someone best mention it

[cashman]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

The French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has said that if Britain wants to leave the EU, they will get out the red carpet for us.

Hope thats remembered next time they want liberating.

[accyman]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

.Maybe Graham Jones will come on here and tell us sometime.

so that will be about 2-3 weeks before he or one of his underlings at HBC needs your vote then

[Margaret Pilkington]

Well....you lot can call me a cynic, but I don't believe a word that comes out of the mouth of DC.
A lot can happen in four years. He could lose the election...which would nullify these promises.
I think all this is just a ploy to kick Ukip down the street a block or three.

If Ukip do become seriously threatening and won enough seats at the next election, they would align themselves to the Labour party.....and we would have another 'hobbled' coalition government where the two parties pull in different directions.
Ukip would never align themselves to the Tory Party........so I reckon this talk of us having a say is just a myth...like the bogeyman in the dark, under the stairs.

In the next four years there will be concerted efforts to convince the British electorate (by fair means or foul) that we could not survive without the EU...and we'll be bamboozled again.
GET US OUT NOW! Let's stop giving our money away to people who spend it foolishly(and cannot tell us where it has gone), and let's spend on the infrastructure of our towns and cities to make them decent places to be.

[gynn]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

If Ukip do become seriously threatening and won enough seats at the next election, they would align themselves to the Labour party.....and we would have another 'hobbled' coalition government where the two parties pull in different directions.

Surely Cameron's move has effectively blown UKIP out of the water. Therir popularity is based on people wanting an IN/OUT referendum. If the Conservatives are now promising that, it will bring back most of the wavering Tory voters who had switched to UKIP?

But what are these 'concessions' that Cameron wants to renegotiate before going for a referendum? Presumably he'll be arguing that the concessions should apply to ALL countries rather than just Britain, because why should Britain be considered a special case? And what if the other countries don't want them? Answer: he won't get them. And he'll be forced to hold an IN/OUT referendum which he has promised, and which will produce an OUT vote. Then what?

To extend the analogy of the French foreign minister, Britain will be like a player joining a football club and asking to play rugby - then asking for a transfer, but being left to rot in the reserves because he's signed a lifetime contract.....

....or being allowed to leave on condition he buys himself out of the contract which will cripple himself financially for life!

[MargaretR]

Ted Heath took us in and evidence is emerging that he was blackmailed into doing it.

[Margaret Pilkington]

If DC thinks he can renegotiate Britains position he is deluded.
As for kicking Ukip into touch by promising an IN/OUT referendum.....a promise by a politician is very tenuous...not to be trusted........I am pretty sure that I am not the only person who would want to see it first ( give us the referendum.....then you'll get my vote).
We all know that we are promised the bread of heaven to get us to vote.......and once the X has been placed we get the mouldy old supermarket stuff.
As for your football player analogy....that is exactly what the politicians want us to believe.
I would liken being in the EU to being in an abusive marriage.......while you are in it, your partner tells you that you are worthless and will amount to nothing without them.......you break away, and YES, it is hard for a while, but you get your confidence back and wonder why you stayed all that time, investing the partnership at the cost of your 'self' and sanity.

They need us much more than we need them.
The fact that Angela Merkel says she is willing to consider DC's proposals goes someway to underline this.(but again, she is a politician and it could just be bluff).

[cashman]

Originally Posted by gynn

Surely Cameron's move has effectively blown UKIP out of the water. Therir popularity is based on people wanting an IN/OUT referendum. If the Conservatives are now promising that, it will bring back most of the wavering Tory voters who had switched to UKIP?

Doubt that very much gynn, though that was probably his intention.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

A YouGov survey reckons that more people want to stay in the EU.
What I want to know is....who did they ask?

They didn't ask Accywebers thats for sure

[Margaret Pilkington]

I don't know who they asked...certainly not me!

[g jones]

Originally Posted by accyman

dont get over excited but cameron says we are going to get a referendum on the EU

i reakon this prommise is about as meaningless as graham jones's prommise to vote in favour of a referendum on the EU and simply a desperate effort to win some voters because he knows him and clegg are up the creek without a paddle and loosing votes to the likes of UKIP

mind you lying through his teeth got graham jones some extra votes so it may work for cameron

time will tell but expect many delays and many excuses along the way

I have not read back over what I wrote but what I said has occurred; anti EU views have swung to the right. Cameron has made clear he wanted repeal of the working hours directive, repeal workers rights and conditions, a clawing back of EU powers in fields of environment, social affairs and crime. He wants to remain in the single market. Wholly unacceptable.

The repeal of the EU arrest warrant for example would have left 39 pedophiles free to offend, British courts unable to convict them as they did.

Cameron's has finally and openly said in effect his EU referendum is a policy to undermine workers pay and conditions and their families. To make the labour market 'more flexible'. I made this point consistently then and suggested then it was changing my view and losing support on the left. Jobs and growth are the priority and most business leaders have stated, a referendum will undermine that objective clouding the issue. I have to consider the views of businesses locally. Their view is pro EU on the whole as your would expect.

But the OUT divisions are not just Labour left and UKIP/Tory right. Even the right are divided on what OUT means.

It is fundamental that the case for OUT is explained in full.

However no-one can explain what OUT means. Norway often cited by many as a position Britain should adopt however it pays 80% of what British citizens pay and we would pay far more than 80% to be able to access the single market, without any say and with Britain's crucial banking at the mercy of Berlin and Paris.

Switzerland also pay and have to accept all single market EU rules (like Norway) but negotiate every single trade agreement separately. Red tape?

Some believe OUT is OUT with no trade with Europe, no single market. 50% of our export trade is currently with Europe employing 3million workers.

So no-one can agree on what OUT means. Or now what IN means with Cameron's intervention. Whether Britain will have to pay more for the SM with no say... The list of questions just goes on and on ...

I made these points last time.

Opinion polls are quickly shifting against OUT because of this. The EU skeptic right needs to quickly and thoughtfully explain what OUT will result in because otherwise my view will keep moving away towards a solid IN.

At the same time Euroskeptics have to recognise that Ed Miliband has targeted what are my concerns (and of the left - a necessary component of a successful out vote) for reform ... but within Europe.

On the final point about a referendum I have met with the people's pledge to listen closely to their points of view. The question is whether a referendum could offer Britain a better future.

What Labour voters may face in a referendum is Hobson's choice. OUT and the risk of losing of employment and economic damage or IN and a renegotiated relationship that attacks workers, the environment. As I made absolutely clear last time, in this scenario, why would a Labour MP wholeheartedly endorse a possible lose-lose referendum even if he was a Euroskeptic? To not have a referendum, as disappointing as that may be would be the best option for business and workers.

[davebtelford]

Originally Posted by g jones

Jobs and growth are the priority and most business leaders have stated, a referendum will undermine that objective clouding the issue.

What evidence is there for this? Digby Jones stated that UK businesses aren't much bothered one way or the other.

[Less]

Originally Posted by g jones

I have not read back over what I wrote but what I said has occurred; anti EU views haveswung to the right. Cameron has made clear he wanted repeal of the working hours directive, repeal workers rights and conditions, a clawing back of EU powers in fields of environment, social affairs and crime. He wants to remain in the single market. Wholly unacceptable.

The repeal of the EU arrest warrant for example would have left 39 pedophiles free to offend, British courts unable to convict them as they did.

Cameron's has finally and openly said in effect his EU referendum is a policy to undermine workers pay and conditions and their families. To make the labour market 'more flexible'. I made this point consistently then and suggested then it was changing my view and losing support on the left. Jobs and growth are the priority and most business leaders have stated, a referendum will undermine that objective clouding the issue. I have to consider the views of businesses locally. Their view is pro EU on the whole as your would expect.

But the OUT divisions are not just Labour left and UKIP/Tory right. Even the right are divided on what OUT means.

It is fundamental that the case for OUT is explained in full.

However no-one can explain what OUT means. Norway often cited by many as a position Britain should adopt however it pays 80% of what British citizens pay and we would pay far more than 80% to be able to access the single market, without any say and with Britain's crucial banking at the mercy of Berlin and Paris.

Switzerland also pay and have to accept all single market EU rules (like Norway) but negotiate every single trade agreement separately. Red tape?

Some believe OUT is OUT with no trade with Europe, no single market. 50% of our export trade is currently with Europe employing 3million workers.

So no-one can agree on what OUT means. Or now what IN means with Cameron's intervention. Whether Britain will have to pay more for the SM with no say... The list of questions just goes on and on ...

I made these points last time.

Opinion polls are quickly shifting against OUT because of this. The EU skeptic right needs to quickly and thoughtfully explain what OUT will result in because otherwise my view will keep moving away towards a solid IN.

At the same time Euroskeptics have to recognise that Ed Miliband has targeted what are my concerns (and of the left - a necessary component of a successful out vote) for reform ... but within Europe.

On the final point about a referendum I have met with the people's pledge to listen closely to their points of view. The question is whether a referendum could offer Britain a better future.

What Labour voters may face in a referendum is Hobson's choice. OUT and the risk of losing of employment and economic damage or IN and a renegotiated relationship that attacks workers, the environment. As I made absolutely clear last time, in this scenario, why would a Labour MP wholeheartedly endorse a possible lose-lose referendum even if he was a Euroskeptic? To not have a referendum, as disappointing as that may be would be the best option for business and workers.

Sorry. Graham, although I've quoted what you said, couldn't be bothered to read it, too much and too late.

[Margaret Pilkington]

There are many business heads and leaders who do not agree that a referendum will undermine business in the Uk...but what does undermine business and investment, is the uncertainty that the waiting for a referendum entails.
Who is to say that if we get an OUT vote at a referendum(that I, personally, doubt very much will happen) we won't be sent back (by the powers that be at the EU) to vote again, until we get the answer right.

By the time this referendum happens the country will be full to bursting with those from the eastern bloc countries and we will be well and truly stuffed(and I do not mean that in the derogatory sense).
YouGov polls suggest that some 40% of britons want to stay in the EU While 34%(I think it was) want to come out...the rest are sitting on the fence.
Any referendum should be held soon...we should not be waiting until 2017...this is just so that DC can fudge the issue still further. Or perhaps he is hoping that the austerity measures in the PIGS countries will bear fruit.

There is no accountability in the EU...no democracy....and this is anathema to the people of Britain.
I do not want political accord with Europe.......how can so many countries be served fairly by such a bloated organisation...the answer is...they can't!

[Margaret Pilkington]

and all the talk about businesses going down if we are not in the EU.......it is scare tactics, meant to scare the bejasus out of people who are unsiure about how to vote should this referendum happen...like when the European Common Market was sold to us way back in the seventies...we were told that it was an agreement for trade...nothing more. What a whole load of bullshine that was.
I wouldn't care if the Brits would play the same games as the French and the Germans, who seem to twist EU rules to their own ends...and ignore the ones that they don't like.
Bigger isn't better.......the USSR is proof of that.

[Eric]

I think that Graham has made a convincing argument, on primarily economic grounds, for staying in the EU. And I do find myself agreeing with his questioning of the government's motives. But what I see on here are folks who are concerned with more than just economics. It's a much broader based opposition. There are serious concerns about national identity, and the refusal of your government to listen to the legitimate concerns of the voters ... you know, those people who are angry at becoming invisible and, basically, a pain in the ass between elections. When Graham says "To not have a referendum [is] disappointing" he isn't coming close to understanding the anger of voters who feel they are being ignored. No, it's more than just a "feeling"; it's exactly what is happening.

By the way, just in case anyone is remotely interested, the view from this side of the pond is that Europe is an econimic basket case, and poses a major threat to economic recovery in North America.