EU Referendum

[HarryBosch]

Break it down for me experts...........

 

Some say it would be bad for business, others say Switzerland don't have a problem and we could put new trade agreements in place within 24 hours.

 

Why would the likes of Nissan not want to invest here as we're often told?

Wouldn't German, French, Italian car manufacturers still want to sell us cars and make sure their governments facilitated this?

 

What are the advantages/disadvantages of not being beholden to EU laws? Are we beholden to EU laws anyway?

 

Would it be harder for me to :censored: off to Spain in a few years (i.e. never)???

[jimsleftfoot]

There is a correlation that Switzerland and Norway are outside the EU yet they have decent economies, but that doesn't mean there is causation.

There are other countries outside of the EU that aren't doing so well.

 

Switzerland has been a haven for investors for a long time, due to its political neutrality (it didn't have a costly World War to fund) and stability.

Norway has the biggest oil wealth fund in the world.

Both have relatively small populations.

 

It's often worth noting that the bulk of Norways jobs are in the public sector and their manufacturing output isn't particularly great.

 

Switzerland in particularly did negotiate something like 120 individual agreements which took 3 years. My guess is that it might take a bit longer to sort ours out if we decide to leave being that we are about 10 times bigger and without a healthy bank balance.

 

Why would businesses not invest? Investors like certainty and stability. Leaving the EU serves neither so why would they invest here instead of say Germany? On the other hand, its been great that we haven't been in the Euro for the same reasons.

 

EU Laws - If you trade with the EU, then you need to play by its laws if you want to trade with it. Many of the laws make sense in my view anyway but you can find problems if you cherrypick, as you would do with normal UK laws. The US government recently released a report saying that they may have to look at their close relationship with us, as they want us having our say at the EU table. So this idea that we can just work with the US, is not perhaps the view of the US.

Spain - Potentially, who knows what would happen if the politics went a bit sour.

Edited May 8, 2015 by jimsleftfoot

[JoshOWTB]

Can we just have a poll on OWTB? as good as any exit poll.

 

I vote we don't leave EU. I don't necessarily feel it is 'broken' and think we would be considerably worse off without being part of something bigger.

[opinions4u]

I dislike the EU.

 

But I think we're in too deep to be able to benefit from getting out.

[leeslover]

In terms of trade, we would be signing up to accept EU regulations on what we could sell to them without the relatively modest say we have over the rules now, in return for setting out our own terms to trade with the rest of the world. Europe is the only world region mired in stagnation.

[jimsleftfoot]

In terms of trade, we would be signing up to accept EU regulations on what we could sell to them without the relatively modest say we have over the rules now, in return for setting out our own terms to trade with the rest of the world. Europe is the only world region mired in stagnation.

Is that actually dragging the UK down though? The primary issue is the countries with the Euro. Spain for example was royally ###### despite having relatively little debt.

 

Also being able to negotiate treaties on your own isn't particularly good if you have less influence. Of course outside the EU the government would have more flexibility to terms that might be economy good, people bad.

[leeslover]

I take the points about there are other reasons why Switzerland and Norway are rich, but they do demonstrate that you can easily trade with the EU without being in it. We would gain a lot from trading a lot more freely with North America, Brazil, India, China, South Africa and many other places whilst still dealing with the declining EU.

 

My guess is that financial services would be the only area hurt as Paris and Frankfurt tried to use regulations to supplant London. Many seem to think that would be a good thing but that's another argument.

[HarryBosch]

Is that actually dragging the UK down though? The primary issue is the countries with the Euro. Spain for example was royally ###### despite having relatively little debt.

Also being able to negotiate treaties on your own isn't particularly good if you have less influence. Of course outside the EU the government would have more flexibility to terms that might be economy good, people bad.

What do we get from this "influence"?

[24hoursfromtulsehill]

This is like the AV question. I'm probably pro-AV, but voted against Clegg and his band of :censored:.

 

I'm probably in favour of getting out, but if it's what Jacob Rees-Mogg wants, I'm voting in.

 

The main thing that pisses me off about the EU is the democratic deficit...but the democratic deficit brought about by the last UK election is equally embarrassing and probably more damaging. Would've been better with AV. Such is life.

[leeslover]

Not sure AV would have changed much. Maybe more people making a statement vote for Greens or UKIP before transferring to Tory/Labour. Also a lot of people unsure about it would have voted the same way regardless