The people have spoken

here in Belgium , we've seen something UKIP style for 25 years, at a moment getting 30% of the votes in some area's. All other parties 'quarantiened' that party and they never got to power, thank god. what they did leave through their constant hammering is a frustrated, sour and bitter society that bathes in the some of the greatest wealth on average in the world but cannot be happy or content about anything. The problem with the UKIP of this world is that they are the rawest opportunist of them all, peddling whatever the pundit wants to hear. If you think current governement is bad, which it is, wait till you find out how bad theirs will be. the problem is that by then the damage it has done will be almost unrestorable. And this is the problem : when societies are in trouble- which we all are - we want to see leadership to take us through the rough patch. and as current 'leaders' do not seem to lead, we cry out for leadership. the problem then is that those who rise are most of the time the ones you should give it least to. If there is a noted gap of leadership, some void, that gap will always be filled. As a society , we should be utterly carefull whom we let it fill.. in the playground, when the headmaster is missing, it's never the cleverest or nicest that takes over. It's Always the bully who does so for his own devious porpuses. and the playground rarely becomes a better place for it. Should UKIP come to power, London as a financial and service center will be dead. It lives on foreign money.. large sections of wich has muslim/arab/ME origin. And all those working their, who might have voted UKIP, will follow that money wherever it goes. And leave behind the ruins to the rest of you..

 

O, i agree to the fullest that the debate must be held. and that the parties handling immigration couldn't have done a worse job. here, it went so far as curse those who suggested it might be a good thing to force people to learn the language of the country the came to. Result now is chizms with 10 % of our polulations where elders who are analphabetic in Dutch or French, kids have no parenting as to school, drop out, boys with a great need to profile themselves find themselves with no prospects, are unattractive to their female peers and start imposing some old sharia rites just to maintain themselves. And then go marry some illiterate girl that now lives in a shed on a mountain and guards sheep. So the boys will not feel threatened by better educated wives. I stated many times that those parties did a better job on our immigrants than Himmler would have done if would have been given the job to let big parts of our population go to waist. the point in UKIP is not that the debate must not be held, not on if but on how we will organise immigration, tough measures taken and that it will be costly to us.. the problem is that if you hand this over to the UKIP styled parties, you will only get the worst of that excersise. As they are by defnitinion not intent on keeping what we have. Our UKIP's founders all stood with their arm upright, regetting the demise of Adolf. that is their true nature and goal. If you get a country that is ruled by openly racist parties , the backlash will come.. and it will hit hard.. even if UK then remains non isolationist , loads of business will be moved elsewhere. and then you will find out there is fierce competition for that business. and that what seems to be certain and acquired will vaporise overnight. it does not take much to wreak havoc.. especially if youir economy now depends on services and some engineering. Touching London as the worlds financial centre will be what the Iceberg did to the Titanic.. it didn't look like much , but still, what happened next is well known...

 

Well, a small island that once again doesn't want anything to do with its European neighbours is, in my view, inward-looking and isolationist. Instead of having a look at how the EU operates and getting support from other countries for change (and propagating the myth that no one else wants change), UKIP is like a kid who want's his ball back in the playground. It won't make Britain any friends.

Britain, through not joining the Euro, has already established the stance "not our problem, told you so". It has refused to get closer to the Germans who have far more in common with the Brits than the French, and it has constantly sought not to build consensus but to have it its own way, viz "I want my money back".

I think that Britain's diplomacy has failed miserably in Europe. We see ourselves as the odd man out, and we play that role, instead of being a powerful force to get the EU to run the way we'd like it to. Leaving is the easy option. Dealing with the reality of having left will be a lot more challenging. UKIP is hopelessly simplistic.

 

There is a lot of nonsense spoken about what might happen if we leave the EU. Nobody knows for sure, it is just opinion, some based on vested interests and some based on analysis. My opinion is that we would be better off out. From what I have seen over the last 20 years the UK has gone downhill fast, maybe because of our home grown politicians, maybe because of the EU, perhaps a bit of both. I do know from my own experience as the owner of an import/export company that we trade with countries all over the world, some with duty and quota regimes, some without, so the talk of a business collapse is rubbish. Duty and Quota are political choices and there is no need for them to be imposed if we left. I also remember being able to go on holiday in Europe before we joined the EU and Brits still holiday in and emigrate to countries outside the EU, some of which don't have English as their language, life will go on. Another point that is often made is for example the employment laws that have come in while we have been in the EU. Well some of them are good and some are bad, just like before we joined and just like other countries that are not in. In short, for every argument to stay in there is one to come out and we are fast approaching the point where the public really should be given the opportunity to choose. As a believer in democracy I will live with the result whichever way it goes. Ukip is hopefully at least shaking up the political landscape and will result in a referendum and they can then disappear with their job done.

 

Yes, but my point is that I think you'll find that there aren't many Europeans in the street who want to be part of a United States of Europe. What makes you think the French are super keen? The Spanish don't even want to be part of a united Spain, let alone Europe. Even the Belgians are at each other's throats. So who are the bureaucrats representing? Themselves? Big business?

But you don't throw your Duke in the bin just because it has an oil leak or bent forks and won't steer in the direction you want to go in. You find out what the problem is and fix it. That should be what should be going on with Europe, rather than stamping our foot and walking off in a huff. The reason the latter course of action seems OK is because Britain is just not sufficiently interested in what goes on over the Channel. Brits mistrust foreigners and don't really want to engage. Well, that's how it's always looked to me.

 

Interesting analogy about repairing your Duke rather than binning it but to stick with that, have you only ever had one bike or have you from time to time thought you want to try something else ? Of course you have had a few bikes, even a Pantah which imo is the best bike ever made and yet that was not enough for you at the time. And what about if the bike is so bad as to be beyond reasonable repair? It may be that the EU is so bad that it is a write off now just some people cannot or choose not to see it?

 

Spot on, we are all different. Not better or worse, just different. We should enjoy the differences instead of trying to force the 300 odd million to behave as one.

 

Well I agree with you on many scores.

For me, it was less the European Union and more The Common Market.

I think that there has been too much in way of union, and not enough in the way of common market. Take mobile phones: it's ridiculous that you get stung for huge roaming charges the moment you pop over a border. Here in Switzerland you have to be careful with that. You can easily be in Lausanne and picking up your signal from France over the lake. Cue French roaming charges without even leaving your country...

But I think things could be corrected. They are more likely to be so if Britain - one of the biggest economies and potentially one of the most influential players - leads other countries, like Denmark, to make it happen.

As for not all being alike, surprise surprise. I imagine you are also in favour of Scottish, Northern Irish, Welsh, Cornish, Yorkshire etc etc independence?

 

Or, the United Kingdom is a dog's breakfast, and the EU is greater than the sum of its parts.

 

What do we mean by a dog's breakfast? The United Kingdom as we all know was assembled over many centuries out of regions like Wessex and Northumbria, followed by Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The UK has never been uniform in its parts or consistent legally, politically, economically, or culturally. Each other nation (France, Germany, Italy) was likewise historically assembled out of parts as most countries are, and to that extent they are all "dog's breakfasts" if that means varied and diverse.

The nations of Europe fought with one another for century after century, winning and losing many terrible wars. Today the same nations debate their issues and resolve their quarrels in the parliament and courts of the EU instead of on bloody battlefields; they compete at elections and in the marketplace, not in warzones. That is a towering achievement for which we should all be profoundly grateful - although some, foolishly, are not - and it is in that sense that the EU is greater than the sum of its parts.

 

Totally agree.

So easy to take peace for granted if you've never known anything else.

 

Pete, you are sounding like a politician with your use of the word "we". You don't speak for everyone and should not assume you do. It is very simplistic to say the EU is responsible for peace throughout the EU zone since WW2. The same nations seem to have avoided war with many non EU countries over the same period and many non EU countries have avoided war with everyone.

 

It's not just that we haven't had a war in Europe for some time. None of the EU member states is even remotely close to going to war with one another ever again, so long as the EU exists. The EU provides a guarantee against war, and that guarantee can be relied upon. Nations like Serbia can accede to the EU only if they change their ways and forego war permanently - as they are hopefully in course of doing.

As I have pointed out before, economic crises happen to countries in the EU and to countries outside the EU. The EU is not a guarantee that there will be no economic problems ever again; it is a guarantee that whatever problems come along the tracks will be dealt with together.

Any country that spends more than it earns and incurs debts it cannot pay will get into difficulties, in or out of the EU, but the EU provides help and support. The inhabitants of Portugal, Ireland, etc are lucky indeed to live in an era when they get bailed out; in earlier eras, they would have faced collapse but now they have a chance to recover.

Consider Japan's massive debts, USA's high unemployment, Iceland's bank collapse, etc etc - are you going to blame those on the EU too? No - because being in or out of the EU obviously has nothing to do with those problems