An affront to democracy and a waste of our money
The Eu has found only 36% of Britons think our country has benefitted from being in the EU, so they have set up a website to tell us what they are doing for us. This allows 'enquiries', so I have sent mine. If you agree with this feel free to send the same yourself. Here's the content and here is how:When Britain entered the EU, we were denied a
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Yes, the politicians in charge are by now the only ones who love it; recent treaties have had to be forced on ordinary Europeans. The thing is that the EU is mainly seen as boring and distant, so even when it takes power without asking this is somehow disconnected from daily lives. So it takes time for real resentment to build up, and now that it has, there's no way to express it any more.
The real problem is that major political parties all agree on the necessity for the EU, even though they may dispute in what areas; a scrap of unaccountable continental power appeals to the mindset of politicians, even when they have (or can get) accountable power over an entire country.
Smaller parties exist purely to oppose the EU, but being single issue groups, it is very hard for them to break through in elections.
Currently the Euro (currency) is in grave danger of coming to pieces. I am cheering. You can see the results of its existence in Greece, Ireland, and (coming shortly) Portugal. Like most European countries, Britain was in danger due to high levels of personal and government debt, but because we are not in the Euro, allowing our currency to fall in value has taken us out of the spotlight, whilst the financial markets fasten on those confined by the Euro.
The problem is that one exchange rate and one central bank policy have to be shared by economies as disparate as Greece and Germany. Those who need their currencies to fall to aid growth of production are constrained to carry on with an exchange rate that is related to the performance of their stronger and larger neighbours. Thus for them there is no way out but enormous financial intervention; already a fact in Greece, now accepted by the Irish government and being put to the vote in their parliament, in danger of coming any time now in Portugal.
But Italy and Spain are not in much better shape, either. Since the members of the EU are co-dependent in respect of trade, none of them can afford the others to fail, thus they grit their teeth and find ways to bail one another out. The more this happens, the more the burden of rescuing the willful and thoughtless falls on the better planned economies. This has two potential end games as far as I can see:
1) The stable countries find the costs of maintaining their smaller partners unacceptable, and pull out of the Euro. This would be pretty seismic.
2) The Euro sinks, based on the perception that no mechanism exists to enable all the countries therein to repay their debts. Result: total fragmentation.
If the Euro goes down, or major members leave it, it will be interesting to see whether the EU can survive the resurgence in national interests; I suspect not. The EU should have been and remained no more than a free trade zone, and every diminution of its scope will have me yelling for joy.
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