What effect has greece had on your decision to leave euro?

[tzijlstra]

I see that M. Hollande has been talking about the need for a Eurozone government (again).

With the French in charge and the Germans supplying the money, I suppose.

 

I wonder if this will be on the BBC news tonight?

 

Fairly sure it wasn't (didn't watch it). The UK keeps turning a blind eye to the EU, when there is a nice big scandal/problem it is all over the news, but any debate actually happening in the EU does simply not reach the airwaves here. We do get a hell of a lot of American news. I wonder if language is anything to do with that...

[Harrystottle]

any debate actually happening in the EU does simply not reach the airwaves here.

 

I agree with that 100%. What the EU decides is massively important to the UK but our media has broadcast misinformation, half truths and outright lies for 40 years - but the biggest fault is the sin of omission. Very important EU policy decisions are reported, if at all, in 3 seconds and never mentioned again.

 

For example the concept of an EU of the regions has been discussed in Europe for years, but the topic is slanted in this country as though it's an entirely UK matter, which is about as far from the truth as you could get.

[L00b]

I think you'll find that QMV will allow the €Z to overrule the UK on the use of the EFSM for this purpose. Not sure we can do much about it.

You're wrong (any Council vote about the EFSM for Greece isn't subject to QMV, it's a unanimity job under Article 352 TFEU) and time will tell so

We could withdraw from the EU in protest at their broken promise.

Thankfully, that question will be put to a referendum in this country, and not left just to people who can't think farther than the end of their nose

[tzijlstra]

I agree with that 100%. What the EU decides is massively important to the UK but our media has broadcast misinformation, half truths and outright lies for 40 years - but the biggest fault is the sin of omission. Very important EU policy decisions are reported, if at all, in 3 seconds and never mentioned again.

 

For example the concept of an EU of the regions has been discussed in Europe for years, but the topic is slanted in this country as though it's an entirely UK matter, which is about as far from the truth as you could get.

 

The regional question has been a topic for a long time, as you say. A properly federated EU could simply switch measures between different zones as appropriate. But it requires further integration and a certain country that does not broadcast on the EU is continuously blocking any such talk

[Happ Hazzard]

Maybe someone should start an EU news channel, as if people are interested in it they will be coining it in before long. Or could it be that people just aren't interested? The same as how those on the left bleat about "the right" controlling the popular press in this country. The reason being that people mostly choose to buy right-wing papers instead of left-wing ones (the Mirror aside). Maybe lefties need to ask themselves why this is instead of calling people idiots and blaming everyone but themselves.

[Harrystottle]

Maybe someone should start an EU news channel, as if people are interested in it they will be coining it in before long. Or could it be that people just aren't interested?

 

When it dawns on them that a Welshman can have Wales, a Scotsman can have Scotland, but an Englishman can have... a "Region" then they might wish they'd been a bit more interested.

[L00b]

Maybe someone should start an EU news channel, as if people are interested in it they will be coining it in before long. Or could it be that people just aren't interested? The same as how those on the left bleat about "the right" controlling the popular press in this country. The reason being that people mostly choose to buy right-wing papers instead of left-wing ones (the Mirror aside). Maybe lefties need to ask themselves why this is instead of calling people idiots and blaming everyone but themselves.

Has long long existed in many different guises, the issue is with mass media, not specialist media.

 

As regards your (usual) 'leftie' comments, I don't know if that was aimed at me, but just in case: politically, I sit generally slightly right of centre right and, on some topics, comfortably to the right of Genghis Khan. Being of a (in the UK-) conservative persuasion (borderline reactionary at times) does not prevent a pro-EU stance, to the same extent as it does not prevent awareness of problems with the current EU. An open (and preferably curious) mind is a prerequisite, though.

When it dawns on them that a Welshman can have Wales, a Scotsman can have Scotland, but an Englishman can have... a "Region" then they might wish they'd been a bit more interested.

That's a bit disnignenuous, since the (i) Welsh and Scots are likely to be more pro-EU than the English (vested interest, more dependent on EU subsidies and grants than England whether in or out of the UK) and (ii) in an EU of 'regions', they'd both be part of the same 'region' as England, probably with Ireland lobbed in for good measure.

 

All that said, and for clarity of record, I don't personally support an EU of federalised 'regions'. The €Z can have that if they wish, so long as they leave the UK out of it (eventually arriving at a de facto EEA-like membership for non-€ member states).

Edited July 20, 2015 by L00b

[Harrystottle]

OK, but the main point is that if you take a decision, then it's better to take an informed decision. The UK will be asked to make a decision on EU membership in 2017 and it will be very difficult for that decision to be an informed one, as the UK public have been kept deliberately under-informed about the EU since the 1970's and probably even before that.

[L00b]

OK, but the main point is that if you take a decision, then it's better to take an informed decision. The UK will be asked to make a decision on EU membership in 2017 and it will be very difficult for that decision to be an informed one, as the UK public have been kept deliberately under-informed about the EU since the 1970's and probably even before that.

You can only inform those who would want to be informed in the first place, and we don't know how much of the body of referendum voters will answer that definition, in proportion.

 

I'm quietly confident that very many (most) will have sought plenty of information already, out of educational and/or professional tasks if not outright curiosity, particularly since the advent of the Interweb 20-odd years ago, moreover factoring in younger generations 'born into it' and of a voting age come 2017

 

For others, expectedly they'll limit their thinking to practical day-to-day EU-related issues such as, miscellaneously, the ease of travel to and fro, familiarity with holiday currency, personal prejudices, nationalist and populist siren calls, and much more on both sides of that fence.

Edited July 20, 2015 by L00b

[mattleonard]

OK, but the main point is that if you take a decision, then it's better to take an informed decision. The UK will be asked to make a decision on EU membership in 2017 and it will be very difficult for that decision to be an informed one, as the UK public have been kept deliberately under-informed about the EU since the 1970's and probably even before that.

 

Why on earth is it the responsibility of the media to educate us? The information is out there, so we should seek it out, and as L00b says, if we demonstrated to the media that we were interested then no doubt they'd report it more. I'm pretty sure that what you mean is "why don't the mass media agree with me" (ie. you).

 

I think it's scandalous that children's education contains very little content on the structure of the EU. But if it did, then there would be outcry from sections of the population about how it is pro-EU propaganda and that since we shouldn't have any part of the EU, therefore it shouldn't impinge on our children's educations.

 

You can't have it both ways.