A territory with a population can be labelled a county, a district, an area, a state, a canton, a nation, a province, a city, a kingdom, etc etc. The borders, the peoples, the governance and the labels change over time. What you seem to have done is taken a particular label, "nation", and remarked that the areas I referred to have not recently been labelled as "nations". So what? What on earth does that have to do with the point under discussion? The United Kingdom comprises many parts which are fairly diverse and my point was that Cornwall is not much like London, and the Isle of Wight has little in common with Leeds, but that is no reason at all for splitting them up. If you want to disagree, by all means let us hear why. But just asserting it's a 'poor analogy' doesn't support your argument.
Do the counties of the UK individually raise income tax to contribute to the Revenue? Are the counties of the UK run independantly or by the UK Government (the local authorities are hardly capable of doing it)? Where did you get the idea I said they should be split up?..........Somehow you managed to infer that I did. Counties are not nations...........However if you had suggested Wales, NI, Scotland and England could be separate, you might have been nearer the mark. And it remains to be seen if those four could manage un-united.
You're really not grasping this, I'm afraid. Let's go back to basics. Any set of smaller territories could potentially be aggregated together into larger units. And any larger territory could potentially be split down into smaller units. The aggregating or splitting could possibly lead to territories as large as Russia, or as small as Monaco. Any territory can be given any label (county, empire, union, etc). You seem to imagine that the particular pattern of borders and labels which we happen to have in 2013 has some kind of magic, which makes it immutable. Of course English counties do not collect their own county income tax today, and of course the EU does not collect Europe-wide income tax today. Either of those things is possible, if change proceeds in that direction. The question is, in which directions should change proceed, and why, and how far?
All of the regions you've mentioned are governed by the UK. That's why it works, one common government, common set of laws, one national health service, one common interest rate, one common tax system, one common defense mechanism and so on. If Europe were to be compared to regions of the UK, it must work in the same way. One common system for everything, I'm not saying it couldn't work but just look at the issues that created the Balkan crisis and apply that across the whole of Europe. Personally, I don't mind being part of Europe but I feel it's going to eventually come down to all in totally or all out.
I have my doubts that you are actually seeing it Pete.........You are only just a bit older than I, so you should be able to recognise what has taken place. It is quite obvious the EU and Euro were a political move...........Which nation suggested it should occur in the very first instance? It has b*gger all to do with currency and economy; more to do with a Federal State......IE, more room.
I`m not sure that the size argument is particularly valid whether it is applied to countries, companies or continents. There are plenty of well run big companies and small companies and plenty of badly run big companies and small companies. It strikes me that the UK is a badly run country in a badly run continent.
As has been mentioned there has not been a full definition of what is to be negotiated, until that is declared there cannot be any meaningful debate on what our government wants to achieve. The original concept of the EU was free trade and open borders all the other rules and regs have been hoisted on us by successive governments (and Brussels) without regard to what we want. the imposition of a rule re olive oil was imposed and our representatives abstained, there excuse was that they were to busy. This is just an example of how our civil servants are not representing us, how many other pieces of legislation are imposed because people aren't doing their job.
to be fair Pete, the countries with the highest standard of living and greatest equality are mostly small countries Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark. Big countries are well down the list. but back on topic, I think when people see that EFTA exists, they will vote out EU and into EFTA, which is Norways position.
In the recent news re companies not paying their fair share of tax, it was pointed out that if they did - ie pay a normal rate (instead of some weird discounted one) for profits made in the Eurozone, there would easily be enough money to go around. You wouldn't have austerity or financial meltdown, and the Euro would probably be doing fine. This is not just an issue in the EU, but also in the USA. It is quite clearly the number one issue that need to be resolved and one can be justifiably pissed off with the EU for not fixing it. After all, if, quite apart from any political unionist aspirations certain people may have, the EU should be first and foremost a trading block. The lack of fiscal harmony for companies is a glaring error. I can't see that this necessarily has anything much to do with fiscal harmony for personal taxation, which can be something entirely different. It's a farce that Apple have billions salted away in Ireland, on which they pay almost no tax, which they won't even repatriate to the US to pay dividends. Instead of which, they issued $9bn of new bonds to pay the dividends. Ridiculous. The EU has a clear responsibility to organise this, as does the G8. But it is this sort of harmony which would be a major factor in the UK being part of this agreement. And it's about time that there was phone harmonisation too, so that calls in the EU were not taxed at international rip-off rates. Instead of fixing bananas and olive oil, it might be more important to remove the barriers and anomalies that prevent fair and simple business. But once again, it would be better to be part of this than outside it.
Oh boy. Put the flames out with petrol. This smells like a Direly Banal story but it's on the BBC site.
Yep, someone from the far reaches of the EU who has contributed nothing is, under EU legislation, entitled to the same UK benefits as someone who has contributed here all their lives. It is another small step to complete political and fiscal unity within the EU Super State.
At this point, I'm only looking at the motivation for stories about the EU - the stories themselves I neither believe nor disbelieve. This is how you should look at news stories these days - what is the act of publishing the story trying to achieve?
That is simply not true. To draw benefits in the uk you MUST pay into the uk system first. It's this sort of uninformed nonsense that proves this is not a decision for the public to make. The UK are already social outcasts, pulling out of the eu would be the end of the country.
latest EU red tape, they are going to limit the power of vacuum cleaners, one can only guess at how many overpaid bureaucrats arrived at this nonsensical regulation apparantly it will reduce power consumption quite how that works when you have a vacuum cleaner that is half as powerful it either will not do the job properly or it will take twice as long to do the same job either way with this sort of nonsense the Eu is proving itself to be the laughing stock of the rest of the developed world
Then why is Britain being taken to the European Court of Justice over this issue ? Britain will fight EU court action over immigrant benefits - Telegraph
