Quality post, but didn't they bomb your chippy 70 years ago? I'm sure you remember it well.

remind me what operation sea lion was then mate please!!

I'm not your mate.

It didn't take place, thank goodness.

If it had we would have had no chance of resisting the Nazis. Thank goodness they had other prioritities.

Not on the evidence of your posts.


Well derailed, everybody, by the way.

tb, you are full of rubbish. I have very little regard for what you say. Now please go away.

I hope that the UK government supports the EU. If it doesn't we will suffer.

I really dont know how this would play during an election campaign. The electorate's reaction isnt going to be based on any deep analysis, its just too complex. There's obviously a general anti european feeling if opinion polls are to be believed, but the Tory "basta*ds" can easily alienate the electorate. And the Lib Dems seem to be in an impossible position. They'd have to elect a new leader before they could fight an election. Labour dont really seem to have a position other than to criticise Cameron's negotiating tactics. It would be a huge risk for them to come across as pro european.

I suspect that all three parties will contrive to make sure that there isnt an election any time soon.

Cameron seems to have come out of this very well if you are to believe the papers and News.

Good on him for standing up to Europe- UKIP to get more votes than Cleggs gang later this week.

ok.




























mate.

You must watch some weird TV channels and read some strange papers then

Thats the impression I'm getting too.

Should be an interesting week. Eurosceptic Tories cheering DC into the Commons, Ken Clarke, etc may put the boot in bifg time, the LibDems may disintegrate and silly little Ed Milliband will look his usual daft self. The makets may crucify the Euro or may do the opposite. The US may tell DC to go and crawl back to Europe, or they may not. If Cameron doesn't follow through and stay tough, he's finished. If he does and the US doesn't like the stance, the UK is finished.

Its not over yet. Cameron and Merkozy called each other's bluffs and they all lost. They'll re-open it again in 6 months. It will be just too difficult for the EU to implement fiscal union in parallel to the existing EU institutions. They'll cobble together an agreement on financial services that will allow Cameron to claim a victory without Merkozy giving too much away. Either that or they'll try to eject the UK completely from the EU.

Do you think they'll want to do without our huge net contribution in these austere times? Eurocrats think the world owes them a living. They expect the USA to fight their battles and not to pay for them. They even wanted the poor people of China (with average per capita incomes of ca. $7,500) to bail them out. You really think they'll want to kick us out? They may need to spend their days working then, rather than poncing about outside cafes all day in their designer sunglasses.

It certainly seems to have endeared Cameron to the right-wing press, who haven't always given him their full backing during his time as Tory Party leader.

It will be interesting to see the next set of opinion poll figures.

Personally my view of him has improved, for the first time in years a Prime Minister has done something unexpected and bold and has shaken politics up. After years of bland meetings behind closed doors about Europe, its good to see the issue being discussed so in-depth by the public. Only time will tell if this decision pays off or not.

You'll get a splinter in your backside mate.

They won't try to eject the UK for the simple reason that money talks, the UK has always been a net contributor to the EU, only Germany can claim that too. For an organisation that is infamously corrupt and riddled with rent-seeking interests the idea of the UK walking away with its billions in subsidies to the project simply isn't palatable, even if our reluctance to just hold our noses when wading through the sea of sh.1t that is the EU's economic affairs is a constant annoyance to Germany and France. They tolerate us because we stuff their gobs with money, and that's far more powerful than political rhetoric.

Ultimately we live in the era of GATT and the WTO, and if we chose to renegotiate or even leave we would still end up being in a free trade zone, because the vast amount of trade we do with the rest of the EU is too important for either side to lose. The real fault line is that the UK's interests lie in being part of a single market, which is what we really signed up to, not a political union, which Germany and France want and our politicians have spent decades trying to pretend isn't the case.

Cameron would not have used the veto if he genuinely didn't have to, like every British PM of the last 40 years he hasn't the stomach for a real fight over a matter of mere principle, and by the same token the Germans and French would have given us the opt outs we wanted had they really not mattered to their own interests, but the Germans and French still need the UK's economic power, because the French state is still horribly expose the losses its banks face if they can't keep kicking the can along the road, and the German appetite for mopping up the Eurozone brown stuff is not infinite. So I think you're right in that there will be another deal in the next few months, and this time the UK will get its opt-outs and the EU will get some sort of bung in return so both sides walk away with a prize.

But it's overused, and I do appreciate it's populist appeal, but its token value to noddy arguments far exceeds it's real value in understanding international political economy. Casino banking does not of itself create unsustainable levels of sovereign debt, we're in the realms of boring government bonds rather than exotic financial instruments.

Rubbish. The single market of the EU is far easier to trade in than the rest of the world WTO or not. The yanks will quite happily indulge in protectionism against anyone including the Chinese despite it is they who basically have bailed them out financially for years if the Yanks think it is in their interests. That example is the sort of reality that exists outside the single market. In contrast it is as easy from a legal standpoint for a UK company to trade in the single market as it is for them to trade in the Uk. Trading in the single market and outside of it are vastly different by an order of magnitude. If the WTO trading area was just the same as the single market then the latter would not need to exist and it would not exist. It would be pointless. It is far from pointless.



Given the main reason he said he used it he definately didn't have to.

Supposedly it was to protect the City from the proposed Financial Transaction Tax. Well given taxation legistlaton of any kind is already subject to a Veto he did not need to veto the entire deal to prevent such a tax.

What will happen now is the other 26 will draw up a new treaty which will allow them to impose rules that will circumvent the current treaties and so impose one anyway. Want to trade stocks in Euros? Then pay up. Note that is not the same as imposing a tax outright but coming up with we rules for trading and such rules would not be subject to ad veto. We would have to get ally's to vote such changes down in a qualified majority voting scenario. Cameron has not got any ally's anymore.

If we were not excluded (as we are now) from the new 26 member club we could fight our corner and use vetoes within the club when necessary. Now we are out of the club they can do what they like without the UK putting the breaks on. That is exactly what Sarkozy wanted. The Uk is now out of the way and marginalised. Cameron has been completely outmanoeuvred.

Why did he fall for this? He didn't. He did it to appease his party and protect his position within it is my opinion as to why.

Cameron's best hope is actually that the Euro does fail. The very thing him and Osborne rightly say they do not want to happen. If it survives and the 26 forge ahead with fiscal union then Cameraon wil go down in history as the PM who finally relegated the status of the UK to be insignificant.

I think it's 60 40 towards failure myself so he could be "lucky" but if it does fail I certainly hope no one is daft enough to say Cameron was a great statesman due to what he just did. It wil be luck not judgement and you watch the 26 blame the uk for not backing the deal in the first place. That is the other way in which he has been out manoeuvred. Were we still in the club any failure would have been despite our involvement not because we abandoned the rest.

Whichever way the cookie crumbles Cameron has been exposed as the rank amateur he is when it comes to statesmanship. I detest Maggie thatcher with a vengeance but she was a constant thorn in the side of the EU and a reason she could be was because she was at the table. I doubt she would have been daft enough to remove herself from the negotiating table to appease a few nice but dim back benchers.

Dave O has got it completely spot on . There is a huge possibility that the main Euro banks may end up leaving London and taking their buisness to Paris or Berlin.

There will be huge presure on these banks to comply with their national governments will particularly as most of them are in complete hock to their national governments and the ECB.

This decison by Cameron was purely Political and not Economic. It could turn out to be disastrous.


Like everything else in Europe Britain will come to the party too late to influence anything and negotiate any compromises from the other countries.

Britain cannot be separate from Europe. They have to be either IN or OUT there is no in between. But if they are out they will be out of the single market and then you can say bye bye to British manufacturing.

Those who want us out still see Britain as an economic powerhouse who will ressurect the Empire. The Empire will now just laugh at us as Europe is a powerhouse not Britain.

Maybe I am confused but this idea that unless you are in the EEC you cannot trade in Europe seems way off the mark. If you look at the biggest firms in the world a number are non european yet they all seem to trade in Europe with being part of the club. Wal-Mart has supermarkets here, Samsung electronics are in every electronic retailer, Toyota cars everywhere you look etc. Are you saying if Samsung were british its market in Europe would disappear if we pulled out of the EEC?

The way the government sells this country to the likes of Toyota is that it gives them access to the single market yet the UK is free from some of the more restrictive labour laws of our EU partners. Toyota and Nissan build cars here because we are part of the single market not because they like the weather.

Companies that do not build stuff in an EU country are a completely different case.

If we exit the single market companies like Toyota will exit the UK because they would lose access to the single market. Yes they could still build cars here and in theory could still try and sell them into Europe but what you need to understand is just how easy the single market makes that compared to trying to do it from the outside.

People really do need to understand there is a huge difference between trading inside the single market compared to outside of it. It is a piece of cake for large UK based companies (like Toyota)to trade within it.

The idea behind the single market and why it is different than the old common market some seen to think we could return to is its goal is that the movement of capital, labour, goods, and services between the members is as easy as it is within any country. That is not true in a common market which is just a free trade area that usually means free movement of capital and services is allowed but does not remove the other barriers to trade.

If you build as car here you can sell it in Germany without having to meet different regulations or facing an import quota. Tax (because we all use VAT) isn't a problem either so there is no import tax to consider. There are no borders, no technical standards to get in the way and no problems with taxes that make the movement of capital, labour, goods, and services more difficult. Exit the single market and those advantages disappear and so there would be no reason for Toyota or anyone else to set up shop here.

It might turn out that way, but you're assuming that this is the last word on the matter.

Friday's outcome is also a horrendous result for the EU. Having to set up raft of parallel structures and institutions to implement fiscal union will be a nightmare. By comparison, Cameron's demands were small beer.

I expect that when the dust has setlled there will be further negotiations. The test of Cameron's statemenship will be how he handles the conflicting demands of the Eurosceptics, who have undoubtedly smelt blood, with the "just say yes" position of the Lib Dems.

At the moment Cameron's position is no better or worse than that of a trade union leader who has stormed out of pay negotiations. He might look foolish now, but if he ends up receiving a better offer than was on the table last week he will feel vindicated.

What on earth are you rabbiting on about?

Wal-Mart has a UK presence because it bought Asda and turned the larger stores into Wal-Marts. Samsung has plants in post-accession, Eastern Europe, the used to have plants here but upped sticks for cheap labour in Slovakia. A major factor in the far-eastern car manufacturers locating to the UK was the ease of hiring & firing compared to other pre-accession EU countries. But they came to the EU because it's cheaper and easier to sell within the EU if you have a manufacturing plant here.

If we detach from the EU, make no mistake about it, those car manufacturers will be among the first to bugger off. Nissan has links with Renault and has already threatened to move to France, if we're not in the club, that threat will become reality, as will many other hi-tech industries.

It's interesting that the CBI have been virtually silent about last week's performance by Cameron. But as they represent UK manufacturing interests, I reckon they are waiting for the detail before deciding what to say.

It all hinges on whether the Euro survives. If it does whether it is a horrendous task or not they [iwill[/i go ahead and set these things up and we will be excluded. All Cameron can do is try and make sure current EU institutions are not used in a way that disadvantages Britain and threatens the single market but if the 26 are not using any of those institutions to achieve their goal he can't do that.

Even if they do try and use current institutions to achieve their aim come 2014 there is a change coming in whereby a lot more stuff including EU financial regulation is not subject to a veto. Changes can them be made based on qualified majority voting and he will be stuffed.



Negotiations about what? He used the veto to kill off the Franco German inspired solution and simply forced them to take their solution to a place he could not interfere with it.



You are assuming they will go round the loop again with us in it. They just decided not to do that.

No different to the employer stating "that was our final offer" when the trade union leader stormed out in the early hours of the morning. Time will tell.