The extent of the government rebellion last night surprised me. It was bigger than I expected. The imposition of a three line whip was a mistake – especially when Conservative MP’s are going through re selection on new boundaries. The local Party’s are still deeply anti EU in its present form.
Conservative MP’s will also be angry with the Liberal Democrats especially as Nick Clegg has chosen to give them a lecture. Cameron is the meat in the sandwich!
The really serious issue is this. World politics are rapidly and dramatically changing (see my post on October 3rd Winds of Change). If Britain wants to renegotiate the terms of membership as Cameron suggests then he has got to have a willing partner to negotiate with. Why should they negotiate when they are more interested in closer union? We might not like it but that is the reality. If we get into a situation where we have to have trade barriers between the UK and EU then we also have to negotiate for ourselves in the GATT negotiations http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/gatt_e/gatt_e.htm . We will be a small voice among big players – not impossible but tough.
This issue is coming to a head. I don’t know if the current government will be able to agree a policy but I fear we will be adrift unless we are more realistic in our demands or alternatively withdraw from the EU with all that that implies.
Wow!
I’m not sure why you are surprised; the reports going in said there would be about 60 to 80 Tory rebels, and there were 81. I definitely agree the three-line whip was a mistake. A loss where Labour abstained and the Government lost the vote would have been slightly embarrassing. But encouraging a major rebellion (especially when your party is already in the rebelling habit) is just plain silly. I think the Government just haven’t got the hang of Backbench Business debates yet. They just aren’t the same as Opposition Day debates.
Whilst I think, and have long been saying and reasoning, that not just Lord Soley nor all Politicians and Governance workers including the Judiciary and Civil-Service, but effectively all of Us, have been falling dangerously far behind the changing Purpose of human-civilisation and of Earth’s Lifesupports thereto-
– so it is difficult for me to say “Lord Soley has got something right here” –
namely that within a European-Union (note perhaps, and thereby within a Currency Sino-European, and a North-Atlantic Defence, ‘bloc’ also)
now-little Britain stands a much better chance of both economic and militarily-political survival and thrival,
i.e. than we would stand by withdrawing from the EU and in a real sense thereby ‘retreating-in-disorder’ behind a lone Sterling and a not-too-robustly-healthy-and-numbers-strong Nation and NationStates) struggling ‘Identity’.
———-
So I ask:
Why can Britain not face-up-to the state-of-the-planet ?
and perhaps be the first to re-write an Order, of both Purpose and civilisational-sustainworthiness,
and in any event make haste to save ourselves by creating the first small-communities living sustainworthily ?
other nations’ are probably already trying to ‘pioneer’ such communities, so we shall be not only within a sub-consortium of nations, in the EU and so forth, but within the paradigm-updating United Nations, of the whole world ?
And thereby we shall be showing real and positively-co-constructive world-leadership and transparent-example, not merely towards the survival of the whole World’s Lifesupports, but majorly towards the longest-possible-term thrival of the Human Race and of we British People therewithin ?
(<250words)
The issue is still hanging around – taking a leaf out of the EU book, there’s already another petition on the government website calling on the government to reconsider its vote on the referendum. It seems that the people don’t like a NO vote, just like the EU.
Given that we have a trade deficit with the EU, and that a lot of citizens of other EU countries are now resident in the UK, it’s as much in the interests of the rest of the EU to work for a smooth transition from in to out, because there would be plenty of disruption on their side too, so the imposition of trade tariffs would affect both sides.
Whether it’s good for long-term diplomacy or not, a promise of an in-out referendum before 2015 would have provided Cameron with a powerful argument for any attempt to renegotiate, assuming the rest of the EU didn’t just decide that they’d support UK withdrawal, because it would then be in their interest to change the environment to make sure that the referendum would vote to stay in. However, on the evidence so far, he doesn’t have what it takes to stand up and fight for British interests.
The EU is in a Trade surplus with the UK. If they imposed barriers it would hurt them more than it hurts us. Over all both sides lose.
So the obvious question, why doesn’t the EU put trade tarrifs on Switzerland?
We should get out for the same reason we should abolish the Lords.
Neither are a part of any democratic process. It’s just dictatorship, and full of rampant fraud.
The other reason is that the Euro’s problem isn’t liquidity. It’s solvency. They are bust. There is no financial engineering solution to a solvency issue apart from default.
The UK needs to decouple from the effects of the Euro going under.
1. Mass emmigration from the affected countries. Destination – UK – and they can claim benefits here now the courts have ruled on that. So major housing issues, major unemployment issues for the poor. Mind you the lords will still expect that the taxpayer hands over 2,700 a day, so they can carry on
2. Knock on effects on banks. eg. Tobin taxes and write downs, or heaven forbid systemic risk taking out banks.
We need to decouple.
The Eurozone needs to go back to the Renaisance Italian models of economic competition between small city states. The only bit that needs to change from that is the use of war for economic gains.
“The local Party’s are still deeply anti EU in its present form.”
There is a comfortable majority in the membership, and the PCP and Lord Soley as you ought to be aware the public – including your own party’s voters. The guardian poll was 70% support for a ref (inc 65% Lab voters who you leader seems to not notice) with 49% to leave altogether.
“Why should they negotiate when they are more interested in closer union?”
Because we could veto the treaty changes they want/need to fix their self created Euro crisis. As you know perfectly well countries have left before and been allowed to do so. Many have not joined the EU at all but remain in either the EEA or an equivalent status (Switzerland). It would be perfectly possible to move to a EEA position which remains in a free trade but not a legislative arrangement.
“If we get into a situation where we have to have trade barriers between the UK and EU then we also have to negotiate for ourselves in the GATT negotiations”
See above but your point is short-sighted anyway. The biggest global market at present is the US and the biggest in the next decade China/India/Brazil yet we have more exports with Ireland than these nations combined. This is in large part due to high tariffs imposed by the EU on their goods and which they reciprocate. This imbalances trade inwards in the EU which with Europe being a mature economic area means perennially low growth.
“Conservative MP’s will also be angry with the Liberal Democrats especially as Nick Clegg has chosen to give them a lecture.”
I particularly enjoyed you could still access the In/out website last week something the LDs were voting to oppose!
http://web.archive.org/web/20080328211611/http:/ourcampaign.org.uk/europe
@Croft:
Whilst I agree with your analysis on exporting to China, Barzil and India, which sounds good. What is it you are asking of the British people in order to comply with the horrendous living standards and brutal governments they live under? Surely you don’t see the UK as bending toward a totally third world lifestyle. Which of course, the open market and global economy has tried to force on us for the last twenty to thirty years.
What do you feel that is going to do for you?
Growth is what? Tell me what you feel ‘growth’ really is? And for whom is this ‘growth’ working?
I’m sick of this constant over optimistic view people like you have with the belief in Globalization and the devastating effect it is having on the Western world. It is people in comfort as a result of so called ‘growth’ who prevent effective action being taken to rid us of this ludicrous debt we already have.
Growth means debt. Debt is not growth it is debt. And it will have to be paid off by slavery. This is the rich mans answer. Those who sit in an office and make statements about people who live off welfare, whilst they are engaged in abject profligacy with the money taken from the citizens who keep the entire machine moving. Only to renege on the deal they pretend exists, when they call in the claim form.
@ME
I think you mistake the position and the consequences. Britain more often than not runs a trade surplus or balance with the rest of the world and a deficit with Europe. Obviously it would be desirable for more non-eu trade to balance our economy but more crucially to act as protection in a economic crisis. To take a purely hypothetical if the UK did a 1/3 each of its trade with the Brics, the US and the EU then we would to a considerable degree be gaining shelter in the continuing Bric economic growth from the recession in the US/EU but because our economy is so distorted inwards to the EU we take the full force. Globalising trade sources here would be lessening the need for domestic cuts and job losses not exacerbating it. The UK is broadly a service and value added economy we are never going to compete with the brics on minimum wage based goods or processing so the down sides are less than your above reply assumes. You seem to be taking a classically Malthusian approach with all its long understood problems. We won’t have less debt with less globalisation the result would be less trade, less growth and higher prices causing the debt/GDP ratio to rise not fall. It would necessitate more spending cuts which in a less globalised world would kill the only market (the logic of less globalisation being a restricted domestic or EU market) and cause a spiral of debt/cuts.
“Growth is what? Tell me what you feel ‘growth’ really is? And for whom is this ‘growth’ working?”
Its been paying for almost every state benefit for years. Try looking at the social state safety net in non globalised nations.
@Croft:
I agree spreading the real economy is a sensible way to go. That is indisputable. And that in itself is protection in the event of other segments going down. Spreading the risk. However, the idea of Globalization has been created and promoted only to benefit the top strata of Capitalists.
But – this so called benefit we have enjoyed is a con. It is not the result of ‘trade’ and ‘growth’ it is the result of ‘debt.’ Debt of all conceivable descriptions, government, personal, property ballooning, and so on, a veritable South Seas bubble, still to be paid for. And therefore, yes, Britain cannot compete with £2.00 a week third world wages. So your account, in this instance of cannot compete, is indeed good thinking.
Yes, again, we are indeed a Value added economy. but what you are missing is that old elephant in the room – the one called real economy. Manufacturing, home production, making things, growing things and supplying what is needed in real terms. As well as a sound financial services economy. Here is where we have to return to some form of protectionism.
What has to be done, is what the Germans are already facing, which is to curtail the financial services industry. Because the numbers are too big and too fast and therefore dwarfs everything else. In fact, this way we have all our eggs in one basket. Not at all the spread you suggest as a balance. The real economy will never be able to grow fast enough to keep it solvent. And this is already proven and yet you want to throw more that way, in an ever increasing spiral of borrowing and lending. That is crazy thinking. And no it does not make sense to a sane person.
Real economy where you return to a more sustainable level of goods to trade has to start somewhere. Anything else is exploitation. Globalization increases profits only for those at the top and although your claim is it has paid for our welfare benefits for years, it has not, for it is simply our debt. As yet to be serviced and in fact unable to be, as Blagger is always telling us, none is there to pay it with. It’s the old fantasy money lark. On paper but not accessible in real terms. So called profits are used as a stake for the next roll of the dice. What you are saying is, we must go on bouncing cheques.
The &*^% has already hit that fan. And the people are expected to fund this loss with austerity. Balancing the books is a metaphor, in this instance, for clubbing the poor.
Why are we buying potatoes from Israel, or, coal from the USA? Which, not only is madness, it exacerbates the difficulties we are having with our eco system. One idiocy promoting another.
The fantasy financial economy is a set up only in place to benefit those who run the game. And they do it at the expense of the entire nation. Our nation. We cannot feed the world, as the old Irish rock celebrity would have us believe.
Value added has to be of value to us all, not for just one section of the society. We are not in this mess as a result of welfare spending. We are in it because of Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac and all the rest of that brigade. And it was too easy for them – all of it on borrowed money, which we are being expected to service, whilst our needy pay the biggest price of all.
More of the same is your approach, which is no longer acceptable or possible because of the non acceptance of the people.
Thomas Malthus said the population will increase geometrically, whilst food increased far slower. However, todays Malthusian theory is, that the debt created by unregulated financial activity is increasing geometrically, whilst the real economy will only grow arithmetically.
Finance debt grows faster than the real economy can grow wealth.
The Germans should never have settled with that Trillion. It will disappear in the blink of an eye.
It’s not the rich man’s answer. A lot of the rich are anti debt.
It’s the politicians answer.
If someone is rich and running a company, you have a choice. You don’t have to buy from them.
The state on the other hand costs you 50% of your income. It even taxes the return on any of your post tax income. It under takes no risks, wants most of the profits, and none of the losses. You have no choice. They will use force to get it from you.
The result is slavery. Slavery to the state. That’s why the left advocates booking future tax revenues from you to ‘balance its books’ and carry on borrowing. You will be turned into a serf, bonded labour so that Peers can carry on spending.
Even growth doesn’t work to pay off the debts. Do the sums. Borrow at 5% (most is RPI linked), growth at 1%. If anyone thinks that’s sensible, I’ll invest their pension cash – hard cash – on the same basis.
However, I disagree. The solution is free markets. Proper free markets and not socialist bailouts for bank’s failures. For them it has to be the dustbin of history.
You were doing so well until your hobby horse arrived. Finance is a matter for the Commons, not the Lords.
I love this guy, he gets as wild as me.
http://rt.com/news/bailout-eu-keiser-summit-907/
@Croft and LB:
I have to tell you that you both sound as thick as two planks when it comes to Europe. You are both narrow and stuck firmly in a schism of anti European buffoonery.
No wonder its taking the fearful politicians down the slippery slope of blind alley policies.
This finanacial crisis began and was created in the US by Wall Street. Which spread to the wide boys of the City of London.
It is a political problem spurred by dumb men in government with the outlook of pure vanity and total ignorance.
It can be turned around by politicians with the will to do so. And it has to have a strong European consensus of unity to do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dycOjV8dec4&feature=pyv
Mind you, I don’t blame you for the small minded thinking, I blame government secrecy and collusion with those who require a double dealing partner.
“It can be turned around by politicians with the will to do so. And it has to have a strong European consensus of unity to do it.”
Or roughly translated the political class should ignore their voters and fulfil your ideological desires. How delightfully democratic.
@Croft:
Ah, but your statement on the voting public is an assumption. One derived from polls. And polls are taken by those who will do anything to give the funder the answer they want.
The only reality to your reply to me, will be when we have a proper referendum on it.
So far only one hundred and elevn MP’s, give or take, voted the way you are suggesting. And the rest didn’t have the courage to face up to their party whips. Otherwise, they didn’t go along with the action. Now if you transfer that to the population, then you would still not be correct in your assumption of an overall majority to withdraw.
Remember, if the ‘get out of Europe,’ was as strong as you feel it is, and that we are repeatedly told it is, they would not have voted for Labour all those years of Blair, or, as many for the Lib dems this time. Would they? They would have voted for UKIP instead.
I can’t remember who wrote on here there was about a million or so voted for UKIP and that meant a strong lean toward out. Then I could come back and say, well, a million or so voted for the BNP. You wouldn’t think that was a majority in favour of that group, now would you?
Maude, let me challenge you.
How much does the government owe to
1. Civil servants for their pensions
2. State pension
3. State second pension
4. Nuclear decomissioning
5. PFI
6. Guarantees
…
Then you need the size of the losses on the bank bailout, realised already, and future expected losses.
1. Bank bailout costs.
Now, you can compare the two to see who is the real villain of the current mess.
You don’t seem to be able to put some numbers to each, and so you’re coming to the wrong conclusion.
@LB:
I love a challenge. And especially from you.
But, I feel it is you who has lost the plot here.
Actual figures make no difference. All we need to know is, the total is way beyond our ability to pay. Whether it’s one trillion or two or four. The amount is beyond the people of this nation to service.
So, you have to move on from amount to solution. And the solution cannot be tackled without the political will to do so. And that will has to include Europe. It should include the US as they are claiming to be the big boys, But their debt and the Rebuplicans they have lined up refuse to seriously look at the problem as they do not want to show themselves as they truly are.
So, surely your idea of a solution is not that the UK stands alone and faces this situation on its own. Are you?
And lets go one step further, and ask you what is your outline for a solution?
By the way, here is the official figures of bank bail out costs. And again, I repeat that is not the issue.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/nov/12/bank-bailouts-uk-credit-crunch
This guy is letting you know the real mind set of the money men you are hoping will take care of you. They don’t give a damn. And won’t. They are looking to make a killing. As I put up on this blog before, they are looking to fill the coffers and run. Don’t be surprised. It’s what they always do.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15059135
Here is one point of view. It tells us that a united Europe is the way forward.
http://www.good.is/post/business-breakdown-where-did-the-european-financial-crisis-come-from/
Don’t trust the US news on the dollar, What they suggest is not possible unless there has been piggly wiggly. And that means some kind of fix that is again, playing with the books.
And here is where it comes from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F4IGwuKdUQ
What has been going on since 2008 is a denial of financial truth. And as a result, the fire has been allowed to rage rampant, whilst governments poured petrol on the flames. Those at the top, who knew what was happening, simply filled their coffers ready to run. And yet, those in power were too afraid to confront them. This is the result of reluctance to face up to your worst nightmare.
Now the time has come to confront head on, a gargantuan dragon called greed. The entire Capitalist set up has to be re-assessed. And those kids lying outside St Pauls know it is over for them.
The Germans are making a brave start, as they are the ones smart enough to realise, they have everything to lose. They, after all, are not, as yet, broke. There is no reason to save the banks. Economies have to change their casino tactics. To have spent tax payers money to prop us useless shares is taking on the mind of the gambling addict. Did any of us really believe this would save the day?
For the UK to pull out of Europe and join the rear end of the American bankscruptcy is the craziest decision they could make for our country. It is not in the British interests to do this.
The northern States of Europe havs to unite and take the extraordinarily difficult steps it knows to be the ‘only’ way forward. Denying the depth of the abyss will not deter it.
If this means taking steps to protect those European States at the expense of those outside it, then so be it. Leave the rest in the furnace. That is where they belong, they put us there, let them roast in it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVryPHJZokw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx5a_Wq1nZ0&NR=1
Coalition politics,full stop.
At what point in a revolt against a government does the government throw in the towel and admit loss of support? Neville Chamberlain in the Norway debate in May 1940, enjoying an overall majority and a larger number of Conservative MPs, resigned when a comparable number of MPs either voted against his government or abstained. That number included a future Tory Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, and some government ministers past or future. The system of expelling a government which has lost majority support has been legislated against, but it is clear to me that Mr Cameron lacks wholehearted support from his benches, and might be pushed without a 3-line whip to get an overall majority for his coalition.
If he resigned, I would expect a new coalition Tory-LibDem coalition to be headed by a new Tory leader more Eurosceptic and probably more rightwing economically. This might strike positive chords with the economic liberals in the LibDems but not so strongly with the Europhiles and social liberals in their number, and might presage a further rift in the future.
I cannot see any possibility of the current EU engaging in renegotiation of basic EU terms of membership at this moment. So any pleas by the coalition to engage in such talks will be fruitless.
On the other hand, I sense that many nations in the EU and in the Eurozone now recognise there has been a lack of discipline in managing the economies of the member states, and this has to end if the Eurozone is to hold together. I write this at 16.35 on the Wednesday when the summit is supposed to come up with a solution. I suspect it won’t. The tragedy is that the only consensus apparently on offer is that the periphery states that are in trouble (Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland) are being urged into austerity measures that will surely push them into recession still deeper and this may lead to social unrest on a scale unseen since the brownshirts and communists ran amok fighting each other in the early 1930s.
A resolution that gets Europe back into growth is absolutely essential and I am absolutely certain that savage austerity will not get us there. We have a decided vested interest in the survival of the Eurozone as it is a huge home market into which we should be both exporting and investing. Ease of trade if we return to separate currencies for each nation will be markedly worse. Whether we join the Euro or not, and the latter is currently the only politically realistic policy sadly, we should ensure it survives and is stable. The government has my support if it can achieve that, rather than grandstanding.
If we have a trade deficit with the EU member nations or with the Eurozone, that is a serious challenge to our businesses to get their fingers out and work at it. Developing fluency in foreign languages would be a good start. That might also enable us enable us to export more successfully to China, Latin America, India, etc etc.
Dan Filson there is not much point in harking back to the 1950s. Ok so you know your useless information.
It must be 6 years now that Cameron has been leader of the opposition or PM, and whether he enjoys it or not, that kind of effort takes it out of you.Perhaps he will give up before long and take his PM’s half pay for life, handing on the leadership, such as it is, to somebody more capable than he is.
Once Haig gets going he does good work.
, but there may be other more glamorous boys
who want the work.
Hague is indeed sharp. Hammond is too, though I would not attach the word ‘glamorous’ to either. In the next generation, Grant Shapps is very ambitious and not afraid to show it. The days of clear succession such as pertained 50 years ago are gone, and I suspect Cameron’s successor may be not obvious to us at the moment.
“Ease of trade if we return to separate currencies for each nation will be markedly worse”
The word ‘easy’ is one which debtors do not enjoy. In the case of Greece a return to local trade instead of relying on other European economies, would do the world of
good.
Usibng local money instead of the Euro wouold give them a much better sense of what they have got to do. Not just Euro-economize, but
go about their domestic economy as well.
I really doubt if the USA would have got to the wealthy – comparatively – state it is now, if each of the several states had enjoyed a separate currency. No matter how you cut it, a unified currency aids trade and aid competition. But it does require certain disciplines.
It is interesting that as yet the markets have not totalled up the indebtedness of those several states and added to that the indebtedness of the Federal government. Texas and California but Federal debt might sink the Titanic.
Typo. I meant “Texas and California plus Federal debt might sink the Titanic.”
They certainly had their own embassies, the large ones still have, and the likelihood that they had their own currencies is very high indeed.(without looking it up).
USA is a country, and a nation but not a state.
It is a union of states, the same as the EU is a Union of states, except that USA is federated (perish the word), and the EU, thankfully, is not.
http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/northamerica.html
Here’s to Tom Paine as well.