To think Cameron did the right thing saying no in the latest EU vote as that he should go even further and get us out of the EU altogether?!

[runningwilde]

I have always been a Euro sceptic, never liked the idea of the Euro and think that places like Norway and Sweden were very sensible staying out of the EU. Although, of course, there are some very good arguments for being in the EU, I can't help but think we are better off out of it?

Would love to hear what others think about this. Aibu to think like this? Agree or disagree?!

LineRunnerCrouchingReindeer

We would not necessarily have to buy new passports specially if we were to leave the EU.

When we changed the British passports to European passports, we just received new ones when we renewed the old style passports.

FamilyGuyFun

We did not join the EC in 1975. We were already members of the EEC when we had a referendum in 1975 asking whether we should stay in it or leave it. The majority voted tio stay in the EEC. The EEC not EU. Gradually things have been chaged with no voting in favour or against.

My own opinion, and some will not like it, is that it looks as if Germany is managing to take over Europe in a different way from its last effort.

I would be happy just to trade with other European countries like Norway and Switzerland and cannot, for the life of me, see why we are gradually moving towards being ruled by another body of unknown people, losing our own national identity in the process.

By that logic MrsMagnolia, why bother allowing people to vote at all. After all, you don't think the population has the knowledge to make an informed choice...

The public generally does NOT have the information to make an informed choice. How many people bother to read a newspaper anymore, and I don't mean a red top? Watch the news from several sources? Search the web on relevant topics? There is so much bias in the media that unless you get your info from many sources you are just regurgitating someone else's opinion.

So you trust the likes of DC to decide for us? I sure as hell don't.

Mabel: you are of course correct. We joined in 1973 before Wilson held his referendum in 1975, but technically we joined the EC not the EEC. Certainly the EU is different to the EEC or the EC, I wouldn't argue over that.

MrsMagnolia sort of has a point. The EU has been its own worst enemy in many ways, but has also been subject to so much misinformation and, honestly, rubbish reporting, that the British public have in many instances no real idea what goes on in the EU. Trying to tell the electorate even the basic 'facts' is very tricky so having a referendum is also extremely difficult. Not impossible, but difficult.

CurlyBoy all you need to know is that in its life time its never had its accounts signed of and money goes unaccounted

Yep, meant Switzerland ooops!

Hell no Karma! I don't trust him either!

Very true Maypole, but there's a lot more to it than that I'm sure!

Britain wants tohave a US free trade economy,but does not have the US's huge (and more protected than Free Tradeists like to admit) home market or global influence. It no longer has an empire to flog things to, but needs a large market -which untl this weekend was the EU - and now that is just another very large market we will start to get edged out of.

Thing that really p*sses me off is that my kids probably will lose EU citizenship in a few years time.

Whatmeworry yes I am sure they want to moved to Poland god forbid they can't have free movemnt to Romania or :o

I must be a bit of a geek as I've read the Maastricht Treaty (which is more than Ken Clarke did before he voted for it when he was Chancellor) and also the Lisbon Treaty.

The Treaty of Rome has as it's foundation 'an ever closer Union' and this aim is repeated in each successive treaty.

Ultimately an ever closer union will lead to fiscal union (which is happening right now within the Eurozone) and then a single political union i.e. one country, one army, one judiciary. That 'country' will be called Europe.

The Lisbon Treaty finally gave the EU 'legal entity'. Until then the EU only existed via agreement of its member states. Legal entity means it is has legal status and can make laws and can be sued.

So you can see why we are well on the way to the ever closer union that started with the Treaty of Rome.

Some people may be quite happy to give up sovereignty and be fully governed by the EU. EU law already takes precedence over UK law.

I'm not one of them.

Britain's attitude towards the EU has always been that we should be in this club but that the 'club' should be as benign as possible.

Therefore as the French and Germans strove towards ever closer union, the British were doing their damndest behind the scenes to create 'an ever wider union', on the basis that if you admit enough members to this union it will make the organistaion so difficult to govern attempts at ever closer union will fail.

Britain's unstated policy was to admit every country possible so the EU would have to translate every document / speech into the new entrant's languages too and the diverse cultures, views etc would hopefully lead to stagnation and gridlock. That's why Britain would admit Turkey with another language and even better, another religion to be accommodated, while the French are dead against Turkey's admission.

The EU is a corrupt, democratically deficient organisation. You only have to look at the puppet governments of EU bureaucrats now installed in Greece and Italy to see that. Or the fact that the EU's own accounts have never passed audit. And yet we continue to pump £5M a day into shoring this up.

We didn't elect the President of the EU, Mr von Rompuy, or any of the key bureaucrats within the EU so we can't kick him out either. Even Tony Benn recognises the democratic deficit in this.

So it was inevitable that at some stage either Labour or the Conservatives was going to have to draw a line in the sand against 'ever closer union'. It's just that the Euro crisis precipitated fiscal union on Cameron's watch.

It is sad that people don't know more about the aims of the EU. A public debate is long overdue.

Wetaugust, I am Italian and to be honest I do not feel I have a "puppet government". Berlusconi lost its majority in the Parlamento. He lost it mainly for his inability to face the crisis. The new govtm will be temporary and has been appointed by the Presidente della Repubblica, who is elected by the members of the Parlamento.

Franca

I hope your new Government is temporary. But what assurances do you have that it will be? I see no timetable for elections to replace it. What if your President decides it's more than temporary?

Why can Italy's problems only be solved by the appointmnet of a non-democratically elected former EU bureacrat. Don't you find that an outrage? Isn't there a single Italian politician who could have formed a Government capable of dealing with this?

I think the difference is that Italy has had more Governments of very short duration than any other European country. You're not used to stable government. We are.

Also, Berlusconi was completely discredited, just hanging on on there until he could avoid prosecution. I don't think we in Britain would have put up with that sort of behaviour as long as the Italians did.

I just can't see what negotiation position Britain now has by exiting, and I can't see how a country without an "in" to one of the major global trade blocs wins.

First of all, Italy's problems need to be solved quickly, and things looked so dramatic that there was no time to go for elections.

And Berlusconi wouldn't have left to be replaced by another politician. He wouldn't have allowed the leader of the centre-left coalition to form a new government, for instance.

Italy needs urgent reforms, that no party at the moment seems able to deliver. For instance, as much as it hurts my left winger's feelings, we do need a reform of the pension system. Berlusconi couldn't do it, as he had the opposition of their populistic allies, the Lega Lombarda.
I don't think the left wing party would have been able to do it too, as the centre left coalition is huge, and with different interests.

"I don't think we in Britain would have put up with that sort of behaviour as long as the Italians did." ... well, you might wish to re write this sentence, as it is a bit patronizing. You may argue that a politician like Berlusconi would have never arisen in the British political arena. I'd agree with that, I think. He is pretty much an Italian anomaly. But many Italians weren't actually putting up with his behaviour, we took to the streets with rallies, we went on strike etc. There is a good portion of Italians who never voted him.

Franca I didn't mean to be patronising.

It's a pity that none of the various Italian political parties could not set aside their differences and work for the 'greater good' - as the Conservatives and Liberals managed to do in Britain.

So you now appear to have a benign dictatorship. I don't think Britain would ever accept that, but again it comes down to wewk / strong government.

I think we've already put up with pretty shameful behaviour from our politicians. Tony Blair's WMD anyone?

I agree....at least Berlusconi didn't lead his country into two dumb wars, sell all the Italian industries off to foreigners, and mug his own people to prop up the banks before they took any haircuts.

We are being ruled by a man who looks like a penis.

A very large penis, but a shiny headed penis nonetheless.

No good can ever come of this.

The bottom line that the commentators are spelling out on the news channels right now is that not only did Cameron not secure ANY of the protection for the City that he wanted, he also burned his bridges with not only the 17 Euro nations but also the other 9 not with the currency that are our potential allies. This is a terrible situation to be in! They can pass anything they want, from lowering our fishing quotas to the feared financial transactions tax and the UK cannot do anything about it! Oh sure, we can vote "no" but it'll always be 26 to 1 against us. The man has royally screwed us and people are talking like he's a hero! Madness!

'MrsMagnolia sort of has a point. The EU has been its own worst enemy in many ways, but has also been subject to so much misinformation and, honestly, rubbish reporting, that the British public have in many instances no real idea what goes on in the EU.'

You'd be surprised how many of us are very aware of what goes on in the EU from first hand experience, and living about 20 minutes away from it.

This new 'treaty' isn't a 'treaty', it's an intergovernmental agreement. Cameron blocked a treaty. Others agree with him, like Sweden, that the treaty on offer was not good for non EZ countries. It is unlikely that Sweden or Finland will sign up to this, as it will hit the buffers politically. The Netherlands will also have problems as Geert Wilders party could block it.

If you look at this realistically - nothing has changed. We are still not in the EZ; we are still in the EU. All we are saying is that we don't want to sign up to closer FU; we have an opt out anyway because we are not in the EZ, and intergovernmental accords are just that - if we are not party to them, we cannot be bound by them as it is not a treaty.

Bottom line is that France wants a smaller EU, whilst as WetAugust says above the UK has tried to widen it.

'We didn't elect the President of the EU, Mr von Rompuy', no, and he is not President of the EU. There is no such animal.

I think right now DC will be praying each night that one or more EZ country will fail to push the agreement through their parliament. That will certainly help him no end.

I agree with WetAugust and I've been saying for a while that as a nation we need to decide. In or out. We can't continue to try and do both.

Our policy is neatly summed up by the best civil servant we never had....Sir Humphrey!

Sir Humphrey: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last five hundred years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now, when it's worked so well?

Hacker: That's all ancient history, surely?

Sir Humphrey: Yes, and current policy. We had to break the whole thing [the EEC] up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn't work. Now that we're inside we can make a complete pig's breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased; it's just like old times.

Hacker: But surely we're all committed to the European ideal?

Sir Humphrey: [chuckles] Really, Minister.

Hacker: If not, why are we pushing for an increase in the membership?

Sir Humphrey: Well, for the same reason. It's just like the United Nations, in fact; the more members it has, the more arguments it can stir up, the more futile and impotent it becomes.

Hacker: What appalling cynicism.

Sir Humphrey: Yes... We call it diplomacy, Minister.