PM Cameron uses UK Veto in EU Talks

It would seem that the concept of “majority rule” should only apply for liberal causes.

I love how the French papers are focusing on those saying it was a bad decision, but ignoring the massive congratulations from the Conservative MPs and support of the majority of the British people. Anyone would think the pro-integrationists were living in a separate world to the rest of us 😀

http://www.lemonde.fr/crise-financiere/article/2011/12/12/david-cameron-defend-au-parlement-son-refus-d-un-nouveau-traite_1617637_1581613.html#ens_id=1268560

I’ll repeat part of an earlier contribution on this subject. This is aimed at all the ‘handwringers’ who proclaim doom when, not if, either the EU splits into fragments and this country leaves or, this country leaves this mis-begotten club sooner.

For reasons, with which many of you will be familiar, this country is no longer and has not been for some considerable time, a major producer of manufactured goods. Forget the whipping boy myth of Socialism – Mrs. Thatcher. The seeds of our decline were sown in the immediate post war years and can clearly be attributed to the activities of our Communist inspired Trade Unions and the efficacy of the almost unselfish application of the American Marshall Plan.

Almost unselfish ? The Yanks were shrewd. At the end of WW2, Europe was in tatters, destroyed, kaput ! But populations had to be fed, so food had to be imported and paid for until such time as home grown farming generated sufficient quantities. The most basic items were lacking; domestic fuel, clothing, housing, all of this coupled with a most savagely cold winter during 1947.

The Americans had come up with the Marshall Plan which was simply a plan which provided financial credit plus the provision of most of the basic requirements of existence for the shattered peoples of Europe. In so doing, they of course provided an outlet for American manufactured goods of all kinds. The American Marshall Plan was not quite as altruistic as first perceived. No matter, it worked and provided salvation for Europe.

With American aid, the ravaged industries of Germany, France, Italy and the Low Countries were re-established and became post war power houses aided by modern up-to-date machinery churning our cars , trucks, aircraft, machne tools etc.

In the meantime, this country struggled along, attempting to re-establish its old markets with goods that were produced on slow, outmoded machinery and further stymied by a Communist Trade Union mind set that appeared set upon the destruction of what had been the first and mightiest industrial power in the world.

In the succeeding years it became apparent that we could not produce goods and compete on price with those countries with whom we were in competition, who paid themselves little or no Social benefits and whose working population were prepared to work for a lot less.

Thus it was that we became a service economy rather than a manufacturing one. Our European neighbours aided by their Marshall Plan which kick started their economies and a willingness on the part of their national governments to subsidise ailing parts of their industries, went from strength to strength.

Britain having come off the Gold Standard, attempted to remedy their decline by printing money. This worked for a time until the worlds financial centers thought about it and the pound caught not so much as an inflationary cold as inflationary pneumonia.

As perhaps a consequence of our example, the rest of the world, with rare exceptions, is now printing money – why not ? Just as long as international confidence holds sway there is little danger and that brings me tidily to the EU and the Euro. Belief in the Euro has been eroded. Such is the volume of debt – that which we know about – that all the countries that hold Euro bonds in billions are starting to look very wan about the gills. If some country presents their collection of Euro Bonds to whoever is responsible for payment and demands payment ! Oh dear! The ess aitch wun tee will certainly hit the fan – big big time.

So to all those who fear for this country’s future, isolated, marginalised, bereft of friends, totally on our own I say, be of good cheer; we could have been in the Euro and we might have been a substantial manufacturing economy and then where would we be?

John Green

I cannot really fault anything you have said there…

…the only problem now is that this is the situation that we’re in! And that includes the UK…..even if we try to get out! 😉

It is going to be very difficult for the driving economies behind the EU to even admit that it is perhaps fatally flawed, let alone admit defeat and begin to back-away from the ‘dream’. The recent ‘fudge’, one of many, doesn’t address the real problems of the EU and until the real problems are addressed I do not see things getting any better; there will come a point (possibly reached already) that catastrophic failure becomes inevitable.

(Is that cheering I can hear?)

The problem is that ‘being right’ will not really help…..even a partial break-up of the EU will be very bad for the UK.

The creation of the EU was a flawed concept from its very beginning – the economy / cultures of the member states are just to varied to be compatible in the long (or even short) term. The criteria for countries that wanted to join the euro were not tough enough or were fiddled / ignored by the politicians to feed their own egos and wanting a place in hisotry as a creator of the united states of europe. Even one of the main people behind the euro (jacques delors) has recently admitted it was a flawed project from the start because it was based on a political ideology rather than any sort of practical experience.

The rapid expansion of the EU, adding new ex eastern block nations have not helped as they could see the EU as being of benefit to them. The main money contributors to the EU (Germany / France / UK) are slowly coming to realise that they are not a bottomless pit to support those countries who should not really have been invited to join the euro.

…you have already concluded that only pro-integrationists are capable of intelligent thought…

Where exactly have I said anything that is ‘pro-integrationist’?

All I have stated is that if leaving the EU is such a brilliant, self-evident or popular idea why has no UK party stood on that platform (or not failed miserably while standing on that platform) in a UK election in over thirty years?

It is a simple question.

To which your answer, and the answer of others, has been that somehow ‘mysterious European representatives’ have colluded to prevent this for their own interests…

…neatly side-stepping the reason why UKIP was not elected with a landslide!

Again it is a simple question; do you have an answer?

I do not consider myself as ‘pro-integrationist’, and I believe that the EU, and the Euro in particular, are seriously flawed and now in real danger of collapse…..and not because of the veto.

However just blaming everything on ‘Europe’ and believing in some EU ‘phantom menace’ isn’t going to solve anything. :rolleyes:

@Creaking Door

It doesn’t matter what anyone here writes, you have already concluded that only pro-integrationists are capable of intelligent thought and that everyone else is motivated by bigoty. I personally do not really care about pointlessly discussing it, as it actually leads nowhere. I’d much rather have a referendum, that’s the best way to reach a conclusion. Political discussions are, in general, pretty pointless as it just decends into a “he who shouts loudest” contest.

And the first country to raise serious objections to the results of the EU summit are…….Germany!!

Bundesbank rejects Europe’s IMF funding ruse

Germany’s Bundesbank has raised serious objections to EU summit plans to shore up Italy and Spain by channelling up to €200bn (£170bn) from central bank reserves through the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Europe’s leaders agreed in Brussels to mobilise the reserves of the 17 national banks of the eurozone system to finance the IMF, hoping that this will then lever fresh money from China, Japan, and other global powers.

Andreas Dombret, a Bundesbank board member, said Germany’s central bank cannot take part in any form of covert funding for EMU states in trouble through the bank-door of the IMF, saying further money can be used only to support the normal operations of the Fund. “The money cannot migrate into some sort of special pot that is used exclusively for Europe. That would be a clear breach of the prohibition of monetary financing of states. The German Bundesbank has explicitly ruled this out,” he told the Handelsblatt newspaper. Mr Dombret said the Bundesbank’s share of any such IMF package would be €45bn and is “inherently risky”. It would require an indemnity of some kind from the German parliament. This in turn would breach the €211bn ceiling already set by the Bundestag on EU bail-outs.

Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), raised similar concerns last week, warning that the ECB is not willing to use the IMF as a conduit for covert sovereign rescues in Europe. One cannot channel money in a way to circumvent the treaty provisions. If the IMF were to use this money to buy exclusively European bonds, we think is not compatible with the treaty,” Mr Draghi said.

Adding to complications in Germany, Bundestag president Norbert Lammert has demanded that the summit package should undergo scrutiny by Germany’s constitutional court, warning that new powers for European commissars to intrude in national budgets might conflict with German fiscal sovereignty.

The summit item on the role of the IMF appears to have been slipped into the conclusions without full preparation and is meeting blistering criticism from IMF experts, as well as hostility in Washington.

US President Barack Obama said: “Europe is wealthy enough that there is no reason why they can’t solve this problem. It’s not as if we are talking about some impoverished country that doesn’t have any resources.” The US said it will not contribute to the EU package. A group of Republicans on Capitol Hill want to go further and slash America’s existing funding for the IMF.

Mario Bleijer, former head of Argentina’s central bank and an IMF expert, said Europe should not try to shift liabilities onto the rest of the world.

“The proposal to use the IMF as a conduit for ECB resources – thereby circumventing restrictions imposed by EU treaties – while providing the ECB with preferred-creditor status, would exacerbate the Fund’s exposure to risky borrowers. This arrangement could be seen as an unwarranted abuse of Fund seniority that unfairly frees the ECB from the need to impose its own conditionality on one of its members,” Mr Bleijer said

It’s too complex an answer as it varies from party to party, and from MP to MP! One reason true for all is that it’s simply easier to maintain the status quo, fewer consequences to fear. There’s also the vested interests to consider. These vested interests aren’t likely to be dark forces, but rather European representatives that want to keep their power and influence in the club…

So we’re back to it all being some huge conspiracy then? 😀

Are you seriously saying that these mysterious ‘European representatives’ that exert so much influence on those in power (and on those in opposition) have successfully prevented any party standing on a ‘UK out of EU’ platform for thirty years? Even though as you state the UK would obviously be much better off out of the EU and most voters want us out?

Of course this argument does not explain why UKIP was not voted in with a landslide at any election they have fought, does it?

Presumably also this pressure is being exerted on other European countries or is it only the UK that is being singled-out by these foreigners…

…foreigner that are after our money, our land…..our women! :rolleyes:

@Creaking Door
“So if you are right how do you answer my question; why doesn’t any major UK party want us out of the EU?”

It’s too complex an answer as it varies from party to party, and from MP to MP! One reason true for all is that it’s simply easier to maintain the status quo, fewer consequences to fear. There’s also the vested interests to consider. These vested interests aren’t likely to be dark forces, but rather European representatives that want to keep their power and influence in “the club”, the tens of thousands of people whose jobs are involved with the EU/EC, pressure from other countries that would prefer to have a bigger say over us ect.

As for Milliband I have little respect for him. He seems happy to bash everything, regardless of whether it is good or bad, with the intensity of the bashing being directly proportional to how good it will make him look. I am all in favour of an opposition that properly questions the decisions of government, but when it’s just one constant stream of senseless bashing the opposition role becomes quite ineffective at working for the electorate.

@waco
Do you honestly hand on heart believe Britain only has two choices? If you do, then I suggest a bit of creativity and indepedent thinking could certainly help you to see that there are actually near infinite options open to Britain, many of which are quite feasible. I know the pro-integrationist stance is that Britain must be with the EU or die in the fires of doom, furthermore I believe their vested interests mean they are hardly likely to suggest that leaving the EU could be good in any way for Britain. Ultimately I would like to see it put to the vote, and the people be allowed to make their own choice in a referendum, with an equal allocation of media and marketing for each side so there is no repeat of Ireland. So, will you be supporting democracy, or dictatorship?

While I thank the US for their entry into the war, much of their motivation was to promote the US to the front of the world stage and to see off the last of our Empire.

Crazy talk.
The US became a world power after WWII, as a “accidental” result of the war.

I’ve never read anything in my University or graduate level studies of American history that WWII was entered to promote America as a world power. Perhaps FDR (as a liberal Democrat) saw it as a way to end European colonialism, but I don’t think there is any proof that America wanted to become a super power. It just happened as Europe rebuilt itself (with a lot of American aid) and as a result of the Stalinist/Communist threat that was not forseen when America entered the war in 1941.

America had a huge, increasingly wealthy population and vast natural resources, it didn’t need an Empire.
Based on pre-war export successes, increased foreign trade didn’t didn’t require an empire. US firms were doing quite well without one. And building an Empire would eveentually mean higher taxes, something firms did not want.

America fought WWII to save Western ideals (and the “motherland”…the UK) and self protection. Later, it fought communism for the same reasons.

Until I learn otherwise, I’ll suggest that any other thesis cynical Euro-talk trying to make all American motives seem as base as possible.

Ummmmm

In my hunble opinion the British people only really vote on one issue. And that is the amount of money in people’s pockets.

They wont vote on reasoned arguments.

Thats why TB kept on getting re-elected.

Peeople are really feeling the pinch now and dont like they way the bankers have been left off the hook.

What ever the rights and wrongs are if this coilition breaks down there will be a change in Government.

If however, Cameron calls for a referendum and takes us out of the EU he will retain power especially if he gets to go for a snap election after such a result.

Thats when it goes so pear shaped I dont want to think about it.

Unemployment will become astronimic and society as we know it today will break down. I promise you.

Oh and one other thing, have a peak at the current polls the Torries have been trailing noticebly for some time now. That said Edd Balls scares me. Maybe however the correct Millibrand will take over (boy did the unions c@ck up there).

I would probably say that currently, the Conservatives have the edge (just) if it came to an election. The LibDems voters won’t soon forget all the broken promises, and Miliband comes across as very weak (and I’m sure most will remember what the last Labor government did to us – ie going to war on a lie amongst others)

I don’t think the Lib Dems will get enough votes to make up a coalition.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Cameron is really the strong and competent leader we need right now, but with the complete lack of any alternative I think he’ll have to do 🙂

Well, we are not going to agree on economic principals and practises.

However they do say if you put 3 economists in a room you will get 4 diffrent opinions.

I also concede that you raise a couple of very interesting points (or at least allude to them).

AA/ Is it possible that should Cameron stick to his current position that Nick Clegg will bring the coilition down? I dont think Clegg has anything to loose anymore and this is possible. Perhaps unlikely, but possible. What would replace it ? I think it would be another coilition, but this time with Labour. You might not like it. But, yep, its possible.

BB/ A referendum.
Which in this country would result in the UK pulling out of the EU altogether. I have no doubts about that.
From my point of view this would bring a total social and economic disaster for this country. I hope I am wrong, I really do but I honestly dont think so.

Surely handing over fiscal controls over to Europe will prevent us from ever being competitive again? France and Germany seem to have free reign to do whatever they wish. If we bend or break EU regulations we get fined heavily.

What I see as inevitable at this point is that our country will become poorer. As you say, we no longer have the material wealth that we once had. Our currency will devalue and we will become competitive once again. This is very basic economics, and something the Eurozone countries have got very wrong. This is a huge contributor to the problems with the Euro, as the single currency simply isn’t flexible enough to cope withe the vast differences in its member states. This is why it will always be doomed to failure.

My comment about law firms relates to the fact that many of the worlds top law firms are based in Britain (London more specifically) our business practices (especially our accounting standards) are THE world standard (though the US is stubborn to accept this). We have a great deal of intellectual assets we can exploit.

So long as we keep our own currency, we will always be Europes whipping boy. They will never allow us to state terms when it comes to their economies, but will gladly impose restrictions on us whenever they see fit, thanks to their new majority voting system. The reach and grasp of these new empowerments will spread, you mark my words.

There is nothing democratic In what they are proposing, so how can that be a good thing? Bit ironic that the Lib Dems and Labor are in such favour of it 🙂

As I have stated before, a referendum will come and I’m very confident that the result will distance us from Europe even more. You may think that’s a bad thing, but you might as well get used to the idea.

We are net importers of oil and particularly gas. Our reserves in these fields are deminishing and there will be little if anything left in 15 to 20 years, if that.

Asia are exporters we cannot hope to compete with that market since our labour costs are astronomic in comparison.

I see very little market in North Africa, Lybia, Morocco, Tunis, Algeria nd Egypt, sorry little or nothing there for us.

As for the service sector I suppose we are looking at the financial markets. I believe that by taking his current stance Cameron believes he is trying to protect the city.

However I believe that should we take on an isolationist approach much of the city will end up moving to Frankfurt and Paris.

I’m really sorry but I just dont get the “Our law and business practices are probably peerless world wide.” bit.

We used to excel in pharmacuticals and chemicals I grant you. But the majority of such business have moved abroad. I’ll stay away from the moral arguments regarding phramacuticals.

In a nut shell our labour costs are to expensive to compete. All post war Governments have concentrated in making short term profits rather than producing long term ecomomic stratergy. We cannot exist simply by selling coffee to each other.

Please do not get the idea that I believe Europe is the pancia that will solve all our problems.

Alas we do not have the economic strength to survive on our own. Sorry !

Tell me, what other countries could we trade with and what would we actually trade ????

Even if we completely left the EU, that doesn’t mean we couldn’t trade with EU countries. Look how much trade Asia and North Africa does with Europe! We would do well to tighten our relations with India and Africa currently rather than our immediate neighbours.

As for what we can sell, unfortunately much of it services (to be fair if you’re 40+ I’m sure you know much more of the nature of the decline of our manufacturing industries and the increase of service based business than I do) But financial services are obviously a huge part of our economy. Our law and business practices are probably peerless world wide.

However, we still have large gas and oil reserves we can exploit, pharmaceuticals are a huge industry world wide and one that we are successful with. Engineering in this country is also arguably second to none and that is something we ought to exploit more than we do.

I would be keen for us to trade on our abilities rather than who we are pals with.

Excellent Paul…..I like your style.

Good, When I get out of bed in the morning I will joing in Comrade!:D

спокойной ночи

I think I’m going to start a new thread about the 1940 invasion.