A lot of people keep telling me how bad the EU is and that it's costing us £X billion etc, but there must have been a good reason for us to have joined in the first place.
What are the good points and what the bad points of being in the EU? I don't just want the Daily Mail's opinion, so can anyone point me to an unbiased assessment of the situation (if one exists)?
Thanks.
Free access to a huge market. Together we are stronger. Prevention of further European land wars. Protection from extremist governments.
It all depends how xenophobic you are.
[i]It all depends how xenophobic you are. [/i]
What a stupid thing to say....... 🙄
would all the brits working in europe be forced home if we left the eu?
[i]Together we are stronger.[/i]
And there I was thinking you were pro devolution 🙂
pro: shorter queues at passport control
pro: can fly into geneva on easyjet and transfer to french or italian alps with no bother
1. they keep our farmers going
2. free trade and you can work anywhere in EU
3. EU court which can over rule our law courts
people moan, but I bet the farmers have had far more taxpayers money than banks, and people are quite happy to let their kids go and work as bar reps in Ibiza for the summer, some of the laws from europe are useful, look at the way they fined Microsoft, would the UK do that? nah doubt it,
but yes it is mainly to stop WW3,
the problem is most of the EU citizen learn english at school, languages are now optional in the UK, meaning only a small portion of our society can take full advantage of the situation,
Boz - the xenophobes hate the EU irrationally
Ian - its posssible to be both pro devolution and pro EU
TJ is right it's one step towards peace annd unity.
If it was not for European courts the U.K. would have let all those pensioners lose all their funds. EU overruled and rightly so.
Travel and work abroad, buy goods from aboard and stronger united.
Pro: takes more than 50% of our exports
Con: Give the Righists something to moan about contantly
Funny thing is that it was the Conservatives who initially brought us into the EEC (precurser to the EU).
Free trade does seem quite useful from a personal point of view, you can buy things from the EU without paying extra duty or taxes, and I imagine it is way more important for companies.
Free movement is handy, it is way less of a pain to go through EU immigration than to go to the USA, Canada, Australia etc.
No one is ever going to take us out of the EU anyway, even the most right wing of the Conservatives probably don't want out of the free trade aspects, and it's pretty unlikely that the rest of Europe would let us just leave the social and other stuff without leaving the free trade agreements, as they are so interlinked nowadays.
would all the brits working in europe be forced home if we left the eu?
They'd probably have to apply for work permits in their host countries, same as in Switzerland. If they were lucky, the country would give them priority, and allow them to change jobs (Switzerland does now for EU citizens, but didn't used to), if not, they'd be like work permit workers in the USA, where if they get sacked / made redundant, they are likely to have to go home to their country of origin.
Joe
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They buy most of our exports. Our trade deficit is already terrible. If we stuff the EU, our economy will be destroyed quick smart.
TJ - just because you cast doubts over certain elements of the EU (which i do), it doesnt make you 'xenophobic'...