Bye bye, Britain

[rvg]

The question is, would it become the 51st state or would you have to break the UK down into 4 states?

Brits don't need to join the union, they can do just fine on their own.

[Fragony]

Cameron and Co. have no intention of leaving the EU and simply can't do it, referendum or not as it would be suicidal. This is just the same old Tory party paying lip service to the Daily Mail reading "Little Englanders" in the home counties... it's the usual case of blowing some ideological hot air on the run up to the next election.

Could be, we will see. But here in the Netherlands in the polls at least the party's that want out are the biggest ones, the socialist party and the freedom party. They both are subject to a cordon sanitaire, they are both persona non grata in the establishment and they won't get along very soon, but the mix of different party's the establishment will have to make up to form a government is getting kinda hilarious. If we pull out the plug it's the end of the EU. And that is absolutily not an unthinkable scenario.

[Brenus]

If you want to upset a UKIP anti-European English you just have to agree with him. It works every time. As French, it is even better. I agree on all, they are not European, they are not part of European Culture, they are an island, even they have more links with Australia and New-Zealand and the Commonwealth and they are the best friend of the USA. It is really something to see their face going down as they realise it. I can’t stop to laugh (inside) as I have to keep my face straight.
As UK going out of the EU, Cameron’s masters won’t allowed it as the biggest market is EU, not China, not the USA. The only use of England for the markets is England is the gate to Europe. If UK leaves the EU and suddenly need passport, Amsterdam or Paris will become the hub of Europe. If the City can’t works freely within the EU, the City dies.
Cameron tries to convince he can have new deal with the countries members of the EU and rules can be different if you are out: lies. Without England, the rules will be decided then England will have to comply if she wants to trade with the EU. Simple example, the EU can decide that the English cars, having the driving wheel the wrong side, are dangerous on the EU roads. That kills immediately all European Tourism from England to EU. UK can try to retaliate, that kill the European Tourism in England. It is a loose/ loose situation.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

That'd be fun. A couple dozen million new voters. To be honest, we should integrate Mexico first though. Get in line Limeys.

Why would the Mexican government want that? Their economy is growing better than ours and we take care of many of their poorest through remittances that never have to be shouldered by the Mexican taxpayer. Why would they muck with that? On the other hand, we'd at least have a national language at last.

[rvg]

...leaving the EU would turn Britain into a US proxy state with almost zero leverage against us.

Care to elaborate?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

GC will speak his own piece, but I think he is referring to the impact of so many economic and social ties, the special relationship, and the coordination of our militaries. The UK would not be quite the satrapy GC alludes to (somewhat in fun) but it is easy to see the UK taking on a lot of a "sidekick" role in the eyes of too many -- on both sides of the pond.

[rvg]

I consider the special relationship to be very much a two-way street. It's not nearly as lopsided as some try to portray it.

[rvg]

The recent Syria crisis for example: the way the vote went on the British House of Commons had a huge impact on our ultimate decision not to get involved.

[Fisherking]

Elaborate? I often find myself wondering what exactly they bring to the table, outside of the war on terror (In which they admittedly play a large role, but still niggling in comparison to what the US does). A british perspective on this would be interesting too: just what do Britons think they have to offer?

The Brits have always been better at spying for one thing. Not nearly so many embarrassments in that field. Then over the years there have been little things like Ultra, chobham armor, radar, sonar, just to name a few.

So it is not exactly a one way street, even if we think we came up with all that stuff.

[rvg]

No one should doubt their past contributions, but what do they have to offer now that suggests anything other than a lopsided relationship?

Britain still has some serious weight within the Commonwealth.

[Papewaio]

Well there is the five eyes alliance which puts UK and the rest in a special level of trust. I doubt the same is happenkng between USA and Korea or Japan.

As for the EU it is spying or at least attempting to spy as much as the US and UK. I wonder if that was reported in the EU?

[rvg]

Britain is a side-kick nation with a moderate ability to project power on an international scale.

Sidekicks don't make decisions. Britain does.

Canada has closer ties with us than it does with Britain, and Australia has been making a point of going their own way in the last few years as the world turns its focus towards the Pacific.

Canada is still very much enamored with Britain, it's very British in its style of government and values. Much more British than American. As for Australia, while they do their own thing, they rarely contradict Britain.

As part of the EU, they are more valuable to us than if they weren't. They are certainly more valuable to the EU in general than they are to us. It is very hard to make the case for our special relationship being equal in any sense of the word.

As part of the EU, they made EU stronger. That was a good thing back when EU wasn't a bloated bureaucratic mess it has become. Nowadays I'm surprised it has taken Britain this long to decide to jump ship. It was very prudent of them to shun the Euro though.

[Papewaio]

The five eyes alliance consists of US-UK-NZ-Canada-AU it is a level of trust and on a world scale similar attitudes.

The economic stability in the UK helps its social stability and fund a larger military. The norm for societies is social unrest when there is a lack of bread and circuses or in more modern times fast food and TV.

[Brenus]

“What I do claim is that Britain has a stronger military than most European countries, and a stronger economy than most European countries, along with a more stable and resilient social structure than most European countries. “ Jokes. UK without EU is nothing (1 Aircraft Carrier without planes?) and thanks to Cameron, the entire British Army fits in one medium football stadium. As the stability of UK, that probably why there will be a referendum in Scotland about independence. As the economy is going, the last three years, between my wife and I we lost 1 year of employment from redundancies to agencies works. And we still earning less than 4 years ago.
“If you take the UK out of the EU, or if you make the UK have to compete with the EU, the EU loses”: Yeah, sure… You should check your figures…
“If there is ever to be an EU Military, for example, good luck doing it without Britain or having to do it in spite of Britain.” Ah yeah, France relied on the UK in Mali, Central Africa and others countries. Not that I support these interventions but at least Italy, France, Germany produce their own material, so can you tell me what Europe, if finally succeed to create a European Army (and I am against this) would miss with UK out? I can tell what UK would.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Nothing wrong with the right to vote going to prisoners. Most are just unfortunate people or those who conducted mild crimes. Even though given the apathy in elections, the prisoners most likely won't care much.

Though I actually approve of the court of human rights as it ensures national governments safeguard the liberties of its citizens. Because of that, it is safer to travel within Europe.

How about the principle that those who break the law should not elect legislators?

It's not as though we always denied them a vote - it was a conscious decision. It's also not true that most of them have only "conducted mild" crimes, you need to put a fair bit of effort in to get locked up for any significant period of time here. The majority will be robbers and burglars, drug dealers and traffickers in stolen goods, I would imagine.

I see the EU is busy learning you barbarian savages how a proper democracy works.

Taking away the vote for prisoners is absurd.

Says the man whose country hunts whales in contravention of treaty?

[Beskar]

Elaborate? I often find myself wondering what exactly they bring to the table, outside of the war on terror (In which they admittedly play a large role, but still niggling in comparison to what the US does). A british perspective on this would be interesting too: just what do Britons think they have to offer?

Actually, sorry to say, the treaty is awfully biased in favour of America. As such, an American can deport anyone within the UK to the USA without much of a hearing (lipservice) whilst in contrast, if an American has to be put through the American legal-system and tried there before they can be deported to the United Kingdom. There are many cases to illustrate this, such as the Gary McKinnon one about an autistic individually who illegally accessed the Pentagon computer systems to find traces of UFOs/Aliens, this is when the lopsided-ness of the treaty starts to become exposed. He signed a statement saying he broke UK law and he is more than happy to be sentenced and jailed within the UK, it took a lot of political wrangling at the home office and a lot of ruffled American feathers due to the public outcry of the incident.

[Tellos Athenaios]

In the short term Germany does not have any option but to use the Dutch ports. The short term being in the region of 10 to 50 years, because at the scale differences we are considering you need about 50 or so years to "buy" your way out of your supply issues, quite possibly more. Rotterdam is currently going through a major upgrade that has been in the works for the better part of my life now, to give you an idea of the timetables. Hamburg and Bremen are simply not anywhere near that scale right now -- especially considering that Germany already needs those two today to keep the goods flowing. This goes for both raw bulk materials for industry and finished products (Rotterdam) and foodstuffs (Amsterdam).

However that is not a relevant question or indeed metric by which to gauge whether or not it makes sense for the Netherlands to say bye bye. The flip side is that the Dutch economy is far, far larger than just the relatively small margins made by those two ports. (In fact that is their entire raison d' être: to be cheaper than the Germans and the Belgians.) Agriculture (feeding Germans), industry (producing raw materials for Germany, like diesel and petrol), embedded systems (embedded in German products), banking (making German lifes more miserable) etc. etc. are fairly big slices of pie too.

On the whole the Dutch economy is largely an extension of the German one at this point. Which is why you can take German consumer spending as a proxy for economic growth in the Netherlands. Which is also why it's not such a brilliant idea to artificially impose trading barriers and tariffs and other unnecessary nonsense over some vague notion of being ruled by Germans despite it really being our own local muppets doing the damage.

Much the same applies to Britain, except that British lawyers have lately figured out that things like the ECHR can be quite useful if they are in certain cases defending against overbearing government. Which the UK happens to have a lot of. By the by, the ECHR which other Brits then like to complain about is not a case of the EU imposing anything on anyone. It's 1950's stuff (the EU dates only to 1996), and membership is held by countries outside of the EU as well (such as Russia). In the case of Britain the government happens not to like those human rights very much if they get in the way of imposing more laws, but government is not quite willing to just ignore the ECHR.

Relevant: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/i...-2014011482542

As for the UK, in my opinion they should simply decide whether they want to be "in" or "out". "In" like any other EU country or "out" like any other not-EU country. This half hearted exception-riddled compromise we have now is simply not scalable. If Britain wans the trading benefits but does not want anything to do with EU laws, they could opt to take the Swiss or Norse approach. That is closer to the trading bloc of their addled memories viewed through their rosy tinted glasses they seem to yearn for. It also means to give up their say on quite a large range of law and simply following what the EU decides to do in many cases.

[Tellos Athenaios]

As for the EU, I don't claim to be an expert on how it works or what needs to happen for it to be better or worse or whatever. What I do claim is that Britain has a stronger military than most European countries, and a stronger economy than most European countries, along with a more stable and resilient social structure than most European countries.

Which? In fact, the UK is culturally a country with very, very, weak social structure when it comes to a safety net. They were probably relatively advanced in the 1800s or so, but this is 2014. Large parts of North England are still a dump, 30 odd years on. Wales and Scotland fare better only because they've sort of convinced to let London pretend they're really the UK equivalent of East Germany and therefore deserve lots of special privileges and tax breaks and funds. Still, were Scotland to say "bye" to the UK the prospects for the Scottish economy are quite bleak since, eh, the Scottish economy is basically nonexistent. (It's pretty much in service to England, it's the English that basically pay for the Scots to have a job).

These days economic growth means that they've restarted a few coal mines 'cause that the price of coal has risen enough for that to be worthwhile. Not that they employ a similar number of people, of course, it's not nearly profitable enough.

The UK is simply more valuable to Europe than it is to the USA. Heck, Australia is more valuable to the USA right now as they are openly courting China, Japan, Canada, and us for their cooperation in that part of the world, economically.

Well of course, but let's not pretend that the growth is in the UK or that the EU can't do without the UK or that the UK can't do without the EU. The growth is in countries like Poland. Or China. For the EU, common cause with assertive emerging economies (Brazil, India, China, Indonesia) are a far better bet than Whitehall. It's simply not 1950 anymore, and not having the UK as a member of your club is not nearly as significant as it once would have been.

[Papewaio]

I can't take anything you say as worthwhile when you can't even see Scottish oil as a positive to the economy.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I can't take anything you say as worthwhile when you can't even see Scottish oil as a positive to the economy.

Would that be the "Scottish" oil currently being drilled/pumped/managed by British Petroleum and KCA Deutag? With, from the looks of the company list, a fair number of Scots working as hired help.

I might have that wrong though.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Would that be the "Scottish" oil currently being drilled/pumped/managed by British Petroleum and KCA Deutag? With, from the looks of the company list, a fair number of Scots working as hired help.

I might have that wrong though.

That Scottish oil, indeed. The same oil they will need to agree with the English on how to divide post independence because the English have a claim. A rather significant one, given how the English, Welsh and Northern Irish together all outnumber the Scots. So any settlement is going to involve lots of that oil not being "Scottish" any longer, quite possibly the bulk of it.

Similarly other major employers are the British army and navy, for example to staff the bases for the trident systems. Which the English are not about to hand over to the Scottish should they choose their independence. Also the UK government has a disproportionate amount of Scottish employees because a lot of administrative work is located in Scotland.

[Beskar]

I can't take anything you say as worthwhile when you can't even see Scottish oil as a positive to the economy.

It is technically 'British Oil', since they are actually outside the zones under international law and only granted to Britain due to historical reasons and "We were here first before the law", so one of those legal exceptions. Since Scotland is leaving the Union, it would be entitled to what is given under international law and the oil fields are further away than that and granted to Britain, so they would lose all right even though Scotland is closer to said fields than England.

Scotland does benefit financially from the Union as well. In terms of 'Tax paid' and 'Tax-income received', Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are Net-receivers. Under the current system, everyone pays into the 'same pot' then receive an equal share. England pays the most in taxes.. as such.. you understand.

Scotland has a very nice and cushion position within the Union with their own parliament and own rules. Independence will start to bring some serious issues to the table. Apparently Spain is going to attempt to veto Euro-membership, if they do join the EU (due to own internal issues with Catalonia and Basque's), it would be as a new member meaning they have to adopt the Euro and have none of the exceptions that Britain currently enjoys. Also issue of setting up their own armed forces, security branches and other operations of the state.

There is quite a lot to the debate that is overlooked. Scotland leaving the Union will be a negative to the country, however, which is more important, sovereignty of a nation-state or the benefits to the people? That is what the vote is between.

As a non-Londoner, Scotland leaving the Union would make things worse for us as well.

[Papewaio]

Yes it is British oil, but the region that allows that claim to the area is Scotland. If historically Scotland wasn't part of the UK the oil would be either International or Scottish it would be very hard for England to lay a claim to it given the geographical location.

Now if the oil was then inherited by Scotland they would need the EU about as much as Norway does. They would also be able to convince HQs for oil companies and their stock listing to transfer from England to Scotland.

What would be the impact to London and thereby England if the highly improbable but not impossible happening went all Scotland's way? Loss of oil fields, banks, oil companies etc? Would England really be better off or would it be at a loss?

You would also have the Royals in England all year round. Surely that is a cost to far.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Yes it is British oil, but the region that allows that claim to the area is Scotland. If historically Scotland wasn't part of the UK the oil would be either International or Scottish it would be very hard for England to lay a claim to it given the geographical location.

Now if the oil was then inherited by Scotland they would need the EU about as much as Norway does.

Which is, as you should have guessed: rather a lot. Oil may make you hypothetically very rich but there's not an awful lot of jobs in actually getting the oil out (though granted there are not that many Scots either). Fishing alone is a bigger source of employment in Norway, IIRC.

So with all the large employers having a strong incentive to move operations south of the border (UK government) or at least stop hiring the Scots, to whom would the Scots look for their next pay check?

They would also be able to convince HQs for oil companies and their stock listing to transfer from England to Scotland.

What would be the impact to London and thereby England if the highly improbable but not impossible happening went all Scotland's way? Loss of oil fields, banks, oil companies etc? Would England really be better off or would it be at a loss?

Question: are the English really going to let the Scots walk away with all that? In any case this what-if scenario is critically dependent on an awful factors being decided in Scotland's favour and even then it cannot happen without at least tacit approval and criminal incompetence on the part of the English government. As for the last part, if you put it that way it doesn't sound entirely impossible but to me it seems highly unlikely that the English won't get at least a fair chunk of those oil fields.

[InsaneApache]

You would also have the Royals in England all year round. Surely that is a cost to far.

As you are well aware she's also the Queen of Scotland.

Interesting perspectives from our American friends on Canada and Australia. I wonder if you are aware that there are a lot of immediate family ties from the UK to both of those countries. I have first cousins in both countries, my wife has family in Oz, my ex has family in Canada. In fact nearly everyone I know has relatives in either or both countries.

They really are our cousins.

This is part of the problem. The UK has always looked outward. Probably because we are an island race. The day we ditched the commonwealth in favour of the EU was a disgrace.

One thing though. Given the democratic record of the EU, if we do get a referendum and we vote the 'wrong way', will we have to keep having referenda until we give the 'right' result?

Time for a cuppa.

[HoreTore]

Which is, as you should have guessed: rather a lot. Oil may make you hypothetically very rich but there's not an awful lot of jobs in actually getting the oil out (though granted there are not that many Scots either). Fishing alone is a bigger source of employment in Norway, IIRC.

Depends on how it's done. If all you do is pump up the oil, then no, there's not a lot of jobs coming from that. If you establish an oil industry as well(ie. making platforms and such), then there's a lot of jobs.

But yeah, the EU is still needed regardless of the oil. The standardization work the EU does is very important for small countries like Norway and Scotland.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Question: are the English really going to let the Scots walk away with all that? In any case this what-if scenario is critically dependent on an awful factors being decided in Scotland's favour and even then it cannot happen without at least tacit approval and criminal incompetence on the part of the English government. As for the last part, if you put it that way it doesn't sound entirely impossible but to me it seems highly unlikely that the English won't get at least a fair chunk of those oil fields.

I suppose we'll have to ask the Welsh and the Irish, but no I don't think so. The Scottish National Party want a lot of things, oil being only one of them, and they'll need to compromise on some of them.

If they get all the oil, they'll have to accept a full share of the UK's National Debt, along with the Euro and having to reapply to the EU.

Salmond has created apathy in the rest of the UK towards Scotland, though (as per his plan) so we no longer really care.

[gaelic cowboy]

The European Court of Human Rights - which is tied to the EU today - has told the British Government that it MUST give prisoners the vote.

Imposing restrictions on the franchise is core right of a sovereign government - taking that away from the UK Parliament is the definition of foreign rule.

this one came up before a few years back and I still think denying anyone who has reached the predetermined voting age is wrong.

bad enough your liberty is denied in prison but now ye wanna keep them from voting also to me thats dictatorship.

The Brits have always been better at spying for one thing. Not nearly so many embarrassments in that field. Then over the years there have been little things like Ultra, chobham armor, radar, sonar, just to name a few.

So it is not exactly a one way street, even if we think we came up with all that stuff.

Actually a quick wiki says they were just as useless at spying as anyone.

To many communists in there aristocracy apparently.





On the actual OP I think the EU referendum will be fought tooth and nail by the establishment.

All those british banks an other financial companies stand to lose billions if they leave.

[Pannonian]

this one came up before a few years back and I still think denying anyone who has reached the predetermined voting age is wrong.

bad enough your liberty is denied in prison but now ye wanna keep them from voting also to me thats dictatorship.

I'm not quite sure how someone sent to prison by trial by jury is the victim of a dictatorship. I know from experience that jurors can have any opinion they like, and the default tendency is to screw the establishment.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

this one came up before a few years back and I still think denying anyone who has reached the predetermined voting age is wrong.

bad enough your liberty is denied in prison but now ye wanna keep them from voting also to me thats dictatorship.

They're criminals - they broke the law, and Parliament makes the law.

That hardly feels like "dictatorship" unless you already believe that the UK is a legally corrupt state - i.e. that the people in prison should not be there because the law is unjust.