That may be so but it is I think a good thing that something has shaken or is shaking the establishment .
What, and you don't think the other parties don't have financial/power allegiances? Politics is big business, nothing else. It's truly amazing there are people out there that believes otherwise.
All parties publish manifestoes and always have done. They don't need any encouraging. The percentage of the electorate who choose to read them is tiny, but whichever party gets into power will soon find opposition parties contrasting their manifesto with performance. Incidentally if you want a really good laugh, read the UKIP 2010 manifesto - it's a hoot and a half.
If you strike a deal, reach an agreement, sign a contract, conclude a treaty - do you expect to be able to cherry-pick the bits you like unilaterally, and dump the bits you don't like afterwards? If you act like that, do you expect the other party to the contract to put up with it? And if the other party, in the light of your actions, regards the contract as breached, do you complain they are being "vindictive" and "spiteful"? Surely the consequences of Switzerland choosing to dump its agreements with the EU are wholly predictable; what on earth did anyone think would happen?
Very true but bearing in mind the difference in size between the UK and Swiss economy and also the very important fact that we import from the EU so much more than we export to the EU I would be surprised if the EU cut off its nose to spite its face were we to leave. Cameron`s bleating about concessions should be ignored, I think we are in or out . Just my opinion of course .
The EU people can be very vindictive though. Following the popular vote in Feb where Switzerland decided to take control of EU immigration numbers, the EU has been spitefully pulling the plug on all sorts of other unrelated bilateral agreements, saying it's a complete package, all or nothing. Britain might expect similar treatment if it leaves the EU "pour encourager les autres". The EU doesn't want piecemeal agreements - it wants as near to a superstate as it can get. So don't count on all UK European exports being duty free imports to the EU. The EU hates people having the best of both worlds. The UK isn't flavour if the month in Brussels in any case since it didn't want the common currency. Who knows what would happen in practice but I can see the EU being about as friendly to ex-members as a bunch of Scientologists would be to theirs.[/QUOTE] And if your analysis of EU politicians/people is correct,(and I agree with it,by the way),it's hardly an advert for staying in,is it? Grown men and women behaving like spoilt children because they don't get their own way?Oh I forgot,thats how all politicians seem to behave...(apart from Frank Field and John Major,in my opinion) People vote for different parties because they like,to an extent,what they hear: I doubt they like everything the party stands for,but on balance,they like more than they dislike. And the only reason UKIP is reasonably well known is because the media have publicised them...there are other parties out there,with quite sensible policies,that don't,(and won't), get a mention on TV or the newspapers.Either because they are so reasonable that they cannot be demonised in the way UKIP has been,(which has backfired spectacularly),or because Farage is really just one of them,pretending to be something different to appease the restless masses. It's all a cosy little cartel ..the Press and Television advertising two political parties,(TV has given up on the the runt of the litter), made up of the same,over-educated, other-peoples-money shufflers,word-twisting-Latin spouters,aristocratic-but-but-dim oxygen thieves and the odd,professional Union trouble maker thrown in. They inhabit the same fantasy world as Pete1950,making up idiotic laws and rules that others have to observe,while they insulate themselves from the results by paying themselves fantastic salaries and exorbitant pensions,funded by the poor bloody ex-miner gasping his way to an early grave...he can't even smoke a bloody roll up with his pint without these pontificating c*nts putting their spoke in. Wankers....roll on the revolution... (oh bugger,I forgot,they already bought the Police and banned handgun ownership,so no chance of an uprising here LOL)
That really has nothing to do with it. The UK is a signatory of various treaties, including the Treaty of Lisbon. A country can always repudiate a treaty (just like a person can always breach a contract). Just don't expect the other parties, who are keeping their promises, to be happy about it if you break yours.
The Swiss politicians would never have reneged on the bilateral agreement, of course. But the real difference in Switzerland is that the people decide and the politicians have to deal with it. They are truly public servants. In my view, it is only right that a very small attractive country should be able to redress the balance in the amount of people who choose to inhabit it. When you get to 25% of the population being foreigners (non-Swiss - that doesn't count people like me who are now Swiss), you have to be allowed to do something. So no, the EU didn't like it, but they should be grown-up enough to respect a sovereign people and see that their point of view is not unreasonable. The free movement of peoples sounds great on a piece of paper, but in reality it means all sorts of inequalities as some countries are a lot more attractive for immigration than others. The UK is also hugely overcrowded. It should also be able to decide similar things. The problem with the EU is their all or nothing stance about everything. It may well end with the UK out of the EU. Then the EU will have cut off its nose to spite its face. Daft.
"All or nothing stance about everything" - that is simply not true, as you well know. For example, the UK and a few other countries got an agreed opt-out to parts of the Treaty of Maastricht, and chose not to join the Treaty of Shengen, which is perfectly OK with everyone. What is not OK is signing up to a series of treaties, then repudiating parts of them unilaterally but expecting the rest still to be in effect to your benefit. If the Swiss people chose to act in that way, well that is their choice, but they cannot expect the other parties to put up with it. All this stuff about being "grown-up" is nonsense on stilts.
Manifestos count for very little when we have a coalition government, and I think we will be seeing many more of them in future.
Dont agree. We have a series of bilateral agreements. We are not members of the EU. If one of the bilateral treaties is repudiated, I cannot see why all the others should be too. It's not a package system. If it makes sense to collaborate on scientific projects, or for EU nationals to study in Swiss universities (some of the best in the world as regards the EPFL and the EPFZ) whilst Swiss students study in EU universities, why should that be canned just because the Swiss don't want a heap of Romanians turning up to beg in the streets? How many Swiss are going to Romania?
Who do you think will be upset ? Politicians or the public ? I really cannot imagine that very many citizens of any of the EU countries will wake up the morning after a referendum in any other EU country that gave an "out" vote and think for example, damn those Irish/Italians/Brits, they have really upset me by voting to leave the EU, I must exact my revenge by stamping my feet very hard ! Come on Pete, only a politician or a pillock would behave that way in my opinion. Regardless of politicians and pillocks, if any country with a large nett trade deficit were to leave the EU, not negotiate terms but leave, then I am pretty sure pragmatism would take over. Can you imagine the Germans being happy to lose all those lovely Merc, Audi, MB, Porsche sales to us ? I may be wrong but I cant see that happening.
EU freedom of movement makes no sense at all if you look at it with economic rationality from the point of view of member states. It encourages a mass exodus of youth, energy and talent from poorer states -often their only asset, it overcrowds wealthier countries, devalues their labour markets, drives down productivity, fuels a grey market in untaxed cash labour and generates resentment, hostility and ill-will where none had existed before. Good fences really do make good neighbours. But the EU doesn't do anything from the point of view or in the interest of member states. The EU is not, never has been and was never intended to be a mere customs union or free trade zone. The European "project" is a roadmap to a single state, or as its architects hoped with a staggering degree of self-delusion, a superpower to rival the USA. Free movement of labour was not conceived to serve the economic interests of individual nations, but to do the exact opposite: to encourage the dissolution of the nation state by dismantling borders and weakening people's sense of national identity and belonging, by-passing democracy and driving an incremental creep towards a superstate. Viewed this way it makes perfect sense and underlines the utter futility of trying to negotiate and reform the EU back into something it never was in the first place.
If one member state, such as the UK, tried to retain all the advantages of being a member, while repudiating all the obligations, everybody in Europe would be outraged. All the people of all the 27 other states would make damn sure the defaulting state lost all the advantages along with the obligations. That is what mutuality means, and that is the political reality. What on earth do "stamping feet" have to do with anything? What the hell are you talking about?
kind of goes back to who really is in control. the foot stamper(joe public with his voting card) or the industrialist with his car plant or bank or what ever. how are they gonna react?. remember grangemouth?. one man could of screwed us bad. albeit he was being held to ransom him self. i believe the threats have started alredy.
Freedom of movement within each state makes no sense at all if you look at it with economic rationality from the point of view of the regions. It encourages a mass exodus of youth, energy and talent from poorer regions - often their only asset, it overcrowds wealthier regions and cities, devalues their labour markets, drives down productivity, fuels a grey market in untaxed cash labour and generates resentment, hostility and ill-will where none had existed before. "How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm?" Country boys move to the big city the world over looking for careers and money, and that migration has major drawbacks in every country to be sure. Perhaps you would favour re-introducing serfdom, with the serfs chained to their farms? No? In that case, the whole world has to live with this phenomenon. Whatever your view of the free movements of peoples, the discussion has wandered far away from having anything to do with the EU one way or the other.
I love it when Pete gets his OU debating hat on! (And so does he.) What he is essentially saying is that there is every much validity in throwing the UK labour market open to the entire world with the right of immigration (so the Chinese, sub-Saharan Africans, the rest of Asia and South America) as there is for the village dweller to go and work in the city or town. This is clearly nonsense unless you see the world as a homogenised whole with no differences in culture, religion, language or anything else. That is indeed a view you could take, but it isn't one I take. Without being unduly nationalist, I think that people's indigenous culture is worth defending. I am no more keen on Brit ex-pat enclaves of people in the Geneva area who have no idea about Swiss culture, nor any interest in it, as I am for entirely Muslim ghettos in Luton. Immigrants bring their own spice to the dish, and that's laudable, but you want to still recognise the dish at the end of it. I also believe that the kids brought up in a country have a right to a job there without having to compete for it against those who will settle for less because it's a better deal than they'd get in their native country. The problem in the UK is a lack of integration for many, and it's the same problem elsewhere. And I don't think it's right that British kids find it harder and harder to get into top universities which are forced to educate foreign nationals in order to accept their fees to survive. It wasn't like that when I went to university and it shouldn't be like that now.
