Is Britain about to leave the EU?

[Arakhor]

What? Why on would you heat up your crisps? That makes no sense at all, unless you're talking about spicy crisps, at which we're managing to have a conversation in our native tongues, using the same words, yet apparently drawing two entirely separate meanings from it.

 

[EnglishEdward]

More appropriately, your conclusion should be that Britain hasn't been looking after its interests in the EU. (Although I'm not sure from what facts that conclusion would follow.)

These two sentences of yours contradict each other.

 

[EnglishEdward]

What exactly is the Channel Tunnel when it's at home? We're just as connected to France as Germany is, but the difference is that we have a small bit of shallow water covering the border instead.

So you think that two 7.6 metre diameter tunnels are the
same as the 450 kilometer Franco-German frontier!

 

[Arakhor]

Geologically, the UK is just as much a part of Europe as France or Norway is, but why bring land borders into the discussion? We had the Entente Cordiale long before the EU was formed, so if anything we're far more connected to France than France is to Germany.

 

[EnglishEdward]

What? Why on would you heat up your crisps? That makes no sense at all, unless you're talking about spicy crisps, at which we're managing to have a conversation in our native tongues, using the same words, yet apparently drawing two entirely separate meanings from it.

I extract the following:

A potato chip (American English) or crisp (British English) is a thin slice of potato that has been deep fried, baked, kettle cooked, or popped until crunchy. Potato chips are commonly served as a snack, side dish, or appetizer. The basic chips are cooked and salted; additional varieties are manufactured using various flavorings and ingredients including herbs, spices, cheeses, and artificial additives.

from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_chip

 

[Arakhor]

I do know what crisps are, yes, but referring to spicy crisps as "hot chips" is just needlessly confusing.

 

[Arwon]

We call both things chips. I was referring to the hot kind out if a deep fryer, not the crisp ones in packets. Ie - the ones which Europeans seem to like to accompany with weird things like mayonnaise.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

By contrast, the British economy has not been doing good - either before or after partly joining the EU. So the real problem does not lie with the EU, but with the British economy. Leaving the EU will hardly fix that.

Just to repeat (again!) – the British economy is doing fine at the moment with comparable unemployment, inflation and GDP growth to that of Germany. We recently overtook France to become the 5th largest economy in the world.
In fact a quick back-of-a-fag-packet calculation by me shows the economy of the UK minus Scotland (if they went independent) would still be bigger than that of France.
http://knoema.com/nwnfkne/world-gdp-ranking-2015-data-and-charts

Economic reasons are only a part of the reasons some of us wish to leave the EU.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

There is no doubt that if Britain was not in the EU we would not even come close to wanting to join it now (all else being equal of course).
This post is for any Americans or Canadians reading this – below is a light hearted take on what an AU (American Union) might look like.
Surely none of you would want to join the American equivalent of the EU would you? Thought not.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/02/...nything-like-the-eu-yet-they-urge-us-to-stay/

Spoiler :

So the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, thinks his country has a ‘profound interest… in a very strong United Kingdom staying in a strong EU’, and President Obama is planning to join in campaigning for the Remainders too. They say this not because they think it is good for us, but because it is in their interests that we influence Europe in a free-trading, Atlanticist direction.
Well, two can play at that game. How would Americans like it if we argued that it is in our interests that the United States should forthwith be united with all the countries in their continent north of the Panama Canal — Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador and Panama — into a vast customs union governed by a trans-national, unelected civil service. Let’s call it the American Union, or AU.
Imagine that Britain’s Foreign Secretary has just made a speech in Toronto saying he thinks America should join the AU in order to influence Mexico in the direction of free trade. The great and the good in America agree, because they think being part of the ten-country AU will prevent war, boost trade, help smaller nations compete with the behemoths of Europe and China, enable free movement of people, stand up to Russia, encourage scientific co-operation and ensure environmental protection.
Above all, we argue, it would show the world that America is not small-minded, xenophobic, protectionist and isolationist. To this end we think the AU should — er — agree a common tariff against imports from the poorer countries of South America and have free movement of peoples within but not from outside the union. We also think the United States should give up the dollar and use a common currency issued in central America, called the auro, sometimes known as the oreo, or if it is not ready to do that, should encourage others to use the auro, even though there is limited fiscal harmonisation, which bodes ill for the single currency. Oh, and the flag of the AU, consisting of ten radial yellow stripes on a blue background, should be prominently displayed alongside the Stars and Stripes.
Unfortunately, in the current political climate, it turns out that these manifest advantages, deliciously attractive though they might be to the American elite, because they offer an escape from having to think about people in places like Iowa and New Hampshire, apparently do not have quite the same appeal to the American electorate. People are worried about Mexicans taking their jobs, using their health care and drawing upon their welfare if they join the AU. And about Panamanians running up deficits, Guatemalans passing laws that affect Americans and Nicaraguans sharing a common foreign policy.
The average Trump voter might not like Congress much, but he likes the idea of an expensive international parliament that shuttles between Mexico City and Vancouver even less, and of an international executive whose directives pass automatically into law still less, let alone one whose corridors of power are positively seething with lobbyists from big business and big pressure groups (funded by the AU to lobby it). As for the idea that the US Supreme Court could be overruled by judges sitting in Toronto or Managua…
Yes, yes, but not to worry. Mr Kerry and Mr Obama agree the AU is not perfect and should be reformed before America joins. Indeed, let’s suppose they have spent the past few months shuttling between the capitals of North and Central America to achieve this. The results have been disappointing and tend to show just how hard it is to get agreement to change anything as unwieldy as the AU, but no matter, we would advise the Americans to go ahead and join anyway. It’s inour interest that they do so.
Perhaps you think my analogy unfair? We are already in the EU, whereas I am suggesting that America joins the — currently fictional — AU. So what? Surely the decision is identical. If the AU/EU is worth joining, then it’s not worth leaving, and vice versa. Perhaps you feel the cultural and economic differences between Seattle and Tegucigalpa are greater than between Manchester and Athens. I don’t agree. Perhaps you think it unrealistic to expect such a big country as America to subsume itself into such an arrangement. Well, Britain is vastly bigger than many very successful, independent countries and has the fifth largest economy in the world. America could expect to boss the AU far more than we get our way in the EU.
Perhaps you think America should be more concerned with building free trade and good relations with people on other continents, rather than the countries that happen to be next door: that is, with China, Russia, Brazil, Europe. In which case, don’t you think the same is true for Britain? Silicon Valley has benefited from a flow of talent from the Indian subcontinent — precisely what we have denied our creative industries here as we struggle to control immigration overall but are not allowed to restrict numbers from one particular landmass.
There is a serious point here. Most Americans I know think Britain would be mad to leave the EU, but that’s because they think the EU is like Nato or Nafta or the Organisation of American States — a club of nations bound by a treaty. They think it is a trading bloc. They do not appreciate that it is a common government, run by a common bureaucracy and answerable to a common court system. Once you explain this, by using the analogy I just used, they get it immediately. They would never join the AU in a million years.
And then pause to consider the irony of America, a country born in rebellion against being governed by others through a democratic deficit, lecturing the British on how we should stay inside the EU. The chairman of Conservatives for Britain, Steve Baker MP had this to say about John Kerry’s remarks: ‘I refer Mr Kerry to the US Declaration of Independence. We will do peacefully at the ballot box that for which his nation fought a war of bloody insurrection. If the USA must express a view on the UK’s right to the separate and equal status among the nations of the world to which many of us feel entitled, perhaps they might consider whether they wish to discuss their back taxes.’
Put your money where your mouth is, Mr Kerry. Unite your own continent into a superstate first before you tell us to do the same.

 

[Arakhor]

There is no doubt that if Britain was not in the EU we would not even come close to wanting to join it now (all else being equal of course).

Well, that's a really pointless statement. Almost nothing would be the same, let alone all else.

Besides which, that entire article is a tu quoque argument, because it doesn't matter what the Americans are or aren't doing: what's important is what we are going to do.

 

[Mega Tsunami]

Well, that's a really pointless statement. Almost nothing would be the same, let alone all else.
Besides which, that entire article is a tu quoque argument, because it doesn't matter what the Americans are or aren't doing: what's important is what we are going to do.

What it shows is how stupid we would be to join the EU if we weren’t so deeply embedded in it and it most certainly is a good argument for wanting to leave.

 

[Arwon]

America is very large

 

[Agent327]

What it shows is how stupid we would be to join the EU if we weren’t so deeply embedded in it and it most certainly is a good argument for wanting to leave.

Apart from this being a purely hypothetical argument, it's also rather circular. And circular arguments are rarely good ones.

Just to repeat (again!) – the British economy is doing fine at the moment with comparable unemployment, inflation and GDP growth to that of Germany. We recently overtook France to become the 5th largest economy in the world.
In fact a quick back-of-a-fag-packet calculation by me shows the economy of the UK minus Scotland (if they went independent) would still be bigger than that of France.
http://knoema.com/nwnfkne/world-gdp-ranking-2015-data-and-charts

Economic reasons are only a part of the reasons some of us wish to leave the EU.

You seem to miss the obvious conclusion that the UK might be doing good because of the EU. Which hardly makes an argument for leaving it. (For one, nobody in Germany woudl argue that because Germany is doing good economically, they should - therefore - leave the EU. It's a nonsensical argument.)

Apart from that, I wasn't discussing the state of the British economy at the moment, I was taking a long range view - in case you missed that.

 

[Borachio]

What? Why on would you heat up your crisps? That makes no sense at all, unless you're talking about spicy crisps, at which we're managing to have a conversation in our native tongues, using the same words, yet apparently drawing two entirely separate meanings from it.

I don't say you would heat up your crisps. Just that you could eat hot crisps (i.e. crisps which are hot, not spicy) if you ate them as they came out of the frier.

How do you think they make crisps, then? Aren't they, after all, just finely sliced deep-fried potato? And isn't the oil they're fried in hot?

Or do you suppose that crisps grow, in bags, on trees? Next to the different trees which grow cartons of milk.

But all this is by the by. Australians, I repeat, name their crisps "chips" and must consequently talk about "hot chips" - for what you and I call "chips" - in an attempt at disambiguation.

the ones which Europeans seem to like to accompany with weird things like mayonnaise.

Don't look at me. You mean Belgians, I think. I'm fine with salt and vinegar (which, incidentally, the French regard as weird, but what do they know?), and occasionally tomato ketchup.

 

[Arwon]

Vinegar on hot chips? Ewwww. Tomato sauce or gravy pls.

 

[Arakhor]

Gravy doesn't sound totally disgusting, but I don't like salt on things and vinegar just makes them soggy and bitter.

 

[Borachio]

Gravy is a real chavvy thing to put on one's chips, if you ask me.

(Which you didn't. But I told you anyway.)

 

[Flying Pig]

It's very northern; put plenty of pepper in and it's not half bad. That said, I couldn't stomach the Canadian answer to it, which is chips with gravy and cheese curds.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Geologically, the UK is just as much a part of Europe as France or Norway is, but why bring land borders into the discussion? We had the Entente Cordiale long before the EU was formed, so if anything we're far more connected to France than France is to Germany.

Geography fails you in invoking connectivity so in desperation you try
geology and superseded political history.

This does not impress me at all.


I am in favour of project hope (leaving) rather than project fear (ever closer union).

I simply do not buy into David Cameron's so called deal that would purport to
leave the UK in a half way there house. If project fear succeeds, the euro-federalists
will simple take that as UK consent to take the UK all the way into a federal EU.

Therefore the real choices are:

(a) the UK proceed into a federal EU with England becoming little more than a
region (sort of like an English speaking lander)

OR

(b) the UK leaving the EU project.


There are arguments that can be made for (a) a federal EU, but these failed
to win the French or Netherlands referendums on the European Constitution.
The pro-federalists are afraid to argue their case regarding the UK, so all they
can do is be negative about the case for leaving and make economic threats.

The best appeal made so far here in this forum for remaining is that the UK
should not be so cruel to abandon Estonia to the French and the Germans.

 

[Arakhor]

I simply do not buy into David Cameron's so called deal that would purport to leave the UK in a half way there house. If project fear succeeds, the euro-federalists will simple take that as UK consent to take the UK all the way into a federal EU.

Sorry? Who is invoking fear in this very post?

By the by, do you read the Express by any chance?