Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

I fail to see how this is "common sense". What better time to consider the UK's commitment to a united Europe than at a point where it is revealing its weaknesses and its disunity? Also, you fail to address the larger issue of whether politicians are "serving" or "self-serving". And a straw poll of local businesses is not a firm basis for designing policy which has profound implications for Great Britain as an independent, self-determining entity.

By the way, your English is execrable.

Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

I'd like to know who actually voted in those opinion polls. As I'm English, I'm sure I would have placed the state of the Banks/Economy at the the top of any poll during this last decade. On the other hand, if I'd been born on the European mainland for instance and rented a space in a house with 20 others of my compatriots who settled here because there are jobs here, of course I wouldn't put Europe at the top of a list because I'd like the freedom to find work and live where I wanted, especially when I had the choice of choosing a country with benefits which suited me.

As for your business contacts I suspect they're mostly in the food industry where I acknowledge that we do have substantial business interests in the EU. Until a decade ago I was in the electronic manufacturing business and can tell you that our modest exports were to South America and the Arab lands.

I was one of those who voted to join the Common Market and am most certainly against the self serving undemocratic Institution which has since developed. It set regulations then allowed membership to countries which did not meet the rules viz Greece, etc. It laid down an agriculture policy which the UK slavishly followed, resulting in us losing middle sized farms but gaining millionaire landowners. At the same time we had Scottish farmers selling up and moving to France which handed them a stash of money to set up new SMALL farms. The EU laymen set regulations which have emptied the seas of life and decimated the fishing industry. How ridiculous to have one trawler fishing for one type of fish but inadvertantly catching a species of fish it wasn't licensed to catch - those illegal fish being manna from heaven to the millions of gulls waiting for their free meal; whilst a trawler less than a mile away was "legally" catching the same fish

Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

There is much scaremongering about loss of business if we were to leave the EU.
I cannot believe that this would happen. Markets are run on having viable products...if we have those viable products which we are selling in the EU......how will leaving the EU make them less viable?

If so many people wanted to remain in the EU, then the government would be only too happy to let us have a say in what we want.
It is because they fear that we will give the 'wrong answer' that we are not being given the opportunity to vote on it.
They want to let more EU citizens in so that the vote will go the way they want it to go.

Many of the bureaucrats in Brussels are unelected.....and though we have some MEP's their influence is risible.

Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

Just a few points .

We ought not to governed according to opinion polls . That could just take the populist road , and lead politicians to duck making good decisions on necessary but unpopular issues .

Referendums should have no place in our democracy . I agree with Clement Attlee , the best prime minister of my lifetime so far , when he said that they are just not British .
We have a parliamentary democracy , and we send M.P.s to Parliament to be our representatives , not our delegates . It is for them to make decisions which they believe are best for the country . So for me any referendum on the EU or on any other matter is to be rejected .

As for the EU , I hope that Parliament will continue to support UK membership of the EU unless some better alternative is proposed . I have yet to see any anti-EU people propose a viable alternative to EU membership . I recall Neil Kinnock saying : " You don't play politics with peoples' jobs . " That is just what those such as UKIP are doing .

Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

While I agree that we should not be governed by opinion polls.
There is no democracy if those who are elected to serve us do not listen to the concerns of those who elected them.

We do not need to be part of something that is so corrupt it has not had a budget signed of for something like 20 years.
An organisation where we can make no valuable representation...where those who have all the power are unelected.....and therefore answerable to no-one.
We need to be able to determine our own laws...not have them imposed from across the water.
I do not identify with Europe. We were led into an organisation which we were told was purely for trade....yet it is ever increasingly becoming political and wants to have closer financial control over us. So we were misinformed...lied to...bamboozled.
We have been promised many times, by different political parties, a chance to have a say...this has never materialised.Back in 1975 I voted against the EEC(as it was then)I feared it would become a United States of Europe.......and that is the aim. Nothing to do with trade at all.

Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

many companies big and small are trading with the united emirates and in a lot of cases setting up offices in Dubai infact Dubai is a thriving place for UK buisness

we dont need the EU if they dont want to trade with us theres plenty out there that will and they wont tell us how straight a bannana has to be either or to wear a high viz jacket when peeling one

Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

I agree.
We traded successfully in the past...we can do so again in the future...in a wider world.

Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

we are in the age of online shopping now

i buy my parts for things from china it cuts out all the extras added on by countries in the EU including the UK for the same exact item

by extras i mean £'s :)

Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

The reason that this topic intrigues me is that I ... and no doubt others among us ... sense that democracy is under attack; and threats to the economy are often thrown up to justify its erosion in favour of businesslike management. Come to think of it, the same arguments are advanced in order to derail any effective action on environmental issues. Obviously, the EU is not an issue that concerns me. But the decline of democracy does.

But, to address your points. I definitely agree that countries can not be governed according to opinion polls. But, I do not agree that referenda have no place in a democracy, though I do think they should be used sparingly. Some issues, fundamental to the future of the country, demand a referendum. The vote on Scottish independence is one obvious example.

I do believe that the relationship between voters and MPs is open for debate. There is a great difference between a representative and a delegate. I, myself, would go for "delegate." Where power resides in a democracy is no mere academic question. Does power rest with the people, or, as is increasingly obvious in Canada, with the Prime Minister's Office, or in the States, following a recent Supreme Court decision, with those like the Koch brothers, who have more than enough money to buy elections?

Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

There is no democracy. When the MP's cease to take account of the concerns of the electorate...dismiss the concerns.....then where does it leave democracy?
It isn't democracy when these elected MP's think they know better than those who elected them and act accordingly. Taking no acount of the wishes of the electorate...but following party directives is not democratic.
There is no democracy unless people feel that their vote can achieve some kind of change.

Why do people fail to use their vote? Might it be because they really don't think it will change anything?

What is the point of voting if the EU mandarins are going to be making the decisions about our future anyway?

Soon MP's will become obsolete. The EU will see to that.

Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

dont forget the person who has the job of telling the members of the EU what to do isnt elected so the whole of europe is basically a dictatorship

Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

Exactly!

Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

Haha...gotta love the irony of that percentage you quote....by the way how much public money went into commissioning that particular pointless survey?

Re: The Labour Gravy Train
 

Right enlighten me, WHO is this everyone????? Cos more than many of the people i come in contact with are certainly wishing OUT of the E.U. never mind a sodding referendum.:rolleyes: Most people i see are of a concrete opinion, this is not the common market I n many of em voted for, back in the day.And by the way i and most of my friends were or still are Labour Voters, as you are probably aware.