What does staying in look like if you do not join the Euro?

It woukd be ridiculous to join a football club but state you do not wish to play or watch football. It would be even odder to complain about the consequences of other club members playing and watching, leaving you on your own at club events. Yet the UK government thinks it sensible to belong to an international organisation based on the Euro and free movement of people, whilst not wishing  to do either of those things. It’s even stranger  to then demand a lower club subscription because you disagree with the main purposes of the club and its spending patterns.

It will  be increasingly difficult to maintain the semblance of UK independence and self government as the EU comes to take over more and more aspects of our lives and laws. The UK already finds it difficult to stay out of Euro area bail outs, willingly helping with the Irish one and unwillingly being dragged into the short term Greek loan. Regulation of the City is increasingly settled in the EU in ways designed to assist the Euro area.

The Treaty architecture does not make a proper separation of Euro decision making and budgets from the wider EU. The UK will be dragged more and more into the huge transfers of money that will be needed to enable the  poorer and less economically successful countries to survive within its austerity driven policies. There is no proper legal Treaty based opt out from the regional transfers and economic promotion policies the Euro area needs.

The Germans and others see the so called “single market” as embracing freedom of movement, all the regulations, and the Euro. They think staying out of the Euro allows a country to try to get an advantage through devaluation. There will be more attempts to divert business from London to Euro area centres both by competitive actions and by regulatory creep.  The City will often find itself regulated in ways it does not wish, and in ways which may drive business out of London to non EU centres. The UK government has lost important court cases in recent years over regulations which do send business outside the EU altogether.

I find it difficult to understand why most UK pro EU advocates do not wish to join in with the Euro and free movement. After all, many of them backed the Euro before it was established and told us we should join. They refuse to talk about the wild ride to political union that is the driving force of the modern EU. They are keen for us to stay in as they want us to help pay the bills of their ill fitting single currency. The only logic to joining a football club is you like football.Surely these EU enthusiasts must be disguising their love of the single currency and freedom of movement.

73 Comments

  1. The Active Citizen
    April 29, 2016

    Your first paragraph is a ‘JR Classic’. Sums things up beautifully.

    I think you were being kind in not saying that the football club in question has been performing very badly this century and looks highly likely to be relegated.

    1. Hope
      April 29, 2016

      JR, your presumption is flawed. The remainers do want to join the Euro, just not yet. Of course it will happen by deceit and stealth over time jaunt like so many powers given away, so many vetoes given away. Fallon is promoting and starting to help the creation of the EU army by stealth by allowing so called operations with EUallies, having joint aircraft carriers with the French where they provide the planes. Let us be clear we have NATO for that. Heseltine makes that clear. We lost our weights and measurements and he thinks over time the same will happen to the pound.

      Cameron has accepted ÂŁ1.6 million from the trade union for his remain campaign in exchange for dropping his manifesto pledge and draft legislation for the Union bill. Cash in exchange in policy to help trade unions! Remember what he said to justify this legislation in the first place? Hunt is trying to use the same manifesto,as the public mandate, to work it into the doctors! Again, you cannot believe a word a high tax Cameron says. Is it simpler that he is a liar?

      Greece on the brink with the U.K. On the hook to bail out it out, Austria has now put up barriers to the anger of Italy, Austria election result hidden, Sweden immigration crime soars, Cameron gives away billions of our taxes to Turkey speed up its entry to the EU, Scicily turning into a refugee camp with civil unrest. Etc ed

      1. Denis Cooper
        April 30, 2016

        The new president of the National Association of Head Teachers has a letter in the Telegraph today complaining about the government’s plans for schools. I would have thought it was obvious that if he wants the legislation to be dropped from the Queen’s Speech then he should just try to get a similar deal to the TUC, offer to campaign in support of EU membership in exchange for the changes to government policy he wants.

        1. Hope
          April 30, 2016

          Very true and the same for doctors.

          I remember quite distinctly Cameron making derogatory claims that the Labour Party were in the pockets of unions, that unions bought their policy! Now what can he say! Absolute shyster.

    2. Hope
      April 29, 2016

      Cameron selling his manifesto pledge to change Union subscriptions, when the law is passing stops th change in return for ÂŁ1.6 million from the unions. Hunt claims he is enacting the public mandate because it was a manifesto pledge to work it into the doctors, Cameron selling change to the law and his manifesto for union funds to back remaining in the EU! Cameron even made public comments why this was needed and now has sold out to help his EU cause. What sort of person does that? You cannot believe a word he says. No integrity or sincerity in his beliefs it would appear.

  2. Lifelogic
    April 29, 2016

    You say you find it difficult to understand why most UK pro EU advocates do not wish to join in with the Euro and free movement.

    The reason is simply that they know they could not take the UK voters with them if, after the dire ERM and EURO disasters they proposed joining the EURO. Remaining in the EU outside the EURO would be almost as much of a disaster as remaining and joining it. At least outside the EURO leaving later, as we surely will, is far easier.

    As you say there certainly will be more attempts to divert business from London to Euro area centres both by competitive actions and by regulatory creep. We will, almost certainly lose in the European Court of Justice on any of these matters.

    I am surprised by how well Cameron propaganda, sloped pitch, the BBC bias, the establishment and project fear seems to be conning people. I still think they will come to their senses at the polls, the leave side are far more determined and more likely to vote.

    Cameron even doing deals with the unions, that will damage the economy further it seems in order to gain support for remain.

    1. Denis Cooper
      April 29, 2016

      Well, did you see Priti Patel on TV last night, flatly contradicting Osborne’s claim that we’d lose 6% of our GDP if we left the EU and arguing that the opposite was true, we could actually see a 7% increase? No, nor did I, because the broadcasters chose not to give her that platform to counter the government’s propaganda.

      Now of course she is only the Employment Minister in the UK government, she is not the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the US President, or the head of the OECD, but one might have thought that in their search for balance the broadcasters might have included a small item about it in the TV news.

      We’ve said in the past that Cameron intended to “do a Wilson” on us, and that is exactly what is happening. Whether it will work remains to be seen.

      1. Lifelogic
        April 29, 2016

        Indeed that is the biased BBC for you. I still think that Brexit will win out. Mainly because remain simply have no rational arguments, but project fear does seem to be working. Then again even my leftish leaning elder sister, a professor of economics, to my surprise, is for leave.

        1. Denis Cooper
          April 30, 2016

          It’s not just the BBC. Sky is as bad, and Channel 4 and ITV.

    2. Hope
      April 29, 2016

      LL, he is a traitor to give away our money, and democratic self-government to a foreign power and remains standing silent and smirking when foreign leaders make threats to our nation. It is clear that the Tory manifesto is worthless as is Cameron’s word.

      1. Lifelogic
        April 29, 2016

        How do you tell when Cameron is lying? His lips are moving (and he is not saying anything so obviously true as to be not worth saying at all).

        1. Hope
          April 30, 2016

          He puts on a stern face and follows with a no off or buts, a cast iron guarantee, or mocks oth opposing his view then copies them. How many times has he and Osborne copied Labour? He even sells policy and his integrity for union funds!

    3. Ken Moore
      April 29, 2016

      That a Prime Minister should draft in a US President to stand next to him and deliver threats that help him in his referendum struggle was shaming.

      Cameron doesn’t care who he has to link arms with to con the British people…even Neil Kinnock…

      1. Lifelogic
        April 29, 2016

        Failed disaster politicians everywhere given airtime by the BBC (what words of wisdom would you like to impart Sir). Even the proven disaster, wrong on everything, ERM/EURO enthusiast John Major telling us what to do. As if anyone would take his advice on anything at all.

        I prefer sensible people who have been consistently proved by events to be right, thanks very much, JR or Patrick Minford types please.

      2. Ken Moore
        April 29, 2016

        Neil Kinnock and now arch Conservative critic and ex Union Baron Brendan Barber.
        Another two fingered salute to the grassroots members from the heir to Blair and Heath.

    4. Anonymous
      April 29, 2016

      The Remain campaign is run on fear and negativity.

      Most people want Out but a significant number of those are worried that it will mean End of Days.

      Most people are very worried about mass immigration (some polls showing 75% are anxious about it.) To counter this Project Fear has had to be dramatic, and it is.

      The issue of mass immigration is closed down with scurrilous accusations of xenophobia. This is just as cruel as calling a drowning man a hydrophic.

      1. Anonymous
        April 29, 2016

        hydrophobic

  3. Mark B
    April 29, 2016

    Good morning.

    They do not wish to join the Euro and be full members right now ! But in the future, they would. And once you lose control of your money, you have effectively lost control on how you are governed. ie He who controls the purse strings, controls what is done.

    The UK will, irrespective of the result of the referendum, will be put into a EU-Lite membership along with all the rest of non-Euro Club members. We will be expected to pay our full wack but, we will have little or no say. Out and a trade treaty is the only sane option. All this via an Art. 50 and negotiations with a possible, and temporary, spell using the EEA as a halfway house until all the right pieces are in place.

    One thing for sure, those who vote to remain will, like so many before in 1975, will come to deeply regret what they have ‘actually’ voted for. Much I believe is being hidden from us, again, just like in 1975.

    1. Denis Cooper
      April 29, 2016

      That “non-Euro club” will have a declining membership, and eventually the UK could end up as the only remaining member. Presumably then it would have to fill all the offices, it would be club chairman, and secretary, and treasurer etc …

  4. CHRISTOPHER HOUSTON
    April 29, 2016

    The BoE’s topmost advice has in the last 18 months been that it is inexorable the UK will compact its financial world into what some call “ever closer fiscal and monetary union”; otherwise, the EU project cannot work.
    The Remainers always trust the BoE’s obscurantist meditations but may draw some contorted comfort in that without Russian oilfields and mineral resources which would have been obtained on Russia’s accession to the EU in 2024 the project is doomed anyway and they may blame the Kremlin as usual for everything from the gradual movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates to nappy-rash

    1. Mitchel
      April 29, 2016

      True,the whole neo-liberal Ponzi project requires that Russia’s resources be co-opted and leveraged to keep it going.It almost happened under Yeltsin(under the influence of his western-backed advisers – and copious quantities of vodka).The Russian people have much to thank President Putin for.

  5. bluedog
    April 29, 2016

    One thing cannot be stated often enough, Dr JR – you can’t run a currency without a sovereign. Only a sovereign power can undertake all the functions that managing a national currency entails, from the central banking function to the regulation of banks and other financial service businesses as well as managing interest rate policy and liquidity. Ultimately a national currency is backed by the tax revenues of the issuing power.

    If as you say, the UK is progressively losing its ability to act independently as a result of EU befehls and adverse findings in the ECJ, we are slowly being stripped of our sovereign rights as managers of our currency. In due course, Sterling will become unmanageable. If interest rates in the EU are set by the ECB and the BoE cannot act independently, the game is up.

    As things stand, the fatal weakness of the Euro is that there is no sovereign behind it. But that is being fixed by this wild ride to political union, as you so frequently point out. Political union is essential to underpin the very dangerous situation of the Euro. The Remainders don’t seem to understand when they claim that we still have Sterling, so nothing is changing that things are changing. The status quo is not static but dynamic, deliberately so and to our disadvantage.

  6. Iain Gill
    April 29, 2016

    I see some BBC Twitter accounts have gone into full on systematic pro stay in Europe. Real state propaganda designed to bias an election. Is this really allowed?

  7. Antisthenes
    April 29, 2016

    We are going to regret joining this club called the EU. A club that reels from one crisis to the next never solving any just creating more. It is forever changing the rules of membership that disadvantage many more than it benefits. Many of the members should not have qualified for membership and more of those are being invited to join. Those that manage the club are out of touch with reality imposing policies and practices that are causing considerable hardship to it’s members one way or another. The membership fees will in the end cripple the economies of many of it’s members. Time to leave and join the world again far better opportunities there and a place where we can make our own decisions and not have them made for us.

    A club finds it hard to adapt to change when things go wrong(why EU crises are never solved) whilst an individual can take remedial action at any time as that individual does not have to refer to anyone to do so.

  8. oldtimer
    April 29, 2016

    Voters need to understand that a vote for Remain will be a vote to join, ultimately, the rest of the EU in full monetary and political union. Mr Cameron’s “deal” is merely a staging post on the way to that destination. It might take ten, twenty or thirty years. But that is the inexorable direction of travel if the UK votes Remain.

  9. Brexit facts4eu.org
    April 29, 2016

    Another excellent piece from you and we’ll borrow your analogy (with attribution) as it makes such a good point.

    Great news overnight from the survey from Farmers Weekly, showing that 58% of farmers intend to vote Leave, compared to 31% for Remain. And this is despite the NFU bosses coming out for Remain only days ago.

    As usual, this was up on our news page during the night. There’s also an interesting new piece with quotes from Theresa May’s Tory Party Conference speech in October about EU immigration.

    We’re happy to answer questions from our site: there’s a contact form and a comments section. Answering Know-dice and Narrow Shoulders comments on here from yesterday, the dotted line on UK growth figures is a linear trendline. The key thing is ‘where’s the growth effect from our EU membership Mr Cameron, and where’s the growth effect of the Single Market?’ You can’t see either from the graph of UK GDP growth we produced. We thought it was a beautifully-simple way of making the point to the average voter, but there we go.

    And the smartphone browsing issue – the site works on these and like many sites you just have to drag to enlarge. We receive no funding at all and if Vote Leave wish to pay for some improvements, we’d be happy to take their call ! Most of us have full-time jobs and we do what we can in the limited time available.

    1. Know Dice
      April 30, 2016

      Pictures, graphs etc are good, please don’t be put off by my comments….

      Although, I did feel in that particular instance the point the graph was trying to get across was a bit difficult to instantly understand.

  10. Denis Cooper
    April 29, 2016

    According to the Telegraph today the US economy has ground to a near-halt.

    That’ll be the uncertainty over Brexit weighing upon it, no doubt.

    Meanwhile things in Greece seem to be going from very bad to even worse:

    http://www.ekathimerini.com/208283/opinion/ekathimerini/comment/greeces-perfect-debt-trap

    “Despite the progress made in the talks, the economy is deteriorating. Indicative of this is a growing inability to pay taxes. Today outstanding tax debts exceed 87 billion euros. At the end of 2012 they were at 55.1 billion. They have grown by 32 billion euros since then, equaling the amount raised by tax rate increases over the same period (as Kathimerini reports on Friday). In the first quarter of 2016, outstanding debts increased by 3.22 billion and, by the end of the year, may exceed last year’s total of 13.48 billion. Nonperforming bank loans, which were at 8.2 percent of the total at the start of 2010, were at 36.4 percent at the end of 2015. Unpaid dues to social security funds came to 15.78 billion euros at the end of the first quarter, from 13.02 billion last September.”

    That’ll also be down to worries over Brexit, which are no doubt preoccupying the Greeks just as they are preoccupying the Americans.

    Who would have thought that it could be so globally cataclysmic if this small insignificant off-shore island decided to change the treaties it has with its neighbours.

  11. The Prangwizard
    April 29, 2016

    Is the loss of control of the LSE to ‘inward investment’ going to help the UK? Why is it and others like it being portrayed by many as a astute business decision which will be to our advantage, when it seems to me it is yet another example of the sacrifice of a valuable asset on the altar of an ideology taken to extremes by government and encouraged by city spivs. Perhaps they will find they have gone too far this time when their jobs go to Germany.

    I would like to imagine that had we not been in the EU this might not have happened but either way we must leave, then perhaps mind-sets will change, we should then be able to restore an independence of spirit and put the UK first. Our malaise and delusion as a country goes deeper and is rooted in the past, but that is for another day.

  12. Ian Wragg
    April 29, 2016

    I don’t know why you are surprised John.
    Cameron is a fully paid up world government Bilderburger.
    He sees himself as part of the ruling class looking down on us as mere surfs.
    When you listen to him lecturing you can detect the sneer in his voice.
    Do as I say not as I do.
    Time he was gone.

    1. fedupsoutherner
      April 29, 2016

      No Ian, he should never have been voted in in the first place.

  13. Ian Wragg
    April 29, 2016

    Yesterday I was reading a piece by that silly Andrea Leadson about us totally decarbonising by 2030 and cooking on hydrogen. Are these people real.
    Would you have a hydrogen cooker in your house.

    1. fedupsoutherner
      April 29, 2016

      Ian, Don’t laugh but this is what was in the Scottish Herald today.

      “Pilot hydrogen power project for Orkney

      ITM Power, the energy storage and clean fuel company, has been awarded a
      five-year grant worth 2.27million euros from the EU’s fund for “innovative
      green hydrogen systems in an isolated territory”.

      ITM will use the community-owned wind turbines on Shapinsay and Eday in
      Orkney to produce ‘green’ hydrogen from wind and tidal energy. It will
      deploy 10 electric vans fitted with a hydrogen fuel cell range extender,
      and build a refuelling station in the Kirkwall area.

      The project will also see two hydrogen-powered boilers installed at
      suitable premises to provide zero carbon heat.”

      As I said to the person that sent this to me, when we see a great big fire on the Orkney islands we will know what it is!! You couldn’t make it up. Yet again, look at the money being thrown at this scheme.

      1. bluedog
        April 30, 2016

        And the Scots are still bitter about being used as guinea pigs on Poll Tax. At least the tax wouldn’t incinerate you and your family.

  14. stred
    April 29, 2016

    The BBC yesterday showed the PM and TUC leader together lecturing workers about staying in a large motor factory. The name was not mentioned. At the end the camera showed a Caterpillar part.As their owner supports Brexit, it was a pity that they did not mention this or have the manners to interview him. Their bias is breathtaking.

  15. Liz
    April 29, 2016

    Passionate Europhiles certainly do want Britian to join the Euro and embrace full free movement across the EU but many dare not say so out loud except for some brave souls like Nick Clegg . The EU is based upon deception and europhiles accept that enthusiastically as a means to an end. The democratic case for leaving is not really being made – what are the reasons for that? Some punchy eye catching slogans might help
    “June 23rd – the beginning of the end of democracy in Britain”
    but I am sure others can think of better ones

  16. Denis Cooper
    April 29, 2016

    In his article yesterday about the deep clandestine involvement of the US government in the EEC/EC/EU/USE project:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/27/the-european-union-always-was-a-cia-project-as-brexiteers-discov/

    Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote:

    “A memo dated June 11, 1965, instructs the vice-president of the European Community to pursue monetary union by stealth, suppressing debate until the “adoption of such proposals would become virtually inescapable”.”

    Does anybody seriously believe that senior UK politicians like Heath were oblivious to this plan? Of course not, when he signed us up to join the EEC he was well aware that he was also signing us up to eventually scrap the pound and adopt a single currency; and a decade later Wilson was reassuring us in his official pamphlet for the 1975 referendum:

    http://www.harvard-digital.co.uk/euro/pamphlet.htm

    “There was a threat to employment in Britain from the movement in the Common Market towards an Economic & Monetary Union … This threat has been removed.”

    when he knew perfectly well that was not true, the plan was just on hold for a time.

    Now we have Heseltine expressing his continuing conviction that we will eventually join the euro, despite his party leader claiming to have just negotiated a “special status” for the UK in the EU so that we will never join the euro, but agreeing with Merkel back in May 2010 when she told Le Monde:

    “Our goal must be that all EU member States join the euro one day”

    and notably making no exception for the UK or for Denmark, the two member states which have treaty opt-outs from ever having to join the euro.

    1. Know Dice
      April 30, 2016

      DC did you chance to view BBC program Europe: Them or Us?

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=Europe%3A%20Them%20or%20Us&suggid=urn%3Abbc%3Aprogrammes%3Ab077nr8v

      In an interview Ted Heath said in unequivocal terms full monetary & political union was the “end game”. Also that Margaret Thatcher didn’t fully understand the full implications of Maastricht (or was it Dublin)…

    2. bluedog
      April 30, 2016

      Heseltine is quite right.

      As sovereignty continues to be stripped from Britain, managing Sterling will become increasingly difficult until joining the Euro is an essential step in mitigating financial risk to the British economy. ‘Goodness, what a surprise, we never thought we would find ourselves in this position’, said Chancellor A.N. Other as he handed out the first Euro notes to lucky shoppers.

      You can read the EU like a book.

    3. Mitchel
      April 30, 2016

      Can committed Atlanticists ,therefore,be true Eurosceptics?

      1. Denis Cooper
        April 30, 2016

        That rather depends on what is meant by each of those two terms!

  17. JimS
    April 29, 2016

    We were told in 1975 that ‘free movement’ didn’t happen in practice and wasn’t expected to happen in the future.
    We were told that if there were any new proposals that we didn’t like we could apply a veto.
    The first clause of the preamble to the Treaty of Rome tells us exactly where they know we are heading, (ever closer union ed)

  18. Bert Young
    April 29, 2016

    I’ve never been a football fan – rugby is more to my liking . The rewards that football players get are as astronomical as the EU’s budget ; when things are entirely disproportionate to their value , effective competition goes out of the window .

    Th Euro is a baseless no value mistake ; its introduction was heralded as the cementing factor in the unification of the Eurozone and the means by which all of its countries would become equal . All it has done is to emphasise the political role of Germany and to maintain its export initiatives . The ECB is under the control of German policy and by pumping money into the member countries it has become worthless .

    The one thing we should protect is the credibility and professionalism of the City of London . The regularity regime we have is by no means watertight but it is sealing up the cracks and it is respected internationally . Frankfurt would love to take its place and create another aspect of German control ; we must not let this happen and we must put a stop to the their take-over of the LSE .

    The expansion of the EU with the other countries in line to join will spell a nightmare to our population and our already stretched health , education and communication systems . If we “remain” we will inevitably be forced into pumping money into these countries at the expense of our own problems .

  19. Mike Stallard
    April 29, 2016

    Mr Redwood, you are one of the very few people who can see the likely outcome of a REMAIN vote.
    Please – on our behalf, keep saying it. Speak the truth to power.
    Airstrip One is the ultimate destination of the EU – Greece is already there.

  20. Shieldsman
    April 29, 2016

    Cameron is a little jack Horner in the corner.
    He will not be consulted the efforts to shore up the EURO.
    He cannot interfere with the 5 Presidents Report mapping the future of the Euro and the EU is quite clear on these matters. It states that in the first phase of completing the Union, up to June 30 2017, they intend to “build on existing instruments and make the best possible use of existing treaties” to increase central power and convergence by member states. In Stage 2 commencing in June 2017 they propose “concrete measures of a more far reaching nature…. The convergence process would be made more binding”.)

    The ever closer union still applies to the other 27 members, so he is on the outside looking in with no influence whatsoever, and still paying his fee. Foolish to say the least.

  21. Denis Cooper
    April 29, 2016

    Off-topic, an interesting article here:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/29/latvia-fights-against-the-great-eu-exodus/

    “Latvia fights against the great EU exodus”

    “Mihails Hazans, a Latvian economist, reckons the exodus in 2000-13 has cost a permanent 9 per cent reduction in the country’s future potential output, and argues that other EU states should pay compensation for the loss of “human capital, labour force and reproductive potential.””

    “For most Latvians, EU membership is non-negotiable. “It is better to be under pressure within the EU than to be without pressure outside,” says Mr Usakovs. But the terms of free movement are beginning to be questioned.”

    But questioned not by the barmy eurofederalists; of course, for them it is an absolute, inviolable principle and if you don’t accept it then you shouldn’t be allowed to trade.

    Oh, and here’s something else for us to mull over:

    “To help Latvian families return home, he is lobbying the British government observe a largely-forgotten 1977 EU directive that obliges host states to teach migrant children in their mother tongue.”

    1. Anonymous
      April 29, 2016

      What voters need to realise on 23rd of June is that they are voting for a communist construct, replete with remote and unaccountable government.

      The central aim of this organisation is the redistribution and equalisation of wealth across nations by means of taxation (without representation of course.)

      The aim is redistribution of equality of rights and opportunity. As we are one of the richer nations then the effects on us are going to be particularly hard and manifests itself already in generation rent.

      Their birthright – adequate and affordable living space in their own country is being given away by the EU and its supporters and is manifest in the scandalously high rents young people are having to pay.

      #ventyourrent is featured in the news item below. This is a direct result of the ‘equalities’ policy of the EU. If we are to be equal members of the EU then Britain has an awful long way to fall yet.

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36152198

      People really need to know that if they vote in then they’re voting for a cut in living standards until we are equalised throughout the EU. Except crowding will be worse here than most other places – as we are seeing.

      The future is poverty – because it doesn’t matter how hard or how efficiently we work, nor how much trade we do with the EU. So long as we are in it we are going to get poorer.

  22. Original Richard
    April 29, 2016

    “Surely these EU enthusiasts must be disguising their love of the single currency and freedom of movement.”

    Correct.

    And their wish to see the demise of nation states and democracy through mass immigration throughout the whole of the EU.

    The poorer countries of Europe currently seeing an exodus of young, well trained people to the wealthier areas and hence now lacking the very people needed to maintain and develop these poorer countries, are intended to be populated by non-EU migrants.

  23. Hamsterwheel
    April 29, 2016

    Reading that rubbishy, scaremongering article in today’s FT about so-called “millennials” getting the short end of the stick if we leave (with snide references to the older generation wishing to cling to “Empire” and heaping praise on Barack for his recent stance) – I don’t see any reference to us joining the Euro at a later date (how convenient).

    As an aside, its high time the boot was put into the FT – its bias on this issue is incredible and it treats the anti-EU lobby as some cross between mental defectives and fractious children.

    1. Mitchel
      April 30, 2016

      As Charles Moore wrote earlier in the week,the FT seems to have become the Daily Mail of the rapid Europhile tendency – and it’s erstwhile sister publication,The Economist, is no better.

  24. Mitchel
    April 29, 2016

    If we continue to have literary stars,celebrity academics and assorted luvvies wheeled out to support the Remain campaign,I hope someone on the Out side points out-and forcibly so-that their forebears,the likes of George Bernard Shaw,H G Wells,Doris Lessing,Sidney & Beatrice Webb,etc were the original useful idiots who would have inflicted Stalinism on us,some even after it was known what that in reality meant,and that where matters of democracy are concerned no-one should be taking these people seriously.

  25. Martyn G
    April 29, 2016

    Jon,

    Slightly OT I hear that you are to speak this evening at Henley? Only heard about it yesterday and sadly cannot attend. Friends of mine will be there, so I hope to get a first-hand report of the event.
    A leaflet from ‘Vote Leave’ dropped through letterbox yesterday. It is of course very well intentioned but says nothing about the democratic issues surrounding staying in the EU and, worst of all, in asking people to offer their assistance to the cause, refers one to a non-working website (voteleavetakecontrol.org).
    You have over the weeks made so many punchy, pertinent and searching points regarding the questions that leavers should be asking (e.g. demanding a response from their MP) and otherwise making as public as possible, that it seems strange to me and sad that ‘Vote Leave’ leaflet is, on the whole, a weak effort unlikely to sway many to their point of view.

    1. Anonymous
      April 29, 2016

      Martyn – My Vote Stay leaflet went straight in the bin. Minds are made. This will be won or lost on the side with the best turnout.

      Punchiness in broadcasting is needed.

      News on the Med crisis would help our cause but I think there is a blackout going on at the moment.

  26. lojolondon
    April 29, 2016

    Exactly, John – for a long time the Remainders were talking about the ‘ridiculous situation of being like Switzerland or Norway – having to pay but getting no benefits’ – perhaps their current silence means they are hoping for this as a possible scenario if we vote to leave? However, we, the British public do not want that – we want no EU. We can deal with the World Trade Organisation, like every other country in the world does.

  27. Peter Davies
    April 29, 2016

    Say 2 words to a pro EU supporter “Greece” and “euro” and watch them get defensive.

    Quite interesting on QT last night a Mr Burnham saying that if the UK goes the whole thing will collapse. You can turn that around to ask “if is so good why would the UK want to go” or “if the UK is wrong and everyone else is right then why would it be in danger of collapse if the UK left”

    1. Denis Cooper
      April 29, 2016

      For years I’ve been hearing how the EU is about to collapse or the eurozone is about to break up, but generally from over-optimistic opponents of the EU. It’s something of a new twist to now hear it from supporters of the EU, but my reaction is much the same apart from substituting “In your nightmares” for “In your dreams”. I guess that all of the other EU countries have some political party or another urging that it should leave the EU, but none of them is anywhere near achieving that aim.

    2. turbo terrier
      April 29, 2016

      Peter Davies

      Mr Burnham saying that if the UK goes the whole thing will collapse.

      I do hope so.

      It never was and never will be the panacea for all the troubles that befall Europe in general.

      I do wonder how much is being held on the back burner until the vote is over.

      1. Denis Cooper
        April 30, 2016

        I don’t think it’s a good idea to say that.

  28. Richard1
    April 29, 2016

    I am glad Prof Minford has raised the sensible idea of a unilateral declaration of free trade, which is one of the policies which proved a huge success for Britian in the C19th. It is of course at odds with the official Leave campaign which says we don’t have to worry about EU tariffs as we would threaten to impose our own. It is unfortunate that Prof Minford stated that he thought a possible result of this would be the loss of UK manufacturing industry and further losses in agriculture. I don’t see why that’s the case and I think that will mean his argument will not be popular!

  29. Atlas
    April 29, 2016

    John,

    Succinctly put.

  30. Geoff Mortimer
    April 29, 2016

    Is not future EU all laid out in the 5 presidents report fully downloadable in glorious technicolour PDF for all peasants to marvel at.

  31. forthurst
    April 29, 2016

    According to Martin Woolf in the FT, “A dynamic economy can gain from importing people who both want to work and have the skills to do so”

    Firstly, people who are English are rather more concerned that their country does not become more of a neoliberal playground where their quality of life is sacrificed to the greater needs of some people who are not English to achieve their nirvana of a country without ethnicity, culture, or history. Second, if purely economic criteria are applied to altering the makeup of our country, at least equal weight could be applied to removing people whose fingers have been found in the till rather more often than could be predicted by chance when massive frauds involving pension funds, bank collapses and the offshoring of wealth beyond the reach of the taxman come to light.

  32. Brian Tomkinson
    April 29, 2016

    I have written here many times that if we endorse our membership of the EU the logical next step will be adopting the €uro. Yesterday Lord Heseltine predicted that the UK will one day join the €uro. In that, at least, I admire his candour. Some on the Leave side rather naively dismiss the idea, accepting the current opt out or believing the €uro will collapse. I think more should be made of the probability that having committed ourselves to staying in the Prime Minister (perish the thought it may be Osborne) would soon be coming along to tell us that now that the decision had been taken and our future was irretrievably enmeshed in the EU, in order for the UK to play her full part and have her voice heard at the top table, we must abandon the £ and adopt the €uro.
    The Remainians are being allowed to talk about a future in a “reformed EU” with no explanation of what, when or how that reform will take place.
    History has shown that the EU ploughs on, regardless of public opinion or referenda, towards its long held destination – a country called Europe. If we fall for the same threats as were used in the 1975 referendum and are being repeated today, we will be no more than a province in that country. We shall have jettisoned our proud history, democracy and independence to an anti-democratic cabal.

  33. CHRISTOPHER HOUSTON
    April 29, 2016

    Off topic:
    All Quiet on the Western Front with the Labour Party in the last few hours. Journalists believe that Party discipline has kicked in from the Whip’s Office and procedural rules governing silences when a member is suspended. Naa, they’ve just exhausted their 200-word-vocabulary and 57 varieties of sentence constructions allowable under their Political Correctness regime outlined ( briefly of course ) in their party member handbook: “How Not To Offend Anyone and Still be Able to Ask for A Pint ( no reference to short-pint-sized people intended ) .”

    PM Question Time will see many Labour MPs forced to pull their tongues out at the Tory benches and place their thumbs on their temples and wiggle their fingers like a mobile Moose headgear. Much as usual really.

  34. Margaret
    April 29, 2016

    When this blog is read by the EU remain , they will be looking to see if anyone is dangerous in their eyes. I am not, as all I do is try to understand, even though the challenge of trying to understand was hung before me like a carrot by a competitive commenter. This is not some little back street issue even though the referendum is to go ahead to the ignorant and knowledgeable. It will be about power , wheeling and dealing. It will be about manipulation and false premise. It will be about lies, deceit and intelligence which is not shared. We were great . We need to take control of our own GB . Full stop.

  35. Lindsay McDougall
    April 29, 2016

    I think that you’ve put your finger on it. Messrs Cameron and Osborne are closet, or not-so-closet Europhiles. I think that in the long term they intend us to join the EuroZone and the emerging Federal SuperState. Their behaviour makes no sense otherwise.

  36. miami.mode
    April 29, 2016

    …..It will be increasingly difficult to maintain the semblance of UK independence and self government as the EU comes to take over more and more aspects of our lives and laws……

    This is plainly obvious to anyone who takes even the mildest interest in EU supremacy.

    Sir John Major was on Today on the radio this morning extolling the benefits of membership and then talked about “shared sovereignty”. Does he know the meaning of the word? How on earth can you share supremacy?

    He then started waffling on about France being overruled by the ECJ on banning British beef after the BSE problems, but this merely proved the point that sovereignty had been usurped by the ECJ. Does this mean that he is willing to sacrifice sovereignty so that the Rosbifs can sell a few pounds of rosbif?

    We have a Sovereign, but no sovereignty.

    I know there is still quite a lot of time left before the referendum, but I wish the Leave campaign would try and get on the front foot a bit as, to continue the football analogy, a couple of early goals are priceless.

  37. hefner
    April 29, 2016

    OK, the Remainers are really bad. But could we get some precisions on what exactly Brexit will give us, with a timetable and some proper figures: ÂŁ10bn is not even half of Hinkley Point power station.
    So it is difficult to think that this sum will help solve the NHS, the energy, all new trade agreements, … and so on and so forth.
    Or is it as in each and every election “vote for me /my side and everything will be perfect”?

    Reply Saving our net contributions gives us a 0.6% National Income boost. I expect trade and the rest to stay similar to in at first and then increase at a slightly better pace as we make positive changes for ourselves

    1. bluedog
      April 30, 2016

      Good points and hard to give a credible answer given the variables and sensitivities in forecasting.

      Here’s an analogy. The difference between being in the EU and being an independent nation outside the EU is the difference between being an employee and being self-employed as owner-manager of your own business. The EU is increasingly limiting the room for individual initiatives by its members across a whole raft of activities. This restriction limits the flexibility of national governments to govern in the national interest, and that’s the precise point. The EU wants to govern for the greater glory of the EU. So if you want to be a zombie is some giant supranational corporation the EU is the place to be. On the other hand if you have the self-confidence to pit your wits against the best and believe in your own skills, get out of the EU.

      Being in the EU, you’ll get by. Being independent we can potentially do far, far better, simply by out-manoeuvering the EU with all its inflexibility and foolish policies. Take energy policy as an example.

    2. Denis Cooper
      April 30, 2016

      Why not ask the government for some sensible proposals, not the rubbish they have invented so far, as they and not the Leave campaigners will still be the government of the country after its people have said they want it to leave the EU.

  38. Dunedin
    April 29, 2016

    Re the “huge transfers of money that will be needed to enable the poorer and less economically successful countries to survive…” – I recall the German people being promised that giving up the Deutschmark would not lead to them becoming responsible for the debts of other EU members. I’m wondering whether the German taxpayers are up for the cost of full political and fiscal union?

  39. Yosarion
    April 29, 2016

    John of topic I know, however watching the BBC news earlier the leader of Welsh Labour said that funding for schools in Wales was better than in London and Equal to England, would you care to write a note reminding him that London is the Capital of England and is just the administrative center of the dis United Kingdom

  40. con
    May 8, 2016

    I don’t think Zac Goldsmith lost because of racism. He lost because he came across as a lethargic, entitled, lazy toff who lacked dynamism or enthusiasm.
    He was the wrong candidate, plain and simple. Almost as if the conservatives wanted to lose.

Comments are closed.