Excellent article by Liam Fox on EU

[Old Greg]

There's always one. You're more than welcome back you know.

I didn't care for the company, but thanks anyway.

[d000hg]

What about the Canada model.

The Greenland model.

Those notable powerhouses of global trade and influence.

[PurpleGorilla]

That was the Americans.
Most Brits are very much like you.
And you cant even buy a decent house.

The point, Mr ASSguru, is that sometimes a bit of faith is required, without the solution known in advance.

[sasguru]

What I want to know is, despite multiple threads, hundreds of posts and general nastiness , and anyone changed their mind in either direction?

If you mean me, I was just making the point to MM, that the elite in this country, far from achieving anything of note in the last half-century have dismantled the industrial base, created several economic crashes and a housing boom.
Why on earth he'd want to give the political classes more freedom to fook up even more is beyond me.
Unless he's swallowed their excuse that it's all the EU's fault - in which case he should travel a bit in Germany and note the many industrial enterprises, the healthy and cheap property market and the general level of prosperity from bottom to top and ask himself why that is.

[PurpleGorilla]

Those notable powerhouses of global trade and influence.

FFS they are just other models to look at!

[Old Greg]

Those notable powerhouses of global trade and influence.

Well, to be fair, Canada is a major economy. I'm just waiting for confirmation as to whether Canada's Financial Services will have full access to the single market.

[VectraMan]

Yes, it shows. The answer is 32^2 which, to save you the effort of working it out, is 1024

and in practice it wouldn't be anything like that number. Don't forget, the EU needs export markets as much as they want imports.

edit: Actually as no EFTA member negotiates a trade deal with themselves, the answer is actually 31^2, which I'll leave as an exercise for VectraMan

I didn't think that could possibly be even close to being right.

It's 991 surely, i.e. 32 states each have 31 agreements. The point is still valid: that's billions spent on civil servants and years and years of effort. It's hugely more efficient to work together, something the outies never take into account when moaning about the money we "waste" on the EU. Even negotiating one agreement with the rest of the EU won't be simple and won't be free.

[d000hg]

So your argument for leaving is "trust me it will be better, I don't know the details but why not risk everything just on faith"?

[PurpleGorilla]

Excellent article by Liam Fox on EU

If you mean me, I was just making the point to MM, that the elite in this country, far from achieving anything of note in the last half-century have dismantled the industrial base, created several economic crashes and a housing boom.
Why on earth he'd want to give the political classes more freedom to fook up even more is beyond me.
Unless he's swallowed their excuse that it's all the EU's fault - in which case he should travel a bit in Germany and note the many industrial enterprises, the healthy and cheap property market and the general level of prosperity from bottom to top and ask himself why that is.

Because Germany, as a founding member, has sucked the marrow out of every new country that has joined.

[Old Greg]

I didn't think that could possibly be even close to being right.

It's 991 surely, i.e. 32 states each have 31 agreements. The point is still valid: that's billions spent on civil servants and years and years of effort. It's hugely more efficient to work together, something the outies never take into account when moaning about the money we "waste" on the EU. Even negotiating one agreement with the rest of the EU won't be simple and won't be free.

If Estonia has an agreement with Portugal, is that one or two agreements?