From a recent City AM:
The UK should not leave the EU – the single market has greatly strengthened the British economy. To continue trading so much with the rest of Europe, the UK would still have to follow the rules set to regulate the single market. But from outside the EU, we would have no influence over what rules are set. Much better to be in the club and able to shape their design.(1)
The EU also plays an important role over energy and climate policy, both linked to future economic growth. Europe needs a modernised and extended electricity grid, including a North Sea grid. Building this would enable the UK to harness enormous quantities of offshore wind power, thus increasing UK energy security as the oil and gas runs out.(2) It would be possible if the UK leaves the EU, but easier and more efficient if we remain a member.(3)
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Oops, I pressed send too early (I meant to save as draft and finish off once at work). My point was, surely, there must be some advantages to being in the EU which everybody accepts (yes there are: but no clues), not flim-flam like this? Or at least they could stick to the Big Fat Lie that "Three million UK jobs depend on us being in the EU" which isn't true either, but a lot of people seem to believe it.
1) James James had already covered this in the comments by the time I got back.
2) I think we've seen through all this wind nonsense by now, and it's the EU demanding that the UK shuts down its perfectly servicable coal-fired power stations. So energy supply is a bit of a worry. But there are two forces which will hopefully sort all this out.
a) Governments know that they have to make sure that "the lights stay on" and that petrol is always available on the forecourts, because if they don't or it isn't, they'll become very unpopular very quickly (even if there is little they can do about it).
b) Markets. There is a fantastic network of infrastructure spanning the globe, there are oil and gas pipelines linking Russia and Norway (not EU members) with most of Europe; they're laying electricity cables across the North Sea; we buy liquified natural gas from Qatar; the Iranians are quite happy to sell us oil (even though they are not in the EU and their openly stated wish is to attack the West, I wonder what they'll do for customers then?). And these are just a few things off the top of my head, there's plenty more where that came from, fracking near Blackpool, oil rigs in the North Sea, the list goes on.
3) Exactly, that's one heck of an admission. Maybe there is a teeny, tiny slight advantage to EU member states if they can all gang up against e.g. Russia, Middle East and negotiate one big contract, but there are equal and opposite disadvantages (if it were in the UK's interests to buy oil from Iran, despite EU embargo, for example) that these can be ignored on both sides.
Still here
9 hours ago
14 comments:
Of things that are at least partially true, probably. Of complete falsehoods, no, there's much more convincing stuff than that.
Of the arguments that I have heard against leaving, the best to my mind is that the resulting petty vindictiveness and obstruction by the eurocrats would make trade with the EU extremely difficult.
What happens on days when the winds don't blow in the North Sea?
It has been known to occur before, from Viking all the way down to Dover.
OT Just noticed the Met Office have an "Invent" button, giving the game away abit!
"To continue trading so much with the rest of Europe, the UK would still have to follow the rules set to regulate the single market." Yes, but we wouldn't have to follow all their stupid rules that aren't to do with the single market.
Just like, people in America can trade with the EU, but don't have to follow all their stupid rules that aren't to do with the single market.
What James James said. If we were completely outside the EU, yes anyone supplying goods & services into the EU would have to abide by whatever rules applied to those goods in the EU. But all those people who supply goods and services to the domestic market could be covered by entirely different rules, ones that we as a nation have agreed and drawn up via our own Parliament. If we wanted different things here to in Europe, we could have them.
B, the pettiness is an argument, but we get that anyway.
BB, wind power is a joke. Which is a shame because I think the turbines look nice.
JJ, ta.
S, exactly. Particularly maddening is this bit: "the UK would still have to follow the rules set to regulate the single market."
No it wouldn't. If EU demand lead-free toys, then fine, we'll supply lead-free*. But we can ignore all the other rules like Working Time Directive etc, we could clearly only have to follow a very small subset of the rules set to regulate the single market.
* As far as actual product safety goes, EU rules are probably all quite sensible, no better or worse than ours, we can just keep those as UK national standards. Apart from the asbestos stuff.
What don't you like about EU asbestos rules? (What *are* EU asbestos rules?)
JJ, there are very nasty substances called blue and brown asbestos, which have been banned for decades in most civilised countries, the dust from these is pretty lethal.
Then there is a completely different substance called white asbestos, which merely happens to have a similar name and which is nigh on harmless (especially if it's under a coat of paint or inside concrete, it's no worse than chalk dust), and the EU wants people to spend a fortune removing it.
Or more to the point, "asbestos removal companies" want the EU to impose laws making people spend a fortune removing it.
Having talked to a Swiss railway engineer, I suspect the pettiness and obstruction we get now is nothing to what we would get if we left and the Swiss have never been in the EU, so the eurocrats are simply being difficult, not trying to punish them as well.
I suspect we made up the "asbestos stuff" (by which I presume you mean the "you are in danger from the white asbestos on your roof" crap).
Exactly, people who say the UK would not survive outside the EU can never explain to me why Norway (twelfth of the UK pop) and Switzerland (eighth of the UK pop) haven't joined.
The UK has excellent links with the US (75% of the EU pop excl UK) and Australia (third of the UK pop) seems to be doing quite well trading with the rest of the world too.
Canada pissed off the EU in 2009 (gypsies kept applying for asylum) but the EU still hasn't decided what to do, if anything.
B, Switzerland is a small, landlocked country in the middle of the EU, we aren't. Half our trade is with EU member states, but ALL of their physical trade had to go via an EU member state.
J, as far as the EU-philes care, Norway and Switzerland don't exist, they don't appear on maps, and you can't use them as examples in an argument. You might as well argue that Narnia is not in the EU for all the good it does you.
Ha. Couldn't have pissed them off that much! Canada has been increasing its free trade links with the EU over the last few years. Most recent one I'm aware of was an "open skies" agreement which has resulted in more slots for KLM and Lufthansa among others.
Canada wants to increase free trade worldwide because it has its own issues with the NAFTA agreement. Ie it's not good when your major trade partner is 10 times bigger than you are.
The EU is a very bad thing for Britain primarily because of the fringe location of the country and the consequent nature of its trading pattern. EU membership is one reason why the west and north of the country is suffering from chronic economic problems, since they can no longer exploit the competitive advantage of their proximity to ports trading with the rest of the world.
On the other hand the EU is a good thing for Britons who want to enjoy the work opportunities and other advantages of living on mainland Europe. I am not complaining.
Single market <> free trade.
Single market means light bulbs in UK and Germany are the same.
Free trade means UK manufacturers can sell German-tyle bulbs to Germans, and Germans can sell UK-style bulbs to Brits.
We need free trade; the single market is only beneficial if the burden from the regulations that ensure it is less than the efficiency you gain by it.
Ph, on a personal level, this free movement has to be a good thing - English brickies in Germany in the 1980s, Polish plumbers over here in the 2000s. I like being able to go wherever I like to work or on holiday.
But we had all this thirty years ago as soon as we joined the Common Market, there was no need for most of the crap that came afterwards. And free movement can be achieved by mutual or multilateral agreements, there's no need to set up a quasi central government.
AC, well put. As it happens, the Germans use 50 Hz 220 volts, so most electrical stuff is interchangeable anyway (not sure about televisions).
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