Why should we stay/leave the EU?

[OhYouLuckyDuck]

What reasons are there for staying or leaving?
I think I will vote for us to stay as I think it might be a moderating influence on any government wanting to do things to extreme plus we will lose trade with Europe if we leave. I'm undecided though.

Of course the UK could function outside of this club, but at what cost?

There is a real risk that the additional costs would dissuade new investment in the UK (presumably leaving to a decreased value in the UK pound) which would be offset by lower wages and costs of employment - which would be precisely what other non-EU countries are happy to do. Not only China and the whole of the Far East but what about the USA? Are we able to compete with their wage costs?

NB of course anyone in the financial services industry in London, might not feel the same effects as those whose job depend on manufacturing!

There is a real risk that the additional costs would dissuade new investment in the UK

What would these additional costs be?

What do we get for our membership fees?

A lot!

To name a few ...

• access to a market of more than 400 million consumers
• no import duties within 28 Member States
• the right to go and work in any Member State
• the right to establish a business in any Member State
• the right not to be discriminated against in any Member State on the grounds of nationality
• if you are a student, the right to pursue education in all Member States
• the ability of European airlines to offer services across all Member States without interference from National Govs (eg Ryan Air could not exist without the EU!)
• health protection and social security provision coordinated across the EU
• protection for consumers wherever you are in the EU through common standards and agreed enforcement, product safety and product recall procedures (ie toys)
• lower costs of goods produced according to harmonised EU standards eg motor vehicles

-worker protection

• common EU rules on the environment (remember how many UK beaches used to fail the EU tests on cleanliness?)
• buyer protection on goods purchased on the Internet within the EU (good purchased outside EU on Internet no guarantee of protection and import duties to be paid)

... and many, many more?

If I had a vote (I dont: I am prevented from voting on something that directly affects me as a UK citizen living in france) I'd want to know what britain's relationship with the EU will be after a Brexit.

What are people voting for? EEA membership, like Norway - which means free movement of labour and paying for access to the free market, but no direct influence over EU policies?

Or what, exactly?

I don't see how anyone can even start to debate the pros and cons without knowing what the brexiteers are proposing. The problem is that no one is actuallt proposing anything than "leave and ... er sort out the details later"

Even the SNP did better than that.

Shebird re: additional costs

If you have a company in the UK at the moment, it has to comply with EU rules.

If Brexit goes ahead and then either we change our national rules, or the EU changes its rules, companies will face having to produce to two different standards.

If the standards were incompatible, there would be no option but to produce two versions at very different costs eg standards for pollution monitoring in cars.

Your question implies that the high value of the pound has not impacted on the UK manufacturing industry. Even today, the indications are that UK industry has suffered.

Slimming - good to see some detailed arguments for Remain. I disagree on a number of points though!

For one thing, our 'small' country is the worlds fifth largest economy. It might be a small landmass, but economically we pack some punch.

Secondly, on the 'we need to club together' argument. You are right that we are facing unprecedented challenges in the 21st century, but I disagree that the solution is to force a supranational political union on the unwilling electorates of 28 nations. I just don't see how the latter follows from the former. While it makes absolute sense to band together in common interest groups to address certain issues, much as NATO has done in defense, it simply doesn't follow that in order for this to succeed the states in question should hand over political sovereignty to supranational institutions. Multilateralism would be far more flexible and able to adapt to the shifting needs and priorities of different nations, with the further important advantage of maintaining supreme power in those nations with politicians who are directly accountable to their electorates.

On the EU being hostile to sovereign nation states, 'loathes' may be too strong a word but a post-war fear of European nationalism and a desire to neuter such feeling via benign supranationalism and greater social and cultural integration is absolutely at the heart of the EU project. I will dig out some quotes when I have time but painting the EU project as one of multilateralism, where member states get together to agree things, is simply misleading. An increasing number of things are decided by qualified majority, which simply means that 55% of member states need to agree and then everyone has to go along with it. That's a far cry from all member states 'deciding', and leaves very little flexibility for member states to opt out of decisions where it is not in their interests, as would be the case in a club based on multilateralism.

When I talked about 20th century problems, I was referring to the economic and social situation of the mid-twentieth century, reeling from the two world wars, struggling economically and terrified of ever seeing another conflict on that scale. Talking about 1999 is a bit of a red herring.

On the distinct cultural differences between the UK and Europe - if such there are - it's interesting that you can conclude from diversity that we should be governed together, rather than concluding that perhaps we need a different constitutional settlement in this country to reflect the different political outlook. The core argument made by Scottish advocates for independence is that the Scottish political mindset is too different from the English one for government from Westminster to be fair or democratically supportable by Scots. I would make the same argument for UK government from the Continent: we just don't see things the same way on this little island, we have our own distinct history and culture, and trying to sweep this all away will never receive the support of electorates.

As an aside, I find it very strange that there are Scots who argue for independence from the UK because they want sovereignty, but who still want to remain in the EU despite its incursions into all kinds of areas of sovereignty.

While I would be sad if Scotland voted to leave the UK, I would understand the logic as it has many similarities with my reasons for wanting to leave the EU. But I just don't see how the paradox inherent in wanting independence from WM but not Brussels isn't more widely discussed in Scotland. (Maybe it is and I just don't see it?).

Hello Manatee

To work through your well-made points:

For starters, yes it's great that we are the world's fifth largest economy but as we have been part of the EU for the past 40 yrs, the question is, how much of this economic success is due to our membership of the EU and how much might we lose if we leave?

Looking at Wikipedia, the IMF table shows the UK in fifth, Germany fourth, France sixth and Italy eighth. The USA (six times larger than UK) in first position is slightly less than the EU combined GDP.

So the EU really does have the ability to tell both the USA and China where to go. The UK on its own, has huge historical relevance and moral leadership but we need the economic clout of the EU to punch our arguments home! Yes, we have to face compromises but without the EU, I fear we would become a much smaller player on the international stage.

Just briefly on your second point about accountability to national electorates: the UK history (IMF 1974), France (1981-1986) and frankly Greece (over the last 40 yrs or more) show that national politicians quite often should not be left to decide things entirely on their own! Fiscal discipline is more easily achievable within our modern democracies when national politicians have someone else to blame for taking difficult decisions! This is an under-reported function of EU action!

On the question of distinct cultural differences and national characteristics I accept that the UK has a different outlook but so does France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Finland and of course that other rival English-speaking nation, Ireland. All of these, have national characteristics in bucket loads but just like our politicians, they come together in Bxls to reach agreements on those issues which these politicians recognise can most cost effectively be resolved at a European level. So I have no doubt that the Irish will remain just as Irish as the Poles remain Polish, or the Swedes remain Swedish for many, many decades to come, at the same time as being fully paid up EU members.

I would not want the UK to become a second class member.

"rival" should have had quotation marks around it there!

Btw, in terms of manufacturing, we are apparently only 11th in the world ...

source

On your point about what our economy might have been outside the EU, it's probably a bit of a distraction to try and argue the counterfactual as it's pure speculation.

On our membership of the EU giving us more 'clout' against the US and China, it may well be the case that the EU together has more clout against China than the UK would have on its own. But that is not the same thing as saying the EU's clout, with the UK as a member, means the UK has more clout. It doesn't - a club to which it belongs has that clout. The club itself may choose to use its clout to do things that are not in the UK's interests at all. Indeed there are numerous documented instances of exactly this happening.

It's also worth pointing out that talking of the EU as if it were the 'top table' is in many cases false. Much of the regulation the EU issues as directives emerges from international bodies such as the IMO and Codex Alimentarius. These bodies are formed of national representatives and industry experts, and produces standards that apply worldwide in the interests of making commerce run smoothly. (Apologies if you know all this.) Representatives of nation states are able, on these bodies, to push for the interests of their nations. Increasingly, the EU seeks to supersede its member states' individual representatives on these bodies, meaning that at these crucial 'top tables' where key international standards are agreed, it replaces member states' multiple representatives, each able to advocate for his or her national interests, with a single EU representative who then has to be lobbied elsewhere for the national interests of member states. In this sense, EU representation gives us not more influence but 1/28th of the influence we'd have if we represented ourselves.

More profoundly though, I think increasing EU integration is the wrong response to globalisation. It may give the EU as a whole a superficially larger size, but internally it is too fragmented to act with any coherence, as we have seen in the refugee crisis. And there is no meaningful democratic engagement at European level, meaning that as a democracy it is not and could never be legitimate. Put simply, the peoples of Europe don't want a United States of Europe. If the question was put to all 500m EU citizens as to whether they wanted to form a federal superstate, do you really think the answer would be 'Yes'?

Given that, and the structural weakness of democratic accountability within the EU, while it might be superficially true that its larger economic size makes it a more formidable player against China and the US, its lack of real democratic support and accountability means that this greater 'clout' is likely to be wielded not in the interests of ordinary electorates but in the interests of the elites and big business.

Globalisation is happening, whether we like it or not. I think if we are to meet it in a way that takes the interests of the little people into account, that means not weakening nation states by subsuming them to a supranational federation but strengthening them and ensuring accoutability at a level where people can feel genuinely engaged. Otherwise we will end up with TTIP after TTIP, in which the negotiators say - like Cecilia Malmström - 'I don't take my mandate from the European people'.

That, at the heart of it, is why I think the EU is the wrong answer to a very real question.

Manatee - v. interesting points - out to dinner now but will attempt to absorb and reply by tomorrow!

I've been reading around this more and more and will do even more homework now we have a referendum date. At present I lean towards voting to leave. It has zero to do with immigration or benefits and all to do with sovereignty and our ability to pass laws and govern independently. We are a small island nation with a big history's X a good size economy for our physical size, and in many ways I've always thought we are a bad fit with the whole European ethos.

Sorry for being thick and all but can I ask questions?

Mephistopheles "It's politically fragmented, militarily pathetic and culturally unequipped to complete with rising power blocs in an increasingly post-legalistic geopolitical milieu.

We have a limited time to realign ourselves with other hegemonies before conflict occurs - even being unaligned will place us in a position to be courted, rather than attached to a obsolete political alliance unable to recognise that the world no longer plays by the rules."

Yes, beautifully put. What does it mean in single syllables? What is a post-legalistic milieu and what isn't playing by the rules? What other hegemonies did you have in mind for re-alignment?

Slimming I get that there might be some cost implications but I am struggling to understand how they will impact as much as is being claimed. I would have think that standards in safety for example would be broadly the same. Isn't this something exporters already cope with when exporting to any country outside the EU.

If we were in the Euro and considering leaving, I can see how this would be so much more of a big deal but having a strong separate currency we are halfway out anyhow.

I just can't help turning my mind to the latest events in Paris at the Bataclan.

This stronger better together EU that is supposed to benefit our security - allowed a catastrophic and wicked security breach that ironically came from the heart of Brussels.

How ironic? This hot bed of terrorism, operating under the noses of the European Parliament. A list of these terrorists was handed to the Mayor who said - what was I supposed to do? They then flitted across Europe and across from Belgium into France to murder and slaughter, some were even stopped and allowed on...and yet somehow being part of this is for our safety? They cannot information share that short distance...in this time of ISIS and knowing this is a well known hot bed of terroism ( molenbeck)

nah.....reign it all in.....rely on ourselves...imagine!

Françoise Schepmans, mayor of Molenbeek, a Brussels district dubbed a “terrorists’ den” due its links with jihadists, has admitted receiving a list with the names and addresses of more than 80 people suspected as Islamic militants living in her area.

This included Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Molenbeek resident who had left for Syria to fight for the Islamic State in early 2014 and was killed last week outside Paris, along with Brahim Abdeslam , who blew himself up on the boulevard Voltaire and his brother Salah Abdeslam - currently on the run.

Ms Schepmans told the New York Times: “What was I supposed to do about them? It is not my job to track possible terrorists.” That, she added, was “the responsibility of the federal police”.

Belgium itself is chaotic, fragmented, they have no chance of a coherant information sharing system in their own country - let alone across EU. shambles.

The capital was in lock down only a few months ago, and all the head of the EU was worried about was his borders.

If you want to see some very reasoned arguments for leaving the EU can I suggest looking at Michael Gove's statement. For him it's about sovereignty and self-determination and wanting to unshackle the UK from an outdated organisation that is holding the country back. Highly recommend it.

The IN campaign says it's about Safer, Stronger, Better Europe. I can't find any evidence that's true. The Police and Interpol have said Schengen is a threat to security. We are less strong in the EU as our EU membership prevents us from occupying our seat at the World Trade Organisatiom - the EU negotiates for us. Plus both France and UK have permanent seats on UN Security Council and sooner or later we will be told to give this up in favour of an EU seat. Then there's the better off argument. I don't buy that as apart from the £55 million a day we give the EU in membership fees we also get asked for the occasional £1.6 billion top up and have the additional costs of implementing all the EU laws that it places on us and on UK businesses, many of which are small companies that don't trade outside the UK but still have to follow EU laws.

I don't worry about losing trade if we come out because we buy more from the EU than they buy from us and our exporters to the Rest of the Workdcare increasing. The EU are legally obliged to negotiate an exit package with us that includes trade and they are not allowed under WTO rules to penalise us for leaving. The trade in services has always been terrified free so that's not a problem. It's no good saying that by tying ourselves to the EU we have a market of 400 million people if a) the EU prevents us from trading with many times that number in the rest if the World and b) many of those EU millions are in countries too poor to buy our goods and services. That's why Germany lent billions to Greek - so Germany could sell its goods to that poor country. That has not ended well and could be worse when poor countries like Albania and Macedonia complete their applications and become EU members

I worry about staying in as the deal Cameron has got will not reduce immigration from the EU and we can't keep accommodating an extra 350,000 people arriving in this country every year without increasing our school places and building more homes and hospitals. I am also worried that when Turkey joins, and its membership is being fast-tracked by Germany, that 75 million Turkish would have the right to come and live in the UK and that would further drive down wages. Having Turkey in means the EU would have borders with Syria and Iraq. That worries me.
Then there is the Ukraine problem. The EU has given the Ukraine very large amounts of Euros in development grants. That's encouraged Ukranians to want to join the EU, something Russia would never allow. Ukraine has already had one PM overthrown because he would not agree to closer union with the EU. So if the EU continues to expand and comes up against Russuan interests, that will nit end well.

So I guess that having thought it through, I'm for leave

I am absolutely loving the fact that (fingers crossed) there is an emerging reaoned debate here on Mumsnet and those of us of the 'out' persuasion aren't being called bigots, racist, little Englander, xenophobes and so on.

All I ask as a firm 'out' campaigner is that anyone who is undecided goes and some research. There is time. The actual vote isn't until June. There is a plethora of material out there. Youtube alone will get you started.

Watch Farage in action. Whether you agree with him or not, watch him stir up the European Parliament. Then watch the counter arguments.

Stop labelling people who disagree with you on this issue. Accept their views but also accept it wont' change how you , as an individual, will vote on the day.

But just inform yourselves. Don't vote for status quo. Don't vote because you think your H's job might be in jeopardy. Educate, inform yourselves. It's all there - an hour, a half an hour on google .. but please don't go into this vote uninformed.

I am voting leave, I have no interest in Ferage.

Incidently you can gush at Ferage and others are on BBC tomorrow morning.

Vertigo

You don't have to watch Farage, gush about Farage, avoid Farage. That is irrelevant.

Nigel Farage whatever anyone on here thinks or feels about him is a politician who has never in all the years he has been active on the political stage, has made any secret of who he is, or what he represents.

Whether you despise, like or are ambivalent about Nigel Farage he is at least informed about the workings of the EU parliament and is as deserving of being listened to, as anyone else in this debate.

He is also a very fine orator .. and we haven't had many of those in recent years.

Fontenella I agree with you that we need a reasoned debate. I haven't seen anyone on this thread accusing supporters of the out campaign of being little Englanders or racists. With respect, I responded at length to your previous post yet it is interesting that you choose to raise the bigot point again rather than address the issues. If anything it is Farage and his ilk who are accusatory and inappropriate in their speech. His behaviour at the European Parliament ranges between downright rude and grandstanding to utterly bewildering.

It's always easier to spread a culture of distrust and fear.

What is much harder – but what nevertheless should be done – is getting down with other nations and thrashing out the real issues through a process of negotation, mutual respect, and consensus.

I just wish that people would understand that Europe isn't something that is “being done to us” and is “imposed from above”. We are part of the EU. We have been part of the EU for 40 yrs. If things have happened that UK citizens don't like, then we have been part of the decision making process that have led to those things occurring.

Shebird

re: the animal welfare issues

Sadly the core problem is in your last comment - I'm sure 90% of consumers do want better animal welfare when asked this in a questionnaire. However, the evidence is that they notwilling to pay the extra to secure this.

Suppose we did impose national rules on pig production - increasing the price of pork by eg 50% - do you think that consumers would switch to chicken or other meats or protein which remains cheaper?

The better route by far would be to use the EU to secure better welfare across the EU - the EU Commission has been working on this for years but the Member States have essentially squashed their proposals.

I would far prefer to see the commercial pressure of consumers across Europe push for change - but to do this we need to be not only in the EU but leading the charge for these changes!

I have BBC1 on now, I concede Ferage is informed.

AMouselivedinawindmill Yes, Brussels happens to be the home of many of the EU institutions but that is separate to the horrific terrorist problem that recently occurred in Paris and Brussels.

The terrorist attacks were brought about both by individuals who were home grown (this has occurred in the UK too - remember the Luton bomber?) and illegal immigrants who have travelled across Europe. Obviously this is catastraphobic but why are you blaming the EU for it? We need a more coordinated approach, not less!

Many of the major European Institutions happen to be situated in the capital of Belgium but they could (and are!) located anywhere in Europe. There are European institutions in many countries including the UK ( in Oxfordshire and London as it happens). The EU institutions do not interfere with national issues relating to the running of it's host country.

Your summary shows why further coordination between Member States is essential.

National security issues are generally managed wholly outside the EU - Member States are left to coordinate themselves. The sad events in Paris and the earlier events in London and Madrid all show that we are facing the same risks and challenges. The fact that a local town mayor in Molenbeek (cf the Mayor of Dudley or Luton) complains about the lack of a national response (whether justified or not) is not I think a reason for UK to pull down the shutters and pretend that we can be more secure by drawing back from Europe.

Do you happen to know Molenbeek other than reading about it in the papers? Because I know it well and frankly I would rather live there than many sink estates in London. It's not quite how it is described in the press. And the mayor of Molenbeek was simply stating facts when she said national security was not on her brief. The city of Brussels is divided in to 19 communes, each of whom have a mayor. Your argument is like saying you would expect the mayor of Dudley to be in charge of national anti-terrorist measures.

Happily the reporting is that Belgium and France and Spain and others are responding to the failures of the past. I would prefer it if UK remains a full part of such actions.