Poll: EU Referendum - Should the UK stay in the EU?

Do you believe the UK should remain a member of the EU?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 154 46.1%
  • No.

    Votes: 165 49.4%
  • Wouldn't Vote In A Referendum.

    Votes: 15 4.5%

  • Total voters
    334
  • Poll closed .
Why would anyone want to join the Euro? Hasn't the past few years shown you that maintaining control of your own interest rates is hugely beneficial? Economies across Europe are just fair too different to have one rate. Germany and France probably wish they'd never said yes after Ireland and Greece!

Well there will come a point where it will be good for British businesses to trade in the Euro though I accept that point hasn't come yet as our economy isn't mature enough yet. Greece should never have been allowed to join the Euro - they didn't meet the entry qualifications and they lied about their national finances. The lesson here is the importance of sticking to the rules, something I feel the British government could be leading on in Europe.

It's probably also worth mentioning that the only reason why Greece didn't go bankrupt earlier, and why Ireland is still able to borrow money is because of the Euro.
 
It's probably also worth mentioning that the only reason why Greece didn't go bankrupt earlier, and why Ireland is still able to borrow money is because of the Euro.

Exactly. In business you get rid of the departments which aren't making you money. With Europe you can't do that so Greece and Ireland cost the developed economies resources. I don't want that.

Stay out of the Euro. Not sure on the EU but I'd probably vote no to that too due to the sheer amount of bureaucracy and money spent on admin.
 
I could write a lot about what I think about this, I don't really have the time or the inclination right now though. But in short, No, I do not think Britain should remain a member of the EU, I do think we should seriously think about joining EFTA though. As it stands today the EU has expanded far beyond it's original parameters, and it is not what we originally signed up for.

Personally, I don't think a political, legal or military union the likes of which we have is something that is in our best interests at all, a free trade pact and some degree of ease of movement with certain European countries, passports required but Visa's not is basically all I want.
 
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Can we not go to the purely economic level like Finland (i think it's Finland? ) rather than withdraw completely?

I think you mean Norway. Norway is in the EEA (European Economic Area) but that's about it. I'm pretty sure Finland is fully paid up member of the EU.
 
Exactly. In business you get rid of the departments which aren't making you money. With Europe you can't do that so Greece and Ireland cost the developed economies resources. I don't want that.

Stay out of the Euro. Not sure on the EU but I'd probably vote no to that too due to the sheer amount of bureaucracy and money spent on admin.

Err, that's not what I said. Countries aren't businesses, you can't just get rid of them they have to be turned around. It's in no-ones interests for a country to go properly bankrupt (i.e. no IMF bailout) because it risks the complete collapse of government and anarchy. Even if you did kick Greece and Ireland out of the EU we (the UK) would still have to bail them out via IMF loans.
 
The basic idea is this:
If country A wished to leave the EU then they would have to repel their national law which permitted them to be members.
European Law overrules national law, therefore it does not matter if a country repelled their own law as they would still be bound by EU law which would make them a member.

European Law does not prevent repeal of the relevent acts by member states.

Admitably, it would probably never happen but it isn't possible for a country to withdraw themselves from the EU.

You couldn't be any further from the truth if you tried.

The Council would have to approve any removal.

That may be half true, but they can approve it once you've removed yourself ;)

At the moment, I can't remember the threshold of votes that is required for a Council decision to be authorised but no country has the individual right to remove themselves from the Union.

That quite simply is not true to pass off as fact.

There is a lot more to this, and various safeguards in place to ensure that no country can remove themselves.

No there isn't.

But that is the basic idea, I shall return tomorrow and outline this in more detail if any one is interested.
Sorry, should have added - These safeguards were put in place to ensure that the Empty Chair crisis would never happen again.

I'd be interested in your source.
 
Norway does quite well because it still has North Sea gas/oil, we don't any more - we are a net importer and have a population of 60m compared to Norway's 5m.

If we left the EU and got a free-trade agreement then our economy would be totally dependant on a major economic power and we'd have no say at all in how that major economic power was run.

If we left we would have a net saving and that is just the fiscal cost of Europe, and our economy is totally dependent on major economic power already. (what ever that meant?)

Being in or out of Lisbon doesn't make a difference.

That puts us in a very weak position. It's unfortunate that since Thatcher, our governments have preferred to pretend that the EU isn't important, we're not sure if we really want to be here, therefore we'll let the others decide how it should be run. If our governments had engaged with the EU political process I believe the EU would be a much better run institution today.

It would put us in a stronger position.

The EU is corrupt and of no use to anyone. We see poor return on our money.
 
Well there will come a point where it will be good for British businesses to trade in the Euro though I accept that point hasn't come yet as our economy isn't mature enough yet.

It has little to do with supposed immaturity of our economy, but the one size fits all approach that has caused so many problems and tensions for Eurozone members.

Greece should never have been allowed to join the Euro - they didn't meet the entry qualifications and they lied about their national finances. The lesson here is the importance of sticking to the rules, something I feel the British government could be leading on in Europe.

The lesson here is to retreat, and deal with things on our own level.

Britain can't lead Europe on anything.

Member states are too divided within the Union.

It's probably also worth mentioning that the only reason why Greece didn't go bankrupt earlier, and why Ireland is still able to borrow money is because of the Euro.

Irrelevent.
 
OMG are you mad ? Look at the RoI look at Greece for examples of how bad things could be if we had the Euro, Then consider how rubbish it would be if our currency value was based on the economies of financially ruined states. I don't wish to leave the EU but I would never vote to abolish sterling.

Clearly you don't know anything. The Euro didn't cause their recessions. Property bubbles and bad loans did.
 
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Clearly you don't know anything. The Euro didn't cause their recessions. Property bubbles and bad loans did.

In Ireland's case it was low taxes that did for them. Hey all you big multi-nationals come and start up in Ireland, your gateway to Europe with low taxes. You'll create a load of jobs for Irish people, Ireland can pretend to be a serious country and we'll all be happy (apart from all the Brits who lose their jobs but who cares about dem right?). All fine and dandy until these big multi-nationals realise it's even cheaper to set up in Eastern Europe than it is in Ireland, so bye-bye Irish jobs. All those nice homes we built in the countryside for workers at multi-national companies are now worthless and the Irish economy is screwed.
 
Out of interest, what would happen to EU citizens entering the UK for work if we were to leave? My industry is comprised of mainly Europeans and Americans, obviously far less Americans since it is (reasonably) difficult for them and the company to obtain visa's. I think that the visual effects / film industry in general would have a much harder time if the amount of EU citizens entering the country was limited.
 
Out of interest, what would happen to EU citizens entering the UK for work if we were to leave? My industry is comprised of mainly Europeans and Americans, obviously far less Americans since it is (reasonably) difficult for them and the company to obtain visa's. I think that the visual effects / film industry in general would have a much harder time if the amount of EU citizens entering the country was limited.

We would probably sign bilateral agreements with France, Germany, and the other major countries to have the same style of free movement as we currently have. We would simply not have the riff-raff of Poland, etc, in those deals.

Alternatively we can go down the "if you have a job here currently then you can stay" and then for any new entrants go down a case by case basis.
The huge advantage is that if we have lower volume of migration from Eastern Europe then we can allow more people in from America and so on.
 
In Ireland's case it was low taxes that did for them. Hey all you big multi-nationals come and start up in Ireland, your gateway to Europe with low taxes. You'll create a load of jobs for Irish people, Ireland can pretend to be a serious country and we'll all be happy (apart from all the Brits who lose their jobs but who cares about dem right?). All fine and dandy until these big multi-nationals realise it's even cheaper to set up in Eastern Europe than it is in Ireland, so bye-bye Irish jobs. All those nice homes we built in the countryside for workers at multi-national companies are now worthless and the Irish economy is screwed.

To be fair I think the Irish overbuilt a bit...

I see the no's have it so far! Just.
 
I work for the EU so I have a vested interest thus didn't vote in the poll.

But after being here for years and reading some SC threads i'm so glad to see it's split 50/50 given the forum's more right wing slant.

Haven't read the posts will do so later...
 
In Ireland's case it was low taxes that did for them. Hey all you big multi-nationals come and start up in Ireland, your gateway to Europe with low taxes. You'll create a load of jobs for Irish people, Ireland can pretend to be a serious country and we'll all be happy (apart from all the Brits who lose their jobs but who cares about dem right?). All fine and dandy until these big multi-nationals realise it's even cheaper to set up in Eastern Europe than it is in Ireland, so bye-bye Irish jobs. All those nice homes we built in the countryside for workers at multi-national companies are now worthless and the Irish economy is screwed.

Not quite I think it was the world wide availability of cheap cash that allowed Ireland to lend it's way into trouble.

the Irish government is still blaming the Banks but who should have been governing the bank?
 
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