If there was a referendum on Europe....

Of course, being outside the EU, we wouldn't be governed by EU rules and thus only those businesses affected by EU regs would have to obey them, whereas those involved in the domestic or non-EU markets would not.

XiaoXiong's post drifts over the salient point that the UK's services market is far larger than the manufacturing one, employs far more people, generates far more revenue and can quite easily run the entirety of its business without once being involved in an EU market. Yet those businesses are still required to kowtow to the mandarins in Brussels.

Thanks, that's helpful! Another piece in the decisionmaking jigsaw.

legalalien - I will answer your queries solely based on my own area - different areas (eg. financial services regulation) will obviously often be different. But what I do impacts so much on the trade side of things that it is very pertinent to anyone who says things like "I want to pull back from the free movement side of the EU but the free trade side is important and we should keep it". Turning to your queries:

(a) would we would be in the same position as other non-eu countries who export into the eu. Are carve outs ever negotiated as part of free trade agreements?

Yes we would, and companies from those non-EU countries pay us a lot of money to advise them how to comply with EU regulations in order to place their goods on the market. Obviously at the moment that means they only need to go through one regulatory exercise with EU compliance. But if we left the EU they would need to go through a separate exercise for the UK market. It's likely that unless the UK kept their regulatory requirements identical to the EU ones after a split, many non-UK manufacturers would not bother making products that complied solely with UK requirements as we wouldn't be a big enough market to make it worth their while.

I've never seen a jurisdiction based carve-out for any of the product regulatory stuff I work with. CE marking, for instance, is non-negotiable for many products regardless of where they come from. However there are sometimes carve-outs for very small volume and extremely specialist products in the legislation itself. Free trade agreements have no interaction with this type of legislation and tend to be concerned more about import duties and other forms of financial barriers rather than regulatory barriers.

If you were the EU would you sign a free trade agreement with the newly non-EU UK means they are allowed to put twice as much lead in a toy as manufacturers from everywhere else in the world, and still sell it legally in the EU? Of course not. But that just means then that if UK regulations diverge from EU ones, the UK loses access to EU markets and it then is up to companies to try and comply with no ability to rely on their elected representatives to represent their interests when the regulations are drawn up.

(B) uk only requirements would apply to firms serving a domestic only market - presumably there are a fair few companies who don't aim to export and (c) exports to non- eu countries would continue, as is currently the case, depend on regs in those countries, so that a uk business exporting globally already has a range of regulatory requirements to meet?

I have never worked with a UK manufacturer who manufactured entirely in the UK, sold entirely in the domestic market and whose raw materials and end-of-life processes (recycling/reuse etc) were all entirely in the UK. I can't think of any off the top of my head. The EU is just so much closer geographically that for example a number of our clients based in the South East send their waste to Belgium for reprocessing as it's in fact geographically and logistically closer to their site of operations than anything in the UK. Remember that producer responsibility doesn't start and end with the factory it's built in - it extends all the way up the chain to the raw materials and there are also end-of-life duties for take-back and recycling.

I guess UK businesses could turn their backs entirely on the EU and export only to North Africa, the Middle East, America, South America etc as they do already as you note correctly. But often for our clients the increased costs of transportation to those markets are usually offset by their sales in the EU which have far less cost of transport to get a product onto the market. So you would be left with the really expensive exports to potentially higher risk low priced markets, and without access to a huge, higher priced and lower risk market right on your doorstep to set off against that cost. For some this would be a good business proposition I suppose - for many, it will be a huge blow.

Also, are the bulk of the regulations out-put based (i.e relating tomthe end product) or input-based (relating to things like sustainability, how the business is run etc).

Impossible to say: the input based regulations - eg. requiring that wood used to make a toy comes from a sustainable source and isn't cut from the Amazon - obviously become output based because if you then try to sell a product made from non-compliant raw materials, it cannot be sold on the common market. But there isn't a single phase of a product design cycle and supply chain that isn't regulated in some way. Any deviation between the UK rules and the rest of the EU and the entire market would be closed off for us.

And AIFM is the tip of the iceberg. But because ofnthe post financial crisis vitriol against "bankers" i doubt people will take an unemotive stance to the issue of european financial services regulation.

This 2011 paper by Open Europe is worth a read if anyone is interested.

www.openeurope.org.uk/Content/Documents/PDFs/continentalshift.pdf

Yep, someone up thread said Europe is a club. Tis is most Definately my experience and I have been working with an organisation in Brussels that brings together representatives from all the member states.

We try our best to join in but we can't quite get there. We seem to always be tagging along on the edge. And then I find when I get back to my UK office it is a battle to implement processes and ideas that will help us to align more because we have our own ideas and we struggle with changing.

I am piggy in the middle.

We either need to be part of Europe and our government need to align polices and legislation or go our own way. No more of this fannying around.

EU membership costs UK billions of pounds and large numbers of lost jobs thanks to unnecessary and excessive red tape, substantial membership and aid contributions, inflated consumer prices and other associated costs.

Britain will lose more jobs when such Directives as the EU?s Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive comes into effect. This is already causing hedge fund and private equity markets to migrate elsewhere, doing substantial harm to financial services, responsible for 12% of the British economy and 15% of income tax receipts.

The Common Fisheries Policy has cost British coastal communities 115,000 jobs since we joined. Ted Heath, really did sell our thriving fidhing industry down the river when he gave up our fishing rights as a condition of joining, something along with much else that we were not told about when we were given the only vote we've ever been allowed. Though many of us, me included, voted No as it was obvious even then in the Treaty of Rome that the ultimate aim was a federal Europe.

Dromedary

Some of you are obviously more trusting in our democracy than I am. Look at who we are ruled by at the moment, and the huge mess they are making of it. They don't have a mandate for most of their policies - they make a few promises, some of which they subsequently happily break, get into power and then go about wreaking havoc. At least at the moment we can rely on our EU rights, eg not to be discriminated against because of gender, to have time off for maternity, to have paid holiday leave, etc. How long are those going to last once we are out of the EU?

I'm not sure I like the argument of "I'd rather live in a dictatorship which suited my political persuasion than a democracy which doesn't." It's a short step from that argument to arresting journalists and gulags.

Yes, dromedary, i am. Probably because i grew up in a democracy which affords social rights absent the oversight of a body such as the eu. I think that the detail of matters such as amounts of paid leave should be determined nationally based on national conditions.

And for the record, let's not forget that the european court of human rights is a creature of the council of europe, not the eu. Coming out of the eu wouldn't affect the convention or echr, although it would be less entrenched in that presumably the overlapping jurisdiction of the european court of justice would fall away.

Xiaoxiong this is not my area, but am i right to think that as a "third country" (a) we would be in the same position as other non-eu countries who export into the eu. Are carve outs ever negotiated as part of free trade agreements? (B) uk only requirements would apply to firms serving a domestic only market - presumably there are a fair few companies who don't aim to export and (c) exports to non- eu countries would continue, as is currently the case, depend on regs in those countries, so that a uk business exporting globally already has a range of regulatory requirements to meet?

Also, are the bulk of the regulations out-put based (i.e relating tomthe end product) or input-based (relating to things like sustainability, how the business is run etc). I'd be interested to know.

Some of you are obviously more trusting in our democracy than I am. Look at who we are ruled by at the moment, and the huge mess they are making of it. They don't have a mandate for most of their policies - they make a few promises, some of which they subsequently happily break, get into power and then go about wreaking havoc. At least at the moment we can rely on our EU rights, eg not to be discriminated against because of gender, to have time off for maternity, to have paid holiday leave, etc. How long are those going to last once we are out of the EU?

I don't think it's right to say a lot of this legislation on environment, h&s etc wouldn't exist without the EU. It's mainly that the common standards across the EU massively reduces regulatory burdens on entities that need to comply with that legislation in order to carry out their normal course of business. In addition being within the EU means we get a say in that legislation as we will have to comply with it whether or not we are an EU MS if we want to keep the trade aspect going.

"Health and safety legislation wouldn't exist if it weren't for the EU". Err - apart from the fact that the uk had health and safety legislation prior to relevant Eu legislation, and that lots of independent countries have similar legislation? It might not be identical to eu legislation, but that's not quite the same thing....

Harriet35

Yes indeed, and it's completely wrong to identify an anti-EU stance as a right wing position. It's neither right nor left in itself. Nor is it in itself xenophobic.

It's nothing to do with whether you want a more redistributive taxation policy, nothing to do with whether you like the Itailans or French. It's very much to do with who you thing should govern us. Our own elected MPs or Brussels.

The British post war government which had the EU (in its previous nascent state as the European Coal and Steel Community) best sussed out was Atlee's postwar Labour government. There's a long list of old Labour types who were around at that time who had a principled anti Common Market/ EU stance: Ernest Bevin, Douglas Jay, Hugh Gaitskell, Michael Foot, Peter Shore, Tony Benn etc.

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/nov/17/eu-referendum-poll

Most Labour voters would vote to leave. So why is the Labour party so pro-EU? Are they so out of touch with their voters? There's a massive gap between the Metropolitan elite who lead the party and the working-class people who vote for them. Sooner or later this is going to come to a sticky end and their vote will collapse.

Venus

"And what ever would the farmers do without their CAP? The net gain counties such as Kent would be totally ^%#ed, and the rest of us would have to bail them out. "

Where do you imagine that all this CAP money to subsidise the farmers came from originally? Grew on trees somewhere in Provence perhaps?

This is our money. We are heavy net contributors to the EU. If we left then we would, if we wished, subsidise our farmers by the same as they get at the moment and we would still be in profit. Except that we would then be able to determine our own agricultural policies.

As far as fishing is concerned, we would be absolutely free to set our own quotas, and require that any catch must be landed in the UK. We could allow foreign fishing boats in under license, or not, depending on our interests and issues of marine conservation. No more of this nonsense about throwing dead over-quota fish overboard. As a sovereign nation our fishing grounds would be ours again and extend 200 miles from the shore, or to the midpoint between us and any neighbouring country.

The Tories did actually have an excellent, detailed and well thought out fishing policy, involving taking back control of our fisheries, though it was dropped by Michael Howard.

Re jackboots: I think you are confusing UKIP, the nearest thing we have to a small-state libertarian party, with the National Socialists (NAZI = National Socialist German Workers' Party) which were in favour of a unified Europe under central control and state planning.

I would vote IN btw

Really cynical move by Cameron to avoid losing votes to UKIP.

"There's no incentive for unskilled and uneducated British people to go abroad because the tax credits system in the U.K. gives them so much. Get rid of tax credits and British people will have to take cleaning jobs rather than sit at home and watch Trisha."

The people in cleaning jobs are usually on tax credits because their wages are too low to live on. Get rid of tax credits and watch people go hungry.

I'm all for staying in the EU.
And I agree with Xiaoxioing, if we leave business becomes bogged down in compliance checking.
What business can afford such time and money to check every shipment of goods?
We would end up with a small, no, tiny domestic market, as the economy shrank and then shrinks some more.

And what ever would the farmers do without their CAP? The net gain counties such as Kent would be totally ^%#ed, and the rest of us would have to bail them out.

We would still have to comply with fishing quotas, and these would be rigorously enforced by the EUs vessels, and it would be just such a headache to transport any goods and services.

There is a lot of misunderstanding about how beneficial the EU has been, especially in environmental and labour law, to everyone within its borders, as it runs so seamlessly. I doubt any country would have been able to do as much for their populace as individual states as pollution knows no boundaries, and the will sometimes isn't there for long term planning and enforcement.

Statutory paid maternity leave, with the promise of being employed afterwards has helped women return to the workforce after having babies, and health and safety legislation wouldn't exist if it weren't for the EU. How can we, as women who have benefited from these laws vote to have an unregulated and precarious situation again, like they have in the US and elsewhere- no guarantees, and a few weeks maternity leave.

A lot of people are reading the tabloids and soaking up their xenophobic bile as gospel, that is if they aren't swallowing some crackpot conspiracy theory. UKIP are polishing up their jackboots in glee.

I think Cameron has put his foot in it, and has had his hand forced to make good on an ill advised election promise (one he made to appear harder than UKIP) I think this will backfire on him, as it will alienate any reasonable person who may be induced to vote for him again (if there is anyone left in that category...)

Time to recognise that we have a lot to offer the EU, and that by cutting ourselves out, we will be out in the expensive and much reduced cold. Economically it would be suicide.

This is one of those debates where greater knowledge does not allow one to come to a better conclusion. It is an area where so called "expertise" has very little meaning.

Nassim Taleb:

"Not all experts deserve the title

Taleb also questions the authority of experts, asserting that the truth behind science is limited to certain areas and methods. In many areas having an academic degree and presenting oneself as a scientist is irrelevant. Indeed, authority can stifle empirical experience which, so many times, has proven to have a sounder basis for accuracy."

All the "expert" bankers and CEOs thought the greatest threat in 1999 was the "Millennium bug". None of them considered the massive overvaluation of tech stocks and the resulting misallocation of resources as a meaningful threat to global prosperity. In 2007 all the banking CEOs considered the greatest threat to be the lack of trading volatility and investment opportunities to be the most important threat. None seriously considered the overvaluation and fraud implicit in the securitisation of real estate assets.

Thus, take with a HUGE pinch of salt what CEOs and other experts tell you about the risks of leaving Europe. None have substantially more of a clue than you or me. Ultimately the best basis to decide this kind of question is political rather than economic. Normally when nation states have a good idea of who they are and are united in that view, economic prosperity follows.

Harriet35 - i assume you've never been to Luxembourg, pretty much everyone working in the banking industry isn't a Luxembourger! there's a huge British and Irish community, as well as large numbers of Germans and French working there. DH worked there for years. Then he worked for a multinational in Germany, they had so many British staff in their Dusseldorf office they made the official work language English and every local wanting to work there had to accept every formal meeting would be conducted in English (and no, the parent company wasn't British or American).

There's a lot of things currently wrong with the EU and the benefits shouldn't be a reason not to look at the current set up and try to improve it for us, but just because we've are more likely to see the down sides doesn't mean there aren't upsides. There's a good case that at the moment the balance might have tipped towards more downsides than upsides, but that's an argument for improving our relationship with the EU, not scrapping it.

retrorobot

The talk of the U.K. focusing on its trading relationship with China and India rather than on the EU is based on a wholly simplistic understanding of how international trade works.

These countries have the clout to do that and the U.K.'s negotiating position against such one-sided trade barriers will be a lot less when it is on its own rather than part of the EU.

What a simplistic understanding you seem to have.

What's the guarantee that the EU's negotiating position will be in the UK's national interest? Not much point in having a strong negotiating position to sell X to China if we're going to be undercut by a multinational whose head office is in Luxembourg and whose factory has moved to Slovakia.

As it stands the UK has no right to negotiate unilaterally with another country. Any and all trade agreements must be carried out by the EU.

Most companies manufacturing in the U.K. are manufacturing for a world market but the U.K. is not their only or their main manufacturing base.

Remarkable claim.

Companies aren't in the position of saying that rather than sell widgets to businesses in other EU countries they'll sell them to businesses in India and China - companies would like to sell the widgets everywhere - as many as possible.

That's quite a tower of cards you're building here.

In any case, as I said in an earlier post, the free trade argument is a bit of a distraction, because a lot of the anti-EU views are based on antipathy towards immigrants from other EU countries who come to the U.K.

What a lovely way to dismiss the people who disagree with you. Their views on trade don't matter because they're just a bunch of darkie-hating plebs.

Between 2000 and 2011 the number of people in the U.K. born in the Indian sub-continent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan) increased by over 550,000. That's at least 50,000 people a year over 11 years (the figure is likely larger as it assumes that everyone from those countries in the U.K. in 2000 is still alive and in the U.K. in 2011). Maybe the U.K. should focus on stopping that migration, which it can do easily.

2/3 of the migration was from EU nations. I don't disagree that the Labour government should have stopped that migration, and we now know that it didn't solely so that it could boost votes for the Labour party - a vicious act of cynical manipulation which, even given Labour's extraordinary record of wickedness and mendacity, is hard to beat.

One thing to remember is that right now any British person going to another EU country has the same rights as someone coming to the U.K. For example, there are now proportionately more British people in Ireland than there are Irish people in the U.K. However, if you as a British person try to move to India or China you will not find it so easy. For example, you won't be able to buy a house without being a citizen and it will be virtually impossible for you to get citizenship.

That would work fine, if the living conditions and job markets were the same across the EU. They aren't. That means that your level playing field really isn't anything of the sort. How many British workers are going to head to Poland? Far fewer than have come the other way.

Further, because English is the global lingua franca, we in the UK are in the unique position of being the likely recipient of migrants from every nation. How many Spaniards learn Polish? How many Czechs learn Swedish? But everyone learns English.

Do you really think that British people have more in common with Indians and Chinese than they do with people from other EU countries. DH is from Malta. The WHOLE of Malta was awarded the George Cross during the Second World War in the words of King George VI: "to bear witness to a heroism and devotion that will long be famous in history". I would remind you that Singapore and Hong Kong fell to the Japanese but even while the Maltese lived on a quarter of the U.K. rations they did not surrender. My children go to school with the grandchildren of Polish men who flew with the RAF during the Battle of Britain. Britain has friends in the EU if it knows where to look for them.

It's perfectly possible to be friends with a country without being ruled by Brussels. Stop trying to conflate Europe and the EU. It's a lazy trick that all Europhiles try.

Harriet35
There's no incentive for normal British people to work abroad.

"711,151 UK citizens were living in other EU countries in 2011, says Eurostat."
(www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20448450)

Some go to work in other EU countries, others to study or to spend their retirement. It's not clear that these opportunities would remain open to us if we left the EU. I think these freedoms are a good thing for British citizens, and it's only reasonable that they should be based on a measure of reciprocity.

retrorobot

I think you may be slightly overestimating the effect of tax credits on the whole migration issue.

Harriet35: Who are "normal British people". The unskilled and uneducated?

• Many hundreds of thousands of British people are living and working elsewhere in the EU and have been for years. You don't know them because you're in the U.K. and, I'm guessing, don't work in a globalised industry.

• There's no incentive for unskilled and uneducated British people to go abroad because the tax credits system in the U.K. gives them so much. Get rid of tax credits and British people will have to take cleaning jobs rather than sit at home and watch Trisha.

Harriet35

I think Labour are massively out of touch with their voters on the issue of Europe. The majority of their voters want to leave Europe but aren't prepared to vote Tory because of it. But some people will be.

All three main parties were committed to continued British membership of the EU at the last election, and between them they had the overwhelming support of the electorate at the ballot box. This has been the case for decades; parties that have promised an EU exit in their manifestos (UKIP, BNP) were and still are fringe parties. So it's not entirely true that we've never had any say on EU membership, even though it seems that way to many people.

I do think that the EU has a democratic legitimacy problem, but that has more to do with the fact that hardly anybody takes part in European elections or shows an interest in European politics, most people don't know anything about European institutions, EU political processes are intransparent and European politics is ignored and goes unscrutinised by the media. This creates an environment where bad decision-making and corruption can go unchecked, and politicians can blame the EU for their own failings (which isn't to say that the EU doesn't have failings).

I think the solution is to reform EU institutions and promote better understanding and scrutiny of them, and not to hold constant pointless referendums about every EU treaty as some people seem to think.

A straight in-out referendum might be a positive thing if it leads to a proper informed debate about the EU, and Britain's role in Europe (and the world); and if it acts as a catalyst for reform.

But I do think that Cameron has promised the referendum for party-political reasons: He sees UKIP as a threat to his hopes of winning a majority at the next election, and the referendum promise as a way of warding it off. It's pretty sordid to gamble with the UKs future for reasons of electoral tactics.

I would vote out, but that is just because I like change, change is good.