If there was a referendum on Europe....

Any referendum will be pre-determined by those who manipulate the newspaper reading classes.
If you consider the rubbish and lies they use to stir up resentment against the Human Rights Act, it's pretty easy to guess which way it would go.

"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"
What country can British people go to where they can earn £800-£1000 a week for working in a supermarket or factory or picking vegetables? There's no incentive for normal British people to work abroad.

ivykaty, to answer your question, and also address flatpackhamster's reply to my earlier posting:

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.

An example: Honda makes cars in the U.K. Some of those cars are sold in the U.K. Most are sold elsewhere in the EU Those cars are not going to be sold to India or China because it is too expensive to ship the cars to India or China. Even ignoring the shipping costs, India and China have very restrictive trade barriers - massive tax on imported cars. Any car manufacturer selling mass market cars is expected to set up manufacturing in India or China, at least as to 70-80% of production. 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.

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. 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.

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. The two points that need to be said on this (which I touched on in my earlier posts) are:

(1) TAX CREDITS

(i) Pro-migrants say migrants come to work, not get benefits - they aren't able to just come here and claim unemployment
(ii) Anti-migrants say migrants come to get benefits
BOTH SIDES ARE RIGHT IN WHAT THEY ARE SAYING

Migrants do work, but the crazy tax credits system means that if you work your income will be topped up very significantly. So the migrants are doing work, but they are also getting tax credit, which is technically not benefits, but makes them much better off. And of course, there aren't that many British people to do the work because lots of them are better off only doing 16 or 20 or 30 hours because anything more is effectively taxed at 100% as they lose an equal amount of tax credits.

Tax credits are a really bad idea for many other reasons, but the point is that low paid, low skilled migration, not just from the EU, but from elsewhere as well, started after tax credits were introduced. Tax credits were a Labour Party "bribe" to their core voters. The rest of us are paying the price (except for the betting shops who are taking in plenty of money as a result of them).

(2) IMMIGRATION FROM OUTSIDE THE EU

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.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign-born_population_of_the_United_Kingdom#Countries_of_origin

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.

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.

AtoZandbackagain
The problem for the UK is that the EU is forging ahead with it's primary aim of 'ever closer union' which ultimately means one country called Europe with one currency, the Euro, one European Government, flag, anthem etc etc etc.

Esperanto speakers also have a flag and an anthem. Maybe they're out to get us too?

@Ivykaty. Your second question was about cars yes? I thought I answered that.

I cannot see why the EU would let us cherry pick the parts we like and not comply with the parts we don't. It would just send totally the wrong signals to the other 26 member states who would then want to be able to cherry pick their rules.

The problem I see is that the 'no' voters will vote that way because of two reasons:

1. They think UK has enough immigrants and it should stop.
2. That we spend billions and all we get in return are complex stifling rules.

What I fear they won't consider is that as members of the EU we actually benefit massively from free trade with other EU members and that in reality most of the rules we'd have anyway. There may be a nip & tuck here & there but at the end of the day we won't simply scrap every EU directive.

I would definately vote OUT. 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.

lunar1
I have never voted for any of our representatives in the eu. ... I've never had a ballot paper for one, should I have?

Are you a British or EU citizen resident in the UK? If so, then yes.
See www.europarl.org.uk/view/en/european_elections_in_the_uk.html
and www.europarl.org.uk/view/en/european_elections_in_the_uk/Can_I_Vote.html

My expectation is that the Scottish referendum will be 'stay in' and so will the EU one - although it does depend on exactly what negotiations yield and how the eurozone is going.

The eurozone - if it doesn't disintegrate - needs to integrate further which means that non-euro countries will inevitably be on a different footing. There have to be negotiations about the relationships with an increasingly federal eurozone.

alemci
Is it just us who are allowing the Romanians and Bulgarians free movement into the UK.

Not true: ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=508&langId=en

No widow never! I've never had a ballot paper for one, should I have?

Does anyone know whether DCs promise a referendum is legally binding on the Tories winning the next election

lunar "be a democracy, yet I am 32 and have never voted on any of the decisions made by the eu. I have never voted for any of our representatives in the eu. How does that fit with democracy?"

Why do you not vote in European elections?

As it stands today I would vote out. We are supposed to be a democracy, yet I am 32 and have never voted on any of the decisions made by the eu. I have never voted for any of our representatives in the eu. How does that fit with democracy?

I also see people fighting for jobs, how will it help the people in the uk today when the floodgates are opened at the end of the year?

I don't see why it has to be 'in or out'. It would be good if there was a shake-up of the EU. I call it the Hokey-Cokey option.

I totally agree Fraction. Is it just us who are allowing the Romanians and Bulgarians free movement into the UK.

It is a crazy state of affairs when we have high unemployment and are trying to reduce the deficit.

roastchicken

If the EU is a backwater what is Britain? Europe is a more important trading partner to the UK than vice versa.

This year, maybe. In 10 years time, the money will be flowing east to China. In 20, Brazil and 30 India.

If Britain quits, will the EU really give it preferential status e.g. on the bits that Cameron likes? Or are they likely to treat it as an insular pariah that they wouldn't give the time of day to?

Given the devastating impact of the trade wars over the next decade, I suspect that the EU (read Germany) will be grateful for all the trade it can get. Since Germany pays for the social welfare programs of the idler nations to its south, they'll have to put up or shut up.

roastchicken

Oblomov - you're totally right and the Evening Standard's business columnist has made the same point. Britain tends to apply all laws to the letter, and complain about them, whilst the French ignore those they disagree with. A bit more pragmatism would go a long way.

So you think we should actively ignore the laws our Parliament has ratified?

Does that make us 'good Europeans', like the French?

If the EU is a backwater what is Britain? Europe is a more important trading partner to the UK than vice versa.

If Britain quits, will the EU really give it preferential status e.g. on the bits that Cameron likes? Or are they likely to treat it as an insular pariah that they wouldn't give the time of day to?

In. We are Europeans, or nothing, in the future. Just a small, cold set of islands who don't grasp the significance of a large set of other peoples who we trade with and benefit from.

Cameron is scared by UKIP. Doesn't mean the rest of us have to be.

Thank you both for answering the first question, niceguy I really wanted an answer to the second question as well?

retrorobot - sorry but I want to know why we don't look for other trade outside the EU, you have told me figures of what we do trade etc (I got the 10% form this thread somewhere further back and sorry I don't know where or who said it - but it obviously stuck in my head!)but not why we wouldn't look for more trade outside the EU, there is trade to be had as both the countries I know are going to grow and will look to import - so why don't we look to do that importing?

I am not picking by the way I do want to know, having trouble picking through the mess of literature that is out there.

The other thing that really worries me is stopping from being a democracy, as we just don't get to vote on EU, just our own country elections

Oblomov - you're totally right and the Evening Standard's business columnist has made the same point. Britain tends to apply all laws to the letter, and complain about them, whilst the French ignore those they disagree with. A bit more pragmatism would go a long way.

retrorobot

ivykaty44: International banks are in London because:

- Under EU financial services rules a bank in London can lend to a business borrower anywhere in the EU or an investment manager in London can have as clients companies anywhere in the EU. This is under EU rules on freedom to provide services. If the U.K. leaves the EU then those rules will no longer apply. International banks are going to establish their European HQs in the EU instead - I expect some will go to Paris, some to Dublin, some maybe somewhere else.

The banks were in London before the EU decided to meddle in the financial services sector. They won't budge. There's a cachet about London which - despite its best efforts - Paris simply doesn't have.

- The EU rules on free movement of workers mean that they can easily employ in London people from any EU country. Most non-admin staff in international banks in London are not from the U.K. Unfortunately, because of the poor education system / general laziness, non enough British people can speak French/German/Italian etc. with sufficient fluency and not enough of them have the educational standards to do the complex work, never mind work the long hours involved.

Of course, what's often ignored by the pro-EU lot is that if the UK left the EU, people wouldn't suddenly stop being allowed to work here. So even if we pretend (in an imaginary world) that the standard of graduates is so poor in the UK that banks can't find the skilled, multi-language-speaking graduates they need, EU workers could still come here.

It's just that we could pick and choose who came, instead of (as of next year) receiving a million unskilled Romanians and Bulgarians.

ivykaty44: 90% of the U.K.'s trade is not outside the EU. That figure is generated by the anti-EU bunch saying 80% of U.K. trade is internal, e.g. you buy a piece of beef that is the product of a bullock raised and butchered in the U.K. But foreign trade is vital.

Yes, and the world is rather bigger than the provincials in Brussels would have you believe.

Roughly half of the U.K.'s exports go to other EU countries. A bit more of the U.K.'s imports come from other EU countries. China and India are much less important - in 2011 the U.K. exported more to Belgium alone than it did to China and India put together.

And in 30 years time, the EU will comprise 10% of the global economy rather than 20%. It's a backwater, and we shouldn't be shackling ourselves to this crippled, cumbersome superstate.

The anti-EU bunch will say the U.K. imports more from the rest of the EU than it exports, so it is better off without that trade.

That isn't what they say at all. Excellent strawman, though.

I do still believe that because we have been in the EU so long, we are so inter-twined that it is almost impossible for us to leave.
I just can't see us being able to leave. Even if we wanted to.
I resent the power we have lost, to the EU. The making of laws and dominating us so much. But then thats is our nature. We are so British. We abide by the laws, yes sir, no sir. It would appear that the french are much more selective about what they abide to.
Or is that just my misconception?

I think we will never get a referendum.
I need to see hard facts and figures about he EU. But I fear I will never be given them.
I know you are all going to HATE the fact that I am about to do a Daily Mail link, but has anyone ever read the Christopher Booker (who also writes for the Telegraph) book on the EU? Does he have any valid points? I supect he has.
He implies that we have ben tricked into what was the Common Market, into he EU, into what was always intended to be a Superstate, leaving us with minimal power.
EU