Brian
Eating fat, staying slim
I asked some months ago for someone to post the advantage of the EU over the EEC. Nothing from anyone.Hardly know where to start with this.
To start with, people lived in hamlets, villages, towns and cities in this country for hundreds or thousands of years and countless generations within an entity called England (and of course there were other entities called Scotland, Wales and Ireland). That entity had a progressively developing set of shared laws, religious and societal customs, rights and responsibilities, first under absolute monarchies and then progressively more constitutional monarchies. The original Act of Union took place in 1703, well over 300 years ago. The European project has existed for just 60 odd years
Comparison with the USA is disingenuous, because there really is no comparison. Europe is made up of sovereign states with very long histories and customs. There have been amalgamations, the most successful and logical being Germany and Italy, and there have been significant breakups. In both cases the process has been invariably messy, and violent.
There are a number of blocs as you put it 'agglomerating' across the globe, but they are to do with trade (and the attendant technical standards), not sovereign federation. The largest global organisations by far are the UN, which oversees a huge tranche of global technical standards, and the WTO. Neither are sovereign entities or supranational powers in the sense that the EU is. There are many FTA treaties in place, between many countries, but those countries do not impose the laws created in one parliament upon that of the other, beyond those mutually agreed to the outcome of that FTA.
I think that most people would agree that there is much to be said for the concept of the 'common market', but that they are very considerably less enamoured of the concept of centralised supranational federation, the essential distinction, if you will, between the EEC/EC and the EU into which John Major signed us, without popular consent, in 1992.
You mention the potential for reform. The consensus, steeped in long experience, might run along the lines of 'dream on'.
This doesn’t answer the question put to Hugh. There is a world of difference between believing the UK will fail and wanting failure to say, “I told you so”.It can only possibly fail as nothing about the project was thought through or costed. It was rash ignorant stupidity. The simple reality is we will end up vastly poorer, with far higher unemployment, far less civil liberties and human rights, far less freedoms and very likely with our ridiculous popularist alt-right government actually in breach of international law.
This thread, all its countless thousands of posts, was an opportunity to present a positive case for Brexit. In all the server space and bandwidth I have provided not one of you on the ‘leave’ side have presented a single credible argument stating how we will end up in a better position in the global marketplace, or from an employment or civil rights perspective, let alone from a point of social cohesion. Basically we will be far worse off, far less free, and split as a nation as we know exactly who created this mess. As such forgive the millions of us who have predicted this blundering reality with uncanny accuracy right from the off for considering those on the leave side to be either a) racists/xenophobes, b) pigshit thick, or c) a handful of disaster capitalists/financial speculators more than prepared to destroy a nation’s future for a quick profit before exiting abroad (or some combination thereof).
As for the ‘leave side’ bit. Daring to be in any way critical of the EU obviously puts me firmly in the firing line of hard remainers. Personally, I don’t believe we will be economically better off, or better off in terms of employment and civil rights. Those 3 things will only improve by people voting to remove the conservative party from govt. Does that answer your point?
By the way, I am none of a, b or c.