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What "powers" do the "euroskeptics" want back?

THIS is what is going to happen to Britain!!!

Without any scaremongering at all, Peter Hitchens has divined the fate of our septic Isle.

Is it loss of an independent monetary policy? No, far worse!

A loss of an independent judiciary? Think again!

A loss of an independent education, foreign and domestic policy? Not even close!

The EU is a giant vampire squid that, having once clamped itself on to its victim, steadily sucks the life out of it until it is a husk.
As long as we belong to it, this grisly process will go on until England and Britain vanish from history
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England and Britain will first be sucked to a husk and then erased not merely as a geopolitical entity but VANISHED!!! From the map? NO!...

FROM HISTORY!!!!!
That means you won't even be able to read about it in history books because it will have vanished.

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co...-clutches-of-angelas-giant-vampire-squid.html
 
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Francesca R said:
Actually he was elected by voters in Witney, Oxford to represent them in the house of commons. The rest of the public didn't even have him on their ballot paper. So by your principle he probably shouldn't go to Brussells at all.
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Has anyone told him?
 
Francesca R said:
The Brown/Ballls decision not to join the euro in 2003 was also fraught with risks that the UK would be consigned to the slow lane, or back foot. But I suspect almost nobody in the UK believes that today.
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I do wonder if Europe would be in such a mess if Britain had put its weight behind the Euro.
 
The UK ran structural budget deficits through a fifteen year expansion courtesy of Major/Clarke and Blair/Brown. When the economy tanked in 2008 the pound fell about 25-30% just like it did in previous deep recessions, and the BOE cut interest rates independently and it later bought a few hundred billion long bonds.

If the UK had been in the euro, then none of those shock absorbers would have been available to the UK. The fiscal blowout (which was almost as severe as Greece anyway) would have probably been worse, and since the UK is as big as Italy, the euro sovereign debt crisis may well have got to its present stage a lot earlier.

Colour me very sceptical that the UK in would have helped at all.
 
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I have no clue whether Cameron made the right decision, thing is I don't think he does either except in the narrow sense that it probably prevented the Conservative party starting another civil war over Europe. If the plan fails he can always say Britain's involvment wouldn't have made a difference. If it succeeds and there is some downside to Britian staying out, well by the time that becomes clear Cameron probably won't be PM anymore and someone else will have to deal with the flak when they go begging to be let in.

As to the OP I don't think most of the Eurosceptics really know what they mean by repatriation of powers, they just want the nasty foreigners to go away.
 
The reasoning I hear from the europeceptics in the UK is that the UH should wich the EU and turn to the developing nations as a means of asserting global influence.

As much as I want to see those dreams burn and crash horrible and see them eat a crow, I can´t fault them for wanting Britain to defend it´s interests.
 
Darat said:
The protected name stuff I'm actually all for.
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Then we have different opinions on that.

Darat said:
Nothing unique to the EU.
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But it seems much more pervasive in the EU than in Sweden.

Darat said:
Disagree with that CAP is for all the countries as are geographically/name protected stuff.
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But some countries benefit especially from it due to them having so many farmers. Also some countries have very strong agricultural lobbies...

Darat said:
I don't know enough to comment on Sweden's trade relations to have an informed opinion but from a UK perspective it does seem sensible and a lot more productive to have a very large single market on our doorstep.
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I agree, but from what I know you get that with EFTA as well.

Darat said:
How much oil do you have? ;)
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About as much as Switzerland.
 
Francesca R said:
If it were not for the referendum lock, I think that the UK should have gone along with this. It could still oppose a financial transaction tax if it wanted to, which is not (I don't think) part of the deal
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I feel like making this statement stronger. Cameron should have agreed to a treaty change, explained back home the facts, which are that the UK would be no more likely to have a financial transactions tax imposed from outside as a result, and acknowledged that there is nothing stopping UK banks unilaterally reserving higher capital ratios than the EU if they want to.

And then the government should have dealt with the referendum issue (which is of its own making) on its own, rather than using this veto to avoid doing so.
 
Darat said:
I'm getting a tad fed-up of the many euroskeptics popping up all over the media saying they "want the power* back" and then being vague about what that means. So far all I've heard is some mumbling about bent bananas and the working time directive (which we can already opt out of...) oh and one mention of "human rights"!

Anyone got a list handy of what powers we are meant to want to have back?


(*Sadly I've been informed it is not the power of flight or invisibility.)
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Hasn't the banana directive been repeeled?
 
Just watched the recording of yesterday's commons ruckus. Miliband was rather brilliant, more than I've ever thought in the past. Too bad in the extreme that on this issue he won't likely win over public opinion; because IMO he should.
 
Bascially the EU argument in the UK is dominated by people calling each other names.

Euro-sceptics are labelled as xenophobic little Englanders while Europhiles are selling our democracy to Brussels.

Perhaps we should have a referendum on the subject?
 
I would say be careful what you wish for, when what you are wishing for is to throw open a debate which has been progressively toxified for decades (from both sides), to get some kind of resolution that will be binding for the next generation or so in practice, even though it should not be in principle.

To be honest, I have some trouble accepting that today's electorate deserve that much power.
 
Francesca R said:
I would say be careful what you wish for, when what you are wishing for is to throw open a debate which has been progressively toxified for decades (from both sides), to get some kind of resolution that will be binding for the next generation or so in practice, even though it should not be in principle.

To be honest, I have some trouble accepting that today's electorate deserve that much power.
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I have the same reservations too, I'd like votes to be accompanied with a 2,000 word essay explaing the choice of candidate.

A referendum would surely lead to the UK further distancing itself from Europe? It's going to be hard to sell Europe to notherners who've lost jobs or seen their wages drop as millions of eastern Europeans arrived here.

I used to be very pro-European but now I'm not so sure.
 
That might be his reason but it doesn't make it the right call. Rather it is an extreme condensation of national interest (forget the statements to the converse) to personal interest.
 
Financial transaction tax aside, under this proposed treaty, wouldn't Britain have been subject to penalties if its budget deficit exceeded 3%?

That seems like a good reason to me to stay out of the treaty.
 
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