Greece's failings are largely their own and they would have been bailed out anyway. Some culpability for artificial inflation of their economy and insufficient checks definitely but this needed a crisis to turn it around.
The migrant crisis has its roots in the Iraq war which can hardly be blamed on the EU.
What do you object to about the Lisbon Treaty? And the EAW?
Pooling intelligence is surely a good thing when huge threats exist and require a coordinated approach?
Set taxes? A long way off any major influence surely?
The manner in which Brussels and Berlin handled the bailout and resultant debt crises made things worse for the most vulnerable Greeks, and they could not have been aware of such, The country should have been allowed to leave the Euro and recover, but the credibility of the Eurozone was not thought up to the test. Millions have suffered as a result.
The migrant crisis goes well beyond Iraq and Syria, it includes the EU's wretched treaty with Turkey and the instability surrounding Libya. Policy formed in Brussels will have been responsible for hardship, abuse, injury and death. Did you not see MSF's statement on the matter last week?
The Lisbon Treaty has established the sway of QMV, as well as such wasteful endeavours as the European External Affairs Service (this latter already costing 1bn pa). The EAW is an infringement of a Briton's basic rights as criticised by Liberty. Judiciaries of lesser competency can extradite British citizens, with high profile cases where innocents have been kept in jail for many months.
Intelligence cooperation would occur irrespective of the European Union, as out ties with America testify to.
The EU already has an impact on VAT, an area which they hope to expand later this year IIRC. When Christine Lagarde was finance minister, she was a committed supporter of tax harmonisation, it's not a new thing.
I also find scientific research to be an odd one, the EU's record there is good, could it be better? Sure. But we're not holding the EU to an ideal, we're comparing it to the alternative, a post-Brexit UK. Will it be better there than it is now? Almost certainly not.
I suppose that was to illustrate how i think European cooperation should have evolved over the years. Rather than courts, EU Commissioners and a flawed currency union; it should have been consumer protections, science (ESA, medical advances e.t.c.) and the environment.
Point me to snide racism please.
I would cite these three as examples of what i would consider to have crossed a line:
Because they are going to make Britain Great Again... and you know what else they are going to build a wall - its going to be a big beautiful wall along the south coast and do you know who is going to pay for it - the EU because when they send their people over here they are not sending their doctors and nurses, they are not sending teachers and engineers no they are sending us Schroedinger's immigrants who are simultaneousness living off benefits because they are too lazy to work and stealing your job at the same time... and not only are these "so called people" filling up our schools with their children but at the same time sending back child benefits to the same children who are also living back home...
I think thats pretty much the crux of their argument... probably something about rivers of blood and ban muslins as well
they hope to find a final solution to immigration
Could go on and on - which part of this glorious world does the UK want to be part of - or do they want to be insular and have their cream teas in the village with all the thatched cottages listening the sound of leather against willow while the brave tommies go off to defend this sacred land, serene in the knowledge that there's no chance of any dark-faced foreigner about to encroach on their paradise.
Now i'll freely admit that i have been tad acerbic at times and sarcastic at others, but rarely without provocation. Related to which, i thought this to be one of the most apt replies during the debate yesterday:
This whole debate has become so toxic, I'm really worried regardless of the outcome on Thursday we're all going to have to do a lot of work to figure out how we can all live together and tolerate each other.
Indeed. As it was I struggled to find someone to vote for last year, a win for Remain would could mean i fail to vote for the first time. Pretty much every party leader for 2020 would fall into one of two categories: complicit in deceiving the public, or unacceptable on policy grounds. So after two decades in which my passion for politics has gone to define part of who i am, there'll be nothing. Leave wouldn't be a certain thing either, but the status quo is dispiriting enough in itself.
