciding to award an important big-money contract to a firm and soon afterwards accepting a highly paid job with the same firm of contractors; or a person switching jobs between a regulator and a firm they are supposed to be regulating.
1% is 1%. If the UK economy turns out to have a higher GDP than was forecast, then 1% of it will be a larger figure. What is it you don't understand about that?
