EU Referendum - How will you vote?

[loraward]

And when we run out of things to burn? Ah never mind, not our problem, just our kids' kids.

 

Of the alternatives you mentioned: Uranium is mined in Canada, Kazachstan and Australia, so two good sellers on that list. Problem is, you need infrastructure and we don't have it. Not just to dispose of the spent rods, but also to actually generate electricity from it. A new nuclear plant is estimated to cost 16 billion pounds. This largely offsets the benefits opposed to renewables. Don't believe me, check this link.

 

That still doesn't solve the total problem though, we need another 50 or so of those plants just to meet current needs. Never mind what happens when cars start using electricity en masse. I am all for Nuclear energy (genuinely) but it isn't the sole answer to the problem and I'd rather have a mix of developments backed with good money.

 

Shale gas sounds like a lovely solution, except that it is definitely not a vote-winner, in fact, I suspect the Tories are going to get voted out at the next election because they are allowing it in through the backdoor. Reports from the States are inconclusive about the perceived negative impacts, and I am open minded about it, but it needs more work. Also, the gas needs special plants to convert to electricity, we haven't got that infrastructure, it will demand big investment.

 

Thorium is also nuclear and has been on the agenda for over two decades with no advances and doesn't really add anything sensible over Uranium except, as far as I can work out, in small scale reactors, for example to power submarines.

 

In the meantime the EU has been funding Euratom which has been researching Nuclear Fusion as well as working to improve our knowledge of nuclear power generation, a project that would have been far too expensive to fund by a single state. Although not expected to break through yet, the Chinese have added one billion euros in cash to the EU funded ITER project and it is beginning to gain traction, without any firm committals, it is beginning to look like Fusion might be part of the energy mix towards 2050.

 

But let's ignore that work, because it is EU and we are better off without it apparently.

 

let me put it this way: for every negative you can come up with about the EU I can come up with a dozen positives. In fact, I am still to hear of a real negative other than gut-feeling and hunkering for the past.

 

What we need to do to ensure they have a future is allow the population to fall instead of encouraging perpetual population expansion. .

[tzijlstra]

Fusion is, in my opinion, the future of energy production; but it's probably not going to be ready in our lifetimes. Still, it's worth investing in. International scientific collaborations manage perfectly well (if not better) outside the EU. This is the common mistake of assuming that a thing currently sitting under the EU administrative umbrella would not exist without it.

 

The supply of available fossil fuels is vast. There's zero chance of running out before a sensible alternative is available. Probably fusion since that's how all the energy in the universe is ultimately generated.

 

The supply of Uranium will outlast the Earth itself.

The advantage of Thorium-type reactors (they can also burn Uranium and, very usefully, nuclear waste from traditional reactors) is that they don't produce long-lived waste and they therefore eliminate the waste disposal issue. There's also even more Thorium lying around than there is Uranium. Still it is a way off I agree, but you were asking about the next 50 years.

 

None of this addresses the question of why the EU forces us to waste vast amounts of money on the daftest energy generation technologies ever conceived.

Why aren't we allowed to decide for ourselves as a nation state?

 

This entire thread derives from your earlier assertion that the EU only exercises its competencies when something exceeds national borders.

Here are some more examples of EU directives which ought to have been left to the member states:

The floods directive (hard to see how a flood in the UK is a threat to the rest of the EU)

The landfill directive (It's our land. why do they get to tell us what we can bury under it)

The WEEE directive I mentioned before

Packaging and packaging waste directive

 

Perhaps they just make a general exception to the idea of states' rights when they're in environmental activist mode.

None of these are obviously bad laws. But how are they EU matters?

 

I'm not actually basing my case on the idea that the EU is incompetent or corrupt. I could, but that's not the theme I'm working on. They're given powers and they exercise them routinely and not just on trans-national matters. They never give power back and they get bolder and bolder in what they're prepared to interfere in. The end point is obvious. The nation states will become glorified EU regions and the national parliaments puppets. I know you like that, but the UK people need to understand that that's what they've voting for if they vote to stay in the EU.

 

Let's address the point you begin with. International collaboration in research started when the EU began to fund research properly. The most expensive research initiatives, outside of medicine, are all funded by either the EU or the US. I name a few: CERN, ESA, NASA, ARPA. There are billions and billions available to other projects that are run by European universities, research funding on a scale that is unmatched anywhere in the world.

 

Saying that these projects could have come to fruition without the EU (or the US) is ignorant.

 

I did ask before and I can't find the answer. Based on this standard, what is safe from EU intervention where competencies and powers have been transferred to the EU?

 

What is safe? I ask you to define that because I haven't got a clue. Are you saying that those aspects of competence that fall under EU jurisdiction are unsafe? But let me not be churlish and provide an answer, the EU takes precedence over national legislation only in matters that either concern the shared single market OR those matters that ALL member-states agree to.

 

There are instances where not all states agree and at that stage it is simply NOT the case that the EU forces it down their throats anyway. Test it:

 

Is the UK part of the Euro? No

Is the UK part of Schengen? No

Is the UK part of the Financial Transaction Tax which will be introduced in 2016? No

 

There are countless other examples. It is a fallacy to think that the UK government has no say in these matters, that is not how the EU is designed to work - BUT because each time the government wants a tricky law passing they refer to the fact that it is based on an EU directive, people feel that the government does not have a choice. I assure you, it does, unless of course it has no say in the European Parliament (vote UKIP, great way to assure that one) or the Commission. It is not the EU's fault that the UK is falling behind in the influence stakes in the EU, it is of the UK's own making, and yet, despite that, Osbourne can turn around and declare that the FTT is not going to happen in Britain because it might upset his banker friends from Eton.

[unbeliever]

Let's address the point you begin with. International collaboration in research started when the EU began to fund research properly. The most expensive research initiatives, outside of medicine, are all funded by either the EU or the US. I name a few: CERN, ESA, NASA, ARPA. There are billions and billions available to other projects that are run by European universities, research funding on a scale that is unmatched anywhere in the world.

 

Saying that these projects could have come to fruition without the EU (or the US) is ignorant.

 

 

Is it now? It's very impressive how the EU brought the CERN research facility into being seeing as how it was built in 1954. It's based primarily in Switzerland, outside the EU and funded by the entire world on a voluntary basis by national governments.

Perhaps one of the international collaborations you listed has been working on time travel as I don't see how else the EU could be responsible for something which predates it by decades.

I can't be doing with researching the history of all the various international collaborations you list. If you want anybody to believe that they wouldn't exist without the EU, you'll need to provide some evidence now that you've been proved emphatically wrong about CERN. At least 2 of the ones you listed are wholly or primarily US. The US is a single nation, so I don't see how they're relevant.

 

 

There are instances where not all states agree and at that stage it is simply NOT the case that the EU forces it down their throats anyway. Test it:

 

Is the UK part of the Euro? No

Is the UK part of Schengen? No

Is the UK part of the Financial Transaction Tax which will be introduced in 2016? No

 

There are countless other examples. It is a fallacy to think that the UK government has no say in these matters, that is not how the EU is designed to work - BUT because each time the government wants a tricky law passing they refer to the fact that it is based on an EU directive, people feel that the government does not have a choice. I assure you, it does, unless of course it has no say in the European Parliament (vote UKIP, great way to assure that one) or the Commission. It is not the EU's fault that the UK is falling behind in the influence stakes in the EU, it is of the UK's own making, and yet, despite that, Osbourne can turn around and declare that the FTT is not going to happen in Britain because it might upset his banker friends from Eton.

 

The UK wouldn't need to influence the EU if we withdrew.

The whole point is that the vast majority of the UK people don't want to influence the EU government to get things changed they don't like. They want the UK government to decide. They only reason they're considering voting to stay in is that they've been conned into thinking that the UK government is still in charge of most things that affect their day to day lives.

 

Yes there are still some powers the UK has chosen (for now) not to transfer to the EU. The EU is not quite our sovereign yet. It's just a matter of time.

 

---------- Post added 16-06-2015 at 08:52 ----------

 

L

What is safe? I ask you to define that because I haven't got a clue. Are you saying that those aspects of competence that fall under EU jurisdiction are unsafe? But let me not be churlish and provide an answer, the EU takes precedence over national legislation only in matters that either concern the shared single market OR those matters that ALL member-states agree to.

 

So we are free to withdraw from the EU's daft renewable energy mandate without withdrawing from the EU?

I don't think so.

Edited June 16, 2015 by unbeliever

[L00b]

The UK wouldn't need to influence the EU if we withdrew.

Do you really think the UK, once outside the EU, with its paltry 60-odd millions inhabitants and the 6th global economy, is going to have much of a say about how business with the EU, with its 350-odd millions inhabitants and the 1st or 2nd single global entity trading block, is done?

 

On that line of thinking, have you bothered to look how Norway and Switzerland have fared with the "not in but trading with" option yet? And that was all negotiated, for Switzerland when most of the EU, the US and pretty much the rest of the world still badly needed their 'special' banking services (since done away with at the hands of the US) and, for Norway, in full knowledge of the fact that they are sitting on oil reserves up to their nostrils which the EU badly needs.

 

The UK has neither. In fact, the UK has nothing which the EU can't get somewhere else e.g. as regards services, significantly cheaper from India. If Brexit, the EU will have the vast majority of the balance of power in any and all EU<>UK agreement negotiations, and exert more influence on the UK than it can now. The UK will have none left whatsoever, relative to what is has currently (-when the UK could have so much more influence, if morons didn't keep voting UKIP MEPs in en masse).

The whole point is that the vast majority of the UK people don't want to influence the EU government to get things changed they don't like. They want the UK government to decide.

If that's a thinly-disguised claim that "the vast majority of the UK people" want out, polls still disagree with you so far. Must do better with the rethoric. Or perhaps it's all in your forum name

They only reason they're considering voting to stay in is that they've been conned into thinking that the UK government is still in charge of most things that affect their day to day lives.

Here's the rub: the UK government is still in charge of most things that affect their day to day lives. Fundamentals like monetary and budgetary policy (core fundamentals...nay, pillars), defence, health, social welfare, infrastructural projects and so much more. You yourself acknowledge it, grudgingly:

Yes there are still some powers the UK has chosen (for now) not to transfer to the EU.

What you don't acknowledge of course, because it torpedoes your position, is that these 'some powers' are those core national powers that render the UK already independent of, and unconcerned by, the EU integration aims, as already pointed out to you by tzijlstra: the UK is not, and IMHO never will be, in the € zone; the UK has not, and IMO never will, surrender to the ECB interference and financial regulation attempts (and, all pro-EU that I might be, I see these as good positions indeed).

The EU is not quite our sovereign yet. It's just a matter of time.

Still gut-feeling your way through the thread, then? Edited June 16, 2015 by L00b

[unbeliever]

Do you really think the UK, once outside the EU, with its paltry 60-odd millions inhabitants and the 6th global economy, is going to have much of a say about how business with the EU, with its 350-odd millions inhabitants and the 1st or 2nd single global entity trading block, is done?

 

On that line of thinking, have you bothered to look how Norway and Switzerland have fared with the "not in but trading with" option yet? And that was all negotiated, for Switzerland when most of the EU, the US and pretty much the rest of the world still badly needed their 'special' banking services (since done away with at the hands of the US) and, for Norway, in full knowledge of the fact that they are sitting on oil reserves up to their nostrils which the EU badly needs.

 

The UK has neither. In fact, the UK has nothing which the EU can't get somewhere else e.g. as regards services, significantly cheaper from India. If Brexit, the EU will have the vast majority of the balance of power in any and all EU<>UK agreement negotiations, and exert more influence on the UK than it can now. The UK will have none left whatsoever, relative to what is has currently (-when it could have so much more influence, if morons didn't keep voting UKIP MEPs in en masse).

If that's a thinly-disguised claim that "the vast majority of the UK people" want out, polls still disagree with you so far. Must do better with the rethoric. Or perhaps it's all in your forum name

Here's the rub: the UK government is still in charge of most things that affect their day to day lives. Fundamentals like monetary and budgetary policy (core fundamentals...nay, pillars), defence, health, social welfare, infrastructural projects and so much more. You yourself acknowledge it, grudgingly:

What you don't acknowledge of course, because it torpedoes your position, is that these 'some powers' are those core national powers that render the UK already independent of, and unconcerned by, the EU integration aims, as already pointed out to you by tzijlstra: the UK is not, and IMHO never will be, in the € zone; the UK has not, and IMO never will, surrender to the ECB interference and financial regulation attempts (and, all pro-EU that I might be, I see these as good positions indeed).

Still gut-feeling your way through the thread, then?

 

 

Budgetary control, defence, social welfare and infrastructure have been at least partially transferred to the EU.

Look at the treaties, or even the wikipedia pages summarising the treaties if you don't believe me.

Must of the discussion of late has been about the degree of control the EU has or chooses to exercise over these things, but they're certainly not completely reserved to the nations.

 

For me it comes down to the fact that power is moving in only one direction and the EU does not confine itself to legislating only on cross-nation issues. I can only see that ending in a superstate. We must consider what the EU has done so far, but what they have the power to do over the coming decades. The trend is clear.

If I'm wrong, we risk being left out of big decisions which affect us.

If you're wrong, big decisions about us will be taken out of our hands.

It's a big moment for the UK people. Above all we need to keep talking about it and make sure we all have as much understanding as possible before we vote in the referendum.

 

We disagree. That's okay. The people will have their say and that'll be the end of it. The last UK wide referendum did not go the way I wanted, but I no longer complain about the voting system because the people have spoken.

 

There's no way to know for certain the future of the EU and the UK's place in it if we stay in. I look at their history and am convinced where it will end. I've heard everybody out on the other side and they've heard from me. Perhaps some who previously agreed with you now agree with me, and vice-versa. That's how it's supposed to be. Between us all perhaps we've helped some come to a more considered conclusion.

 

P.S. Please don't tell me what I mean. I mean exactly what I say. If the pro-EU side wasn't split between the 2 cases of "The EU is good and we should integrate" and "The EU has so little power it's harmless" I wouldn't have brought it up.

[L00b]

Budgetary control, defence, social welfare and infrastructure have been at least partially transferred to the EU.

Budgetary control has not been transferred at all.

 

A fair amount of defence plans these days are drawn hand-in-hand with France, as a force multiplying effect, but that's entirely outra-EU.

 

Some EU legislation applies to social welfare insofar as immigrants are concerned (and, in that context, remember that Brits emigrating to anywhere in the EU are immigrants themselves), but Member Countries have demonstrated far and wide that this legislation is just about entirely optional. Why the UK implements it better than most...is anyone's guess.

 

Some EU legislation applies to standards relevant to infrastructure, not to infrastructural projects themselves. The UK can build pretty much what it wants, pretty much wherever it wants. It must however respect EU environmental guidelines (a good thing surely), EU site employment & working conditions (again, a good thing surely) and normative standards for buildings etc. (long codified outside of EU 'interference' anyway, through BSI, ISO and more - and again, a good thing surely).

Must of the discussion of late has been about the degree of control the EU has or chooses to exercise over these things, but they're certainly not completely reserved to the nations.

No, and I don't believe anyone pro-EU has suggested that they are, or should be. If you want any club to work, there has to be a common set of rules, else there is no club.

For me it comes down to the fact that power is moving in only one direction and the EU does not confine itself to legislating only on cross-nation issues. I can only see that ending in a superstate. We must consider what the EU has done so far, but what they have the power to do over the coming decades. The trend is clear.

I'll see you half-empty cup, and raise you a half-full one

 

For me, whatever superstate the €zone EU might become (and I have strong reservations about that ever happening anyway), there has always been a scope for a variable-speed EU, if only due to the significant disparities and imbalances across socio-economic tissue of its Member States. Expecting e.g. the PIIGs to match Northern European members economically was always an unrealistic pipe-dream. The Germans have finally copped on, and it's cost them a few bob

 

Getting that variable-speed EU on the rails has taken some lifting (unsurprisingly since it runs counter to the respective, but converging, national interests of the 2 EU heavyweights, France and Germany) and the worst economical crisis in decades, but this is now finally getting traction, and that's where Cameron is heading...leading, as it happens. That's not fanboism, it's grudging admiration for a very skilled political operator playing the table perfectly with a less-than-perfect deck.

 

It makes perfect sense for the UK to be the strongest, leading member of the "trade but not integrate" EU camp, it's pretty much what many of the antis are actually after with a Brexit - but with the added benefit of keeping a non-trivial say in how the EU does and goes about business.

It's a big moment for the UK people. Above all we need to keep talking about it and make sure we all have as much understanding as possible before we vote in the referendum.

 

We disagree. That's okay. The people will have their say and that'll be the end of it. The last UK wide referendum did not go the way I wanted, but I no longer complain about the voting system because the people have spoken.

 

There's no way to know for certain the future of the EU and the UK's place in it if we stay in. I look at their history and am convinced where it will end. I've heard everybody out on the other side and they've heard from me. Perhaps some who previously agreed with you now agree with me, and vice-versa. That's how it's supposed to be. Between us all perhaps we've helped some come to a more considered conclusion.

Fair enough on all that. Edited June 16, 2015 by L00b

[unbeliever]

Budgetary control has not been transferred at all.

Really?

http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/economic_governance/index_en.htm

 

A fair amount of defence plans these days are drawn hand-in-hand with France, as a force multiplying effect, but that's entirely outra-EU.

 

Some EU legislation applies to social welfare insofar as immigrants are concerned (and, in that context, remember that Brits emigrating to anywhere in the EU are immigrants themselves), but Member Countries have demonstrated far and wide that this legislation is just about entirely optional. Why the UK implements it better than most...is anyone's guess.

 

Some EU legislation applies to standards relevant to infrastructure, not to infrastructural projects themselves. The UK can build pretty much what it wants, pretty much wherever it wants. It must however respect EU environmental guidelines (a good thing surely), EU site employment & working conditions (again, a good thing surely) and normative standards for buildings etc. (long codified outside of EU 'interference' anyway, through BSI, ISO and more - and again, a good thing surely).

No, and I don't believe anyone pro-EU has suggested that they are, or should be. If you want any club to work, there has to be a common set of rules, else there is no club.

I'll see you half-empty cup, and raise you a half-full one

 

For me, whatever superstate the €zone EU might become (and I have strong reservations about that ever happening anyway), there has always been a scope for a variable-speed EU, if only due to the significant disparities and imbalances across socio-economic tissue of its Member States. Expecting e.g. the PIIGs to match Northern European members economically was always an unrealistic pipe-dream.

 

Getting that variable-speed EU on the rails has taken some lifting (unsurprisingly since it runs counter to the respective, but converging, national interests of the 2 EU heavyweights, France and Germany) and the worst economical crisis in decades, but this is now finally getting traction, and that's where Cameron is heading...leading, as it happens. That's not fanboism, it's grudging admiration for a very skilled political operator playing the table perfectly with a less-than-perfect deck.

 

It makes perfect sense for the UK to be the strongest, leading member of the "trade but not integrate" EU camp, it's pretty much what many of the antis are actually after with a Brexit - with the added benefit of keeping a non-trivial say in how the EU does and goes about business.

Fair enough on all that.

 

This is exactly what I'm talking about. You've switched without blinking from saying that the EU is not interfering in something so it's okay to saying that the EU is making good decisions (I'm unconvinced on this) so it's okay. You can't have it both ways.

 

P.S. Variable speed again! ARGH! That's different rates of integration, not different destinations.

 

P.P.S I found the wikipedia page listing fully and partially transferred competences. Nice easy to read figure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lisbon#Defined_policy_areas

Edited June 16, 2015 by unbeliever

[Eater Sundae]

Fusion is, in my opinion, the future of energy production; but it's probably not going to be ready in our lifetimes. Still, it's worth investing in. International scientific collaborations manage perfectly well (if not better) outside the EU. This is the common mistake of assuming that a thing currently sitting under the EU administrative umbrella would not exist without it.

 

The supply of available fossil fuels is vast. There's zero chance of running out before a sensible alternative is available. Probably fusion since that's how all the energy in the universe is ultimately generated.

 

The supply of Uranium will outlast the Earth itself.

The advantage of Thorium-type reactors (they can also burn Uranium and, very usefully, nuclear waste from traditional reactors) is that they don't produce long-lived waste and they therefore eliminate the waste disposal issue. There's also even more Thorium lying around than there is Uranium. Still it is a way off I agree, but you were asking about the next 50 years.

 

None of this addresses the question of why the EU forces us to waste vast amounts of money on the daftest energy generation technologies ever conceived.

Why aren't we allowed to decide for ourselves as a nation state?

 

This entire thread derives from your earlier assertion that the EU only exercises its competencies when something exceeds national borders.

Here are some more examples of EU directives which ought to have been left to the member states:

The floods directive (hard to see how a flood in the UK is a threat to the rest of the EU)

The landfill directive (It's our land. why do they get to tell us what we can bury under it)

The WEEE directive I mentioned before

Packaging and packaging waste directive

Perhaps they just make a general exception to the idea of states' rights when they're in environmental activist mode.

None of these are obviously bad laws. But how are they EU matters?

 

I'm not actually basing my case on the idea that the EU is incompetent or corrupt. I could, but that's not the theme I'm working on. They're given powers and they exercise them routinely and not just on trans-national matters. They never give power back and they get bolder and bolder in what they're prepared to interfere in. The end point is obvious. The nation states will become glorified EU regions and the national parliaments puppets. I know you like that, but the UK people need to understand that that's what they've voting for if they vote to stay in the EU.

 

I did ask before and I can't find the answer. Based on this standard, what is safe from EU intervention where competencies and powers have been transferred to the EU?

 

Re bib. Although I cannot speak specifically about those directives, the directives I deal with through work all, ultimately, boil down to trade, either to stop countries from inventing some spurious standards to prohibit foreign companies, or, particularly on environmental issues, to ensure everyone works within the same standards and cannot undercut other countries by poor (environmental) standards at home.

[unbeliever]

Re bib. Although I cannot speak specifically about those directives, the directives I deal with through work all, ultimately, boil down to trade, either to stop countries from inventing some spurious standards to prohibit foreign companies, or, particularly on environmental issues, to ensure everyone works within the same standards and cannot undercut other countries by poor (environmental) standards at home.

 

Surely everything ultimately boils down to trade.

When we work, we're either making something to sell and/or buying something somebody made. If "boils down to trade" is the standard, I don't see how anything is safe.

[L00b]

Really?

http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/economic_governance/index_en.htm

Really

 

Did you actually follow the linkies on each page? The ones which clearly show that the UK is either exempted or unconcerned by most enforcement measures?

 

Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance? UK is not a signatory, not binding on the UK.

 

Stability and Growth Pact? The UK is a specific exception to the 0.5% level enforcement (applies to 26 EU member, but not the UK). Never likely to be required in the case of the UK unless it found itself in the situation it got to in the 70s and beging to the IMF...and in practical and objective terms, in view of the PIIGs and France's serially-missed targets for the past 3 to 4 years, effectively toothless and redundant.

 

Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure? Same again. Targeting the PIIGs from the very date of its conception at the drafting stage. For all the good that's done to Greece and Portugal (for now) and will do for Spain and Italy (in months and years to come). Did I mention toothless and redundant? Hey-ho, worth mentioning them again

 

All to do with no being in € club, in the end.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. You've switched without blinking from saying that the EU is not interfering in something so it's okay to saying that the EU is making good decisions (I'm unconvinced on this) so it's okay. You can't have it both ways.

Show me where

 

I'm not having it both ways, you are misrepresenting my post and argument into 'having it both ways'.

 

Nowhere have I claimed or even suggested that all is rosy with the EU and "it's okay" to leave things as they are. What I have claimed steadfastly across 10,000-odd posts in the past 7 years, is that EU membership was, and remains, in the best long-term interest of the UK.

 

For all manner of reasons that we have covered in this thread and countless others, that very significantly outweigh the Little Englander syndrome fanned and fostered by the likes of UKIP on the back of an economic downturn (like everywhere else in similar circumstances, the world over, since the year dot).

P.S. Variable speed again! ARGH! That's different rates of integration, not different destinations.

That's what 'variable speed EU' means to your paranoid self...

 

...But you have yet to prove your omniscience to justify why your opinion is any more valid than mine or that of any other pro-EU