The EU is heading for certain disaster.
Applications for membership now include Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey. All countries (I'm sure you'd agree) that would bring huge advantages to the few net contributors that would end-up paying their bills. The 28 member countries could soon become 33.
Were they all to be granted membership, it would mean that another 88 Million people would have rightful access to the UK's struggling Health Service, Schooling, Housing, and Benefits.
If the UK was to quit the EU, it would deprive Brussels of an annual £13 BILLION; some of which is already going to help these Balkan countries join the world's most generous benefactors.
I can't see it working; can you? Best to quit now, methinks.
(p.s. Not really related, but a massive 10% of all 'European' prisoners in the UK are Albanians... imagine what that figure might be if they were all legally allowed access)
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ReplyDeleteI read the other day that Latvia now has a workforce crisis because so many have left for the UK. They also have a birthrate crisis because all those who have left are young people. I am not sure what this says in relation to your post but it seemed interesting when I read it. We should leave the EU behind now for it to squabble forever. But I doubt we will.
ReplyDeleteI doubt we will either, unless some terrible crisis happens just before voting day.
DeleteYoung people are brainwashed into believing they have no future in a Britain outside the EU.
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ReplyDeleteWell said. I really don't know why we joined in the first place, the only benefit I could see personally was the right to purchase unlimited tobacco, alcohol and fuel at vastly cheaper prices than UK. The UK government promptly removed this advantage by putting limits on these goods.
I remember Heath saying exactly that; we'd all be able to buy cigs and booze at French prices. Methinks he lied!
DeleteIt's not like all that propping up of other countries helps you get more votes in Eurovision! Where's the love?
ReplyDeleteExactly; no more 'nul points' I hope!
DeleteThe big question is, will Britain be able to go it alone, and will it become a third rate country? So much has changed since joining.
ReplyDeleteNone of the remaining EU countries will want to stop selling their cars, wine, cheese, and other products to the UK, and there will need to be new reciprocal agreements made. I can't really see anything changing.
DeleteI hope you are right Cro.
DeleteYes, of course the EU will still want to sell to the UK, but will we still have the money to buy all these things? What sanctions might the rest of Europe, or the world, impose on British goods to make them uncompetitive?
Better the devil you know, than the one you don't?
We won't have the money to buy all these things because we'll all be paying for private health insurance because the NHS has been squashed under the weight of the extra 88 million who are allowed to come here.
DeleteThe problem is that the EU expanded much to fast without the proper consolidation of it's membership and when the UK and Ireland joined they were allowed to cherry pick various EC policies which weakened the value of the existing membership.
ReplyDeleteI think that Gen De Gaulle was correct in denying the UK bloc from joining all those years ago. Having said that: if the UK leaves it will be shooting it's self in the foot big time on many fronts because it is no longer the country that it was when it first joined.
They're about to expand again without due consideration. The UK may not be the country it once was, but it is now the world's 5th largest economy.
DeleteIt's become that only since it joined the EU.
DeleteThe UK is where it is because Margaret Thatcher had the guts to get rid of loss-making industries and stop the spiral of decline she inherited and stand up to the Trade Unions.
DeleteIf membership of the EU had caused the UK's wealth, then all other major members would have followed suite.
DeleteAlbanians? A nation which worships Norman Wisdom cannot be all bad.
ReplyDeleteHe used to live in our village in Sussex. He was granted planning permission to build a Spanish style hacienda (on account of his fame, I think), then as soon as it was built he sold it and moved to the Isle of Man. His son was our gardener.
DeleteNorman Wisdom and the Albanians - I learn so much from you two.
ReplyDeleteHe was a national hero. A strange relationship!
DeleteWhat will happen to all those migrants waiting at Calais ? Will the UK be able to block the Chunnel, before the French let them go?
ReplyDeleteI still don't understand why they don't apply to stay in France, get some official papers, then travel on to their country of choice perfectly legally.
DeleteThank you Cro, you've made up my wavering mind for me!
ReplyDeleteYes, but which way?
DeleteOut, of course.
DeleteActually it could be equally argued that we are only the 5th largest economy because the EU restricts who we may deal with and on what terms. Maybe we would be 4th or 3rd.
ReplyDeleteThe stay in camp have no end of scare stories for us but the reality is that Spain will suffer a 30 percent drop in agricultural revenue should restrictions be placed on us and there is nothing they grow that cannot be produced by South Africa and flown in, not shipped flown, at a more competitive price.
Germany manufacturers nothing that Japan cannot and given Japans recession they will be all to eager to supply.
The UKs largest trading partner outside of the EU is the USA and they have already conceded that despite Obamas rhetoric there is no reason why a trade deal cannot be concluded quickly. Indeed all the DC lobbyists are already squawking about the billions that their sponsors will not tolerate losing. Australia with only 30 million and little New Zealand thrive without kowtowing to a bunch of faceless mandarins, so can we.
You are right on all counts. The only person in the UK who points this out is Chris Grayling. He should be on TV more.
DeleteAs you know, we have got some very remarkable election decisions facing us over here. The EU decision has many complicated elements.
ReplyDeleteEver since I became an independent young adult in the mid-1960s, I've never actually thought that local, national or global decisions were being made in a way that I would have made them.
As the decades unroll and internet information access (for those who care to look, or can afford to look) has increased, I find it increasingly difficult to understand why we humans don't wise up.
Is discord just part of our make up? In my own family, it certainly seems to be.
Best wishes and Happy May Day.
All sorts of elections are going on over here. Lots of local elections, the new Mayor of London, our membership of the EU, and quite possibly a new leader of the Socialist party. A lot for people to think about; and probably to get bored stiff with.
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