Is it time for the UK to join the euro?

[Meneldil]

To answer a question that was asked in this topic, Britain isn't part of the EU because Britishs, for some unknown reason, think they're different from other Europeans, and that they built their prosperity outside of Europe (which is actually a complete fairy tale).

As for myself, I'm all for them staying out of the Euro zone, and for withdrawing from the EU as well. We've had enough of these buggers and their constant whining. I don't even know why they wanted to join the European project so much in the first time, only to slow everything down and complain all the time.

Oh yeah, right, because UK was back then the poorest country in western Europe (bar Portugal and Spain), and thought - quite rightfully - that joining the rest of Europe could help.

A couple of other thoughts :

1 - Evan-Pritchards is indeed not the best financial analyst, but one of these people that really give a bad name to journalism. I can't even understand how some papers still publish his articles.

2 - Stop your constant nonsense about Democracy. It's not as if London was the city in the world with the most video spying crap, and it's obviously not as if your last prime ministers did not support anti-personal freedom laws in the name of the holy Fight Against Terror, laws that are still unmatched in the rest of Western Europe.
So much for democracy and freedom heh.

Oh, and the voters don't have any power once they've elected their leader. They never did and never will.

[JR-]

i am all for electing a gov't, granting them my authority to govern in my name and with my acquiescence, but if they want to divest that authority to a third party then i do expect them to come back to me and ask my persmission.

but talk of democracy is better kept to the; "is Britain an island" thread, except where we recognise that the euro is a tool that will of necessity result in greater political union.

as to Evans-Pritchard, people are happy to rubbish him but i have seen little sign of people rubbishing the arguments against Britain joing the euro.

and i am sorry the continent has to keep on putting up with british moaning about "ever deeper political union", and can fully accept that you would be happy to see us out so that brussels can continue with its grand federal project. all the (majority of) British people want is free-trade, and our politicans know it so they keep flogging the dead horse of halting this or that diktat to avoid the sensible solution; EFTA.

[Strike For The South]

Some of you equating us states with European countries are kind of reaching.

[rory_20_uk]

I don't understand joining the EU.

Free Trade: have a trade agreement
Fixed exchange: have a fixed exchange rate (that didn't really work in the past, yet having no opt-out would somehow be better).

The EU accounts have not been signed off for the last decade. If this happens to a company they're in trouble. If it's a massive bloc of countries you merely ignore it.

The EU is a disorganised mess which tries to paper over internal struggles by not asking the general public what it wants. Votes to the contrary are overlooked, ignored or repeated until the "right" result is gained.

Companies can always move elsewhere. The UAE is open for trade - unless that too is going to be forced into the EU.

[Louis VI the Fat]

???
All countries have different history and different customs. Even some parts of France have different history and different customs compared to some other parts of France. And what do you mean different economic interests? Don't we generally have the same economic interests? We may disagree on actual policies and actions, but the goal is generally the same

Oh, I am taking the piss, Sarmatian.

Come on, I base a dramatic and emotional pro-integration plea on poor IA's father who's starving to death because mean tabloid-wielding xenophobes don't want to be in a monetary union with Greece, only to be followed not two posts later by me revealing myself to be a dastardly xenophobe moaning that I don't want to be in a union with strange and foreign countries like Greece. It was funny, no?


And apart from taking the piss, I am posing a mental challenge. It may not sound like it, trying as I am to further debate by stubbornly, singlesidedly arguing for more EU integration, but I do take the arguments of the others seriously. For all my talk of a xenophobe, nationalist tabloid version of European integration, I myself of course think exactly the same. We all do. Save for Husar, who really does accept the consequence of his arguments and calls for a world government. Unless one does, one will have to define an 'us and them', and put a geographical and political limit to the extent of the EU.

Whom do I want to be in bed with? For me it is simple: the countries that surround me. Italy, Iberia, the British Isles, the Benelux, Germany, the Alpine countires. Those, plus the fat beef of Scandinavia - all their Kroner are belong to me.

A Serbian wants a union with his fellow orthodox countries Bulgaria and Greece, plus western Europe. The Poles dream of Ukraine and Belorus. But from where I'm sitting, Bulgaria is Mars. Ukraine the Kuiper belt. From where a Briton is sitting, Marseille and Naples are already North Africa. Erm...for me as well but let's for the sake of argument pretend they aren't.

This all means that all criticism about invoking different histories, different customs, different interests, is a matter of quantitive preference, not a qualitive one. Or, to put it differently, I can argue Furunculu's argument that Britain does or doesn't belong in the EU because of different history and customs etcetera. I can not argue the principle itself that different history, customs, etcetera are a criterium.

I myself have a limit. Turkey? No, too big and too different. Russia, the same. North Africa? Nope. Some Britons have limit as well, often conveniently summarised as: beyond the cliffs of Dover, the abyss.
You too, Sarmatian. Do you want a union with Syria? With Libya? They are as close to you as Ireland is. Yet I presume you don't. Which means that you, as well as I, have a mental and political line beyond which we think that there is just too much different history and different customs.

[Husar]

Whom do I want to be in bed with?

The nice turkish ladies I see almost every day of course, don't try to trick yourself into believing they shouldn't be here.

A Serbian wants a union with his fellow orthodox countries Bulgaria and Greece, plus western Europe. The Poles dream of Ukraine and Belorus. But from where I'm sitting, Bulgaria is Mars. Ukraine the Kuiper belt. From where a Briton is sitting, Marseille and Naples are already North Africa. Erm...for me as well but let's for the sake of argument pretend they aren't.

All day long I'm hanging out with internet friends from all over the world with whom I have more in common than a lot of people here in Germany whose interests could well be from Mars, but when I want to see those best friends of mine I have to pay a fortune, have my fingerprints taken, undertake a nekkid scan etc and when they gift me a flatscreen TV while I visit I will have to pay my country for taking it back home when I return. And people talk about freedom?

The EU offers that freedom, I can buy things from the UK, support their precious nationalistic economy and let ours rot because they are ripping me off anyway (to make a stupid example again I ordered LBP from the UK for 30EUR including shipping etc, in german stores it costs 65 to 70, that's more than twice as much...), I can also travel to Bulgaria and visit that beautiful country with nothing but my personal ID(or passport or whatever you call it). I know about the dangers of terrorism etc but if we could get the world to unite under one political entity and get rid of all artificial borders dividing friends and enemies alike, then we could achieve real freedom, different religions and customs merge at the borders all the time anyway and even faster since we got planes and the internets, a modern building in Bangkok looks very similar to a modern building in New York, at least in architecture the cultural differences are vanishing anyway.

350 years ago catholics and protestants were still bashing eachother's heads in, now they peacefully coexist so what says that muslims and christians cannot coexist peacefully or that a briton and a frenchman cannot be neighbors? The only thing that does is their perception of the other guy, their prejudices, their monkeyspheres, their stupidity.

[Incongruous]

And when that world state becomes so unbearable, where to go?
For it is the Utopian dream land, no?

Any idea that it is not, must desist.

If I were you Hussar, I would think harder about a World State than simply that it will allow you to buy cheaper goods.

[JR-]

I myself have a limit. Turkey? No, too big and too different. Russia, the same. North Africa? Nope. Some Britons have limit as well, often conveniently summarised as: beyond the cliffs of Dover, the abyss.
You too, Sarmatian. Do you want a union with Syria? With Libya? They are as close to you as Ireland is. Yet I presume you don't. Which means that you, as well as I, have a mental and political line beyond which we think that there is just too much different history and different customs.

i would love to see turkey in the EU.

in my view they have earned it for their party in NATO during the cold war, the west would also benefit from what can be best described as the obama effect, and most importantly it would help make the EU broad and shallow, which is the way i like my supra-national governance.

[Louis VI the Fat]

i would love to see turkey in the EU.

Wot!? Rubbish Furunculu! The EU must not expand! We are too different, have too many diverging interests. I don't need the UK and their schemes to get me into a union with Turkey! I want a referendum NOW!!


Hehe.


Bah, I enjoy myself much more as an evil rightwinger. Forget about my recent sharpleft turn. From now on, Louis is a rightwing fanatical maniac.

[Sarmatian]

Oh, I am taking the piss, Sarmatian.

Come on, I base a dramatic and emotional pro-integration plea on poor IA's father who's starving to death because mean tabloid-wielding xenophobes don't want to be in a monetary union with Greece, only to be followed not two posts later by me revealing myself to be a dastardly xenophobe moaning that I don't want to be in a union with strange and foreign countries like Greece. It was funny, no?

Well, when you put it like that, yes. Not really funny, but interesting. You need to hone your witticism. I guess you've spent too much time watching German films or reading German literature, switch to British for a couple of months

A Serbian wants a union with his fellow orthodox countries Bulgaria and Greece, plus western Europe. The Poles dream of Ukraine and Belorus. But from where I'm sitting, Bulgaria is Mars. Ukraine the Kuiper belt. From where a Briton is sitting, Marseille and Naples are already North Africa. Erm...for me as well but let's for the sake of argument pretend they aren't.

Yeah, because they all live in a dream that we'll get rich the moment we become EU members and others will stop looking down on us. Poor beggars, they don't know what they're getting into.

I see what you mean. So, you must have protested when a certain guy of Berber/Algerian roots born in Marseille played for Bordeaux and France?

You too, Sarmatian. Do you want a union with Syria? With Libya? They are as close to you as Ireland is. Yet I presume you don't. Which means that you, as well as I, have a mental and political line beyond which we think that there is just too much different history and different customs.

Are you kidding? Of course! Serbs are held in very high regard in Syria because of our involvement in non-aligned movement

Reject union with Ireland? To pass on an opportunity to be in an union with the country where Tribesy is from??? Not a chance!

[Louis VI the Fat]

Not really funny

You need to hone your witticism. I guess you've spent too much time watching German films or reading German literature, switch to British for a couple of months

Ouch! Scathing!

I might have to study Serbian instead to hone my skills of razorsharp insult.

I see what you mean. So, you must have protested when a certain guy of Berber/Algerian roots born in Marseille played for Bordeaux and France?

When they win, they're French. When they lose, they're Algerian.